Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
Great, means I can dismiss yet another of oft repeated PB dimwittery, to boot that the SNP will be FORCED to support a progressive Lab government. Looks like they can sit on their hands most of the time and actively oppose the reactionary crap Starmer and co will no doubt put forward because they want to suck off Brexiteers and red wall voters.
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
He should take over from Boris as there is little difference between them but he is not toxic
HYUFD will be joining Labour? They certainly are a more conservative party. Hell, PC and the MRLP are too.
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
There's nothing morally wrong with a party choosing not to cooperate or enter into an agreement with another, especially when the moral argument being made is for an election to a different parliament to the mandate he claims exists.
Dunt is just proving once again he's politically illiterate, as I know fine well he'd be up in arms if a German federal government went into coalition or made an agreement with the AfD or The Left.
SNP + Greens have a mandate in *both* parliaments, as far as the Scottish constituences are concerned. So that point falls.
That might be, but this would be for a *new* election to the UK Parliament, so when that came around the mandate wouldn't exist any more. They'd have to win it again.
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
He should take over from Boris as there is little difference between them but he is not toxic
Sir Keir has a Knighthood unlike Boris, at the moment that is the biggest difference between them
What a strange comment but you simply cannot yet accept Johnson is toxic
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
I did try and tell you. The Tories definitely won’t give you a referendum, and Labour almost certainly won’t
Partly because most Scots don’t want one, as per the polls, so this is popular
Next indyref: 2030s
That's handy as Sturgeon doesn't want one at the moment either because she knows she will lose.
So this is all a Sturgeon stunt. She can blame Tories and Labour for denying her followers a vote her extremists want, but the likely loss of which would undermine the SNP's raison d'etre?
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
There's nothing morally wrong with a party choosing not to cooperate or enter into an agreement with another, especially when the moral argument being made is for an election to a different parliament to the mandate he claims exists.
Dunt is just proving once again he's politically illiterate, as I know fine well he'd be up in arms if a German federal government went into coalition or made an agreement with the AfD or The Left.
SNP + Greens have a mandate in *both* parliaments, as far as the Scottish constituences are concerned. So that point falls.
That might be, but this would be for a *new* election to the UK Parliament, so when that came around the mandate wouldn't exist any more. They'd have to win it again.
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
He should take over from Boris as there is little difference between them but he is not toxic
Sir Keir has a Knighthood unlike Boris, at the moment that is the biggest difference between them
What a strange comment but you simply cannot yet accept Johnson is toxic
He's laying the groundwork for when he switches party.
The last PB Tory is preparing to switch off the lights.
Global travel chaos is why I can’t be bothered flying this summer. I’m driving up to Maine instead.
Apparently there is a glut of lobster, too. Can’t give the buggers away.
You just moved to the US, a driving holiday is compulsory in your first year there
You don’t even think $5 a gallon (c. £1 a litre) is particularly expensive ‘gas’.
Enjoy the seafood!
I am finalising my autumn US road trip as we type. Last time (2019) I headed out to South Dakota; this time I am mostly giving Trumpland a miss, doing a circuit of the New England states, heading down in a loop toward North Carolina before heading back to NYC.
Awesome! A proper US road trip is on my bucket list. Half of me wants to start with the Cannonball Run, and then spend a month driving back East a lot more slowly.
Last time I did 6,088 miles in about seven weeks. This time I have about six weeks and am expecting the mileage to be lower.
In 2019 I hired a car (a Toyota Corolla, which subsequently led to me buying one for myself - the car will drive itself on the motorway while I feed the dog in the back seat) for about £1200 for just over six weeks (I ditched it before returning to NYC); this year I had one reserved with Avis for over £3000 - fortunately prices have very recently reduced and I snapped one up for about £2200 for just under six weeks. Which looks like a good deal given reports of £700 for a week hiring a car in Europe right now.
The outline plan is NYC-RI-NH-VT-NY(upstate)-PA-VA-NC-PA-NYC
Sounds like an epic trip. Enjoy. But watch out for hotel rates. They have doubled or even tripled across the States
You are absolutely right. This time I have had to resign myself to paying significantly more for hotels than before. Especially with the £ being so weak because of the Brexit you voted for after rather too much of that Italian red.
Last time I wanted to do coast to coast, having people I in Cali I was keen to visit, but the driving time was ridiculous - especially since I would have to drive back since I won’t fly with the dog and Amtrak refuses them on board. So I settled for South Dakota as my farthest point - an amazing spot to visit, well off the international tourist trail.
This time my routing is constrained by people I met last time who I wish to revisit, and also there is the female dog in Lynchburg who my dog, who is the same age, hit it off with more than any dog he has ever met in his four years. Not wanting to deny him the same pleasure of reacquaintance, some of this trip is retracting steps from 2019..
How do you explain the Pound : Euro rate going from 1.49 in February 2007 to 1.09 in March 2009 whilst we were inside the EU with no prospect of any referendum?
I don’t need to be able to explain the detail of fifteen years of currency fluctuations to see - and understand - that the idiotic Brexit you and the inebriated Sean voted for has cost Britons badly, both at home and when we travel abroad.
I have just paid £29 for a one year subscription to the Daily and Sunday Telegraph digital edition
Seems a good deal
You might not be saying that after a month of reading daily "Britain is hopelessly broken beyond repair and it is all Johnson's fault except for the bits that are the BBC's fault." columns
BigG might do well to wonder *why* it is so cheap.
I used to get the DT *every* time I flew from an airport, and sometimes on the train.
The DT + mineral water was cheaper than the mineral water - I just asked the person at the counter to shove the DT into the recycling.
Actually I have just come out of a subscription but it is useful to be able to read opinions across the media and I do read the guardian regularly as well as the Independent
Global travel chaos is why I can’t be bothered flying this summer. I’m driving up to Maine instead.
Apparently there is a glut of lobster, too. Can’t give the buggers away.
You just moved to the US, a driving holiday is compulsory in your first year there
You don’t even think $5 a gallon (c. £1 a litre) is particularly expensive ‘gas’.
Enjoy the seafood!
I am finalising my autumn US road trip as we type. Last time (2019) I headed out to South Dakota; this time I am mostly giving Trumpland a miss, doing a circuit of the New England states, heading down in a loop toward North Carolina before heading back to NYC.
Awesome! A proper US road trip is on my bucket list. Half of me wants to start with the Cannonball Run, and then spend a month driving back East a lot more slowly.
Last time I did 6,088 miles in about seven weeks. This time I have about six weeks and am expecting the mileage to be lower.
In 2019 I hired a car (a Toyota Corolla, which subsequently led to me buying one for myself - the car will drive itself on the motorway while I feed the dog in the back seat) for about £1200 for just over six weeks (I ditched it before returning to NYC); this year I had one reserved with Avis for over £3000 - fortunately prices have very recently reduced and I snapped one up for about £2200 for just under six weeks. Which looks like a good deal given reports of £700 for a week hiring a car in Europe right now.
The outline plan is NYC-RI-NH-VT-NY(upstate)-PA-VA-NC-PA-NYC
Sounds like an epic trip. Enjoy. But watch out for hotel rates. They have doubled or even tripled across the States
I stopped planning my cheap Florida trip when I saw that it cost £80 a night for a bed in a 10-person dorm room in Key West. Makes the cheapness of the flights irrelevant.
The rates are insane. Even shitty chain motels off the interstate can be $200 a night. Fuck that
Come to Montenegro! (Fly into Tivat)
My gorgeous apartment overlooking the Adriatic, 1 minute from the beach and excellent swimming, 5 minutes walk from a handsome old seaside town with bars and restaurants, is £10 less per night than that dorm room. Mad
I don't get the orthodoxy that Russia has now started 'winning' as some kind of change.
I think it is the perspective of the news focussing on Kyiv at first and the Russian failures to hold territory there with their extended supply lines and ambush tactics.
But, in February, Russia advanced quickly in the south up to Mariupol and Kherson, and the taking of territory in Luhansk was pretty consistent from week 1 of this war.
If anything, the rate of Russian progress to take the final bit of Luhansk has slowed to a crawl, I guess due to taking cities rather than countryside, but what I haven't seen is what advances are being made North and South along the whole pocket.
It looks to my eye that we've reached the stage where the advance is progressing square kilometer by square kilometer. Is this wrong?
So, I guess who is winning should be judged on the next breakthrough - will Russia surround Ukr troops in the Donbass pocket, will Ukr forces get degraded, will longer range munitions degrade Russia's forward advance, will overextension become apparent in Kherson and Ukr push back there?
But at current rate it looks to me like we're getting little progress on either side and we're at an attritional quite stalemate stage, with all that implies.
I think that's right. But if the question is 'who is winning?', then I see few routes from an attritional stalemate to a Russian 'victory' - unless Russia mobilises.
The thing Ukraine needs is time. The longer this goes on, the more equipment they will get (and the more Russian equipment will get worn down). The longer this goes on, the greater the damage done to Russia's economy.
I'd love to hear a realistic route to a Russian 'victory' in this war (where 'victory' means that within five years, Russia is in a better state than it was on February 24th).
Look at Britain's current account deficit and the weakness of Sterling. Suppose this worsens and we have a full-blown Sterling and sovereign debt crisis. Our capacity to provide financial and military assistance to Ukraine will be impaired.
If one Western domino falls, others could follow, and Western weakness might encourage China to provide more material support to Russia.
Ukraine is completely dependent on Western support. The route to Russian victory is through Western weakness and disunity.
Yep, the 'west' withdrawing support is a realistic way. Currently, it appears that support is hardening, not softening.
China's an interesting one. AIUI it does *relatively* little trade with Russia; the bulk of its exports go elsewhere. The US alone imports ten times the dollar-value of goods from China that Russia does. We import $20 billion more from China that Russia - if I've read (1) correctly.
It is China's interest for there *not* to be a collapse in trade with the west caused by an economic crisis - particularly coming off the back of Covid. This is why I doubt China will give much, if any, 'material support' to Russia. The potential downsides to doing so far outweigh the upsides.
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
He should take over from Boris as there is little difference between them but he is not toxic
HYUFD will be joining Labour? They certainly are a more conservative party. Hell, PC and the MRLP are too.
Well he has form for voting PC, but the MRLP are a bit too sane for his liking.
I have just paid £29 for a one year subscription to the Daily and Sunday Telegraph digital edition
Seems a good deal
You might not be saying that after a month of reading daily "Britain is hopelessly broken beyond repair and it is all Johnson's fault except for the bits that are the BBC's fault." columns
BigG might do well to wonder *why* it is so cheap.
I used to get the DT *every* time I flew from an airport, and sometimes on the train.
The DT + mineral water was cheaper than the mineral water - I just asked the person at the counter to shove the DT into the recycling.
Come to think of it: I got my DT at a *negative* price. They were paying me not to read it. Can BigG beat that?
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
He should take over from Boris as there is little difference between them but he is not toxic
Sir Keir has a Knighthood unlike Boris, at the moment that is the biggest difference between them
What a strange comment but you simply cannot yet accept Johnson is toxic
He's laying the groundwork for when he switches party.
The last PB Tory is preparing to switch off the lights.
I will never switch party, I was even one of the 9% who voted for May's Tories in the 2019 European elections.
However I don't dislike Sir Keir too much, if we have to have a Labour PM he would be better than most of the alternatives
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
He should take over from Boris as there is little difference between them but he is not toxic
Sir Keir has a Knighthood unlike Boris, at the moment that is the biggest difference between them
What a strange comment but you simply cannot yet accept Johnson is toxic
He's laying the groundwork for when he switches party.
The last PB Tory is preparing to switch off the lights.
I will never switch party, I was even one of the 9% who voted for May's Tories in the 2019 European elections.
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
He should take over from Boris as there is little difference between them but he is not toxic
Sir Keir has a Knighthood unlike Boris, at the moment that is the biggest difference between them
Contrary to the myth that we are sliding into a comfortable evolutionary relationship with a common-cold-like, friendly virus, this is more like being trapped on a rollercoaster in a horror film. There’s nothing cold-like or friendly about a large part of the workforce needing significant absences from work, feeling awful and sometimes getting reinfected over and over again, just weeks apart...
As an immunologist struggling to decode long Covid mechanisms and potential treatments, it is both perplexing and not a little devastating that this mysterious, lingering disease finds a way to continue wreaking havoc in the face of a largely vaccinated population and a supposedly milder variant...
The first generation of vaccines served brilliantly to dig us out of the hole of the first year, but the arms race of boosters versus new variants is no longer going well for us... A study reported in the BMJ last week showed us that the protection gained from a fourth booster dose likely wanes even faster than previous boosters. This leaves us between a rock and a hard place: continue to offer suboptimal boosters to a population who seem to have lost faith or interest in taking them up, or do nothing and cross our fingers that residual immunity might somehow keep a lid on hospitalisations (as happened in South Africa and Portugal).
A sense of perspective is required. I don't recognise this idea of people repeatedly getting covid in a short space of time - I am sure there have been a few on twitter, but this is not the common experience.
Neither I, my wife, my parents, her mother have had covid, to the best of our knowledge.
In terms of hospitals - well over 60% of 'covid' admissions are for other things. Still causes issues for sure, but it needs remembering.
What does the future hold? Well probably more tailored vaccines or specific to omicron which will help. But also we need to regain a sense of perspective. The average age of death from covid is trending up to 80, the same as flu. It is killing elderly, generally unwell people in the main. Thats sad for them and their friends and families but life is sad and elderly people are generally killed by bugs at the end.
And lastly - what to do different? Personally I'd sort ventilation and air filtration in schools, unis, and definitely hospital wards. And if needed masks in clinical settings. I'd look at expanding our hospitals by 10% as Foxy suggests.
There’s something of a double standard here. Would Pincher have kept the whip if he tried to grope two women ?
That is a very good point. A gay sexual assault is quite as bad as one by a man on a woman.
Frankly, appointing someone with his record was stupid. And keeping him as a Tory MP despite what he has admitted is even more stupid.
But this is a government run by a man who had blow jobs in his office from his mistress.
So the standard of probity expected of Tory MPs seems to be no more than that they should be alive.
Do you actually care about blow jobs in the office from his mistress?
The boss by his behaviour sends out the message to everyone below that it's OK to behave just how you like; that's the way that it matters.
So what?
I couldn't care less about blow jobs in the office, if the door and window is closed, what consenting adults do between them is none of anybody else's business.
In the past three decades the best President of the United States of America is infamous for getting a blowjob in the Oval Office. I'd still rather have him at his prime as POTUS now than Biden or even Obama, let alone Dubya or worse.
Who would you rather have as POTUS - Bill Clinton who had blowjobs from his mistress in the Oval Office, or Dubya Bush whom that has never been alleged against?
You are rather missing the point.
I am pointing out that if that is how the PM behaves he is hardly in a good position to demand or expect higher standards for his subordinates.
Do I care personally? No - in the sense that the PM is a complete stranger so his personal sexual morals do not affect me.
Do I care that the Foreign Secretary thought it appropriate to have sex in his office with his mistress during work hours? Yes - it is completely unprofessional. Were there any evidence of him being good at his job there would be something weighty to put in the balance. But there wasn't, was there?
And that complete disregard for rules, standards, for a sense of professionalism, of decorum or dignity was not a one off: it has shown itself time and time again, of which Partygate is the latest example.
People having affairs happens. Marriages fail. But it is possible to be discreet - and have some respect for the dignity of the office you hold. It is not necessary for Tory party MPs to behave as if they were in a competition to see who most resembles a rutting chimp.
Leadership is, in part, about setting a good example. That is why Partygate has been so damaging. There is a problem with sexual misconduct among MPs. If this is to be dealt with then we need leaders who do not turn a blind eye to it by appointing to senior positions MPs with a history of such bad behaviour and despite warning about their conduct. Trying to enforce such standards is going to be a good deal more difficult if you yourself behave in an undignified way. The issue is not the PM's unfaithfulness but the fact that he could not see the utter wrongness of having sex with his mistress in the office rather than waiting until they were at home or in a hotel.
I'm sorry but I totally and utterly disagree. Having consensual sexual relations with another adult is not "sexual misconduct" no matter how "deviant" other people consider that consensual behaviour to be.
What Pincher, Grady, Hill etc have been alleged to be involved in is non-consensual sexual behaviour.
The line between consensual and non-consensual behaviour should never be blurred.
You suggesting people should be running about at work in office hours having sex with their girlfriends, get a grip. Even for you that is pathetic.
Contrary to the myth that we are sliding into a comfortable evolutionary relationship with a common-cold-like, friendly virus, this is more like being trapped on a rollercoaster in a horror film. There’s nothing cold-like or friendly about a large part of the workforce needing significant absences from work, feeling awful and sometimes getting reinfected over and over again, just weeks apart...
As an immunologist struggling to decode long Covid mechanisms and potential treatments, it is both perplexing and not a little devastating that this mysterious, lingering disease finds a way to continue wreaking havoc in the face of a largely vaccinated population and a supposedly milder variant...
The first generation of vaccines served brilliantly to dig us out of the hole of the first year, but the arms race of boosters versus new variants is no longer going well for us... A study reported in the BMJ last week showed us that the protection gained from a fourth booster dose likely wanes even faster than previous boosters. This leaves us between a rock and a hard place: continue to offer suboptimal boosters to a population who seem to have lost faith or interest in taking them up, or do nothing and cross our fingers that residual immunity might somehow keep a lid on hospitalisations (as happened in South Africa and Portugal).
It must be a new wave as Pagel is back on our rolling news channels.
Bloody depressing article tho. And the guy is a top Imperial prof so hard to ignore
Jeez. Are we all destined to get Long Covid and shuffle morosely to an early grave?
Maybe my Montenegrin cab driver was right. The future looks hellish. Enjoy the moment
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
He should take over from Boris as there is little difference between them but he is not toxic
HYUFD will be joining Labour? They certainly are a more conservative party. Hell, PC and the MRLP are too.
Well he has form for voting PC, but the MRLP are a bit too sane for his liking.
Yes, someone once did an online quiz which took UKIP (well, effectively now Johnson Tories) and MRLP policies at random and one had to guess which policy was from which manifesto. It was quite educational. I did remarkably well by assuming that SL Sutch was on the side of moderation and sanity.
Global travel chaos is why I can’t be bothered flying this summer. I’m driving up to Maine instead.
Apparently there is a glut of lobster, too. Can’t give the buggers away.
You just moved to the US, a driving holiday is compulsory in your first year there
You don’t even think $5 a gallon (c. £1 a litre) is particularly expensive ‘gas’.
Enjoy the seafood!
I am finalising my autumn US road trip as we type. Last time (2019) I headed out to South Dakota; this time I am mostly giving Trumpland a miss, doing a circuit of the New England states, heading down in a loop toward North Carolina before heading back to NYC.
Awesome! A proper US road trip is on my bucket list. Half of me wants to start with the Cannonball Run, and then spend a month driving back East a lot more slowly.
Last time I did 6,088 miles in about seven weeks. This time I have about six weeks and am expecting the mileage to be lower.
In 2019 I hired a car (a Toyota Corolla, which subsequently led to me buying one for myself - the car will drive itself on the motorway while I feed the dog in the back seat) for about £1200 for just over six weeks (I ditched it before returning to NYC); this year I had one reserved with Avis for over £3000 - fortunately prices have very recently reduced and I snapped one up for about £2200 for just under six weeks. Which looks like a good deal given reports of £700 for a week hiring a car in Europe right now.
The outline plan is NYC-RI-NH-VT-NY(upstate)-PA-VA-NC-PA-NYC
Sounds like an epic trip. Enjoy. But watch out for hotel rates. They have doubled or even tripled across the States
You are absolutely right. This time I have had to resign myself to paying significantly more for hotels than before. Especially with the £ being so weak because of the Brexit you voted for after rather too much of that Italian red.
Last time I wanted to do coast to coast, having people I in Cali I was keen to visit, but the driving time was ridiculous - especially since I would have to drive back since I won’t fly with the dog and Amtrak refuses them on board. So I settled for South Dakota as my farthest point - an amazing spot to visit, well off the international tourist trail.
This time my routing is constrained by people I met last time who I wish to revisit, and also there is the female dog in Lynchburg who my dog, who is the same age, hit it off with more than any dog he has ever met in his four years. Not wanting to deny him the same pleasure of reacquaintance, some of this trip is retracting steps from 2019..
How do you explain the Pound : Euro rate going from 1.49 in February 2007 to 1.09 in March 2009 whilst we were inside the EU with no prospect of any referendum?
I don’t need to be able to explain the detail of fifteen years of currency fluctuations to see - and understand - that the idiotic Brexit you and the inebriated Sean voted for has cost Britons badly, both at home and when we travel abroad.
Because there are no currency fluctuations worth writing home about associated with Brexit.
The long-term graph of GBP v EUR is remarkably stable from 2016 to date compared to the decades before then.
Global travel chaos is why I can’t be bothered flying this summer. I’m driving up to Maine instead.
Apparently there is a glut of lobster, too. Can’t give the buggers away.
You just moved to the US, a driving holiday is compulsory in your first year there
You don’t even think $5 a gallon (c. £1 a litre) is particularly expensive ‘gas’.
Enjoy the seafood!
I am finalising my autumn US road trip as we type. Last time (2019) I headed out to South Dakota; this time I am mostly giving Trumpland a miss, doing a circuit of the New England states, heading down in a loop toward North Carolina before heading back to NYC.
Awesome! A proper US road trip is on my bucket list. Half of me wants to start with the Cannonball Run, and then spend a month driving back East a lot more slowly.
Last time I did 6,088 miles in about seven weeks. This time I have about six weeks and am expecting the mileage to be lower.
In 2019 I hired a car (a Toyota Corolla, which subsequently led to me buying one for myself - the car will drive itself on the motorway while I feed the dog in the back seat) for about £1200 for just over six weeks (I ditched it before returning to NYC); this year I had one reserved with Avis for over £3000 - fortunately prices have very recently reduced and I snapped one up for about £2200 for just under six weeks. Which looks like a good deal given reports of £700 for a week hiring a car in Europe right now.
The outline plan is NYC-RI-NH-VT-NY(upstate)-PA-VA-NC-PA-NYC
Sounds like an epic trip. Enjoy. But watch out for hotel rates. They have doubled or even tripled across the States
You are absolutely right. This time I have had to resign myself to paying significantly more for hotels than before. Especially with the £ being so weak because of the Brexit you voted for after rather too much of that Italian red.
Last time I wanted to do coast to coast, having people I in Cali I was keen to visit, but the driving time was ridiculous - especially since I would have to drive back since I won’t fly with the dog and Amtrak refuses them on board. So I settled for South Dakota as my farthest point - an amazing spot to visit, well off the international tourist trail.
This time my routing is constrained by people I met last time who I wish to revisit, and also there is the female dog in Lynchburg who my dog, who is the same age, hit it off with more than any dog he has ever met in his four years. Not wanting to deny him the same pleasure of reacquaintance, some of this trip is retracting steps from 2019..
How do you explain the Pound : Euro rate going from 1.49 in February 2007 to 1.09 in March 2009 whilst we were inside the EU with no prospect of any referendum?
Contrary to the myth that we are sliding into a comfortable evolutionary relationship with a common-cold-like, friendly virus, this is more like being trapped on a rollercoaster in a horror film. There’s nothing cold-like or friendly about a large part of the workforce needing significant absences from work, feeling awful and sometimes getting reinfected over and over again, just weeks apart...
As an immunologist struggling to decode long Covid mechanisms and potential treatments, it is both perplexing and not a little devastating that this mysterious, lingering disease finds a way to continue wreaking havoc in the face of a largely vaccinated population and a supposedly milder variant...
The first generation of vaccines served brilliantly to dig us out of the hole of the first year, but the arms race of boosters versus new variants is no longer going well for us... A study reported in the BMJ last week showed us that the protection gained from a fourth booster dose likely wanes even faster than previous boosters. This leaves us between a rock and a hard place: continue to offer suboptimal boosters to a population who seem to have lost faith or interest in taking them up, or do nothing and cross our fingers that residual immunity might somehow keep a lid on hospitalisations (as happened in South Africa and Portugal).
It must be a new wave as Pagel is back on our rolling news channels.
Bloody depressing article tho. And the guy is a top Imperial prof so hard to ignore
Jeez. Are we all destined to get Long Covid and shuffle morosely to an early grave?
Maybe my Montenegrin cab driver was right. The future looks hellish. Enjoy the moment
Nope - see my answer just posted. Don't get sucked in by the doom mongers.
There’s something of a double standard here. Would Pincher have kept the whip if he tried to grope two women ?
That is a very good point. A gay sexual assault is quite as bad as one by a man on a woman.
Frankly, appointing someone with his record was stupid. And keeping him as a Tory MP despite what he has admitted is even more stupid.
But this is a government run by a man who had blow jobs in his office from his mistress.
So the standard of probity expected of Tory MPs seems to be no more than that they should be alive.
Do you actually care about blow jobs in the office from his mistress?
The boss by his behaviour sends out the message to everyone below that it's OK to behave just how you like; that's the way that it matters.
So what?
I couldn't care less about blow jobs in the office, if the door and window is closed, what consenting adults do between them is none of anybody else's business.
In the past three decades the best President of the United States of America is infamous for getting a blowjob in the Oval Office. I'd still rather have him at his prime as POTUS now than Biden or even Obama, let alone Dubya or worse.
Who would you rather have as POTUS - Bill Clinton who had blowjobs from his mistress in the Oval Office, or Dubya Bush whom that has never been alleged against?
You are rather missing the point.
I am pointing out that if that is how the PM behaves he is hardly in a good position to demand or expect higher standards for his subordinates.
Do I care personally? No - in the sense that the PM is a complete stranger so his personal sexual morals do not affect me.
Do I care that the Foreign Secretary thought it appropriate to have sex in his office with his mistress during work hours? Yes - it is completely unprofessional. Were there any evidence of him being good at his job there would be something weighty to put in the balance. But there wasn't, was there?
And that complete disregard for rules, standards, for a sense of professionalism, of decorum or dignity was not a one off: it has shown itself time and time again, of which Partygate is the latest example.
People having affairs happens. Marriages fail. But it is possible to be discreet - and have some respect for the dignity of the office you hold. It is not necessary for Tory party MPs to behave as if they were in a competition to see who most resembles a rutting chimp.
Leadership is, in part, about setting a good example. That is why Partygate has been so damaging. There is a problem with sexual misconduct among MPs. If this is to be dealt with then we need leaders who do not turn a blind eye to it by appointing to senior positions MPs with a history of such bad behaviour and despite warning about their conduct. Trying to enforce such standards is going to be a good deal more difficult if you yourself behave in an undignified way. The issue is not the PM's unfaithfulness but the fact that he could not see the utter wrongness of having sex with his mistress in the office rather than waiting until they were at home or in a hotel.
I'm sorry but I totally and utterly disagree. Having consensual sexual relations with another adult is not "sexual misconduct" no matter how "deviant" other people consider that consensual behaviour to be.
What Pincher, Grady, Hill etc have been alleged to be involved in is non-consensual sexual behaviour.
The line between consensual and non-consensual behaviour should never be blurred.
You suggesting people should be running about at work in office hours having sex with their girlfriends, get a grip. Even for you that is pathetic.
Hello Malky. Hope you are well. Overcast and warm with intermittent showers here and there over here.
I think getting a grip is what it's all about, rogering on the company's tab ...
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
He should take over from Boris as there is little difference between them but he is not toxic
Sir Keir has a Knighthood unlike Boris, at the moment that is the biggest difference between them
What a strange comment but you simply cannot yet accept Johnson is toxic
He's laying the groundwork for when he switches party.
The last PB Tory is preparing to switch off the lights.
I will never switch party, I was even one of the 9% who voted for May's Tories in the 2019 European elections.
When you grow up, you will either learn, or you won’t.
I have just paid £29 for a one year subscription to the Daily and Sunday Telegraph digital edition
Seems a good deal
You might not be saying that after a month of reading daily "Britain is hopelessly broken beyond repair and it is all Johnson's fault except for the bits that are the BBC's fault." columns
BigG might do well to wonder *why* it is so cheap.
I used to get the DT *every* time I flew from an airport, and sometimes on the train.
The DT + mineral water was cheaper than the mineral water - I just asked the person at the counter to shove the DT into the recycling.
That offer doesn't seem to exist any more, at least at LGW-S last week... 🙁
I have just paid £29 for a one year subscription to the Daily and Sunday Telegraph digital edition
Seems a good deal
You might not be saying that after a month of reading daily "Britain is hopelessly broken beyond repair and it is all Johnson's fault except for the bits that are the BBC's fault." columns
BigG might do well to wonder *why* it is so cheap.
I used to get the DT *every* time I flew from an airport, and sometimes on the train.
The DT + mineral water was cheaper than the mineral water - I just asked the person at the counter to shove the DT into the recycling.
That offer doesn't seem to exist any more, at least at LGW-S last week... 🙁
That's a bummer. It was useful for me and it was useful for the DT to bump up its ABC stats.
Fair to say that the EU has really grown a degree of sentimental attachment that it didn’t have pre-2016. Brexit and now Ukraine have worked wonders.
All politics is relative and comparative. If I lived in North Korea, Tibet or Ukraine In would look on the EU as a bastion of all I dreamed of and held dear.
I would look upon Trumps's USA in exactly that way too. and I would be right.
From a UK we have different history, which is why we ask hard questions of ourselves (thankfully), the EU and the USA as it was under Trump and how it is under the SC.
We are fantastically fortunate to have that moral and philosophical luxury. It won't last if we take it for granted.
Global travel chaos is why I can’t be bothered flying this summer. I’m driving up to Maine instead.
Apparently there is a glut of lobster, too. Can’t give the buggers away.
You just moved to the US, a driving holiday is compulsory in your first year there
You don’t even think $5 a gallon (c. £1 a litre) is particularly expensive ‘gas’.
Enjoy the seafood!
I am finalising my autumn US road trip as we type. Last time (2019) I headed out to South Dakota; this time I am mostly giving Trumpland a miss, doing a circuit of the New England states, heading down in a loop toward North Carolina before heading back to NYC.
Awesome! A proper US road trip is on my bucket list. Half of me wants to start with the Cannonball Run, and then spend a month driving back East a lot more slowly.
Last time I did 6,088 miles in about seven weeks. This time I have about six weeks and am expecting the mileage to be lower.
In 2019 I hired a car (a Toyota Corolla, which subsequently led to me buying one for myself - the car will drive itself on the motorway while I feed the dog in the back seat) for about £1200 for just over six weeks (I ditched it before returning to NYC); this year I had one reserved with Avis for over £3000 - fortunately prices have very recently reduced and I snapped one up for about £2200 for just under six weeks. Which looks like a good deal given reports of £700 for a week hiring a car in Europe right now.
The outline plan is NYC-RI-NH-VT-NY(upstate)-PA-VA-NC-PA-NYC
Sounds like an epic trip. Enjoy. But watch out for hotel rates. They have doubled or even tripled across the States
You are absolutely right. This time I have had to resign myself to paying significantly more for hotels than before. Especially with the £ being so weak because of the Brexit you voted for after rather too much of that Italian red.
Last time I wanted to do coast to coast, having people I in Cali I was keen to visit, but the driving time was ridiculous - especially since I would have to drive back since I won’t fly with the dog and Amtrak refuses them on board. So I settled for South Dakota as my farthest point - an amazing spot to visit, well off the international tourist trail.
This time my routing is constrained by people I met last time who I wish to revisit, and also there is the female dog in Lynchburg who my dog, who is the same age, hit it off with more than any dog he has ever met in his four years. Not wanting to deny him the same pleasure of reacquaintance, some of this trip is retracting steps from 2019..
How do you explain the Pound : Euro rate going from 1.49 in February 2007 to 1.09 in March 2009 whilst we were inside the EU with no prospect of any referendum?
I don’t need to be able to explain the detail of fifteen years of currency fluctuations to see - and understand - that the idiotic Brexit you and the inebriated Sean voted for has cost Britons badly, both at home and when we travel abroad.
Ah, so you can't explain it: it's just the usual bloviated sputum from Ventnor.
Global travel chaos is why I can’t be bothered flying this summer. I’m driving up to Maine instead.
Apparently there is a glut of lobster, too. Can’t give the buggers away.
You just moved to the US, a driving holiday is compulsory in your first year there
You don’t even think $5 a gallon (c. £1 a litre) is particularly expensive ‘gas’.
Enjoy the seafood!
I am finalising my autumn US road trip as we type. Last time (2019) I headed out to South Dakota; this time I am mostly giving Trumpland a miss, doing a circuit of the New England states, heading down in a loop toward North Carolina before heading back to NYC.
Awesome! A proper US road trip is on my bucket list. Half of me wants to start with the Cannonball Run, and then spend a month driving back East a lot more slowly.
Last time I did 6,088 miles in about seven weeks. This time I have about six weeks and am expecting the mileage to be lower.
In 2019 I hired a car (a Toyota Corolla, which subsequently led to me buying one for myself - the car will drive itself on the motorway while I feed the dog in the back seat) for about £1200 for just over six weeks (I ditched it before returning to NYC); this year I had one reserved with Avis for over £3000 - fortunately prices have very recently reduced and I snapped one up for about £2200 for just under six weeks. Which looks like a good deal given reports of £700 for a week hiring a car in Europe right now.
The outline plan is NYC-RI-NH-VT-NY(upstate)-PA-VA-NC-PA-NYC
Sounds like an epic trip. Enjoy. But watch out for hotel rates. They have doubled or even tripled across the States
You are absolutely right. This time I have had to resign myself to paying significantly more for hotels than before. Especially with the £ being so weak because of the Brexit you voted for after rather too much of that Italian red.
Last time I wanted to do coast to coast, having people I in Cali I was keen to visit, but the driving time was ridiculous - especially since I would have to drive back since I won’t fly with the dog and Amtrak refuses them on board. So I settled for South Dakota as my farthest point - an amazing spot to visit, well off the international tourist trail.
This time my routing is constrained by people I met last time who I wish to revisit, and also there is the female dog in Lynchburg who my dog, who is the same age, hit it off with more than any dog he has ever met in his four years. Not wanting to deny him the same pleasure of reacquaintance, some of this trip is retracting steps from 2019..
How do you explain the Pound : Euro rate going from 1.49 in February 2007 to 1.09 in March 2009 whilst we were inside the EU with no prospect of any referendum?
I don’t need to be able to explain the detail of fifteen years of currency fluctuations to see - and understand - that the idiotic Brexit you and the inebriated Sean voted for has cost Britons badly, both at home and when we travel abroad.
Because there are no currency fluctuations worth writing home about associated with Brexit.
The long-term graph of GBP v EUR is remarkably stable from 2016 to date compared to the decades before then.
Apart from a brief spike in 2015 the pound: euro exchange rate dived in the GFC and hasn't recovered since.
It's interesting to speculate as to why but it has virtually nothing to do with our membership of the EU or not.
Contrary to the myth that we are sliding into a comfortable evolutionary relationship with a common-cold-like, friendly virus, this is more like being trapped on a rollercoaster in a horror film. There’s nothing cold-like or friendly about a large part of the workforce needing significant absences from work, feeling awful and sometimes getting reinfected over and over again, just weeks apart...
As an immunologist struggling to decode long Covid mechanisms and potential treatments, it is both perplexing and not a little devastating that this mysterious, lingering disease finds a way to continue wreaking havoc in the face of a largely vaccinated population and a supposedly milder variant...
The first generation of vaccines served brilliantly to dig us out of the hole of the first year, but the arms race of boosters versus new variants is no longer going well for us... A study reported in the BMJ last week showed us that the protection gained from a fourth booster dose likely wanes even faster than previous boosters. This leaves us between a rock and a hard place: continue to offer suboptimal boosters to a population who seem to have lost faith or interest in taking them up, or do nothing and cross our fingers that residual immunity might somehow keep a lid on hospitalisations (as happened in South Africa and Portugal).
A sense of perspective is required. I don't recognise this idea of people repeatedly getting covid in a short space of time - I am sure there have been a few on twitter, but this is not the common experience.
Neither I, my wife, my parents, her mother have had covid, to the best of our knowledge.
In terms of hospitals - well over 60% of 'covid' admissions are for other things. Still causes issues for sure, but it needs remembering.
What does the future hold? Well probably more tailored vaccines or specific to omicron which will help. But also we need to regain a sense of perspective. The average age of death from covid is trending up to 80, the same as flu. It is killing elderly, generally unwell people in the main. Thats sad for them and their friends and families but life is sad and elderly people are generally killed by bugs at the end.
And lastly - what to do different? Personally I'd sort ventilation and air filtration in schools, unis, and definitely hospital wards. And if needed masks in clinical settings. I'd look at expanding our hospitals by 10% as Foxy suggests.
And then get on with life.
Vaccination, and further vaccine development, is still important. Even with a large number of incidental Covid admissions half of the Covid patients in Irish hospitals are unvaccinated. There's potential for a vaccine tailored to Omicron, or with a nasal spray delivery, to provide significantly greater immunity.
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
He should take over from Boris as there is little difference between them but he is not toxic
Sir Keir has a Knighthood unlike Boris, at the moment that is the biggest difference between them
What a strange comment but you simply cannot yet accept Johnson is toxic
He's laying the groundwork for when he switches party.
The last PB Tory is preparing to switch off the lights.
I will never switch party, I was even one of the 9% who voted for May's Tories in the 2019 European elections.
What's your point? Part of the reason for this war - and our backing Ukraine in it - is to uphold the concept that independent countries can be part of whatever blocs they want. If Ukraine thinks the EU membership is right for them, then fair enough. That's their choice.
(I was surprised that Denys, a Ukrainian YouTuber I watch, is *not* personally in favour of EU membership.)
Always telling when a reply goes straight into finger prodding chest mode.
If every post on here has to have a 'point', well, there're loads of pixels being wasted.
If only they were as enthusiastic about Scotland rather than insisting we are held prisoner.
Global travel chaos is why I can’t be bothered flying this summer. I’m driving up to Maine instead.
Apparently there is a glut of lobster, too. Can’t give the buggers away.
You just moved to the US, a driving holiday is compulsory in your first year there
You don’t even think $5 a gallon (c. £1 a litre) is particularly expensive ‘gas’.
Enjoy the seafood!
I am finalising my autumn US road trip as we type. Last time (2019) I headed out to South Dakota; this time I am mostly giving Trumpland a miss, doing a circuit of the New England states, heading down in a loop toward North Carolina before heading back to NYC.
Awesome! A proper US road trip is on my bucket list. Half of me wants to start with the Cannonball Run, and then spend a month driving back East a lot more slowly.
Last time I did 6,088 miles in about seven weeks. This time I have about six weeks and am expecting the mileage to be lower.
In 2019 I hired a car (a Toyota Corolla, which subsequently led to me buying one for myself - the car will drive itself on the motorway while I feed the dog in the back seat) for about £1200 for just over six weeks (I ditched it before returning to NYC); this year I had one reserved with Avis for over £3000 - fortunately prices have very recently reduced and I snapped one up for about £2200 for just under six weeks. Which looks like a good deal given reports of £700 for a week hiring a car in Europe right now.
The outline plan is NYC-RI-NH-VT-NY(upstate)-PA-VA-NC-PA-NYC
Sounds like an epic trip. Enjoy. But watch out for hotel rates. They have doubled or even tripled across the States
You are absolutely right. This time I have had to resign myself to paying significantly more for hotels than before. Especially with the £ being so weak because of the Brexit you voted for after rather too much of that Italian red.
Last time I wanted to do coast to coast, having people I in Cali I was keen to visit, but the driving time was ridiculous - especially since I would have to drive back since I won’t fly with the dog and Amtrak refuses them on board. So I settled for South Dakota as my farthest point - an amazing spot to visit, well off the international tourist trail.
This time my routing is constrained by people I met last time who I wish to revisit, and also there is the female dog in Lynchburg who my dog, who is the same age, hit it off with more than any dog he has ever met in his four years. Not wanting to deny him the same pleasure of reacquaintance, some of this trip is retracting steps from 2019..
How do you explain the Pound : Euro rate going from 1.49 in February 2007 to 1.09 in March 2009 whilst we were inside the EU with no prospect of any referendum?
I don’t need to be able to explain the detail of fifteen years of currency fluctuations to see - and understand - that the idiotic Brexit you and the inebriated Sean voted for has cost Britons badly, both at home and when we travel abroad.
Ah, so you can't explain it: it's just the usual bloviated sputum from Ventnor.
I used to get concerned about small fluctuations, until I cottoned on to the fact that currency speculators are just playing tho odds with large amounts of other people's money. They're nothing but glorified punters at the biggest betting shop in the world.
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
He should take over from Boris as there is little difference between them but he is not toxic
Sir Keir has a Knighthood unlike Boris, at the moment that is the biggest difference between them
What a strange comment but you simply cannot yet accept Johnson is toxic
He's laying the groundwork for when he switches party.
The last PB Tory is preparing to switch off the lights.
I will never switch party, I was even one of the 9% who voted for May's Tories in the 2019 European elections.
However I don't dislike Sir Keir too much, if we have to have a Labour PM he would be better than most of the alternatives
"He ever voted at his party´s call and never thought of thinking for himself at all"
Contrary to the myth that we are sliding into a comfortable evolutionary relationship with a common-cold-like, friendly virus, this is more like being trapped on a rollercoaster in a horror film. There’s nothing cold-like or friendly about a large part of the workforce needing significant absences from work, feeling awful and sometimes getting reinfected over and over again, just weeks apart...
As an immunologist struggling to decode long Covid mechanisms and potential treatments, it is both perplexing and not a little devastating that this mysterious, lingering disease finds a way to continue wreaking havoc in the face of a largely vaccinated population and a supposedly milder variant...
The first generation of vaccines served brilliantly to dig us out of the hole of the first year, but the arms race of boosters versus new variants is no longer going well for us... A study reported in the BMJ last week showed us that the protection gained from a fourth booster dose likely wanes even faster than previous boosters. This leaves us between a rock and a hard place: continue to offer suboptimal boosters to a population who seem to have lost faith or interest in taking them up, or do nothing and cross our fingers that residual immunity might somehow keep a lid on hospitalisations (as happened in South Africa and Portugal).
It must be a new wave as Pagel is back on our rolling news channels.
Bloody depressing article tho. And the guy is a top Imperial prof so hard to ignore
Jeez. Are we all destined to get Long Covid and shuffle morosely to an early grave?
Maybe my Montenegrin cab driver was right. The future looks hellish. Enjoy the moment
As someone shrewd here once noticed, Covid thrives on complacency. Think you've smashed it, leave a gap for it to spread, and it will. And thinking it's done is the epitome of complacency.
There's lots of simple old-school stuff; fresh air is good, coughs and sneezes spread diseases, that we put in the CBA box for decades, nervously got out in 2020, then put back because we told ourselves that vaccines solve everything. The vaccine story was a modern miracle, but it was never going to solve all the problems.
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
He should take over from Boris as there is little difference between them but he is not toxic
Sir Keir has a Knighthood unlike Boris, at the moment that is the biggest difference between them
What a strange comment but you simply cannot yet accept Johnson is toxic
He's laying the groundwork for when he switches party.
The last PB Tory is preparing to switch off the lights.
I will never switch party, I was even one of the 9% who voted for May's Tories in the 2019 European elections.
However I don't dislike Sir Keir too much, if we have to have a Labour PM he would be better than most of the alternatives
"He ever voted at his party´s call and never thought of thinking for himself at all"
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
I did try and tell you. The Tories definitely won’t give you a referendum, and Labour almost certainly won’t
Partly because most Scots don’t want one, as per the polls, so this is popular
Next indyref: 2030s
That's handy as Sturgeon doesn't want one at the moment either because she knows she will lose.
So this is all a Sturgeon stunt. She can blame Tories and Labour for denying her followers a vote her extremists want, but the likely loss of which would undermine the SNP's raison d'etre?
Cunning little vixen, isn't she?
Yes she is. It is a fascinating question whether she can keep this show on the road until she wants to get out of politics. The SNP currently have everything and more that they can possibly want. Power, almost no responsibility and accountability, loads of jobs in Scotland and Westminster, media coverage (what a switch off they are though), a wall of English cash while like farmers blaming everyone else for everything they don't like.
It must be very tempting to the Tories to give them what they pretend to want and stay neutral.
But it would destroy the nature of the English and Scottish border areas, which is God's own country with God's own people who deserve no such fate.
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
Each generation will normally be the wokest. Would be a bit odd if they weren't.
And, yes, I know we've just agreed that sillyoldfartness can manifest in the young, which it can - but it's less likely.
I went to see Stewart Lee last night. The second half of his show was devoted to wokeness and the culture wars, where he satirised anti woke warriors while also lampooning his left-wing audience. It was great stuff.
Yes, he's able to do both at the same time. Very very sharp and skillful. For me there's never been a better British comic. He kills me on tv and youtube so god knows what I'd be like if I saw him live. Probably wouldn't be able to get home.
My other half works for a charity that has a lot of properties, providing housing for vulnerable people. She's just been speaking to their energy broker.
He's just told her to expect gas rationing this winter. It will affect industry first, probably won't affect domestic users, but there's always the possibility it might.
He also said there's a possibility that there could be petrol rationing.
All depends on how bad a winter it is.
What fun.
I await more details.
Got a bit more detail on this:
Russia have reduced their contracted supply from 167mcm - million cubic metres - to 67mcm on Tuesday and 57mcm today. Russia saying due to planned maintenance, but that has to be approved by Germany and they know nothing of any maintenance.
Very likely Russia will cut gas entirely to Europe, increasing prices by 20-30%
UK's Energy Strategic Planning confirmed considerable price rises expected leading up to the winter, and we may have to ration gas, as they're already doing in Germany and likely France, Italy and Netherlands will follow shortly.
Very likely we will see blackouts in the coming months.
What would go first - exports to other countries or domestic supply?
Think they’d stop exports before domestic supply. Apparently unlikely they’ll be domestic cuts. Industry will be hit first. But if it’s a bad winter all bets are off seemingly.
Contrary to the myth that we are sliding into a comfortable evolutionary relationship with a common-cold-like, friendly virus, this is more like being trapped on a rollercoaster in a horror film. There’s nothing cold-like or friendly about a large part of the workforce needing significant absences from work, feeling awful and sometimes getting reinfected over and over again, just weeks apart...
As an immunologist struggling to decode long Covid mechanisms and potential treatments, it is both perplexing and not a little devastating that this mysterious, lingering disease finds a way to continue wreaking havoc in the face of a largely vaccinated population and a supposedly milder variant...
The first generation of vaccines served brilliantly to dig us out of the hole of the first year, but the arms race of boosters versus new variants is no longer going well for us... A study reported in the BMJ last week showed us that the protection gained from a fourth booster dose likely wanes even faster than previous boosters. This leaves us between a rock and a hard place: continue to offer suboptimal boosters to a population who seem to have lost faith or interest in taking them up, or do nothing and cross our fingers that residual immunity might somehow keep a lid on hospitalisations (as happened in South Africa and Portugal).
A sense of perspective is required. I don't recognise this idea of people repeatedly getting covid in a short space of time - I am sure there have been a few on twitter, but this is not the common experience.
Neither I, my wife, my parents, her mother have had covid, to the best of our knowledge.
In terms of hospitals - well over 60% of 'covid' admissions are for other things. Still causes issues for sure, but it needs remembering.
What does the future hold? Well probably more tailored vaccines or specific to omicron which will help. But also we need to regain a sense of perspective. The average age of death from covid is trending up to 80, the same as flu. It is killing elderly, generally unwell people in the main. Thats sad for them and their friends and families but life is sad and elderly people are generally killed by bugs at the end.
And lastly - what to do different? Personally I'd sort ventilation and air filtration in schools, unis, and definitely hospital wards. And if needed masks in clinical settings. I'd look at expanding our hospitals by 10% as Foxy suggests.
And then get on with life.
The failure to improve ventilation is a real mistake. I suspect at the end of the day it is the Treasury blocking the spending.
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
He should take over from Boris as there is little difference between them but he is not toxic
Sir Keir has a Knighthood unlike Boris, at the moment that is the biggest difference between them
What a strange comment but you simply cannot yet accept Johnson is toxic
He's laying the groundwork for when he switches party.
The last PB Tory is preparing to switch off the lights.
I will never switch party, I was even one of the 9% who voted for May's Tories in the 2019 European elections.
However I don't dislike Sir Keir too much, if we have to have a Labour PM he would be better than most of the alternatives
"He ever voted at his party´s call and never thought of thinking for himself at all"
More like the Vicar of Bray's relationship with the Established Church . . . who famously preached whatever the current Establishment establishment had established . . . until They changed It.
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
Each generation will normally be the wokest. Would be a bit odd if they weren't.
And, yes, I know we've just agreed that sillyoldfartness can manifest in the young, which it can - but it's less likely.
I went to see Stewart Lee last night. The second half of his show was devoted to wokeness and the culture wars, where he satirised anti woke warriors while also lampooning his left-wing audience. It was great stuff.
Yes, he's able to do both at the same time. Very very sharp and skillful. For me there's never been a better British comic. He kills me on tv and youtube so god knows what I'd be like if I saw him live. Probably wouldn't be able to get home.
You haven't seen Stewart Lee live? Talk about missing out.
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
Each generation will normally be the wokest. Would be a bit odd if they weren't.
And, yes, I know we've just agreed that sillyoldfartness can manifest in the young, which it can - but it's less likely.
I went to see Stewart Lee last night. The second half of his show was devoted to wokeness and the culture wars, where he satirised anti woke warriors while also lampooning his left-wing audience. It was great stuff.
Yes, he's able to do both at the same time. Very very sharp and skillful. For me there's never been a better British comic. He kills me on tv and youtube so god knows what I'd be like if I saw him live. Probably wouldn't be able to get home.
Yeah I was crying with laughter in places. The audience was like a centrist dad convention - these are my people, I thought. You could tell he was really glad to be back too - this show was rescheduled from more than two years ago.
Contrary to the myth that we are sliding into a comfortable evolutionary relationship with a common-cold-like, friendly virus, this is more like being trapped on a rollercoaster in a horror film. There’s nothing cold-like or friendly about a large part of the workforce needing significant absences from work, feeling awful and sometimes getting reinfected over and over again, just weeks apart...
As an immunologist struggling to decode long Covid mechanisms and potential treatments, it is both perplexing and not a little devastating that this mysterious, lingering disease finds a way to continue wreaking havoc in the face of a largely vaccinated population and a supposedly milder variant...
The first generation of vaccines served brilliantly to dig us out of the hole of the first year, but the arms race of boosters versus new variants is no longer going well for us... A study reported in the BMJ last week showed us that the protection gained from a fourth booster dose likely wanes even faster than previous boosters. This leaves us between a rock and a hard place: continue to offer suboptimal boosters to a population who seem to have lost faith or interest in taking them up, or do nothing and cross our fingers that residual immunity might somehow keep a lid on hospitalisations (as happened in South Africa and Portugal).
It must be a new wave as Pagel is back on our rolling news channels.
Bloody depressing article tho. And the guy is a top Imperial prof so hard to ignore
Jeez. Are we all destined to get Long Covid and shuffle morosely to an early grave?
Maybe my Montenegrin cab driver was right. The future looks hellish. Enjoy the moment
As someone shrewd here once noticed, Covid thrives on complacency. Think you've smashed it, leave a gap for it to spread, and it will. And thinking it's done is the epitome of complacency.
There's lots of simple old-school stuff; fresh air is good, coughs and sneezes spread diseases, that we put in the CBA box for decades, nervously got out in 2020, then put back because we told ourselves that vaccines solve everything. The vaccine story was a modern miracle, but it was never going to solve all the problems.
It's almost as if it was engineered to cause endless repeated trouble.
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
Each generation will normally be the wokest. Would be a bit odd if they weren't.
And, yes, I know we've just agreed that sillyoldfartness can manifest in the young, which it can - but it's less likely.
I'd challenge that. No reason we have to continue getting woker. Some of us would struggle to see how that would be possible. It certainly can't be desirable for the future of a free and/or wealthy society.
On which subject, following my visit in May to a disturbingly woke private school which we were considering for our daughter, I visited two state schools yesterday and today and am vaguely horrified to conclude that 'disturbingly woke' is simply the norm for secondary schools. My wife simply dismisses this as youth culture, and she is right that the young have always - quite rightly - pushed at the edges and challenged society. But in the past grown-ups have taken the role of tempering the excesses of all this, rather than simply joining in with and encouraging it. Some nuance: the first school - academy controlled state selective with fairly mixed socio-economic catchment - wasn't that bad, actually. I'd be happy if she ended up there. It felt Al out normal, with the exception of the plethora of posters following the mold of "famous person x in field relevant to this department has achieved y - and he's gay". These were all suffixed with the strapline "just like us", which offered a message ("they're just like us, the gays") which came across as possibly lessinclusive than the authors had intended. Possibly that was all just there for the pride month though. Anyway, a bit over the top, but not too much to object to, apart from the mangling of the English language about and Sam Smith which concluded "and they're non-binary". I cannot be doing with using the word 'they' to refer to one person. It's clunky and awful. But the second school - council controlled, non-selective - I came out with feeling physically sickened. I reckon we'll over 50% of display materials around the school were about particular sexualities or gender identities, or about racism. I can accept the need to educate kids about this sort of thing, but the impression was that the school believes educating kids about all the different gender identities and about being anti-racist was its primary purpose. Weirdly, lessons seemed normal and no teachers or students mentioned any of it at any stage. There was a massive dichotomy between what was going on in the foreground and what was going on in the background. If I was asked to pick anything I didn't like about the school
...aside from the display materials it would be that the girls dressed slightly sluttily and the headtea her used the word 'less' where 'fewer' should have been.
It felt like a play being performed on another plays set.
Thanks, I think. Disturbing and depressing
You're depressed by the idea of teenage girls not wearing enough? Well, well, well. So much for all that nonsense about leopards and spots. Good news anyway.
My other half works for a charity that has a lot of properties, providing housing for vulnerable people. She's just been speaking to their energy broker.
He's just told her to expect gas rationing this winter. It will affect industry first, probably won't affect domestic users, but there's always the possibility it might.
He also said there's a possibility that there could be petrol rationing.
All depends on how bad a winter it is.
What fun.
I await more details.
Got a bit more detail on this:
Russia have reduced their contracted supply from 167mcm - million cubic metres - to 67mcm on Tuesday and 57mcm today. Russia saying due to planned maintenance, but that has to be approved by Germany and they know nothing of any maintenance.
Very likely Russia will cut gas entirely to Europe, increasing prices by 20-30%
UK's Energy Strategic Planning confirmed considerable price rises expected leading up to the winter, and we may have to ration gas, as they're already doing in Germany and likely France, Italy and Netherlands will follow shortly.
Very likely we will see blackouts in the coming months.
What would go first - exports to other countries or domestic supply?
"Britain may stop supplying gas to mainland Europe if the country is hit by extreme shortages in the coming months, it has emerged.
National Grid could cut off gas pipelines to the Netherlands and Belgium under emergency measures as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine puts pressure on global energy supplies."
Contrary to the myth that we are sliding into a comfortable evolutionary relationship with a common-cold-like, friendly virus, this is more like being trapped on a rollercoaster in a horror film. There’s nothing cold-like or friendly about a large part of the workforce needing significant absences from work, feeling awful and sometimes getting reinfected over and over again, just weeks apart...
As an immunologist struggling to decode long Covid mechanisms and potential treatments, it is both perplexing and not a little devastating that this mysterious, lingering disease finds a way to continue wreaking havoc in the face of a largely vaccinated population and a supposedly milder variant...
The first generation of vaccines served brilliantly to dig us out of the hole of the first year, but the arms race of boosters versus new variants is no longer going well for us... A study reported in the BMJ last week showed us that the protection gained from a fourth booster dose likely wanes even faster than previous boosters. This leaves us between a rock and a hard place: continue to offer suboptimal boosters to a population who seem to have lost faith or interest in taking them up, or do nothing and cross our fingers that residual immunity might somehow keep a lid on hospitalisations (as happened in South Africa and Portugal).
It must be a new wave as Pagel is back on our rolling news channels.
Bloody depressing article tho. And the guy is a top Imperial prof so hard to ignore
Jeez. Are we all destined to get Long Covid and shuffle morosely to an early grave?
Maybe my Montenegrin cab driver was right. The future looks hellish. Enjoy the moment
As someone shrewd here once noticed, Covid thrives on complacency. Think you've smashed it, leave a gap for it to spread, and it will. And thinking it's done is the epitome of complacency.
There's lots of simple old-school stuff; fresh air is good, coughs and sneezes spread diseases, that we put in the CBA box for decades, nervously got out in 2020, then put back because we told ourselves that vaccines solve everything. The vaccine story was a modern miracle, but it was never going to solve all the problems.
It's almost as if it was engineered to cause endless repeated trouble.
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
Each generation will normally be the wokest. Would be a bit odd if they weren't.
And, yes, I know we've just agreed that sillyoldfartness can manifest in the young, which it can - but it's less likely.
I went to see Stewart Lee last night. The second half of his show was devoted to wokeness and the culture wars, where he satirised anti woke warriors while also lampooning his left-wing audience. It was great stuff.
Yes, he's able to do both at the same time. Very very sharp and skillful. For me there's never been a better British comic. He kills me on tv and youtube so god knows what I'd be like if I saw him live. Probably wouldn't be able to get home.
Yeah I was crying with laughter in places. The audience was like a centrist dad convention - these are my people, I thought. You could tell he was really glad to be back too - this show was rescheduled from more than two years ago.
I saw him a few weeks ago. Superb. I had similar thoughts about the audience!
It’s not that I won’t withdraw the whip from Chris Pincher, it’s just that I prefer the tried and trusted method of adopting the wrong stance for as long as possible before being forced into an embarrassing U-turn. https://twitter.com/Parody_PM/status/1542821361520967681
I have just paid £29 for a one year subscription to the Daily and Sunday Telegraph digital edition
Seems a good deal
As with all annual subscriptions, set a calendar reminder for 10 or 11 months to cancel if you no longer want it, before it rolls over for another year.
LATEST A spokesman for the Chief Whip said: “Having heard that a formal complaint has been made to the ICGS, the PM has agreed with the Chief Whip that the whip should be suspended from Chris Pincher while the investigation is ongoing." https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1542901504746586112
LATEST A spokesman for the Chief Whip said: “Having heard that a formal complaint has been made to the ICGS, the PM has agreed with the Chief Whip that the whip should be suspended from Chris Pincher while the investigation is ongoing." https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1542901504746586112
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
Each generation will normally be the wokest. Would be a bit odd if they weren't.
And, yes, I know we've just agreed that sillyoldfartness can manifest in the young, which it can - but it's less likely.
I went to see Stewart Lee last night. The second half of his show was devoted to wokeness and the culture wars, where he satirised anti woke warriors while also lampooning his left-wing audience. It was great stuff.
Yes, he's able to do both at the same time. Very very sharp and skillful. For me there's never been a better British comic. He kills me on tv and youtube so god knows what I'd be like if I saw him live. Probably wouldn't be able to get home.
You haven't seen Stewart Lee live? Talk about missing out.
Book tickets now.
Will do. Although, like I say, I'm genuinely a bit scared to. I work hard for my equilibrium.
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
He should take over from Boris as there is little difference between them but he is not toxic
Sir Keir has a Knighthood unlike Boris, at the moment that is the biggest difference between them
What a strange comment but you simply cannot yet accept Johnson is toxic
He's laying the groundwork for when he switches party.
The last PB Tory is preparing to switch off the lights.
I will never switch party, I was even one of the 9% who voted for May's Tories in the 2019 European elections.
However I don't dislike Sir Keir too much, if we have to have a Labour PM he would be better than most of the alternatives
"He ever voted at his party´s call and never thought of thinking for himself at all"
More like the Vicar of Bray's relationship with the Established Church . . . who famously preached whatever the current Establishment establishment had established . . . until They changed It.
Christopher Trychay was Rector of Morebath from 1520-1574. During that time the church in England was:
Trad Roman Catholic as from forever and time immemorial Henry VIII style 'Catholic without the pope' Edward VI Hot Prot Mary Tudor ultra Roman catholic Elizabeth I less puritan Hot Prot but ultra anti-Roman Catholic.
Eamon Duffy's book on him (a gem) depicts him as a remarkable servant of a rural community rather than a Vicar of Bray. I think he is right.
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
There's nothing morally wrong with a party choosing not to cooperate or enter into an agreement with another, especially when the moral argument being made is for an election to a different parliament to the mandate he claims exists.
Dunt is just proving once again he's politically illiterate, as I know fine well he'd be up in arms if a German federal government went into coalition or made an agreement with the AfD or The Left.
SNP + Greens have a mandate in *both* parliaments, as far as the Scottish constituences are concerned. So that point falls.
That might be, but this would be for a *new* election to the UK Parliament, so when that came around the mandate wouldn't exist any more. They'd have to win it again.
Fairy nuff.
Yesterday’s ComRes gave, on new boundaries:
SNP 51 seats Scottish LibDems 2 seats Scottish Labour 2 seats Scottish Brexit Oafs 2 seats
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
Each generation will normally be the wokest. Would be a bit odd if they weren't.
And, yes, I know we've just agreed that sillyoldfartness can manifest in the young, which it can - but it's less likely.
I'd challenge that. No reason we have to continue getting woker. Some of us would struggle to see how that would be possible. It certainly can't be desirable for the future of a free and/or wealthy society.
On which subject, following my visit in May to a disturbingly woke private school which we were considering for our daughter, I visited two state schools yesterday and today and am vaguely horrified to conclude that 'disturbingly woke' is simply the norm for secondary schools. My wife simply dismisses this as youth culture, and she is right that the young have always - quite rightly - pushed at the edges and challenged society. But in the past grown-ups have taken the role of tempering the excesses of all this, rather than simply joining in with and encouraging it. Some nuance: the first school - academy controlled state selective with fairly mixed socio-economic catchment - wasn't that bad, actually. I'd be happy if she ended up there. It felt Al out normal, with the exception of the plethora of posters following the mold of "famous person x in field relevant to this department has achieved y - and he's gay". These were all suffixed with the strapline "just like us", which offered a message ("they're just like us, the gays") which came across as possibly lessinclusive than the authors had intended. Possibly that was all just there for the pride month though. Anyway, a bit over the top, but not too much to object to, apart from the mangling of the English language about and Sam Smith which concluded "and they're non-binary". I cannot be doing with using the word 'they' to refer to one person. It's clunky and awful. But the second school - council controlled, non-selective - I came out with feeling physically sickened. I reckon we'll over 50% of display materials around the school were about particular sexualities or gender identities, or about racism. I can accept the need to educate kids about this sort of thing, but the impression was that the school believes educating kids about all the different gender identities and about being anti-racist was its primary purpose. Weirdly, lessons seemed normal and no teachers or students mentioned any of it at any stage. There was a massive dichotomy between what was going on in the foreground and what was going on in the background. If I was asked to pick anything I didn't like about the school
...aside from the display materials it would be that the girls dressed slightly sluttily and the headtea her used the word 'less' where 'fewer' should have been.
It felt like a play being performed on another plays set.
Ahh makes me yearn for the casual racism and brutal homophobia of my 1980s/90s school days. Happy times! BTW not sure a middle aged man commenting on children dressing "sluttily" is a good look for you. I fully support your less vs fewer pedantry, however. Seems to be an "attacking schools for wokeness" thing in the water right now, our kids' secondary school has got monstered by three national newspapers now based on inaccurate reporting of a complaint from an ill-informed parent.
Yes, this is the counterpoint,and we discussed this too. And I certainly wouldn't want the situation where a gay pupil feels the need to hide it because he would fear the social consequences. I wouldn't want ghettoisation. I do recognise how imperfect my own era was from that perspective. But I honestly don't think we're in that situation. And I think the approach schools are taking, especially with regard to race, risks exacerbating divides. At some schools girls just seem to wear their uniforms as if they're extras in a Britney Spears video. It's not the case that it's a continuum, at some schools the skirts are all worn knee length, at others they're almost all worn upper mid thigh. Which makes me think there is a large amount of peer pressure involved. I know complaining about this isn't a good luck, but I also know that at least two of my daughters would not be comfortable if they felt that was how they had to wear their skirts. That's my main reason for jot being happy about the situation. Look, I've been in a few secondary schools recently, and they are shockingly woke. A political agenda is pushed which is a long way from neutral. In particular, the extent to which transsexualism seems to be encouraged is frightening. This isn't some media storm, this is how things, at least in this neck of the woods, seek to be. An odd aspect of this is that in primary schools I know, while there are flashes of wokeness, you would recognise the overall experience and ethos from what it was 30 years ago.
Politico.com - There Are 11 Types of Donald Trump Enablers. Which One Are You? A taxonomy of the messiahs, demonizers and tribalist trolls of Trumpland.
Tim Miller is the author of the forthcoming book, Why We Did It: A Travelogue From the Republican Road to Hell.
his week, Cassidy Hutchinson demonstrated in front of the whole world how a political staffer can break free from the rationalizations that lead dwellers of the swamp to enable behaviors we know are evil.
I might be a Cassidy sympathizing Enemy of the People. But as a gay man who contorted himself into defending homophobes and a Trump abhorrer who didn’t hesitate when asked to spin for Trump’s EPA toady Scott Pruitt, I still know a thing or two about being an enabler. . . .
Here’s a field guide, my taxonomy of enablers, so you can identify them in the wild.
• Messiahs and Junior Messiahs • Demonizers • LOL Nothing Matters Republicans • Tribalist Trolls • Strivers • Little Mixes • Peter Principle Disprovers • Nerd Revengers • The Inert Team Players • The Compartmentalizers • Cartel Cashers
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
He should take over from Boris as there is little difference between them but he is not toxic
Sir Keir has a Knighthood unlike Boris, at the moment that is the biggest difference between them
What a strange comment but you simply cannot yet accept Johnson is toxic
He's laying the groundwork for when he switches party.
The last PB Tory is preparing to switch off the lights.
I will never switch party, I was even one of the 9% who voted for May's Tories in the 2019 European elections.
However I don't dislike Sir Keir too much, if we have to have a Labour PM he would be better than most of the alternatives
"He ever voted at his party´s call and never thought of thinking for himself at all"
More like the Vicar of Bray's relationship with the Established Church . . . who famously preached whatever the current Establishment establishment had established . . . until They changed It.
Christopher Trychay was Rector of Morebath from 1520-1574. During that time the church in England was:
Trad Roman Catholic as from forever and time immemorial Henry VIII style 'Catholic without the pope' Edward VI Hot Prot Mary Tudor ultra Roman catholic Elizabeth I less puritan Hot Prot but ultra anti-Roman Catholic.
Eamon Duffy's book on him (a gem) depicts him as a remarkable servant of a rural community rather than a Vicar of Bray. I think he is right.
Ooh, I have that book. You remind me I ought to reread it (and go and visit Morebath sometime).
NEW: Having “taken soundings” from MPs and heard that a formal complaint has been made to the ICGS, the PM has agreed to suspend Chris Pincher while the investigation is ongoing.
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
Each generation will normally be the wokest. Would be a bit odd if they weren't.
And, yes, I know we've just agreed that sillyoldfartness can manifest in the young, which it can - but it's less likely.
I'd challenge that. No reason we have to continue getting woker. Some of us would struggle to see how that would be possible. It certainly can't be desirable for the future of a free and/or wealthy society.
On which subject, following my visit in May to a disturbingly woke private school which we were considering for our daughter, I visited two state schools yesterday and today and am vaguely horrified to conclude that 'disturbingly woke' is simply the norm for secondary schools. My wife simply dismisses this as youth culture, and she is right that the young have always - quite rightly - pushed at the edges and challenged society. But in the past grown-ups have taken the role of tempering the excesses of all this, rather than simply joining in with and encouraging it. Some nuance: the first school - academy controlled state selective with fairly mixed socio-economic catchment - wasn't that bad, actually. I'd be happy if she ended up there. It felt Al out normal, with the exception of the plethora of posters following the mold of "famous person x in field relevant to this department has achieved y - and he's gay". These were all suffixed with the strapline "just like us", which offered a message ("they're just like us, the gays") which came across as possibly lessinclusive than the authors had intended. Possibly that was all just there for the pride month though. Anyway, a bit over the top, but not too much to object to, apart from the mangling of the English language about and Sam Smith which concluded "and they're non-binary". I cannot be doing with using the word 'they' to refer to one person. It's clunky and awful. But the second school - council controlled, non-selective - I came out with feeling physically sickened. I reckon we'll over 50% of display materials around the school were about particular sexualities or gender identities, or about racism. I can accept the need to educate kids about this sort of thing, but the impression was that the school believes educating kids about all the different gender identities and about being anti-racist was its primary purpose. Weirdly, lessons seemed normal and no teachers or students mentioned any of it at any stage. There was a massive dichotomy between what was going on in the foreground and what was going on in the background. If I was asked to pick anything I didn't like about the school
...aside from the display materials it would be that the girls dressed slightly sluttily and the headtea her used the word 'less' where 'fewer' should have been.
It felt like a play being performed on another plays set.
Thanks, I think. Disturbing and depressing
You're depressed by the idea of teenage girls not wearing enough? Well, well, well. So much for all that nonsense about leopards and spots. Good news anyway.
There’s a schoolgirl I see most mornings whilst I’m out with the dog. She’s about 15 or 16. A few times I’ve held the dog to one side so she can get by when there’s been a car parked on the pavement, so it’s just naturally developed, as it does - at least up north anyway - that if we see each other we smile and say good morning. Nice and polite, as you do.
The other week I was driving along and I see this woman on the pavement. Her back was to me, and she had a pair of Daisy Dukes on. Cut really high, as they do, arse cheeks poking out the bottom, long tanned legs.
Now I like to think I’m a nice bloke, liberal, feminist, probably even woke. But there’s a part of me that’ll always be an unreconstructed Yorkshire letch.
‘Cracking arse’ I thought to myself as I overtook this vision of loveliness.
I was mortified to see it was the schoolgirl I say hello to every other morning.
I had to confess to someone so I told my niece. She laughed and called me a dirty old man. Made me feel a bit better.
I have just paid £29 for a one year subscription to the Daily and Sunday Telegraph digital edition
Seems a good deal
I signed up for pretty much the same a few months ago. It's nice, not to have the paywall, and the journalism is ok, but it's not what you expect of a proper newspaper. I doubt that there are any left.
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
So having ruled out rejoining the EU and single market and free movement, refused to commit to new taxes on the wealthy or scapping tuition fees and ruled out backing strikes, Starmer now rules out any deals with the SNP and indyref2 after all.
He should take over from Boris as there is little difference between them but he is not toxic
Sir Keir has a Knighthood unlike Boris, at the moment that is the biggest difference between them
What a strange comment but you simply cannot yet accept Johnson is toxic
He's laying the groundwork for when he switches party.
The last PB Tory is preparing to switch off the lights.
I will never switch party, I was even one of the 9% who voted for May's Tories in the 2019 European elections.
However I don't dislike Sir Keir too much, if we have to have a Labour PM he would be better than most of the alternatives
"He ever voted at his party´s call and never thought of thinking for himself at all"
More like the Vicar of Bray's relationship with the Established Church . . . who famously preached whatever the current Establishment establishment had established . . . until They changed It.
Christopher Trychay was Rector of Morebath from 1520-1574. During that time the church in England was:
Trad Roman Catholic as from forever and time immemorial Henry VIII style 'Catholic without the pope' Edward VI Hot Prot Mary Tudor ultra Roman catholic Elizabeth I less puritan Hot Prot but ultra anti-Roman Catholic.
Eamon Duffy's book on him (a gem) depicts him as a remarkable servant of a rural community rather than a Vicar of Bray. I think he is right.
I’m currently doing an MA at Birkbeck and did my “critical review” on Voices of Morebath
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
There's nothing morally wrong with a party choosing not to cooperate or enter into an agreement with another, especially when the moral argument being made is for an election to a different parliament to the mandate he claims exists.
Dunt is just proving once again he's politically illiterate, as I know fine well he'd be up in arms if a German federal government went into coalition or made an agreement with the AfD or The Left.
SNP + Greens have a mandate in *both* parliaments, as far as the Scottish constituences are concerned. So that point falls.
That might be, but this would be for a *new* election to the UK Parliament, so when that came around the mandate wouldn't exist any more. They'd have to win it again.
What's your point? Part of the reason for this war - and our backing Ukraine in it - is to uphold the concept that independent countries can be part of whatever blocs they want. If Ukraine thinks the EU membership is right for them, then fair enough. That's their choice.
(I was surprised that Denys, a Ukrainian YouTuber I watch, is *not* personally in favour of EU membership.)
Always telling when a reply goes straight into finger prodding chest mode.
If every post on here has to have a 'point', well, there're loads of pixels being wasted.
It is a very easy point to understand. The Ukrainians ambition to join the EU is there for everyone to see. The EU flag is being proudly paraded next to their own in their parliament. The future we all hope for them is the one Johnson's UKIPers have just dumped down the toilet because they're thick as mince
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
I did try and tell you. The Tories definitely won’t give you a referendum, and Labour almost certainly won’t
Partly because most Scots don’t want one, as per the polls, so this is popular
Next indyref: 2030s
That's handy as Sturgeon doesn't want one at the moment either because she knows she will lose.
So this is all a Sturgeon stunt. She can blame Tories and Labour for denying her followers a vote her extremists want, but the likely loss of which would undermine the SNP's raison d'etre?
Cunning little vixen, isn't she?
Yes she is. It is a fascinating question whether she can keep this show on the road until she wants to get out of politics. The SNP currently have everything and more that they can possibly want. Power, almost no responsibility and accountability, loads of jobs in Scotland and Westminster, media coverage (what a switch off they are though), a wall of English cash while like farmers blaming everyone else for everything they don't like.
It must be very tempting to the Tories to give them what they pretend to want and stay neutral.
But it would destroy the nature of the English and Scottish border areas, which is God's own country with God's own people who deserve no such fate.
Ah, a sighting of the colourful "Nicola Sturgeon doesn't actually want to realise the thing she's been in politics her whole life for" bird!
Although I don't why I've gone (!) since it's anything but a rarity.
What it is, though, is remarkably robust. No matter how the evidence mounts that ought to make it extinct, it survives to fly another day.
Global travel chaos is why I can’t be bothered flying this summer. I’m driving up to Maine instead.
Apparently there is a glut of lobster, too. Can’t give the buggers away.
You just moved to the US, a driving holiday is compulsory in your first year there
You don’t even think $5 a gallon (c. £1 a litre) is particularly expensive ‘gas’.
Enjoy the seafood!
I am finalising my autumn US road trip as we type. Last time (2019) I headed out to South Dakota; this time I am mostly giving Trumpland a miss, doing a circuit of the New England states, heading down in a loop toward North Carolina before heading back to NYC.
Awesome! A proper US road trip is on my bucket list. Half of me wants to start with the Cannonball Run, and then spend a month driving back East a lot more slowly.
Last time I did 6,088 miles in about seven weeks. This time I have about six weeks and am expecting the mileage to be lower.
In 2019 I hired a car (a Toyota Corolla, which subsequently led to me buying one for myself - the car will drive itself on the motorway while I feed the dog in the back seat) for about £1200 for just over six weeks (I ditched it before returning to NYC); this year I had one reserved with Avis for over £3000 - fortunately prices have very recently reduced and I snapped one up for about £2200 for just under six weeks. Which looks like a good deal given reports of £700 for a week hiring a car in Europe right now.
The outline plan is NYC-RI-NH-VT-NY(upstate)-PA-VA-NC-PA-NYC
That sounds safe, and why should only OAPs and toddlers in inner city areas have their lives endangered by the glorious world of dogdom?
That's valid for 2017 only based on where a couple of bits are, but I like the idea.
I was very glad that my Ukraine flag made it onto the BBC News website this year (third pic down, flag attached to the tent pole just behind the front), I went to see the Eurovision winners and was stood just behind the front row.
Would be interesting to know whether the gropees were gentlemen or players. There was a bust up a couple of decades back at the Oxford & Cambridge where two male committee members were competing for the affections of a young club waiter with the rather striking surname Honeyballs.
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
"Britain’s students will become the wokest generation Don't expect them to abandon illiberalism Eric Kaufmann
A survey from the respected, Left-leaning Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) shows that British undergraduates have caught up with the craziness of their North American counterparts. If policymakers don’t act quickly, Britain is likely to become a substantially less free society."
Each generation will normally be the wokest. Would be a bit odd if they weren't.
And, yes, I know we've just agreed that sillyoldfartness can manifest in the young, which it can - but it's less likely.
I'd challenge that. No reason we have to continue getting woker. Some of us would struggle to see how that would be possible. It certainly can't be desirable for the future of a free and/or wealthy society.
On which subject, following my visit in May to a disturbingly woke private school which we were considering for our daughter, I visited two state schools yesterday and today and am vaguely horrified to conclude that 'disturbingly woke' is simply the norm for secondary schools. My wife simply dismisses this as youth culture, and she is right that the young have always - quite rightly - pushed at the edges and challenged society. But in the past grown-ups have taken the role of tempering the excesses of all this, rather than simply joining in with and encouraging it. Some nuance: the first school - academy controlled state selective with fairly mixed socio-economic catchment - wasn't that bad, actually. I'd be happy if she ended up there. It felt Al out normal, with the exception of the plethora of posters following the mold of "famous person x in field relevant to this department has achieved y - and he's gay". These were all suffixed with the strapline "just like us", which offered a message ("they're just like us, the gays") which came across as possibly lessinclusive than the authors had intended. Possibly that was all just there for the pride month though. Anyway, a bit over the top, but not too much to object to, apart from the mangling of the English language about and Sam Smith which concluded "and they're non-binary". I cannot be doing with using the word 'they' to refer to one person. It's clunky and awful. But the second school - council controlled, non-selective - I came out with feeling physically sickened. I reckon we'll over 50% of display materials around the school were about particular sexualities or gender identities, or about racism. I can accept the need to educate kids about this sort of thing, but the impression was that the school believes educating kids about all the different gender identities and about being anti-racist was its primary purpose. Weirdly, lessons seemed normal and no teachers or students mentioned any of it at any stage. There was a massive dichotomy between what was going on in the foreground and what was going on in the background. If I was asked to pick anything I didn't like about the school
...aside from the display materials it would be that the girls dressed slightly sluttily and the headtea her used the word 'less' where 'fewer' should have been.
It felt like a play being performed on another plays set.
Thanks, I think. Disturbing and depressing
You're depressed by the idea of teenage girls not wearing enough? Well, well, well. So much for all that nonsense about leopards and spots. Good news anyway.
There’s a schoolgirl I see most mornings whilst I’m out with the dog. She’s about 15 or 16. A few times I’ve held the dog to one side so she can get by when there’s been a car parked on the pavement, so it’s just naturally developed, as it does - at least up north anyway - that if we see each other we smile and say good morning. Nice and polite, as you do.
The other week I was driving along and I see this woman on the pavement. Her back was to me, and she had a pair of Daisy Dukes on. Cut really high, as they do, arse cheeks poking out the bottom, long tanned legs.
Now I like to think I’m a nice bloke, liberal, feminist, probably even woke. But there’s a part of me that’ll always be an unreconstructed Yorkshire letch.
‘Cracking arse’ I thought to myself as I overtook this vision of loveliness.
I was mortified to see it was the schoolgirl I say hello to every other morning.
I had to confess to someone so I told my niece. She laughed and called me a dirty old man. Made me feel a bit better.
- presume it's the summer hols rather than the new uniform.
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
I did try and tell you. The Tories definitely won’t give you a referendum, and Labour almost certainly won’t
Partly because most Scots don’t want one, as per the polls, so this is popular
Next indyref: 2030s
That's handy as Sturgeon doesn't want one at the moment either because she knows she will lose.
So this is all a Sturgeon stunt. She can blame Tories and Labour for denying her followers a vote her extremists want, but the likely loss of which would undermine the SNP's raison d'etre?
Cunning little vixen, isn't she?
Yes she is. It is a fascinating question whether she can keep this show on the road until she wants to get out of politics. The SNP currently have everything and more that they can possibly want. Power, almost no responsibility and accountability, loads of jobs in Scotland and Westminster, media coverage (what a switch off they are though), a wall of English cash while like farmers blaming everyone else for everything they don't like.
It must be very tempting to the Tories to give them what they pretend to want and stay neutral.
But it would destroy the nature of the English and Scottish border areas, which is God's own country with God's own people who deserve no such fate.
Ah, a sighting of the colourful "Nicola Sturgeon doesn't actually want to realise the thing she's been in politics her whole life for" bird!
Although I don't why I've gone (!) since it's anything but a rarity.
What it is, though, is remarkably robust. No matter how the evidence mounts that ought to make it extinct, it survives to fly another day.
Dunty examines the moral case for a few seconds then decides nah, fuck it.
I did try and tell you. The Tories definitely won’t give you a referendum, and Labour almost certainly won’t
Partly because most Scots don’t want one, as per the polls, so this is popular
Next indyref: 2030s
That's handy as Sturgeon doesn't want one at the moment either because she knows she will lose.
So this is all a Sturgeon stunt. She can blame Tories and Labour for denying her followers a vote her extremists want, but the likely loss of which would undermine the SNP's raison d'etre?
Cunning little vixen, isn't she?
Yes she is. It is a fascinating question whether she can keep this show on the road until she wants to get out of politics. The SNP currently have everything and more that they can possibly want. Power, almost no responsibility and accountability, loads of jobs in Scotland and Westminster, media coverage (what a switch off they are though), a wall of English cash while like farmers blaming everyone else for everything they don't like.
It must be very tempting to the Tories to give them what they pretend to want and stay neutral.
But it would destroy the nature of the English and Scottish border areas, which is God's own country with God's own people who deserve no such fate.
Ah, a sighting of the colourful "Nicola Sturgeon doesn't actually want to realise the thing she's been in politics her whole life for" bird!
Although I don't why I've gone (!) since it's anything but a rarity.
What it is, though, is remarkably robust. No matter how the evidence mounts that ought to make it extinct, it survives to fly another day.
That post is the meanderings of a half witted bellend talking out it's arse. English cash my arse, the clown obviously needs an education given he does not realise we have subsidised England for the last 50 years. Is it any wonder England is circling the drain.
Comments
Barking.
The last PB Tory is preparing to switch off the lights.
Come to Montenegro! (Fly into Tivat)
My gorgeous apartment overlooking the Adriatic, 1 minute from the beach and excellent swimming, 5 minutes walk from a handsome old seaside town with bars and restaurants, is £10 less per night than that dorm room. Mad
China's an interesting one. AIUI it does *relatively* little trade with Russia; the bulk of its exports go elsewhere. The US alone imports ten times the dollar-value of goods from China that Russia does. We import $20 billion more from China that Russia - if I've read (1) correctly.
It is China's interest for there *not* to be a collapse in trade with the west caused by an economic crisis - particularly coming off the back of Covid. This is why I doubt China will give much, if any, 'material support' to Russia. The potential downsides to doing so far outweigh the upsides.
(1): https://tradingeconomics.com/china/exports-by-country
Come to think of it: I got my DT at a *negative* price. They were paying me not to read it. Can BigG beat that?
However I don't dislike Sir Keir too much, if we have to have a Labour PM he would be better than most of the alternatives
https://www.cityam.com/boost-for-global-britain-as-uk-exports-to-eu-defy-brexit-challenges-and-hit-highest-level-ever/
Et tu Brute?
Johnson's fall cannot be far away now.
Neither I, my wife, my parents, her mother have had covid, to the best of our knowledge.
In terms of hospitals - well over 60% of 'covid' admissions are for other things. Still causes issues for sure, but it needs remembering.
What does the future hold? Well probably more tailored vaccines or specific to omicron which will help. But also we need to regain a sense of perspective. The average age of death from covid is trending up to 80, the same as flu. It is killing elderly, generally unwell people in the main. Thats sad for them and their friends and families but life is sad and elderly people are generally killed by bugs at the end.
And lastly - what to do different? Personally I'd sort ventilation and air filtration in schools, unis, and definitely hospital wards. And if needed masks in clinical settings. I'd look at expanding our hospitals by 10% as Foxy suggests.
And then get on with life.
Jeez. Are we all destined to get Long Covid and shuffle morosely to an early grave?
Maybe my Montenegrin cab driver was right. The future looks hellish. Enjoy the moment
Only serious players of the game will appreciate how much kudos that deserves!
The long-term graph of GBP v EUR is remarkably stable from 2016 to date compared to the decades before then.
I think getting a grip is what it's all about, rogering on the company's tab ...
I would look upon Trumps's USA in exactly that way too. and I would be right.
From a UK we have different history, which is why we ask hard questions of ourselves (thankfully), the EU and the USA as it was under Trump and how it is under the SC.
We are fantastically fortunate to have that moral and philosophical luxury. It won't last if we take it for granted.
It's interesting to speculate as to why but it has virtually nothing to do with our membership of the EU or not.
Think you've smashed it, leave a gap for it to spread, and it will. And thinking it's done is the epitome of complacency.
There's lots of simple old-school stuff; fresh air is good, coughs and sneezes spread diseases, that we put in the CBA box for decades, nervously got out in 2020, then put back because we told ourselves that vaccines solve everything. The vaccine story was a modern miracle, but it was never going to solve all the problems.
But do NOT post on here (enough is more than enough) instead forward to UKR version of SBS.
It must be very tempting to the Tories to give them what they pretend to want and stay neutral.
But it would destroy the nature of the English and Scottish border areas, which is God's own country with God's own people who deserve no such fate.
This is a Tory sex crime spree.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/no-isnt-just-tory-sleaze-27373464 https://twitter.com/fleetstreetfox/status/1542873135086817280/photo/1
Book tickets now.
I thought that was Mary J. Bilge.
"Britain may stop supplying gas to mainland Europe if the country is hit by extreme shortages in the coming months, it has emerged.
National Grid could cut off gas pipelines to the Netherlands and Belgium under emergency measures as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine puts pressure on global energy supplies."
https://twitter.com/camillahmturner/status/1542901061345837057
https://twitter.com/Parody_PM/status/1542821361520967681
https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1542901504746586112
Trad Roman Catholic as from forever and time immemorial
Henry VIII style 'Catholic without the pope'
Edward VI Hot Prot
Mary Tudor ultra Roman catholic
Elizabeth I less puritan Hot Prot but ultra anti-Roman Catholic.
Eamon Duffy's book on him (a gem) depicts him as a remarkable servant of a rural community rather than a Vicar of Bray. I think he is right.
Yesterday’s ComRes gave, on new boundaries:
SNP 51 seats
Scottish LibDems 2 seats
Scottish Labour 2 seats
Scottish Brexit Oafs 2 seats
At some schools girls just seem to wear their uniforms as if they're extras in a Britney Spears video. It's not the case that it's a continuum, at some schools the skirts are all worn knee length, at others they're almost all worn upper mid thigh. Which makes me think there is a large amount of peer pressure involved. I know complaining about this isn't a good luck, but I also know that at least two of my daughters would not be comfortable if they felt that was how they had to wear their skirts. That's my main reason for jot being happy about the situation.
Look, I've been in a few secondary schools recently, and they are shockingly woke. A political agenda is pushed which is a long way from neutral. In particular, the extent to which transsexualism seems to be encouraged is frightening. This isn't some media storm, this is how things, at least in this neck of the woods, seek to be.
An odd aspect of this is that in primary schools I know, while there are flashes of wokeness, you would recognise the overall experience and ethos from what it was 30 years ago.
A taxonomy of the messiahs, demonizers and tribalist trolls of Trumpland.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/07/01/tim-miller-trump-republican-operatives-book-excerpt-00043279
Tim Miller is the author of the forthcoming book, Why We Did It: A Travelogue From the Republican Road to Hell.
his week, Cassidy Hutchinson demonstrated in front of the whole world how a political staffer can break free from the rationalizations that lead dwellers of the swamp to enable behaviors we know are evil.
I might be a Cassidy sympathizing Enemy of the People. But as a gay man who contorted himself into defending homophobes and a Trump abhorrer who didn’t hesitate when asked to spin for Trump’s EPA toady Scott Pruitt, I still know a thing or two about being an enabler. . . .
Here’s a field guide, my taxonomy of enablers, so you can identify them in the wild.
• Messiahs and Junior Messiahs
• Demonizers
• LOL Nothing Matters Republicans
• Tribalist Trolls
• Strivers
• Little Mixes
• Peter Principle Disprovers
• Nerd Revengers
• The Inert Team Players
• The Compartmentalizers
• Cartel Cashers
Kelly Tolhurst will replace him as deputy chief whip
https://twitter.com/tamcohen/status/1542902568258617346
The other week I was driving along and I see this woman on the pavement. Her back was to me, and she had a pair of Daisy Dukes on. Cut really high, as they do, arse cheeks poking out the bottom, long tanned legs.
Now I like to think I’m a nice bloke, liberal, feminist, probably even woke. But there’s a part of me that’ll always be an unreconstructed Yorkshire letch.
‘Cracking arse’ I thought to myself as I overtook this vision of loveliness.
I was mortified to see it was the schoolgirl I say hello to every other morning.
I had to confess to someone so I told my niece. She laughed and called me a dirty old man. Made me feel a bit better.
Although I don't why I've gone (!) since it's anything but a rarity.
What it is, though, is remarkably robust. No matter how the evidence mounts that ought to make it extinct, it survives to fly another day.
https://twitter.com/camillahmturner/status/1542905152356614145
I was very glad that my Ukraine flag made it onto the BBC News website this year (third pic down, flag attached to the tent pole just behind the front), I went to see the Eurovision winners and was stood just behind the front row.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-61943613
I was reflecting on the difference between Wes Streeting and Zara Sultana. And some of the people I knew at University.