The Russia Ukraine crisis is now leading the media and increasingly so
1) The Sue Gray report is presented to the HOC by Boris and lots of sounds of fury but his mps fail to send in the letters. Boris stands firm against Russia, Rishi announces the suspension of the NI rise, abolishes vat on energy and implements a generous grant scheme to all standard rate taxpayer households, Gove announces the levelling up schemes and Boris carries on praying for some respite in May
Or
2) He is gone by the end of the week
If I was betting on that I think 1 is favourite
Apart frrom "Tory Minister resigns in Covid fraud". which happens to be leading the news but I am surprised. This sort of thing is so commonplace with this government It's odd that they bother to report it
I have no idea which news you are watching but it is Russia Ukraine and right now a live NATO conference
It did briefly flash up on the BBC website.
The entire bounce back loans debarcle was entirely known about and could be seen coming down the line a year ago. I regularly frequent AccountingWeb/AnyAnswers forum (a riviting read for accountants and non-accountants alike.... okay, I jest; its as dry as anything) and every accountant on there was reporting that they felt for sure they had to file SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports, rather than Subject Access Requests) for a good number of their clients who'd taken the maximum bounceback loan of £50k, whizzed it up the wall on a new motor for themselves then filed DS01 a week later to strike their company off.
I doubt even half of bounceback loans will ever be repaid.
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.
Hmm, I fear there would have been too much ideological resistance to allowing a VC person to lead the programme and we would probably have been in the EU procurement programme which we know didn't work out well for the first (and critical) 6 months of the rollout.
No real way of knowing - and I don't fancy setting up the whole experiment again to find out.
Where I think it is clear that Boris was demonstrably worse is on Winter 2020/21, which of course is when the bulk of deaths occurred (and when we knew vaccines were tantalisingly close).
Only if you're a lockdown lover.
Lockdowns are not a "precautionary principle" they are an evil that should be resisted until the last possible moment, only once it has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt to be necessary. Considering the NHS didn't collapse in winter 2020/21 it looks like that was timed as late as possible, so it was called right to me.
The one thing I would say was wrong was having kids go in to school for the one day, then locking the country down that night, because it was the first working day back to make the decision: They should in my opinion have got the relevant people to work over the weekend and make that call on the weekend instead of the Monday.
If that means disrupting your weekend or holiday by a day then do that.
If you leave lockdowns to the last minute, they end up having to be (much) longer. If they are so evil, should you not act in a way so as to minimise the total amount of time in lockdown? That means going early so you can come out sooner, even if occasionally you end up with a short, unnecessary lockdown.
No, absolutely categorically not.
That's like saying like Judge Dredd the Police should extrajudicially kill those they think are guilty of murder without a trial, even if you kill a few innocents, because then you're going to stop more murders.
An unnecessary lockdown is an utter failure and to have a lockdown the case has to be proven beyond all reasonable doubt. If that means in the very rare occasions it actually becomes necessary that it has to last a bit longer, then so be it.
Much as I enjoy the satire of Judge Dredd, that's a silly comparison. The real police do act to stop crimes taking place. They have to make judgements about when to do that. Likewise, public health actions require judgements to be made.
A lockdown is undoubtedly a very serious step and it's not a choice that should be taken lightly, but if you resist them until the last possible moment, you cause more morbidity, more mortality and more time in lockdown.
And have done the right thing.
If you don't resist them until the last possible minute you go in and out of lockdown like a yo-yo unnecessarily. Potentially preventing a bit of morbidity is not an excuse to strip away people's fundamental human rights unnecessarily.
I like how I spoke of morbidity and mortality, but you turned that into "a bit of morbidity"! You see, I'm unaware of anything that strips away someone's fundamental human rights more than mortality.
There is no right to not die of natural causes.
Why do we spend lots of money on a national Breast Screening Programme? Why do we spend lots of money on flu vaccinations? Why do we spend lots of money on cervical cancer vaccinations? Why do we spend lots of money on treating people with diabetes, dementia, heart disease, colon cancer, etc. etc. etc.? Why do we have an NHS!?
Why do we have extensive legislative structures to ensure we eat unadulterated food, we live and work in safe buildings, the air we breath is not too polluted, transport is safe...
Government for centuries... nay, millennia... has had a role to protect citizens. We take that for granted when it comes to protecting us from cholera, dysentery etc. (both through vaccinations but more so through providing clean water and effective sewers). Yet because COVID-19 is a newer disease, suddenly protecting people from disease is not what government should do...???
The government can assist us in those things but not control us over them.
Breast screening is available - people aren't incarcerated to prevent them from leaving the house until they're screened.
Vaccines are comparable to that. They're available and anyone who isn't thick will take them up, but people have the right to be thick.
Stripping us of our fundamental civil liberties and locking us down is something completely different and far more sinister; lockdown fanatics like yourself need to be disabused of the notion that is something in your arsenal to be wielded on a "precautionary" basis.
I thought you weren't talking to me any more...?
I am not a lockdown fanatic. Labelling anyone who is slightly less hawkish than you on the issue as a "lockdown fanatic" seems to come from a Trumpian own-the-libs school of rhetoric. Occasionally, PB.com rises above such nonsense and we can manage a reasoned debate. Let's maybe try for that?
I think the UK government locked us all down more than it had to. Maybe we agree on that! I think better public health measures, with less use of the strong arm of the law, would have meant that lockdowns were less needed. Lockdowns are a tool available to government, but they should only be used in extremis. I hope we never need another one in my lifetime. All I was suggesting was that, given the uncertainties when fighting a pandemic and the need to act quickly, we shouldn't necessarily wait until the last possible moment before using a lockdown. Is there any scope to discuss quite when it's appropriate to trigger a lockdown, or is any conversation on the subject too triggering for you?
By the way, yes, of course, people aren't incarcerated until they get screened for breast cancer. But they can be incarcerated for breaking laws on food safety, building safety, air pollution etc. We have had such laws the entire time you have been alive and, somehow, you coped.
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
Fuck off you patronising man!
If you think that was bad, you should see what the disgusting letch was writing - under his own name - a decade ago. Pure, unadulterated filth.
I thought Mary Whitehouse died a few decades ago. Odd to think her spirit lives on in Sweden, of all places...
She was the lady who wrote that comedy sketch show in the early ‘90s, wasn’t she? A teenage me thought it was rather lovely. Milky milky.
She had Channel 4 put red blobs on the screen at the start of any films with rude bits from the mid-1980s as I recall. Very helpful to my housemates and myself when deciding what to watch on TV of a Friday evening. If in doubt we picked the ones with the red blobs.
She was always going on about the National Viewers' and Listeners' Alliance (?) but when one asked how many members it had apart from her husband to back her in this moral crusade, she would never answer, or am I being unfair?
Red blobs on the screen if there’s rude bits? I’m struggling to find an emoticon that does my bewilderment justice.
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?
I am. If Ukraine requests them.
Then you are foolish. That risks escalating to WWIII for very little gain over sending equipment.
Appeasement didn't work in 1938 and 1939. The way you prevent wars is by making aggression too expensive. We failed to do that in 2014, which is why we need a different approach. Is equipment enough? Let's hope so. But if it's not we either up the ante or we fold. And if we fold, how do you think things will look in another 8 years? How will Europe enjoy a wave of Ukrainian refugees, with Russian agents provocateurs mixed in with them? I don't like the sound of that, personally.
“ The way you prevent wars is by making aggression too expensive.”
🤣🤣🤣
And how do you know you are achieving that? Surely the main factor it depends how determined or desperate the antagonist is, the very thing you cannot for certain be sure of?
There are certainties in War - Death, misery, destruction....
The outcome isn't on of them. Indeed, it is arguable that every country that *started* a war since 1870 has lost.
Peace is to be preferred. But the question them becomes - Are *you* prepared to be the price of peace?
This got missed. A fascinating conjecture
“Every country that started a war since 1870 has lost”
I can see where you are coming from, but obvious exceptions immediately spring to mind
Israel surely started a couple of wars, then won. Also several wars of independence? Ireland, Vietnam, multiple others
Russia in Crimea, very recently
The devil is in the detail of “starting”. Sensible countries about to invade or overthrow someone else usually invent a casus belli, so they can claim “we didn’t start it”
Israel arguably never started any wars.
Who started the war is very arguable and the victors tend to write that it was the losers that did.
The Six Day War? There was a context to it, but the actual shooting was clearly started by Israel. And they won.
All travel testing canned from Feb 11th. Excellent, hope that the government can convince Europe and the US to follow suit. I always wonder what, say, Italy or France, gain from disallowing 1 extra case from the UK when they're clocking in 200k and 400k cases per day respectively. Were booked in for Mexico rather than Italy for Feb because we can't be bothered with the faff of isolating to avoid risking a positive test result and having to cancel/rebook. I'm sure we're not the only people.
That’s one of the main reasons I am in Sri Lanka. No testing on arrival. No risk of being quarantined for a week or two at the beginning of your stay
This is no small risk. I spoke to a Thai-American friend yesterday. She returned to Bangkok late last year when they had a “test and release” policy (it’s even worse now). She was entirely symptom-free but she got a positive. She was whisked off to a dour “hospital-hotel” for ten days compulsory isolation, at her own expense
Who the F wants to risk that? If you have two weeks holiday?
Senseless
Tourist industries will only revive when they drop this draconian restriction
Yup, we've avoided Thailand for that reason too. We don't particularly want to go to Phuket where there's no restrictions on coming and going and everywhere else requires managed quarantine for foreigners. All of SE Asia is off the radar for us for at least 6 months I think, which is rather disappointing.
For all the fails and deaths we had in from March 2020 to Feb 2021 I'd rather be where we are now than where the rest of the world is. The UK seems to have begun making the psychological move to treat COVID like any other disease that might kill us when we get old. Very few other places seem to be doing that.
Yes I also looked at the Phuket “Sandbox” but there is still that horrible risk of getting a positive test on arrival. Then you’re fucked
I don’t want to bang on, but Sri Lanka is doing the right thing. They have cleverly instructed their airline (direct flights from LHR) to allow totally-refundable tickets and the hotels are all offering Free Cancellation Booking. So the risk is as minimal as it gets in these difficult times. If you get a positive PCR before the flight you can get a total refund. There is NO test on arrival so zero risk there
As a result the hotels are bustling, and Galle is almost full. Today saw an influx of Russians into my Colombo gaff. Not sure if that’s a “coincidence”
I have also just had possibly the juiciest tempura prawns of my life. Big fat scrumptious things, with a home made dipping chilli sauce, by the crashing Indian Ocean. Cost? £3
My God, the contrast with last winter when I was personally staring into the deep abyss of Total Winter Lockdown. Yesterday I found some diary notes I made at that time. The bleakness was intense. A writhing despair
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.
Hmm, I fear there would have been too much ideological resistance to allowing a VC person to lead the programme and we would probably have been in the EU procurement programme which we know didn't work out well for the first (and critical) 6 months of the rollout.
No real way of knowing - and I don't fancy setting up the whole experiment again to find out.
Where I think it is clear that Boris was demonstrably worse is on Winter 2020/21, which of course is when the bulk of deaths occurred (and when we knew vaccines were tantalisingly close).
Only if you're a lockdown lover.
Lockdowns are not a "precautionary principle" they are an evil that should be resisted until the last possible moment, only once it has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt to be necessary. Considering the NHS didn't collapse in winter 2020/21 it looks like that was timed as late as possible, so it was called right to me.
The one thing I would say was wrong was having kids go in to school for the one day, then locking the country down that night, because it was the first working day back to make the decision: They should in my opinion have got the relevant people to work over the weekend and make that call on the weekend instead of the Monday.
If that means disrupting your weekend or holiday by a day then do that.
If you leave lockdowns to the last minute, they end up having to be (much) longer. If they are so evil, should you not act in a way so as to minimise the total amount of time in lockdown? That means going early so you can come out sooner, even if occasionally you end up with a short, unnecessary lockdown.
No, absolutely categorically not.
That's like saying like Judge Dredd the Police should extrajudicially kill those they think are guilty of murder without a trial, even if you kill a few innocents, because then you're going to stop more murders.
An unnecessary lockdown is an utter failure and to have a lockdown the case has to be proven beyond all reasonable doubt. If that means in the very rare occasions it actually becomes necessary that it has to last a bit longer, then so be it.
Much as I enjoy the satire of Judge Dredd, that's a silly comparison. The real police do act to stop crimes taking place. They have to make judgements about when to do that. Likewise, public health actions require judgements to be made.
A lockdown is undoubtedly a very serious step and it's not a choice that should be taken lightly, but if you resist them until the last possible moment, you cause more morbidity, more mortality and more time in lockdown.
And have done the right thing.
If you don't resist them until the last possible minute you go in and out of lockdown like a yo-yo unnecessarily. Potentially preventing a bit of morbidity is not an excuse to strip away people's fundamental human rights unnecessarily.
I like how I spoke of morbidity and mortality, but you turned that into "a bit of morbidity"! You see, I'm unaware of anything that strips away someone's fundamental human rights more than mortality.
There is no right to not die of natural causes.
Why do we spend lots of money on a national Breast Screening Programme? Why do we spend lots of money on flu vaccinations? Why do we spend lots of money on cervical cancer vaccinations? Why do we spend lots of money on treating people with diabetes, dementia, heart disease, colon cancer, etc. etc. etc.? Why do we have an NHS!?
Why do we have extensive legislative structures to ensure we eat unadulterated food, we live and work in safe buildings, the air we breath is not too polluted, transport is safe...
Government for centuries... nay, millennia... has had a role to protect citizens. We take that for granted when it comes to protecting us from cholera, dysentery etc. (both through vaccinations but more so through providing clean water and effective sewers). Yet because COVID-19 is a newer disease, suddenly protecting people from disease is not what government should do...???
Not without counting the cost. We have an NHS to protect us (not for us to protect it) and NICE and the concept of the QALY exist for a reason - even if they were junked along with the pandemic preparedness plan the minute we had a pandemic.
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
Fuck off you patronising man!
If you think that was bad, you should see what the disgusting letch was writing - under his own name - a decade ago. Pure, unadulterated filth.
I thought Mary Whitehouse died a few decades ago. Odd to think her spirit lives on in Sweden, of all places...
She was the lady who wrote that comedy sketch show in the early ‘90s, wasn’t she? A teenage me thought it was rather lovely. Milky milky.
She had Channel 4 put red blobs on the screen at the start of any films with rude bits from the mid-1980s as I recall. Very helpful to my housemates and myself when deciding what to watch on TV of a Friday evening. If in doubt we picked the ones with the red blobs.
She was always going on about the National Viewers' and Listeners' Alliance (?) but when one asked how many members it had apart from her husband to back her in this moral crusade, she would never answer, or am I being unfair?
She represented views which had been moderately mainstream 25 years previously but which by the 80s seemed antediluvian. She frequently referred to Christianity in a way which seemed archaic at the time but in her mind I am sure Christianity still seemed a mainstream position. She was not a monster. Dominic Sandbrook writes interestingly about her in his 20th century history series.
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
Fuck off you patronising man!
If you think that was bad, you should see what the disgusting letch was writing - under his own name - a decade ago. Pure, unadulterated filth.
I thought Mary Whitehouse died a few decades ago. Odd to think her spirit lives on in Sweden, of all places...
She was the lady who wrote that comedy sketch show in the early ‘90s, wasn’t she? A teenage me thought it was rather lovely. Milky milky.
She had Channel 4 put red blobs on the screen at the start of any films with rude bits from the mid-1980s as I recall. Very helpful to my housemates and myself when deciding what to watch on TV of a Friday evening. If in doubt we picked the ones with the red blobs.
She was always going on about the National Viewers' and Listeners' Alliance (?) but when one asked how many members it had apart from her husband to back her in this moral crusade, she would never answer, or am I being unfair?
Red blobs on the screen if there’s rude bits? I’m struggling to find an emoticon that does my bewilderment justice.
It was a small red triangle in the corner of the screen during the film in question.
It was, as Carnyx said, a useful way of picking what to watch if you wanted to... expand your horizons.
The Russia Ukraine crisis is now leading the media and increasingly so
1) The Sue Gray report is presented to the HOC by Boris and lots of sounds of fury but his mps fail to send in the letters. Boris stands firm against Russia, Rishi announces the suspension of the NI rise, abolishes vat on energy and implements a generous grant scheme to all standard rate taxpayer households, Gove announces the levelling up schemes and Boris carries on praying for some respite in May
Or
2) He is gone by the end of the week
If I was betting on that I think 1 is favourite
Apart frrom "Tory Minister resigns in Covid fraud". which happens to be leading the news but I am surprised. This sort of thing is so commonplace with this government It's odd that they bother to report it
I have no idea which news you are watching but it is Russia Ukraine and right now a live NATO conference
It did briefly flash up on the BBC website.
The entire bounce back loans debarcle was entirely known about and could be seen coming down the line a year ago. I regularly frequent AccountingWeb/AnyAnswers forum (a riviting read for accountants and non-accountants alike.... okay, I jest; its as dry as anything) and every accountant on there was reporting that they felt for sure they had to file SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports, rather than Subject Access Requests) for a good number of their clients who'd taken the maximum bounceback loan of £50k, whizzed it up the wall on a new motor for themselves then filed DS01 a week later to strike their company off.
I doubt even half of bounceback loans will ever be repaid.
Surely that behaviour is out and out fraud, with the accountant complicit if not reporting their suspicions?
The Russia Ukraine crisis is now leading the media and increasingly so
1) The Sue Gray report is presented to the HOC by Boris and lots of sounds of fury but his mps fail to send in the letters. Boris stands firm against Russia, Rishi announces the suspension of the NI rise, abolishes vat on energy and implements a generous grant scheme to all standard rate taxpayer households, Gove announces the levelling up schemes and Boris carries on praying for some respite in May
Or
2) He is gone by the end of the week
If I was betting on that I think 1 is favourite
Apart frrom "Tory Minister resigns in Covid fraud". which happens to be leading the news but I am surprised. This sort of thing is so commonplace with this government It's odd that they bother to report it
But that ones attacking Rishi’s Achilles heel - so you have to wonder whose side that ministers on, which game plan he is working to.
Or he could, incredibly, be resigning as a matter of principle. (Which seems to be the case.)
Or, apart from what it seems, it could be start on undermining hollowing out Rishi.
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.
Hmm, I fear there would have been too much ideological resistance to allowing a VC person to lead the programme and we would probably have been in the EU procurement programme which we know didn't work out well for the first (and critical) 6 months of the rollout.
No real way of knowing - and I don't fancy setting up the whole experiment again to find out.
Where I think it is clear that Boris was demonstrably worse is on Winter 2020/21, which of course is when the bulk of deaths occurred (and when we knew vaccines were tantalisingly close).
Only if you're a lockdown lover.
Lockdowns are not a "precautionary principle" they are an evil that should be resisted until the last possible moment, only once it has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt to be necessary. Considering the NHS didn't collapse in winter 2020/21 it looks like that was timed as late as possible, so it was called right to me.
The one thing I would say was wrong was having kids go in to school for the one day, then locking the country down that night, because it was the first working day back to make the decision: They should in my opinion have got the relevant people to work over the weekend and make that call on the weekend instead of the Monday.
If that means disrupting your weekend or holiday by a day then do that.
If you leave lockdowns to the last minute, they end up having to be (much) longer. If they are so evil, should you not act in a way so as to minimise the total amount of time in lockdown? That means going early so you can come out sooner, even if occasionally you end up with a short, unnecessary lockdown.
No, absolutely categorically not.
That's like saying like Judge Dredd the Police should extrajudicially kill those they think are guilty of murder without a trial, even if you kill a few innocents, because then you're going to stop more murders.
An unnecessary lockdown is an utter failure and to have a lockdown the case has to be proven beyond all reasonable doubt. If that means in the very rare occasions it actually becomes necessary that it has to last a bit longer, then so be it.
Much as I enjoy the satire of Judge Dredd, that's a silly comparison. The real police do act to stop crimes taking place. They have to make judgements about when to do that. Likewise, public health actions require judgements to be made.
A lockdown is undoubtedly a very serious step and it's not a choice that should be taken lightly, but if you resist them until the last possible moment, you cause more morbidity, more mortality and more time in lockdown.
And have done the right thing.
If you don't resist them until the last possible minute you go in and out of lockdown like a yo-yo unnecessarily. Potentially preventing a bit of morbidity is not an excuse to strip away people's fundamental human rights unnecessarily.
I like how I spoke of morbidity and mortality, but you turned that into "a bit of morbidity"! You see, I'm unaware of anything that strips away someone's fundamental human rights more than mortality.
There is no right to not die of natural causes.
Why do we spend lots of money on a national Breast Screening Programme? Why do we spend lots of money on flu vaccinations? Why do we spend lots of money on cervical cancer vaccinations? Why do we spend lots of money on treating people with diabetes, dementia, heart disease, colon cancer, etc. etc. etc.? Why do we have an NHS!?
Why do we have extensive legislative structures to ensure we eat unadulterated food, we live and work in safe buildings, the air we breath is not too polluted, transport is safe...
Government for centuries... nay, millennia... has had a role to protect citizens. We take that for granted when it comes to protecting us from cholera, dysentery etc. (both through vaccinations but more so through providing clean water and effective sewers). Yet because COVID-19 is a newer disease, suddenly protecting people from disease is not what government should do...???
Not without counting the cost. We have an NHS to protect us (not for us to protect it) and NICE and the concept of the QALY exist for a reason - even if they were junked along with the pandemic preparedness plan the minute we had a pandemic.
I am glad we agree that it is, in fact, the Government's job to help delay death from natural causes, but, yes, of course, what measures we take should be guided by cost-effectiveness.
The Russia Ukraine crisis is now leading the media and increasingly so
1) The Sue Gray report is presented to the HOC by Boris and lots of sounds of fury but his mps fail to send in the letters. Boris stands firm against Russia, Rishi announces the suspension of the NI rise, abolishes vat on energy and implements a generous grant scheme to all standard rate taxpayer households, Gove announces the levelling up schemes and Boris carries on praying for some respite in May
Or
2) He is gone by the end of the week
If I was betting on that I think 1 is favourite
Apart frrom "Tory Minister resigns in Covid fraud". which happens to be leading the news but I am surprised. This sort of thing is so commonplace with this government It's odd that they bother to report it
Do you have any more exciting news from your brother “who has lived in Amsterdam since he was 20” but was somehow unaware that his entire country was in strict lockdown from mid December for four whole weeks?
I replied to you yesterday. Over Christmas essential shops including off licences bicycle repairers cake shops and supermarkets were open but all entertainment shut at 8pm though he can't be absolutely sure because things were changing from day to day and it's difficult to keep up. You were allowed four people round on Christmas day. It was more shut down than the UK.
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
Fuck off you patronising man!
If you think that was bad, you should see what the disgusting letch was writing - under his own name - a decade ago. Pure, unadulterated filth.
I thought Mary Whitehouse died a few decades ago. Odd to think her spirit lives on in Sweden, of all places...
She was the lady who wrote that comedy sketch show in the early ‘90s, wasn’t she? A teenage me thought it was rather lovely. Milky milky.
She had Channel 4 put red blobs on the screen at the start of any films with rude bits from the mid-1980s as I recall. Very helpful to my housemates and myself when deciding what to watch on TV of a Friday evening. If in doubt we picked the ones with the red blobs.
She was always going on about the National Viewers' and Listeners' Alliance (?) but when one asked how many members it had apart from her husband to back her in this moral crusade, she would never answer, or am I being unfair?
Red blobs on the screen if there’s rude bits? I’m struggling to find an emoticon that does my bewilderment justice.
At the beginning only, when the title came on. A red blob hovered in the top right corner.
*checks*
Actually a red triangle ... and my memory was that it was very much to keep Mrs Whitehouse off, but only made things worse. Wiki does not match my memory in that respect.
Michelle Clifford, Europe correspondent of Sky confirming there is disunity in the EU over Russia with Germany and their stance at present
Also confirmed reports of NATO sending arms and troops to eastern Europe including French participation
Just heard a US Senator state on TV that 42% of the German economy is dependent on Russian gas supplies. Stunning (and stunningly stupid on the Germans' part) if so.
I don't think it's quite as bad as that, though if the Russians decided to sell their gas elsewhere (say China) much of western Europe could just about survive on LNG imports, Germany is singularly reliant on piped gas and would have to hope that EU countries are able to pipe them gas from their LNG terminals. There's been a negligent lack of foresight from the German state on energy security, even worse than the UK, which is no great example.
Russia can't sell gas to China because there's no pipe (yet).
Yet being the key operator. One would hope that Germany would use that time to build a bunch of LNG terminals but instead they're actively saying no and turning down planning permission.
While actively shutting down nuclear etc too
You couldn't have a much more Russophile German energy policy if an actively puppet government had been installed.
Didn't Willy Brandt have to resign over a Stasi spy in the Chancellory?
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
Fuck off you patronising man!
If you think that was bad, you should see what the disgusting letch was writing - under his own name - a decade ago. Pure, unadulterated filth.
I thought Mary Whitehouse died a few decades ago. Odd to think her spirit lives on in Sweden, of all places...
She was the lady who wrote that comedy sketch show in the early ‘90s, wasn’t she? A teenage me thought it was rather lovely. Milky milky.
She had Channel 4 put red blobs on the screen at the start of any films with rude bits from the mid-1980s as I recall. Very helpful to my housemates and myself when deciding what to watch on TV of a Friday evening. If in doubt we picked the ones with the red blobs.
She was always going on about the National Viewers' and Listeners' Alliance (?) but when one asked how many members it had apart from her husband to back her in this moral crusade, she would never answer, or am I being unfair?
She represented views which had been moderately mainstream 25 years previously but which by the 80s seemed antediluvian. She frequently referred to Christianity in a way which seemed archaic at the time but in her mind I am sure Christianity still seemed a mainstream position. She was not a monster. Dominic Sandbrook writes interestingly about her in his 20th century history series.
The advantage of Mary Whitehouse was that she kept broadcasters aware of excessive violence, whish is unfortunately now all too trendy, very rarely challenged, and an easy route to ratings. The disadvantage was her ridiculous views on sexuality in mainstream broadcasting.
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
Fuck off you patronising man!
If you think that was bad, you should see what the disgusting letch was writing - under his own name - a decade ago. Pure, unadulterated filth.
I thought Mary Whitehouse died a few decades ago. Odd to think her spirit lives on in Sweden, of all places...
She was the lady who wrote that comedy sketch show in the early ‘90s, wasn’t she? A teenage me thought it was rather lovely. Milky milky.
She had Channel 4 put red blobs on the screen at the start of any films with rude bits from the mid-1980s as I recall. Very helpful to my housemates and myself when deciding what to watch on TV of a Friday evening. If in doubt we picked the ones with the red blobs.
She was always going on about the National Viewers' and Listeners' Alliance (?) but when one asked how many members it had apart from her husband to back her in this moral crusade, she would never answer, or am I being unfair?
Red blobs on the screen if there’s rude bits? I’m struggling to find an emoticon that does my bewilderment justice.
It was a small red triangle in the corner of the screen during the film in question.
It was, as Carnyx said, a useful way of picking what to watch if you wanted to... expand your horizons.
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
As much as he may have the scoop on some shady stuff its always worth remembering why he cannot automatically be trusted (few can)
Why do you tink wanting to answer questions in writing suggests he can't be trusted. I can see some very good reasons for it.
That's not the reason I think he cannot generally be trusted. His history is the reason.
That has nothing to do with whether I expect him to be generally corroborated or not on this matter, I don't see how Boris wriggles out of it. But are you telling me you trusted Cummings as an honest person say, before he started making accusations against Boris?
Senior Elysée source tells me: “There is a kind of alarmism in Washington and London which we cannot understand. We see no immediate likelihood of Russian military action. We simply want our interpretation to be taken into account before a common western approach is agreed.”
Are they not aware of Russia massing on Ukraine border?
Reading between the lines, French are actually accusing us of bigging the thing up.
The Russians are actually massing on the border in a serious way are they?
Yes, they are. Multiple reports from journalists from a number of countries of units from all over Russia massing in the area. Complete with photos from the ground, commercial satellite pictures etc.
It’s painting a hideous picture then, political promises of standing shoulder to shoulder, of European and NATO forces piled up in countries and waters and airspace all around Ukraine, and just watching Putin go in and do his thing - like 1945 all over again 😕
Unlike in 1945, the Ukrainians have some real backing form the states around them and from abroad.
That’s true, we are airlifting in a few useful things to help them. I concede that. Will you concede though to be unlike 1945 it needs the outcome not to be same as 1945?
To be like 1945, it would need to end up with the entire Ukraine inside Russia with the entire leadership dead, and most of the "intelligentsia" as well.
You are setting falsely high targets to be proved wrong Malmsy 🙂
I accept these terms - despite shoulder to shoulder allies having enough equipment in the region to re fight and win the Martian Invasion in War of the Worlds, we simply watch Putin own all Ukraines current borders and install puppet regime, to achieve 1945 all over again.
Personally, I'm hoping for no nuclear explosions. Me being an optimist and all.
Then you must find your own avatar as freaky as Dicksons undoubtedly is.
But I accept your surrender in these negotiations and pleased we have a deal.
I *like* nuclear explosions. Just not er... free range ones
More like Project Orion....
Whyever did we drop the idea of propelling spaceships by dropping nuclear bombs out the back? It's clearly cool hell.
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
Fuck off you patronising man!
If you think that was bad, you should see what the disgusting letch was writing - under his own name - a decade ago. Pure, unadulterated filth.
I thought Mary Whitehouse died a few decades ago. Odd to think her spirit lives on in Sweden, of all places...
She was the lady who wrote that comedy sketch show in the early ‘90s, wasn’t she? A teenage me thought it was rather lovely. Milky milky.
She had Channel 4 put red blobs on the screen at the start of any films with rude bits from the mid-1980s as I recall. Very helpful to my housemates and myself when deciding what to watch on TV of a Friday evening. If in doubt we picked the ones with the red blobs.
She was always going on about the National Viewers' and Listeners' Alliance (?) but when one asked how many members it had apart from her husband to back her in this moral crusade, she would never answer, or am I being unfair?
Red blobs on the screen if there’s rude bits? I’m struggling to find an emoticon that does my bewilderment justice.
It was supposed to be a warning triangle to warn those of a prudish nature. The fact that anything with a red "blob" or content warning got 10 times the audience it would otherwise have got was just one of the obvious flaws in the scheme.
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?
I am. If Ukraine requests them.
Then you are foolish. That risks escalating to WWIII for very little gain over sending equipment.
Appeasement didn't work in 1938 and 1939. The way you prevent wars is by making aggression too expensive. We failed to do that in 2014, which is why we need a different approach. Is equipment enough? Let's hope so. But if it's not we either up the ante or we fold. And if we fold, how do you think things will look in another 8 years? How will Europe enjoy a wave of Ukrainian refugees, with Russian agents provocateurs mixed in with them? I don't like the sound of that, personally.
“ The way you prevent wars is by making aggression too expensive.”
🤣🤣🤣
And how do you know you are achieving that? Surely the main factor it depends how determined or desperate the antagonist is, the very thing you cannot for certain be sure of?
There are certainties in War - Death, misery, destruction....
The outcome isn't on of them. Indeed, it is arguable that every country that *started* a war since 1870 has lost.
Peace is to be preferred. But the question them becomes - Are *you* prepared to be the price of peace?
This got missed. A fascinating conjecture
“Every country that started a war since 1870 has lost”
I can see where you are coming from, but obvious exceptions immediately spring to mind
Israel surely started a couple of wars, then won. Also several wars of independence? Ireland, Vietnam, multiple others
Russia in Crimea, very recently
The devil is in the detail of “starting”. Sensible countries about to invade or overthrow someone else usually invent a casus belli, so they can claim “we didn’t start it”
Israel arguably never started any wars.
Who started the war is very arguable and the victors tend to write that it was the losers that did.
The Six Day War? There was a context to it, but the actual shooting was clearly started by Israel. And they won.
They fired the first shots but only after Egypt had closed the Straits of Tiran which was the casus belli that started the six day war.
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
Fuck off you patronising man!
If you think that was bad, you should see what the disgusting letch was writing - under his own name - a decade ago. Pure, unadulterated filth.
I thought Mary Whitehouse died a few decades ago. Odd to think her spirit lives on in Sweden, of all places...
She was the lady who wrote that comedy sketch show in the early ‘90s, wasn’t she? A teenage me thought it was rather lovely. Milky milky.
She had Channel 4 put red blobs on the screen at the start of any films with rude bits from the mid-1980s as I recall. Very helpful to my housemates and myself when deciding what to watch on TV of a Friday evening. If in doubt we picked the ones with the red blobs.
She was always going on about the National Viewers' and Listeners' Alliance (?) but when one asked how many members it had apart from her husband to back her in this moral crusade, she would never answer, or am I being unfair?
She represented views which had been moderately mainstream 25 years previously but which by the 80s seemed antediluvian. She frequently referred to Christianity in a way which seemed archaic at the time but in her mind I am sure Christianity still seemed a mainstream position. She was not a monster. Dominic Sandbrook writes interestingly about her in his 20th century history series.
'Not a monster'? Opposed to PIE, yes, I have no problem with that, but trying to put people in prison on archaic blasphemy laws? Even if her views on gays reflected a generation earlier.
The Russia Ukraine crisis is now leading the media and increasingly so
1) The Sue Gray report is presented to the HOC by Boris and lots of sounds of fury but his mps fail to send in the letters. Boris stands firm against Russia, Rishi announces the suspension of the NI rise, abolishes vat on energy and implements a generous grant scheme to all standard rate taxpayer households, Gove announces the levelling up schemes and Boris carries on praying for some respite in May
Or
2) He is gone by the end of the week
If I was betting on that I think 1 is favourite
Apart frrom "Tory Minister resigns in Covid fraud". which happens to be leading the news but I am surprised. This sort of thing is so commonplace with this government It's odd that they bother to report it
Do you have any more exciting news from your brother “who has lived in Amsterdam since he was 20” but was somehow unaware that his entire country was in strict lockdown from mid December for four whole weeks?
I replied to you yesterday. Over Christmas essential shops including off licences bicycle repairers cake shops and supermarkets were open but all entertainment shut at 8pm though he can't be absolutely sure because things were changing from day to day and it's difficult to keep up. You were allowed four people round on Christmas day. It was more shut down than the UK.
No, this is a lie
Everything non-essential was shut you massive hairy twatting idiot. Including entertainment and hospitality.
THE HAGUE, Dec 18 (Reuters) - The Netherlands will go into a strict lockdown over the Christmas and New Year period to try to contain the highly- contagious Omicron coronavirus variant, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Saturday.
All non-essential shops and services, including restaurants, hairdressers, museums and gyms will be closed from Sunday until Jan. 14. All schools will be shut until at least Jan. 9.
"The Netherlands is again shutting down. That is unavoidable because of the fifth wave that is coming at us with the Omicron variant," Rutte told a televised news conference.
Or try another source, like the Dutch government:
Educational institutions and out-of-school care (BSO) are closed until at least 9 January 2022. There are some exceptions. On 3 January the government will decide in what form education will resume from 10 January. All hospitality venues are closed, except for delivery and takeaway. All non-essential shops are closed, except for click and collect and returns.
The 8pm curfew came BEFORE, in November, then they tightened it to a Xmas lockdown. You’’re just a silly fool, give it up
Bar, restaurants to close at 8 pm Move comes day after new infections hit record Partial lockdown to last three weeks Social distancing reimposed immediately
"People arriving in England from abroad will no longer have to take Covid tests if they are fully vaccinated, the government has confirmed.
The changes will be introduced from 4am on 11 February "in time for the half term break", said Transport Secretary Grant Shapps."
It’s excellent news for central London, which NEEDS those tourists back
One thing I’ve noticed about pretty much every government announcement on international travel in the past two years, is that they have all been geared towards outbound travel - Brits taking holidays abroad - when in fact the more important travel is the inbound travel, bringing in foreign currency and keeping the tourist economy turning over.
And if the Party's the institution that you're trying to preserve, you may have to face revelations of some bits of recent history. Personally I thought that Cameron’s and a top civil servant’s lobbying for Greenssill was quite a big deal.
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
Fuck off you patronising man!
If you think that was bad, you should see what the disgusting letch was writing - under his own name - a decade ago. Pure, unadulterated filth.
I thought Mary Whitehouse died a few decades ago. Odd to think her spirit lives on in Sweden, of all places...
She was the lady who wrote that comedy sketch show in the early ‘90s, wasn’t she? A teenage me thought it was rather lovely. Milky milky.
She had Channel 4 put red blobs on the screen at the start of any films with rude bits from the mid-1980s as I recall. Very helpful to my housemates and myself when deciding what to watch on TV of a Friday evening. If in doubt we picked the ones with the red blobs.
She was always going on about the National Viewers' and Listeners' Alliance (?) but when one asked how many members it had apart from her husband to back her in this moral crusade, she would never answer, or am I being unfair?
Red blobs on the screen if there’s rude bits? I’m struggling to find an emoticon that does my bewilderment justice.
It was supposed to be a warning triangle to warn those of a prudish nature. The fact that anything with a red "blob" or content warning got 10 times the audience it would otherwise have got was just one of the obvious flaws in the scheme.
Modern film ratings are the same. “18. Contains violence, nudity, depictions of drug use, and scenes of a sexual nature” Sounds good!
As an aside, my local cinemas have just introduced a “21” rating, meaning what you think it does, but finally means the local censors won’t be taking a large pair of scissors to much of Hollywood’s output.
Senior Elysée source tells me: “There is a kind of alarmism in Washington and London which we cannot understand. We see no immediate likelihood of Russian military action. We simply want our interpretation to be taken into account before a common western approach is agreed.”
Are they not aware of Russia massing on Ukraine border?
Reading between the lines, French are actually accusing us of bigging the thing up.
The Russians are actually massing on the border in a serious way are they?
Yes, they are. Multiple reports from journalists from a number of countries of units from all over Russia massing in the area. Complete with photos from the ground, commercial satellite pictures etc.
It’s painting a hideous picture then, political promises of standing shoulder to shoulder, of European and NATO forces piled up in countries and waters and airspace all around Ukraine, and just watching Putin go in and do his thing - like 1945 all over again 😕
Unlike in 1945, the Ukrainians have some real backing form the states around them and from abroad.
That’s true, we are airlifting in a few useful things to help them. I concede that. Will you concede though to be unlike 1945 it needs the outcome not to be same as 1945?
To be like 1945, it would need to end up with the entire Ukraine inside Russia with the entire leadership dead, and most of the "intelligentsia" as well.
You are setting falsely high targets to be proved wrong Malmsy 🙂
I accept these terms - despite shoulder to shoulder allies having enough equipment in the region to re fight and win the Martian Invasion in War of the Worlds, we simply watch Putin own all Ukraines current borders and install puppet regime, to achieve 1945 all over again.
Personally, I'm hoping for no nuclear explosions. Me being an optimist and all.
Then you must find your own avatar as freaky as Dicksons undoubtedly is.
But I accept your surrender in these negotiations and pleased we have a deal.
I *like* nuclear explosions. Just not er... free range ones
More like Project Orion....
Whyever did we drop the idea of propelling spaceships by dropping nuclear bombs out the back? It's clearly cool hell.
Test Ban Treaty outlawed in-atmosphere nuke explosions.
But there are some great youtubes of high-explosive model tests.
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
Fuck off you patronising man!
If you think that was bad, you should see what the disgusting letch was writing - under his own name - a decade ago. Pure, unadulterated filth.
I thought Mary Whitehouse died a few decades ago. Odd to think her spirit lives on in Sweden, of all places...
She was the lady who wrote that comedy sketch show in the early ‘90s, wasn’t she? A teenage me thought it was rather lovely. Milky milky.
She had Channel 4 put red blobs on the screen at the start of any films with rude bits from the mid-1980s as I recall. Very helpful to my housemates and myself when deciding what to watch on TV of a Friday evening. If in doubt we picked the ones with the red blobs.
She was always going on about the National Viewers' and Listeners' Alliance (?) but when one asked how many members it had apart from her husband to back her in this moral crusade, she would never answer, or am I being unfair?
Red blobs on the screen if there’s rude bits? I’m struggling to find an emoticon that does my bewilderment justice.
It was a small red triangle in the corner of the screen during the film in question.
It was, as Carnyx said, a useful way of picking what to watch if you wanted to... expand your horizons.
IIRC I don't think the red triangle was for run-of-the-mill filth, which could be found quite easily late at night in the 70s and early 80s on BBC2 and ITV so long as the films were foreign (I recall LWT ran them as the "Adult Continental Movie" series). The red triangle was for stuff that would challenge the BBFC for certification. And it was also all foreign filth too.
"People arriving in England from abroad will no longer have to take Covid tests if they are fully vaccinated, the government has confirmed.
The changes will be introduced from 4am on 11 February "in time for the half term break", said Transport Secretary Grant Shapps."
It’s excellent news for central London, which NEEDS those tourists back
What we really need is a Mayor who can let go of the pandemic as well though. Sadiq seems singularly determined to remind everyone about it and advertise to the world that London is a plague city despite the fact that it isn't really. Lots of media and assorted lefties also need to stop talking the nation down internationally or making bogus comparisons and using idiotic terms like "plague island". It's really dented the confidence of some Europeans from coming to the UK. The conversation I had with my Italian colleague still rings in my ears, loads of them really do believe that people were dying in the streets of London unable to get healthcare, that hasn't been helped by the blue ticks on twitter trying to pretend it is.
I also think we need to wind down the daily COVID dashboard as well, maybe by the end of March. Two years seems fair.
Surely that behaviour is out and out fraud, with the accountant complicit if not reporting their suspicions?
Many take the loans with good intentions, but then spend it on other stuff. Quite a few reported their client using the money to buy a motor (clearly not acceptable), others reported their client used it to buy food (no matter what you say, its NOT a business expense, but it certainly is morally right to avoid starving to death). I think quite a lot have submitted SARs, but that is where the accountants duty ends. They report it, then plod takes over (or rather doesn't, as they're overworked and underpaid).
Comes as MPs get the chance to put questions to Department for Levelling Up ministers.
Michael Gove hitting back firmly at accusations that funds are being awarded politically - "There is no evidence of any abuse of levelling up funding."
The classic Yes Minister reply - "we have found no evidence" ...because we haven't looked for any evidence.
Well here is some evidence of abuse of levelling up funding, from last year:-
A fund intended to boost the UK’s most deprived places appears overwhelmingly skewed towards Tory-held areas, with dozens of Conservative regions in the top tier for assistance despite being relatively affluent, a Guardian analysis has found.
Among 93 English regions placed in the priority group of three tiers to receive money from the £4.8bn levelling up fund, 31 are included while not being ranked as in the top third most deprived places by average deprivation score.
If Michael Gove does not like the Guardian, the FT ran its own similar analysis (paywalled). Other evidence might come from backbenchers reporting whips' threats to withhold funding from their constituencies.
"People arriving in England from abroad will no longer have to take Covid tests if they are fully vaccinated, the government has confirmed.
The changes will be introduced from 4am on 11 February "in time for the half term break", said Transport Secretary Grant Shapps."
It’s excellent news for central London, which NEEDS those tourists back
What we really need is a Mayor who can let go of the pandemic as well though. Sadiq seems singularly determined to remind everyone about it and advertise to the world that London is a plague city despite the fact that it isn't really. Lots of media and assorted lefties also need to stop talking the nation down internationally or making bogus comparisons and using idiotic terms like "plague island". It's really dented the confidence of some Europeans from coming to the UK. The conversation I had with my Italian colleague still rings in my ears, loads of them really do believe that people were dying in the streets of London unable to get healthcare, that hasn't been helped by the blue ticks on twitter trying to pretend it is.
I also think we need to wind down the daily COVID dashboard as well, maybe by the end of March. Two years seems fair.
Perhaps Boris can resign and become Mayor of London again. I would happily vote for him. It was probably his ideal job
I mean, he was necessary to win the Brexit referendum and probably the only guy/girl who could have won that majority to force Brett through, but now that’s done, he seems done. Mission Accomplished. What is his ambition now?
If Boris goes back to being Mayor then Sadiq can move to his ideal job which is probably film censor in Rabat
The Russia Ukraine crisis is now leading the media and increasingly so
1) The Sue Gray report is presented to the HOC by Boris and lots of sounds of fury but his mps fail to send in the letters. Boris stands firm against Russia, Rishi announces the suspension of the NI rise, abolishes vat on energy and implements a generous grant scheme to all standard rate taxpayer households, Gove announces the levelling up schemes and Boris carries on praying for some respite in May
Or
2) He is gone by the end of the week
If I was betting on that I think 1 is favourite
Apart frrom "Tory Minister resigns in Covid fraud". which happens to be leading the news but I am surprised. This sort of thing is so commonplace with this government It's odd that they bother to report it
I have no idea which news you are watching but it is Russia Ukraine and right now a live NATO conference
It did briefly flash up on the BBC website.
The entire bounce back loans debarcle was entirely known about and could be seen coming down the line a year ago. I regularly frequent AccountingWeb/AnyAnswers forum (a riviting read for accountants and non-accountants alike.... okay, I jest; its as dry as anything) and every accountant on there was reporting that they felt for sure they had to file SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports, rather than Subject Access Requests) for a good number of their clients who'd taken the maximum bounceback loan of £50k, whizzed it up the wall on a new motor for themselves then filed DS01 a week later to strike their company off.
I doubt even half of bounceback loans will ever be repaid.
I have been sure Rishi was never going to come through this period without attempts to hollow him out in case there’s a leadership contest, because not everybody is on his side, certainly not outgoing regime who sees him swanning in like fresh broom.
The weakness of Rishi’s position is lack of due diligence by the treasurey, who are ultimately responsible and can’t blame others. In particular, the treasury used banks to distribute out what wasn’t banks money but the taxpayers - and no one did diligence on how and to who it was going. The Treasury argument is it was the banks fault. And in something of thirty billion upwards we are talking eye watering sums of tax payers money estimates say lost to fraud.
And there is various angles it can be attacked. Incompetence. But also the strengthing of criminals by handing them so much tax payers money, like arming the enemy and counteracting the funding of the police.
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
Fuck off you patronising man!
If you think that was bad, you should see what the disgusting letch was writing - under his own name - a decade ago. Pure, unadulterated filth.
I thought Mary Whitehouse died a few decades ago. Odd to think her spirit lives on in Sweden, of all places...
She was the lady who wrote that comedy sketch show in the early ‘90s, wasn’t she? A teenage me thought it was rather lovely. Milky milky.
She had Channel 4 put red blobs on the screen at the start of any films with rude bits from the mid-1980s as I recall. Very helpful to my housemates and myself when deciding what to watch on TV of a Friday evening. If in doubt we picked the ones with the red blobs.
She was always going on about the National Viewers' and Listeners' Alliance (?) but when one asked how many members it had apart from her husband to back her in this moral crusade, she would never answer, or am I being unfair?
Red blobs on the screen if there’s rude bits? I’m struggling to find an emoticon that does my bewilderment justice.
It was a small red triangle in the corner of the screen during the film in question.
It was, as Carnyx said, a useful way of picking what to watch if you wanted to... expand your horizons.
IIRC I don't think the red triangle was for run-of-the-mill filth, which could be found quite easily late at night in the 70s and early 80s on BBC2 and ITV so long as the films were foreign (I recall LWT ran them as the "Adult Continental Movie" series). The red triangle was for stuff that would challenge the BBFC for certification. And it was also all foreign filth too.
In a way it also symbolised a better broadcasting era. A lot of those films straddled a wide range between genuinely arthouse and not, regardless of the soft-porn element quite frequently too. Meanwhile there was much less explicit violence on TV, partly, but not exclusively because of pressure from groups like MW's.
Now explicit violence is long since normalised and mainstream, and the often interesting grey area between erotic and intellectual has long since disappeared on mainstream British TV, partly because of fears of accusations of sexism.
Parliamentary group accuses Gambling Commission of being taken over by 'zealots'
The Gambling Commission has been taken over by "ideological zealots" and is acting as if its purpose is to "destroy" the industry it regulates, according to the co-chair of a cross-party group of British MPs and peers.
The comments from Scott Benton MP were made following the completion of a scathing report investigating the "competency and effectiveness" of the commission due to be published on Monday by the Parliamentary All Party Betting and Gaming Group.
Senior Elysée source tells me: “There is a kind of alarmism in Washington and London which we cannot understand. We see no immediate likelihood of Russian military action. We simply want our interpretation to be taken into account before a common western approach is agreed.”
Are they not aware of Russia massing on Ukraine border?
Reading between the lines, French are actually accusing us of bigging the thing up.
The Russians are actually massing on the border in a serious way are they?
Yes, they are. Multiple reports from journalists from a number of countries of units from all over Russia massing in the area. Complete with photos from the ground, commercial satellite pictures etc.
It’s painting a hideous picture then, political promises of standing shoulder to shoulder, of European and NATO forces piled up in countries and waters and airspace all around Ukraine, and just watching Putin go in and do his thing - like 1945 all over again 😕
Unlike in 1945, the Ukrainians have some real backing form the states around them and from abroad.
That’s true, we are airlifting in a few useful things to help them. I concede that. Will you concede though to be unlike 1945 it needs the outcome not to be same as 1945?
To be like 1945, it would need to end up with the entire Ukraine inside Russia with the entire leadership dead, and most of the "intelligentsia" as well.
You are setting falsely high targets to be proved wrong Malmsy 🙂
I accept these terms - despite shoulder to shoulder allies having enough equipment in the region to re fight and win the Martian Invasion in War of the Worlds, we simply watch Putin own all Ukraines current borders and install puppet regime, to achieve 1945 all over again.
Personally, I'm hoping for no nuclear explosions. Me being an optimist and all.
Then you must find your own avatar as freaky as Dicksons undoubtedly is.
But I accept your surrender in these negotiations and pleased we have a deal.
I *like* nuclear explosions. Just not er... free range ones
More like Project Orion....
Whyever did we drop the idea of propelling spaceships by dropping nuclear bombs out the back? It's clearly cool hell.
Some of the tests would have been fun as well - even the non-nuclear ones.
One of them was to test the shock adsorbing piston system.
To do that, they were going to mount an Orion upside down in the desert. Frisbees, weighing 50-100 tons, made of TNT would be fired by rocket motors over the piston and detonated. One every couple of seconds.
Listening to Boris live just now he is all bluster and avoiding all the questions on Sue Gray and cost of living crisis
It is embarrassing, partygate is paralysing Boris and HMG and this report is desperately needed now so the consequences can happen, whatever they are, and the nation can move on
I would say that reading between the lines the NI increase looks likely to be postponed, if not cancelled altogether
Indeed the Gray report needs to be published quickly so Big Dog can sack the guilty and get on with defeating the Russians.
Canning the ridiculous Labour NI rise is another vote winner for Big Dog.
All travel testing canned from Feb 11th. Excellent, hope that the government can convince Europe and the US to follow suit. I always wonder what, say, Italy or France, gain from disallowing 1 extra case from the UK when they're clocking in 200k and 400k cases per day respectively. Were booked in for Mexico rather than Italy for Feb because we can't be bothered with the faff of isolating to avoid risking a positive test result and having to cancel/rebook. I'm sure we're not the only people.
That’s one of the main reasons I am in Sri Lanka. No testing on arrival. No risk of being quarantined for a week or two at the beginning of your stay
This is no small risk. I spoke to a Thai-American friend yesterday. She returned to Bangkok late last year when they had a “test and release” policy (it’s even worse now). She was entirely symptom-free but she got a positive. She was whisked off to a dour “hospital-hotel” for ten days compulsory isolation, at her own expense
Who the F wants to risk that? If you have two weeks holiday?
Senseless
Tourist industries will only revive when they drop this draconian restriction
Yup, we've avoided Thailand for that reason too. We don't particularly want to go to Phuket where there's no restrictions on coming and going and everywhere else requires managed quarantine for foreigners. All of SE Asia is off the radar for us for at least 6 months I think, which is rather disappointing.
For all the fails and deaths we had in from March 2020 to Feb 2021 I'd rather be where we are now than where the rest of the world is. The UK seems to have begun making the psychological move to treat COVID like any other disease that might kill us when we get old. Very few other places seem to be doing that.
Yes I also looked at the Phuket “Sandbox” but there is still that horrible risk of getting a positive test on arrival. Then you’re fucked
I don’t want to bang on, but Sri Lanka is doing the right thing. They have cleverly instructed their airline (direct flights from LHR) to allow totally-refundable tickets and the hotels are all offering Free Cancellation Booking. So the risk is as minimal as it gets in these difficult times. If you get a positive PCR before the flight you can get a total refund. There is NO test on arrival so zero risk there
As a result the hotels are bustling, and Galle is almost full. Today saw an influx of Russians into my Colombo gaff. Not sure if that’s a “coincidence”
I have also just had possibly the juiciest tempura prawns of my life. Big fat scrumptious things, with a home made dipping chilli sauce, by the crashing Indian Ocean. Cost? £3
My God, the contrast with last winter when I was personally staring into the deep abyss of Total Winter Lockdown. Yesterday I found some diary notes I made at that time. The bleakness was intense. A writhing despair
Shit I hadn't really thought of that
Cape Verde:
"Your temperature will be taken on arrival in Cape Verde. If it is high, you will be taken to an assigned area at the airport where it will be measured again. If your temperature remains high, the Cape Verde authorities may need you to do a COVID-19 test."
"People arriving in England from abroad will no longer have to take Covid tests if they are fully vaccinated, the government has confirmed.
The changes will be introduced from 4am on 11 February "in time for the half term break", said Transport Secretary Grant Shapps."
It’s excellent news for central London, which NEEDS those tourists back
What we really need is a Mayor who can let go of the pandemic as well though. Sadiq seems singularly determined to remind everyone about it and advertise to the world that London is a plague city despite the fact that it isn't really. Lots of media and assorted lefties also need to stop talking the nation down internationally or making bogus comparisons and using idiotic terms like "plague island". It's really dented the confidence of some Europeans from coming to the UK. The conversation I had with my Italian colleague still rings in my ears, loads of them really do believe that people were dying in the streets of London unable to get healthcare, that hasn't been helped by the blue ticks on twitter trying to pretend it is.
I also think we need to wind down the daily COVID dashboard as well, maybe by the end of March. Two years seems fair.
Perhaps Boris can resign and become Mayor of London again. I would happily vote for him. It was probably his ideal job
I mean, he was necessary to win the Brexit referendum and probably the only guy/girl who could have won that majority to force Brett through, but now that’s done, he seems done. Mission Accomplished. What is his ambition now?
If Boris goes back to being Mayor then Sadiq can move to his ideal job which is probably film censor in Rabat
Oh man, I'd take Boris back in an instant. The job of the Mayor is to advertise London on a global scale, whether that's to tech startups, to financial services companies, tourists or top global chefs looking for new restaurant sites. Sadiq is completely incapable of doing any of this. The running of the city happens automatically anyway, it really was the perfect job for Boris.
"People arriving in England from abroad will no longer have to take Covid tests if they are fully vaccinated, the government has confirmed.
The changes will be introduced from 4am on 11 February "in time for the half term break", said Transport Secretary Grant Shapps."
It’s excellent news for central London, which NEEDS those tourists back
What we really need is a Mayor who can let go of the pandemic as well though. Sadiq seems singularly determined to remind everyone about it and advertise to the world that London is a plague city despite the fact that it isn't really. Lots of media and assorted lefties also need to stop talking the nation down internationally or making bogus comparisons and using idiotic terms like "plague island". It's really dented the confidence of some Europeans from coming to the UK. The conversation I had with my Italian colleague still rings in my ears, loads of them really do believe that people were dying in the streets of London unable to get healthcare, that hasn't been helped by the blue ticks on twitter trying to pretend it is.
I also think we need to wind down the daily COVID dashboard as well, maybe by the end of March. Two years seems fair.
Perhaps Boris can resign and become Mayor of London again. I would happily vote for him. It was probably his ideal job
I mean, he was necessary to win the Brexit referendum and probably the only guy/girl who could have won that majority to force Brett through, but now that’s done, he seems done. Mission Accomplished. What is his ambition now?
If Boris goes back to being Mayor then Sadiq can move to his ideal job which is probably film censor in Rabat
Boris Johnson's only subsequential act as mayor was to cancel the planned Eastern river crossing, which means that every time a gnat farts in the Blackwall Tunnel there is gridlock in SE London. He was an arse then, he is an arse now. He should go back to writing racist columns in the Telegraph and Spectator for retired colonels in the Home Counties to pleasure themselves to - it really is his sole area of comparative advantage.
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!!
You are forgiven, because you are probably in bed, and we are also at war
Actually a pretty good quote you posted, though pretty darn snarky (and brave?) directed at the likes of Cyclefree!
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.
Hmm, I fear there would have been too much ideological resistance to allowing a VC person to lead the programme and we would probably have been in the EU procurement programme which we know didn't work out well for the first (and critical) 6 months of the rollout.
No real way of knowing - and I don't fancy setting up the whole experiment again to find out.
Where I think it is clear that Boris was demonstrably worse is on Winter 2020/21, which of course is when the bulk of deaths occurred (and when we knew vaccines were tantalisingly close).
Only if you're a lockdown lover.
Lockdowns are not a "precautionary principle" they are an evil that should be resisted until the last possible moment, only once it has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt to be necessary. Considering the NHS didn't collapse in winter 2020/21 it looks like that was timed as late as possible, so it was called right to me.
The one thing I would say was wrong was having kids go in to school for the one day, then locking the country down that night, because it was the first working day back to make the decision: They should in my opinion have got the relevant people to work over the weekend and make that call on the weekend instead of the Monday.
If that means disrupting your weekend or holiday by a day then do that.
If you leave lockdowns to the last minute, they end up having to be (much) longer. If they are so evil, should you not act in a way so as to minimise the total amount of time in lockdown? That means going early so you can come out sooner, even if occasionally you end up with a short, unnecessary lockdown.
No, absolutely categorically not.
That's like saying like Judge Dredd the Police should extrajudicially kill those they think are guilty of murder without a trial, even if you kill a few innocents, because then you're going to stop more murders.
An unnecessary lockdown is an utter failure and to have a lockdown the case has to be proven beyond all reasonable doubt. If that means in the very rare occasions it actually becomes necessary that it has to last a bit longer, then so be it.
Much as I enjoy the satire of Judge Dredd, that's a silly comparison. The real police do act to stop crimes taking place. They have to make judgements about when to do that. Likewise, public health actions require judgements to be made.
A lockdown is undoubtedly a very serious step and it's not a choice that should be taken lightly, but if you resist them until the last possible moment, you cause more morbidity, more mortality and more time in lockdown.
And have done the right thing.
If you don't resist them until the last possible minute you go in and out of lockdown like a yo-yo unnecessarily. Potentially preventing a bit of morbidity is not an excuse to strip away people's fundamental human rights unnecessarily.
I like how I spoke of morbidity and mortality, but you turned that into "a bit of morbidity"! You see, I'm unaware of anything that strips away someone's fundamental human rights more than mortality.
There is no right to not die of natural causes.
Why do we spend lots of money on a national Breast Screening Programme? Why do we spend lots of money on flu vaccinations? Why do we spend lots of money on cervical cancer vaccinations? Why do we spend lots of money on treating people with diabetes, dementia, heart disease, colon cancer, etc. etc. etc.? Why do we have an NHS!?
Why do we have extensive legislative structures to ensure we eat unadulterated food, we live and work in safe buildings, the air we breath is not too polluted, transport is safe...
Government for centuries... nay, millennia... has had a role to protect citizens. We take that for granted when it comes to protecting us from cholera, dysentery etc. (both through vaccinations but more so through providing clean water and effective sewers). Yet because COVID-19 is a newer disease, suddenly protecting people from disease is not what government should do...???
Not without counting the cost. We have an NHS to protect us (not for us to protect it) and NICE and the concept of the QALY exist for a reason - even if they were junked along with the pandemic preparedness plan the minute we had a pandemic.
I am glad we agree that it is, in fact, the Government's job to help delay death from natural causes, but, yes, of course, what measures we take should be guided by cost-effectiveness.
Lockdowns were, as far as we know, never subject to a cost-benefit analysis. And I think it's pretty obvious why.
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
Fuck off you patronising man!
If you think that was bad, you should see what the disgusting letch was writing - under his own name - a decade ago. Pure, unadulterated filth.
I thought Mary Whitehouse died a few decades ago. Odd to think her spirit lives on in Sweden, of all places...
She was the lady who wrote that comedy sketch show in the early ‘90s, wasn’t she? A teenage me thought it was rather lovely. Milky milky.
She had Channel 4 put red blobs on the screen at the start of any films with rude bits from the mid-1980s as I recall. Very helpful to my housemates and myself when deciding what to watch on TV of a Friday evening. If in doubt we picked the ones with the red blobs.
She was always going on about the National Viewers' and Listeners' Alliance (?) but when one asked how many members it had apart from her husband to back her in this moral crusade, she would never answer, or am I being unfair?
Red blobs on the screen if there’s rude bits? I’m struggling to find an emoticon that does my bewilderment justice.
It was a small red triangle in the corner of the screen during the film in question.
It was, as Carnyx said, a useful way of picking what to watch if you wanted to... expand your horizons.
IIRC I don't think the red triangle was for run-of-the-mill filth, which could be found quite easily late at night in the 70s and early 80s on BBC2 and ITV so long as the films were foreign (I recall LWT ran them as the "Adult Continental Movie" series). The red triangle was for stuff that would challenge the BBFC for certification. And it was also all foreign filth too.
One thing that's been bothering me - who paid for the Downing Street suitcases of booze? A weekly whip round among the staff? BJ put his hands in his pocket (unlikely). The taxpayer?
One thing that's been bothering me - who paid for the Downing Street suitcases of booze? A weekly whip round among the staff? BJ put his hands in his pocket (unlikely). The taxpayer?
Isn't the taxpayer paying in any of those options?
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!!
You are forgiven, because you are probably in bed, and we are also at war
Actually a pretty good quote you posted, though pretty darn snarky (and brave?) directed at the likes of Cyclefree!
It was coined by that late, great PB-er @SeanT in one of his early so-called “literary” novels
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
🚨 Lord Agnew's resignation added to the ministerial resignations chart: Johnson pulls decisively clear of Brown, with a few months to go until he overtakes him in No10
Looks like Partygate fatigue and a war bounce, to me. Cummings could need to fire up those hard drives again with something quite new, or hitting home in a new way, if he wants to make a difference.
Senior Elysée source tells me: “There is a kind of alarmism in Washington and London which we cannot understand. We see no immediate likelihood of Russian military action. We simply want our interpretation to be taken into account before a common western approach is agreed.”
Are they not aware of Russia massing on Ukraine border?
Reading between the lines, French are actually accusing us of bigging the thing up.
The Russians are actually massing on the border in a serious way are they?
Yes, they are. Multiple reports from journalists from a number of countries of units from all over Russia massing in the area. Complete with photos from the ground, commercial satellite pictures etc.
It’s painting a hideous picture then, political promises of standing shoulder to shoulder, of European and NATO forces piled up in countries and waters and airspace all around Ukraine, and just watching Putin go in and do his thing - like 1945 all over again 😕
Unlike in 1945, the Ukrainians have some real backing form the states around them and from abroad.
That’s true, we are airlifting in a few useful things to help them. I concede that. Will you concede though to be unlike 1945 it needs the outcome not to be same as 1945?
To be like 1945, it would need to end up with the entire Ukraine inside Russia with the entire leadership dead, and most of the "intelligentsia" as well.
You are setting falsely high targets to be proved wrong Malmsy 🙂
I accept these terms - despite shoulder to shoulder allies having enough equipment in the region to re fight and win the Martian Invasion in War of the Worlds, we simply watch Putin own all Ukraines current borders and install puppet regime, to achieve 1945 all over again.
Personally, I'm hoping for no nuclear explosions. Me being an optimist and all.
Then you must find your own avatar as freaky as Dicksons undoubtedly is.
But I accept your surrender in these negotiations and pleased we have a deal.
I *like* nuclear explosions. Just not er... free range ones
More like Project Orion....
Whyever did we drop the idea of propelling spaceships by dropping nuclear bombs out the back? It's clearly cool hell.
It took a lot more nukes than you'd think for it to work. Like, dropping one out every 10 seconds for a week or something
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
Fuck off you patronising man!
If you think that was bad, you should see what the disgusting letch was writing - under his own name - a decade ago. Pure, unadulterated filth.
I thought Mary Whitehouse died a few decades ago. Odd to think her spirit lives on in Sweden, of all places...
She was the lady who wrote that comedy sketch show in the early ‘90s, wasn’t she? A teenage me thought it was rather lovely. Milky milky.
She had Channel 4 put red blobs on the screen at the start of any films with rude bits from the mid-1980s as I recall. Very helpful to my housemates and myself when deciding what to watch on TV of a Friday evening. If in doubt we picked the ones with the red blobs.
She was always going on about the National Viewers' and Listeners' Alliance (?) but when one asked how many members it had apart from her husband to back her in this moral crusade, she would never answer, or am I being unfair?
Red blobs on the screen if there’s rude bits? I’m struggling to find an emoticon that does my bewilderment justice.
It was a small red triangle in the corner of the screen during the film in question.
It was, as Carnyx said, a useful way of picking what to watch if you wanted to... expand your horizons.
IIRC I don't think the red triangle was for run-of-the-mill filth, which could be found quite easily late at night in the 70s and early 80s on BBC2 and ITV so long as the films were foreign (I recall LWT ran them as the "Adult Continental Movie" series). The red triangle was for stuff that would challenge the BBFC for certification. And it was also all foreign filth too.
A joke at the time was that Channel 4 displayed a warning red triangle, and the BBC used "written by Dennis Potter".
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
Politico.com - Palin v. New York Times pushes new boundaries on libel suits The libel case focuses on a 2017 editorial that suggested a link between a PAC’s map and a deadly Arizona shooting.
More than a decade after Sarah Palin found herself roundly mocked by the nation’s media elite as a small-town rube during her stint as Sen. John McCain’s populist vice presidential running mate, the former Alaska governor has a chance this week to strike back in court at those she viewed as her tormentors.
Palin is set to take on the colossus of the establishment press, The New York Times, in a libel suit she filed over a 2017 editorial that erroneously linked her political activities to the 2011 shooting attack in Tucson, Ariz., that left six people dead and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) badly wounded.
Within a day, the Times corrected the editorial and noted that no connection was ever established between the rampage and a map that Palin’s political action committee circulated with crosshairs superimposed on the districts of 20 Democrats, including Giffords. The Times also acknowledged it erred by suggesting that the crosshairs appeared over images of the candidates themselves.
Some media advocates say the fact that the case is going to trial at all is a sign that almost a half-century of deference to the press in the courts is giving way to a more challenging legal landscape for journalists, media companies and their attorneys. . . .
But less than two weeks after the errant editorial ran, Palin filed suit against the Times, accusing the news outlet of defaming her.
After years of litigation, as well as delays because of the coronavirus pandemic, a trial in Palin’s suit is scheduled to begin with jury selection on Monday in federal court in New York City.
The Russia Ukraine crisis is now leading the media and increasingly so
1) The Sue Gray report is presented to the HOC by Boris and lots of sounds of fury but his mps fail to send in the letters. Boris stands firm against Russia, Rishi announces the suspension of the NI rise, abolishes vat on energy and implements a generous grant scheme to all standard rate taxpayer households, Gove announces the levelling up schemes and Boris carries on praying for some respite in May
Or
2) He is gone by the end of the week
If I was betting on that I think 1 is favourite
Apart frrom "Tory Minister resigns in Covid fraud". which happens to be leading the news but I am surprised. This sort of thing is so commonplace with this government It's odd that they bother to report it
I have no idea which news you are watching but it is Russia Ukraine and right now a live NATO conference
It did briefly flash up on the BBC website.
The entire bounce back loans debarcle was entirely known about and could be seen coming down the line a year ago. I regularly frequent AccountingWeb/AnyAnswers forum (a riviting read for accountants and non-accountants alike.... okay, I jest; its as dry as anything) and every accountant on there was reporting that they felt for sure they had to file SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports, rather than Subject Access Requests) for a good number of their clients who'd taken the maximum bounceback loan of £50k, whizzed it up the wall on a new motor for themselves then filed DS01 a week later to strike their company off.
I doubt even half of bounceback loans will ever be repaid.
Agnew's account of his struggles to get it taken seriously are damning.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/jan/24/uk-politics-boris-johnson-conservatives-labour-nusrat-ghani ...The oversight by both BEIS [the Department for Business, Enterprise and Industry Strategy] and the British Business Bank of the panel lenders of BBLs has been nothing less than woeful. They have been assisted by the Treasury, who appear to have no knowledge or little interest in the consequences of fraud to our economy or our society... etc.
The fact that he's (apparently) close to Gove and Truss might account for the timing of this, but he does seem to have resigned for good reason, out of sheer frustration with the government.
"People arriving in England from abroad will no longer have to take Covid tests if they are fully vaccinated, the government has confirmed.
The changes will be introduced from 4am on 11 February "in time for the half term break", said Transport Secretary Grant Shapps."
It’s excellent news for central London, which NEEDS those tourists back
What we really need is a Mayor who can let go of the pandemic as well though. Sadiq seems singularly determined to remind everyone about it and advertise to the world that London is a plague city despite the fact that it isn't really. Lots of media and assorted lefties also need to stop talking the nation down internationally or making bogus comparisons and using idiotic terms like "plague island". It's really dented the confidence of some Europeans from coming to the UK. The conversation I had with my Italian colleague still rings in my ears, loads of them really do believe that people were dying in the streets of London unable to get healthcare, that hasn't been helped by the blue ticks on twitter trying to pretend it is.
I also think we need to wind down the daily COVID dashboard as well, maybe by the end of March. Two years seems fair.
Perhaps Boris can resign and become Mayor of London again. I would happily vote for him. It was probably his ideal job
I mean, he was necessary to win the Brexit referendum and probably the only guy/girl who could have won that majority to force Brett through, but now that’s done, he seems done. Mission Accomplished. What is his ambition now?
If Boris goes back to being Mayor then Sadiq can move to his ideal job which is probably film censor in Rabat
Oh man, I'd take Boris back in an instant. The job of the Mayor is to advertise London on a global scale, whether that's to tech startups, to financial services companies, tourists or top global chefs looking for new restaurant sites. Sadiq is completely incapable of doing any of this. The running of the city happens automatically anyway, it really was the perfect job for Boris.
Yup
Basically, to “run” - or rather promote - a big young global partying vibrant have-fun-and-make-money please-come-here world city like London, you need to be a hedonist. Literally. Boris and Ken were both that, in very different ways
Sadiq is a small minded teetotaller puritan. He’s got the exactly wrong skill set for the job, which is one reason, I think, he is so bad at it. He doesn’t like it. Doesn’t sit well
OTOH I have friends in Tooting who say Khan was an excellent constituency MP. Diligent and caring. Good at the small stuff. He should go back to the small stuff, where he’d probably be happier - and get more things done
Listening to Boris live just now he is all bluster and avoiding all the questions on Sue Gray and cost of living crisis
It is embarrassing, partygate is paralysing Boris and HMG and this report is desperately needed now so the consequences can happen, whatever they are, and the nation can move on
I would say that reading between the lines the NI increase looks likely to be postponed, if not cancelled altogether
Indeed the Gray report needs to be published quickly so Big Dog can sack the guilty and get on with defeating the Russians.
Canning the ridiculous Labour NI rise is another vote winner for Big Dog.
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.
Hmm, I fear there would have been too much ideological resistance to allowing a VC person to lead the programme and we would probably have been in the EU procurement programme which we know didn't work out well for the first (and critical) 6 months of the rollout.
No real way of knowing - and I don't fancy setting up the whole experiment again to find out.
Where I think it is clear that Boris was demonstrably worse is on Winter 2020/21, which of course is when the bulk of deaths occurred (and when we knew vaccines were tantalisingly close).
Only if you're a lockdown lover.
Lockdowns are not a "precautionary principle" they are an evil that should be resisted until the last possible moment, only once it has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt to be necessary. Considering the NHS didn't collapse in winter 2020/21 it looks like that was timed as late as possible, so it was called right to me.
The one thing I would say was wrong was having kids go in to school for the one day, then locking the country down that night, because it was the first working day back to make the decision: They should in my opinion have got the relevant people to work over the weekend and make that call on the weekend instead of the Monday.
If that means disrupting your weekend or holiday by a day then do that.
If you leave lockdowns to the last minute, they end up having to be (much) longer. If they are so evil, should you not act in a way so as to minimise the total amount of time in lockdown? That means going early so you can come out sooner, even if occasionally you end up with a short, unnecessary lockdown.
No, absolutely categorically not.
That's like saying like Judge Dredd the Police should extrajudicially kill those they think are guilty of murder without a trial, even if you kill a few innocents, because then you're going to stop more murders.
An unnecessary lockdown is an utter failure and to have a lockdown the case has to be proven beyond all reasonable doubt. If that means in the very rare occasions it actually becomes necessary that it has to last a bit longer, then so be it.
Much as I enjoy the satire of Judge Dredd, that's a silly comparison. The real police do act to stop crimes taking place. They have to make judgements about when to do that. Likewise, public health actions require judgements to be made.
A lockdown is undoubtedly a very serious step and it's not a choice that should be taken lightly, but if you resist them until the last possible moment, you cause more morbidity, more mortality and more time in lockdown.
And have done the right thing.
If you don't resist them until the last possible minute you go in and out of lockdown like a yo-yo unnecessarily. Potentially preventing a bit of morbidity is not an excuse to strip away people's fundamental human rights unnecessarily.
I like how I spoke of morbidity and mortality, but you turned that into "a bit of morbidity"! You see, I'm unaware of anything that strips away someone's fundamental human rights more than mortality.
There is no right to not die of natural causes.
Why do we spend lots of money on a national Breast Screening Programme? Why do we spend lots of money on flu vaccinations? Why do we spend lots of money on cervical cancer vaccinations? Why do we spend lots of money on treating people with diabetes, dementia, heart disease, colon cancer, etc. etc. etc.? Why do we have an NHS!?
Why do we have extensive legislative structures to ensure we eat unadulterated food, we live and work in safe buildings, the air we breath is not too polluted, transport is safe...
Government for centuries... nay, millennia... has had a role to protect citizens. We take that for granted when it comes to protecting us from cholera, dysentery etc. (both through vaccinations but more so through providing clean water and effective sewers). Yet because COVID-19 is a newer disease, suddenly protecting people from disease is not what government should do...???
Not without counting the cost. We have an NHS to protect us (not for us to protect it) and NICE and the concept of the QALY exist for a reason - even if they were junked along with the pandemic preparedness plan the minute we had a pandemic.
I am glad we agree that it is, in fact, the Government's job to help delay death from natural causes, but, yes, of course, what measures we take should be guided by cost-effectiveness.
Lockdowns were, as far as we know, never subject to a cost-benefit analysis. And I think it's pretty obvious why.
I think Government members and civil servants thought hard about introducing lockdowns, and their thinking included weighing up costs and benefits. Whether they did formal analyses... I can see there may not have been time, particularly for the first one.
We're seeing a lot of research on all aspects of COVID-19, and I'm sure that will continue. There will be many analyses done that will help inform future choices.
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
Fuck off you patronising man!
If you think that was bad, you should see what the disgusting letch was writing - under his own name - a decade ago. Pure, unadulterated filth.
I thought Mary Whitehouse died a few decades ago. Odd to think her spirit lives on in Sweden, of all places...
She was the lady who wrote that comedy sketch show in the early ‘90s, wasn’t she? A teenage me thought it was rather lovely. Milky milky.
She had Channel 4 put red blobs on the screen at the start of any films with rude bits from the mid-1980s as I recall. Very helpful to my housemates and myself when deciding what to watch on TV of a Friday evening. If in doubt we picked the ones with the red blobs.
She was always going on about the National Viewers' and Listeners' Alliance (?) but when one asked how many members it had apart from her husband to back her in this moral crusade, she would never answer, or am I being unfair?
Red blobs on the screen if there’s rude bits? I’m struggling to find an emoticon that does my bewilderment justice.
It was a small red triangle in the corner of the screen during the film in question.
It was, as Carnyx said, a useful way of picking what to watch if you wanted to... expand your horizons.
IIRC I don't think the red triangle was for run-of-the-mill filth, which could be found quite easily late at night in the 70s and early 80s on BBC2 and ITV so long as the films were foreign (I recall LWT ran them as the "Adult Continental Movie" series). The red triangle was for stuff that would challenge the BBFC for certification. And it was also all foreign filth too.
A joke at the time was that Channel 4 displayed a warning red triangle, and the BBC used "written by Dennis Potter".
Yes, Dennis Potter was another great example of this broadcasting era. Sometimes veering into soft-porn, but also often simultaneously much more intelligent and literate than much British TV after that, from the late '90s onward.
There is a distinction, which works for me but not, I discovered during the Iraq Inquiry for many lawyers, between legality and legitimacy. In the end, whether one judged that, in some technical sense, the war was legal, because of its weak rationale, lack of domestic and international support, and painful, chaotic aftermath, it came to be seen as illegitimate. Equally even if Johnson can find a way to demonstrate that somehow he was not in breach of those strict rules that he had set down for the whole country his actions and those of his staff will still be viewed as illegitimate. Gray’s report will strengthen or weaken that impression, but I suspect it is too late for her to change it.
The damage is done to Boris, the only thing that remains is how damaging is / was it
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!!
You are forgiven, because you are probably in bed, and we are also at war
Actually a pretty good quote you posted, though pretty darn snarky (and brave?) directed at the likes of Cyclefree!
It was coined by that late, great PB-er @SeanT in one of his early so-called “literary” novels
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
Fuck off you patronising man!
If you think that was bad, you should see what the disgusting letch was writing - under his own name - a decade ago. Pure, unadulterated filth.
I thought Mary Whitehouse died a few decades ago. Odd to think her spirit lives on in Sweden, of all places...
She was the lady who wrote that comedy sketch show in the early ‘90s, wasn’t she? A teenage me thought it was rather lovely. Milky milky.
She had Channel 4 put red blobs on the screen at the start of any films with rude bits from the mid-1980s as I recall. Very helpful to my housemates and myself when deciding what to watch on TV of a Friday evening. If in doubt we picked the ones with the red blobs.
She was always going on about the National Viewers' and Listeners' Alliance (?) but when one asked how many members it had apart from her husband to back her in this moral crusade, she would never answer, or am I being unfair?
She represented views which had been moderately mainstream 25 years previously but which by the 80s seemed antediluvian. She frequently referred to Christianity in a way which seemed archaic at the time but in her mind I am sure Christianity still seemed a mainstream position. She was not a monster. Dominic Sandbrook writes interestingly about her in his 20th century history series.
The advantage of Mary Whitehouse was that she kept broadcasters aware of excessive violence, whish is unfortunately now all too trendy, very rarely challenged, and an easy route to ratings. The disadvantage was her ridiculous views on sexuality in mainstream broadcasting.
Yes, for a while it seemed like every new crime drama would kick off with a young woman being brutally murdered. I got sick of it and went on strike. Seemed to work because there's a bit more diversity now. You get plenty of men and children also being brutally murdered.
Listening to Boris live just now he is all bluster and avoiding all the questions on Sue Gray and cost of living crisis
It is embarrassing, partygate is paralysing Boris and HMG and this report is desperately needed now so the consequences can happen, whatever they are, and the nation can move on
I would say that reading between the lines the NI increase looks likely to be postponed, if not cancelled altogether
Indeed the Gray report needs to be published quickly so Big Dog can sack the guilty and get on with defeating the Russians.
Canning the ridiculous Labour NI rise is another vote winner for Big Dog.
I would be delighted if the NI rise were canned.
That's what lost the government my support.
Hats off to you, G and HY. I thought the big guy was dead in the water, but you were all correct and Big Dog lives, faster and stronger.
Senior Elysée source tells me: “There is a kind of alarmism in Washington and London which we cannot understand. We see no immediate likelihood of Russian military action. We simply want our interpretation to be taken into account before a common western approach is agreed.”
Are they not aware of Russia massing on Ukraine border?
Reading between the lines, French are actually accusing us of bigging the thing up.
The Russians are actually massing on the border in a serious way are they?
Yes, they are. Multiple reports from journalists from a number of countries of units from all over Russia massing in the area. Complete with photos from the ground, commercial satellite pictures etc.
It’s painting a hideous picture then, political promises of standing shoulder to shoulder, of European and NATO forces piled up in countries and waters and airspace all around Ukraine, and just watching Putin go in and do his thing - like 1945 all over again 😕
Unlike in 1945, the Ukrainians have some real backing form the states around them and from abroad.
That’s true, we are airlifting in a few useful things to help them. I concede that. Will you concede though to be unlike 1945 it needs the outcome not to be same as 1945?
To be like 1945, it would need to end up with the entire Ukraine inside Russia with the entire leadership dead, and most of the "intelligentsia" as well.
You are setting falsely high targets to be proved wrong Malmsy 🙂
I accept these terms - despite shoulder to shoulder allies having enough equipment in the region to re fight and win the Martian Invasion in War of the Worlds, we simply watch Putin own all Ukraines current borders and install puppet regime, to achieve 1945 all over again.
Personally, I'm hoping for no nuclear explosions. Me being an optimist and all.
Then you must find your own avatar as freaky as Dicksons undoubtedly is.
But I accept your surrender in these negotiations and pleased we have a deal.
I *like* nuclear explosions. Just not er... free range ones
More like Project Orion....
Whyever did we drop the idea of propelling spaceships by dropping nuclear bombs out the back? It's clearly cool hell.
It took a lot more nukes than you'd think for it to work. Like, dropping one out every 10 seconds for a week or something
I see Ishmael still in the undergrowth fighting a war that’s been over for 20 years.
What is it going to take to receive your surrender?
Nadine Dorries @NadineDorries Whether it’s a major music festival, sporting event or concert, it's important that people pay a fair price to see the events they love. Please remain vigilant when considering to buy from ticket touts. Guidance is available if you are unsure: http://fanfairalliance.org/faqs/
The Russia Ukraine crisis is now leading the media and increasingly so
1) The Sue Gray report is presented to the HOC by Boris and lots of sounds of fury but his mps fail to send in the letters. Boris stands firm against Russia, Rishi announces the suspension of the NI rise, abolishes vat on energy and implements a generous grant scheme to all standard rate taxpayer households, Gove announces the levelling up schemes and Boris carries on praying for some respite in May
Or
2) He is gone by the end of the week
If I was betting on that I think 1 is favourite
Apart frrom "Tory Minister resigns in Covid fraud". which happens to be leading the news but I am surprised. This sort of thing is so commonplace with this government It's odd that they bother to report it
I have no idea which news you are watching but it is Russia Ukraine and right now a live NATO conference
It did briefly flash up on the BBC website.
The entire bounce back loans debarcle was entirely known about and could be seen coming down the line a year ago. I regularly frequent AccountingWeb/AnyAnswers forum (a riviting read for accountants and non-accountants alike.... okay, I jest; its as dry as anything) and every accountant on there was reporting that they felt for sure they had to file SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports, rather than Subject Access Requests) for a good number of their clients who'd taken the maximum bounceback loan of £50k, whizzed it up the wall on a new motor for themselves then filed DS01 a week later to strike their company off.
I doubt even half of bounceback loans will ever be repaid.
Agnew's account of his struggles to get it taken seriously are damning.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/jan/24/uk-politics-boris-johnson-conservatives-labour-nusrat-ghani ...The oversight by both BEIS [the Department for Business, Enterprise and Industry Strategy] and the British Business Bank of the panel lenders of BBLs has been nothing less than woeful. They have been assisted by the Treasury, who appear to have no knowledge or little interest in the consequences of fraud to our economy or our society... etc.
The fact that he's (apparently) close to Gove and Truss might account for the timing of this, but he does seem to have resigned for good reason, out of sheer frustration with the government.
I suspect this might be Rishi dished. ...Agnew said, at the start of the pandemic, BEIS had just two counter-fraud officials on its staff, neither of whom were experienced in this area. They refused to enagage with the counter-fraud team at the Cabinet Office reporting to Agnew, Agnrew said.
Schoolboy errors were made, for example allowing over a thousand companies to receive bounceback loans that were not even trading when Covid struck ...
I’ve been arguing with Treasury and Bay’s officials for nearly two years to get them to lift their game. I’ve been mostly unsuccessful.
Agnew said he was particulary worried about how banks had been able to claim back 100% of some Covid loans that were written off. He said three out of the seven main lenders were responsible for 87% of the loans paid out to firms that are now dissolved. And two of the seven lenders were responsible for 81% of loans to firms set up after the pandemic started, he said.
Agnew said, if only the British Business Bank would “wake up”, there was still time to take action on duplicate loans paid out. He went on:
Despite pressing BEIS and BBB for over a year, there is still no single dashboard of management data to scrutinise lender performance. It is inexcusable.
We’ve already paid out nearly £1bn pounds to banks claiming the state guarantee . The percentage of these losses estimated to be from fraud rather than credit failure is 26%. I accept this as only an earlier approximation but a very worrying one.
Agnew said he had at least four differences of opinion with Treasury officials on what the government shoud be doing.
He said there was a failure by Treasury and BEIS officials to understand the “complete disjunction” between the amount of criminal activity in this area, probably hundreds of thousands of cases, and the capacity of the enforcement agencies trying to stop it. For example, Natis, the National Investigation Service, can handle just 200 cases a year, he said....
Senior Elysée source tells me: “There is a kind of alarmism in Washington and London which we cannot understand. We see no immediate likelihood of Russian military action. We simply want our interpretation to be taken into account before a common western approach is agreed.”
Are they not aware of Russia massing on Ukraine border?
Reading between the lines, French are actually accusing us of bigging the thing up.
The Russians are actually massing on the border in a serious way are they?
Yes, they are. Multiple reports from journalists from a number of countries of units from all over Russia massing in the area. Complete with photos from the ground, commercial satellite pictures etc.
It’s painting a hideous picture then, political promises of standing shoulder to shoulder, of European and NATO forces piled up in countries and waters and airspace all around Ukraine, and just watching Putin go in and do his thing - like 1945 all over again 😕
Unlike in 1945, the Ukrainians have some real backing form the states around them and from abroad.
That’s true, we are airlifting in a few useful things to help them. I concede that. Will you concede though to be unlike 1945 it needs the outcome not to be same as 1945?
To be like 1945, it would need to end up with the entire Ukraine inside Russia with the entire leadership dead, and most of the "intelligentsia" as well.
You are setting falsely high targets to be proved wrong Malmsy 🙂
I accept these terms - despite shoulder to shoulder allies having enough equipment in the region to re fight and win the Martian Invasion in War of the Worlds, we simply watch Putin own all Ukraines current borders and install puppet regime, to achieve 1945 all over again.
Personally, I'm hoping for no nuclear explosions. Me being an optimist and all.
Then you must find your own avatar as freaky as Dicksons undoubtedly is.
But I accept your surrender in these negotiations and pleased we have a deal.
I *like* nuclear explosions. Just not er... free range ones
More like Project Orion....
Whyever did we drop the idea of propelling spaceships by dropping nuclear bombs out the back? It's clearly cool hell.
It took a lot more nukes than you'd think for it to work. Like, dropping one out every 10 seconds for a week or something
I see Ishmael still in the undergrowth fighting a war that’s been over for 20 years.
What is it going to take to receive your surrender?
Pointing the fun end of Project Orion ship at him?
Bad bad move. You always interview. Always. And if someone doesn't want to be interviewed in something they claim to be as important as this you view what they tell you with a hugely sceptical eye.
He can't be forced to an interview. But the consequences of him refusing to do so for the investigation should be spelt out.
Frankly I'd be inclined to discount very clearly in the report - in the executive summary - anything he says unless it is clearly corroborated elsewhere by reliable evidence. I would also list out all the unanswered questions and issues I was not able to address as a result of this witness being unwilling to be interviewed.
Please Cyclefree, that is unladylike. remember the adage:
Men should only weep in war, women should only swear in bed
Fuck off you patronising man!
If you think that was bad, you should see what the disgusting letch was writing - under his own name - a decade ago. Pure, unadulterated filth.
I thought Mary Whitehouse died a few decades ago. Odd to think her spirit lives on in Sweden, of all places...
She was the lady who wrote that comedy sketch show in the early ‘90s, wasn’t she? A teenage me thought it was rather lovely. Milky milky.
She had Channel 4 put red blobs on the screen at the start of any films with rude bits from the mid-1980s as I recall. Very helpful to my housemates and myself when deciding what to watch on TV of a Friday evening. If in doubt we picked the ones with the red blobs.
She was always going on about the National Viewers' and Listeners' Alliance (?) but when one asked how many members it had apart from her husband to back her in this moral crusade, she would never answer, or am I being unfair?
She represented views which had been moderately mainstream 25 years previously but which by the 80s seemed antediluvian. She frequently referred to Christianity in a way which seemed archaic at the time but in her mind I am sure Christianity still seemed a mainstream position. She was not a monster. Dominic Sandbrook writes interestingly about her in his 20th century history series.
The advantage of Mary Whitehouse was that she kept broadcasters aware of excessive violence, whish is unfortunately now all too trendy, very rarely challenged, and an easy route to ratings. The disadvantage was her ridiculous views on sexuality in mainstream broadcasting.
Yes, for a while it seemed like every new crime drama would kick off with a young woman being brutally murdered. I got sick of it and went on strike. Seemed to work because there's a bit more diversity now. You get plenty of men and children also being brutally murdered.
Nadine Dorries @NadineDorries Whether it’s a major music festival, sporting event or concert, it's important that people pay a fair price to see the events they love. Please remain vigilant when considering to buy from ticket touts. Guidance is available if you are unsure: http://fanfairalliance.org/faqs/
Strangely, given the source, that is spot on. He even looks a bit like one of the regulars, outside the Hammersmith Apollo.
As I suspected Shapps has not removed the pain-in-the-arse "Passenger Locator Form". I thought when I did one recently "I bet the government won't get rid of these fecking things!"
Annoyed to be proved right. If they don't need restrictions they do not need passenger locator forms.
One thing that's been bothering me - who paid for the Downing Street suitcases of booze? A weekly whip round among the staff? BJ put his hands in his pocket (unlikely). The taxpayer?
Comments
The entire bounce back loans debarcle was entirely known about and could be seen coming down the line a year ago. I regularly frequent AccountingWeb/AnyAnswers forum (a riviting read for accountants and non-accountants alike.... okay, I jest; its as dry as anything) and every accountant on there was reporting that they felt for sure they had to file SARs (Suspicious Activity Reports, rather than Subject Access Requests) for a good number of their clients who'd taken the maximum bounceback loan of £50k, whizzed it up the wall on a new motor for themselves then filed DS01 a week later to strike their company off.
I doubt even half of bounceback loans will ever be repaid.
I am not a lockdown fanatic. Labelling anyone who is slightly less hawkish than you on the issue as a "lockdown fanatic" seems to come from a Trumpian own-the-libs school of rhetoric. Occasionally, PB.com rises above such nonsense and we can manage a reasoned debate. Let's maybe try for that?
I think the UK government locked us all down more than it had to. Maybe we agree on that! I think better public health measures, with less use of the strong arm of the law, would have meant that lockdowns were less needed. Lockdowns are a tool available to government, but they should only be used in extremis. I hope we never need another one in my lifetime. All I was suggesting was that, given the uncertainties when fighting a pandemic and the need to act quickly, we shouldn't necessarily wait until the last possible moment before using a lockdown. Is there any scope to discuss quite when it's appropriate to trigger a lockdown, or is any conversation on the subject too triggering for you?
By the way, yes, of course, people aren't incarcerated until they get screened for breast cancer. But they can be incarcerated for breaking laws on food safety, building safety, air pollution etc. We have had such laws the entire time you have been alive and, somehow, you coped.
"People arriving in England from abroad will no longer have to take Covid tests if they are fully vaccinated, the government has confirmed.
The changes will be introduced from 4am on 11 February "in time for the half term break", said Transport Secretary Grant Shapps."
I don’t want to bang on, but Sri Lanka is doing the right thing. They have cleverly instructed their airline (direct flights from LHR) to allow totally-refundable tickets and the hotels are all offering Free Cancellation Booking. So the risk is as minimal as it gets in these difficult times. If you get a positive PCR before the flight you can get a total refund. There is NO test on arrival so zero risk there
As a result the hotels are bustling, and Galle is almost full. Today saw an influx of Russians into my Colombo gaff. Not sure if that’s a “coincidence”
I have also just had possibly the juiciest tempura prawns of my life. Big fat scrumptious things, with a home made dipping chilli sauce, by the crashing Indian Ocean. Cost? £3
My God, the contrast with last winter when I was personally staring into the deep abyss of Total Winter Lockdown. Yesterday I found some diary notes I made at that time. The bleakness was intense. A writhing despair
She was not a monster. Dominic Sandbrook writes interestingly about her in his 20th century history series.
It was, as Carnyx said, a useful way of picking what to watch if you wanted to... expand your horizons.
*checks*
Actually a red triangle ... and my memory was that it was very much to keep Mrs Whitehouse off, but only made things worse. Wiki does not match my memory in that respect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_triangle_(Channel_4)
That has nothing to do with whether I expect him to be generally corroborated or not on this matter, I don't see how Boris wriggles out of it. But are you telling me you trusted Cummings as an honest person say, before he started making accusations against Boris?
https://twitter.com/VictimOfMaths/status/1485570730867765251
Everything non-essential was shut you massive hairy twatting idiot. Including entertainment and hospitality.
THE HAGUE, Dec 18 (Reuters) - The Netherlands will go into a strict lockdown over the Christmas and New Year period to try to contain the highly- contagious Omicron coronavirus variant, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Saturday.
All non-essential shops and services, including restaurants, hairdressers, museums and gyms will be closed from Sunday until Jan. 14. All schools will be shut until at least Jan. 9.
"The Netherlands is again shutting down. That is unavoidable because of the fifth wave that is coming at us with the Omicron variant," Rutte told a televised news conference.
Or try another source, like the Dutch government:
Educational institutions and out-of-school care (BSO) are closed until at least 9 January 2022. There are some exceptions. On 3 January the government will decide in what form education will resume from 10 January.
All hospitality venues are closed, except for delivery and takeaway.
All non-essential shops are closed, except for click and collect and returns.
Or the BBC:
Covid: Dutch go into Christmas lockdown over Omicron wave https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59713503
The 8pm curfew came BEFORE, in November, then they tightened it to a Xmas lockdown. You’’re just a silly fool, give it up
Bar, restaurants to close at 8 pm
Move comes day after new infections hit record
Partial lockdown to last three weeks
Social distancing reimposed immediately
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/netherlands-impose-partial-lockdown-halt-covid-19-surge-media-2021-11-12/
As an aside, my local cinemas have just introduced a “21” rating, meaning what you think it does, but finally means the local censors won’t be taking a large pair of scissors to much of Hollywood’s output.
But there are some great youtubes of high-explosive model tests.
https://ponyonthetories2.blogspot.com/2022/01/normal-0-false-false-false-en-gb-x-none.html
I also think we need to wind down the daily COVID dashboard as well, maybe by the end of March. Two years seems fair.
A fund intended to boost the UK’s most deprived places appears overwhelmingly skewed towards Tory-held areas, with dozens of Conservative regions in the top tier for assistance despite being relatively affluent, a Guardian analysis has found.
Among 93 English regions placed in the priority group of three tiers to receive money from the £4.8bn levelling up fund, 31 are included while not being ranked as in the top third most deprived places by average deprivation score.
Of these 31, 26 are entirely represented by Conservative MPs, with the others having at least one Tory MP.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/04/tories-accused-of-levelling-up-stitch-up-over-regional-deprivation-fund
If Michael Gove does not like the Guardian, the FT ran its own similar analysis (paywalled). Other evidence might come from backbenchers reporting whips' threats to withhold funding from their constituencies.
I mean, he was necessary to win the Brexit referendum and probably the only guy/girl who could have won that majority to force Brett through, but now that’s done, he seems done. Mission Accomplished. What is his ambition now?
If Boris goes back to being Mayor then Sadiq can move to his ideal job which is probably film censor in Rabat
Labour 41 (-2) Conservatives 34 (+4)
https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1485658684701253646?t=y2xaPJ2NDys1ZZYP4UoNwA&s=19
The weakness of Rishi’s position is lack of due diligence by the treasurey, who are ultimately responsible and can’t blame others.
In particular, the treasury used banks to distribute out what wasn’t banks money but the taxpayers - and no one did diligence on how and to who it was going. The Treasury argument is it was the banks fault. And in something of thirty billion upwards we are talking eye watering sums of tax payers money estimates say lost to fraud.
And there is various angles it can be attacked. Incompetence. But also the strengthing of criminals by handing them so much tax payers money, like arming the enemy and counteracting the funding of the police.
Dorries yet again... Too many tweets make a twat, as the subject was fond of remarking. And Dorries tweets an awful lot.
Now explicit violence is long since normalised and mainstream, and the often interesting grey area between erotic and intellectual has long since disappeared on mainstream British TV, partly because of fears of accusations of sexism.
The Gambling Commission has been taken over by "ideological zealots" and is acting as if its purpose is to "destroy" the industry it regulates, according to the co-chair of a cross-party group of British MPs and peers.
The comments from Scott Benton MP were made following the completion of a scathing report investigating the "competency and effectiveness" of the commission due to be published on Monday by the Parliamentary All Party Betting and Gaming Group.
In reply, the Gambling Commission said it would respond to the group to "put straight inaccurate assumptions".
https://www.racingpost.com/news/members/latest/parliamentary-group-accuses-gambling-commission-of-being-taken-over-by-zealots/533781 (£££)
Suddenly a hundred Tory MPs put down their quills, and have second thoughts
One of them was to test the shock adsorbing piston system.
To do that, they were going to mount an Orion upside down in the desert. Frisbees, weighing 50-100 tons, made of TNT would be fired by rocket motors over the piston and detonated. One every couple of seconds.
Canning the ridiculous Labour NI rise is another vote winner for Big Dog.
LAB: 41% (-2)
CON: 34% (+4)
LDEM: 11% (+2)
GRN: 5% (-2)
REFUK: 3% (-1)
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1485659356318232579?s=20
Cape Verde:
"Your temperature will be taken on arrival in Cape Verde. If it is high, you will be taken to an assigned area at the airport where it will be measured again. If your temperature remains high, the Cape Verde authorities may need you to do a COVID-19 test."
Sounds a bit more wiggle room: no temp no test.
LAB: 41% (-2)
CON: 34% (+4)
LDEM: 11% (+2)
GRN: 5% (-2)
REFUK: 3% (-1)
via @RedfieldWilton, 24 Jan
Chgs. w/ 17 Jan
He was an arse then, he is an arse now. He should go back to writing racist columns in the Telegraph and Spectator for retired colonels in the Home Counties to pleasure themselves to - it really is his sole area of comparative advantage.
Or it was just such a fall that some recovery was inevitable.
Electoral calculus gives Labour 300, Conservatives 257, LDs 17 on new boundaries
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=Y&CON=34&LAB=41&LIB=11&Reform=3&Green=5&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=18.3&SCOTLAB=20.2&SCOTLIB=6.6&SCOTReform=0.9&SCOTGreen=3&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=48&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2019nbbase
Has anyone seen Holiday?
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/holiday_2018
May still the undisputed leader, of course 🚨 https://twitter.com/timd_IFG/status/1485649436797808640/photo/1
Boris Brown, Starmer Cameron, Davey Clegg and Sunak David Miliband?
Lends itself to poetry
Will it e'er be fixed
Politico.com - Palin v. New York Times pushes new boundaries on libel suits
The libel case focuses on a 2017 editorial that suggested a link between a PAC’s map and a deadly Arizona shooting.
More than a decade after Sarah Palin found herself roundly mocked by the nation’s media elite as a small-town rube during her stint as Sen. John McCain’s populist vice presidential running mate, the former Alaska governor has a chance this week to strike back in court at those she viewed as her tormentors.
Palin is set to take on the colossus of the establishment press, The New York Times, in a libel suit she filed over a 2017 editorial that erroneously linked her political activities to the 2011 shooting attack in Tucson, Ariz., that left six people dead and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) badly wounded.
Within a day, the Times corrected the editorial and noted that no connection was ever established between the rampage and a map that Palin’s political action committee circulated with crosshairs superimposed on the districts of 20 Democrats, including Giffords. The Times also acknowledged it erred by suggesting that the crosshairs appeared over images of the candidates themselves.
Some media advocates say the fact that the case is going to trial at all is a sign that almost a half-century of deference to the press in the courts is giving way to a more challenging legal landscape for journalists, media companies and their attorneys. . . .
But less than two weeks after the errant editorial ran, Palin filed suit against the Times, accusing the news outlet of defaming her.
After years of litigation, as well as delays because of the coronavirus pandemic, a trial in Palin’s suit is scheduled to begin with jury selection on Monday in federal court in New York City.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/23/sarah-palin-new-york-times-00000541
- Cases level. Still due to the younger unvaccinated group having higher incidence.
- In hospital. Down.
- MV Beds Down.
- Admissions. Down. A lot.
- Deaths flat. with a possible hint of starting to fall?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/jan/24/uk-politics-boris-johnson-conservatives-labour-nusrat-ghani
...The oversight by both BEIS [the Department for Business, Enterprise and Industry Strategy] and the British Business Bank of the panel lenders of BBLs has been nothing less than woeful. They have been assisted by the Treasury, who appear to have no knowledge or little interest in the consequences of fraud to our economy or our society... etc.
The fact that he's (apparently) close to Gove and Truss might account for the timing of this, but he does seem to have resigned for good reason, out of sheer frustration with the government.
Basically, to “run” - or rather promote - a big young global partying vibrant have-fun-and-make-money please-come-here world city like London, you need to be a hedonist. Literally. Boris and Ken were both that, in very different ways
Sadiq is a small minded teetotaller puritan. He’s got the exactly wrong skill set for the job, which is one reason, I think, he is so bad at it. He doesn’t like it. Doesn’t sit well
OTOH I have friends in Tooting who say Khan was an excellent constituency MP. Diligent and caring. Good at the small stuff. He should go back to the small stuff, where he’d probably be happier - and get more things done
That's what lost the government my support.
We're seeing a lot of research on all aspects of COVID-19, and I'm sure that will continue. There will be many analyses done that will help inform future choices.
The last paragraph is probably the most important
There is a distinction, which works for me but not, I discovered during the Iraq Inquiry for many lawyers, between legality and legitimacy. In the end, whether one judged that, in some technical sense, the war was legal, because of its weak rationale, lack of domestic and international support, and painful, chaotic aftermath, it came to be seen as illegitimate. Equally even if Johnson can find a way to demonstrate that somehow he was not in breach of those strict rules that he had set down for the whole country his actions and those of his staff will still be viewed as illegitimate. Gray’s report will strengthen or weaken that impression, but I suspect it is too late for her to change it.
The damage is done to Boris, the only thing that remains is how damaging is / was it
Come on... I feed these lines... the least you can do.... grumble, grumble....
What is it going to take to receive your surrender?
https://twitter.com/NadineDorries/status/1485649813379362816
Nadine Dorries
@NadineDorries
Whether it’s a major music festival, sporting event or concert, it's important that people pay a fair price to see the events they love. Please remain vigilant when considering to buy from ticket touts. Guidance is available if you are unsure: http://fanfairalliance.org/faqs/
...Agnew said, at the start of the pandemic, BEIS had just two counter-fraud officials on its staff, neither of whom were experienced in this area. They refused to enagage with the counter-fraud team at the Cabinet Office reporting to Agnew, Agnrew said.
Schoolboy errors were made, for example allowing over a thousand companies to receive bounceback loans that were not even trading when Covid struck ...
I’ve been arguing with Treasury and Bay’s officials for nearly two years to get them to lift their game. I’ve been mostly unsuccessful.
Agnew said he was particulary worried about how banks had been able to claim back 100% of some Covid loans that were written off. He said three out of the seven main lenders were responsible for 87% of the loans paid out to firms that are now dissolved. And two of the seven lenders were responsible for 81% of loans to firms set up after the pandemic started, he said.
Agnew said, if only the British Business Bank would “wake up”, there was still time to take action on duplicate loans paid out. He went on:
Despite pressing BEIS and BBB for over a year, there is still no single dashboard of management data to scrutinise lender performance. It is inexcusable.
We’ve already paid out nearly £1bn pounds to banks claiming the state guarantee . The percentage of these losses estimated to be from fraud rather than credit failure is 26%. I accept this as only an earlier approximation but a very worrying one.
Agnew said he had at least four differences of opinion with Treasury officials on what the government shoud be doing.
He said there was a failure by Treasury and BEIS officials to understand the “complete disjunction” between the amount of criminal activity in this area, probably hundreds of thousands of cases, and the capacity of the enforcement agencies trying to stop it. For example, Natis, the National Investigation Service, can handle just 200 cases a year, he said....
Annoyed to be proved right. If they don't need restrictions they do not need passenger locator forms.