EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
One of few things about which Donald Trump was correct. US and UK aside, and possibly France, the NATO and EU countries need to pull their weight militarily.
Yes, the slow elevation of the nascent fascist Trump to godlike status among British Nationalists has not gone unnoticed.
Ask Me Anything on Sue Gray, parties, trolleys... And expect the parties story to roll on AFTER SG report cos photos etc will not be given to the Cabinet Office. MPs must scrap the 🛒 if they want the nightmare to end...
Overplaying his hand. First this pisses off MPs who don't want Dom telling them what to do secondly it creates a can kicking opportunity-ok I have heard Gray but I'll wait to see what dom comes up with before making a final judgement
I find it interesting that he mentions the photos again - looks as if he's storing them up for later news pressure if the Gray report isn't sufficiently harsh for him.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. .
Sadly that's not really true. We were fast out of the blocks then lagged especially on boosters. We were bloody awful on those, dilly dallying around when we should have got on with them.
The meme Boris likes to tell about how brilliant he has been over covid is the usual mixture of quarter truths, embellishment and downright lies.
who was better in your eyes?
Israel. All the way and on every step.
UAE and Singapore too.
We were also piss-poor on child vaccinations but that's more of a debatable point i.e. whether you believe they should be jabbed.
Because a child is also a vector ('kill your granny') the measurement that matters is % vaccinated of the whole population. We've done not badly at all on that but still lagged on boosters and children.
Even now we should be pulling our finger out and preparing for 4th jabs.
Cookie's point doesn't hold up. If we'd 3rd jabbed three months sooner we could have avoided the recent Plan B and ridden out the storm
So three fairly small nations then? Child vaccination is almost exclusively the fault of the JCVI who very clearly have members who think that we should vaccinate other nations adults first. There is a decent logic to that if you think that covid poses no threat to your kids and when doses are limited. I think there is enough evidence to suggest that the former is no longer tenable - the benefits to children of vaccination, when taken in the round of avoiding school closures etc, and the perils of passing covid on to more viulnerable people, outweigh the risks (which are minimal, but not zero, of the vaccination. For the second, we have ample doses.
There is also a question of the most appropriate time to boost. nAB's do wane, and you probably want the highest protection at the time of most risk, so the winter months. Timing is crucial. Its why the flu vaccination program runs in the autumn, and why annual covid boosters will too. And the reason for a delay in boosting? Oh yes, it was our old friends the JCVI AGAIN.
In fairness, there were at least 2 good reasons for a delay in boosting. Firstly, there was the real risk that the next variant would have found a way around the existing vaccines so that the public needed to be boosted with something different. Secondly, the tail off in effectiveness after vaccine 2 is quite slow and it made sense to get a benefit from that before starting again by, for example, working harder on those not vaccinated at all.
There is quite a long list of things that could have been done better. I am personally not convinced that the timing of the booster campaign is on it.
On the child vaccinations. Despite all the data from countries that had vaccinated children and the trials etc. JCVI blocked them. In part by claiming that the number of children who were likely to end up catching COVID was a ludicrously low number.
If you put a sensible number into the risk/reward models, the evidence was clearly in favour of child vaccination. And is....
I agree, the JVCI were seriously wrong about that. The Saj rather put them on the spot about it though and forced a decision from them one way or another.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
Instead there were no new restrictions at the end of December as you were screaming were required and the number of people in intensive care is at a six-month low.
If you can't see the difference between your catastrophising and what really happened, then that speaks volumes.
Months? Is it really that long? I seem to remember you being his biggest fanboy not that long ago. He was the greatest PM of your lifetime was he not? I was rudely called by you a "bad judge of character" when I pointed out many of his obvious-to-a-political-ignoramus failings.
I think you might want to take the beam out of your own eye Phil on getting things absolutely and utterly wrong.
No, Thatcher was the greatest PM of my lifetime.
Boris absolutely should go. He's still the second-greatest PM of my lifetime even though he should go, I'm not calling for him to go and bring back prior failures like Brown or Major.
Hang on, so you think he is great, but he should resign? Why should he resign exactly? Particularly if he is "great"? Go on, tell us, I need a good laugh at the moment.
Yes.
He should resign because lawmakers can't be lawbreakers.
Even though he's got the big calls right, the fact that he broke his own laws is terminal and he has to go. That point of principle is absolute and no matter how many credits are on his ledger he has to go.
The traits that might (might - not sure at all) bring Boris down are the ones he has displayed throughout his career. It's a bit rich to say that one instance of his lying, dissembling, rules are for little people should be cause for resignation/defenestration.
England has done very well imo and if you are saying that Boris and only Boris could have brought us to where we are now then I would take issue although the discussion would of course be moot.
Ask Me Anything on Sue Gray, parties, trolleys... And expect the parties story to roll on AFTER SG report cos photos etc will not be given to the Cabinet Office. MPs must scrap the 🛒 if they want the nightmare to end...
“What role did you play in reshuffle which done for Nusrat, Dom?”
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
IF the west was united armed conflict wouldn't be necessary.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
So, the United States of Europe was another Leave lie?
Nope that was and still is the aim. The fact that they are fighting like rats in a sack over their own vested interests doesn't change the ultimate aim of the EU.
Will they ever get to that ultimate aim, in your opinion?
Not for all countries. Expansion was always the enemy of integration and it was always going to be the case that they were going to lose countries as they continued towards a single state. That is not the same as saying the EU will fail. But it will not look the same in 20 years time. The core will be tighter both economically and politically whilst the fringes will either have hived off or be notably second tier within the reformed EU.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
Instead there were no new restrictions at the end of December as you were screaming were required and the number of people in intensive care is at a six-month low.
If you can't see the difference between your catastrophising and what really happened, then that speaks volumes.
Months? Is it really that long? I seem to remember you being his biggest fanboy not that long ago. He was the greatest PM of your lifetime was he not? I was rudely called by you a "bad judge of character" when I pointed out many of his obvious-to-a-political-ignoramus failings.
I think you might want to take the beam out of your own eye Phil on getting things absolutely and utterly wrong.
No, Thatcher was the greatest PM of my lifetime.
Boris absolutely should go. He's still the second-greatest PM of my lifetime even though he should go, I'm not calling for him to go and bring back prior failures like Brown or Major.
Hang on, so you think he is great, but he should resign? Why should he resign exactly? Particularly if he is "great"? Go on, tell us, I need a good laugh at the moment.
Yes.
He should resign because lawmakers can't be lawbreakers.
Even though he's got the big calls right, the fact that he broke his own laws is terminal and he has to go. That point of principle is absolute and no matter how many credits are on his ledger he has to go.
And that single point demolishes all of the things you say sit as a credit on his account. Its like being a fantastic employee hitting every KPI in sight until you punch out the boss in the office after drinking 5 pints with a client over lunch.
The credits, the sterling appraisals all go in the bin as you get immediately dismissed for gross misconduct.
Even if you consider Brexit, Vaccines and general policy to have been excellent its no defence against breaking the law, lying to parliament, breaking the ministerial code. Repeatedly.
Our politics either stands for something or it doesn't.
Is it “our politics”? Looks very much like “their politics”. There is no ‘demos’.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
So, the United States of Europe was another Leave lie?
Nope that was and still is the aim. The fact that they are fighting like rats in a sack over their own vested interests doesn't change the ultimate aim of the EU.
Only amongst a minority of EU zealots . It was a card that was well played by Leave, but no-one in Europe really believes in it. They might say it, but there will never be a majority in France particularly, but any other nation in the 27 for that matter, to be subsumed by an EU super state. It is never going to happen.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Idk, I totally buy Russia's position that Ukraine is a threat to it and that the might Russian army will steamroller them (paraphrase).
Ukraine is a threat to Russia. If it were to become a prosperous democracy that would be seriously bad for Putin's regime. Russians might ask why they couldn't be, too.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
I actually think he'll get a lot of credit for the UK being the first into the endemic stage of a global pandemic, but he's also probably not going to be PM by then. A lot of the UK post vaccine playbook has been correct, some of that is Boris and some of it is the MPs. In a year's time it will be fairly widely accepted that the UK got the early bits wrong but the later bits right while countries in Europe got the early bits right but the later bits wrong. National pandemic strategies will reflect that as well.
At the end of it all, Japan will have had way fewer deaths *and* way fewer lockdowns.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
The simple fact is that if the rate of exponential growth in infections that we saw in early- to mid-December had continued as it was, the health service and probably much of our other infrastructure would have collapsed around the New Year. And given the data, there was no reason to expect the growth rate would drop until well beyond that point.
Fortunately the growth rate did suddenly drop. I don't believe anyone understands why. And I don't think people like you predicted it would drop. I think you just repeated the mantra "Infections don't matter any more".
As it is, I always made it perfectly clear what assumptions I was making. People like you just said there shouldn't be any restrictions, and that everything would be fine, and that infections were meaningless, and so on and so forth.
And of course you're going to claim now that facts have proved you were right all along and everyone else was hysterical and unreasonable. But just because a 100-1 outsider comes in, that doesn't mean the reckless gambler who staked his life savings on it was right all along. Quite the opposite.
Surprised at the likes on this post.
Bart is right: you were insulting to those who disagreed with you. "Stupid", was your epithet of choice as I recall.
Now you are trying to rewrite history – again.
100-1 outsider. FFS, the South Africans had already told us that Milder was 1-3 odds-on favourite.
'[Dominic Cummings] concluded his post ominously: "Other damaging stories will come out until he is gone. It's clear talking to people in No10 and 70 Whitehall that many officials are desperate to shove the kunlangeta off the ice this week."
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
UK will send weapons, drones and probably a few “diplomats” from Hereford to help out. As will most of the West, including the US once Mr President has woken up from his afternoon nap.
If it gets to the point of British troops being on the ground, then that fact is going be the least of our problems.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
Thousands of body bags arriving at RAF Lyneham. (Which is in Wiltshire. Which is in England. Quick geography lesson for mendacious BritNat Nige.)
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
One of few things about which Donald Trump was correct. US and UK aside, and possibly France, the NATO and EU countries need to pull their weight militarily.
One of my favourite Churcill quotes applies here (and also to the occasions when Johnson makes the right call): “The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.”
Indeed. See also Nick Griffin and the ‘Rotherham problem’.
It is always good to evaluate what’s being said, not just who’s saying it.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
Instead there were no new restrictions at the end of December as you were screaming were required and the number of people in intensive care is at a six-month low.
If you can't see the difference between your catastrophising and what really happened, then that speaks volumes.
Months? Is it really that long? I seem to remember you being his biggest fanboy not that long ago. He was the greatest PM of your lifetime was he not? I was rudely called by you a "bad judge of character" when I pointed out many of his obvious-to-a-political-ignoramus failings.
I think you might want to take the beam out of your own eye Phil on getting things absolutely and utterly wrong.
No, Thatcher was the greatest PM of my lifetime.
Boris absolutely should go. He's still the second-greatest PM of my lifetime even though he should go, I'm not calling for him to go and bring back prior failures like Brown or Major.
Let's suppose you are right but even then you could be wrong because greatest and most significant are not the same thing. Arguably before 2019 the most significant recent Prime Minister was Edward Heath who took us into Europe, but no-one calls him great.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
The simple fact is that if the rate of exponential growth in infections that we saw in early- to mid-December had continued as it was, the health service and probably much of our other infrastructure would have collapsed around the New Year. And given the data, there was no reason to expect the growth rate would drop until well beyond that point.
Fortunately the growth rate did suddenly drop. I don't believe anyone understands why. And I don't think people like you predicted it would drop. I think you just repeated the mantra "Infections don't matter any more".
As it is, I always made it perfectly clear what assumptions I was making. People like you just said there shouldn't be any restrictions, and that everything would be fine, and that infections were meaningless, and so on and so forth.
And of course you're going to claim now that facts have proved you were right all along and everyone else was hysterical and unreasonable. But just because a 100-1 outsider comes in, that doesn't mean the reckless gambler who staked his life savings on it was right all along. Quite the opposite.
Surprised at the likes on this post.
Bart is right: you were insulting to those who disagreed with you. "Stupid", was your epithet of choice as I recall.
Now you are trying to rewrite history – again.
100-1 outsider. FFS, the South Africans had already told us that Milder was 1-3 odds-on favourite.
You ignored them. Others did not.
We will never know what "whatever it takes" meant to @Chris.
Which is a shame because had he articulated it there would have been a discussion.
He did articulate his 800k case/day forecast but again was reluctant to put his money where his mouth was. Particularly strange because if we are all stupid then he must be clever and any prediction made would have been very well thought through. Perhaps an odds on chance.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
The EU is suffering from Germany procrastination and the fact it does not have a coordinated defence mechanism
Furthermore, now more than ever it is missing the UK with the UK leading with the US in providing military and technical help and NATO increasing ships and aircraft into Eastern Europe
The Ukraine ambassador to the UK was extremely bitter towards Germany on yesterday's media
Germany was neutered by the 4 occupying powers (Soviet empire, British empire, French empire and American empire).
You cannot neuter a political entity and then complain when it cannot act in an aggressive fashion.
(Well, Tories can. Obviously. Maybe you’re a “Real” Tory after all Big G.)
Germany had no problem supplying military equipment and training to... Russia.
After Russia had invaded and annexed part of Ukraine. And was continuing to fight a war there.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
That's certainly true and there's no doubt his governement did some things well, others less so. For a broad perspective however you need only look at the numbers and there, after allowing due consideration for reasonable comparisons with comparable countries, we do feature amongst the worst performers on broad matrixes such as cases/deaths per million people. You could argue that we should have done better because we are an island and a highly independent one at that but even disregarding that you couldn't really say anything better than a middling to poor performance.
It depends what you think is most important. For me what is most important is how swiftly you can rollout vaccines and remove restrictions and we're best in class on that.
If you want to look at deaths per million then we're fairly middle of the pack on that.
On cases, then again it depends upon your perspective, are you considering cases good or bad? I would view high case numbers as a very good thing as it means we are finding our cases - as we can see from excess deaths elsewhere the cases have been happening elsewhere but they've not been finding their cases. Especially if restrictions aren't being imposed - its easy to quash cases if you're living under lockdown but every day under lockdown, especially post-vaccines, is an unmitigated failure.
We've successfully led the world on testing and cases, as well as vaccines.
Now take off the rose-tinted glasses and redraft, Bart.
Nothing rose tinted.
If you can find a major country that has done better in rolling out vaccines, lifting restrictions, and finding their cases then I'd love to know which you think.
The only one that comes close is Israel, but its not generally classed as a major nation.
But you are cherry picking!
Any fool could do likewise either for or against. I'm trying to take a broad, balanced perspective, but I see I am wasting my time with you.
Right this minute, which country would you prefer to be in Covid-wise (restrictions, level of infections/deaths, etc)?
And don't say Somewherenesia (pop: 2,500).
I have to say that I am very glad I'm in England.
It's not a meaningful question, Topping.
Right now I'm happy to be living in rural Gloucestershire where cases are low and it's easy to semi self-isolate, as I do most of the time. But your question is just another way of asking which countries performed best? We won't know the answer to all that until all the papers are in. Places like NZ, Singapore, Vietnam seem likely to get a pass mark; the USA definitely not; the UK, possibly, possibly not.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
Nonsense in that’s two very different things.
Roll out programme as with all things fighting covid has been a National effort. Your attempt to stamp any success with Tory moniker there is quite disgusting.
Of course its been a national effort, but who's running the nation? The buck stops at the top for good and bad.
Had the rollout been a disaster you wouldn't hesitate to blame the Tories for that now would you?
Virtually every other country on the planet has had fighting Covid as a national effort too but no other major nation has handled vaccines as well as the UK has. No other nation in Europe has been able to remove all restrictions before England.
And its only Tory-led England that avoided further restrictions in December too. NI, Wales and Scotland all handled that worse and felt the compulsion to impose new restrictions, which England didn't.
- “ Scotland… handled that worse”
Huh?
‘Nicola Sturgeon backed by majority of Scots over Christmas Covid rules in poll’ - Scots overwhelmingly back the stricter approach taken by Nicola Sturgeon in response to the Omicron variant, a new poll has found.
Are you HYUFD? Do opinion polls trump what is right and wrong in your eyes?
Restrictions are bad. That Sturgeon and the majority of Scots wrongly backed them as necessary, when they weren't, shows that Sturgeon and the majority of Scots were wrong.
Sturgeon governs in the interest of Scots, not to please random unqualified Tories with wild epidemiology theories on an obscure blog.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
The EU is suffering from Germany procrastination and the fact it does not have a coordinated defence mechanism
Furthermore, now more than ever it is missing the UK with the UK leading with the US in providing military and technical help and NATO increasing ships and aircraft into Eastern Europe
The Ukraine ambassador to the UK was extremely bitter towards Germany on yesterday's media
Germany was neutered by the 4 occupying powers (Soviet empire, British empire, French empire and American empire).
You cannot neuter a political entity and then complain when it cannot act in an aggressive fashion.
(Well, Tories can. Obviously. Maybe you’re a “Real” Tory after all Big G.)
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
IF the west was united armed conflict wouldn't be necessary.
Divided, it isn't worth a single British life.
Is my view.
And you don't think that 3-4m refugees from the Ukraine is going to be a problem for us either? I am genuinely surprised how little attention this is getting whilst we wet ourselves about after work drinkies 2 years ago (and the rather more important matter of the PM lying about it). If Russia invades Europe will be in chaos and so will we. The economic consequences will be on a level with Covid, possibly even worse. We need to do what we can to discourage this disaster.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
Nonsense in that’s two very different things.
Roll out programme as with all things fighting covid has been a National effort. Your attempt to stamp any success with Tory moniker there is quite disgusting.
Of course its been a national effort, but who's running the nation? The buck stops at the top for good and bad.
Had the rollout been a disaster you wouldn't hesitate to blame the Tories for that now would you?
Virtually every other country on the planet has had fighting Covid as a national effort too but no other major nation has handled vaccines as well as the UK has. No other nation in Europe has been able to remove all restrictions before England.
And its only Tory-led England that avoided further restrictions in December too. NI, Wales and Scotland all handled that worse and felt the compulsion to impose new restrictions, which England didn't.
- “ Scotland… handled that worse”
Huh?
‘Nicola Sturgeon backed by majority of Scots over Christmas Covid rules in poll’ - Scots overwhelmingly back the stricter approach taken by Nicola Sturgeon in response to the Omicron variant, a new poll has found.
Are you HYUFD? Do opinion polls trump what is right and wrong in your eyes?
Restrictions are bad. That Sturgeon and the majority of Scots wrongly backed them as necessary, when they weren't, shows that Sturgeon and the majority of Scots were wrong.
"the majority of scots were wrong". Good, and they apparently think you are wrong. Which does make nippie's point for her that people north of the wall support what she is doing and want more of that and less of what you and Peppa are doing.
Its like the people making comments like Arden showing a "lack of leadership" because of her clear policies which people in her country agree with. I fundamentally disagree with America backing the rights of people who shoot small children in their classrooms over the right of the children not to be murdered, but as its not my country or my society what does it matter what I think?
Sky News have picked up the Mail's leader that Downing St police have given "extremely damning" evidence to Sue Gray.
Well I'm happy if that's true but how the blazers does anyone know this? How would that have leaked? Serious question.
Indeed. As has been noted as well a lot of the comments about what Grays findings may be are either made up expectations management or implicit accusation she is corrupt and leaking details.
'[Dominic Cummings] concluded his post ominously: "Other damaging stories will come out until he is gone. It's clear talking to people in No10 and 70 Whitehall that many officials are desperate to shove the kunlangeta off the ice this week."
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
Thousands of body bags arriving at RAF Lyneham. (Which is in Wiltshire. Which is in England. Quick geography lesson for mendacious BritNat Nige.)
You are a very very sick bastard. If there were any proof needed that many Scots Nats are nasty and unpleasant wankers then your posts like this (and particularly the previous one on this subject where you seemed to think this could be a topic of amusement) certainly provide it.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
IF the west was united armed conflict wouldn't be necessary.
Divided, it isn't worth a single British life.
Is my view.
And you don't think that 3-4m refugees from the Ukraine is going to be a problem for us either? I am genuinely surprised how little attention this is getting whilst we wet ourselves about after work drinkies 2 years ago (and the rather more important matter of the PM lying about it). If Russia invades Europe will be in chaos and so will we. The economic consequences will be on a level with Covid, possibly even worse. We need to do what we can to discourage this disaster.
I’ll be a happy man, if I can smuggle in one refugee from Ukraine
She speaks excellent English, is qualified as a teacher or could work as a translator.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
So, the United States of Europe was another Leave lie?
Nope that was and still is the aim. The fact that they are fighting like rats in a sack over their own vested interests doesn't change the ultimate aim of the EU.
Wishful thinking.
I’m in the “sack”. We quite like each other in here. I’d trust a German Social Democrat before an English Tory any day of the week.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
Nonsense in that’s two very different things.
Roll out programme as with all things fighting covid has been a National effort. Your attempt to stamp any success with Tory moniker there is quite disgusting.
Of course its been a national effort, but who's running the nation? The buck stops at the top for good and bad.
Had the rollout been a disaster you wouldn't hesitate to blame the Tories for that now would you?
Virtually every other country on the planet has had fighting Covid as a national effort too but no other major nation has handled vaccines as well as the UK has. No other nation in Europe has been able to remove all restrictions before England.
And its only Tory-led England that avoided further restrictions in December too. NI, Wales and Scotland all handled that worse and felt the compulsion to impose new restrictions, which England didn't.
- “ Scotland… handled that worse”
Huh?
‘Nicola Sturgeon backed by majority of Scots over Christmas Covid rules in poll’ - Scots overwhelmingly back the stricter approach taken by Nicola Sturgeon in response to the Omicron variant, a new poll has found.
Are you HYUFD? Do opinion polls trump what is right and wrong in your eyes?
Restrictions are bad. That Sturgeon and the majority of Scots wrongly backed them as necessary, when they weren't, shows that Sturgeon and the majority of Scots were wrong.
"the majority of scots were wrong". Good, and they apparently think you are wrong. Which does make nippie's point for her that people north of the wall support what she is doing and want more of that and less of what you and Peppa are doing.
Its like the people making comments like Arden showing a "lack of leadership" because of her clear policies which people in her country agree with. I fundamentally disagree with America backing the rights of people who shoot small children in their classrooms over the right of the children not to be murdered, but as its not my country or my society what does it matter what I think?
Which is why I have long said that Scotland should be an independent country.
Yes Ardern and Sturgeon are bad leaders, but if they're who those nations wish to be led by, that should be their choice not mine.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
That's certainly true and there's no doubt his governement did some things well, others less so. For a broad perspective however you need only look at the numbers and there, after allowing due consideration for reasonable comparisons with comparable countries, we do feature amongst the worst performers on broad matrixes such as cases/deaths per million people. You could argue that we should have done better because we are an island and a highly independent one at that but even disregarding that you couldn't really say anything better than a middling to poor performance.
It depends what you think is most important. For me what is most important is how swiftly you can rollout vaccines and remove restrictions and we're best in class on that.
If you want to look at deaths per million then we're fairly middle of the pack on that.
On cases, then again it depends upon your perspective, are you considering cases good or bad? I would view high case numbers as a very good thing as it means we are finding our cases - as we can see from excess deaths elsewhere the cases have been happening elsewhere but they've not been finding their cases. Especially if restrictions aren't being imposed - its easy to quash cases if you're living under lockdown but every day under lockdown, especially post-vaccines, is an unmitigated failure.
We've successfully led the world on testing and cases, as well as vaccines.
Now take off the rose-tinted glasses and redraft, Bart.
Nothing rose tinted.
If you can find a major country that has done better in rolling out vaccines, lifting restrictions, and finding their cases then I'd love to know which you think.
The only one that comes close is Israel, but its not generally classed as a major nation.
But you are cherry picking!
Any fool could do likewise either for or against. I'm trying to take a broad, balanced perspective, but I see I am wasting my time with you.
Right this minute, which country would you prefer to be in Covid-wise (restrictions, level of infections/deaths, etc)?
And don't say Somewherenesia (pop: 2,500).
I have to say that I am very glad I'm in England.
It's not a meaningful question, Topping.
Right now I'm happy to be living in rural Gloucestershire where cases are low and it's easy to semi self-isolate, as I do most of the time. But your question is just another way of asking which countries performed best? We won't know the answer to all that until all the papers are in. Places like NZ, Singapore, Vietnam seem likely to get a pass mark; the USA definitely not; the UK, possibly, possibly not.
The question more is interested in what your priorities are. We are told via a poll that the Scots were happy with the level of lockdown imposed by Sturgeon (who has said it was "worth it").
But "best" can be everyone locked down going nowhere no chance of catching the virus; or it can mean everything open you takes your chances having been or not been vaccinated.
Hence when people say this or that country did better it is meaningless without knowing what they value.
And will "the papers" contain the lack of procedures done during the pandemic, the effects on mental health, education, etc?
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
The EU is suffering from Germany procrastination and the fact it does not have a coordinated defence mechanism
Furthermore, now more than ever it is missing the UK with the UK leading with the US in providing military and technical help and NATO increasing ships and aircraft into Eastern Europe
The Ukraine ambassador to the UK was extremely bitter towards Germany on yesterday's media
Germany was neutered by the 4 occupying powers (Soviet empire, British empire, French empire and American empire).
You cannot neuter a political entity and then complain when it cannot act in an aggressive fashion.
(Well, Tories can. Obviously. Maybe you’re a “Real” Tory after all Big G.)
Germany had no problem supplying military equipment and training to... Russia.
After Russia had invaded and annexed part of Ukraine. And was continuing to fight a war there.
Germany's policy is up to Germany, its none of our business. If they have become Russia-ambivalent or Russia apologist, that's up to them.
What we should here in Britain should do is stop pretending the West is what it was and that Germany is a reliable ally, when it may not be. We have to adjust our policy approach. Very regrettable in the circumstances, but perhaps necessary.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
So, the United States of Europe was another Leave lie?
Nope that was and still is the aim. The fact that they are fighting like rats in a sack over their own vested interests doesn't change the ultimate aim of the EU.
Wishful thinking.
I’m in the “sack”. We quite like each other in here. I’d trust a German Social Democrat before an English Tory any day of the week.
Of course you would. But that is because you are a racist as you have made plain on here many times before.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
IF the west was united armed conflict wouldn't be necessary.
Divided, it isn't worth a single British life.
Is my view.
And you don't think that 3-4m refugees from the Ukraine is going to be a problem for us either? I am genuinely surprised how little attention this is getting whilst we wet ourselves about after work drinkies 2 years ago (and the rather more important matter of the PM lying about it). If Russia invades Europe will be in chaos and so will we. The economic consequences will be on a level with Covid, possibly even worse. We need to do what we can to discourage this disaster.
I’ll be a happy man if I can smuggle in one refugee from Ukraine
She speaks excellent English, can work as a teacher or translator.
It shows the complete absurdity of our immigration policy that we have many tens of thousands, probably low hundreds of thousands here that should have been sent home a decade or more ago and have no real connection with this country other than being here for that decade whilst people like your better half, playing by the rules and married to a Brit, find it so difficult.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
So, the United States of Europe was another Leave lie?
Nope that was and still is the aim. The fact that they are fighting like rats in a sack over their own vested interests doesn't change the ultimate aim of the EU.
Only amongst a minority of EU zealots . It was a card that was well played by Leave, but no-one in Europe really believes in it. They might say it, but there will never be a majority in France particularly, but any other nation in the 27 for that matter, to be subsumed by an EU super state. It is never going to happen.
It has been inevitable since the introduction of the Euro.
For all the "didn't he do well!" comments on BJ and vaccines / the boosters is there any evidence that he is this visionary leader of people who can cut through the noise and chaos and get straight to not only the solution but how we do so at record speed?
We know that Mancock was the cabinet minister banging the cabinet table for vaccines in the early days. So the vaccine programme as an idea can't be attributed to Boris, nor can the actual amazing work done in developing it. He *authorised* it. Having been badgered by his Health Secretary and the actual scientists. "Oh cripes, ok then" is more his style than "I HAVE A VISION" leadership.
Same with boosters. He pulled the trigger on a seemingly impossible December booster program and thanks to herculean work by medics and volunteers we just about got away with it.
That's not true, the story of vaccines is Patrick Vallance and Dom approaching the PM telling him to take vaccine procurement away from the DoH and specifically Hancock because they/he was liable to fuck it up. Boris personally contacted Dame Kate Bingham and convinced her to take on the role as head of a new vaccine procurement body which would answer directly to him and Patrick Vallance, not the DoH.
Hancock got the meme that he watched a movie and bought all the vaccines but it's not true. It was Kate Bingham and team who did the purchasing and she was put in place by Boris but advised by Dom and Patrick Vallance.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
Thousands of body bags arriving at RAF Lyneham. (Which is in Wiltshire. Which is in England. Quick geography lesson for mendacious BritNat Nige.)
You are a very very sick bastard. If there were any proof needed that many Scots Nats are nasty and unpleasant wankers then your posts like this (and particularly the previous one on this subject where you seemed to think this could be a topic of amusement) certainly provide it.
Both he and Foxy seem unhappy that troops *won't* be committed to Ukraine.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
Instead there were no new restrictions at the end of December as you were screaming were required and the number of people in intensive care is at a six-month low.
If you can't see the difference between your catastrophising and what really happened, then that speaks volumes.
Months? Is it really that long? I seem to remember you being his biggest fanboy not that long ago. He was the greatest PM of your lifetime was he not? I was rudely called by you a "bad judge of character" when I pointed out many of his obvious-to-a-political-ignoramus failings.
I think you might want to take the beam out of your own eye Phil on getting things absolutely and utterly wrong.
No, Thatcher was the greatest PM of my lifetime.
Absolutely right about the first part. She was the greatest PM of my lifetime too.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
Instead there were no new restrictions at the end of December as you were screaming were required and the number of people in intensive care is at a six-month low.
If you can't see the difference between your catastrophising and what really happened, then that speaks volumes.
Months? Is it really that long? I seem to remember you being his biggest fanboy not that long ago. He was the greatest PM of your lifetime was he not? I was rudely called by you a "bad judge of character" when I pointed out many of his obvious-to-a-political-ignoramus failings.
I think you might want to take the beam out of your own eye Phil on getting things absolutely and utterly wrong.
Boris [is] the second-greatest PM of my lifetime .
Absolutely wrong about the second part. In what possible warped universe does your brain exist that you even think such junk? There is no measure whatsoever that can possibly justify this remark unless you think Brexit the unbridled triumph (do you really?!) that only Boris Johnson served up. If you do think that then you are being staggeringly myopian. Brexit is one part of a much larger brief on which Johnson has been mostly appalling. Absolutely godawful sloppy mess of a PM who has no command of his brief, is bloody bone idle, shops his colleagues and civil servants to save his skin and lies repeatedly and then lies some more and more and more.
He is, without doubt, on every empirical measure the worst PM of my lifetime and he is about to be booted out for very good reasons.
Oh and he was a puppet on Brexit. The real mastermind was Dominic Cummings.
As for 2019, he won because Labour had the most unelectable leader of a lifetime.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
IF the west was united armed conflict wouldn't be necessary.
Divided, it isn't worth a single British life.
Is my view.
And you don't think that 3-4m refugees from the Ukraine is going to be a problem for us either? I am genuinely surprised how little attention this is getting whilst we wet ourselves about after work drinkies 2 years ago (and the rather more important matter of the PM lying about it). If Russia invades Europe will be in chaos and so will we. The economic consequences will be on a level with Covid, possibly even worse. We need to do what we can to discourage this disaster.
Why should we sacrifice ourselves when our so-called key allies seem happy to defend the Western Alliance to the last British soldier?
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
One of few things about which Donald Trump was correct. US and UK aside, and possibly France, the NATO and EU countries need to pull their weight militarily.
One of my favourite Churcill quotes applies here (and also to the occasions when Johnson makes the right call): “The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.”
Indeed. See also Nick Griffin and the ‘Rotherham problem’.
It is always good to evaluate what’s being said, not just who’s saying it.
You’ll be telling us you’re favourite Mussolini and Franco quotes next. Ask HY: he’s a huge Franco admirer.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
The EU is suffering from Germany procrastination and the fact it does not have a coordinated defence mechanism
Furthermore, now more than ever it is missing the UK with the UK leading with the US in providing military and technical help and NATO increasing ships and aircraft into Eastern Europe
The Ukraine ambassador to the UK was extremely bitter towards Germany on yesterday's media
Germany was neutered by the 4 occupying powers (Soviet empire, British empire, French empire and American empire).
You cannot neuter a political entity and then complain when it cannot act in an aggressive fashion.
(Well, Tories can. Obviously. Maybe you’re a “Real” Tory after all Big G.)
Germany had no problem supplying military equipment and training to... Russia.
After Russia had invaded and annexed part of Ukraine. And was continuing to fight a war there.
Germany's policy is up to Germany, its none of our business. If they have become Russia-ambivalent or Russia apologist, that's up to them.
What we should here in Britain should do is stop pretending the West is what it was and that Germany is a reliable ally, when it may not be. We have to adjust our policy approach. Very regrettable in the circumstances, but perhaps necessary.
Indeed. But I would add that if Germany wants to be transactional in her dealing with the world, we should reciprocate.
So when they come screaming about a Swift system cut-off or the Nord Stream II pipeline having a bad day, just tell that that "that's business".
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
IF the west was united armed conflict wouldn't be necessary.
Divided, it isn't worth a single British life.
Is my view.
And you don't think that 3-4m refugees from the Ukraine is going to be a problem for us either? I am genuinely surprised how little attention this is getting whilst we wet ourselves about after work drinkies 2 years ago (and the rather more important matter of the PM lying about it). If Russia invades Europe will be in chaos and so will we. The economic consequences will be on a level with Covid, possibly even worse. We need to do what we can to discourage this disaster.
I misread that as "if Russia invades Europe" and was about to point out that its Ukraine and not Europe.
I watched the new Netflix film about the Munich agreement last night. Just 20 years after the end of a crushing war the fear of war rises again - its barely conceivable to my generation never mind my kids'.
What do I think we should do about Russia refounding the Soviet Union by force? Nothing militarily. Despite 30 years of post-cold war stability both sides retain the ability to reduce each other to pockets of Mad Max surrounded by oceans of molten glass.
Unlike in the late 30s we don't face down a despot intent on conquering western Europe and committing genocide. And should Putin decide to turn into one we have the ultimate deterrent to make him stop and think. We aren't going to get involved and Putin knows it. If they were about to invade France then maybe. But they're not.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
Thousands of body bags arriving at RAF Lyneham. (Which is in Wiltshire. Which is in England. Quick geography lesson for mendacious BritNat Nige.)
You are a very very sick bastard. If there were any proof needed that many Scots Nats are nasty and unpleasant wankers then your posts like this (and particularly the previous one on this subject where you seemed to think this could be a topic of amusement) certainly provide it.
I could not agree more
He is not representative of the Scottish people, just bigoted and anti English
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
The simple fact is that if the rate of exponential growth in infections that we saw in early- to mid-December had continued as it was, the health service and probably much of our other infrastructure would have collapsed around the New Year. And given the data, there was no reason to expect the growth rate would drop until well beyond that point.
Fortunately the growth rate did suddenly drop. I don't believe anyone understands why. And I don't think people like you predicted it would drop. I think you just repeated the mantra "Infections don't matter any more".
As it is, I always made it perfectly clear what assumptions I was making. People like you just said there shouldn't be any restrictions, and that everything would be fine, and that infections were meaningless, and so on and so forth.
And of course you're going to claim now that facts have proved you were right all along and everyone else was hysterical and unreasonable. But just because a 100-1 outsider comes in, that doesn't mean the reckless gambler who staked his life savings on it was right all along. Quite the opposite.
Surprised at the likes on this post.
Bart is right: you were insulting to those who disagreed with you. "Stupid", was your epithet of choice as I recall.
Now you are trying to rewrite history – again.
100-1 outsider. FFS, the South Africans had already told us that Milder was 1-3 odds-on favourite.
You ignored them. Others did not.
Yep. Chris has been proved consistently wrong on all his claims related to the threat of Covid over the past year or more and has never once been willing to admit he got it wrong. All he does is repeat the same old idiocy and then once he is shown to be wrong, lie about what he said.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
So, the United States of Europe was another Leave lie?
Nope that was and still is the aim. The fact that they are fighting like rats in a sack over their own vested interests doesn't change the ultimate aim of the EU.
Only amongst a minority of EU zealots . It was a card that was well played by Leave, but no-one in Europe really believes in it. They might say it, but there will never be a majority in France particularly, but any other nation in the 27 for that matter, to be subsumed by an EU super state. It is never going to happen.
It has been inevitable since the introduction of the Euro.
There is no such thing as "inevitable" in politics. There are always choices.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
That's certainly true and there's no doubt his governement did some things well, others less so. For a broad perspective however you need only look at the numbers and there, after allowing due consideration for reasonable comparisons with comparable countries, we do feature amongst the worst performers on broad matrixes such as cases/deaths per million people. You could argue that we should have done better because we are an island and a highly independent one at that but even disregarding that you couldn't really say anything better than a middling to poor performance.
It depends what you think is most important. For me what is most important is how swiftly you can rollout vaccines and remove restrictions and we're best in class on that.
If you want to look at deaths per million then we're fairly middle of the pack on that.
On cases, then again it depends upon your perspective, are you considering cases good or bad? I would view high case numbers as a very good thing as it means we are finding our cases - as we can see from excess deaths elsewhere the cases have been happening elsewhere but they've not been finding their cases. Especially if restrictions aren't being imposed - its easy to quash cases if you're living under lockdown but every day under lockdown, especially post-vaccines, is an unmitigated failure.
We've successfully led the world on testing and cases, as well as vaccines.
Now take off the rose-tinted glasses and redraft, Bart.
Nothing rose tinted.
If you can find a major country that has done better in rolling out vaccines, lifting restrictions, and finding their cases then I'd love to know which you think.
The only one that comes close is Israel, but its not generally classed as a major nation.
But you are cherry picking!
Any fool could do likewise either for or against. I'm trying to take a broad, balanced perspective, but I see I am wasting my time with you.
Right this minute, which country would you prefer to be in Covid-wise (restrictions, level of infections/deaths, etc)?
And don't say Somewherenesia (pop: 2,500).
I have to say that I am very glad I'm in England.
It's not a meaningful question, Topping.
Right now I'm happy to be living in rural Gloucestershire where cases are low and it's easy to semi self-isolate, as I do most of the time. But your question is just another way of asking which countries performed best? We won't know the answer to all that until all the papers are in. Places like NZ, Singapore, Vietnam seem likely to get a pass mark; the USA definitely not; the UK, possibly, possibly not.
The question more is interested in what your priorities are. We are told via a poll that the Scots were happy with the level of lockdown imposed by Sturgeon (who has said it was "worth it").
But "best" can be everyone locked down going nowhere no chance of catching the virus; or it can mean everything open you takes your chances having been or not been vaccinated.
Hence when people say this or that country did better it is meaningless without knowing what they value.
And will "the papers" contain the lack of procedures done during the pandemic, the effects on mental health, education, etc?
Not meaningless, Topping, but certainly difficult.
May I just add that my evaluation of Covid strategies was colored heavily by my recent experiences on returning from South Africa. They rather emphasised that if you are going to lock down, you have to do it thoroughly and enforce and carry the population with you. We achieved something like that in the original lockdown for a while and it was worth it.
Half measures are useless, possibly worse than that; they may do more harm than good. In the current circumstances I would suggest the government would do best by advising what is recommended and what is not and then leaving it to our own good sense (if we have any!) to moderate our behaviour accordingly.
This is kind of what we are now, even if not explicitly stated.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
Nonsense in that’s two very different things.
Roll out programme as with all things fighting covid has been a National effort. Your attempt to stamp any success with Tory moniker there is quite disgusting.
Of course its been a national effort, but who's running the nation? The buck stops at the top for good and bad.
Had the rollout been a disaster you wouldn't hesitate to blame the Tories for that now would you?
Virtually every other country on the planet has had fighting Covid as a national effort too but no other major nation has handled vaccines as well as the UK has. No other nation in Europe has been able to remove all restrictions before England.
And its only Tory-led England that avoided further restrictions in December too. NI, Wales and Scotland all handled that worse and felt the compulsion to impose new restrictions, which England didn't.
- “ Scotland… handled that worse”
Huh?
‘Nicola Sturgeon backed by majority of Scots over Christmas Covid rules in poll’ - Scots overwhelmingly back the stricter approach taken by Nicola Sturgeon in response to the Omicron variant, a new poll has found.
Are you HYUFD? Do opinion polls trump what is right and wrong in your eyes?
Restrictions are bad. That Sturgeon and the majority of Scots wrongly backed them as necessary, when they weren't, shows that Sturgeon and the majority of Scots were wrong.
"the majority of scots were wrong". Good, and they apparently think you are wrong. Which does make nippie's point for her that people north of the wall support what she is doing and want more of that and less of what you and Peppa are doing.
Its like the people making comments like Arden showing a "lack of leadership" because of her clear policies which people in her country agree with. I fundamentally disagree with America backing the rights of people who shoot small children in their classrooms over the right of the children not to be murdered, but as its not my country or my society what does it matter what I think?
Which is why I have long said that Scotland should be an independent country.
Yes Ardern and Sturgeon are bad leaders, but if they're who those nations wish to be led by, that should be their choice not mine.
So your "the majority of Scots are wrong" comment is absurd. They might be from your perspective. But your perspective doesn't matter in this case as it doesn't for NZ. People get what they vote for, and Sturgeon just won a 4th election on the bounce on a record turnout and a record vote for her party. She absolutely does have the democratic mandate and the polls show a much wider support for her actions than just those SNP voters.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
Instead there were no new restrictions at the end of December as you were screaming were required and the number of people in intensive care is at a six-month low.
If you can't see the difference between your catastrophising and what really happened, then that speaks volumes.
Months? Is it really that long? I seem to remember you being his biggest fanboy not that long ago. He was the greatest PM of your lifetime was he not? I was rudely called by you a "bad judge of character" when I pointed out many of his obvious-to-a-political-ignoramus failings.
I think you might want to take the beam out of your own eye Phil on getting things absolutely and utterly wrong.
No, Thatcher was the greatest PM of my lifetime.
Absolutely right about the first part. She was the greatest PM of my lifetime too.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
Instead there were no new restrictions at the end of December as you were screaming were required and the number of people in intensive care is at a six-month low.
If you can't see the difference between your catastrophising and what really happened, then that speaks volumes.
Months? Is it really that long? I seem to remember you being his biggest fanboy not that long ago. He was the greatest PM of your lifetime was he not? I was rudely called by you a "bad judge of character" when I pointed out many of his obvious-to-a-political-ignoramus failings.
I think you might want to take the beam out of your own eye Phil on getting things absolutely and utterly wrong.
Boris [is] the second-greatest PM of my lifetime .
Absolutely wrong about the second part. In what possible warped universe does your brain exist that you even think such junk? There is no measure whatsoever that can possibly justify this remark unless you think Brexit the unbridled triumph (do you really?!) that only Boris Johnson served up. If you do think that then you are being staggeringly myopian. Brexit is one part of a much larger brief on which Johnson has been mostly appalling. Absolutely godawful sloppy mess of a PM who has no command of his brief, is bloody bone idle, shops his colleagues and civil servants to save his skin and lies repeatedly and then lies some more and more and more.
He is, without doubt, on every empirical measure the worst PM of my lifetime and he is about to be booted out for very good reasons.
Oh and he was a puppet on Brexit. The real mastermind was Dominic Cummings.
As for 2019, he won because Labour had the most unelectable leader of a lifetime.
Whilst we disagree on the value of Brexit I think you are otherwise 100% correct in your assessment of Johnson.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
The simple fact is that if the rate of exponential growth in infections that we saw in early- to mid-December had continued as it was, the health service and probably much of our other infrastructure would have collapsed around the New Year. And given the data, there was no reason to expect the growth rate would drop until well beyond that point.
Fortunately the growth rate did suddenly drop. I don't believe anyone understands why. And I don't think people like you predicted it would drop. I think you just repeated the mantra "Infections don't matter any more".
As it is, I always made it perfectly clear what assumptions I was making. People like you just said there shouldn't be any restrictions, and that everything would be fine, and that infections were meaningless, and so on and so forth.
And of course you're going to claim now that facts have proved you were right all along and everyone else was hysterical and unreasonable. But just because a 100-1 outsider comes in, that doesn't mean the reckless gambler who staked his life savings on it was right all along. Quite the opposite.
Surprised at the likes on this post.
Bart is right: you were insulting to those who disagreed with you. "Stupid", was your epithet of choice as I recall.
Now you are trying to rewrite history – again.
100-1 outsider. FFS, the South Africans had already told us that Milder was 1-3 odds-on favourite.
You ignored them. Others did not.
Yep. Chris has been proved consistently wrong on all his claims related to the threat of Covid over the past year or more and has never once been willing to admit he got it wrong. All he does is repeat the same old idiocy and then once he is shown to be wrong, lie about what he said.
For all the "didn't he do well!" comments on BJ and vaccines / the boosters is there any evidence that he is this visionary leader of people who can cut through the noise and chaos and get straight to not only the solution but how we do so at record speed?
We know that Mancock was the cabinet minister banging the cabinet table for vaccines in the early days. So the vaccine programme as an idea can't be attributed to Boris, nor can the actual amazing work done in developing it. He *authorised* it. Having been badgered by his Health Secretary and the actual scientists. "Oh cripes, ok then" is more his style than "I HAVE A VISION" leadership.
Same with boosters. He pulled the trigger on a seemingly impossible December booster program and thanks to herculean work by medics and volunteers we just about got away with it.
That's not true, the story of vaccines is Patrick Vallance and Dom approaching the PM telling him to take vaccine procurement away from the DoH and specifically Hancock because they/he was liable to fuck it up. Boris personally contacted Dame Kate Bingham and convinced her to take on the role as head of a new vaccine procurement body which would answer directly to him and Patrick Vallance, not the DoH.
Hancock got the meme that he watched a movie and bought all the vaccines but it's not true. It was Kate Bingham and team who did the purchasing and she was put in place by Boris but advised by Dom and Patrick Vallance.
Appreciate the correction of the record. My point remains - it was not the PM who like a titan stood there and said "we will need vaccines, get on with it". So when he personally gets the credit I just giggle a little.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
IF the west was united armed conflict wouldn't be necessary.
Divided, it isn't worth a single British life.
Is my view.
And you don't think that 3-4m refugees from the Ukraine is going to be a problem for us either? I am genuinely surprised how little attention this is getting whilst we wet ourselves about after work drinkies 2 years ago (and the rather more important matter of the PM lying about it). If Russia invades Europe will be in chaos and so will we. The economic consequences will be on a level with Covid, possibly even worse. We need to do what we can to discourage this disaster.
Why should we sacrifice ourselves when our so-called key allies seem happy to defend the Western Alliance to the last British soldier?
We have an interest in the stability of Europe and of the Ukraine. But it is completely beyond our power to influence this, let alone determine it. What we need to do is work with others who are like minded to stop this. It is extremely regrettable that finding like minded nations is so difficult, especially when they will be more directly affected than us, but we have to live in the real world.
The presence of UK and US troops on the ground or planes in the air in the Ukraine would, in my view, make war considerably less likely. It's not without risk, I fully accept that. But if we can find a credible group of like minded nations that seems to me the best move in a very tricky situation.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
The EU is suffering from Germany procrastination and the fact it does not have a coordinated defence mechanism
Furthermore, now more than ever it is missing the UK with the UK leading with the US in providing military and technical help and NATO increasing ships and aircraft into Eastern Europe
The Ukraine ambassador to the UK was extremely bitter towards Germany on yesterday's media
Germany was neutered by the 4 occupying powers (Soviet empire, British empire, French empire and American empire).
You cannot neuter a political entity and then complain when it cannot act in an aggressive fashion.
(Well, Tories can. Obviously. Maybe you’re a “Real” Tory after all Big G.)
Germany had no problem supplying military equipment and training to... Russia.
After Russia had invaded and annexed part of Ukraine. And was continuing to fight a war there.
Germany's policy is up to Germany, its none of our business. If they have become Russia-ambivalent or Russia apologist, that's up to them.
What we should here in Britain should do is stop pretending the West is what it was and that Germany is a reliable ally, when it may not be. We have to adjust our policy approach. Very regrettable in the circumstances, but perhaps necessary.
So very transparent.
Nationalism among Tories is spiralling out of control. It will end in tears.
Never mind, the big boys will clean up the toddlers’ mess.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
The EU is suffering from Germany procrastination and the fact it does not have a coordinated defence mechanism
Furthermore, now more than ever it is missing the UK with the UK leading with the US in providing military and technical help and NATO increasing ships and aircraft into Eastern Europe
The Ukraine ambassador to the UK was extremely bitter towards Germany on yesterday's media
Germany was neutered by the 4 occupying powers (Soviet empire, British empire, French empire and American empire).
You cannot neuter a political entity and then complain when it cannot act in an aggressive fashion.
(Well, Tories can. Obviously. Maybe you’re a “Real” Tory after all Big G.)
Germany had no problem supplying military equipment and training to... Russia.
After Russia had invaded and annexed part of Ukraine. And was continuing to fight a war there.
Germany's policy is up to Germany, its none of our business. If they have become Russia-ambivalent or Russia apologist, that's up to them.
What we should here in Britain should do is stop pretending the West is what it was and that Germany is a reliable ally, when it may not be. We have to adjust our policy approach. Very regrettable in the circumstances, but perhaps necessary.
Indeed. But I would add that if Germany wants to be transactional in her dealing with the world, we should reciprocate.
So when they come screaming about a Swift system cut-off or the Nord Stream II pipeline having a bad day, just tell that that "that's business".
We should also perhaps precisely who and what we are negotiating with over Northern Ireland, and whether the fact that some of the participants are Russia-friendly changes the game somewhat.
And We should ask German travellers for visas to the UK travel. Hilarious.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
Nonsense in that’s two very different things.
Roll out programme as with all things fighting covid has been a National effort. Your attempt to stamp any success with Tory moniker there is quite disgusting.
Of course its been a national effort, but who's running the nation? The buck stops at the top for good and bad.
Had the rollout been a disaster you wouldn't hesitate to blame the Tories for that now would you?
Virtually every other country on the planet has had fighting Covid as a national effort too but no other major nation has handled vaccines as well as the UK has. No other nation in Europe has been able to remove all restrictions before England.
And its only Tory-led England that avoided further restrictions in December too. NI, Wales and Scotland all handled that worse and felt the compulsion to impose new restrictions, which England didn't.
- “ Scotland… handled that worse”
Huh?
‘Nicola Sturgeon backed by majority of Scots over Christmas Covid rules in poll’ - Scots overwhelmingly back the stricter approach taken by Nicola Sturgeon in response to the Omicron variant, a new poll has found.
Are you HYUFD? Do opinion polls trump what is right and wrong in your eyes?
Restrictions are bad. That Sturgeon and the majority of Scots wrongly backed them as necessary, when they weren't, shows that Sturgeon and the majority of Scots were wrong.
Sturgeon governs in the interest of Scots, not to please random unqualified Tories with wild epidemiology theories on an obscure blog.
If two ferries with painted on windows is governing “in the interests of Scots”…
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
That's certainly true and there's no doubt his governement did some things well, others less so. For a broad perspective however you need only look at the numbers and there, after allowing due consideration for reasonable comparisons with comparable countries, we do feature amongst the worst performers on broad matrixes such as cases/deaths per million people. You could argue that we should have done better because we are an island and a highly independent one at that but even disregarding that you couldn't really say anything better than a middling to poor performance.
It depends what you think is most important. For me what is most important is how swiftly you can rollout vaccines and remove restrictions and we're best in class on that.
If you want to look at deaths per million then we're fairly middle of the pack on that.
On cases, then again it depends upon your perspective, are you considering cases good or bad? I would view high case numbers as a very good thing as it means we are finding our cases - as we can see from excess deaths elsewhere the cases have been happening elsewhere but they've not been finding their cases. Especially if restrictions aren't being imposed - its easy to quash cases if you're living under lockdown but every day under lockdown, especially post-vaccines, is an unmitigated failure.
We've successfully led the world on testing and cases, as well as vaccines.
Now take off the rose-tinted glasses and redraft, Bart.
Nothing rose tinted.
If you can find a major country that has done better in rolling out vaccines, lifting restrictions, and finding their cases then I'd love to know which you think.
The only one that comes close is Israel, but its not generally classed as a major nation.
But you are cherry picking!
Any fool could do likewise either for or against. I'm trying to take a broad, balanced perspective, but I see I am wasting my time with you.
Right this minute, which country would you prefer to be in Covid-wise (restrictions, level of infections/deaths, etc)?
And don't say Somewherenesia (pop: 2,500).
I have to say that I am very glad I'm in England.
It's not a meaningful question, Topping.
Right now I'm happy to be living in rural Gloucestershire where cases are low and it's easy to semi self-isolate, as I do most of the time. But your question is just another way of asking which countries performed best? We won't know the answer to all that until all the papers are in. Places like NZ, Singapore, Vietnam seem likely to get a pass mark; the USA definitely not; the UK, possibly, possibly not.
The question more is interested in what your priorities are. We are told via a poll that the Scots were happy with the level of lockdown imposed by Sturgeon (who has said it was "worth it").
But "best" can be everyone locked down going nowhere no chance of catching the virus; or it can mean everything open you takes your chances having been or not been vaccinated.
Hence when people say this or that country did better it is meaningless without knowing what they value.
And will "the papers" contain the lack of procedures done during the pandemic, the effects on mental health, education, etc?
Not meaningless, Topping, but certainly difficult.
May I just add that my evaluation of Covid strategies was colored heavily by my recent experiences on returning from South Africa. They rather emphasised that if you are going to lock down, you have to do it thoroughly and enforce and carry the population with you. We achieved something like that in the original lockdown for a while and it was worth it.
Half measures are useless, possibly worse than that; they may do more harm than good. In the current circumstances I would suggest the government would do best by advising what is recommended and what is not and then leaving it to our own good sense (if we have any!) to moderate our behaviour accordingly.
This is kind of what we are now, even if not explicitly stated.
Yes meaningless was a bit de trop.
But your last sentence is the key. We are in a position now, in England (I keep typing "UK" then having to go back and change it), which as you note, is "best". I agree.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
UK will send weapons, drones and probably a few “diplomats” from Hereford to help out. As will most of the West, including the US once Mr President has woken up from his afternoon nap.
The RAF MQ-9A fleet is in Mosul and Kuwait, though with American mercenaries, sorry contractors, doing the launch and recovery element. They can't transit controlled airspace and couldn't be deconflicted even if they could get to Ukraine.
This isn't some Call of Duty DLC with really good textures we're talking about. It's a real shooting war with fucking Russia. I can't believe how naive and blasé people are about involving British forces.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
IF the west was united armed conflict wouldn't be necessary.
Divided, it isn't worth a single British life.
Is my view.
And you don't think that 3-4m refugees from the Ukraine is going to be a problem for us either? I am genuinely surprised how little attention this is getting whilst we wet ourselves about after work drinkies 2 years ago (and the rather more important matter of the PM lying about it). If Russia invades Europe will be in chaos and so will we. The economic consequences will be on a level with Covid, possibly even worse. We need to do what we can to discourage this disaster.
I’ll be a happy man if I can smuggle in one refugee from Ukraine
She speaks excellent English, can work as a teacher or translator.
It shows the complete absurdity of our immigration policy that we have many tens of thousands, probably low hundreds of thousands here that should have been sent home a decade or more ago and have no real connection with this country other than being here for that decade whilst people like your better half, playing by the rules and married to a Brit, find it so difficult.
Indeedy! It’s rather annoying when you are in a position that slips through the cracks in the system, in a situation that was seemingly not thought about by those who wrote the relevant legislation.
The eventual solution will likely involve her arriving on a visit visa, and unable to work for at least a year while the lawyers’ bills add up trying to get her leave to remain. Ironically, the most difficult bit will be proving my income.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
The simple fact is that if the rate of exponential growth in infections that we saw in early- to mid-December had continued as it was, the health service and probably much of our other infrastructure would have collapsed around the New Year. And given the data, there was no reason to expect the growth rate would drop until well beyond that point.
Fortunately the growth rate did suddenly drop. I don't believe anyone understands why. And I don't think people like you predicted it would drop. I think you just repeated the mantra "Infections don't matter any more".
As it is, I always made it perfectly clear what assumptions I was making. People like you just said there shouldn't be any restrictions, and that everything would be fine, and that infections were meaningless, and so on and so forth.
And of course you're going to claim now that facts have proved you were right all along and everyone else was hysterical and unreasonable. But just because a 100-1 outsider comes in, that doesn't mean the reckless gambler who staked his life savings on it was right all along. Quite the opposite.
Surprised at the likes on this post.
Bart is right: you were insulting to those who disagreed with you. "Stupid", was your epithet of choice as I recall.
Now you are trying to rewrite history – again.
100-1 outsider. FFS, the South Africans had already told us that Milder was 1-3 odds-on favourite.
You ignored them. Others did not.
Yep. Chris has been proved consistently wrong on all his claims related to the threat of Covid over the past year or more and has never once been willing to admit he got it wrong. All he does is repeat the same old idiocy and then once he is shown to be wrong, lie about what he said.
What specifically was Chris wrong about?
He said there would be 800k cases/day. There weren't, as far as I am aware.
Sky News have picked up the Mail's leader that Downing St police have given "extremely damning" evidence to Sue Gray.
Well I'm happy if that's true but how the blazers does anyone know this? How would that have leaked? Serious question.
Indeed. As has been noted as well a lot of the comments about what Grays findings may be are either made up expectations management or implicit accusation she is corrupt and leaking details.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
That's certainly true and there's no doubt his governement did some things well, others less so. For a broad perspective however you need only look at the numbers and there, after allowing due consideration for reasonable comparisons with comparable countries, we do feature amongst the worst performers on broad matrixes such as cases/deaths per million people. You could argue that we should have done better because we are an island and a highly independent one at that but even disregarding that you couldn't really say anything better than a middling to poor performance.
It depends what you think is most important. For me what is most important is how swiftly you can rollout vaccines and remove restrictions and we're best in class on that.
If you want to look at deaths per million then we're fairly middle of the pack on that.
On cases, then again it depends upon your perspective, are you considering cases good or bad? I would view high case numbers as a very good thing as it means we are finding our cases - as we can see from excess deaths elsewhere the cases have been happening elsewhere but they've not been finding their cases. Especially if restrictions aren't being imposed - its easy to quash cases if you're living under lockdown but every day under lockdown, especially post-vaccines, is an unmitigated failure.
We've successfully led the world on testing and cases, as well as vaccines.
Now take off the rose-tinted glasses and redraft, Bart.
Nothing rose tinted.
If you can find a major country that has done better in rolling out vaccines, lifting restrictions, and finding their cases then I'd love to know which you think.
The only one that comes close is Israel, but its not generally classed as a major nation.
But you are cherry picking!
Any fool could do likewise either for or against. I'm trying to take a broad, balanced perspective, but I see I am wasting my time with you.
Right this minute, which country would you prefer to be in Covid-wise (restrictions, level of infections/deaths, etc)?
And don't say Somewherenesia (pop: 2,500).
I have to say that I am very glad I'm in England.
It's not a meaningful question, Topping.
Right now I'm happy to be living in rural Gloucestershire where cases are low and it's easy to semi self-isolate, as I do most of the time. But your question is just another way of asking which countries performed best? We won't know the answer to all that until all the papers are in. Places like NZ, Singapore, Vietnam seem likely to get a pass mark; the USA definitely not; the UK, possibly, possibly not.
The question more is interested in what your priorities are. We are told via a poll that the Scots were happy with the level of lockdown imposed by Sturgeon (who has said it was "worth it").
But "best" can be everyone locked down going nowhere no chance of catching the virus; or it can mean everything open you takes your chances having been or not been vaccinated.
Hence when people say this or that country did better it is meaningless without knowing what they value.
And will "the papers" contain the lack of procedures done during the pandemic, the effects on mental health, education, etc?
Precisely.
What is bizarre is people chopping and changing their priorities to suit their agenda.
I've put down my priorities consistently, post-vaccines and have criticised the government when they imposed Plan B and last Spring for not lifting restrictions sooner. Pre-vaccines I viewed things differently.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
Nonsense in that’s two very different things.
Roll out programme as with all things fighting covid has been a National effort. Your attempt to stamp any success with Tory moniker there is quite disgusting.
Of course its been a national effort, but who's running the nation? The buck stops at the top for good and bad.
Had the rollout been a disaster you wouldn't hesitate to blame the Tories for that now would you?
Virtually every other country on the planet has had fighting Covid as a national effort too but no other major nation has handled vaccines as well as the UK has. No other nation in Europe has been able to remove all restrictions before England.
And its only Tory-led England that avoided further restrictions in December too. NI, Wales and Scotland all handled that worse and felt the compulsion to impose new restrictions, which England didn't.
- “ Scotland… handled that worse”
Huh?
‘Nicola Sturgeon backed by majority of Scots over Christmas Covid rules in poll’ - Scots overwhelmingly back the stricter approach taken by Nicola Sturgeon in response to the Omicron variant, a new poll has found.
Are you HYUFD? Do opinion polls trump what is right and wrong in your eyes?
Restrictions are bad. That Sturgeon and the majority of Scots wrongly backed them as necessary, when they weren't, shows that Sturgeon and the majority of Scots were wrong.
Sturgeon governs in the interest of Scots, not to please random unqualified Tories with wild epidemiology theories on an obscure blog.
Sturgeon governs in the interest of her personal popularity, like all politicians. Stoking fear (see Yousaf and his claims about children) and presenting yourself as a saviour is very effective.
The hope is that our political system aligns political popularity with the long term needs of the country, but it often doesn't on stuff like HS2 and perhaps Covid-19.
The Sturgeon bubble *could* pop quite suddenly, like Clegg, Salmond etc, but it's more likely that she has developed a sort of aura, like Merkel, and is basically invincible.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
Thousands of body bags arriving at RAF Lyneham. (Which is in Wiltshire. Which is in England. Quick geography lesson for mendacious BritNat Nige.)
You are a very very sick bastard. If there were any proof needed that many Scots Nats are nasty and unpleasant wankers then your posts like this (and particularly the previous one on this subject where you seemed to think this could be a topic of amusement) certainly provide it.
I could not agree more
He is not representative of the Scottish people, just bigoted and anti English
Nonsense.
I’m an Anglophile. Very pro-England and her people.
What I’m opposed to is British Nationalism, which is rampant on these threads. Shame on you Big G for joining in their chorus.
I take full responsibility is just one of those meaningless phrases, where it sounds obvious that it's a good thing, but in actual fact it's often ridiculous.
No one should be taking full responsibility for anything that someone else does, there surely has to be at least some portion of blame that falls on the person who did the thing.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
The simple fact is that if the rate of exponential growth in infections that we saw in early- to mid-December had continued as it was, the health service and probably much of our other infrastructure would have collapsed around the New Year. And given the data, there was no reason to expect the growth rate would drop until well beyond that point.
Fortunately the growth rate did suddenly drop. I don't believe anyone understands why. And I don't think people like you predicted it would drop. I think you just repeated the mantra "Infections don't matter any more".
As it is, I always made it perfectly clear what assumptions I was making. People like you just said there shouldn't be any restrictions, and that everything would be fine, and that infections were meaningless, and so on and so forth.
And of course you're going to claim now that facts have proved you were right all along and everyone else was hysterical and unreasonable. But just because a 100-1 outsider comes in, that doesn't mean the reckless gambler who staked his life savings on it was right all along. Quite the opposite.
Surprised at the likes on this post.
Bart is right: you were insulting to those who disagreed with you. "Stupid", was your epithet of choice as I recall.
Now you are trying to rewrite history – again.
100-1 outsider. FFS, the South Africans had already told us that Milder was 1-3 odds-on favourite.
You ignored them. Others did not.
Yep. Chris has been proved consistently wrong on all his claims related to the threat of Covid over the past year or more and has never once been willing to admit he got it wrong. All he does is repeat the same old idiocy and then once he is shown to be wrong, lie about what he said.
What specifically was Chris wrong about?
He said there would be 800k cases/day. There weren't, as far as I am aware.
I questioned this point before. I understand his prediction was 800,000 infections per day. And I wasn't able to work out how many there actually were. I can see from Zoe that total infections peaked a couple of weeks ago at about 2.8 million, but I don't see any day-by-day new cases data. So I'm unclear how good a prediction that was.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
That's certainly true and there's no doubt his governement did some things well, others less so. For a broad perspective however you need only look at the numbers and there, after allowing due consideration for reasonable comparisons with comparable countries, we do feature amongst the worst performers on broad matrixes such as cases/deaths per million people. You could argue that we should have done better because we are an island and a highly independent one at that but even disregarding that you couldn't really say anything better than a middling to poor performance.
It depends what you think is most important. For me what is most important is how swiftly you can rollout vaccines and remove restrictions and we're best in class on that.
If you want to look at deaths per million then we're fairly middle of the pack on that.
On cases, then again it depends upon your perspective, are you considering cases good or bad? I would view high case numbers as a very good thing as it means we are finding our cases - as we can see from excess deaths elsewhere the cases have been happening elsewhere but they've not been finding their cases. Especially if restrictions aren't being imposed - its easy to quash cases if you're living under lockdown but every day under lockdown, especially post-vaccines, is an unmitigated failure.
We've successfully led the world on testing and cases, as well as vaccines.
Now take off the rose-tinted glasses and redraft, Bart.
Nothing rose tinted.
If you can find a major country that has done better in rolling out vaccines, lifting restrictions, and finding their cases then I'd love to know which you think.
The only one that comes close is Israel, but its not generally classed as a major nation.
But you are cherry picking!
Any fool could do likewise either for or against. I'm trying to take a broad, balanced perspective, but I see I am wasting my time with you.
Right this minute, which country would you prefer to be in Covid-wise (restrictions, level of infections/deaths, etc)?
And don't say Somewherenesia (pop: 2,500).
I have to say that I am very glad I'm in England.
It's not a meaningful question, Topping.
Right now I'm happy to be living in rural Gloucestershire where cases are low and it's easy to semi self-isolate, as I do most of the time. But your question is just another way of asking which countries performed best? We won't know the answer to all that until all the papers are in. Places like NZ, Singapore, Vietnam seem likely to get a pass mark; the USA definitely not; the UK, possibly, possibly not.
The question more is interested in what your priorities are. We are told via a poll that the Scots were happy with the level of lockdown imposed by Sturgeon (who has said it was "worth it").
But "best" can be everyone locked down going nowhere no chance of catching the virus; or it can mean everything open you takes your chances having been or not been vaccinated.
Hence when people say this or that country did better it is meaningless without knowing what they value.
And will "the papers" contain the lack of procedures done during the pandemic, the effects on mental health, education, etc?
Not meaningless, Topping, but certainly difficult.
May I just add that my evaluation of Covid strategies was colored heavily by my recent experiences on returning from South Africa. They rather emphasised that if you are going to lock down, you have to do it thoroughly and enforce and carry the population with you. We achieved something like that in the original lockdown for a while and it was worth it.
Half measures are useless, possibly worse than that; they may do more harm than good. In the current circumstances I would suggest the government would do best by advising what is recommended and what is not and then leaving it to our own good sense (if we have any!) to moderate our behaviour accordingly.
This is kind of what we are now, even if not explicitly stated.
Yes meaningless was a bit de trop.
But your last sentence is the key. We are in a position now, in England (I keep typing "UK" then having to go back and change it), which as you note, is "best". I agree.
Yes, some qualified agreement then Topping. We are currently getting it about right considering where we are now. We may however be in the position of the man giving directions to Dublin: 'Well, you shouldn't really be starting from here.'
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
The EU is suffering from Germany procrastination and the fact it does not have a coordinated defence mechanism
Furthermore, now more than ever it is missing the UK with the UK leading with the US in providing military and technical help and NATO increasing ships and aircraft into Eastern Europe
The Ukraine ambassador to the UK was extremely bitter towards Germany on yesterday's media
Germany was neutered by the 4 occupying powers (Soviet empire, British empire, French empire and American empire).
You cannot neuter a political entity and then complain when it cannot act in an aggressive fashion.
(Well, Tories can. Obviously. Maybe you’re a “Real” Tory after all Big G.)
Germany had no problem supplying military equipment and training to... Russia.
After Russia had invaded and annexed part of Ukraine. And was continuing to fight a war there.
Germany's policy is up to Germany, its none of our business. If they have become Russia-ambivalent or Russia apologist, that's up to them.
What we should here in Britain should do is stop pretending the West is what it was and that Germany is a reliable ally, when it may not be. We have to adjust our policy approach. Very regrettable in the circumstances, but perhaps necessary.
So very transparent.
Nationalism among Tories is spiralling out of control. It will end in tears.
Never mind, the big boys will clean up the toddlers’ mess.
What will end in tears is Russian appeasement. Which you seem to champion.
In your case I guess its 'my enemy's enemy is my friend'. I guess Sturgeon & Co take their allies as they come. Despots? Appeasers? no problem. Key common denominator - anti English.
I haven't thought about Ukraine but all I did think the other day when I heard that some of HMF had been sent to do something or other (train? advise?) I thought they had better get the fuck out of there pretty damn quickly if a shooting war begins.
Send more troops in? You must be joking.
Although interestingly perhaps that reaction is what plenty of Americans have thought throughout the ages when her troops have been sent to fight in far off lands with no real threat to their homeland.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
IF the west was united armed conflict wouldn't be necessary.
Divided, it isn't worth a single British life.
Is my view.
And you don't think that 3-4m refugees from the Ukraine is going to be a problem for us either? I am genuinely surprised how little attention this is getting whilst we wet ourselves about after work drinkies 2 years ago (and the rather more important matter of the PM lying about it). If Russia invades Europe will be in chaos and so will we. The economic consequences will be on a level with Covid, possibly even worse. We need to do what we can to discourage this disaster.
I’ll be a happy man if I can smuggle in one refugee from Ukraine
She speaks excellent English, can work as a teacher or translator.
It shows the complete absurdity of our immigration policy that we have many tens of thousands, probably low hundreds of thousands here that should have been sent home a decade or more ago and have no real connection with this country other than being here for that decade whilst people like your better half, playing by the rules and married to a Brit, find it so difficult.
Indeedy! It’s rather annoying when you are in a position that slips through the cracks in the system, in a situation that was seemingly not thought about by those who wrote the relevant legislation.
The eventual solution will likely involve her arriving on a visit visa, and unable to work for at least a year while the lawyers’ bills add up trying to get her leave to remain.
What is the issue? Your working in a sandpit meaning you can't meet the financial requirement, or something else?
Have a foreign wife so aware of the extremely painful experience that is dealing with byzantine immigration rules...
(If she's married to a Brit it's very unlikely she'll get a visit visa imo)
For all the "didn't he do well!" comments on BJ and vaccines / the boosters is there any evidence that he is this visionary leader of people who can cut through the noise and chaos and get straight to not only the solution but how we do so at record speed?
We know that Mancock was the cabinet minister banging the cabinet table for vaccines in the early days. So the vaccine programme as an idea can't be attributed to Boris, nor can the actual amazing work done in developing it. He *authorised* it. Having been badgered by his Health Secretary and the actual scientists. "Oh cripes, ok then" is more his style than "I HAVE A VISION" leadership.
Same with boosters. He pulled the trigger on a seemingly impossible December booster program and thanks to herculean work by medics and volunteers we just about got away with it.
That's not true, the story of vaccines is Patrick Vallance and Dom approaching the PM telling him to take vaccine procurement away from the DoH and specifically Hancock because they/he was liable to fuck it up. Boris personally contacted Dame Kate Bingham and convinced her to take on the role as head of a new vaccine procurement body which would answer directly to him and Patrick Vallance, not the DoH.
Hancock got the meme that he watched a movie and bought all the vaccines but it's not true. It was Kate Bingham and team who did the purchasing and she was put in place by Boris but advised by Dom and Patrick Vallance.
Appreciate the correction of the record. My point remains - it was not the PM who like a titan stood there and said "we will need vaccines, get on with it". So when he personally gets the credit I just giggle a little.
When assessing a record, you do need to give credit as well as blame. I remain grateful that government and PM made the right decisions on vaccines, even if they mucked up much else.
For those of us who are not habitual liars, this progression may seem like an inevitable one. Unfortunately someone like Johnson will have lived through many occasions where they managed to brush off the accusation, the non-apology worked, they shifted the blame, etc.
For all the "didn't he do well!" comments on BJ and vaccines / the boosters is there any evidence that he is this visionary leader of people who can cut through the noise and chaos and get straight to not only the solution but how we do so at record speed?
We know that Mancock was the cabinet minister banging the cabinet table for vaccines in the early days. So the vaccine programme as an idea can't be attributed to Boris, nor can the actual amazing work done in developing it. He *authorised* it. Having been badgered by his Health Secretary and the actual scientists. "Oh cripes, ok then" is more his style than "I HAVE A VISION" leadership.
Same with boosters. He pulled the trigger on a seemingly impossible December booster program and thanks to herculean work by medics and volunteers we just about got away with it.
That's not true, the story of vaccines is Patrick Vallance and Dom approaching the PM telling him to take vaccine procurement away from the DoH and specifically Hancock because they/he was liable to fuck it up. Boris personally contacted Dame Kate Bingham and convinced her to take on the role as head of a new vaccine procurement body which would answer directly to him and Patrick Vallance, not the DoH.
Hancock got the meme that he watched a movie and bought all the vaccines but it's not true. It was Kate Bingham and team who did the purchasing and she was put in place by Boris but advised by Dom and Patrick Vallance.
Appreciate the correction of the record. My point remains - it was not the PM who like a titan stood there and said "we will need vaccines, get on with it". So when he personally gets the credit I just giggle a little.
I think listening to the advice and getting the DoH out of the picture was a good move, he could have done nothing and let Hancock fuck it up and land us with not enough of the right vaccines or bought loads of vaccines that didn't stand and chance of being approved because of cheapness (CureVac) because that's what the DoH would probably have done. It contrasts with what Starmer would have done in the same place as well. There's simply no chance that the current Labour party would allow a pharmaceuticals VC expert near the national vaccine procurement programme, this, IMO is where the plaudits are deserved, though that's not specific to Boris, rather a difference in outlook from Labour (though probably not Blair).
I take full responsibility is just one of those meaningless phrases, where it sounds obvious that it's a good thing, but in actual fact it's often ridiculous.
No one should be taking full responsibility for anything that someone else does, there surely has to be at least some portion of blame that falls on the person who did the thing.
It's even more ludicrous when they try to explain in the same breath why it wasn't anything to do with them at all.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
The simple fact is that if the rate of exponential growth in infections that we saw in early- to mid-December had continued as it was, the health service and probably much of our other infrastructure would have collapsed around the New Year. And given the data, there was no reason to expect the growth rate would drop until well beyond that point.
Fortunately the growth rate did suddenly drop. I don't believe anyone understands why. And I don't think people like you predicted it would drop. I think you just repeated the mantra "Infections don't matter any more".
As it is, I always made it perfectly clear what assumptions I was making. People like you just said there shouldn't be any restrictions, and that everything would be fine, and that infections were meaningless, and so on and so forth.
And of course you're going to claim now that facts have proved you were right all along and everyone else was hysterical and unreasonable. But just because a 100-1 outsider comes in, that doesn't mean the reckless gambler who staked his life savings on it was right all along. Quite the opposite.
Surprised at the likes on this post.
Bart is right: you were insulting to those who disagreed with you. "Stupid", was your epithet of choice as I recall.
Now you are trying to rewrite history – again.
100-1 outsider. FFS, the South Africans had already told us that Milder was 1-3 odds-on favourite.
You ignored them. Others did not.
Yep. Chris has been proved consistently wrong on all his claims related to the threat of Covid over the past year or more and has never once been willing to admit he got it wrong. All he does is repeat the same old idiocy and then once he is shown to be wrong, lie about what he said.
What specifically was Chris wrong about?
HIs claims last September that the massive rise in cases would result in a similarly massive case in hospitalisations and deaths. A few weeks ago I went and found and reposted the quotes from then with him attacking everyone and claiming we were all stupid because we were suggesting there was an uncoupling of the case to hospitalisation ratios. Thankfully it wasn't just me and Robert Smithson also mentioned this. Lots of us had arguments with Chris about this and he has never at any time admitted he was wrong.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
Nonsense in that’s two very different things.
Roll out programme as with all things fighting covid has been a National effort. Your attempt to stamp any success with Tory moniker there is quite disgusting.
Of course its been a national effort, but who's running the nation? The buck stops at the top for good and bad.
Had the rollout been a disaster you wouldn't hesitate to blame the Tories for that now would you?
Virtually every other country on the planet has had fighting Covid as a national effort too but no other major nation has handled vaccines as well as the UK has. No other nation in Europe has been able to remove all restrictions before England.
And its only Tory-led England that avoided further restrictions in December too. NI, Wales and Scotland all handled that worse and felt the compulsion to impose new restrictions, which England didn't.
- “ Scotland… handled that worse”
Huh?
‘Nicola Sturgeon backed by majority of Scots over Christmas Covid rules in poll’ - Scots overwhelmingly back the stricter approach taken by Nicola Sturgeon in response to the Omicron variant, a new poll has found.
Are you HYUFD? Do opinion polls trump what is right and wrong in your eyes?
Restrictions are bad. That Sturgeon and the majority of Scots wrongly backed them as necessary, when they weren't, shows that Sturgeon and the majority of Scots were wrong.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
IF the west was united armed conflict wouldn't be necessary.
Divided, it isn't worth a single British life.
Is my view.
And you don't think that 3-4m refugees from the Ukraine is going to be a problem for us either? I am genuinely surprised how little attention this is getting whilst we wet ourselves about after work drinkies 2 years ago (and the rather more important matter of the PM lying about it). If Russia invades Europe will be in chaos and so will we. The economic consequences will be on a level with Covid, possibly even worse. We need to do what we can to discourage this disaster.
I’ll be a happy man if I can smuggle in one refugee from Ukraine
She speaks excellent English, can work as a teacher or translator.
It shows the complete absurdity of our immigration policy that we have many tens of thousands, probably low hundreds of thousands here that should have been sent home a decade or more ago and have no real connection with this country other than being here for that decade whilst people like your better half, playing by the rules and married to a Brit, find it so difficult.
Indeedy! It’s rather annoying when you are in a position that slips through the cracks in the system, in a situation that was seemingly not thought about by those who wrote the relevant legislation.
The eventual solution will likely involve her arriving on a visit visa, and unable to work for at least a year while the lawyers’ bills add up trying to get her leave to remain. Ironically, the most difficult bit will be proving my income.
Surely all those winnings on @Morris_Dancer's racing tips help?
Seriously, all the best. I am really sympathetic to the problem.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
Nonsense in that’s two very different things.
Roll out programme as with all things fighting covid has been a National effort. Your attempt to stamp any success with Tory moniker there is quite disgusting.
Of course its been a national effort, but who's running the nation? The buck stops at the top for good and bad.
Had the rollout been a disaster you wouldn't hesitate to blame the Tories for that now would you?
Virtually every other country on the planet has had fighting Covid as a national effort too but no other major nation has handled vaccines as well as the UK has. No other nation in Europe has been able to remove all restrictions before England.
And its only Tory-led England that avoided further restrictions in December too. NI, Wales and Scotland all handled that worse and felt the compulsion to impose new restrictions, which England didn't.
- “ Scotland… handled that worse”
Huh?
‘Nicola Sturgeon backed by majority of Scots over Christmas Covid rules in poll’ - Scots overwhelmingly back the stricter approach taken by Nicola Sturgeon in response to the Omicron variant, a new poll has found.
Are you HYUFD? Do opinion polls trump what is right and wrong in your eyes?
Restrictions are bad. That Sturgeon and the majority of Scots wrongly backed them as necessary, when they weren't, shows that Sturgeon and the majority of Scots were wrong.
"the majority of scots were wrong". Good, and they apparently think you are wrong. Which does make nippie's point for her that people north of the wall support what she is doing and want more of that and less of what you and Peppa are doing.
Its like the people making comments like Arden showing a "lack of leadership" because of her clear policies which people in her country agree with. I fundamentally disagree with America backing the rights of people who shoot small children in their classrooms over the right of the children not to be murdered, but as its not my country or my society what does it matter what I think?
Which is why I have long said that Scotland should be an independent country.
Yes Ardern and Sturgeon are bad leaders, but if they're who those nations wish to be led by, that should be their choice not mine.
So your "the majority of Scots are wrong" comment is absurd. They might be from your perspective. But your perspective doesn't matter in this case as it doesn't for NZ. People get what they vote for, and Sturgeon just won a 4th election on the bounce on a record turnout and a record vote for her party. She absolutely does have the democratic mandate and the polls show a much wider support for her actions than just those SNP voters.
That my perspective doesn't matter does not make it absurd.
If the majority of Americans elect Donald J Trump as the 47th* President of the United States of America in 2024 then I would say they were wrong to do so. As would almost everyone on this site.
That I think they're wrong doesn't give me a vote, but my not having a vote doesn't lessen my right to have an opinion.
* Following the precedent of Grover Cleveland who was 22nd and 24th.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
UK will send weapons, drones and probably a few “diplomats” from Hereford to help out. As will most of the West, including the US once Mr President has woken up from his afternoon nap.
The RAF MQ-9A fleet is in Mosul and Kuwait, though with American mercenaries, sorry contractors, doing the launch and recovery element. They can't transit controlled airspace and couldn't be deconflicted even if they could get to Ukraine.
This isn't some Call of Duty DLC with really good textures we're talking about. It's a real shooting war with fucking Russia. I can't believe how naive and blasé people are about involving British forces.
Agreed, though of course there are already UK forces in Ukraine - albeit in limited numbers, and for training purposes only.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
The simple fact is that if the rate of exponential growth in infections that we saw in early- to mid-December had continued as it was, the health service and probably much of our other infrastructure would have collapsed around the New Year. And given the data, there was no reason to expect the growth rate would drop until well beyond that point.
Fortunately the growth rate did suddenly drop. I don't believe anyone understands why. And I don't think people like you predicted it would drop. I think you just repeated the mantra "Infections don't matter any more".
As it is, I always made it perfectly clear what assumptions I was making. People like you just said there shouldn't be any restrictions, and that everything would be fine, and that infections were meaningless, and so on and so forth.
And of course you're going to claim now that facts have proved you were right all along and everyone else was hysterical and unreasonable. But just because a 100-1 outsider comes in, that doesn't mean the reckless gambler who staked his life savings on it was right all along. Quite the opposite.
Surprised at the likes on this post.
Bart is right: you were insulting to those who disagreed with you. "Stupid", was your epithet of choice as I recall.
Now you are trying to rewrite history – again.
100-1 outsider. FFS, the South Africans had already told us that Milder was 1-3 odds-on favourite.
You ignored them. Others did not.
Yep. Chris has been proved consistently wrong on all his claims related to the threat of Covid over the past year or more and has never once been willing to admit he got it wrong. All he does is repeat the same old idiocy and then once he is shown to be wrong, lie about what he said.
What specifically was Chris wrong about?
He said there would be 800k cases/day. There weren't, as far as I am aware.
I questioned this point before. I understand his prediction was 800,000 infections per day. And I wasn't able to work out how many there actually were. I can see from Zoe that total infections peaked a couple of weeks ago at about 2.8 million, but I don't see any day-by-day new cases data. So I'm unclear how good a prediction that was.
I am not entirely sure I know the difference between infections and cases because if we know about the former don't they automatically become the latter?
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
Thousands of body bags arriving at RAF Lyneham. (Which is in Wiltshire. Which is in England. Quick geography lesson for mendacious BritNat Nige.)
You are a very very sick bastard. If there were any proof needed that many Scots Nats are nasty and unpleasant wankers then your posts like this (and particularly the previous one on this subject where you seemed to think this could be a topic of amusement) certainly provide it.
I could not agree more
He is not representative of the Scottish people, just bigoted and anti English
Nonsense.
I’m an Anglophile. Very pro-England and her people.
What I’m opposed to is British Nationalism, which is rampant on these threads. Shame on you Big G for joining in their chorus.
Rubbish. I have never once seen you say anything that was not highly critical of the English. And usually in the most crass and ignorant manner as well.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
The EU is suffering from Germany procrastination and the fact it does not have a coordinated defence mechanism
Furthermore, now more than ever it is missing the UK with the UK leading with the US in providing military and technical help and NATO increasing ships and aircraft into Eastern Europe
The Ukraine ambassador to the UK was extremely bitter towards Germany on yesterday's media
Germany was neutered by the 4 occupying powers (Soviet empire, British empire, French empire and American empire).
You cannot neuter a political entity and then complain when it cannot act in an aggressive fashion.
(Well, Tories can. Obviously. Maybe you’re a “Real” Tory after all Big G.)
Germany had no problem supplying military equipment and training to... Russia.
After Russia had invaded and annexed part of Ukraine. And was continuing to fight a war there.
Germany's policy is up to Germany, its none of our business. If they have become Russia-ambivalent or Russia apologist, that's up to them.
What we should here in Britain should do is stop pretending the West is what it was and that Germany is a reliable ally, when it may not be. We have to adjust our policy approach. Very regrettable in the circumstances, but perhaps necessary.
So very transparent.
Nationalism among Tories is spiralling out of control. It will end in tears.
Never mind, the big boys will clean up the toddlers’ mess.
What will end in tears is Russian appeasement. Which you seem to champion.
In your case I guess its 'my enemy's enemy is my friend'. I guess Sturgeon & Co take their allies as they come. Despots? Appeasers? no problem. Key common denominator - anti English.
Less of the straw men. I haven’t uttered a single sentence about the Russia-Ukraine conflict. If I did it would only be on a forum populated by reasonable adults, so PB isn’t an option.
A fascinating insight nevertheless into the distorted mental world occupied by Tories. (Or at least the stereotypical ones who are most vocal around here.)
For all the "didn't he do well!" comments on BJ and vaccines / the boosters is there any evidence that he is this visionary leader of people who can cut through the noise and chaos and get straight to not only the solution but how we do so at record speed?
We know that Mancock was the cabinet minister banging the cabinet table for vaccines in the early days. So the vaccine programme as an idea can't be attributed to Boris, nor can the actual amazing work done in developing it. He *authorised* it. Having been badgered by his Health Secretary and the actual scientists. "Oh cripes, ok then" is more his style than "I HAVE A VISION" leadership.
Same with boosters. He pulled the trigger on a seemingly impossible December booster program and thanks to herculean work by medics and volunteers we just about got away with it.
That's not true, the story of vaccines is Patrick Vallance and Dom approaching the PM telling him to take vaccine procurement away from the DoH and specifically Hancock because they/he was liable to fuck it up. Boris personally contacted Dame Kate Bingham and convinced her to take on the role as head of a new vaccine procurement body which would answer directly to him and Patrick Vallance, not the DoH.
Hancock got the meme that he watched a movie and bought all the vaccines but it's not true. It was Kate Bingham and team who did the purchasing and she was put in place by Boris but advised by Dom and Patrick Vallance.
Appreciate the correction of the record. My point remains - it was not the PM who like a titan stood there and said "we will need vaccines, get on with it". So when he personally gets the credit I just giggle a little.
When assessing a record, you do need to give credit as well as blame. I remain grateful that government and PM made the right decisions on vaccines, even if they mucked up much else.
Doesn't alter the fact that Boris has to go.
When considering praise and blame, I think it was Field Marshall Foch, who when asked if he was responsible for the victory on the Marne that pushed the Germans back in 1914, thought for a bit and then replied - he wasn't sure, but that he was quite certain that he would have been blamed for a defeat.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
Nonsense in that’s two very different things.
Roll out programme as with all things fighting covid has been a National effort. Your attempt to stamp any success with Tory moniker there is quite disgusting.
Of course its been a national effort, but who's running the nation? The buck stops at the top for good and bad.
Had the rollout been a disaster you wouldn't hesitate to blame the Tories for that now would you?
Virtually every other country on the planet has had fighting Covid as a national effort too but no other major nation has handled vaccines as well as the UK has. No other nation in Europe has been able to remove all restrictions before England.
And its only Tory-led England that avoided further restrictions in December too. NI, Wales and Scotland all handled that worse and felt the compulsion to impose new restrictions, which England didn't.
- “ Scotland… handled that worse”
Huh?
‘Nicola Sturgeon backed by majority of Scots over Christmas Covid rules in poll’ - Scots overwhelmingly back the stricter approach taken by Nicola Sturgeon in response to the Omicron variant, a new poll has found.
Are you HYUFD? Do opinion polls trump what is right and wrong in your eyes?
Restrictions are bad. That Sturgeon and the majority of Scots wrongly backed them as necessary, when they weren't, shows that Sturgeon and the majority of Scots were wrong.
"the majority of scots were wrong". Good, and they apparently think you are wrong. Which does make nippie's point for her that people north of the wall support what she is doing and want more of that and less of what you and Peppa are doing.
Its like the people making comments like Arden showing a "lack of leadership" because of her clear policies which people in her country agree with. I fundamentally disagree with America backing the rights of people who shoot small children in their classrooms over the right of the children not to be murdered, but as its not my country or my society what does it matter what I think?
Which is why I have long said that Scotland should be an independent country.
Yes Ardern and Sturgeon are bad leaders, but if they're who those nations wish to be led by, that should be their choice not mine.
So your "the majority of Scots are wrong" comment is absurd. They might be from your perspective. But your perspective doesn't matter in this case as it doesn't for NZ. People get what they vote for, and Sturgeon just won a 4th election on the bounce on a record turnout and a record vote for her party. She absolutely does have the democratic mandate and the polls show a much wider support for her actions than just those SNP voters.
Blair got a stonking majority and then took us to war in Iraq. Mandate != Correct.
SNP support is slightly cultish at times; people seen to drop their general suspicion of politicians, and this can lead to stuff like the Salmond mess - "indyref(2) is too important to worry about stuff like that".
Beware the zeal of the convert (Though you did move to a Tory part of Scotland, which should help).
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
IF the west was united armed conflict wouldn't be necessary.
Divided, it isn't worth a single British life.
Is my view.
And you don't think that 3-4m refugees from the Ukraine is going to be a problem for us either? I am genuinely surprised how little attention this is getting whilst we wet ourselves about after work drinkies 2 years ago (and the rather more important matter of the PM lying about it). If Russia invades Europe will be in chaos and so will we. The economic consequences will be on a level with Covid, possibly even worse. We need to do what we can to discourage this disaster.
I’ll be a happy man if I can smuggle in one refugee from Ukraine
She speaks excellent English, can work as a teacher or translator.
It shows the complete absurdity of our immigration policy that we have many tens of thousands, probably low hundreds of thousands here that should have been sent home a decade or more ago and have no real connection with this country other than being here for that decade whilst people like your better half, playing by the rules and married to a Brit, find it so difficult.
Indeedy! It’s rather annoying when you are in a position that slips through the cracks in the system, in a situation that was seemingly not thought about by those who wrote the relevant legislation.
The eventual solution will likely involve her arriving on a visit visa, and unable to work for at least a year while the lawyers’ bills add up trying to get her leave to remain.
What is the issue? Your working in a sandpit meaning you can't meet the financial requirement, or something else?
Have a foreign wife so aware of the extremely painful experience that is dealing with byzantine immigration rules...
(If she's married to a Brit it's very unlikely she'll get a visit visa imo)
Yeah, it’s a pain in the arse. We met and married out here in Dubai, so she’s never lived in the UK. She’s had a couple of visit visas before, for holidays etc.
Right now, we are happy where we are, but you never know what the future brings when you are on a temporary work visa, as we all are out here. Yes, the difficult bit is proving that she won’t be a burden on the state, because I don’t have any employment records in the UK for more than a decade. It’s doable, but will take a lot of time and money when the time comes. I’ll probably need to come back with a job offer well into the 40% tax rate, and a pile or two of cash savings.
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
Why must we credit Johnson with the Boosters? Did he invent them? If I ever see him in a white labcoat he's more likely to be handing out IceCream (a la Mr Whippy), or in a hard hat as well polishing a JCB.
For the same reason we must blame him for the parties. The buck stops there.
His government bought the vaccines and rolled them out, faster than any other major country on the planet. If you don't think that's worthy of credit, presumably you also don't think parties are worthy of blame?
What's sauce for the goose ...
Nonsense in that’s two very different things.
Roll out programme as with all things fighting covid has been a National effort. Your attempt to stamp any success with Tory moniker there is quite disgusting.
Of course its been a national effort, but who's running the nation? The buck stops at the top for good and bad.
Had the rollout been a disaster you wouldn't hesitate to blame the Tories for that now would you?
Virtually every other country on the planet has had fighting Covid as a national effort too but no other major nation has handled vaccines as well as the UK has. No other nation in Europe has been able to remove all restrictions before England.
And its only Tory-led England that avoided further restrictions in December too. NI, Wales and Scotland all handled that worse and felt the compulsion to impose new restrictions, which England didn't.
- “ Scotland… handled that worse”
Huh?
‘Nicola Sturgeon backed by majority of Scots over Christmas Covid rules in poll’ - Scots overwhelmingly back the stricter approach taken by Nicola Sturgeon in response to the Omicron variant, a new poll has found.
Are you HYUFD? Do opinion polls trump what is right and wrong in your eyes?
Restrictions are bad. That Sturgeon and the majority of Scots wrongly backed them as necessary, when they weren't, shows that Sturgeon and the majority of Scots were wrong.
Sturgeon governs in the interest of Scots, not to please random unqualified Tories with wild epidemiology theories on an obscure blog.
"Sturgeon governs in the interest of Scots". Hmm. Maybe. Particularly if you conflate interests of Scots with interests of SNP.
I think what she has done is very astutely understand that Scots like the idea of themselves being more prudent and cautious than those that live to the south. She has therefore sought to differentiate the ScotGov approach by always appearing to be more cautious than the UK, while in practice shadowing it. It's a sensible political approach as there is no real downside, but has little to do with the actualite of the pandemic, and certainly takes no account of the economic consequences, something which, in any event, is of little interest to the Scottish Government.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
Thousands of body bags arriving at RAF Lyneham. (Which is in Wiltshire. Which is in England. Quick geography lesson for mendacious BritNat Nige.)
You are a very very sick bastard. If there were any proof needed that many Scots Nats are nasty and unpleasant wankers then your posts like this (and particularly the previous one on this subject where you seemed to think this could be a topic of amusement) certainly provide it.
I could not agree more
He is not representative of the Scottish people, just bigoted and anti English
Nonsense.
I’m an Anglophile. Very pro-England and her people.
What I’m opposed to is British Nationalism, which is rampant on these threads. Shame on you Big G for joining in their chorus.
I do not accept your observations and you do post some extraordinarily bitter posts that do not reflect the generosity of the Scots
Imagine if Boris had done the decent thing and resigned which, as his defenestration is inevitable, would have been the sensible thing to have done. The view that he was a consequential PM who had taken the fall over something relatively trivial would have become a pretty general view and led rapidly to his reputational rehabilitation and an enjoyable, credible and lucrative post-PM career. Instead of which...
Do you think Brand Boris has been irredeemably trashed? I think so but recognise I'm a somewhat partial observer.
I don't think it has, a couple of years from now he'll be writing columns in the Telegraph again and collecting tens of thousands per speaking engagement.
Quite reasonably too. Heck even Theresa May gets such from speaking engagements.
Boris has been a successful PM but he's burnt too many bridges and became too arrogant. The hubristic attempt to save Patterson combined with not following own rules over drinking is the end of him.
But when all is said and done and once the heat and fire have gone out of this, he'll have a successful record. All careers end in failure, but his is over what should have been trivial stuff badly handled instead of getting the big calls on political issues like Brexit or vaccines wrong.
Sorry but to borrow cycleefree's theme 'All the perfumes in Arabia will not sweeten his sticky little hand' He's been a disaster. The worst PM in recent memory (Chinese use of 'recent'). The only comfort is when he's gone we'll be able to have a serious appraisil of his 'Covid success'
Only the Moaning Myrtle's who abhor Brexit and all it stands for are banging on about how he's been a disaster.
Being objective, there's no reason to say that. First country in the world to roll out vaccines. First major country in the world to vaccinate all the vulnerable, then all the population (who wanted it). First major country in the world to roll out boosters. First country in Europe to lift all Covid restrictions.
If he'd only made the trains run on time he'd have a full house.
Considering you were hysterically screaming in December about what an imminent disaster we were doomed to without restrictions due to the exponential growth and that those of us who disagreed were just too stupid to realise how catastrophic it all was . . . surely you must credit the boosters and Boris with being able to avert the catastrophe you were warning us about?
Or would you rather just scream fire in a crowded theatre and then when there's no fire just pretend you always knew all was fine.
The only conclusion I draw from that little outburst is that you're hysterically unable to read - or understand - or remember. Not sure which.
But if you really feel that's the only way you can defend the prime minister, you'd better carry on with it.
I've called repeatedly for months now for Boris to go. So not defending him.
But you're the one claiming there was a looming catastrophe were you not? You were extremely rude to me and others claiming we didn't understand exponential growth, simply because we disagreed with you.
The simple fact is that if the rate of exponential growth in infections that we saw in early- to mid-December had continued as it was, the health service and probably much of our other infrastructure would have collapsed around the New Year. And given the data, there was no reason to expect the growth rate would drop until well beyond that point.
Fortunately the growth rate did suddenly drop. I don't believe anyone understands why. And I don't think people like you predicted it would drop. I think you just repeated the mantra "Infections don't matter any more".
As it is, I always made it perfectly clear what assumptions I was making. People like you just said there shouldn't be any restrictions, and that everything would be fine, and that infections were meaningless, and so on and so forth.
And of course you're going to claim now that facts have proved you were right all along and everyone else was hysterical and unreasonable. But just because a 100-1 outsider comes in, that doesn't mean the reckless gambler who staked his life savings on it was right all along. Quite the opposite.
Surprised at the likes on this post.
Bart is right: you were insulting to those who disagreed with you. "Stupid", was your epithet of choice as I recall.
Now you are trying to rewrite history – again.
100-1 outsider. FFS, the South Africans had already told us that Milder was 1-3 odds-on favourite.
You ignored them. Others did not.
Yep. Chris has been proved consistently wrong on all his claims related to the threat of Covid over the past year or more and has never once been willing to admit he got it wrong. All he does is repeat the same old idiocy and then once he is shown to be wrong, lie about what he said.
What specifically was Chris wrong about?
He said there would be 800k cases/day. There weren't, as far as I am aware.
I questioned this point before. I understand his prediction was 800,000 infections per day. And I wasn't able to work out how many there actually were. I can see from Zoe that total infections peaked a couple of weeks ago at about 2.8 million, but I don't see any day-by-day new cases data. So I'm unclear how good a prediction that was.
I am not entirely sure I know the difference between infections and cases because if we know about the former don't they automatically become the latter?
But whichever it was he was wrong.
AIUI, infections are people who actually have the disease, and cases are where it's officially diagnoses, that is a positive test. So if I catch Covid, I'm 1 infection. But only if I go get tested do I become a case. Not super-confident about this, so happy to take corrections if I have this wrong.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
Thousands of body bags arriving at RAF Lyneham. (Which is in Wiltshire. Which is in England. Quick geography lesson for mendacious BritNat Nige.)
You are a very very sick bastard. If there were any proof needed that many Scots Nats are nasty and unpleasant wankers then your posts like this (and particularly the previous one on this subject where you seemed to think this could be a topic of amusement) certainly provide it.
I could not agree more
He is not representative of the Scottish people, just bigoted and anti English
Nonsense.
I’m an Anglophile. Very pro-England and her people.
What I’m opposed to is British Nationalism, which is rampant on these threads. Shame on you Big G for joining in their chorus.
Rubbish. I have never once seen you say anything that was not highly critical of the English. And usually in the most crass and ignorant manner as well.
I’ve posted many paeans of praise to England. Don’t blame me if you’ve missed them in the ridiculously long threads around here.
Please stop spreading malicious lies about fellow posters.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
UK will send weapons, drones and probably a few “diplomats” from Hereford to help out. As will most of the West, including the US once Mr President has woken up from his afternoon nap.
The RAF MQ-9A fleet is in Mosul and Kuwait, though with American mercenaries, sorry contractors, doing the launch and recovery element. They can't transit controlled airspace and couldn't be deconflicted even if they could get to Ukraine.
This isn't some Call of Duty DLC with really good textures we're talking about. It's a real shooting war with fucking Russia. I can't believe how naive and blasé people are about involving British forces.
Agreed, though of course there are already UK forces in Ukraine - albeit in limited numbers, and for training purposes only.
In which particular area are the Ukrainian military training them?
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
Thousands of body bags arriving at RAF Lyneham. (Which is in Wiltshire. Which is in England. Quick geography lesson for mendacious BritNat Nige.)
You are a very very sick bastard. If there were any proof needed that many Scots Nats are nasty and unpleasant wankers then your posts like this (and particularly the previous one on this subject where you seemed to think this could be a topic of amusement) certainly provide it.
I could not agree more
He is not representative of the Scottish people, just bigoted and anti English
Nonsense.
I’m an Anglophile. Very pro-England and her people.
What I’m opposed to is British Nationalism, which is rampant on these threads. Shame on you Big G for joining in their chorus.
Rubbish. I have never once seen you say anything that was not highly critical of the English. And usually in the most crass and ignorant manner as well.
It is slightly Jews/Israel, the kind of conflation that got Corbyn into a mess.
The greatest achievement of the SNP is cementing a distinction between "Westminster" and "the English".
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
Thousands of body bags arriving at RAF Lyneham. (Which is in Wiltshire. Which is in England. Quick geography lesson for mendacious BritNat Nige.)
You are a very very sick bastard. If there were any proof needed that many Scots Nats are nasty and unpleasant wankers then your posts like this (and particularly the previous one on this subject where you seemed to think this could be a topic of amusement) certainly provide it.
I could not agree more
He is not representative of the Scottish people, just bigoted and anti English
Nonsense.
I’m an Anglophile. Very pro-England and her people.
What I’m opposed to is British Nationalism, which is rampant on these threads. Shame on you Big G for joining in their chorus.
Rubbish. I have never once seen you say anything that was not highly critical of the English. And usually in the most crass and ignorant manner as well.
I’ve posted many paeans of praise to England. Don’t blame me if you’ve missed them in the ridiculously long threads around here.
Please stop spreading malicious lies about fellow posters.
Sure you have. In a generic "many of my friends are [black/Muslim/English]" kind of way.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
UK will send weapons, drones and probably a few “diplomats” from Hereford to help out. As will most of the West, including the US once Mr President has woken up from his afternoon nap.
The RAF MQ-9A fleet is in Mosul and Kuwait, though with American mercenaries, sorry contractors, doing the launch and recovery element. They can't transit controlled airspace and couldn't be deconflicted even if they could get to Ukraine.
This isn't some Call of Duty DLC with really good textures we're talking about. It's a real shooting war with fucking Russia. I can't believe how naive and blasé people are about involving British forces.
Agreed, though of course there are already UK forces in Ukraine - albeit in limited numbers, and for training purposes only.
Is there anyone here arguing for committing British forces to fight in Ukraine?
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
As if they had a choice. They mostly rely on other powers to underwrite any military deterrent. Including powers that, in Britain, they have a rocky relationship with and despise.
Its nuts.
So what do the hawks on this propose? Sending our troops and planes to defend the Ukraine steppe? If so what happens if there is direct and fatal conflict with the Russian Army?
UK will send weapons, drones and probably a few “diplomats” from Hereford to help out. As will most of the West, including the US once Mr President has woken up from his afternoon nap.
The RAF MQ-9A fleet is in Mosul and Kuwait, though with American mercenaries, sorry contractors, doing the launch and recovery element. They can't transit controlled airspace and couldn't be deconflicted even if they could get to Ukraine.
This isn't some Call of Duty DLC with really good textures we're talking about. It's a real shooting war with fucking Russia. I can't believe how naive and blasé people are about involving British forces.
Agreed, though of course there are already UK forces in Ukraine - albeit in limited numbers, and for training purposes only.
Is there anyone here arguing for committing British forces to fight in Ukraine?
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
The EU is suffering from Germany procrastination and the fact it does not have a coordinated defence mechanism
Furthermore, now more than ever it is missing the UK with the UK leading with the US in providing military and technical help and NATO increasing ships and aircraft into Eastern Europe
The Ukraine ambassador to the UK was extremely bitter towards Germany on yesterday's media
Germany was neutered by the 4 occupying powers (Soviet empire, British empire, French empire and American empire).
You cannot neuter a political entity and then complain when it cannot act in an aggressive fashion.
(Well, Tories can. Obviously. Maybe you’re a “Real” Tory after all Big G.)
Germany had no problem supplying military equipment and training to... Russia.
After Russia had invaded and annexed part of Ukraine. And was continuing to fight a war there.
Germany's policy is up to Germany, its none of our business. If they have become Russia-ambivalent or Russia apologist, that's up to them.
What we should here in Britain should do is stop pretending the West is what it was and that Germany is a reliable ally, when it may not be. We have to adjust our policy approach. Very regrettable in the circumstances, but perhaps necessary.
So very transparent.
Nationalism among Tories is spiralling out of control. It will end in tears.
Never mind, the big boys will clean up the toddlers’ mess.
What will end in tears is Russian appeasement. Which you seem to champion.
In your case I guess its 'my enemy's enemy is my friend'. I guess Sturgeon & Co take their allies as they come. Despots? Appeasers? no problem. Key common denominator - anti English.
Less of the straw men. I haven’t uttered a single sentence about the Russia-Ukraine conflict. If I did it would only be on a forum populated by reasonable adults, so PB isn’t an option.
A fascinating insight nevertheless into the distorted mental world occupied by Tories. (Or at least the stereotypical ones who are most vocal around here.)
I only wish co-ordinated action by the international community were the solution. I only wish Putin could be constrained by a determined and united response from a big group of democratic states. We used to be able to rely on such a response to contain Russia in all its political forms.
We can't ignore evidence that the response is no longer either determined or united, however.
EU foreign ministers are planning to condemn "Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine", while calling for de-escalation at Monday's (24 January) meeting in Brussels.
Can anybody understand or explain the EU's foreign policy approach on is eastern borders? It seems to lack all coherence.
Is the EU hopelessly split or hopelessly united? The spin changes so often one becomes dizzy.
They’re hopelessly split, trying hard to spin being united against Russia, while standing back and letting Putin roll the tanks towards Kiev.
So, the United States of Europe was another Leave lie?
Nope that was and still is the aim. The fact that they are fighting like rats in a sack over their own vested interests doesn't change the ultimate aim of the EU.
Only amongst a minority of EU zealots . It was a card that was well played by Leave, but no-one in Europe really believes in it. They might say it, but there will never be a majority in France particularly, but any other nation in the 27 for that matter, to be subsumed by an EU super state. It is never going to happen.
It has been inevitable since the introduction of the Euro.
Indeed, fiscal policy, monetary policy and interest rates. Everything else except war is local government.
For all the "didn't he do well!" comments on BJ and vaccines / the boosters is there any evidence that he is this visionary leader of people who can cut through the noise and chaos and get straight to not only the solution but how we do so at record speed?
We know that Mancock was the cabinet minister banging the cabinet table for vaccines in the early days. So the vaccine programme as an idea can't be attributed to Boris, nor can the actual amazing work done in developing it. He *authorised* it. Having been badgered by his Health Secretary and the actual scientists. "Oh cripes, ok then" is more his style than "I HAVE A VISION" leadership.
Same with boosters. He pulled the trigger on a seemingly impossible December booster program and thanks to herculean work by medics and volunteers we just about got away with it.
That's not true, the story of vaccines is Patrick Vallance and Dom approaching the PM telling him to take vaccine procurement away from the DoH and specifically Hancock because they/he was liable to fuck it up. Boris personally contacted Dame Kate Bingham and convinced her to take on the role as head of a new vaccine procurement body which would answer directly to him and Patrick Vallance, not the DoH.
Hancock got the meme that he watched a movie and bought all the vaccines but it's not true. It was Kate Bingham and team who did the purchasing and she was put in place by Boris but advised by Dom and Patrick Vallance.
Appreciate the correction of the record. My point remains - it was not the PM who like a titan stood there and said "we will need vaccines, get on with it". So when he personally gets the credit I just giggle a little.
I think listening to the advice and getting the DoH out of the picture was a good move, he could have done nothing and let Hancock fuck it up and land us with not enough of the right vaccines or bought loads of vaccines that didn't stand and chance of being approved because of cheapness (CureVac) because that's what the DoH would probably have done. It contrasts with what Starmer would have done in the same place as well. There's simply no chance that the current Labour party would allow a pharmaceuticals VC expert near the national vaccine procurement programme, this, IMO is where the plaudits are deserved, though that's not specific to Boris, rather a difference in outlook from Labour (though probably not Blair).
I'm not entirely sure a Labour government (I exclude Corbyn) wouldn't have ended up doing much the same, given that the expertise was in the private sector, and there was no real capacity for such accelerated programs in the public sector. No way of really knowing.
Comments
Where’s yer new Mosley?
Oh.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/08/24/brexit-leader-to-join-trump-on-stage?source=facebook&via=desktop
England has done very well imo and if you are saying that Boris and only Boris could have brought us to where we are now then I would take issue although the discussion would of course be moot.
Divided, it isn't worth a single British life.
Is my view.
(Outstanding post by the way.)
If it were to become a prosperous democracy that would be seriously bad for Putin's regime. Russians might ask why they couldn't be, too.
Bart is right: you were insulting to those who disagreed with you. "Stupid", was your epithet of choice as I recall.
Now you are trying to rewrite history – again.
100-1 outsider. FFS, the South Africans had already told us that Milder was 1-3 odds-on favourite.
You ignored them. Others did not.
'[Dominic Cummings] concluded his post ominously: "Other damaging stories will come out until he is gone. It's clear talking to people in No10 and 70 Whitehall that many officials are desperate to shove the kunlangeta off the ice this week."
https://news.sky.com/story/politics-latest-live-news-uk-boris-johnson-sue-gray-report-parties-nusrat-ghani-12514080
If it gets to the point of British troops being on the ground, then that fact is going be the least of our problems.
It is always good to evaluate what’s being said, not just who’s saying it.
Which is a shame because had he articulated it there would have been a discussion.
He did articulate his 800k case/day forecast but again was reluctant to put his money where his mouth was. Particularly strange because if we are all stupid then he must be clever and any prediction made would have been very well thought through. Perhaps an odds on chance.
After Russia had invaded and annexed part of Ukraine. And was continuing to fight a war there.
Right now I'm happy to be living in rural Gloucestershire where cases are low and it's easy to semi self-isolate, as I do most of the time. But your question is just another way of asking which countries performed best? We won't know the answer to all that until all the papers are in. Places like NZ, Singapore, Vietnam seem likely to get a pass mark; the USA definitely not; the UK, possibly, possibly not.
Its like the people making comments like Arden showing a "lack of leadership" because of her clear policies which people in her country agree with. I fundamentally disagree with America backing the rights of people who shoot small children in their classrooms over the right of the children not to be murdered, but as its not my country or my society what does it matter what I think?
She speaks excellent English, is qualified as a teacher or could work as a translator.
I’m in the “sack”. We quite like each other in here. I’d trust a German Social Democrat before an English Tory any day of the week.
Yes Ardern and Sturgeon are bad leaders, but if they're who those nations wish to be led by, that should be their choice not mine.
But "best" can be everyone locked down going nowhere no chance of catching the virus; or it can mean everything open you takes your chances having been or not been vaccinated.
Hence when people say this or that country did better it is meaningless without knowing what they value.
And will "the papers" contain the lack of procedures done during the pandemic, the effects on mental health, education, etc?
What we should here in Britain should do is stop pretending the West is what it was and that Germany is a reliable ally, when it may not be. We have to adjust our policy approach. Very regrettable in the circumstances, but perhaps necessary.
Hancock got the meme that he watched a movie and bought all the vaccines but it's not true. It was Kate Bingham and team who did the purchasing and she was put in place by Boris but advised by Dom and Patrick Vallance.
He is, without doubt, on every empirical measure the worst PM of my lifetime and he is about to be booted out for very good reasons.
Oh and he was a puppet on Brexit. The real mastermind was Dominic Cummings.
As for 2019, he won because Labour had the most unelectable leader of a lifetime.
So when they come screaming about a Swift system cut-off or the Nord Stream II pipeline having a bad day, just tell that that "that's business".
I watched the new Netflix film about the Munich agreement last night. Just 20 years after the end of a crushing war the fear of war rises again - its barely conceivable to my generation never mind my kids'.
What do I think we should do about Russia refounding the Soviet Union by force? Nothing militarily. Despite 30 years of post-cold war stability both sides retain the ability to reduce each other to pockets of Mad Max surrounded by oceans of molten glass.
Unlike in the late 30s we don't face down a despot intent on conquering western Europe and committing genocide. And should Putin decide to turn into one we have the ultimate deterrent to make him stop and think. We aren't going to get involved and Putin knows it. If they were about to invade France then maybe. But they're not.
He is not representative of the Scottish people, just bigoted and anti English
May I just add that my evaluation of Covid strategies was colored heavily by my recent experiences on returning from South Africa. They rather emphasised that if you are going to lock down, you have to do it thoroughly and enforce and carry the population with you. We achieved something like that in the original lockdown for a while and it was worth it.
Half measures are useless, possibly worse than that; they may do more harm than good. In the current circumstances I would suggest the government would do best by advising what is recommended and what is not and then leaving it to our own good sense (if we have any!) to moderate our behaviour accordingly.
This is kind of what we are now, even if not explicitly stated.
Stock markets taking a battering too.
Lots of doom and gloom mongers about too.
It feels like it’s all going to crap at the moment.
The presence of UK and US troops on the ground or planes in the air in the Ukraine would, in my view, make war considerably less likely. It's not without risk, I fully accept that. But if we can find a credible group of like minded nations that seems to me the best move in a very tricky situation.
Not our problem is not a useful response.
Nationalism among Tories is spiralling out of control. It will end in tears.
Never mind, the big boys will clean up the toddlers’ mess.
And We should ask German travellers for visas to the UK travel. Hilarious.
I guess they are the SNPs ferries, at least
But your last sentence is the key. We are in a position now, in England (I keep typing "UK" then having to go back and change it), which as you note, is "best". I agree.
This isn't some Call of Duty DLC with really good textures we're talking about. It's a real shooting war with fucking Russia. I can't believe how naive and blasé people are about involving British forces.
The eventual solution will likely involve her arriving on a visit visa, and unable to work for at least a year while the lawyers’ bills add up trying to get her leave to remain. Ironically, the most difficult bit will be proving my income.
The findings being public is a reemphasis of that, since leaking partial findings would be most improper and misleading.
What is bizarre is people chopping and changing their priorities to suit their agenda.
I've put down my priorities consistently, post-vaccines and have criticised the government when they imposed Plan B and last Spring for not lifting restrictions sooner. Pre-vaccines I viewed things differently.
The hope is that our political system aligns political popularity with the long term needs of the country, but it often doesn't on stuff like HS2 and perhaps Covid-19.
The Sturgeon bubble *could* pop quite suddenly, like Clegg, Salmond etc, but it's more likely that she has developed a sort of aura, like Merkel, and is basically invincible.
I’m an Anglophile. Very pro-England and her people.
What I’m opposed to is British Nationalism, which is rampant on these threads. Shame on you Big G for joining in their chorus.
I take full responsibility is just one of those meaningless phrases, where it sounds obvious that it's a good thing, but in actual fact it's often ridiculous.
No one should be taking full responsibility for anything that someone else does, there surely has to be at least some portion of blame that falls on the person who did the thing.
And I wasn't able to work out how many there actually were. I can see from Zoe that total infections peaked a couple of weeks ago at about 2.8 million, but I don't see any day-by-day new cases data. So I'm unclear how good a prediction that was.
In your case I guess its 'my enemy's enemy is my friend'. I guess Sturgeon & Co take their allies as they come. Despots? Appeasers? no problem. Key common denominator - anti English.
Send more troops in? You must be joking.
Although interestingly perhaps that reaction is what plenty of Americans have thought throughout the ages when her troops have been sent to fight in far off lands with no real threat to their homeland.
Have a foreign wife so aware of the extremely painful experience that is dealing with byzantine immigration rules...
(If she's married to a Brit it's very unlikely she'll get a visit visa imo)
I remain grateful that government and PM made the right decisions on vaccines, even if they mucked up much else.
Doesn't alter the fact that Boris has to go.
For those of us who are not habitual liars, this progression may seem like an inevitable one. Unfortunately someone like Johnson will have lived through many occasions where they managed to brush off the accusation, the non-apology worked, they shifted the blame, etc.
I can see Johnson lasting at least another 6-11 months.
Seriously, all the best. I am really sympathetic to the problem.
If the majority of Americans elect Donald J Trump as the 47th* President of the United States of America in 2024 then I would say they were wrong to do so. As would almost everyone on this site.
That I think they're wrong doesn't give me a vote, but my not having a vote doesn't lessen my right to have an opinion.
* Following the precedent of Grover Cleveland who was 22nd and 24th.
But whichever it was he was wrong.
A fascinating insight nevertheless into the distorted mental world occupied by Tories. (Or at least the stereotypical ones who are most vocal around here.)
Signed A Johnson, aged 12.
Agree on the first point, less confident about the second.
SNP support is slightly cultish at times; people seen to drop their general suspicion of politicians, and this can lead to stuff like the Salmond mess - "indyref(2) is too important to worry about stuff like that".
Beware the zeal of the convert
Right now, we are happy where we are, but you never know what the future brings when you are on a temporary work visa, as we all are out here. Yes, the difficult bit is proving that she won’t be a burden on the state, because I don’t have any employment records in the UK for more than a decade. It’s doable, but will take a lot of time and money when the time comes. I’ll probably need to come back with a job offer well into the 40% tax rate, and a pile or two of cash savings.
I think what she has done is very astutely understand that Scots like the idea of themselves being more prudent and cautious than those that live to the south. She has therefore sought to differentiate the ScotGov approach by always appearing to be more cautious than the UK, while in practice shadowing it. It's a sensible political approach as there is no real downside, but has little to do with the actualite of the pandemic, and certainly takes no account of the economic consequences, something which, in any event, is of little interest to the Scottish Government.
So if I catch Covid, I'm 1 infection. But only if I go get tested do I become a case.
Not super-confident about this, so happy to take corrections if I have this wrong.
Please stop spreading malicious lies about fellow posters.
The greatest achievement of the SNP is cementing a distinction between "Westminster" and "the English".
We can't ignore evidence that the response is no longer either determined or united, however.
No way of really knowing.