Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
SNP have done sod all, if they had done anything you'd be able to point out achievements
Says the PB Scotch expert. You Labourites are just as bad as your Tory buddies.
Queensferry Crossing
Child Payment Baby Box
Free bus travel for under 22s
Free period products
Dentistry charges scrapped
Music tuition fees scrapped
Best Performing NHS in the UK
Extended free personal care
Record high health funding
A dozen new Social Security benefits
Free school meals for P1-3s
Best performing A&E in the UK
Record high investment in education
Declared a climate emergency - 1st in world
Planting 22 million trees a year
Scottish National Investment Bank
Building more affordable homes
Small Business Bonus
Expanded MA scheme
Expanded EMAS
School Clothing Grant
Young Person's Guarantee
Investing more in life sciences
Free eye tests
Record support for college students
New progressive tax system
Carer's Allowance Supplement
Record low crime - lowest in over 40 years
Young Carer Grant
Violence Reduction Unit
Record investment in active travel
Best Start Grant
Aberdeen Bypass
Driving forward land reform
Lowering emissions
More investment in Climate Justice Fund
National Islands Plan
Community Empowerment Act
National Marine Plan
Helping deliver COP26
Outperforming UK on foreign investment
Continuing to outperform UK on productivity
Delivering Equally Safe Fund
First gender neutral cabinet in the UK
Keeping Scottish Water in public hands
Ferguson's shipyard jobs saved
BiFab saved
Prestwick Airport saved
Violent crime down
Weapon/knife crime significantly down
Handling the Covid crisis
What have the Romans done for us?
At least they weren't woke.
You sure? Even bloody tables were declared female. Edit: more precisely, 'feminine'. Though they had a neuter gender as well. Would be useful today.
I think their enthusiastic embracing of slavery probably rules the Romans out from being very woke.....
Well all the men wore skirts. Who can forget Richard Burton as Mark Anthony in that tight, thigh-skimming number. Cleopatra didn't get a look in.
You are quite gay, aren't you?
I do have a feminine side, yes. Keep it hidden on here though in case people are discomforted which I don't want. So on here I'm Solid Bloke.
I've noticed it many times, so it's not that well hidden!
You have quite an effeminate commenting style, I sometimes wonder if you are a woman (don't take that the wrong way - or, er, the right way)(Oh, you know what I mean)
Effeminate is not pejorative. I mean it in the sense of "feminised masculine"
God, this is such a minefield, these days. No wonder I talk about aliens instead
I make heavy hammer man points in a light and airy way? Yes, this is the aim and I think it's a worthy one. Far too many male pundits do the dead opposite imo.
Speaking of poor Rushdie, Keir Starmer has only just now come out and said anything about the stabbing. Took him a whole day
I'm not sure that will be foremost of Mr Rushdie's concerns.
Starmer is cackhanded at this stuff. If you are going to express regrets and concern, do it quick, make it sincere. Why on earth wait a whole day, rubbing everyone the wrong way?
I had a picnic with some friends last night (and blissful it was). One of them is an old lefty - not extreme, quite centrist - but his withering contempt for Starmer was a spectacle. Starmer irritates people quite deeply
He doesn't irritate me and I am a mostly life long Tory. I think he irritates a few people on the extremes because he is boringly electable, unlike Corbyn, so therefore they have to slag him off by saying he is boring. Your idol, Mr Johnson was definitely not boring but was a fucking disaster and the worst PM in the history of the UK. I would quite like a boring PM, but preferably not a labour one, though that looks very likely thanks to your mate "Boris".
He offends a certain political sensibility- that politics is all about Great Characters. isam, late of this parish, was a great exponent of that theory.
It links to the eurothing as well- almost by definition, the EEC/EU system favours boring spods. And some flamboyant people hate that.
I worry that Starmer won't win, when push comes to shove. But whilst his worldview isn't mine, and I won't agree with everything he does, he's probably the PM the country nerds needs in 2024.
[Revealing typo left in]
Really silly false dichotomy here, it is not the case that there is no middle ground between glamour boys and Sir interesting. We deserve better.
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
Do Scottish Labour have anyone of the quality of Mark Drakeford? No wonder Welsh Labour do well and Scottish Labour don’t.
They used to, at least at the top. But not since, I think, Donald Dewar and Wendy Alexander.
I had high hopes for Wendy Alexander. But she didn't really make much of a mark in the role. I don't know enough about internal SLab politics to know if she was being undermined/let-down by rival factions or was just 'not that good'.
That was a long time ago but from memory WA was widely regarded as being stabbed in the back by her friends*. Henry McLeish, her predecessor, was nominally forced out because of subletting his constituency office and forgetting to register it etc. This came out because the story emerged in a newspaper (can't recall which one). Howsoever that happened, as I recall Mr McLeish's leadership did not sit well with certain West Central Belt elements (he being from Fife).
*Edit: partly cos she wanted to take a pro-active approach and declare an indyref early, before the SNP had completely mobilised.
It still baffles me that SLab aren't even that big on Gordon Brown-esque 'Devo Max'. It seems like such an obvious policy play and yet...
Then again, many things about SLab baffle me.
15 years of PB and I can't recall a single SLab poster.
The absence of SLab posters is one of PB's greatest mysteries.
I've been following the Site since its very early days and have witnessed the ebb and flow of support for all the main parties, and some of the lesser ones too, but there has never been a SLab contingent as far as I know. I think we've had more Cornish Nationalists.
I'm not making a political point here. It's just odd.
The GOP needs more people like this who are prepared to fight back against the Trump Cult.
Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 @RonFilipkowski · 23h When John Bolton says on Newsmax that we are safer under Biden then we would have been under Trump, the host loses his mind and they have an epic battle. I know people hate Bolton, but this is fantastic - he debunks every fake narrative they created about his foreign policy.
Speaking of poor Rushdie, Keir Starmer has only just now come out and said anything about the stabbing. Took him a whole day
I'm not sure that will be foremost of Mr Rushdie's concerns.
Starmer is cackhanded at this stuff. If you are going to express regrets and concern, do it quick, make it sincere. Why on earth wait a whole day, rubbing everyone the wrong way?
I had a picnic with some friends last night (and blissful it was). One of them is an old lefty - not extreme, quite centrist - but his withering contempt for Starmer was a spectacle. Starmer irritates people quite deeply
These “leftie friends” of yours don’t half agree with you an awful lot. Are you sure that’s what they are? Are we taking SWP leftie, Momentum, or some other species?
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
Do Scottish Labour have anyone of the quality of Mark Drakeford? No wonder Welsh Labour do well and Scottish Labour don’t.
They used to, at least at the top. But not since, I think, Donald Dewar and Wendy Alexander.
I had high hopes for Wendy Alexander. But she didn't really make much of a mark in the role. I don't know enough about internal SLab politics to know if she was being undermined/let-down by rival factions or was just 'not that good'.
That was a long time ago but from memory WA was widely regarded as being stabbed in the back by her friends*. Henry McLeish, her predecessor, was nominally forced out because of subletting his constituency office and forgetting to register it etc. This came out because the story emerged in a newspaper (can't recall which one). Howsoever that happened, as I recall Mr McLeish's leadership did not sit well with certain West Central Belt elements (he being from Fife).
*Edit: partly cos she wanted to take a pro-active approach and declare an indyref early, before the SNP had completely mobilised.
It still baffles me that SLab aren't even that big on Gordon Brown-esque 'Devo Max'. It seems like such an obvious policy play and yet...
Then again, many things about SLab baffle me.
15 years of PB and I can't recall a single SLab poster.
The absence of SLab posters is one of PB's greatest mysteries.
I've been following the Site since its very early days and have witnessed the ebb and flow of support for all the main parties, and some of the lesser ones too, but there has never been a SLab contingent as far as I know. I think we've had more Cornish Nationalists.
I'm not making a political point here. It's just odd.
I've had a nice pot noodle, but I've never had a poodle and I've never met a Slab supporter.
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
Do Scottish Labour have anyone of the quality of Mark Drakeford? No wonder Welsh Labour do well and Scottish Labour don’t.
They used to, at least at the top. But not since, I think, Donald Dewar and Wendy Alexander.
I had high hopes for Wendy Alexander. But she didn't really make much of a mark in the role. I don't know enough about internal SLab politics to know if she was being undermined/let-down by rival factions or was just 'not that good'.
That was a long time ago but from memory WA was widely regarded as being stabbed in the back by her friends*. Henry McLeish, her predecessor, was nominally forced out because of subletting his constituency office and forgetting to register it etc. This came out because the story emerged in a newspaper (can't recall which one). Howsoever that happened, as I recall Mr McLeish's leadership did not sit well with certain West Central Belt elements (he being from Fife).
*Edit: partly cos she wanted to take a pro-active approach and declare an indyref early, before the SNP had completely mobilised.
It still baffles me that SLab aren't even that big on Gordon Brown-esque 'Devo Max'. It seems like such an obvious policy play and yet...
Then again, many things about SLab baffle me.
15 years of PB and I can't recall a single SLab poster.
Speaking of poor Rushdie, Keir Starmer has only just now come out and said anything about the stabbing. Took him a whole day
I'm not sure that will be foremost of Mr Rushdie's concerns.
Starmer is cackhanded at this stuff. If you are going to express regrets and concern, do it quick, make it sincere. Why on earth wait a whole day, rubbing everyone the wrong way?
I had a picnic with some friends last night (and blissful it was). One of them is an old lefty - not extreme, quite centrist - but his withering contempt for Starmer was a spectacle. Starmer irritates people quite deeply
These “leftie friends” of yours don’t half agree with you an awful lot. Are you sure that’s what they are? Are we taking SWP leftie, Momentum, or some other species?
Bear in mind that Attilla the Hun would be considered Lefty by @Leon
I don't know if he's been discussed but I've recently seen a couple of interviews with Stanford immunologist Garry Nolan, who was asked by the CIA to assess people injured through close proximity to UFO's.
Nolan talks about it in a measured way (there are enough stories exactly the same, with material evidence, that it constitutes data, and empiricism is better than rationalism,) but does tend towards "I'm not saying it's aliens, but......" He's also tested materials left behind from supposed UFO sightings with interesting results.
Some of the stories are good fun too. I like the alien that lands in a farmer's field, walks from the UFO to the front door, knocks on the door, politely asks for a glass of water, gets one, and leaves.
Speaking of poor Rushdie, Keir Starmer has only just now come out and said anything about the stabbing. Took him a whole day
I'm not sure that will be foremost of Mr Rushdie's concerns.
Starmer is cackhanded at this stuff. If you are going to express regrets and concern, do it quick, make it sincere. Why on earth wait a whole day, rubbing everyone the wrong way?
I had a picnic with some friends last night (and blissful it was). One of them is an old lefty - not extreme, quite centrist - but his withering contempt for Starmer was a spectacle. Starmer irritates people quite deeply
These “leftie friends” of yours don’t half agree with you an awful lot. Are you sure that’s what they are? Are we taking SWP leftie, Momentum, or some other species?
Bear in mind that Attilla the Hun would be considered Lefty by Leon
"Why the urban rebirth surprised the media In the Thai capital, the cacophony of a post-lockdown resurgence is music to this urbanite’s ears JANAN GANESH" [via G search]
"For an urbanist, starved of crowds by a pandemic, it is Bangkok that calls. It is Bangkok that sends out the homing beacon. How kind of it to remind us that London and New York are as Bath and Ann Arbor on an Asian scale of energy."
Speaking of poor Rushdie, Keir Starmer has only just now come out and said anything about the stabbing. Took him a whole day
I'm not sure that will be foremost of Mr Rushdie's concerns.
Starmer is cackhanded at this stuff. If you are going to express regrets and concern, do it quick, make it sincere. Why on earth wait a whole day, rubbing everyone the wrong way?
I had a picnic with some friends last night (and blissful it was). One of them is an old lefty - not extreme, quite centrist - but his withering contempt for Starmer was a spectacle. Starmer irritates people quite deeply
These “leftie friends” of yours don’t half agree with you an awful lot. Are you sure that’s what they are? Are we taking SWP leftie, Momentum, or some other species?
Bear in mind that Attilla the Hun would be considered Lefty by @Leon
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
Do Scottish Labour have anyone of the quality of Mark Drakeford? No wonder Welsh Labour do well and Scottish Labour don’t.
They used to, at least at the top. But not since, I think, Donald Dewar and Wendy Alexander.
I had high hopes for Wendy Alexander. But she didn't really make much of a mark in the role. I don't know enough about internal SLab politics to know if she was being undermined/let-down by rival factions or was just 'not that good'.
That was a long time ago but from memory WA was widely regarded as being stabbed in the back by her friends*. Henry McLeish, her predecessor, was nominally forced out because of subletting his constituency office and forgetting to register it etc. This came out because the story emerged in a newspaper (can't recall which one). Howsoever that happened, as I recall Mr McLeish's leadership did not sit well with certain West Central Belt elements (he being from Fife).
*Edit: partly cos she wanted to take a pro-active approach and declare an indyref early, before the SNP had completely mobilised.
It still baffles me that SLab aren't even that big on Gordon Brown-esque 'Devo Max'. It seems like such an obvious policy play and yet...
Then again, many things about SLab baffle me.
Devo Max was, and is, a marketing ploy: all trappings no substance.
For the simple reason that it is impossible without English consent. Never gonna happen.
Devomax will almost certainly happen if Starmer becomes PM
I think he'll offer it as a response to the SNP "a vote for SNP is a vote for Indy and nothing else" in attempt to regain scottish seats and I expect it might work tbh
My young nephew thinks the team is called Manchester United Nil.
Do we have the result. yet?
We want 8.
I remember in the glory days of Dundee United we were 7-0 up against Kilmarnock with about 20 minutes left singing we want 8. All credit to the Kilmarnock supporters, they responded "we want one".
Stuart and co fear Starmer because he'd run a good Government which would blunt the need for independence.
Perhaps the SNP should propose some policies and we can look at them. Their record in Government is a dismal failure.
Propose policies? Ho ho. There speaks someone firmly locked in Opposition Mode. FYI the SNP have been in government for fifteen years, and have now won eleven elections in a row. Lots of policies implemented and approved at the ballot box.
Welsh Labour, the only one in power, is closer to the SNP than Scottish or English Labour. Anas Sarwar would recoil in horror at some of the things Mark Drakeford says and does. Drakeford is riding high in the polls. Sarwar isn’t.
Do Scottish Labour have anyone of the quality of Mark Drakeford? No wonder Welsh Labour do well and Scottish Labour don’t.
They used to, at least at the top. But not since, I think, Donald Dewar and Wendy Alexander.
I had high hopes for Wendy Alexander. But she didn't really make much of a mark in the role. I don't know enough about internal SLab politics to know if she was being undermined/let-down by rival factions or was just 'not that good'.
That was a long time ago but from memory WA was widely regarded as being stabbed in the back by her friends*. Henry McLeish, her predecessor, was nominally forced out because of subletting his constituency office and forgetting to register it etc. This came out because the story emerged in a newspaper (can't recall which one). Howsoever that happened, as I recall Mr McLeish's leadership did not sit well with certain West Central Belt elements (he being from Fife).
*Edit: partly cos she wanted to take a pro-active approach and declare an indyref early, before the SNP had completely mobilised.
It still baffles me that SLab aren't even that big on Gordon Brown-esque 'Devo Max'. It seems like such an obvious policy play and yet...
Then again, many things about SLab baffle me.
15 years of PB and I can't recall a single SLab poster.
The absence of SLab posters is one of PB's greatest mysteries.
I've been following the Site since its very early days and have witnessed the ebb and flow of support for all the main parties, and some of the lesser ones too, but there has never been a SLab contingent as far as I know. I think we've had more Cornish Nationalists.
I'm not making a political point here. It's just odd.
I'm sure there were one or two back in the day. Nick Palmer might know. James Kelly?
There's a really *nasty* comparison in that tweet, and I'm unsurprised that it's passed you by.
I really only posted it for the Sadowitz screenshot, but I now note he is comparing the cancellation of Sadowitz to the stabbing of Rushdie. Which seems perfectly fair, albeit controversial, they are both arguably symptoms of the same problem - the new censorship, which comes from many sides (two of them being Wokeness, and Islamic intolerence of critique)
It is comparing one group of people with another who commit terrible violence, just after an act of violence by that group.
He is making a philosophical point which to me is interesting and has some merit. But off you go and do the snowflake thing. You're the kind of twat who would complain about being offended at a Jerry Sadowitz gig
A "philosophical point"? ... lol
Ah, I only popped on for a minute and it is a @kinabalu and @leon punchup. Where is my popcorn?
Re: 2022 WA Primary defeat of Jaime Herrera Beutler, one of ten Republican US Representatives who voted to impeach Trump following his exhorting his minions to attack the US Capitol for express purpose of overturning his own 2020 election defeat:
Personally think that the vote that doomed her was NOT one for impeachment, but rather her Nay on floor of US House last month, cast against the Respect for Marriage Act, aimed at safeguarding gay marriage in wake of overturning of Roe v Wade.
Why was this vote so important? Because it alienated MANY socially liberal Democrats, Independents AND Republicans, who were otherwise giving her strong consideration for their primary vote. But instead, think some of these ended up voting for the Democrat in the race. Who only ended up with 31% of near-final primary vote (results will be certified this coming Tuesday) clearly way below the base Dem vote in this district.
Meaning that many Dems voted for JHB. Just NOT quite enough.
Now IF she'd vote Yea for Respect of Marriage Act - as did her fellow GOP impeacher Dan Newhouse in neighboring WA 4th District - Herrera Beutler would have lost some of her fellow religious conservative Republicans. HOWEVER, many of them were already lost to Kent or to ANOTHER Republican, who was avowedly evangelical AND pro-Trump.
So think on balance her vote - cast by her as a matter of conscience just like her vote to impeach Trump - hurt JHB more than it helped her. In a race where she's coming in third, and being kept off the general election ballot, by just over 1k votes.
The problem isn't the Tory party, its the voters. People want contradictory things but refuse to accept there is a contradiction. A series of events have empowered them to believe their genuine ignorance on a subject holds the same weight as actual knowledge and experience. They aren't wrong, the experts are wrong.
There is a way through though - find us a new Blair or Thatcher, someone who does know what they are talking about and has political umph. People said "that is Boris" but as all but the remaining holdouts now accept Boris stood for nothing, with no great policies delivered and settled in his time.
Ummm, BoZo was the politician more than any other in my lifetime that told voters they could have contradictory things. Denied the contradictions. That experts were to be derided.
He was the problem
The fact his opponents failed to make their case shows how poor they were
Not entirely.
If you are in a debate with someone shameless and dishonest enough, it can be really hard to persuade an audience.
It tends to go this;
BORIS-ALIKE Something involving cake and eat it
RORY-ALIKE (because he at least tried) That's not possible- once you have eaten your cake, it's gone...
BORIS-ALIKE There you go, with your doomy gloomy negativity. Remember we are Great Britain! We are being held back by your fears... (Continues ad nauseum.)
Boris style cakeism is a really attractive prospectus. It's awfully hard to argue against, because deep down we want it to be true, and want to believe that there's some meanie stopping it being true for us. That's been the case since the apple/snake/Eve fiasco in Genesis.
It would have been better for the UK had someone successfully argued us out of Borisism, but I'm not convinced that was possible.
It would have been better for the Conservatives and the UK to have not fallen for Borisism, but that required human nature to be something it isn't.
The culpability for (gestures round) all of this belongs with the clique who proposed it, who lied to the public about it, who smeared and deposed those who questioned it.
Not particularly with those who fell for it, and certainly not with those who did their best to argue against it.
Unless you had a better plan to argue against Boris, in which case I'm all ears.
And unless he didn't vote for the Conservatives when Mr Johnson was their leader.
I want to make this clear
I supported Johnson on brexit, covid and Ukraine but he lost me from Paterson onwards
Starmer would have had our economy in lockdown forever if he could, and it is to Johnson's credit he opened the economy when he did
That's a very silly thing to write. Starmer wanted us "in lockdown forever"?
Profoundly stupid read of the situation that isn't worthy of yours usual sage analysis.
Forever is a stretch, but Starmer was ALWAYS on the side of more and longer restrictions.
I accept forever was one of my rather exaggerated comments but there is no doubt Starmer favoured a much stricter and longer lockdown and it was Johnson who made the correct decision and it has been proven as the right thing to do
It is rather hot and I apologise for my exaggeration
Boris caused longer lockdowns by always being slow to initiate a lockdown. Had we acted promptly, we would have better controlled infection rates and could’ve come out of lockdown sooner. It’s yet more short term thinking.
Oh what nonsense. Claimed by people who want to justify lockdowns. Taking away civil liberties as a precautionary measure is unacceptable and the virus would still be prevalent on our continent after any lockdown it wasn't a magic pill that would get rid of it.
What country in Europe successfully had a short, sharp lockdown that was rapidly ended and not repeated?
I can in hindsight point at a country and say we should have done that, Sweden. Can you name any country that had a rapid premature lockdown that worked, fixed things and meant coming out of lockdown sooner?
Following the Swedish model would have been utterly catastrophic. Look at their death rates compared to their immediate neighbours. Thousands of additional people died in Sweden who did not need to because of the route they chose. And that is in spite of the fact that far more people in Sweden work from home anyway so the effects of a lockdown would have been considerably less on their economy.
Many - if not all - European countries got their policies wrong in the pandemic in one way or another. Sweden is certainly no exception.
Thousands extra dying, almost all of whom would have died soon anyway, is better than stripping tens of millions of two years of civil liberties, trashing education and development for years that will have consequences for generations to come, spending hundreds of billions and creating NHS waiting lists for years to come.
The price we paid to keep people alive was not a price worth paying. There's more to life than a mortuary league table.
If the vulnerable wishes to shield that should be there prerogative but not at the price of trashing children's education etc
Bolded: incorrect, and pointed out to you repeatedly before.
Half of those in ICUs were under 60. A quarter were under 50.
Using averages of deaths is as irrelevant as using the average age of people locked down (which was over 40, so why are we worrying about childrens education when none of them are anywhere near 40. Which would be an absurd argument, but is just as true).
Over 13,000 children lost a parent to covid. Under your plan, that number would be several times higher. And we'd still have had a large (if not larger) economic impact.
In ICU doesn't mean dead.
Some extra casualties is still better than the alternative. Life is for living, even if some people die, we all die eventually.
Shutting down life in fear of death was not a price worth paying. Simply saying "more would die" isn't an argument winner against someone saying death is acceptable.
People go to ICU when there's a very significant chance that they could die without the assistance. Should there be no more capacity in ICU, no-one else could go to ICU. Those who would have survived with ICU assistance would therefore be dead.
Even "lesser" hospitalisation would see far more dead without hospital assistance. It's a key reason we have hospitals and healthcare in the first place.
Both ICUs and hospitals were maxed out and beyond maxed out. It was the hospital loadings and ICU loadings that governed the call for lockdowns.
Yes, it's true that everyone dies. We do consider it civilized to minimize avoidable deaths. We could close the deficit and cut taxes hugely at a stroke by abolishing all healthcare spending and pension spending, for example, on the grounds that yes, loads of people would die due to lack of healthcare and/or starve to death in old age, but hey - people die, right?
That is, to me, an absurd case to make, but not far off of your argument.
You're right its not far off the argument and make it less ridiculous and its not unreasonable either.
A budget should be available to the NHS for healthcare and the best available treatment based upon what is affordable - the NHS should not have a blank cheque.
If the NHS not having a blank cheque means more die and fewer receive pensions, then so be it. We can't afford to keep everyone alive forever, nor should we.
The NHS has never had a blank cheque and is never going to, so why this straw man argument?
Because Andy made the extreme argument of abolishing the budget entirely, so I retorted with the opposite extreme.
So is it fair to say we both agree that a budget is acceptable and we both agree that it is acceptable for avoidable deaths to occur if they're not viably avoidable within the budget.
Well if so, I consider the lockdown an unacceptable price to pay and if that means extra deaths then so be it, that's the price you pay for not having a blank cheque.
When it comes to what the NHS should spend money on, we have agreed cut-offs used by NICE in terms of £ per quality-adjusted life year gained. Have you or anyone else tried to systematise this argument you are making in terms of what was gained by lockdown in terms of QALYs saved and what it cost, turning all the costs of lockdown into a monetary equivalent amount?
Or are you just saying that lockdown was so awful that no number of QALYs saved would ever justify it?
The former would be interesting to read. The latter seems somewhat absolutist. Your insistence that lockdown should never be done again in any circumstance seems to either assign too much cost to lockdown or to suggest a lack of epidemiological imagination in terms of future pandemics.
The Kyiv Independent @KyivIndependent ⚡️Governor: Russian army command leaves Kherson.
According to Mykolaiv Oblast Governor Vitaliy Kim, the Russian army command has been moving to the left bank of the Dnipro River. 4:39 PM · Aug 13, 2022
The Ukrainians have found a Russian general and not blown him up?
I dunno, standards are just dropping everywhere.
They have however wrecked the last vehicle bridge, at least for present. Looks a bit tricky West of the Dnieper for the Russians. They will be swimming home soon.
Imagine being on the enemy’s bridge rebuilding team. As soon as it looks like they might have one serviceable route over the river to Kherson, another HIMARS empties half a dozen rockets back onto the bridge!
If the general has left the city, the rest of the troops won’t know what to do with themselves, will use up all their ammo and - if they want to live - walk out with their hands up.
Certainly West of the Dnieper the supply situation will deteriote by the day, particularly if the Ukranians target the boat crossings, and bridge repair teams with artillery. I think the desperate Russian attacks are trying to push the Ukranians out of range for artillery.
It will be shooting fish in a barrel for Ukraine, particularly as they seem to have established local air superiority.
I think a problem with the boat crossings is that it's not clear whether they are mixed civilian and military loads. I think that's why Ukraine haven't hit them yet.
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No names no packdrill. 🙂
I've been following the Site since its very early days and have witnessed the ebb and flow of support for all the main parties, and some of the lesser ones too, but there has never been a SLab contingent as far as I know. I think we've had more Cornish Nationalists.
I'm not making a political point here. It's just odd.
I know they are not even attempting to be balanced but US hosts are truly something else in terms of being overly invested in politics of the day.
Lex Fridman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTCc2-1tbBQ
And more recently, Tucker Carlson (apols for Tucker Carlson but Nolan is interesting) https://www.bitchute.com/video/HrR3qQBnxaf0/
Nolan talks about it in a measured way (there are enough stories exactly the same, with material evidence, that it constitutes data, and empiricism is better than rationalism,) but does tend towards "I'm not saying it's aliens, but......" He's also tested materials left behind from supposed UFO sightings with interesting results.
Some of the stories are good fun too. I like the alien that lands in a farmer's field, walks from the UFO to the front door, knocks on the door, politely asks for a glass of water, gets one, and leaves.
In the Thai capital, the cacophony of a post-lockdown resurgence is music to this urbanite’s ears
JANAN GANESH" [via G search]
https://www.ft.com/content/08d5c706-82d7-47b1-a5e8-28c0e38511b1
"For an urbanist, starved of crowds by a pandemic, it is Bangkok that calls. It is Bangkok that sends out the homing beacon. How kind of it to remind us that London and New York are as Bath and Ann Arbor on an Asian scale of energy."
We want 8.
Personally think that the vote that doomed her was NOT one for impeachment, but rather her Nay on floor of US House last month, cast against the Respect for Marriage Act, aimed at safeguarding gay marriage in wake of overturning of Roe v Wade.
Why was this vote so important? Because it alienated MANY socially liberal Democrats, Independents AND Republicans, who were otherwise giving her strong consideration for their primary vote. But instead, think some of these ended up voting for the Democrat in the race. Who only ended up with 31% of near-final primary vote (results will be certified this coming Tuesday) clearly way below the base Dem vote in this district.
Meaning that many Dems voted for JHB. Just NOT quite enough.
Now IF she'd vote Yea for Respect of Marriage Act - as did her fellow GOP impeacher Dan Newhouse in neighboring WA 4th District - Herrera Beutler would have lost some of her fellow religious conservative Republicans. HOWEVER, many of them were already lost to Kent or to ANOTHER Republican, who was avowedly evangelical AND pro-Trump.
So think on balance her vote - cast by her as a matter of conscience just like her vote to impeach Trump - hurt JHB more than it helped her. In a race where she's coming in third, and being kept off the general election ballot, by just over 1k votes.
Or are you just saying that lockdown was so awful that no number of QALYs saved would ever justify it?
The former would be interesting to read. The latter seems somewhat absolutist. Your insistence that lockdown should never be done again in any circumstance seems to either assign too much cost to lockdown or to suggest a lack of epidemiological imagination in terms of future pandemics.