That will make Red Wall Tories very cross but the important question is whether the poll shows Rishi, Liz or A N Other will save their seats. That might spur them to act.
Liz trailed by 16% in all seats, never mind just the redwall, with Opinium. Cameron and May never won most of the redwall of course at all but won most seats and 1 majority in 2015
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
WTF is going on in China? Are they really doing this in reaction to "150 cases a day"??
Lockdown is only going to work on Omicron if total and early. Once the sparks have set the fire going, it is too late, as we will see.
Its supposed Delta, not Omicron..
Officials say the outbreak is the Delta variant of Covid and have not mentioned Omicron.
State media have been reporting this week that Xi'an is facing a "dual epidemic" as there have been "several reported cases of haemorrhagic fever, a natural epidemic disease with a high fatality rate". However, this is reported as being a "common" seasonal disease in northern China, and predominantly concentrated in rural areas.
If Delta, then a better chance of it working. Totalitarian regimes are abhorrent, but can enforce public health measures far more strictly.
While there is a certain karma about it exploding in China, it is not the fault of hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese.
There's a whole swirl of rumours. It's Delta. It's a "hantavirus" plus Covid. It's haemmorhagic fever plus Covid (great!). It's Omicron leaked from a flight "from Pakistan"
My wild guess looking at these videos is: Omicron. They've got a population with very little natural immunity, they know their vaccines are iffy (and 2 isn't enough) they know Omicron infects EVERYONE very soon, and they known there will be lots and lots of patients, even if fewer die than with Delta
But we shall see. Such a bleak echo of 2020
Something is definitely up. As you say the most logical is its Omicron and so have gone Wuhan+++ lockdown.
Is it "most logical" though? Why would Beijing panic about Omicron given it is apparently mild? Are they fighting a new variant?
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
If he goes to court and is found guilty then part of his punishment should be to serve a community sentence hopefully to learn about folk.
Civil claim. So far anyway.
I have absolutely no time for Andrew at all but reading around it appears that all the claims are that he had sex with a 17 year old girl in the UK. This may have already been discussed elsewhere in which case apologies but I thought that this was legal? Creepy, given his age, but legal never the less. How can he be prosecuted in the US for something alleged to have happened in the UK that was not a crime here?
It is a Federal crime to have sex with anyone under-18 trafficked across state lines or internationally. Therefore its open to Federal prosecution if the under-18 victim is trafficked from the USA even if the sex happens in the UK.
Though it didn't just allegedly happen in the UK anyway.
Put the boot on the other foot. If an 11 year old were trafficked from the UK and abused in say Thailand or Pakistan then would we view it as a crime? IANAL but I believe that we would.
The fact she was 17 makes her a child under Federal American statutes.
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
WTF is going on in China? Are they really doing this in reaction to "150 cases a day"??
Lockdown is only going to work on Omicron if total and early. Once the sparks have set the fire going, it is too late, as we will see.
Its supposed Delta, not Omicron..
Officials say the outbreak is the Delta variant of Covid and have not mentioned Omicron.
State media have been reporting this week that Xi'an is facing a "dual epidemic" as there have been "several reported cases of haemorrhagic fever, a natural epidemic disease with a high fatality rate". However, this is reported as being a "common" seasonal disease in northern China, and predominantly concentrated in rural areas.
If Delta, then a better chance of it working. Totalitarian regimes are abhorrent, but can enforce public health measures far more strictly.
While there is a certain karma about it exploding in China, it is not the fault of hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese.
There's a whole swirl of rumours. It's Delta. It's a "hantavirus" plus Covid. It's haemmorhagic fever plus Covid (great!). It's Omicron leaked from a flight "from Pakistan"
My wild guess looking at these videos is: Omicron. They've got a population with very little natural immunity, they know their vaccines are iffy (and 2 isn't enough) they know Omicron infects EVERYONE very soon, and they known there will be lots and lots of patients, even if fewer die than with Delta
But we shall see. Such a bleak echo of 2020
Something is definitely up. As you say the most logical is its Omicron and so have gone Wuhan+++ lockdown.
A lockdown which might not work against Mighty Omicron, despite being maybe the tightest quarantine in human history. It bears some thinking about: 13 million people are right now locked down, stuck indoors, and only one person is allowed out, once, every three days, to collect food
That is fucking horrible, those poor people
Xi'an is also, AIUI, a major centre of chip manufacture. This will have a global impact if it continues, and God knows what will happen if it spreads to the rest of China
Meanwhile, what will Beijing do if lockdown DOESN'T work against Omicron? Where do they go then? Just let it sweep the country?!
I haven’t been to the Mary Rose since the late 80s.
The new museum that Garfield Weston has built for it is absolutely incredible. Quite possibly the best museum for anything that I have been to (and I’ve been to a lot over the years). Really extraordinary
It is fantastic. We got married on HMS Warrior, so we've always liked the historic dockyard. The Mary Rose has been massively improved from a decade or so ago.
Had a long conversation with one of the Mary Rose guides about the Vasa today. Apparently a lot less interesting (Mandy Rice-Davies notwithstanding) because there was nothing on it - it was on its first sea trial when it sank vs having been in use for 40 years.
(Snip)
That might well be the case, and you might want to watch Drachinfel's videos on the Vasa. However, you might expect a guide for one of the ships to prefer 'their' ship.
I think the ships might tell us different things: Mary Rose much more about the life and the sailors; Vasa more about the ship itself and the construction. But having visited the Mary Rose, and looked at pictures of the Vasa, the Vasa seems much more impressive. And I like the Mary Rose.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
If he goes to court and is found guilty then part of his punishment should be to serve a community sentence hopefully to learn about folk.
Civil claim. So far anyway.
I have absolutely no time for Andrew at all but reading around it appears that all the claims are that he had sex with a 17 year old girl in the UK. This may have already been discussed elsewhere in which case apologies but I thought that this was legal? Creepy, given his age, but legal never the less. How can he be prosecuted in the US for something alleged to have happened in the UK that was not a crime here?
It is a Federal crime to have sex with anyone under-18 trafficked across state lines or internationally. Therefore its open to Federal prosecution if the under-18 victim is trafficked from the USA even if the sex happens in the UK.
Though it didn't just allegedly happen in the UK anyway.
Put the boot on the other foot. If an 11 year old were trafficked from the UK and abused in say Thailand or Pakistan then would we view it as a crime? IANAL but I believe that we would.
The fact she was 17 makes her a child under Federal American statutes.
Rather funny though that the only one of Epstein and Maxwell's numerous clients action has been taken against in the US is a British Prince. If Andrew loses his case but no action is taken against a single American in Epstein's black book it could set back US UK relations to their lowest since Suez, if not the War of Independence or War of 1812
Really? I think the public are not on the side of Andrew and many would like to see him in court.
If there's a case against him let him defend himself in court. Nobody should be above the law, end of story. I have no animus against the royal family, BTW.
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
WTF is going on in China? Are they really doing this in reaction to "150 cases a day"??
Lockdown is only going to work on Omicron if total and early. Once the sparks have set the fire going, it is too late, as we will see.
Its supposed Delta, not Omicron..
Officials say the outbreak is the Delta variant of Covid and have not mentioned Omicron.
State media have been reporting this week that Xi'an is facing a "dual epidemic" as there have been "several reported cases of haemorrhagic fever, a natural epidemic disease with a high fatality rate". However, this is reported as being a "common" seasonal disease in northern China, and predominantly concentrated in rural areas.
If Delta, then a better chance of it working. Totalitarian regimes are abhorrent, but can enforce public health measures far more strictly.
While there is a certain karma about it exploding in China, it is not the fault of hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese.
There's a whole swirl of rumours. It's Delta. It's a "hantavirus" plus Covid. It's haemmorhagic fever plus Covid (great!). It's Omicron leaked from a flight "from Pakistan"
My wild guess looking at these videos is: Omicron. They've got a population with very little natural immunity, they know their vaccines are iffy (and 2 isn't enough) they know Omicron infects EVERYONE very soon, and they known there will be lots and lots of patients, even if fewer die than with Delta
But we shall see. Such a bleak echo of 2020
Something is definitely up. As you say the most logical is its Omicron and so have gone Wuhan+++ lockdown.
Is it "most logical" though? Why would Beijing panic about Omicron given it is apparently mild? Are they fighting a new variant?
I am trying not to think about that as a possibility :-)
Omicron isn't "mild" though, its "milder", and they have no natural immunity, their vaccines don't work, and it spreads like rapid fire and its located in a city of 13 million.... That's going to cause mass hospitalisations if it was allowed to spread like it is here.
And the Chinese leadership creditability has been predicated on the fact their approach is world leading (which it has in terms of keeping it at bay). If they got a repeat of Wuhan scenes with hospitals overflowing, that could be very destabilising.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
If he goes to court and is found guilty then part of his punishment should be to serve a community sentence hopefully to learn about folk.
Civil claim. So far anyway.
I have absolutely no time for Andrew at all but reading around it appears that all the claims are that he had sex with a 17 year old girl in the UK. This may have already been discussed elsewhere in which case apologies but I thought that this was legal? Creepy, given his age, but legal never the less. How can he be prosecuted in the US for something alleged to have happened in the UK that was not a crime here?
It is a Federal crime to have sex with anyone under-18 trafficked across state lines or internationally. Therefore its open to Federal prosecution if the under-18 victim is trafficked from the USA even if the sex happens in the UK.
Though it didn't just allegedly happen in the UK anyway.
Put the boot on the other foot. If an 11 year old were trafficked from the UK and abused in say Thailand or Pakistan then would we view it as a crime? IANAL but I believe that we would.
The fact she was 17 makes her a child under Federal American statutes.
Like you I am not a lawyer and don't know. But it makes it impossible for someone to protect themselves if they have no way of knowing if the person they have sex with was trafficked.
Ignoring the age difference. If a 17 or 18 year old lad had had sex with her after meeting her at a London nightclub would we consider it reasonable that they should be subject to prosecution for something that is not a crime in this country?
That's very true but protecting yourself from ignorance being an issue has long been an issue under the law, hasn't it?
If someone meets in a nightclub and has consensual, non-paid for sex then that doesn't seem likely to be a trafficking issue.
If someone has sex with an 'escort' or similar paid for or pressurised an individual who is 16/17 then that seems riskier that it is.
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
It isn't ridiculous. Lockdowns are a tool in the toolbox to deal with Covid. Blankly saying they should not be used under any circumstances is the ridiculous comment - and not one I believe you've made.
And the point you're missing is that it isn't just the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. It's all of us. Heaven forfend, if you have a heart attack whilst out with your mates at the pub, or I'd got hit by a lorry whilst running earlier, we'd hope for excellent treatment in hospital. We won't get those things if the hospital system collapses.
I'm not calling for a lockdown. I am saying that lockdowns should remain in our arsenal for dealing with it. Hopefully they will not be required.
Which is why harsh triage is needed, not lockdowns. If people aren't going to take the precaution of getting vaccinated then they can wait at the back of the queue for healthcare. It can be implemented quietly as well with instructions to A&E to send unvaccinated COVID patients home if the resources don't exist and other non-COVID patients need care.
There's a lot of tools in the arsenal that don't require lockdowns and push the consequences of vaccine refusal onto vaccine refusers.
Tell me of your experience of medical processes that allows you to say that some finger-waving 'harsh triage' will be able to tell who has had the vaxes and who has not in time to save lives?
I'll take it you are now in the 'no lockdown ever' group?
The information of who has been vaxxed or not is in everyone NHS record, the decision to proceed with treatment is made after the records are known. That's what the triage process is about. Doctors and nurses make a judgement on who needs treatment the most and who is most likely to benefit from limited resources. I think you need to get real about how the triage process works. I say this because the NHS has already used triaging and rationing in the past, it also has the concept of QALYs to deny treatment options that are deemed poor value for money.
I'm not "no lockdown ever" if there was ever a variant that was as deadly as Delta but evaded vaccines completely I'd probably live with one while vaccines were adjusted and rolled out.
You've got yourself into the position of valuing a COVID death differently to a death from anything else. Plenty of people have previously died from the flu without receiving treatment. COVID should be the same now. Get vaccinated or risk death.
Moreover JJ seems to have fallen into the trap of believing that lockdowns are a victimless action. People die because of lockdowns due to missed diagnoses, missed treatments and missed help and support. I would fully expect that, given how mild this version is, more people will die of lockdown if it happens than of the virus.
I think you are making a fundamental error. It is not lockdowns that cause "missed diagnoses, missed treatment and missed help and support". It is an uncontrolled pandemic taking up surge capacity in the NHS.
For example if our breast surgery unit is converted to a medical ward (as per previous waves) then breast cancer treatment is delayed. Nothing to do with lockdowns, purely because the surge capacity of the NHS is by redeployment staff from other duties, particularly planned surgery.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
If he goes to court and is found guilty then part of his punishment should be to serve a community sentence hopefully to learn about folk.
Civil claim. So far anyway.
I have absolutely no time for Andrew at all but reading around it appears that all the claims are that he had sex with a 17 year old girl in the UK. This may have already been discussed elsewhere in which case apologies but I thought that this was legal? Creepy, given his age, but legal never the less. How can he be prosecuted in the US for something alleged to have happened in the UK that was not a crime here?
It is a Federal crime to have sex with anyone under-18 trafficked across state lines or internationally. Therefore its open to Federal prosecution if the under-18 victim is trafficked from the USA even if the sex happens in the UK.
Though it didn't just allegedly happen in the UK anyway.
Put the boot on the other foot. If an 11 year old were trafficked from the UK and abused in say Thailand or Pakistan then would we view it as a crime? IANAL but I believe that we would.
The fact she was 17 makes her a child under Federal American statutes.
Rather funny though that the only one of Epstein and Maxwell's numerous clients action has been taken against in the US is a British Prince. If Andrew loses his case but no action is taken against a single American in Epstein's black book it could set back US UK relations to their lowest since Suez, if not the War of Independence or War of 1812
Really? I think the public are not on the side of Andrew and many would like to see him in court.
They may but they have no great love of the US justice system either, already the comparisons with Anne Sacoolas not being sent here had been made as to why Andrew should not go to the US.
As far as I am concerned it looks anti British bias and especially anti British royal family bias
You are so amazingly out of touch with public opinion
You defend Boris when he is leading the party to humiliation, and Andrew who is simply persona non grata at the Palace
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
WTF is going on in China? Are they really doing this in reaction to "150 cases a day"??
Lockdown is only going to work on Omicron if total and early. Once the sparks have set the fire going, it is too late, as we will see.
Its supposed Delta, not Omicron..
Officials say the outbreak is the Delta variant of Covid and have not mentioned Omicron.
State media have been reporting this week that Xi'an is facing a "dual epidemic" as there have been "several reported cases of haemorrhagic fever, a natural epidemic disease with a high fatality rate". However, this is reported as being a "common" seasonal disease in northern China, and predominantly concentrated in rural areas.
If Delta, then a better chance of it working. Totalitarian regimes are abhorrent, but can enforce public health measures far more strictly.
While there is a certain karma about it exploding in China, it is not the fault of hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese.
There's a whole swirl of rumours. It's Delta. It's a "hantavirus" plus Covid. It's haemmorhagic fever plus Covid (great!). It's Omicron leaked from a flight "from Pakistan"
My wild guess looking at these videos is: Omicron. They've got a population with very little natural immunity, they know their vaccines are iffy (and 2 isn't enough) they know Omicron infects EVERYONE very soon, and they known there will be lots and lots of patients, even if fewer die than with Delta
But we shall see. Such a bleak echo of 2020
Something is definitely up. As you say the most logical is its Omicron and so have gone Wuhan+++ lockdown.
Is it "most logical" though? Why would Beijing panic about Omicron given it is apparently mild? Are they fighting a new variant?
Because a tiny percentage of a huge number, such as the population of the PRC, is itself a pretty damn big number.
Yes, to a layperson the preserved Vasa is a lot more impressive than the Mary Rose, and well worth a trip. I can see how the respective historical value of the wrecks may be different though.
Priti Patel isn't, she is leading Cabinet resistance to any easing of migration rules for Indian citizens as the article makes clear, with an eye on a future leadership bid
How come? iIRC Johnson told us some years ago that if all our European friends went home after Brexit we could invite "our friends from the Indian subcontinent" to make up the shortfall. Surely he's a man of his word.
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
It isn't ridiculous. Lockdowns are a tool in the toolbox to deal with Covid. Blankly saying they should not be used under any circumstances is the ridiculous comment - and not one I believe you've made.
And the point you're missing is that it isn't just the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. It's all of us. Heaven forfend, if you have a heart attack whilst out with your mates at the pub, or I'd got hit by a lorry whilst running earlier, we'd hope for excellent treatment in hospital. We won't get those things if the hospital system collapses.
I'm not calling for a lockdown. I am saying that lockdowns should remain in our arsenal for dealing with it. Hopefully they will not be required.
Which is why harsh triage is needed, not lockdowns. If people aren't going to take the precaution of getting vaccinated then they can wait at the back of the queue for healthcare. It can be implemented quietly as well with instructions to A&E to send unvaccinated COVID patients home if the resources don't exist and other non-COVID patients need care.
There's a lot of tools in the arsenal that don't require lockdowns and push the consequences of vaccine refusal onto vaccine refusers.
Tell me of your experience of medical processes that allows you to say that some finger-waving 'harsh triage' will be able to tell who has had the vaxes and who has not in time to save lives?
I'll take it you are now in the 'no lockdown ever' group?
The information of who has been vaxxed or not is in everyone NHS record, the decision to proceed with treatment is made after the records are known. That's what the triage process is about. Doctors and nurses make a judgement on who needs treatment the most and who is most likely to benefit from limited resources. I think you need to get real about how the triage process works. I say this because the NHS has already used triaging and rationing in the past, it also has the concept of QALYs to deny treatment options that are deemed poor value for money.
I'm not "no lockdown ever" if there was ever a variant that was as deadly as Delta but evaded vaccines completely I'd probably live with one while vaccines were adjusted and rolled out.
You've got yourself into the position of valuing a COVID death differently to a death from anything else. Plenty of people have previously died from the flu without receiving treatment. COVID should be the same now. Get vaccinated or risk death.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
If he goes to court and is found guilty then part of his punishment should be to serve a community sentence hopefully to learn about folk.
Civil claim. So far anyway.
I have absolutely no time for Andrew at all but reading around it appears that all the claims are that he had sex with a 17 year old girl in the UK. This may have already been discussed elsewhere in which case apologies but I thought that this was legal? Creepy, given his age, but legal never the less. How can he be prosecuted in the US for something alleged to have happened in the UK that was not a crime here?
It is a Federal crime to have sex with anyone under-18 trafficked across state lines or internationally. Therefore its open to Federal prosecution if the under-18 victim is trafficked from the USA even if the sex happens in the UK.
Though it didn't just allegedly happen in the UK anyway.
Put the boot on the other foot. If an 11 year old were trafficked from the UK and abused in say Thailand or Pakistan then would we view it as a crime? IANAL but I believe that we would.
The fact she was 17 makes her a child under Federal American statutes.
You seem to know an awful lot about this.
Only from prior conversations on the subject on this site and news articles. 😆
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
If he goes to court and is found guilty then part of his punishment should be to serve a community sentence hopefully to learn about folk.
Civil claim. So far anyway.
I have absolutely no time for Andrew at all but reading around it appears that all the claims are that he had sex with a 17 year old girl in the UK. This may have already been discussed elsewhere in which case apologies but I thought that this was legal? Creepy, given his age, but legal never the less. How can he be prosecuted in the US for something alleged to have happened in the UK that was not a crime here?
It is a Federal crime to have sex with anyone under-18 trafficked across state lines or internationally. Therefore its open to Federal prosecution if the under-18 victim is trafficked from the USA even if the sex happens in the UK.
Though it didn't just allegedly happen in the UK anyway.
Put the boot on the other foot. If an 11 year old were trafficked from the UK and abused in say Thailand or Pakistan then would we view it as a crime? IANAL but I believe that we would.
The fact she was 17 makes her a child under Federal American statutes.
Rather funny though that the only one of Epstein and Maxwell's numerous clients action has been taken against in the US is a British Prince. If Andrew loses his case but no action is taken against a single American in Epstein's black book it could set back US UK relations to their lowest since Suez, if not the War of Independence or War of 1812
Really? I think the public are not on the side of Andrew and many would like to see him in court.
They may but they have no great love of the US justice system either, already the comparisons with Anne Sacoolas not being sent here had been made as to why Andrew should not go to the US.
As far as I am concerned it looks anti British bias and especially anti British royal family bias
You are so amazingly out of touch with public opinion
You defend Boris when he is leading the party to humiliation, and Andrew who is simply persona non grata at the Palace
You could still send Andrew to the doghouse while whipping up a bit of resentment at what seems to be anti British bias and anti royal family bias from US legal authorities in the Queen's platinum jubilee year. If I was Boris that is what I would do now while continuing to refuse to impose any new restrictions in the vaccinated.
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
WTF is going on in China? Are they really doing this in reaction to "150 cases a day"??
Lockdown is only going to work on Omicron if total and early. Once the sparks have set the fire going, it is too late, as we will see.
Its supposed Delta, not Omicron..
Officials say the outbreak is the Delta variant of Covid and have not mentioned Omicron.
State media have been reporting this week that Xi'an is facing a "dual epidemic" as there have been "several reported cases of haemorrhagic fever, a natural epidemic disease with a high fatality rate". However, this is reported as being a "common" seasonal disease in northern China, and predominantly concentrated in rural areas.
If Delta, then a better chance of it working. Totalitarian regimes are abhorrent, but can enforce public health measures far more strictly.
While there is a certain karma about it exploding in China, it is not the fault of hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese.
There's a whole swirl of rumours. It's Delta. It's a "hantavirus" plus Covid. It's haemmorhagic fever plus Covid (great!). It's Omicron leaked from a flight "from Pakistan"
My wild guess looking at these videos is: Omicron. They've got a population with very little natural immunity, they know their vaccines are iffy (and 2 isn't enough) they know Omicron infects EVERYONE very soon, and they known there will be lots and lots of patients, even if fewer die than with Delta
But we shall see. Such a bleak echo of 2020
Something is definitely up. As you say the most logical is its Omicron and so have gone Wuhan+++ lockdown.
Is it "most logical" though? Why would Beijing panic about Omicron given it is apparently mild? Are they fighting a new variant?
I am trying not to think about that as a possibility :-)
Omicron isn't "mild" though, its "milder", and they have no natural immunity, their vaccines don't work, and it spreads like rapid fire and its located in a city of 13 million.... That's going to cause mass hospitalisations if it was allowed to spread like it is here.
And the Chinese leadership creditability has been predicated on the fact their approach is world leading (which it has in terms of keeping it at bay). If they got a repeat of Wuhan scenes with hospitals overflowing, that could be very destabilising.
Those 13 million won't occupy the space of that number here either. The population density makes it almost impossible.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
That would end the monarchy.
Our taxes going to help Andrew and we'd have a new Oliver Cromwell by the morning.
HMQ has a lot of her own money. If you don't like people having lots of their own money I am not sure why you identify as a conservative.
Cromwell wasn't against monarchs, just against monarchs who were not called Cromwell. Against the hereditary principle, but what an amazing coincidence who happened to be the best person to succeed him. What are the odds of that?
I'm fine with people having lots of their own money but she gives any money to help Andrew with his difficulties then it is clear she doesn't need the Sovereign Grant which is close to £100 million per annum.
Cromwell was awesome, as I'd expect some who attended Sidney Sussex.
The nation gets a very good deal from the sovereign grant. You don’t want to give the crown estates back if you repudiate the deal George III signed
Priti Patel isn't, she is leading Cabinet resistance to any easing of migration rules for Indian citizens as the article makes clear, with an eye on a future leadership bid
How come? iIRC Johnson told us some years ago that if all our European friends went home after Brexit we could invite "our friends from the Indian subcontinent" to make up the shortfall. Surely he's a man of his word.
Patel is Home Secretary if she continues to resist Boris cannot sack her without making her a martyr to the traditional right on the backbenches
How long will the people allow the state to act like this when anti vaxxers are trashing testing centres and acting far more irresponsibly
Fortunately the state in England is not acting like this thanks to Boris, who allowed people to have New Year's Eve dinner parties without sending in the police to break them up like Sturgeon
Not Boris - his cabinet who have him as their puppet and are likely to act soon to remove him
Ironically, the more that BoJo is a puppet of the libertarian/CRG right, the less likely they are to depose him. After all, the reason that the ERG led the defenestration of May was that, when push came to shove, she didn't give them what they wanted.
And whilst I'm not keen on the idea of living in a country where BoJo is the monkey and the Conservative right are the organ grinders, there is something darkly amusing about the concept. It's the sort of storyline you can imagine Roald Dahl writing.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
If he goes to court and is found guilty then part of his punishment should be to serve a community sentence hopefully to learn about folk.
Civil claim. So far anyway.
I have absolutely no time for Andrew at all but reading around it appears that all the claims are that he had sex with a 17 year old girl in the UK. This may have already been discussed elsewhere in which case apologies but I thought that this was legal? Creepy, given his age, but legal never the less. How can he be prosecuted in the US for something alleged to have happened in the UK that was not a crime here?
AIUI he is alleged to have had sex with her in NYC as well. But I believe the issue is with alleged trafficking across state lines
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
Actually, I think that's a bit of an extremist statement.
There are lots of small measures that can have a decent sized impact - like mask wearing on public transport (given that is the one time people are likely to be mixing with large numbers of other people of various ages in a cramped and poorly ventilated space). That's a government restriction that doesn't seem totally unwarranted in the current environment. Now, will it make a massive difference? No. But it might mean that five people in a tube carriage get infected, not 40. And that means the pressure on hospitals is spread over a slightly longer period, and therefore they can cope.
I don't think that's an unreasonable restriction. It's not banning indoor socialising or seeing your friends or closing businesses down. It's a recognition that some situations are inherently high risk and that we might want to put some mitigation measures in place.
I'm not sure, it's an imposition on freedoms that have been normalised by people calling for lockdowns all the time. If people want to wear masks that's up to them, mandating them is wrong.
Three doses of vaccine cuts the risk of developing severe symptoms by ~90%. It's up to individuals to get vaccinated. If no one at all was vaccinated then potentially 1.3-1.4m people would end up hospitalised and around 600k would potential die if everyone was exposed to Omicron. If everyone was triple jabbed it becomes just 130-140k potential hospitalisations and 20-40k deaths. With our age stratification of third doses we're probably already close to that scenario.
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
WTF is going on in China? Are they really doing this in reaction to "150 cases a day"??
Lockdown is only going to work on Omicron if total and early. Once the sparks have set the fire going, it is too late, as we will see.
Its supposed Delta, not Omicron..
Officials say the outbreak is the Delta variant of Covid and have not mentioned Omicron.
State media have been reporting this week that Xi'an is facing a "dual epidemic" as there have been "several reported cases of haemorrhagic fever, a natural epidemic disease with a high fatality rate". However, this is reported as being a "common" seasonal disease in northern China, and predominantly concentrated in rural areas.
If Delta, then a better chance of it working. Totalitarian regimes are abhorrent, but can enforce public health measures far more strictly.
While there is a certain karma about it exploding in China, it is not the fault of hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese.
There's a whole swirl of rumours. It's Delta. It's a "hantavirus" plus Covid. It's haemmorhagic fever plus Covid (great!). It's Omicron leaked from a flight "from Pakistan"
My wild guess looking at these videos is: Omicron. They've got a population with very little natural immunity, they know their vaccines are iffy (and 2 isn't enough) they know Omicron infects EVERYONE very soon, and they known there will be lots and lots of patients, even if fewer die than with Delta
But we shall see. Such a bleak echo of 2020
Something is definitely up. As you say the most logical is its Omicron and so have gone Wuhan+++ lockdown.
I think the most 'innocent' and likely reason, is the Crinieres Leadership what this over with and out the way before the winter Olympics and assonated media in a month, so are going hard (Viagra Hard as somebody described it) now, in the hope it they can relax soon.
Priti Patel isn't, she is leading Cabinet resistance to any easing of migration rules for Indian citizens as the article makes clear, with an eye on a future leadership bid
How come? iIRC Johnson told us some years ago that if all our European friends went home after Brexit we could invite "our friends from the Indian subcontinent" to make up the shortfall. Surely he's a man of his word.
Patel is Home Secretary if she continues to resist Boris cannot sack her without making her a martyr to the traditional right on the backbenches
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
It isn't ridiculous. Lockdowns are a tool in the toolbox to deal with Covid. Blankly saying they should not be used under any circumstances is the ridiculous comment - and not one I believe you've made.
And the point you're missing is that it isn't just the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. It's all of us. Heaven forfend, if you have a heart attack whilst out with your mates at the pub, or I'd got hit by a lorry whilst running earlier, we'd hope for excellent treatment in hospital. We won't get those things if the hospital system collapses.
I'm not calling for a lockdown. I am saying that lockdowns should remain in our arsenal for dealing with it. Hopefully they will not be required.
Which is why harsh triage is needed, not lockdowns. If people aren't going to take the precaution of getting vaccinated then they can wait at the back of the queue for healthcare. It can be implemented quietly as well with instructions to A&E to send unvaccinated COVID patients home if the resources don't exist and other non-COVID patients need care.
There's a lot of tools in the arsenal that don't require lockdowns and push the consequences of vaccine refusal onto vaccine refusers.
Tell me of your experience of medical processes that allows you to say that some finger-waving 'harsh triage' will be able to tell who has had the vaxes and who has not in time to save lives?
I'll take it you are now in the 'no lockdown ever' group?
The information of who has been vaxxed or not is in everyone NHS record, the decision to proceed with treatment is made after the records are known. That's what the triage process is about. Doctors and nurses make a judgement on who needs treatment the most and who is most likely to benefit from limited resources. I think you need to get real about how the triage process works. I say this because the NHS has already used triaging and rationing in the past, it also has the concept of QALYs to deny treatment options that are deemed poor value for money.
I'm not "no lockdown ever" if there was ever a variant that was as deadly as Delta but evaded vaccines completely I'd probably live with one while vaccines were adjusted and rolled out.
You've got yourself into the position of valuing a COVID death differently to a death from anything else. Plenty of people have previously died from the flu without receiving treatment. COVID should be the same now. Get vaccinated or risk death.
Moreover JJ seems to have fallen into the trap of believing that lockdowns are a victimless action. People die because of lockdowns due to missed diagnoses, missed treatments and missed help and support. I would fully expect that, given how mild this version is, more people will die of lockdown if it happens than of the virus.
I think you are making a fundamental error. It is not lockdowns that cause "missed diagnoses, missed treatment and missed help and support". It is an uncontrolled pandemic taking up surge capacity in the NHS.
For example if our breast surgery unit is converted to a medical ward (as per previous waves) then breast cancer treatment is delayed. Nothing to do with lockdowns, purely because the surge capacity of the NHS is by redeployment staff from other duties, particularly planned surgery.
Yep. This is currently happening in the rural town hospital in Pennsylvania where my wife works (as an anaesthetist - UK meaning of the word). The hospital is at 110% capacity, with more than 60% of beds are taken up with COVID patients. Oxygen cylinders are cluttering all the corridors. The next hospital bed is a gurney in a corridor surrounded by drapes.
EDIT PA is still seeing a larger percentage of Delta patients than the UK. Omicron is displacing delta, but there is still a lot of delta around in the smaller rural towns and villages.
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
It isn't ridiculous. Lockdowns are a tool in the toolbox to deal with Covid. Blankly saying they should not be used under any circumstances is the ridiculous comment - and not one I believe you've made.
And the point you're missing is that it isn't just the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. It's all of us. Heaven forfend, if you have a heart attack whilst out with your mates at the pub, or I'd got hit by a lorry whilst running earlier, we'd hope for excellent treatment in hospital. We won't get those things if the hospital system collapses.
I'm not calling for a lockdown. I am saying that lockdowns should remain in our arsenal for dealing with it. Hopefully they will not be required.
If you have a heart attack then the NHS should triage and prioritise that. Putting investment into the NHS or having proper triage is an acceptable way to run the system, locking down the innocent in order to protect antivaxxers from the consequences of their choices is not.
You really don't live in the real world.
The NHS has previously rationed or triaged pretty harshly. Doing it for COVID would not be anything new. You need to let go of the idea that we can eliminate or halt COVID or prevent anyone from dying of it. We can minimise the risks with vaccines and hopefully anti-virals pretty soon. Beyond that if people refuse vaccines the consequence of that is a high risk of death. Let them live with their stupid decisions.
The issue is capacity management
Let’s say that you have 5 spare icu beds. Over the following week there are 5 unvaxxed covid patients who need them. Do you leave them empty?
If not and then a cardiac patient comes in needing one do you kick a covid patient out?
I’m not sure it is feasible (or ethical) to do either of those
The only point triage is possible is if there is one empty bed with simultaneous demand from unvaxxed covid vs another allowing you to make a choice
You do it with QALYs, push up the value of COVID healthcare provision for unvaccinated COVID patients. It would push the balance of something like that to not bothering for older vaccine refusers which would keep resources available for non-COVID care.
That becomes an ethical issue.
You are saying “I have spare capacity but I am not going to treat you. You may die as a result”
I will let @Foxy comment, but I suspect most doctors would struggle with that
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
If he goes to court and is found guilty then part of his punishment should be to serve a community sentence hopefully to learn about folk.
Civil claim. So far anyway.
I have absolutely no time for Andrew at all but reading around it appears that all the claims are that he had sex with a 17 year old girl in the UK. This may have already been discussed elsewhere in which case apologies but I thought that this was legal? Creepy, given his age, but legal never the less. How can he be prosecuted in the US for something alleged to have happened in the UK that was not a crime here?
It is a Federal crime to have sex with anyone under-18 trafficked across state lines or internationally. Therefore its open to Federal prosecution if the under-18 victim is trafficked from the USA even if the sex happens in the UK.
Though it didn't just allegedly happen in the UK anyway.
Put the boot on the other foot. If an 11 year old were trafficked from the UK and abused in say Thailand or Pakistan then would we view it as a crime? IANAL but I believe that we would.
The fact she was 17 makes her a child under Federal American statutes.
Rather funny though that the only one of Epstein and Maxwell's numerous clients action has been taken against in the US is a British Prince. If Andrew loses his case but no action is taken against a single American in Epstein's black book it could set back US UK relations to their lowest since Suez, if not the War of Independence or War of 1812
Really? I think the public are not on the side of Andrew and many would like to see him in court.
They may but they have no great love of the US justice system either, already the comparisons with Anne Sacoolas not being sent here had been made as to why Andrew should not go to the US.
As far as I am concerned it looks anti British bias and especially anti British royal family bias
You’re forgetting this is a civil case
It’s a simple shakedown by a troubled woman who Prince Andrew may or may not have wronged very badly in the past
She has heated he is vulnerable to pressure to settle, has lots of money, and she is unlikely to commit suicide as a result of suing him
I haven’t been to the Mary Rose since the late 80s.
The new museum that Garfield Weston has built for it is absolutely incredible. Quite possibly the best museum for anything that I have been to (and I’ve been to a lot over the years). Really extraordinary
It is fantastic. We got married on HMS Warrior, so we've always liked the historic dockyard. The Mary Rose has been massively improved from a decade or so ago.
Had a long conversation with one of the Mary Rose guides about the Vasa today. Apparently a lot less interesting (Mandy Rice-Davies notwithstanding) because there was nothing on it - it was on its first sea trial when it sank vs having been in use for 40 years.
(Snip)
That might well be the case, and you might want to watch Drachinfel's videos on the Vasa. However, you might expect a guide for one of the ships to prefer 'their' ship.
I think the ships might tell us different things: Mary Rose much more about the life and the sailors; Vasa more about the ship itself and the construction. But having visited the Mary Rose, and looked at pictures of the Vasa, the Vasa seems much more impressive. And I like the Mary Rose.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
If he goes to court and is found guilty then part of his punishment should be to serve a community sentence hopefully to learn about folk.
Civil claim. So far anyway.
I have absolutely no time for Andrew at all but reading around it appears that all the claims are that he had sex with a 17 year old girl in the UK. This may have already been discussed elsewhere in which case apologies but I thought that this was legal? Creepy, given his age, but legal never the less. How can he be prosecuted in the US for something alleged to have happened in the UK that was not a crime here?
It is a Federal crime to have sex with anyone under-18 trafficked across state lines or internationally. Therefore its open to Federal prosecution if the under-18 victim is trafficked from the USA even if the sex happens in the UK.
Though it didn't just allegedly happen in the UK anyway.
Put the boot on the other foot. If an 11 year old were trafficked from the UK and abused in say Thailand or Pakistan then would we view it as a crime? IANAL but I believe that we would.
The fact she was 17 makes her a child under Federal American statutes.
Rather funny though that the only one of Epstein and Maxwell's numerous clients action has been taken against in the US is a British Prince. If Andrew loses his case but no action is taken against a single American in Epstein's black book it could set back US UK relations to their lowest since Suez, if not the War of Independence or War of 1812
Really? I think the public are not on the side of Andrew and many would like to see him in court.
If there's a case against him let him defend himself in court. Nobody should be above the law, end of story. I have no animus against the royal family, BTW.
TBF that is exactly what is happening (or at least the pre-courtroom skirmishes)
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
It isn't ridiculous. Lockdowns are a tool in the toolbox to deal with Covid. Blankly saying they should not be used under any circumstances is the ridiculous comment - and not one I believe you've made.
And the point you're missing is that it isn't just the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. It's all of us. Heaven forfend, if you have a heart attack whilst out with your mates at the pub, or I'd got hit by a lorry whilst running earlier, we'd hope for excellent treatment in hospital. We won't get those things if the hospital system collapses.
I'm not calling for a lockdown. I am saying that lockdowns should remain in our arsenal for dealing with it. Hopefully they will not be required.
Which is why harsh triage is needed, not lockdowns. If people aren't going to take the precaution of getting vaccinated then they can wait at the back of the queue for healthcare. It can be implemented quietly as well with instructions to A&E to send unvaccinated COVID patients home if the resources don't exist and other non-COVID patients need care.
There's a lot of tools in the arsenal that don't require lockdowns and push the consequences of vaccine refusal onto vaccine refusers.
Tell me of your experience of medical processes that allows you to say that some finger-waving 'harsh triage' will be able to tell who has had the vaxes and who has not in time to save lives?
I'll take it you are now in the 'no lockdown ever' group?
The information of who has been vaxxed or not is in everyone NHS record, the decision to proceed with treatment is made after the records are known. That's what the triage process is about. Doctors and nurses make a judgement on who needs treatment the most and who is most likely to benefit from limited resources. I think you need to get real about how the triage process works. I say this because the NHS has already used triaging and rationing in the past, it also has the concept of QALYs to deny treatment options that are deemed poor value for money.
I'm not "no lockdown ever" if there was ever a variant that was as deadly as Delta but evaded vaccines completely I'd probably live with one while vaccines were adjusted and rolled out.
You've got yourself into the position of valuing a COVID death differently to a death from anything else. Plenty of people have previously died from the flu without receiving treatment. COVID should be the same now. Get vaccinated or risk death.
Moreover JJ seems to have fallen into the trap of believing that lockdowns are a victimless action. People die because of lockdowns due to missed diagnoses, missed treatments and missed help and support. I would fully expect that, given how mild this version is, more people will die of lockdown if it happens than of the virus.
I think you are making a fundamental error. It is not lockdowns that cause "missed diagnoses, missed treatment and missed help and support". It is an uncontrolled pandemic taking up surge capacity in the NHS.
For example if our breast surgery unit is converted to a medical ward (as per previous waves) then breast cancer treatment is delayed. Nothing to do with lockdowns, purely because the surge capacity of the NHS is by redeployment staff from other duties, particularly planned surgery.
Nope. I know of at least two people who have died of cancer because of failing to be seen during the first lockdown. One had already had stomach cancer, developed symptoms again but the GP refused to see him because they were in lockdown and only doing remote consultations. After a three months of this and him not wanting to bother the doctors as they had already had a couple of phone consultations, he eventually ended up in A&E where they said it was too late and there was nothing they could do for him. And this was not an isolated incident. It has nothing to do with capacity and everything to do with human nature during lockdown, both on the part of the medical professionals and on the part of the patients.
So please don't try to pretend this is all about capacity to excuse your own support for policies that kill people just as surely as Covid.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
If he goes to court and is found guilty then part of his punishment should be to serve a community sentence hopefully to learn about folk.
Civil claim. So far anyway.
I have absolutely no time for Andrew at all but reading around it appears that all the claims are that he had sex with a 17 year old girl in the UK. This may have already been discussed elsewhere in which case apologies but I thought that this was legal? Creepy, given his age, but legal never the less. How can he be prosecuted in the US for something alleged to have happened in the UK that was not a crime here?
It is a Federal crime to have sex with anyone under-18 trafficked across state lines or internationally. Therefore its open to Federal prosecution if the under-18 victim is trafficked from the USA even if the sex happens in the UK.
Though it didn't just allegedly happen in the UK anyway.
Put the boot on the other foot. If an 11 year old were trafficked from the UK and abused in say Thailand or Pakistan then would we view it as a crime? IANAL but I believe that we would.
The fact she was 17 makes her a child under Federal American statutes.
Like you I am not a lawyer and don't know. But it makes it impossible for someone to protect themselves if they have no way of knowing if the person they have sex with was trafficked.
Ignoring the age difference. If a 17 or 18 year old lad had had sex with her after meeting her at a London nightclub would we consider it reasonable that they should be subject to prosecution for something that is not a crime in this country?
I thought FUD on the client was part of the strategy for stopping 'trafficking'.
Comments
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1475566541273980929?s=20
That is fucking horrible, those poor people
Xi'an is also, AIUI, a major centre of chip manufacture. This will have a global impact if it continues, and God knows what will happen if it spreads to the rest of China
Meanwhile, what will Beijing do if lockdown DOESN'T work against Omicron? Where do they go then? Just let it sweep the country?!
I think the ships might tell us different things: Mary Rose much more about the life and the sailors; Vasa more about the ship itself and the construction. But having visited the Mary Rose, and looked at pictures of the Vasa, the Vasa seems much more impressive. And I like the Mary Rose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp37g7Edjpo
Omicron isn't "mild" though, its "milder", and they have no natural immunity, their vaccines don't work, and it spreads like rapid fire and its located in a city of 13 million.... That's going to cause mass hospitalisations if it was allowed to spread like it is here.
And the Chinese leadership creditability has been predicated on the fact their approach is world leading (which it has in terms of keeping it at bay). If they got a repeat of Wuhan scenes with hospitals overflowing, that could be very destabilising.
If someone meets in a nightclub and has consensual, non-paid for sex then that doesn't seem likely to be a trafficking issue.
If someone has sex with an 'escort' or similar paid for or pressurised an individual who is 16/17 then that seems riskier that it is.
For example if our breast surgery unit is converted to a medical ward (as per previous waves) then breast cancer treatment is delayed. Nothing to do with lockdowns, purely because the surge capacity of the NHS is by redeployment staff from other duties, particularly planned surgery.
You defend Boris when he is leading the party to humiliation, and Andrew who is simply persona non grata at the Palace
Boris should play the populist card
And whilst I'm not keen on the idea of living in a country where BoJo is the monkey and the Conservative right are the organ grinders, there is something darkly amusing about the concept. It's the sort of storyline you can imagine Roald Dahl writing.
Three doses of vaccine cuts the risk of developing severe symptoms by ~90%. It's up to individuals to get vaccinated. If no one at all was vaccinated then potentially 1.3-1.4m people would end up hospitalised and around 600k would potential die if everyone was exposed to Omicron. If everyone was triple jabbed it becomes just 130-140k potential hospitalisations and 20-40k deaths. With our age stratification of third doses we're probably already close to that scenario.
more scary synariaose are also possible.
NEW THREAD
EDIT PA is still seeing a larger percentage of Delta patients than the UK. Omicron is displacing delta, but there is still a lot of delta around in the smaller rural towns and villages.
You are saying “I have spare capacity but I am not going to treat you. You may die as a result”
I will let @Foxy comment, but I suspect most doctors would struggle with that
It’s a simple shakedown by a troubled woman who Prince Andrew may or may not have wronged very badly in the past
She has heated he is vulnerable to pressure to settle, has lots of money, and she is unlikely to commit suicide as a result of suing him
So please don't try to pretend this is all about capacity to excuse your own support for policies that kill people just as surely as Covid.