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No 10 won’t be holding any parties after seeing this poll – politicalbetting.com
No 10 won’t be holding any parties after seeing this poll – politicalbetting.com
Despite Britons thinking the pandemic is getting worse, the use of masks is at its lowest level since July 2020Only 42% now say they're wearing face masks in public spaces, from 53% when last asked (22-23 Feb)https://t.co/a66mVE96mn pic.twitter.com/aozM1ZwihL
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It may surprise those on this forum who have become dismissive of covid and the need for protection, including Leon (who has caught it, what, four times already?). But many people are very alarmed at what they are seeing.
The Government's approach is driven by Boris Johnson's desire to keep his right-wingers happy, not by the health and wellbeing of our nation.
“For grocery expert, Ged Futter, the food industry is now grappling with supply issues not experienced since the end of the Second World War.
"The immediate focus is sunflower oil and rapeseed oil, but there will be many more products which will be affected over the coming months. It's some of the ingredients you don't even think about, like starch, which comes from wheat."
He believes thousands of products will have to be reformulated… He says the ripple effects from the war are creating "scarily high" price rises, adding to already rising prices on the supermarket shelves.
"I think the level of food inflation we are now going to be seeing will be in excess of 15%'"”
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60941091
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-60970634
https://www.tomorrowspapers.co.uk/
BUT someone is clearly out on a gagging campaign because Sky News have blanked the relevant front pages and they have not carried the Mail at all. https://news.sky.com/story/saturdays-national-newspaper-front-pages-12427754
It's most unusual to see the BBC more courageous than Sky on something like this. They have the story on their main news.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60967143
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10679935/Married-Tory-MP-whip-suspended-caught-secret-tape-sting.html
I think we are underestimating Labour's chances in 2024 and next month will be a bad one for the tories.
1. Boris Johnson will lead the Conservatives at the next UK GE
2. Boris Johnson will lead the Conservatives to defeat at the next UK GE
And these were the local election results two years before the general election...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_United_Kingdom_local_elections
Labour 47%
Conservatives 25%
Lib Dems 23%
There doesn't seem to be much talk about the opening up of jabs for 5-12 year olds on here.
Seemingly invincible regimes do fall, but they have to create the seeds of their own destruction. For the Tories, the seed was Brexit.
That might have worked a century ago but nowadays with media awareness? It's not just anecdotal, but problems in industries like travel where infections are causing chaos (Dover, Heathrow) as well as schools and NHS trusts. My son's school had to shut the whole of last week because there was so much covid - they ran out of teachers. The scientists may get ridiculed but studies like ZOE, which the Gov't have pulled the plug on, are still reporting and they have a current daily infection estimate at 337,000. https://covid.joinzoe.com/
I think it's an incredibly dangerous political route to go down to think you can pull the wool over people's eyes and, effectively, gag the news. It smacks to me of the last vestiges of a party losing power, not to mention being rather Putinesque.
The right-wingers (I know it annoys people if I call them Far Right) are so hell-bent on pretending this thing has gone away that they've lost all sense of proportion and perspective.
2022. Snap.
They're finished.
I don't know about the "chaos" you describe - is it the disease that is causing chaos, or the requirement to test and isolate?
Also: the situation in Ukraine puts Covid in to context. The world doesn't stop turning and cannot be put on hold because of Covid.
Why anyone takes @Heathener seriously I do not know
The causes of the Conservative's malaise in 92-97 were different. Black Wednesday was a totally self-inflicted mess. Sleaze seems less of an issue now. The problems facing the country are mostly external: higher fuel prices caused by the war; food prices by the war; and Covid on top.
Only Brexit was in our hands, and I don't see that as being a major cause of our problems.
In addition, some of the energy price increase can be put down to the cost of green policies, which the public are in favour of.
IMV external effects are less of a government than internal ones.
The only thing I would want to add though is that I know people who have been pretty dismissive of covid, taking the kind of Leon line on it, who have caught it recently and who have felt really rough. None of them died, it's true, so the vaccines did their job brilliantly but they felt 'awful' and were unable to work for c. 5 to 7 days because of feeling too ill. So I don't think it's just about a requirement to isolate. It still makes a lot of people too ill to work. My ex, my son's father, was pretty cavalier about covid until he got it two weeks ago and has now changed his tune.
I'm avoiding entering the debate, which is my own bugbear, about the ongoing danger to vulnerable people and the elderly. There's also ongoing concern about the longterm health effects of this. There was a pretty strong warning from Dr Stephen Griffin yesterday. Is this just another doom-monger scientist as the Mail would have us believe? Or should we be just a wee bit more careful? https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/covid-warning-uk-faces-very-26619063
It really says an awful lot about you.
It may currently have slightly less public cut through, which is not the same thing.
You seem to have a vendetta which is quite unpleasant. Is the fault with you?
It does seem as if the UK government have gone a bit too far too quickly. I am not sure they are being very sensible.
('She' though
NOM 1.94
Con Maj 3.1
Lab Maj 5.6
Can someone explain to me why Lab Maj is shorter than 10?
In order to gain a Majority in the Commons (even a tiny one), Labour has to do one of two things, either:
1. Annihilate the SNP
2. Win England by a landslide
Anyone who’s had a good look at Anas Sarwar, Jackie Baillie, Daniel Johnson and Pauline McNeill (who??) knows that 1 ain’t happening anytime soon. Therefore I can only conclude that some serious cash is being wagered on 2. Evidence for 2 in the public domain is scant, so maybe somebody knows something we don’t?
(Third possibility is negligible liquidity.)
Have a nice day everyone.
The party mess has not helped, but even before that, people were fed up with the restrictions. I certainly was - and I'll be taking the little 'un to as many places as possible this Easter. I'll be wearing a mask in busy places, though ...
Then there are the economic dangers of having more restrictions, which should not be underplayed given the economic problems heading out way.
Recently all our family apart from my wife and I have had covid but it really was like a bad cold
We are going through the change from pandemic to endemic and there will be bumps in the road but the 4th jabs are now underway and we do need to trust the vaccine
I would also suggest it would be very difficult to reimpose restrictions in the absence of a new more dangerous variant
In a way, it will now look worse if he isn't fined, as that will imply that he's above the law.
Some good points this morning, but I would suggest that while our Govt. may deserve credit for the way it's supported the Ukrainian government and armed forces it is getting very little, and deservedly so, for the way it's dealing with the refugee issue. Like everyone else I don't talk to all that many people, but the words 'shame' and 'shameful' crop up when the official British reaction is discussed.
While individuals may not be affected, there are friends of friends who have been.
As others have said, Covid hasn't gone away; however, as Mr J notes people are fed up with the restrictions, but they are still isolating when they find they have it, or indeed test positive although symptom-free.
Six foot trans goalkeeper who used to play men's football is now selected for England Universities' women's side
No amount of testosterone suppression alters the fact that she has an advantage over female-born goalkeepers.
I personally know more people with Covid right now than at any point in the pandemic. Statistically, most of us do. But those people, who are all safely vaccinated seem to have 2-3 days of feeling genuinely unwell and then the balance of a week slowly improving. No one I know has gone to hospital. Friends who are doctors or the spouses of doctors confirm that in their experience the only people who are in hospital because of Covid are the unvaccinated. Many more happen to be in hospital when testing positive but that is not why they are there.
As long as this remains the pattern the government can try to keep the economy returning to something like normal. Having people distracted by something else is definitely helping.
And we must remember that Putin's aims are clear: he wants all the Baltic states, and perhaps even Poland, under his thumb. We can sit in our nice, warm homes and say: "Oh, he won't do it!", but it's clear he wants to. By military means or subversion, he will try.
This evil needs stopping, now. Russia needs to lose, and the Russian public needs to know the evils that have been done in their name. If Russia can claim a 'win' in Ukraine, then they'll go for more in a few years.
And shame on those who sought to excuse Russia, or blame us for their evils. Or worse, blame the Ukrainians for the evil that has been unleashed upon them.
Can we start by suspending all the MPs who signed the StW petition from parliament?
Vaccines are, and always have been, the key.
If he's not fined, it won't exonerate him in the public mind, and will make it look like BoJo is above the law. I'd happily bet a shiny sixpence that he does believe that, but it will be a terrible look.
If he is fined, well... he's guilty, isn't he? In such an unambiguous way that even he and his backbenchers can't just ignore.
Unless he goes for a "no criminal record, paid charge so that none of us are distracted by trivia about the past, when we need to vaccinate Ukraine."
Or some other blog of grease that I can't think of because I'm not as brazen as Big Greased Piglet.
But the more I see of the abject workings of government in general, the more I have come to realise that understanding this would have been beyond their rather limited intellectual powers.
https://twitter.com/essexlive/status/1510253214913818626?s=21&t=dClFhmnEetCxvV-jcTbB8Q
The government were warned 50 days ago and seem totally unprepared. What a shock.
If you're right about the line they take though, that might well make matters worse. 'Boris compares Covid to parking on double yellow lines' rather begs the question of why we had so many draconian restrictions.
"Vaccines are, and always have been, the key."
The old gits group, as we call ourselves, arranged a pub meet in Liverpool last Friday to celebrate the end of Covid. We postponed it because three of the six tested positive for Covid. We're all over seventy but the three with Covid only had mild cold symptoms. A triumph for vaccination and boosters.
It's over, barring the mopping up, unless you're a cowardy-custard about vaccinations, or have other problems.
It perhaps shouldn't be. It may be a mark of just how far this government's fallen. But it is.
History will write this similarly.
For a change from kangaroos ...
If we are going down the line of assessing women based on physique then we're on sticky ground. I've worked alongside female colleagues who were at least 6 ft and with strong physical features, as well as pretty obviously high testosterone levels.
But there are definite changes which take place around puberty.
I'll say no more here about this. The whole topic is so mired in vitriol and hatred, not just on here I hasten to add, that it's not an appropriate place to discuss. It's nuanced and complex, whatever the binary boneheads like Piers Morgan want to tell everyone.
It's not over. Not yet.
Like the article in the independent which explained that because Lia hadn't actually broken the world record she obv had no unfair advantage
But if you are a 18 year old, poorly trained conscript in an armoured vehicle that seems to have a target painted on it, expecting a lethal ambush at any moment it is not hard to understand how everything that moves looks like a target.
https://twitter.com/ObserverUK/status/1510513076528844807?t=d-RrUcZLfK_rV2EiCLNFmw&s=19
However we look at this, Russia has acted in such a way that it will be a pariah state for decades. They're back to where they were in the time of Lenin.
The Russian forces were catastrophically defeated and took very heavy casualties in the Kyiv Oblast, and ran amok killing, looting, raping before retreating. The effect will be to harden the resolve of Ukranians in Donbas and Kherson to fight on. It is clear why Mariopol fights on, even a month into the siege.
"In 2019, according to the Russian military prosecutor office situation with dedovshchina is getting worse. Incidents of hazing in the army during the 2019 have increased. 51,000 human rights violations and 9,890 sexual assault cases.[8]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedovshchina
We should not suspend sanctions against Russia until Putin is delivered to the ICC in the Hague. Period.
The only strategy might be to just declare the Russian state and everyone associated with it as a terrorist regime. No middle ground. Force people to make a choice. It's civilisation vs barbarism.
The Russian forces have proven to be very badly trained and worse led, incapable of bringing their forces to bear in an effective manner and with minimal logistical support. The other pictures coming out from the reconquered areas are the debris of columns of vehicles trapped by the simple expedient of destroying vehicles at either end and then mopped up. This is so basic as to be almost beyond belief. Where are the screens of infantry looking for and flushing out such traps? Why is no one thinking about exit routes before commiting such forces or flanking manouvres? It may well prove that the Ukranian estimates of their casualties are much closer than we thought.
"I've worked alongside female colleagues who were at least 6 ft and with strong physical features, as well as pretty obviously high testosterone levels."
Testosterone levels between normal males and normal females don't overlap ... eg
Testosterone | North Bristol NHS Trusthttps://www.nbt.nhs.uk › requesting › test-information
Reference range: Adults: Male 8.7 - 29 nmol/L, Female 0.2 - 1.7 nmol/L
As Mr Cole says, there is variation within reference ranges, but testosterone levels aren't like height or blood glucose levels.
Mr Z, I remember Marburg well. I was working with experimental animals at the time and they were also susceptible.
We can encourage more (and better) mask wearing. This has very little impact on the economy and is effective. We can do better at test, trace and isolate: make testing easy, support engagement with tracing, stress the importance of isolating, and give people adequate support to isolate. Improve vaccination rates. Be more flexible about what activities need to be face-to-face and when we can stick with virtual meetings. We need to tackle a culture of presenteeism.
There are economic dangers in having large swathes of the workforce off sick, as well as the obvious health risks.
There’s very little time left for things to noticeably improve in the economy. There will have been 14 or 15 years of Tory rule.
What could change that picture? Johnson gets evicted, perhaps. Covid slipping into the background properly, not sure that works.
Starmer lacks the umph that Blair brought. He has also not yet set out the positive side (were not Tory is not enough, really).
On Covid, as you have said, we will not agree. I think the public are sclerotic here. They are happily living their normal lives, going out, working, etc and for the most part have now had Covid, and recovered, and so it’s lost the fear for them. The worst has happened. They avoided it for two years and them bam. A bad day or days, then better.
I wonder if you have had Covid yet? Getting it and recovering has definitely changed the opinions of some of my more wary colleagues. And never forget the ability of the media to paint what story it wants. The reason hospitals are struggling is that they have Covid patients at the same time as trying to do everything else, including moving on the backlog. But if the bbc runs a few reports of the ons and some stressed hospitals, and then you ask people if they are worried about Covid, some will be.
I also have issues about what the ons is actually measuring right now. They use PCR which is very sensitive and pretty accurate, but it also can be picking up people who have had Covid in the last few weeks. I’m not sure how many of the 1 in 13 are I’ll.
In general post Vietnam western armies have understood how to direct and contain that violence. There are continued incidents of course, including British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, and even in training in Kenya. In Russia, as with some other nations the military command doesn't even seem willing to try to contain the mayhem, indeed often relishes it.
There's a particular problem for those employers whose staff can work fairly effectively from home. We are resuming going to the office 2 days a week from tomorrow. There is considerable reluctance among some staff - colleagues who I've spoken to would prefer a model of converting the office into a place to meet, with lots of separate areas and hot desks for people to comre in when there's a reason for a meeting, rather than routine presenteeism. "What's the point of routinely coming in and then having staff go sick?" is the argument. The counter-argument is that we need to attempt to return to a degree of normality sometime, and putting it off further won't make it any easier. Certainly a return to 5 days/week is out of the question for the forseeable future.
What I don't understand is why we're taking our foot off the vaccination pedal. Why aren't we giving new boosters with the same enthusiasm that was so successful last year?
Yet as we've seen by the results, it doesn't work. The Russians are doing poorly, in part, because of their training regime.
More refineries blockaded today.
Police doing nothing as usual.
https://twitter.com/juststop_oil/status/1510521355455897603?s=21&t=dClFhmnEetCxvV-jcTbB8Q
Vaccines are hugely important, so let’s do more to improve our vaccination rates. We’ve taken our foot off the pedal there.
As before, there is plenty we can do to reduce transmission without huge economic costs.
https://twitter.com/ukiswitheu/status/1510210710646755331?s=20&t=XMuPLP9JLhbQGPkNOfj3Tg
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60948439
The killings look coordinated and preordained. Public support for the war in Russia is high. Thousands of officials and military from the top down to junior officers are happily carrying out a campaign of terror.
If Putin goes there are plenty of ultra-nationalists ready and waiting to “exact revenge” on their former colonies.
https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1510184989400477697
Omicron is pretty miserable to have, but now clearly less severe than original covid (though that wasn't obvious in December). This is in part because of its upper rather than lower respiratory tract nature. Unfortunately that location is also why systemic antibodies are less effective in preventing transmission and infection, as antibodies are much less a part of immunity in the upper tract. This is why we are seeing quite a lot of second Omicron infections already. It just goes round and round.
has recovered all of its value because of that
I just do not know how this can be addressed short of cutting off Russian gas supplies, which to be fair is not practical