It has bilateral agreements with the EU enabling it to participate in and partly integrate into the single market but it is not a full member of the single/internal market and EEA
We also have a trade deal with the EU allowing some access to the single market even if we are not currently as regulatory aligned as Switzerland is. Neither us nor Switzerland are full members of the EEA and single market however
No, not true. You’re trying to imply that Britain and Switzerland are analogous.
It’s a kind of deceit, the sort which has brought Britain to its current pass.
Only in the sense that neither is in the EU, which is true.
But that was not the original counter-assertion.
What, "Switzerland seems to do fine outside the EU"?
Sunak has given an interview to Katy Balls in the Spectator. He comes across as mid level Accenture consultant. Truly depressing.
Is that not at least an improvement on (a) complete mendacious buffoon acting liar and (b) hopeless incompetent work experience girl?
Yes, but it’s still depressing. Sunak is a total non-entity.
Sunak is probably our most entity PM since Blair. Even if he is no Thatcher or Churchill either
It’s still early days, but on the evidence so far he is sub-Major and possibly sub-Callaghan, both of whom had long records of public service careers before becoming PM.
"Non-entity", "comes across as mid level Accenture consultant"... Sounds as though you are biased towards associating good prime-ministerial skills with extraversion and being "alpha". But Johnson was an absolute sh*tclown. TMay was a waste of space, Cameron may have tried but didn't have much of a clue either, and Truss should never have been allowed near the job. Sunak is probably halfway between TMay and Cameron in level of competence. That isn't saying much, but he's ahead of loud-voice alpha boy pants-on-fire Johnson for sure.
No, I deplore “loud voice alpha boy” types.
However, I do like a politician with a sense of inner conviction and hinterland, and someone who can articulate a vision, including if necessary, difficult truths.
I don’t get anything from Sunak. Nothing. I got more from May, which is saying something.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
I'd quibble at saying "we've gone from natural origins to an engineered Chinese bioweapon".
I'd say we've gone from almost certainly natural origins to probably natural origins but one can't rule out some involvement of the laboratory in Wuhan which was studying similar viruses.
Course it depends who the "we" is. Some people started off with Chinese bioweapon and haven't moved since.
No one nut no one thinks "probably natural origins". Even those saying it have lost all conviction. They are going through the motions
As for whether it is a bioweapon, I don't believe it was a virus deliberately launched at the world. Insane. I can believe there was military involvement in this exact kind of research. Heck, we know there was and is. The Americans do the same
Sunak has given an interview to Katy Balls in the Spectator. He comes across as mid level Accenture consultant. Truly depressing.
I've been pretty disappointed with him overall. I thought he'd have grown into the role quicker
Shut up; that's not a short man joke
Why did he want to be PM? He appears to have no real conviction except what he seems to have read off a PPT.
He thought he'd be better than any other option?
Depressingly, he was probably right as well.
Sunak probably has the best CV we have had for any PM in decades. 1st from Oxford, serious private sector experience as an ex Goldman Sachs banker, partner in hedge funds, ex Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He may not be particularly ideological but world leaders also respect him, Macron and Biden give him much more respect than they did Boris and Truss or Macron did May
And he's still rubbish.
Give me somebody with a third from Cumbria who worked in a failed coffee shop and is a shrewd judge of character any day of the week.
I am sort of with HY here. Sunak's 144D chess game demonstrates his skillful political genius, confirmed with the polls now within catching distance for the Tories. Successfully painting the nurses, who along with Boris Johnson we applauded every Thurday just two years ago, as the spawn of Beelzebub is quite remarkable,.and pinning the economic migrant crisis as the work of the foreigner loving- English hating Labour Party is impressive.
I wouldn't vote for the lying little scrote, but plenty will.
Eh? This reads like fan fiction.
I've been following the new narrative on PB that the Tories are closing in on Labour. I saw this for myself in Ross on Wye today. Everyone in Morrisons and Aldi carpark was over 65 and there were millions of them and they are ALL Tory voters The radio broadcasts on BBC R4 and LBC are implying the Conservatives attempts to scapegoat public sector workers seem to be hitting the mark. Many callers to LBC were vitriolic towards the nurses. Onto the Immigration crisis. Many were agreeing with Sue Ellen's claim that Labour were weak on immigrants whilst the Tories are tough
It has bilateral agreements with the EU enabling it to participate in and partly integrate into the single market but it is not a full member of the single/internal market and EEA
We also have a trade deal with the EU allowing some access to the single market even if we are not currently as regulatory aligned as Switzerland is. Neither us nor Switzerland are full members of the EEA and single market however
No, not true. You’re trying to imply that Britain and Switzerland are analogous.
It’s a kind of deceit, the sort which has brought Britain to its current pass.
Only in the sense that neither is in the EU, which is true.
But that was not the original counter-assertion.
What, "Switzerland seems to do fine outside the EU"?
Because it is effectively a member of the EEA, via various agreements, unlike the UK.
Yesterday, a circular email went round at work saying that one department had a large number of ring binders surplus to requirement if anyone wanted them. And, according to the sender, 'if you're lucky, you might get one of the ones that has some slippery fish still in it.'
For those of you who don't know the term (in this context, I know there are others, oo-er), slippery fish is a term for the transparent plastic pockets with holes punched down the side, into which you can insert documents and then put the pocket into the binder. I've known the term 'slippery fish' for ages, but it got me wondering how it originated. So I looked it up...
And according to the internet, it's a Sussex-only term. Now, I was sceptical - this is the internet we're talking about, after all. So I asked around among family and friends - 'what do you call those things?' and secondly, 'have you ever heard of the term "slippery fish"?'
And amazingly, non-Sussex people have never heard of this, while Sussex people have mostly, although not universally, heard them called nothing else. My brother asked me to remind him what drugs I am on.
So although I am none the wiser about when and how the term came about, I am irrationally pleased to find that a regional slang term for a universally-known item can still exist - and be completely unknown outside its region.
Sunak has given an interview to Katy Balls in the Spectator. He comes across as mid level Accenture consultant. Truly depressing.
Is that not at least an improvement on (a) complete mendacious buffoon acting liar and (b) hopeless incompetent work experience girl?
Yes, but it’s still depressing. Sunak is a total non-entity.
Sunak is probably our most entity PM since Blair. Even if he is no Thatcher or Churchill either
It’s still early days, but on the evidence so far he is sub-Major and possibly sub-Callaghan, both of whom had long records of public service careers before becoming PM.
"Non-entity", "comes across as mid level Accenture consultant"... Sounds as though you are biased towards associating good prime-ministerial skills with extraversion and being "alpha". But Johnson was an absolute sh*tclown. TMay was a waste of space, Cameron may have tried but didn't have much of a clue either, and Truss should never have been allowed near the job. Sunak is probably halfway between TMay and Cameron in level of competence. That isn't saying much, but he's ahead of loud-voice alpha boy pants-on-fire Johnson for sure.
No, I deplore “loud voice alpha boy” types.
However, I do like a politician with a sense of inner conviction and hinterland, and someone who can articulate a vision, including if necessary, difficult truths.
I don’t get anything from Sunak. Nothing. I got more from May, which is saying something.
His first priority was stabilising matters, and he seems to have done a reasonable job of that. Given that he's only been in the job a few weeks, it seems like a bit of a rush to judgement. And, of course, you're 3500 miles away.
It has bilateral agreements with the EU enabling it to participate in and partly integrate into the single market but it is not a full member of the single/internal market and EEA
We also have a trade deal with the EU allowing some access to the single market even if we are not currently as regulatory aligned as Switzerland is. Neither us nor Switzerland are full members of the EEA and single market however
No, not true. You’re trying to imply that Britain and Switzerland are analogous.
It’s a kind of deceit, the sort which has brought Britain to its current pass.
Only in the sense that neither is in the EU, which is true.
But that was not the original counter-assertion.
What, "Switzerland seems to do fine outside the EU"?
Because it is effectively a member of the EEA, via various agreements, unlike the UK.
Sunak has given an interview to Katy Balls in the Spectator. He comes across as mid level Accenture consultant. Truly depressing.
I've been pretty disappointed with him overall. I thought he'd have grown into the role quicker
Shut up; that's not a short man joke
Why did he want to be PM? He appears to have no real conviction except what he seems to have read off a PPT.
He thought he'd be better than any other option?
Depressingly, he was probably right as well.
Sunak probably has the best CV we have had for any PM in decades. 1st from Oxford, serious private sector experience as an ex Goldman Sachs banker, partner in hedge funds, ex Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He may not be particularly ideological but world leaders also respect him, Macron and Biden give him much more respect than they did Boris and Truss or Macron did May
And he's still rubbish.
Give me somebody with a third from Cumbria who worked in a failed coffee shop and is a shrewd judge of character any day of the week.
I am sort of with HY here. Sunak's 144D chess game demonstrates his skillful political genius, confirmed with the polls now within catching distance for the Tories. Successfully painting the nurses, who along with Boris Johnson we applauded every Thurday just two years ago, as the spawn of Beelzebub is quite remarkable,.and pinning the economic migrant crisis as the work of the foreigner loving- English hating Labour Party is impressive.
I wouldn't vote for the lying little scrote, but plenty will.
But what is Sunak for?
Most Prime Ministers (or potential PMs) give off at least some sort of impression of what they want the country to be like.
It may be a mad vision- like Truss's libertarian paradise, or Corbyn's socialism in one country. It keeps that be fundamentally unworkable, like Johnson's cash spaffing. It may be as simplistic as making everywhere agreeably like my agreeable childhood.
But Rishi? He favoured Brexit, likes Freeports. Seems to regret all the Covid spending. But apart from that?
Sunak has given an interview to Katy Balls in the Spectator. He comes across as mid level Accenture consultant. Truly depressing.
Is that not at least an improvement on (a) complete mendacious buffoon acting liar and (b) hopeless incompetent work experience girl?
Yes, but it’s still depressing. Sunak is a total non-entity.
Sunak is probably our most entity PM since Blair. Even if he is no Thatcher or Churchill either
It’s still early days, but on the evidence so far he is sub-Major and possibly sub-Callaghan, both of whom had long records of public service careers before becoming PM.
"Non-entity", "comes across as mid level Accenture consultant"... Sounds as though you are biased towards associating good prime-ministerial skills with extraversion and being "alpha". But Johnson was an absolute sh*tclown. TMay was a waste of space, Cameron may have tried but didn't have much of a clue either, and Truss should never have been allowed near the job. Sunak is probably halfway between TMay and Cameron in level of competence. That isn't saying much, but he's ahead of loud-voice alpha boy pants-on-fire Johnson for sure.
No, I deplore “loud voice alpha boy” types.
However, I do like a politician with a sense of inner conviction and hinterland, and someone who can articulate a vision, including if necessary, difficult truths.
I don’t get anything from Sunak. Nothing. I got more from May, which is saying something.
His first priority was stabilising matters, and he seems to have done a reasonable job of that. Given that he's only been in the job a few weeks, it seems like a bit of a rush to judgement. And, of course, you're 3500 miles away.
I’m remote, and his non-entity status is noticeable all the way from here.
Yesterday, a circular email went round at work saying that one department had a large number of ring binders surplus to requirement if anyone wanted them. And, according to the sender, 'if you're lucky, you might get one of the ones that has some slippery fish still in it.'
For those of you who don't know the term (in this context, I know there are others, oo-er), slippery fish is a term for the transparent plastic pockets with holes punched down the side, into which you can insert documents and then put the pocket into the binder. I've known the term 'slippery fish' for ages, but it got me wondering how it originated. So I looked it up...
And according to the internet, it's a Sussex-only term. Now, I was sceptical - this is the internet we're talking about, after all. So I asked around among family and friends - 'what do you call those things?' and secondly, 'have you ever heard of the term "slippery fish"?'
And amazingly, non-Sussex people have never heard of this, while Sussex people have mostly, although not universally, heard them called nothing else. My brother asked me to remind him what drugs I am on.
So although I am none the wiser about when and how the term came about, I am irrationally pleased to find that a regional slang term for a universally-known item can still exist - and be completely unknown outside its region.
I've never heard of that, when I was growing up it was a "slippy bit". Nowadays it is a "plastic wallet".
Sunak has given an interview to Katy Balls in the Spectator. He comes across as mid level Accenture consultant. Truly depressing.
Is that not at least an improvement on (a) complete mendacious buffoon acting liar and (b) hopeless incompetent work experience girl?
Yes, but it’s still depressing. Sunak is a total non-entity.
Sunak is probably our most entity PM since Blair. Even if he is no Thatcher or Churchill either
It’s still early days, but on the evidence so far he is sub-Major and possibly sub-Callaghan, both of whom had long records of public service careers before becoming PM.
"Non-entity", "comes across as mid level Accenture consultant"... Sounds as though you are biased towards associating good prime-ministerial skills with extraversion and being "alpha". But Johnson was an absolute sh*tclown. TMay was a waste of space, Cameron may have tried but didn't have much of a clue either, and Truss should never have been allowed near the job. Sunak is probably halfway between TMay and Cameron in level of competence. That isn't saying much, but he's ahead of loud-voice alpha boy pants-on-fire Johnson for sure.
No, I deplore “loud voice alpha boy” types.
However, I do like a politician with a sense of inner conviction and hinterland, and someone who can articulate a vision, including if necessary, difficult truths.
I don’t get anything from Sunak. Nothing. I got more from May, which is saying something.
His first priority was stabilising matters, and he seems to have done a reasonable job of that. Given that he's only been in the job a few weeks, it seems like a bit of a rush to judgement. And, of course, you're 3500 miles away.
I’m remote, and his non-entity status is noticeable all the way from here.
You're just bitter he is recovering from the Truss implosion.
Quite a few unions falling into line I think. The nurses will have to give up too, the government should offer the same 7.5% that was agreed in Scotland and make that the final offer. 19.5% is a joke and the union should be ashamed of even asking for such a ridiculous pay rise at a time when working people in the private sector are being smashed for taxes to pay for public sector waste.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
Yesterday, a circular email went round at work saying that one department had a large number of ring binders surplus to requirement if anyone wanted them. And, according to the sender, 'if you're lucky, you might get one of the ones that has some slippery fish still in it.'
For those of you who don't know the term (in this context, I know there are others, oo-er), slippery fish is a term for the transparent plastic pockets with holes punched down the side, into which you can insert documents and then put the pocket into the binder. I've known the term 'slippery fish' for ages, but it got me wondering how it originated. So I looked it up...
And according to the internet, it's a Sussex-only term. Now, I was sceptical - this is the internet we're talking about, after all. So I asked around among family and friends - 'what do you call those things?' and secondly, 'have you ever heard of the term "slippery fish"?'
And amazingly, non-Sussex people have never heard of this, while Sussex people have mostly, although not universally, heard them called nothing else. My brother asked me to remind him what drugs I am on.
So although I am none the wiser about when and how the term came about, I am irrationally pleased to find that a regional slang term for a universally-known item can still exist - and be completely unknown outside its region.
I've never heard of that, when I was growing up it was a "slippy bit". Nowadays it is a "plastic wallet".
It has bilateral agreements with the EU enabling it to participate in and partly integrate into the single market but it is not a full member of the single/internal market and EEA
We also have a trade deal with the EU allowing some access to the single market even if we are not currently as regulatory aligned as Switzerland is. Neither us nor Switzerland are full members of the EEA and single market however
No, not true. You’re trying to imply that Britain and Switzerland are analogous.
It’s a kind of deceit, the sort which has brought Britain to its current pass.
Only in the sense that neither is in the EU, which is true.
But that was not the original counter-assertion.
What, "Switzerland seems to do fine outside the EU"?
Because it is effectively a member of the EEA, via various agreements, unlike the UK.
The EEA is not the EU!
Yep. And the UK is - uniquely this side of the Balklans - not a member (de jure or de facto) of either.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
It has bilateral agreements with the EU enabling it to participate in and partly integrate into the single market but it is not a full member of the single/internal market and EEA
We also have a trade deal with the EU allowing some access to the single market even if we are not currently as regulatory aligned as Switzerland is. Neither us nor Switzerland are full members of the EEA and single market however
No, not true. You’re trying to imply that Britain and Switzerland are analogous.
It’s a kind of deceit, the sort which has brought Britain to its current pass.
Only in the sense that neither is in the EU, which is true.
But that was not the original counter-assertion.
What, "Switzerland seems to do fine outside the EU"?
Because it is effectively a member of the EEA, via various agreements, unlike the UK.
The EEA is not the EU!
Yep. And the UK is - uniquely this side of the Balklans - not a member (de jure or de facto) of either.
As may be. You're kicking off at HY for saying something which unquestionably is true.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
I'd quibble at saying "we've gone from natural origins to an engineered Chinese bioweapon".
I'd say we've gone from almost certainly natural origins to probably natural origins but one can't rule out some involvement of the laboratory in Wuhan which was studying similar viruses.
Course it depends who the "we" is. Some people started off with Chinese bioweapon and haven't moved since.
No one nut no one thinks "probably natural origins". Even those saying it have lost all conviction. They are going through the motions
As for whether it is a bioweapon, I don't believe it was a virus deliberately launched at the world. Insane. I can believe there was military involvement in this exact kind of research. Heck, we know there was and is. The Americans do the same
You read more on this than I do - and this state of affairs will continue - but fwiw my impression is that the expert consensus still has natural origins as most likely. Best to leave it there, I think. It's your greater knowledge plus addiction to intrigue vs my greater powers of logic and better innate sense of probabilities but hampered by a woeful lack of bespoke detail. We'll never manage a quality exchange on this one.
...when working people in the private sector are being smashed for taxes to pay for public sector waste.
This is such a generic line, and makes no sense at all. Public sector workers get taxed too; private sector pay rises are averaging higher than public sector ones; private sector can be wasteful; and if after 12 bloody years of austerity and Tory management, there's public sector waste still out there (rather than bare, picked-over bones), who's bloody fault is it for not dealing with it, if not the flipping government and its endless merry-go-rounds of ministers dipping in and out of jobs and not caring one jot?
Sunak has given an interview to Katy Balls in the Spectator. He comes across as mid level Accenture consultant. Truly depressing.
I've been pretty disappointed with him overall. I thought he'd have grown into the role quicker
Shut up; that's not a short man joke
Why did he want to be PM? He appears to have no real conviction except what he seems to have read off a PPT.
He thought he'd be better than any other option?
Depressingly, he was probably right as well.
Sunak probably has the best CV we have had for any PM in decades. 1st from Oxford, serious private sector experience as an ex Goldman Sachs banker, partner in hedge funds, ex Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He may not be particularly ideological but world leaders also respect him, Macron and Biden give him much more respect than they did Boris and Truss or Macron did May
And he's still rubbish.
Give me somebody with a third from Cumbria who worked in a failed coffee shop and is a shrewd judge of character any day of the week.
I am sort of with HY here. Sunak's 144D chess game demonstrates his skillful political genius, confirmed with the polls now within catching distance for the Tories. Successfully painting the nurses, who along with Boris Johnson we applauded every Thurday just two years ago, as the spawn of Beelzebub is quite remarkable,.and pinning the economic migrant crisis as the work of the foreigner loving- English hating Labour Party is impressive.
I wouldn't vote for the lying little scrote, but plenty will.
But what is Sunak for?
Most Prime Ministers (or potential PMs) give off at least some sort of impression of what they want the country to be like.
It may be a mad vision- like Truss's libertarian paradise, or Corbyn's socialism in one country. It keeps that be fundamentally unworkable, like Johnson's cash spaffing. It may be as simplistic as making everywhere agreeably like my agreeable childhood.
But Rishi? He favoured Brexit, likes Freeports. Seems to regret all the Covid spending. But apart from that?
According to the Maes lecture, he essentially believes the government needs to get out of the way so that the economy can grow.
However, apart from being at odds with what economic analysis of the UK economy suggests, it’s not much of a retail proposition at a time of stuttering growth and falling real wages.
...when working people in the private sector are being smashed for taxes to pay for public sector waste.
This is such a generic line, and makes no sense at all. Public sector workers get taxed too; private sector pay rises are averaging higher than public sector ones; private sector can be wasteful; and if after 12 bloody years of austerity and Tory management, there's public sector waste still out there (rather than bare, picked-over bones), who's bloody fault is it for not dealing with it, if not the flipping government and its endless merry-go-rounds of ministers dipping in and out of jobs and not caring one jot?
Difference is when the private sector waste money its not robbed from taxpayer pockets and if you dont believe there is massive waste going on in the public sector then you are a prime buyer for the bridge I have to sell
Sunak has given an interview to Katy Balls in the Spectator. He comes across as mid level Accenture consultant. Truly depressing.
I've been pretty disappointed with him overall. I thought he'd have grown into the role quicker
Shut up; that's not a short man joke
Why did he want to be PM? He appears to have no real conviction except what he seems to have read off a PPT.
He thought he'd be better than any other option?
Depressingly, he was probably right as well.
Sunak probably has the best CV we have had for any PM in decades. 1st from Oxford, serious private sector experience as an ex Goldman Sachs banker, partner in hedge funds, ex Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He may not be particularly ideological but world leaders also respect him, Macron and Biden give him much more respect than they did Boris and Truss or Macron did May
And he's still rubbish.
Give me somebody with a third from Cumbria who worked in a failed coffee shop and is a shrewd judge of character any day of the week.
I am sort of with HY here. Sunak's 144D chess game demonstrates his skillful political genius, confirmed with the polls now within catching distance for the Tories. Successfully painting the nurses, who along with Boris Johnson we applauded every Thurday just two years ago, as the spawn of Beelzebub is quite remarkable,.and pinning the economic migrant crisis as the work of the foreigner loving- English hating Labour Party is impressive.
I wouldn't vote for the lying little scrote, but plenty will.
But what is Sunak for?
Most Prime Ministers (or potential PMs) give off at least some sort of impression of what they want the country to be like.
It may be a mad vision- like Truss's libertarian paradise, or Corbyn's socialism in one country. It keeps that be fundamentally unworkable, like Johnson's cash spaffing. It may be as simplistic as making everywhere agreeably like my agreeable childhood.
But Rishi? He favoured Brexit, likes Freeports. Seems to regret all the Covid spending. But apart from that?
I think that the problem is that Sunak is similar to Starmer - boringly sensible (in context), non visionaries. Like John Major?
It has bilateral agreements with the EU enabling it to participate in and partly integrate into the single market but it is not a full member of the single/internal market and EEA
We also have a trade deal with the EU allowing some access to the single market even if we are not currently as regulatory aligned as Switzerland is. Neither us nor Switzerland are full members of the EEA and single market however
No, not true. You’re trying to imply that Britain and Switzerland are analogous.
It’s a kind of deceit, the sort which has brought Britain to its current pass.
Only in the sense that neither is in the EU, which is true.
But that was not the original counter-assertion.
What, "Switzerland seems to do fine outside the EU"?
Because it is effectively a member of the EEA, via various agreements, unlike the UK.
The EEA is not the EU!
Yep. And the UK is - uniquely this side of the Balklans - not a member (de jure or de facto) of either.
As may be. You're kicking off at HY for saying something which unquestionably is true.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
That link doesn't say he wasn't a VP?
So I never said he wasn't. I even said I don't give two hoots what his job title is. Your point is? Weird thing to raise.
I have no idea whether it was a lab leak or not, but Leon posted stuff on Sunday night from Fox News as fact, that the most tiniest bit of searching on the internet showed was significantly challenged. If you are going to post biased stuff, expect to be challenged. If you don't do this you lack credibility when you post accurate stuff which is a shame.
I've been following the new narrative on PB that the Tories are closing in on Labour. I saw this for myself in Ross on Wye today. Everyone in Morrisons and Aldi carpark was over 65 and there were millions of them and they are ALL Tory voters The radio broadcasts on BBC R4 and LBC are implying the Conservatives attempts to scapegoat public sector workers seem to be hitting the mark. Many callers to LBC were vitriolic towards the nurses. Onto the Immigration crisis. Many were agreeing with Sue Ellen's claim that Labour were weak on immigrants whilst the Tories are tough
Fan fiction? A fan of Sunak or HY? I am a HY fan!
It's not exactly a narrative - it's you and MoonRabbit and a bit of HYUFD. I've never placed much faith in phone-ins, and am sceptical that you can divine the political intentions of shoppers who you see in a car park. It's safer to rely on polls, and they show that the gap has narrowed from 25-30 to 15-20 (with the usual variations by polling company. I wouldn't exactly call that "closing" - it's changing from endangered species to merely catastrophe. Meanwhile, polling shows the nurses' strike has solid popular support, with opinion on the other strikes broadly even.
Is there scope for a further narrowing? Of course, but not much evidence of it yet.
Sunak has given an interview to Katy Balls in the Spectator. He comes across as mid level Accenture consultant. Truly depressing.
I've been pretty disappointed with him overall. I thought he'd have grown into the role quicker
Shut up; that's not a short man joke
Why did he want to be PM? He appears to have no real conviction except what he seems to have read off a PPT.
He thought he'd be better than any other option?
Depressingly, he was probably right as well.
Sunak probably has the best CV we have had for any PM in decades. 1st from Oxford, serious private sector experience as an ex Goldman Sachs banker, partner in hedge funds, ex Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He may not be particularly ideological but world leaders also respect him, Macron and Biden give him much more respect than they did Boris and Truss or Macron did May
And he's still rubbish.
Give me somebody with a third from Cumbria who worked in a failed coffee shop and is a shrewd judge of character any day of the week.
I am sort of with HY here. Sunak's 144D chess game demonstrates his skillful political genius, confirmed with the polls now within catching distance for the Tories. Successfully painting the nurses, who along with Boris Johnson we applauded every Thurday just two years ago, as the spawn of Beelzebub is quite remarkable,.and pinning the economic migrant crisis as the work of the foreigner loving- English hating Labour Party is impressive.
I wouldn't vote for the lying little scrote, but plenty will.
But what is Sunak for?
Most Prime Ministers (or potential PMs) give off at least some sort of impression of what they want the country to be like.
It may be a mad vision- like Truss's libertarian paradise, or Corbyn's socialism in one country. It keeps that be fundamentally unworkable, like Johnson's cash spaffing. It may be as simplistic as making everywhere agreeably like my agreeable childhood.
But Rishi? He favoured Brexit, likes Freeports. Seems to regret all the Covid spending. But apart from that?
I think that the problem is that Sunak is similar to Starmer - boringly sensible (in context), non visionaries. Like John Major?
It's a long time since we had a visionary PM. Unless we count Truss. She saw things, I suppose.
Sunak has given an interview to Katy Balls in the Spectator. He comes across as mid level Accenture consultant. Truly depressing.
I've been pretty disappointed with him overall. I thought he'd have grown into the role quicker
Shut up; that's not a short man joke
Why did he want to be PM? He appears to have no real conviction except what he seems to have read off a PPT.
He thought he'd be better than any other option?
Depressingly, he was probably right as well.
Sunak probably has the best CV we have had for any PM in decades. 1st from Oxford, serious private sector experience as an ex Goldman Sachs banker, partner in hedge funds, ex Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He may not be particularly ideological but world leaders also respect him, Macron and Biden give him much more respect than they did Boris and Truss or Macron did May
And he's still rubbish.
Give me somebody with a third from Cumbria who worked in a failed coffee shop and is a shrewd judge of character any day of the week.
I am sort of with HY here. Sunak's 144D chess game demonstrates his skillful political genius, confirmed with the polls now within catching distance for the Tories. Successfully painting the nurses, who along with Boris Johnson we applauded every Thurday just two years ago, as the spawn of Beelzebub is quite remarkable,.and pinning the economic migrant crisis as the work of the foreigner loving- English hating Labour Party is impressive.
I wouldn't vote for the lying little scrote, but plenty will.
But what is Sunak for?
Most Prime Ministers (or potential PMs) give off at least some sort of impression of what they want the country to be like.
It may be a mad vision- like Truss's libertarian paradise, or Corbyn's socialism in one country. It keeps that be fundamentally unworkable, like Johnson's cash spaffing. It may be as simplistic as making everywhere agreeably like my agreeable childhood.
But Rishi? He favoured Brexit, likes Freeports. Seems to regret all the Covid spending. But apart from that?
I think that the problem is that Sunak is similar to Starmer - boringly sensible (in context), non visionaries. Like John Major?
Gordon Brown's started having difficulties when the vision/image portrayed for him whilst Chancellor (more Labour than Tony) did not amount to much when he was prime minister.
Sunak has given an interview to Katy Balls in the Spectator. He comes across as mid level Accenture consultant. Truly depressing.
I've been pretty disappointed with him overall. I thought he'd have grown into the role quicker
Shut up; that's not a short man joke
Why did he want to be PM? He appears to have no real conviction except what he seems to have read off a PPT.
He thought he'd be better than any other option?
Depressingly, he was probably right as well.
Sunak probably has the best CV we have had for any PM in decades. 1st from Oxford, serious private sector experience as an ex Goldman Sachs banker, partner in hedge funds, ex Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He may not be particularly ideological but world leaders also respect him, Macron and Biden give him much more respect than they did Boris and Truss or Macron did May
And he's still rubbish.
Give me somebody with a third from Cumbria who worked in a failed coffee shop and is a shrewd judge of character any day of the week.
I am sort of with HY here. Sunak's 144D chess game demonstrates his skillful political genius, confirmed with the polls now within catching distance for the Tories. Successfully painting the nurses, who along with Boris Johnson we applauded every Thurday just two years ago, as the spawn of Beelzebub is quite remarkable,.and pinning the economic migrant crisis as the work of the foreigner loving- English hating Labour Party is impressive.
I wouldn't vote for the lying little scrote, but plenty will.
But what is Sunak for?
Most Prime Ministers (or potential PMs) give off at least some sort of impression of what they want the country to be like.
It may be a mad vision- like Truss's libertarian paradise, or Corbyn's socialism in one country. It keeps that be fundamentally unworkable, like Johnson's cash spaffing. It may be as simplistic as making everywhere agreeably like my agreeable childhood.
But Rishi? He favoured Brexit, likes Freeports. Seems to regret all the Covid spending. But apart from that?
I think that the problem is that Sunak is similar to Starmer - boringly sensible (in context), non visionaries. Like John Major?
It's a long time since we had a visionary PM. Unless we count Truss. She saw things, I suppose.
Dead people?
Johnson saw nothing, nothing, in the manner of Claude Raines.
It has bilateral agreements with the EU enabling it to participate in and partly integrate into the single market but it is not a full member of the single/internal market and EEA
We also have a trade deal with the EU allowing some access to the single market even if we are not currently as regulatory aligned as Switzerland is. Neither us nor Switzerland are full members of the EEA and single market however
No, not true. You’re trying to imply that Britain and Switzerland are analogous.
It’s a kind of deceit, the sort which has brought Britain to its current pass.
Only in the sense that neither is in the EU, which is true.
But that was not the original counter-assertion.
What, "Switzerland seems to do fine outside the EU"?
Because it is effectively a member of the EEA, via various agreements, unlike the UK.
The EEA is not the EU!
Yep. And the UK is - uniquely this side of the Balklans - not a member (de jure or de facto) of either.
As may be. You're kicking off at HY for saying something which unquestionably is true.
No it wasn’t. It was a species of deceit.
It's not true to say that Switzerland isn't in the EU? Give over.
Mike is a big fan of leader ratings and Nicola Sturgeon is leader of the pack. But Keir Starmer is a lead weight round the neck of the “Scottish” (ahem) Labour Party:
Is he? 37% satisfied is still more than double the 18% Scottish Labour got in 2019 under Corbyn and also higher than Harvie's 36%
Admittedly, he’s doing a heck of a lot better than Ed Miliband, who at -56 was even more unpopular than David Cameron (!) and Nick Clegg. That takes some doing in Scotland.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
That link doesn't say he wasn't a VP?
So I never said he wasn't. I even said I don't give two hoots what his job title is. Your point is? Weird thing to raise.
I have no idea whether it was a lab leak or not, but Leon posted stuff on Sunday night from Fox News as fact, that the most tiniest bit of searching on the internet showed was significantly challenged. If you are going to post biased stuff, expect to be challenged. If you don't do this you lack credibility when you post accurate stuff which is a shame.
Because the job title is a question of fact which based on the precis of the discussion (I had other things to do on Sunday night so wasn't here) seems to be what is in dispute. The statement you linked to falls squarely under "well, they would say that, wouldn't they".
It has bilateral agreements with the EU enabling it to participate in and partly integrate into the single market but it is not a full member of the single/internal market and EEA
We also have a trade deal with the EU allowing some access to the single market even if we are not currently as regulatory aligned as Switzerland is. Neither us nor Switzerland are full members of the EEA and single market however
No, not true. You’re trying to imply that Britain and Switzerland are analogous.
It’s a kind of deceit, the sort which has brought Britain to its current pass.
Only in the sense that neither is in the EU, which is true.
But that was not the original counter-assertion.
What, "Switzerland seems to do fine outside the EU"?
Because it is effectively a member of the EEA, via various agreements, unlike the UK.
The EEA is not the EU!
Yep. And the UK is - uniquely this side of the Balklans - not a member (de jure or de facto) of either.
As may be. You're kicking off at HY for saying something which unquestionably is true.
No it wasn’t. It was a species of deceit.
It's not true to say that Switzerland isn't in the EU? Give over.
It’s a half truth if the intention is to imply that the UK is thereby not alone in Europe, which was the original idea.
Brexit was riddled with such half-truths, which is why it has turned out to be an utter shitshow.
I've been following the new narrative on PB that the Tories are closing in on Labour. I saw this for myself in Ross on Wye today. Everyone in Morrisons and Aldi carpark was over 65 and there were millions of them and they are ALL Tory voters The radio broadcasts on BBC R4 and LBC are implying the Conservatives attempts to scapegoat public sector workers seem to be hitting the mark. Many callers to LBC were vitriolic towards the nurses. Onto the Immigration crisis. Many were agreeing with Sue Ellen's claim that Labour were weak on immigrants whilst the Tories are tough
Fan fiction? A fan of Sunak or HY? I am a HY fan!
It's not exactly a narrative - it's you and MoonRabbit and a bit of HYUFD. I've never placed much faith in phone-ins, and am sceptical that you can divine the political intentions of shoppers who you see in a car park. It's safer to rely on polls, and they show that the gap has narrowed from 25-30 to 15-20 (with the usual variations by polling company. I wouldn't exactly call that "closing" - it's changing from endangered species to merely catastrophe. Meanwhile, polling shows the nurses' strike has solid popular support, with opinion on the other strikes broadly even.
Is there scope for a further narrowing? Of course, but not much evidence of it yet.
There’s little evidence of it. Until there is, it’s fine to debate what it means, but until then the word is ramping.
It has bilateral agreements with the EU enabling it to participate in and partly integrate into the single market but it is not a full member of the single/internal market and EEA
We also have a trade deal with the EU allowing some access to the single market even if we are not currently as regulatory aligned as Switzerland is. Neither us nor Switzerland are full members of the EEA and single market however
No, not true. You’re trying to imply that Britain and Switzerland are analogous.
It’s a kind of deceit, the sort which has brought Britain to its current pass.
Only in the sense that neither is in the EU, which is true.
But that was not the original counter-assertion.
What, "Switzerland seems to do fine outside the EU"?
Because it is effectively a member of the EEA, via various agreements, unlike the UK.
The EEA is not the EU!
Yep. And the UK is - uniquely this side of the Balklans - not a member (de jure or de facto) of either.
As may be. You're kicking off at HY for saying something which unquestionably is true.
No it wasn’t. It was a species of deceit.
It's not true to say that Switzerland isn't in the EU? Give over.
It’s a half truth if the intention is to imply that the UK is thereby not alone in Europe, which was the original idea.
Sunak has given an interview to Katy Balls in the Spectator. He comes across as mid level Accenture consultant. Truly depressing.
I've been pretty disappointed with him overall. I thought he'd have grown into the role quicker
Shut up; that's not a short man joke
Why did he want to be PM? He appears to have no real conviction except what he seems to have read off a PPT.
He thought he'd be better than any other option?
Depressingly, he was probably right as well.
Sunak probably has the best CV we have had for any PM in decades. 1st from Oxford, serious private sector experience as an ex Goldman Sachs banker, partner in hedge funds, ex Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He may not be particularly ideological but world leaders also respect him, Macron and Biden give him much more respect than they did Boris and Truss or Macron did May
And he's still rubbish.
Give me somebody with a third from Cumbria who worked in a failed coffee shop and is a shrewd judge of character any day of the week.
I am sort of with HY here. Sunak's 144D chess game demonstrates his skillful political genius, confirmed with the polls now within catching distance for the Tories. Successfully painting the nurses, who along with Boris Johnson we applauded every Thurday just two years ago, as the spawn of Beelzebub is quite remarkable,.and pinning the economic migrant crisis as the work of the foreigner loving- English hating Labour Party is impressive.
I wouldn't vote for the lying little scrote, but plenty will.
But what is Sunak for?
Most Prime Ministers (or potential PMs) give off at least some sort of impression of what they want the country to be like.
It may be a mad vision- like Truss's libertarian paradise, or Corbyn's socialism in one country. It keeps that be fundamentally unworkable, like Johnson's cash spaffing. It may be as simplistic as making everywhere agreeably like my agreeable childhood.
But Rishi? He favoured Brexit, likes Freeports. Seems to regret all the Covid spending. But apart from that?
According to the Maes lecture, he essentially believes the government needs to get out of the way so that the economy can grow.
However, apart from being at odds with what economic analysis of the UK economy suggests, it’s not much of a retail proposition at a time of stuttering growth and falling real wages.
Besides - why? The size of the economy is important, prosperity is power. But Sunak sometimes gives the impression that all that matters to him is the number on the spreadsheet going up.
That's different to the past. Thatcher wanted property owners and great benefactors. Major wanted a nation at ease. Brown (and I suspect Starmer) wanted prosperity they can tax to fund the public realm.
What does Rishi want? Does Rishi know what Rishi wants?
Mike is a big fan of leader ratings and Nicola Sturgeon is leader of the pack. But Keir Starmer is a lead weight round the neck of the “Scottish” (ahem) Labour Party:
Is he? 37% satisfied is still more than double the 18% Scottish Labour got in 2019 under Corbyn and also higher than Harvie's 36%
Admittedly, he’s doing a heck of a lot better than Ed Miliband, who at -56 was even more unpopular than David Cameron (!) and Nick Clegg. That takes some doing in Scotland.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
I said he was once a "co chief at Ecohealth". Several of you went mad and said this was nonsense
Turned out he is "an ex vice president of Ecohealth"
Whatever else you were blatting on about, this particular angle of yours was absurd
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
As for "reliable sources" that he was an Eco Health vice president, how about his publishers, Simon & Schuster?
"The day that Dr. Andrew G. Huff left his senior scientist and vice president role at EcoHealth Alliance was one of the happiest days of his life due to the corruption he had witnessed at the organization. However, he never thought working there would be of any great consequence to the future. He was wrong. Because, as an EcoHealth Alliance insider, Dr. Huff had had a ringside seat to one of the biggest cover-ups in history."
Dr. Peter Daszak, President Dr. William Karesh, Executive Vice President for Health and Policy Harvey Kasdan, Chief Financial Officer Dr. Jonathan Epstein, Associate Vice President Dr. Kevin Olival, Associate Vice President Dr. Andrew Huff, Associate Vice President
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
That link doesn't say he wasn't a VP?
So I never said he wasn't. I even said I don't give two hoots what his job title is. Your point is? Weird thing to raise.
I have no idea whether it was a lab leak or not, but Leon posted stuff on Sunday night from Fox News as fact, that the most tiniest bit of searching on the internet showed was significantly challenged. If you are going to post biased stuff, expect to be challenged. If you don't do this you lack credibility when you post accurate stuff which is a shame.
Because the job title is a question of fact which based on the precis of the discussion (I had other things to do on Sunday night so wasn't here) seems to be what is in dispute. The statement you linked to falls squarely under "well, they would say that, wouldn't they".
Nope. I have no interest in his job title at all.
However if you do want to go down that line it was another example in the post of Leon's from Sunday night that was misleading and wrong. He said he was the co-chief or some such. He wasn't. He now says he was a vice-president based upon the Daily Mail that newspaper known for its facts. And even if he was that is misleading as well because in American corporations, vice presidents are two a penny. The tea lady is usually vice president of refreshments.
The only point I am making, so please don't go off on tangents as you usually do, is that on Sunday night Leon posted as fact from Fox News stuff that with 5 seconds of searching was highly disputable.
People who do that then lack credibility when they post accurate stuff.
That is it. Don't drag me down a crappy route of arguing about something I am not disputing.
PS Re they would say that wouldn't they. I agree. That is why you need to look at both sides of an argument.
It has bilateral agreements with the EU enabling it to participate in and partly integrate into the single market but it is not a full member of the single/internal market and EEA
We also have a trade deal with the EU allowing some access to the single market even if we are not currently as regulatory aligned as Switzerland is. Neither us nor Switzerland are full members of the EEA and single market however
No, not true. You’re trying to imply that Britain and Switzerland are analogous.
It’s a kind of deceit, the sort which has brought Britain to its current pass.
Only in the sense that neither is in the EU, which is true.
But that was not the original counter-assertion.
What, "Switzerland seems to do fine outside the EU"?
Because it is effectively a member of the EEA, via various agreements, unlike the UK.
The EEA is not the EU!
Yep. And the UK is - uniquely this side of the Balklans - not a member (de jure or de facto) of either.
As may be. You're kicking off at HY for saying something which unquestionably is true.
No it wasn’t. It was a species of deceit.
It's not true to say that Switzerland isn't in the EU? Give over.
It’s a half truth if the intention is to imply that the UK is thereby not alone in Europe, which was the original idea.
Oh, give over.
I've noticed you only put your thinking cap on when the topic is football. Some good contributions on that, I have to say. Not damning with faint praise btw - it's an important topic.
I've been following the new narrative on PB that the Tories are closing in on Labour. I saw this for myself in Ross on Wye today. Everyone in Morrisons and Aldi carpark was over 65 and there were millions of them and they are ALL Tory voters The radio broadcasts on BBC R4 and LBC are implying the Conservatives attempts to scapegoat public sector workers seem to be hitting the mark. Many callers to LBC were vitriolic towards the nurses. Onto the Immigration crisis. Many were agreeing with Sue Ellen's claim that Labour were weak on immigrants whilst the Tories are tough
Fan fiction? A fan of Sunak or HY? I am a HY fan!
It's not exactly a narrative - it's you and MoonRabbit and a bit of HYUFD. I've never placed much faith in phone-ins, and am sceptical that you can divine the political intentions of shoppers who you see in a car park. It's safer to rely on polls, and they show that the gap has narrowed from 25-30 to 15-20 (with the usual variations by polling company. I wouldn't exactly call that "closing" - it's changing from endangered species to merely catastrophe. Meanwhile, polling shows the nurses' strike has solid popular support, with opinion on the other strikes broadly even.
Is there scope for a further narrowing? Of course, but not much evidence of it yet.
I was sceptical of MoonRabbit's analysis, but I fear she might be on to something. To be fair to HY he has been resolute on a Starmer premiership in 2024. I am fearful for a 1992 redux.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
That link doesn't say he wasn't a VP?
So I never said he wasn't. I even said I don't give two hoots what his job title is. Your point is? Weird thing to raise.
I have no idea whether it was a lab leak or not, but Leon posted stuff on Sunday night from Fox News as fact, that the most tiniest bit of searching on the internet showed was significantly challenged. If you are going to post biased stuff, expect to be challenged. If you don't do this you lack credibility when you post accurate stuff which is a shame.
Because the job title is a question of fact which based on the precis of the discussion (I had other things to do on Sunday night so wasn't here) seems to be what is in dispute. The statement you linked to falls squarely under "well, they would say that, wouldn't they".
Nope. I have no interest in his job title at all.
However if you do want to go down that line it was another example in the post of Leon's from Sunday night that was misleading and wrong. He said he was the co-chief or some such. He wasn't. He now says he was a vice-president based upon the Daily Mail that newspaper known for its facts. And even if he was that is misleading as well because in American corporations, vice presidents are two a penny. The tea lady is usually vice president of refreshments.
The only point I am making, so please don't go off on tangents as you usually do, is that on Sunday night Leon posted as fact from Fox News stuff that with 5 seconds of searching was highly disputable.
People who do that then lack credibility when they post accurate stuff.
That is it. Don't drag me down a crappy route of arguing about something I am not disputing.
PS Re they would say that wouldn't they. I agree. That is why you need to look at both sides of an argument.
How dare you, I am an (E)VP. I don’t really know what it means, but I hope nobody takes me as an expert on the lab leak.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
That link doesn't say he wasn't a VP?
So I never said he wasn't. I even said I don't give two hoots what his job title is. Your point is? Weird thing to raise.
I have no idea whether it was a lab leak or not, but Leon posted stuff on Sunday night from Fox News as fact, that the most tiniest bit of searching on the internet showed was significantly challenged. If you are going to post biased stuff, expect to be challenged. If you don't do this you lack credibility when you post accurate stuff which is a shame.
Because the job title is a question of fact which based on the precis of the discussion (I had other things to do on Sunday night so wasn't here) seems to be what is in dispute. The statement you linked to falls squarely under "well, they would say that, wouldn't they".
Nope. I have no interest in his job title at all.
However if you do want to go down that line it was another example in the post of Leon's from Sunday night that was misleading and wrong. He said he was the co-chief or some such. He wasn't. He now says he was a vice-president based upon the Daily Mail that newspaper known for its facts. And even if he was that is misleading as well because in American corporations, vice presidents are two a penny. The tea lady is usually vice president of refreshments.
The only point I am making, so please don't go off on tangents as you usually do, is that on Sunday night Leon posted as fact from Fox News stuff that with 5 seconds of searching was highly disputable.
People who do that then lack credibility when they post accurate stuff.
That is it. Don't drag me down a crappy route of arguing about something I am not disputing.
PS Re they would say that wouldn't they. I agree. That is why you need to look at both sides of an argument.
Well now you have a link to Echohealth themselves, from 2016, naming him as a Vice President. Perhaps they are lying? I hear they have a track record....
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
As for "reliable sources" that he was an Eco Health vice president, how about his publishers, Simon & Schuster?
"The day that Dr. Andrew G. Huff left his senior scientist and vice president role at EcoHealth Alliance was one of the happiest days of his life due to the corruption he had witnessed at the organization. However, he never thought working there would be of any great consequence to the future. He was wrong. Because, as an EcoHealth Alliance insider, Dr. Huff had had a ringside seat to one of the biggest cover-ups in history."
Dr. Peter Daszak, President Dr. William Karesh, Executive Vice President for Health and Policy Harvey Kasdan, Chief Financial Officer Dr. Jonathan Epstein, Associate Vice President Dr. Kevin Olival, Associate Vice President Dr. Andrew Huff, Associate Vice President
I don't give a flying f*** if he was a vice president. Deal with the issue raised.
PS but since you raise it he started as co-head, then vice president and now associate vice president. By the time you finish he will be the teaboy. You do know that every tom dick and harry in american corporations have these titles don't you?
Sunak has given an interview to Katy Balls in the Spectator. He comes across as mid level Accenture consultant. Truly depressing.
I've been pretty disappointed with him overall. I thought he'd have grown into the role quicker
Shut up; that's not a short man joke
Why did he want to be PM? He appears to have no real conviction except what he seems to have read off a PPT.
He thought he'd be better than any other option?
Depressingly, he was probably right as well.
Sunak probably has the best CV we have had for any PM in decades. 1st from Oxford, serious private sector experience as an ex Goldman Sachs banker, partner in hedge funds, ex Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He may not be particularly ideological but world leaders also respect him, Macron and Biden give him much more respect than they did Boris and Truss or Macron did May
And he's still rubbish.
Give me somebody with a third from Cumbria who worked in a failed coffee shop and is a shrewd judge of character any day of the week.
I am sort of with HY here. Sunak's 144D chess game demonstrates his skillful political genius, confirmed with the polls now within catching distance for the Tories. Successfully painting the nurses, who along with Boris Johnson we applauded every Thurday just two years ago, as the spawn of Beelzebub is quite remarkable,.and pinning the economic migrant crisis as the work of the foreigner loving- English hating Labour Party is impressive.
I wouldn't vote for the lying little scrote, but plenty will.
But what is Sunak for?
Most Prime Ministers (or potential PMs) give off at least some sort of impression of what they want the country to be like.
It may be a mad vision- like Truss's libertarian paradise, or Corbyn's socialism in one country. It keeps that be fundamentally unworkable, like Johnson's cash spaffing. It may be as simplistic as making everywhere agreeably like my agreeable childhood.
But Rishi? He favoured Brexit, likes Freeports. Seems to regret all the Covid spending. But apart from that?
He is charismatic and even when he is talking bollocks, particularly at PMQs, very plausible.
I suspect he has an agenda. A small government, privatised public services agenda.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
As for "reliable sources" that he was an Eco Health vice president, how about his publishers, Simon & Schuster?
"The day that Dr. Andrew G. Huff left his senior scientist and vice president role at EcoHealth Alliance was one of the happiest days of his life due to the corruption he had witnessed at the organization. However, he never thought working there would be of any great consequence to the future. He was wrong. Because, as an EcoHealth Alliance insider, Dr. Huff had had a ringside seat to one of the biggest cover-ups in history."
Dr. Peter Daszak, President Dr. William Karesh, Executive Vice President for Health and Policy Harvey Kasdan, Chief Financial Officer Dr. Jonathan Epstein, Associate Vice President Dr. Kevin Olival, Associate Vice President Dr. Andrew Huff, Associate Vice President
I don't give a flying f*** if he was a vice president. Deal with the issue raised.
PS but since you raise it he started as co-head, then vice president and now associate vice president. You do know that every tom dick and harry in american corporations have these titles don't you?
Ecohealth would like you to meet him
"Get to know our scientists! Andrew Huff, Ph.D. Associate Vice President
"As Associate Vice President at EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Huff is working to develop novel methods of biosurveillance, data analytics and visualization for disease detection, and unique methods to identify disease emergence"
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
That link doesn't say he wasn't a VP?
So I never said he wasn't. I even said I don't give two hoots what his job title is. Your point is? Weird thing to raise.
I have no idea whether it was a lab leak or not, but Leon posted stuff on Sunday night from Fox News as fact, that the most tiniest bit of searching on the internet showed was significantly challenged. If you are going to post biased stuff, expect to be challenged. If you don't do this you lack credibility when you post accurate stuff which is a shame.
Because the job title is a question of fact which based on the precis of the discussion (I had other things to do on Sunday night so wasn't here) seems to be what is in dispute. The statement you linked to falls squarely under "well, they would say that, wouldn't they".
Nope. I have no interest in his job title at all.
However if you do want to go down that line it was another example in the post of Leon's from Sunday night that was misleading and wrong. He said he was the co-chief or some such. He wasn't. He now says he was a vice-president based upon the Daily Mail that newspaper known for its facts. And even if he was that is misleading as well because in American corporations, vice presidents are two a penny. The tea lady is usually vice president of refreshments.
The only point I am making, so please don't go off on tangents as you usually do, is that on Sunday night Leon posted as fact from Fox News stuff that with 5 seconds of searching was highly disputable.
People who do that then lack credibility when they post accurate stuff.
That is it. Don't drag me down a crappy route of arguing about something I am not disputing.
PS Re they would say that wouldn't they. I agree. That is why you need to look at both sides of an argument.
Well now you have a link to Echohealth themselves, from 2016, naming him as a Vice President. Perhaps they are lying? I hear they have a track record....
Oh for christ's sake. I don't care what his job was and never have. Deal with the issue raised.
You know you have lost when someone argues an irrelevant point and ignore the point of the argument.
Sunak has given an interview to Katy Balls in the Spectator. He comes across as mid level Accenture consultant. Truly depressing.
I've been pretty disappointed with him overall. I thought he'd have grown into the role quicker
Shut up; that's not a short man joke
Why did he want to be PM? He appears to have no real conviction except what he seems to have read off a PPT.
He thought he'd be better than any other option?
Depressingly, he was probably right as well.
Sunak probably has the best CV we have had for any PM in decades. 1st from Oxford, serious private sector experience as an ex Goldman Sachs banker, partner in hedge funds, ex Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He may not be particularly ideological but world leaders also respect him, Macron and Biden give him much more respect than they did Boris and Truss or Macron did May
And he's still rubbish.
Give me somebody with a third from Cumbria who worked in a failed coffee shop and is a shrewd judge of character any day of the week.
I am sort of with HY here. Sunak's 144D chess game demonstrates his skillful political genius, confirmed with the polls now within catching distance for the Tories. Successfully painting the nurses, who along with Boris Johnson we applauded every Thurday just two years ago, as the spawn of Beelzebub is quite remarkable,.and pinning the economic migrant crisis as the work of the foreigner loving- English hating Labour Party is impressive.
I wouldn't vote for the lying little scrote, but plenty will.
But what is Sunak for?
Most Prime Ministers (or potential PMs) give off at least some sort of impression of what they want the country to be like.
It may be a mad vision- like Truss's libertarian paradise, or Corbyn's socialism in one country. It keeps that be fundamentally unworkable, like Johnson's cash spaffing. It may be as simplistic as making everywhere agreeably like my agreeable childhood.
But Rishi? He favoured Brexit, likes Freeports. Seems to regret all the Covid spending. But apart from that?
He is charismatic and even when he is talking bollocks, particularly at PMQs, very plausible.
I suspect he has an agenda. A small government, privatised public services agenda.
He is v articulate. Personally I don’t find him charismatic. If there is any charisma there, it is only in relation to Keir who is similarly uncharismatic.
Keir is worthy and a bureaucratic bore with no, I’d argue, understanding of growth (I am v happy he has Rachael Reeves).
Sunak has blandishments from Accenture on a slide deck to explain why you should be happy to continue to be poor and/or heavily taxed.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
As for "reliable sources" that he was an Eco Health vice president, how about his publishers, Simon & Schuster?
"The day that Dr. Andrew G. Huff left his senior scientist and vice president role at EcoHealth Alliance was one of the happiest days of his life due to the corruption he had witnessed at the organization. However, he never thought working there would be of any great consequence to the future. He was wrong. Because, as an EcoHealth Alliance insider, Dr. Huff had had a ringside seat to one of the biggest cover-ups in history."
Dr. Peter Daszak, President Dr. William Karesh, Executive Vice President for Health and Policy Harvey Kasdan, Chief Financial Officer Dr. Jonathan Epstein, Associate Vice President Dr. Kevin Olival, Associate Vice President Dr. Andrew Huff, Associate Vice President
I don't give a flying f*** if he was a vice president. Deal with the issue raised.
PS but since you raise it he started as co-head, then vice president and now associate vice president. You do know that every tom dick and harry in american corporations have these titles don't you?
Ecohealth would like you to meet him
"Get to know our scientists! Andrew Huff, Ph.D. Associate Vice President
"As Associate Vice President at EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Huff is working to develop novel methods of biosurveillance, data analytics and visualization for disease detection, and unique methods to identify disease emergence"
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
As for "reliable sources" that he was an Eco Health vice president, how about his publishers, Simon & Schuster?
"The day that Dr. Andrew G. Huff left his senior scientist and vice president role at EcoHealth Alliance was one of the happiest days of his life due to the corruption he had witnessed at the organization. However, he never thought working there would be of any great consequence to the future. He was wrong. Because, as an EcoHealth Alliance insider, Dr. Huff had had a ringside seat to one of the biggest cover-ups in history."
Dr. Peter Daszak, President Dr. William Karesh, Executive Vice President for Health and Policy Harvey Kasdan, Chief Financial Officer Dr. Jonathan Epstein, Associate Vice President Dr. Kevin Olival, Associate Vice President Dr. Andrew Huff, Associate Vice President
I don't give a flying f*** if he was a vice president. Deal with the issue raised.
PS but since you raise it he started as co-head, then vice president and now associate vice president. You do know that every tom dick and harry in american corporations have these titles don't you?
Ecohealth would like you to meet him
"Get to know our scientists! Andrew Huff, Ph.D. Associate Vice President
"As Associate Vice President at EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Huff is working to develop novel methods of biosurveillance, data analytics and visualization for disease detection, and unique methods to identify disease emergence"
If this guy says, definitively, IT CAME FROM THE LAB, AND IT WAS OUR LAB, then I suggest he is worth a listen
I get that you are feeling humiliated, but it can stop here, and now!
Prat.
Co head first, then vice president, now associate vice president, so exaggerated and wrong at least twice then.
Now ignoring that, which is completely irrelevant, how about dealing with the issue I raised in the first place that your post was completely one sided and that there was counter evidence that disputed it all, but that you ignored it even though it could be found immediately and that you chosse to believe what you wanted to believe rather than looking at all the evidence.
Risky chat Stuart. The wilderness is a cold, dark place –– as you know all too well.
England is entering her cold, dark wilderness decades. Eventually, she will be welcomed back into polite European society.
Switzerland seems to do fine outside the EU, plenty of polite European society go there and invest there
But they do like a referendum. In fact lots of referendums.
And a proper federation. The Bernese don't get all precious about one parliament sort of being for the Berne Canton some of the time as well as [edit] also for the rest of Switzerland the rest of the time, or snotty about not having it all to themselves. So Unionists could learn from them, even from their wn POV. Mr Brown, in particular.
Novo Nordisk and others are increasingly convinced they’ve “cured” obesity.
I’m surprised Leon is not into this. It’s really interesting.
The downside is you have to keep taking the same drugs (or do something radical like actually change your behaviour), and one presumes the pharmas would like to keep it that way.
It has bilateral agreements with the EU enabling it to participate in and partly integrate into the single market but it is not a full member of the single/internal market and EEA
We also have a trade deal with the EU allowing some access to the single market even if we are not currently as regulatory aligned as Switzerland is. Neither us nor Switzerland are full members of the EEA and single market however
No, not true. You’re trying to imply that Britain and Switzerland are analogous.
It’s a kind of deceit, the sort which has brought Britain to its current pass.
Only in the sense that neither is in the EU, which is true.
But that was not the original counter-assertion.
What, "Switzerland seems to do fine outside the EU"?
Because it is effectively a member of the EEA, via various agreements, unlike the UK.
The EEA is not the EU!
Yep. And the UK is - uniquely this side of the Balklans - not a member (de jure or de facto) of either.
As may be. You're kicking off at HY for saying something which unquestionably is true.
No it wasn’t. It was a species of deceit.
It's not true to say that Switzerland isn't in the EU? Give over.
It’s a half truth if the intention is to imply that the UK is thereby not alone in Europe, which was the original idea.
Oh, give over.
I've noticed you only put your thinking cap on when the topic is football. Some good contributions on that, I have to say. Not damning with faint praise btw - it's an important topic.
What you mean is you agree with me on football not on politics. Which is fine - football is more important. (Or at least gives more pleasure to more people.)
Risky chat Stuart. The wilderness is a cold, dark place –– as you know all too well.
England is entering her cold, dark wilderness decades. Eventually, she will be welcomed back into polite European society.
Switzerland seems to do fine outside the EU, plenty of polite European society go there and invest there
But they do like a referendum. In fact lots of referendums.
And a proper federation. The Bernese don't get all precious about one parliament sort of being for the Berne Canton some of the time as well as the rest of Switzerland the rest of the time, or snotty about not having it all to themselves. So Unionists could learn from them, even from their wn POV. Mr Brown, in particular.
Britain should just junk everything and go Swiss and a bit of Dutch, or perhaps Dutch and a bit of Swiss.
Someone asked me where I’d go if I were young and starting my career in Europe, and I ventured Amsterdam.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
As for "reliable sources" that he was an Eco Health vice president, how about his publishers, Simon & Schuster?
"The day that Dr. Andrew G. Huff left his senior scientist and vice president role at EcoHealth Alliance was one of the happiest days of his life due to the corruption he had witnessed at the organization. However, he never thought working there would be of any great consequence to the future. He was wrong. Because, as an EcoHealth Alliance insider, Dr. Huff had had a ringside seat to one of the biggest cover-ups in history."
Dr. Peter Daszak, President Dr. William Karesh, Executive Vice President for Health and Policy Harvey Kasdan, Chief Financial Officer Dr. Jonathan Epstein, Associate Vice President Dr. Kevin Olival, Associate Vice President Dr. Andrew Huff, Associate Vice President
I don't give a flying f*** if he was a vice president. Deal with the issue raised.
PS but since you raise it he started as co-head, then vice president and now associate vice president. You do know that every tom dick and harry in american corporations have these titles don't you?
Ecohealth would like you to meet him
"Get to know our scientists! Andrew Huff, Ph.D. Associate Vice President
"As Associate Vice President at EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Huff is working to develop novel methods of biosurveillance, data analytics and visualization for disease detection, and unique methods to identify disease emergence"
If this guy says, definitively, IT CAME FROM THE LAB, AND IT WAS OUR LAB, then I suggest he is worth a listen
I get that you are feeling humiliated, but it can stop here, and now!
One view said shoutily isn't that great. Equally, not to be entirely ignored.
He is deep in the Ecohealth ecosystem. And he has been for years. And he is saying "FFS of course it came from our lab". He's not even allowing any doubt. Any "balance of probabilities". Nope. Just "the lab"
The overwhelming direction of evidence these last months has all pointed to Lab Leak. I can't remember the last time there was any significant evidence the OTHER way. That laughably discredited paper by Worobey, probably?
"EcoHealth Alliance, an international conservation group, analyzed all airports in the US by assessing how often passengers trickle in from areas with confirmed cases of Zika virus. They identified 17 airports in 11 states and ranked them according to risk.
“I believe this is something that people should know,” said Andrew Huff, the associate vice-president of group, who oversees efforts to forecast the spread of infectious diseases. “If you know where an infectious disease is, you can take precautions.”"
Who should know all this? Him. And he says: the lab
Hmm coldest day of the winter so far here, already -4 and getting colder, and there is no hot water or heating in our building. About 80 flats. But I just feel lucky that the electricity still works!, dug out the electric blanket. Fairly well-organised community here making sure everyone is ok
I've been following the new narrative on PB that the Tories are closing in on Labour. I saw this for myself in Ross on Wye today. Everyone in Morrisons and Aldi carpark was over 65 and there were millions of them and they are ALL Tory voters The radio broadcasts on BBC R4 and LBC are implying the Conservatives attempts to scapegoat public sector workers seem to be hitting the mark. Many callers to LBC were vitriolic towards the nurses. Onto the Immigration crisis. Many were agreeing with Sue Ellen's claim that Labour were weak on immigrants whilst the Tories are tough
Fan fiction? A fan of Sunak or HY? I am a HY fan!
It's not exactly a narrative - it's you and MoonRabbit and a bit of HYUFD. I've never placed much faith in phone-ins, and am sceptical that you can divine the political intentions of shoppers who you see in a car park. It's safer to rely on polls, and they show that the gap has narrowed from 25-30 to 15-20 (with the usual variations by polling company. I wouldn't exactly call that "closing" - it's changing from endangered species to merely catastrophe. Meanwhile, polling shows the nurses' strike has solid popular support, with opinion on the other strikes broadly even.
Is there scope for a further narrowing? Of course, but not much evidence of it yet.
I was sceptical of MoonRabbit's analysis, but I fear she might be on to something. To be fair to HY he has been resolute on a Starmer premiership in 2024. I am fearful for a 1992 redux.
Just as Starmer is no Blair, he is no Kinnock either. I have never been sold on a Labour majority as gaining 120 seats or so without Scotland just looks too much of an ask, but I think the Tories will need everything going absolutely perfectly from here to still be in power after the next general election.
Risky chat Stuart. The wilderness is a cold, dark place –– as you know all too well.
England is entering her cold, dark wilderness decades. Eventually, she will be welcomed back into polite European society.
Switzerland seems to do fine outside the EU, plenty of polite European society go there and invest there
But they do like a referendum. In fact lots of referendums.
And a proper federation. The Bernese don't get all precious about one parliament sort of being for the Berne Canton some of the time as well as the rest of Switzerland the rest of the time, or snotty about not having it all to themselves. So Unionists could learn from them, even from their wn POV. Mr Brown, in particular.
Britain should just junk everything and go Swiss and a bit of Dutch, or perhaps Dutch and a bit of Swiss.
Someone asked me where I’d go if I were young and starting my career in Europe, and I ventured Amsterdam.
Well. if you are planning a career as a narco capo. maybe.
I've been following the new narrative on PB that the Tories are closing in on Labour. I saw this for myself in Ross on Wye today. Everyone in Morrisons and Aldi carpark was over 65 and there were millions of them and they are ALL Tory voters The radio broadcasts on BBC R4 and LBC are implying the Conservatives attempts to scapegoat public sector workers seem to be hitting the mark. Many callers to LBC were vitriolic towards the nurses. Onto the Immigration crisis. Many were agreeing with Sue Ellen's claim that Labour were weak on immigrants whilst the Tories are tough
Fan fiction? A fan of Sunak or HY? I am a HY fan!
It's not exactly a narrative - it's you and MoonRabbit and a bit of HYUFD. I've never placed much faith in phone-ins, and am sceptical that you can divine the political intentions of shoppers who you see in a car park. It's safer to rely on polls, and they show that the gap has narrowed from 25-30 to 15-20 (with the usual variations by polling company. I wouldn't exactly call that "closing" - it's changing from endangered species to merely catastrophe. Meanwhile, polling shows the nurses' strike has solid popular support, with opinion on the other strikes broadly even.
Is there scope for a further narrowing? Of course, but not much evidence of it yet.
I was sceptical of MoonRabbit's analysis, but I fear she might be on to something. To be fair to HY he has been resolute on a Starmer premiership in 2024. I am fearful for a 1992 redux.
Just as Starmer is no Blair, he is no Kinnock either. I have never been sold on a Labour majority as gaining 120 seats or so without Scotland just looks too much of an ask, but I think the Tories will need everything going absolutely perfectly from here to still be in power after the next general election.
Agreed, I think 1992 is outside the range of reasonable forecasts from current circumstances, absent any unknown uknowns. I think the likely ceiling for the Tories at present is scraping most seats, whereas the likely ceiling for Labour is a majority smaller than the Tories have now - perhaps 50.
Sunak has given an interview to Katy Balls in the Spectator. He comes across as mid level Accenture consultant. Truly depressing.
I've been pretty disappointed with him overall. I thought he'd have grown into the role quicker
Shut up; that's not a short man joke
Why did he want to be PM? He appears to have no real conviction except what he seems to have read off a PPT.
He thought he'd be better than any other option?
Depressingly, he was probably right as well.
Sunak probably has the best CV we have had for any PM in decades. 1st from Oxford, serious private sector experience as an ex Goldman Sachs banker, partner in hedge funds, ex Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He may not be particularly ideological but world leaders also respect him, Macron and Biden give him much more respect than they did Boris and Truss or Macron did May
And he's still rubbish.
Give me somebody with a third from Cumbria who worked in a failed coffee shop and is a shrewd judge of character any day of the week.
I am sort of with HY here. Sunak's 144D chess game demonstrates his skillful political genius, confirmed with the polls now within catching distance for the Tories. Successfully painting the nurses, who along with Boris Johnson we applauded every Thurday just two years ago, as the spawn of Beelzebub is quite remarkable,.and pinning the economic migrant crisis as the work of the foreigner loving- English hating Labour Party is impressive.
I wouldn't vote for the lying little scrote, but plenty will.
Eh? This reads like fan fiction.
I've been following the new narrative on PB that the Tories are closing in on Labour. I saw this for myself in Ross on Wye today. Everyone in Morrisons and Aldi carpark was over 65 and there were millions of them and they are ALL Tory voters The radio broadcasts on BBC R4 and LBC are implying the Conservatives attempts to scapegoat public sector workers seem to be hitting the mark. Many callers to LBC were vitriolic towards the nurses. Onto the Immigration crisis. Many were agreeing with Sue Ellen's claim that Labour were weak on immigrants whilst the Tories are tough
Fan fiction? A fan of Sunak or HY? I am a HY fan!
Of course, the elderly are the Tories' core vote and they are also seeking to suppress the votes of younger people, but to see people who call into as LBC as being remotely representative of anything would be a big mistake. It's about as reliable as Twitter as a true gauge of public sentiment.
It has bilateral agreements with the EU enabling it to participate in and partly integrate into the single market but it is not a full member of the single/internal market and EEA
We also have a trade deal with the EU allowing some access to the single market even if we are not currently as regulatory aligned as Switzerland is. Neither us nor Switzerland are full members of the EEA and single market however
No, not true. You’re trying to imply that Britain and Switzerland are analogous.
It’s a kind of deceit, the sort which has brought Britain to its current pass.
Only in the sense that neither is in the EU, which is true.
But that was not the original counter-assertion.
What, "Switzerland seems to do fine outside the EU"?
Because it is effectively a member of the EEA, via various agreements, unlike the UK.
The EEA is not the EU!
Yep. And the UK is - uniquely this side of the Balklans - not a member (de jure or de facto) of either.
As may be. You're kicking off at HY for saying something which unquestionably is true.
No it wasn’t. It was a species of deceit.
It's not true to say that Switzerland isn't in the EU? Give over.
It’s a half truth if the intention is to imply that the UK is thereby not alone in Europe, which was the original idea.
Oh, give over.
I've noticed you only put your thinking cap on when the topic is football. Some good contributions on that, I have to say. Not damning with faint praise btw - it's an important topic.
What you mean is you agree with me on football not on politics. Which is fine - football is more important. (Or at least gives more pleasure to more people.)
I didn't actually mean that - but ok it's a civilized closer.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
As for "reliable sources" that he was an Eco Health vice president, how about his publishers, Simon & Schuster?
"The day that Dr. Andrew G. Huff left his senior scientist and vice president role at EcoHealth Alliance was one of the happiest days of his life due to the corruption he had witnessed at the organization. However, he never thought working there would be of any great consequence to the future. He was wrong. Because, as an EcoHealth Alliance insider, Dr. Huff had had a ringside seat to one of the biggest cover-ups in history."
Dr. Peter Daszak, President Dr. William Karesh, Executive Vice President for Health and Policy Harvey Kasdan, Chief Financial Officer Dr. Jonathan Epstein, Associate Vice President Dr. Kevin Olival, Associate Vice President Dr. Andrew Huff, Associate Vice President
I don't give a flying f*** if he was a vice president. Deal with the issue raised.
PS but since you raise it he started as co-head, then vice president and now associate vice president. You do know that every tom dick and harry in american corporations have these titles don't you?
Ecohealth would like you to meet him
"Get to know our scientists! Andrew Huff, Ph.D. Associate Vice President
"As Associate Vice President at EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Huff is working to develop novel methods of biosurveillance, data analytics and visualization for disease detection, and unique methods to identify disease emergence"
If this guy says, definitively, IT CAME FROM THE LAB, AND IT WAS OUR LAB, then I suggest he is worth a listen
I get that you are feeling humiliated, but it can stop here, and now!
One view said shoutily isn't that great. Equally, not to be entirely ignored.
He is deep in the Ecohealth ecosystem. And he has been for years. And he is saying "FFS of course it came from our lab". He's not even allowing any doubt. Any "balance of probabilities". Nope. Just "the lab"
The overwhelming direction of evidence these last months has all pointed to Lab Leak. I can't remember the last time there was any significant evidence the OTHER way. That laughably discredited paper by Worobey, probably?
"EcoHealth Alliance, an international conservation group, analyzed all airports in the US by assessing how often passengers trickle in from areas with confirmed cases of Zika virus. They identified 17 airports in 11 states and ranked them according to risk.
“I believe this is something that people should know,” said Andrew Huff, the associate vice-president of group, who oversees efforts to forecast the spread of infectious diseases. “If you know where an infectious disease is, you can take precautions.”"
Who should know all this? Him. And he says: the lab
I have no idea if it is a lab leak or not. Unlike you I am open minded. If you had any credibility what you would do is look at that EcoHealth rebuttal and show that it is inaccurate and not quote Fox News and the Daily Mail.
One sided arguments are pointless.
And for fuck's sake just drop the business of his job title. You got it wrong (twice), it doesn't matter and the titles are meaningless anyway.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
As for "reliable sources" that he was an Eco Health vice president, how about his publishers, Simon & Schuster?
"The day that Dr. Andrew G. Huff left his senior scientist and vice president role at EcoHealth Alliance was one of the happiest days of his life due to the corruption he had witnessed at the organization. However, he never thought working there would be of any great consequence to the future. He was wrong. Because, as an EcoHealth Alliance insider, Dr. Huff had had a ringside seat to one of the biggest cover-ups in history."
Dr. Peter Daszak, President Dr. William Karesh, Executive Vice President for Health and Policy Harvey Kasdan, Chief Financial Officer Dr. Jonathan Epstein, Associate Vice President Dr. Kevin Olival, Associate Vice President Dr. Andrew Huff, Associate Vice President
I don't give a flying f*** if he was a vice president. Deal with the issue raised.
PS but since you raise it he started as co-head, then vice president and now associate vice president. You do know that every tom dick and harry in american corporations have these titles don't you?
Ecohealth would like you to meet him
"Get to know our scientists! Andrew Huff, Ph.D. Associate Vice President
"As Associate Vice President at EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Huff is working to develop novel methods of biosurveillance, data analytics and visualization for disease detection, and unique methods to identify disease emergence"
If this guy says, definitively, IT CAME FROM THE LAB, AND IT WAS OUR LAB, then I suggest he is worth a listen
I get that you are feeling humiliated, but it can stop here, and now!
One view said shoutily isn't that great. Equally, not to be entirely ignored.
He is deep in the Ecohealth ecosystem. And he has been for years. And he is saying "FFS of course it came from our lab". He's not even allowing any doubt. Any "balance of probabilities". Nope. Just "the lab"
The overwhelming direction of evidence these last months has all pointed to Lab Leak. I can't remember the last time there was any significant evidence the OTHER way. That laughably discredited paper by Worobey, probably?
"EcoHealth Alliance, an international conservation group, analyzed all airports in the US by assessing how often passengers trickle in from areas with confirmed cases of Zika virus. They identified 17 airports in 11 states and ranked them according to risk.
“I believe this is something that people should know,” said Andrew Huff, the associate vice-president of group, who oversees efforts to forecast the spread of infectious diseases. “If you know where an infectious disease is, you can take precautions.”"
Who should know all this? Him. And he says: the lab
In part my comment was directed at you of course. We'll never know - academic writing is simply unreadable, and deliberately so. The interesting bits can be teased out of course, but they're only shared with the writers friends.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
As for "reliable sources" that he was an Eco Health vice president, how about his publishers, Simon & Schuster?
"The day that Dr. Andrew G. Huff left his senior scientist and vice president role at EcoHealth Alliance was one of the happiest days of his life due to the corruption he had witnessed at the organization. However, he never thought working there would be of any great consequence to the future. He was wrong. Because, as an EcoHealth Alliance insider, Dr. Huff had had a ringside seat to one of the biggest cover-ups in history."
Dr. Peter Daszak, President Dr. William Karesh, Executive Vice President for Health and Policy Harvey Kasdan, Chief Financial Officer Dr. Jonathan Epstein, Associate Vice President Dr. Kevin Olival, Associate Vice President Dr. Andrew Huff, Associate Vice President
I don't give a flying f*** if he was a vice president. Deal with the issue raised.
PS but since you raise it he started as co-head, then vice president and now associate vice president. You do know that every tom dick and harry in american corporations have these titles don't you?
Ecohealth would like you to meet him
"Get to know our scientists! Andrew Huff, Ph.D. Associate Vice President
"As Associate Vice President at EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Huff is working to develop novel methods of biosurveillance, data analytics and visualization for disease detection, and unique methods to identify disease emergence"
If this guy says, definitively, IT CAME FROM THE LAB, AND IT WAS OUR LAB, then I suggest he is worth a listen
I get that you are feeling humiliated, but it can stop here, and now!
One view said shoutily isn't that great. Equally, not to be entirely ignored.
He is deep in the Ecohealth ecosystem. And he has been for years. And he is saying "FFS of course it came from our lab". He's not even allowing any doubt. Any "balance of probabilities". Nope. Just "the lab"
The overwhelming direction of evidence these last months has all pointed to Lab Leak. I can't remember the last time there was any significant evidence the OTHER way. That laughably discredited paper by Worobey, probably?
"EcoHealth Alliance, an international conservation group, analyzed all airports in the US by assessing how often passengers trickle in from areas with confirmed cases of Zika virus. They identified 17 airports in 11 states and ranked them according to risk.
“I believe this is something that people should know,” said Andrew Huff, the associate vice-president of group, who oversees efforts to forecast the spread of infectious diseases. “If you know where an infectious disease is, you can take precautions.”"
Who should know all this? Him. And he says: the lab
I have no idea if it is a lab leak or not. Unlike you I am open minded. If you had any credibility what you would do is look at that EcoHealth rebuttal and show that it is inaccurate and not quote Fox News and the Daily Mail.
One sided arguments are pointless.
And for fuck's sake just drop the business of his job title. You got it wrong (twice), it doesn't matter and the titles are meaningless anyway.
Going out for dinner now.
But your objection, at the time, was that I'd mistitled him. Which, as we see, I did not
I do not recall you making any other cogent or interesting point, but then that is entirely normal and to be expected
I've been following the new narrative on PB that the Tories are closing in on Labour. I saw this for myself in Ross on Wye today. Everyone in Morrisons and Aldi carpark was over 65 and there were millions of them and they are ALL Tory voters The radio broadcasts on BBC R4 and LBC are implying the Conservatives attempts to scapegoat public sector workers seem to be hitting the mark. Many callers to LBC were vitriolic towards the nurses. Onto the Immigration crisis. Many were agreeing with Sue Ellen's claim that Labour were weak on immigrants whilst the Tories are tough
Fan fiction? A fan of Sunak or HY? I am a HY fan!
It's not exactly a narrative - it's you and MoonRabbit and a bit of HYUFD. I've never placed much faith in phone-ins, and am sceptical that you can divine the political intentions of shoppers who you see in a car park. It's safer to rely on polls, and they show that the gap has narrowed from 25-30 to 15-20 (with the usual variations by polling company. I wouldn't exactly call that "closing" - it's changing from endangered species to merely catastrophe. Meanwhile, polling shows the nurses' strike has solid popular support, with opinion on the other strikes broadly even.
Is there scope for a further narrowing? Of course, but not much evidence of it yet.
I was sceptical of MoonRabbit's analysis, but I fear she might be on to something. To be fair to HY he has been resolute on a Starmer premiership in 2024. I am fearful for a 1992 redux.
Just as Starmer is no Blair, he is no Kinnock either. I have never been sold on a Labour majority as gaining 120 seats or so without Scotland just looks too much of an ask, but I think the Tories will need everything going absolutely perfectly from here to still be in power after the next general election.
Agreed, I think 1992 is outside the range of reasonable forecasts from current circumstances, absent any unknown uknowns. I think the likely ceiling for the Tories at present is scraping most seats, whereas the likely ceiling for Labour is a majority smaller than the Tories have now - perhaps 50.
I can certainly see the Tories losing over 100 seats, but I cannot see Labour winning them all. I have a feeling the LibDems will do better than polls are currently indicating. There will be a lot of tactical voting at the next GE. Social media is going to make it a whole lot easier for committed anti-Tories to choose the right candidate to vote for and in a lot of constituencies that will be a LibDem.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I've been following the new narrative on PB that the Tories are closing in on Labour. I saw this for myself in Ross on Wye today. Everyone in Morrisons and Aldi carpark was over 65 and there were millions of them and they are ALL Tory voters The radio broadcasts on BBC R4 and LBC are implying the Conservatives attempts to scapegoat public sector workers seem to be hitting the mark. Many callers to LBC were vitriolic towards the nurses. Onto the Immigration crisis. Many were agreeing with Sue Ellen's claim that Labour were weak on immigrants whilst the Tories are tough
Fan fiction? A fan of Sunak or HY? I am a HY fan!
It's not exactly a narrative - it's you and MoonRabbit and a bit of HYUFD. I've never placed much faith in phone-ins, and am sceptical that you can divine the political intentions of shoppers who you see in a car park. It's safer to rely on polls, and they show that the gap has narrowed from 25-30 to 15-20 (with the usual variations by polling company. I wouldn't exactly call that "closing" - it's changing from endangered species to merely catastrophe. Meanwhile, polling shows the nurses' strike has solid popular support, with opinion on the other strikes broadly even.
Is there scope for a further narrowing? Of course, but not much evidence of it yet.
I was sceptical of MoonRabbit's analysis, but I fear she might be on to something. To be fair to HY he has been resolute on a Starmer premiership in 2024. I am fearful for a 1992 redux.
Just as Starmer is no Blair, he is no Kinnock either. I have never been sold on a Labour majority as gaining 120 seats or so without Scotland just looks too much of an ask, but I think the Tories will need everything going absolutely perfectly from here to still be in power after the next general election.
Agreed, I think 1992 is outside the range of reasonable forecasts from current circumstances, absent any unknown uknowns. I think the likely ceiling for the Tories at present is scraping most seats, whereas the likely ceiling for Labour is a majority smaller than the Tories have now - perhaps 50.
I can certainly see the Tories losing over 100 seats, but I cannot see Labour winning them all. I have a feeling the LibDems will do better than polls are currently indicating. There will be a lot of tactical voting at the next GE. Social media is going to make it a whole lot easier for committed anti-Tories to choose the right candidate to vote for and in a lot of constituencies that will be a LibDem.
Complicated, of course, by the boundary changes. And social media is a tool that cuts both ways.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
As for "reliable sources" that he was an Eco Health vice president, how about his publishers, Simon & Schuster?
"The day that Dr. Andrew G. Huff left his senior scientist and vice president role at EcoHealth Alliance was one of the happiest days of his life due to the corruption he had witnessed at the organization. However, he never thought working there would be of any great consequence to the future. He was wrong. Because, as an EcoHealth Alliance insider, Dr. Huff had had a ringside seat to one of the biggest cover-ups in history."
Dr. Peter Daszak, President Dr. William Karesh, Executive Vice President for Health and Policy Harvey Kasdan, Chief Financial Officer Dr. Jonathan Epstein, Associate Vice President Dr. Kevin Olival, Associate Vice President Dr. Andrew Huff, Associate Vice President
I don't give a flying f*** if he was a vice president. Deal with the issue raised.
PS but since you raise it he started as co-head, then vice president and now associate vice president. You do know that every tom dick and harry in american corporations have these titles don't you?
Ecohealth would like you to meet him
"Get to know our scientists! Andrew Huff, Ph.D. Associate Vice President
"As Associate Vice President at EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Huff is working to develop novel methods of biosurveillance, data analytics and visualization for disease detection, and unique methods to identify disease emergence"
If this guy says, definitively, IT CAME FROM THE LAB, AND IT WAS OUR LAB, then I suggest he is worth a listen
I get that you are feeling humiliated, but it can stop here, and now!
One view said shoutily isn't that great. Equally, not to be entirely ignored.
He is deep in the Ecohealth ecosystem. And he has been for years. And he is saying "FFS of course it came from our lab". He's not even allowing any doubt. Any "balance of probabilities". Nope. Just "the lab"
The overwhelming direction of evidence these last months has all pointed to Lab Leak. I can't remember the last time there was any significant evidence the OTHER way. That laughably discredited paper by Worobey, probably?
"EcoHealth Alliance, an international conservation group, analyzed all airports in the US by assessing how often passengers trickle in from areas with confirmed cases of Zika virus. They identified 17 airports in 11 states and ranked them according to risk.
“I believe this is something that people should know,” said Andrew Huff, the associate vice-president of group, who oversees efforts to forecast the spread of infectious diseases. “If you know where an infectious disease is, you can take precautions.”"
Who should know all this? Him. And he says: the lab
In part my comment was directed at you of course. We'll never know - academic writing is simply unreadable, and deliberately so. The interesting bits can be teased out of course, but they're only shared with the writers friends.
Why should we "never know"?
I recall the entire scientific establishment was quite keen on the idea that we DEFINITELY KNOW when that knowledge was something they preferred: it came from the market
Indeed we knew so emphatically it was decided that any other knowledge - like, er, maybe the novel bat coronavirus came from the novel bat coronavirus lab two metres away? - was a "racist conspiracy" and people who voiced it should be silenced
Now that everything is moot, or indeed looks like lab leak, suddenly we can "never know" and we should all move on
It is real. He's in financial trouble for sure - and can't cope. Or possibly physically ill. Or both. What a pity he's at 8 at Betfair as next president - only 14% return. Those eye beams!
Edit: has he ever been cross-examined in a court case, or has he always hid behind his lawyers?
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
" ... the argument that various outbreaks of illnesses on Earth are of extraterrestrial origins, including the 1918 flu pandemic and certain outbreaks of polio and mad cow disease. For the 1918 flu pandemic they hypothesised that cometary dust brought the virus to Earth simultaneously at multiple locations ... a paper claiming that Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic was also of extraterrestrial origin ... posited that cephalopods are alien lifeforms that originated from frozen eggs that were transported to earth via meteor...."
I've been following the new narrative on PB that the Tories are closing in on Labour. I saw this for myself in Ross on Wye today. Everyone in Morrisons and Aldi carpark was over 65 and there were millions of them and they are ALL Tory voters The radio broadcasts on BBC R4 and LBC are implying the Conservatives attempts to scapegoat public sector workers seem to be hitting the mark. Many callers to LBC were vitriolic towards the nurses. Onto the Immigration crisis. Many were agreeing with Sue Ellen's claim that Labour were weak on immigrants whilst the Tories are tough
Fan fiction? A fan of Sunak or HY? I am a HY fan!
It's not exactly a narrative - it's you and MoonRabbit and a bit of HYUFD. I've never placed much faith in phone-ins, and am sceptical that you can divine the political intentions of shoppers who you see in a car park. It's safer to rely on polls, and they show that the gap has narrowed from 25-30 to 15-20 (with the usual variations by polling company. I wouldn't exactly call that "closing" - it's changing from endangered species to merely catastrophe. Meanwhile, polling shows the nurses' strike has solid popular support, with opinion on the other strikes broadly even.
Is there scope for a further narrowing? Of course, but not much evidence of it yet.
I was sceptical of MoonRabbit's analysis, but I fear she might be on to something. To be fair to HY he has been resolute on a Starmer premiership in 2024. I am fearful for a 1992 redux.
Just as Starmer is no Blair, he is no Kinnock either. I have never been sold on a Labour majority as gaining 120 seats or so without Scotland just looks too much of an ask, but I think the Tories will need everything going absolutely perfectly from here to still be in power after the next general election.
Agreed, I think 1992 is outside the range of reasonable forecasts from current circumstances, absent any unknown uknowns. I think the likely ceiling for the Tories at present is scraping most seats, whereas the likely ceiling for Labour is a majority smaller than the Tories have now - perhaps 50.
I can certainly see the Tories losing over 100 seats, but I cannot see Labour winning them all. I have a feeling the LibDems will do better than polls are currently indicating. There will be a lot of tactical voting at the next GE. Social media is going to make it a whole lot easier for committed anti-Tories to choose the right candidate to vote for and in a lot of constituencies that will be a LibDem.
Less likely under Sunak than Boris and Truss, given Sunak leads Starmer as preferred PM in the bluewall home counties seats the LDs are targeting.
The vast majority of Tory losses are likely to be to Labour now, especially in the redwall
The big problem the Tories have with going to war with nurses is that their electoral base is more reliant on the NHS than any other demographic. Health workers aren’t an enemy for the over-60s. They are a fundamental and absolutely essential part of life.
Hmm coldest day of the winter so far here, already -4 and getting colder, and there is no hot water or heating in our building. About 80 flats. But I just feel lucky that the electricity still works!, dug out the electric blanket. Fairly well-organised community here making sure everyone is ok
I've been following the new narrative on PB that the Tories are closing in on Labour. I saw this for myself in Ross on Wye today. Everyone in Morrisons and Aldi carpark was over 65 and there were millions of them and they are ALL Tory voters The radio broadcasts on BBC R4 and LBC are implying the Conservatives attempts to scapegoat public sector workers seem to be hitting the mark. Many callers to LBC were vitriolic towards the nurses. Onto the Immigration crisis. Many were agreeing with Sue Ellen's claim that Labour were weak on immigrants whilst the Tories are tough
Fan fiction? A fan of Sunak or HY? I am a HY fan!
It's not exactly a narrative - it's you and MoonRabbit and a bit of HYUFD. I've never placed much faith in phone-ins, and am sceptical that you can divine the political intentions of shoppers who you see in a car park. It's safer to rely on polls, and they show that the gap has narrowed from 25-30 to 15-20 (with the usual variations by polling company. I wouldn't exactly call that "closing" - it's changing from endangered species to merely catastrophe. Meanwhile, polling shows the nurses' strike has solid popular support, with opinion on the other strikes broadly even.
Is there scope for a further narrowing? Of course, but not much evidence of it yet.
I was sceptical of MoonRabbit's analysis, but I fear she might be on to something. To be fair to HY he has been resolute on a Starmer premiership in 2024. I am fearful for a 1992 redux.
Just as Starmer is no Blair, he is no Kinnock either. I have never been sold on a Labour majority as gaining 120 seats or so without Scotland just looks too much of an ask, but I think the Tories will need everything going absolutely perfectly from here to still be in power after the next general election.
Agreed, I think 1992 is outside the range of reasonable forecasts from current circumstances, absent any unknown uknowns. I think the likely ceiling for the Tories at present is scraping most seats, whereas the likely ceiling for Labour is a majority smaller than the Tories have now - perhaps 50.
I can certainly see the Tories losing over 100 seats, but I cannot see Labour winning them all. I have a feeling the LibDems will do better than polls are currently indicating. There will be a lot of tactical voting at the next GE. Social media is going to make it a whole lot easier for committed anti-Tories to choose the right candidate to vote for and in a lot of constituencies that will be a LibDem.
Less likely under Sunak than Boris and Truss, given Sunak leads Starmer as preferred PM in the bluewall seats the LDs are targeting.
The vast majority of Tory losses are likely to be to Labour now, especially in the redwall
The LibDems are not going to win dozens of new seats. But I think 15 to 20 is entirely realistic.
I've been following the new narrative on PB that the Tories are closing in on Labour. I saw this for myself in Ross on Wye today. Everyone in Morrisons and Aldi carpark was over 65 and there were millions of them and they are ALL Tory voters The radio broadcasts on BBC R4 and LBC are implying the Conservatives attempts to scapegoat public sector workers seem to be hitting the mark. Many callers to LBC were vitriolic towards the nurses. Onto the Immigration crisis. Many were agreeing with Sue Ellen's claim that Labour were weak on immigrants whilst the Tories are tough
Fan fiction? A fan of Sunak or HY? I am a HY fan!
It's not exactly a narrative - it's you and MoonRabbit and a bit of HYUFD. I've never placed much faith in phone-ins, and am sceptical that you can divine the political intentions of shoppers who you see in a car park. It's safer to rely on polls, and they show that the gap has narrowed from 25-30 to 15-20 (with the usual variations by polling company. I wouldn't exactly call that "closing" - it's changing from endangered species to merely catastrophe. Meanwhile, polling shows the nurses' strike has solid popular support, with opinion on the other strikes broadly even.
Is there scope for a further narrowing? Of course, but not much evidence of it yet.
I was sceptical of MoonRabbit's analysis, but I fear she might be on to something. To be fair to HY he has been resolute on a Starmer premiership in 2024. I am fearful for a 1992 redux.
Just as Starmer is no Blair, he is no Kinnock either. I have never been sold on a Labour majority as gaining 120 seats or so without Scotland just looks too much of an ask, but I think the Tories will need everything going absolutely perfectly from here to still be in power after the next general election.
Agreed, I think 1992 is outside the range of reasonable forecasts from current circumstances, absent any unknown uknowns. I think the likely ceiling for the Tories at present is scraping most seats, whereas the likely ceiling for Labour is a majority smaller than the Tories have now - perhaps 50.
I can certainly see the Tories losing over 100 seats, but I cannot see Labour winning them all. I have a feeling the LibDems will do better than polls are currently indicating. There will be a lot of tactical voting at the next GE. Social media is going to make it a whole lot easier for committed anti-Tories to choose the right candidate to vote for and in a lot of constituencies that will be a LibDem.
Complicated, of course, by the boundary changes. And social media is a tool that cuts both ways.
Not many positive LDs because of LD ideas these days. They've done amazingly well in some seats as a sort of enlivened rightiousness.
I've been following the new narrative on PB that the Tories are closing in on Labour. I saw this for myself in Ross on Wye today. Everyone in Morrisons and Aldi carpark was over 65 and there were millions of them and they are ALL Tory voters The radio broadcasts on BBC R4 and LBC are implying the Conservatives attempts to scapegoat public sector workers seem to be hitting the mark. Many callers to LBC were vitriolic towards the nurses. Onto the Immigration crisis. Many were agreeing with Sue Ellen's claim that Labour were weak on immigrants whilst the Tories are tough
Fan fiction? A fan of Sunak or HY? I am a HY fan!
It's not exactly a narrative - it's you and MoonRabbit and a bit of HYUFD. I've never placed much faith in phone-ins, and am sceptical that you can divine the political intentions of shoppers who you see in a car park. It's safer to rely on polls, and they show that the gap has narrowed from 25-30 to 15-20 (with the usual variations by polling company. I wouldn't exactly call that "closing" - it's changing from endangered species to merely catastrophe. Meanwhile, polling shows the nurses' strike has solid popular support, with opinion on the other strikes broadly even.
Is there scope for a further narrowing? Of course, but not much evidence of it yet.
I was sceptical of MoonRabbit's analysis, but I fear she might be on to something. To be fair to HY he has been resolute on a Starmer premiership in 2024. I am fearful for a 1992 redux.
Just as Starmer is no Blair, he is no Kinnock either. I have never been sold on a Labour majority as gaining 120 seats or so without Scotland just looks too much of an ask, but I think the Tories will need everything going absolutely perfectly from here to still be in power after the next general election.
Agreed, I think 1992 is outside the range of reasonable forecasts from current circumstances, absent any unknown uknowns. I think the likely ceiling for the Tories at present is scraping most seats, whereas the likely ceiling for Labour is a majority smaller than the Tories have now - perhaps 50.
I can certainly see the Tories losing over 100 seats, but I cannot see Labour winning them all. I have a feeling the LibDems will do better than polls are currently indicating. There will be a lot of tactical voting at the next GE. Social media is going to make it a whole lot easier for committed anti-Tories to choose the right candidate to vote for and in a lot of constituencies that will be a LibDem.
Less likely under Sunak than Boris and Truss, given Sunak leads Starmer as preferred PM in the bluewall seats the LDs are targeting.
The vast majority of Tory losses are likely to be to Labour now, especially in the redwall
The LibDems are not going to win dozens of new seats. But I think 15 to 20 is entirely realistic.
Against Truss I could see the LDs gaining 50 to 100 Tory seats, against Boris 25 to 50. Against Sunak I doubt they will gain more than 10 to 15 now
Who do British people have an actually favourable opinion of, then?
I remember the YouGov panel suggested the answer was (1) powerless Royals (2) powerless global celebrities of the Michelle Obama ilk (3) Alan Sugar and Deborah Meaden.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
As for "reliable sources" that he was an Eco Health vice president, how about his publishers, Simon & Schuster?
"The day that Dr. Andrew G. Huff left his senior scientist and vice president role at EcoHealth Alliance was one of the happiest days of his life due to the corruption he had witnessed at the organization. However, he never thought working there would be of any great consequence to the future. He was wrong. Because, as an EcoHealth Alliance insider, Dr. Huff had had a ringside seat to one of the biggest cover-ups in history."
Dr. Peter Daszak, President Dr. William Karesh, Executive Vice President for Health and Policy Harvey Kasdan, Chief Financial Officer Dr. Jonathan Epstein, Associate Vice President Dr. Kevin Olival, Associate Vice President Dr. Andrew Huff, Associate Vice President
I don't give a flying f*** if he was a vice president. Deal with the issue raised.
PS but since you raise it he started as co-head, then vice president and now associate vice president. You do know that every tom dick and harry in american corporations have these titles don't you?
Ecohealth would like you to meet him
"Get to know our scientists! Andrew Huff, Ph.D. Associate Vice President
"As Associate Vice President at EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Huff is working to develop novel methods of biosurveillance, data analytics and visualization for disease detection, and unique methods to identify disease emergence"
If this guy says, definitively, IT CAME FROM THE LAB, AND IT WAS OUR LAB, then I suggest he is worth a listen
I get that you are feeling humiliated, but it can stop here, and now!
One view said shoutily isn't that great. Equally, not to be entirely ignored.
He is deep in the Ecohealth ecosystem. And he has been for years. And he is saying "FFS of course it came from our lab". He's not even allowing any doubt. Any "balance of probabilities". Nope. Just "the lab"
The overwhelming direction of evidence these last months has all pointed to Lab Leak. I can't remember the last time there was any significant evidence the OTHER way. That laughably discredited paper by Worobey, probably?
"EcoHealth Alliance, an international conservation group, analyzed all airports in the US by assessing how often passengers trickle in from areas with confirmed cases of Zika virus. They identified 17 airports in 11 states and ranked them according to risk.
“I believe this is something that people should know,” said Andrew Huff, the associate vice-president of group, who oversees efforts to forecast the spread of infectious diseases. “If you know where an infectious disease is, you can take precautions.”"
Who should know all this? Him. And he says: the lab
In part my comment was directed at you of course. We'll never know - academic writing is simply unreadable, and deliberately so. The interesting bits can be teased out of course, but they're only shared with the writers friends.
Why should we "never know"?
I recall the entire scientific establishment was quite keen on the idea that we DEFINITELY KNOW when that knowledge was something they preferred: it came from the market
Indeed we knew so emphatically it was decided that any other knowledge - like, er, maybe the novel bat coronavirus came from the novel bat coronavirus lab two metres away? - was a "racist conspiracy" and people who voiced it should be silenced
Now that everything is moot, or indeed looks like lab leak, suddenly we can "never know" and we should all move on
We'll never know because it's wordy, puffed-up, and opaque.
Really groundbreaking and important research has a hell of a time breaking this stupidity ceiling.
Every single GE we are told there will be more tactical voting.
What matters, of course, is the change in the amount of tactical voting compared to last time.
We've just had four GEs in a row with the same boundaries. Next time there will be new boundaries which on the face of it should reduce tactical voting if anything - as a good chunk of people won't be familiar with the situation in their constituency (or won't even know what their constituency even is).
Now someone will immediately say it'll all be on social media etc - the sort of people who will find that will almost all be voting Labour in any case.
Every single GE we are told there will be more tactical voting.
What matters, of course, is the change in the amount of tactical voting compared to last time.
We've just had four GEs in a row with the same boundaries. Next time there will be new boundaries which on the face of it should reduce tactical voting if anything - as a good chunk of people won't be familiar with the situation in their constituency (or won't even know what their constituency even is).
Now someone will immediately say it'll all be on social media etc - the sort of people who will find that will almost all be voting Labour in any case.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
As for "reliable sources" that he was an Eco Health vice president, how about his publishers, Simon & Schuster?
"The day that Dr. Andrew G. Huff left his senior scientist and vice president role at EcoHealth Alliance was one of the happiest days of his life due to the corruption he had witnessed at the organization. However, he never thought working there would be of any great consequence to the future. He was wrong. Because, as an EcoHealth Alliance insider, Dr. Huff had had a ringside seat to one of the biggest cover-ups in history."
Dr. Peter Daszak, President Dr. William Karesh, Executive Vice President for Health and Policy Harvey Kasdan, Chief Financial Officer Dr. Jonathan Epstein, Associate Vice President Dr. Kevin Olival, Associate Vice President Dr. Andrew Huff, Associate Vice President
I don't give a flying f*** if he was a vice president. Deal with the issue raised.
PS but since you raise it he started as co-head, then vice president and now associate vice president. You do know that every tom dick and harry in american corporations have these titles don't you?
Ecohealth would like you to meet him
"Get to know our scientists! Andrew Huff, Ph.D. Associate Vice President
"As Associate Vice President at EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Huff is working to develop novel methods of biosurveillance, data analytics and visualization for disease detection, and unique methods to identify disease emergence"
If this guy says, definitively, IT CAME FROM THE LAB, AND IT WAS OUR LAB, then I suggest he is worth a listen
I get that you are feeling humiliated, but it can stop here, and now!
One view said shoutily isn't that great. Equally, not to be entirely ignored.
He is deep in the Ecohealth ecosystem. And he has been for years. And he is saying "FFS of course it came from our lab". He's not even allowing any doubt. Any "balance of probabilities". Nope. Just "the lab"
The overwhelming direction of evidence these last months has all pointed to Lab Leak. I can't remember the last time there was any significant evidence the OTHER way. That laughably discredited paper by Worobey, probably?
"EcoHealth Alliance, an international conservation group, analyzed all airports in the US by assessing how often passengers trickle in from areas with confirmed cases of Zika virus. They identified 17 airports in 11 states and ranked them according to risk.
“I believe this is something that people should know,” said Andrew Huff, the associate vice-president of group, who oversees efforts to forecast the spread of infectious diseases. “If you know where an infectious disease is, you can take precautions.”"
Who should know all this? Him. And he says: the lab
In part my comment was directed at you of course. We'll never know - academic writing is simply unreadable, and deliberately so. The interesting bits can be teased out of course, but they're only shared with the writers friends.
I have to disagree a bit - good academic writing is concise, to the point and eminently readable, as I try to teach my students. Too often what people think is academic writing is over written crap trying to masquerade as learned by using a pompous style, long clauses and unusual words. Don’t fall into the trap.
Perhaps he’s not really running. That looks more like the kind of this he’d have done when toying with the idea in the past than in 2015/2016 when he was totally serious about it.
Sunak has given an interview to Katy Balls in the Spectator. He comes across as mid level Accenture consultant. Truly depressing.
I've been pretty disappointed with him overall. I thought he'd have grown into the role quicker
Shut up; that's not a short man joke
Why did he want to be PM? He appears to have no real conviction except what he seems to have read off a PPT.
He thought he'd be better than any other option?
Depressingly, he was probably right as well.
Sunak probably has the best CV we have had for any PM in decades. 1st from Oxford, serious private sector experience as an ex Goldman Sachs banker, partner in hedge funds, ex Chancellor of the Exchequer.
He may not be particularly ideological but world leaders also respect him, Macron and Biden give him much more respect than they did Boris and Truss or Macron did May
No they don't; they know they can walk over him. That's not real respect; it's the opposite.
So we've gone from "it probably came from bat soup with pangolin croutons in the wet market" to.....
"COVID origins 'may have been tied' to China's bioweapons program: GOP report House Republicans state that the virus 'spilled over' to the human population| Fox News"
I'm not saying I agree with any of this, I am merely noting how far the Overton Window of Covid Origins has moved, in these long 3 painful years
Can I remind you of your post on Sunday night which with a 5 second google search of Andrew Huff was shown to be utter bollocks.
I said Andrew Huff was once a "co-chief of Ecohealth" (the guys that probably leaked the engineered virus at Wuhan). Everyone had conniptions, including you. Not sure why. Reality? -
"Dr Andrew Huff, the former vice president of EcoHealth"
I don't give two hoots about his job title in the under 2 years he was there, although it is interesting that your source information is Fox News and the Daily Mail. Very reliable sources. Try the link I provided after your post or just try typing his name into google and see the EcoHeath response to Andrew Huff's claims. It is the first link that comes up. Here it is:
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
As for "reliable sources" that he was an Eco Health vice president, how about his publishers, Simon & Schuster?
"The day that Dr. Andrew G. Huff left his senior scientist and vice president role at EcoHealth Alliance was one of the happiest days of his life due to the corruption he had witnessed at the organization. However, he never thought working there would be of any great consequence to the future. He was wrong. Because, as an EcoHealth Alliance insider, Dr. Huff had had a ringside seat to one of the biggest cover-ups in history."
Dr. Peter Daszak, President Dr. William Karesh, Executive Vice President for Health and Policy Harvey Kasdan, Chief Financial Officer Dr. Jonathan Epstein, Associate Vice President Dr. Kevin Olival, Associate Vice President Dr. Andrew Huff, Associate Vice President
I don't give a flying f*** if he was a vice president. Deal with the issue raised.
PS but since you raise it he started as co-head, then vice president and now associate vice president. You do know that every tom dick and harry in american corporations have these titles don't you?
Ecohealth would like you to meet him
"Get to know our scientists! Andrew Huff, Ph.D. Associate Vice President
"As Associate Vice President at EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Huff is working to develop novel methods of biosurveillance, data analytics and visualization for disease detection, and unique methods to identify disease emergence"
If this guy says, definitively, IT CAME FROM THE LAB, AND IT WAS OUR LAB, then I suggest he is worth a listen
I get that you are feeling humiliated, but it can stop here, and now!
One view said shoutily isn't that great. Equally, not to be entirely ignored.
He is deep in the Ecohealth ecosystem. And he has been for years. And he is saying "FFS of course it came from our lab". He's not even allowing any doubt. Any "balance of probabilities". Nope. Just "the lab"
The overwhelming direction of evidence these last months has all pointed to Lab Leak. I can't remember the last time there was any significant evidence the OTHER way. That laughably discredited paper by Worobey, probably?
"EcoHealth Alliance, an international conservation group, analyzed all airports in the US by assessing how often passengers trickle in from areas with confirmed cases of Zika virus. They identified 17 airports in 11 states and ranked them according to risk.
“I believe this is something that people should know,” said Andrew Huff, the associate vice-president of group, who oversees efforts to forecast the spread of infectious diseases. “If you know where an infectious disease is, you can take precautions.”"
Who should know all this? Him. And he says: the lab
In part my comment was directed at you of course. We'll never know - academic writing is simply unreadable, and deliberately so. The interesting bits can be teased out of course, but they're only shared with the writers friends.
I have to disagree a bit - good academic writing is concise, to the point and eminently readable, as I try to teach my students. Too often what people think is academic writing is over written crap trying to masquerade as learned by using a pompous style, long clauses and unusual words. Don’t fall into the trap.
Most academic writing then. It's the stuff nobody (sorry phd examiners) will ever read. The awful turgid stuff that justifies a grant.
Good academic writing is the fresh air that keeps us alive.
Comments
However, I do like a politician with a sense of inner conviction and hinterland, and someone who can articulate a vision, including if necessary, difficult truths.
I don’t get anything from Sunak. Nothing.
I got more from May, which is saying something.
As for whether it is a bioweapon, I don't believe it was a virus deliberately launched at the world. Insane. I can believe there was military involvement in this exact kind of research. Heck, we know there was and is. The Americans do the same
Fan fiction? A fan of Sunak or HY? I am a HY fan!
For those of you who don't know the term (in this context, I know there are others, oo-er), slippery fish is a term for the transparent plastic pockets with holes punched down the side, into which you can insert documents and then put the pocket into the binder. I've known the term 'slippery fish' for ages, but it got me wondering how it originated. So I looked it up...
And according to the internet, it's a Sussex-only term. Now, I was sceptical - this is the internet we're talking about, after all. So I asked around among family and friends - 'what do you call those things?' and secondly, 'have you ever heard of the term "slippery fish"?'
And amazingly, non-Sussex people have never heard of this, while Sussex people have mostly, although not universally, heard them called nothing else. My brother asked me to remind him what drugs I am on.
So although I am none the wiser about when and how the term came about, I am irrationally pleased to find that a regional slang term for a universally-known item can still exist - and be completely unknown outside its region.
Most Prime Ministers (or potential PMs) give off at least some sort of impression of what they want the country to be like.
It may be a mad vision- like Truss's libertarian paradise, or Corbyn's socialism in one country. It keeps that be fundamentally unworkable, like Johnson's cash spaffing. It may be as simplistic as making everywhere agreeably like my agreeable childhood.
But Rishi? He favoured Brexit, likes Freeports. Seems to regret all the Covid spending. But apart from that?
https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/2022/12/ecohealth-alliance-statement-regarding-book-by-andrew-huff
Don't you think it would have been wise to read that before posting what you did as some piece of gospel info from Fox News. You might have then decided that maybe he wasn't reliable.
However, apart from being at odds with what economic analysis of the UK economy suggests, it’s not much of a retail proposition at a time of stuttering growth and falling real wages.
(Charles, I mean, not Elvis)
I have no idea whether it was a lab leak or not, but Leon posted stuff on Sunday night from Fox News as fact, that the most tiniest bit of searching on the internet showed was significantly challenged. If you are going to post biased stuff, expect to be challenged. If you don't do this you lack credibility when you post accurate stuff which is a shame.
Is there scope for a further narrowing? Of course, but not much evidence of it yet.
Johnson saw nothing, nothing, in the manner of Claude Raines.
Brexit was riddled with such half-truths, which is why it has turned out to be an utter shitshow.
Until there is, it’s fine to debate what it means, but until then the word is ramping.
That's different to the past. Thatcher wanted property owners and great benefactors. Major wanted a nation at ease. Brown (and I suspect Starmer) wanted prosperity they can tax to fund the public realm.
What does Rishi want? Does Rishi know what Rishi wants?
Turned out he is "an ex vice president of Ecohealth"
Whatever else you were blatting on about, this particular angle of yours was absurd
"The day that Dr. Andrew G. Huff left his senior scientist and vice president role at EcoHealth Alliance was one of the happiest days of his life due to the corruption he had witnessed at the organization. However, he never thought working there would be of any great consequence to the future. He was wrong. Because, as an EcoHealth Alliance insider, Dr. Huff had had a ringside seat to one of the biggest cover-ups in history."
https://www.simonandschuster.biz/books/The-Truth-about-Wuhan/Andrew-G-Huff/9781510773882
This is all on record: https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/EcoHealth-Alliance-Annual-Report.pdf
Dr. Peter Daszak, President
Dr. William Karesh, Executive Vice President for Health and Policy
Harvey Kasdan, Chief Financial Officer
Dr. Jonathan Epstein, Associate Vice President
Dr. Kevin Olival, Associate Vice President
Dr. Andrew Huff, Associate Vice President
The perfect Christmas gift for the wackjob in your life.
Edit: the accompanying video is worth at least 15 seconds of your time.
https://twitter.com/daaronovitch/status/1603441013711929346?s=46&t=qxW9Imq1RI2pnP-OJoyb-g
However if you do want to go down that line it was another example in the post of Leon's from Sunday night that was misleading and wrong. He said he was the co-chief or some such. He wasn't. He now says he was a vice-president based upon the Daily Mail that newspaper known for its facts. And even if he was that is misleading as well because in American corporations, vice presidents are two a penny. The tea lady is usually vice president of refreshments.
The only point I am making, so please don't go off on tangents as you usually do, is that on Sunday night Leon posted as fact from Fox News stuff that with 5 seconds of searching was highly disputable.
People who do that then lack credibility when they post accurate stuff.
That is it. Don't drag me down a crappy route of arguing about something I am not disputing.
PS Re they would say that wouldn't they. I agree. That is why you need to look at both sides of an argument.
I don’t really know what it means, but I hope nobody takes me as an expert on the lab leak.
PS but since you raise it he started as co-head, then vice president and now associate vice president. By the time you finish he will be the teaboy. You do know that every tom dick and harry in american corporations have these titles don't you?
I suspect he has an agenda. A small government, privatised public services agenda.
"Get to know our scientists!
Andrew Huff, Ph.D. Associate Vice President
"As Associate Vice President at EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Huff is working to develop novel methods of biosurveillance, data analytics and visualization for disease detection, and unique methods to identify disease emergence"
https://myemail.constantcontact.com/EcoHealth-Alliance-Newsletter.html?soid=1109104170770&aid=B8ZzloGYn_A
If this guy says, definitively, IT CAME FROM THE LAB, AND IT WAS OUR LAB, then I suggest he is worth a listen
I get that you are feeling humiliated, but it can stop here, and now!
You know you have lost when someone argues an irrelevant point and ignore the point of the argument.
Personally I don’t find him charismatic. If there is any charisma there, it is only in relation to Keir who is similarly uncharismatic.
Keir is worthy and a bureaucratic bore with no, I’d argue, understanding of growth (I am v happy he has Rachael Reeves).
Sunak has blandishments from Accenture on a slide deck to explain why you should be happy to continue to be poor and/or heavily taxed.
Co head first, then vice president, now associate vice president, so exaggerated and wrong at least twice then.
Now ignoring that, which is completely irrelevant, how about dealing with the issue I raised in the first place that your post was completely one sided and that there was counter evidence that disputed it all, but that you ignored it even though it could be found immediately and that you chosse to believe what you wanted to believe rather than looking at all the evidence.
I’m surprised Leon is not into this. It’s really interesting.
The downside is you have to keep taking the same drugs (or do something radical like actually change your behaviour), and one presumes the pharmas would like to keep it that way.
Someone asked me where I’d go if I were young and starting my career in Europe, and I ventured Amsterdam.
The overwhelming direction of evidence these last months has all pointed to Lab Leak. I can't remember the last time there was any significant evidence the OTHER way. That laughably discredited paper by Worobey, probably?
"EcoHealth Alliance, an international conservation group, analyzed all airports in the US by assessing how often passengers trickle in from areas with confirmed cases of Zika virus. They identified 17 airports in 11 states and ranked them according to risk.
“I believe this is something that people should know,” said Andrew Huff, the associate vice-president of group, who oversees efforts to forecast the spread of infectious diseases. “If you know where an infectious disease is, you can take precautions.”"
Who should know all this? Him. And he says: the lab
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/05/zika-virus-florida-texas-airports-risk-infection
One sided arguments are pointless.
And for fuck's sake just drop the business of his job title. You got it wrong (twice), it doesn't matter and the titles are meaningless anyway.
Going out for dinner now.
For what it's worth, graph shows an initial Sunak bounce, then a levelling / slight dip, and now a second move upwards.
Labour still edging down though at slower rate than the second Sunak bounce.
Current position is Lab 46.5, Con 29.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
I do not recall you making any other cogent or interesting point, but then that is entirely normal and to be expected
And it’s Woke Trans Illegal Immigrant Alien AIs, by the way.
I recall the entire scientific establishment was quite keen on the idea that we DEFINITELY KNOW when that knowledge was something they preferred: it came from the market
Indeed we knew so emphatically it was decided that any other knowledge - like, er, maybe the novel bat coronavirus came from the novel bat coronavirus lab two metres away? - was a "racist conspiracy" and people who voiced it should be silenced
Now that everything is moot, or indeed looks like lab leak, suddenly we can "never know" and we should all move on
What a pity he's at 8 at Betfair as next president - only 14% return.
Those eye beams!
Edit: has he ever been cross-examined in a court case, or has he always hid behind his lawyers?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandra_Wickramasinghe
" ... the argument that various outbreaks of illnesses on Earth are of extraterrestrial origins, including the 1918 flu pandemic and certain outbreaks of polio and mad cow disease. For the 1918 flu pandemic they hypothesised that cometary dust brought the virus to Earth simultaneously at multiple locations ... a paper claiming that Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic was also of extraterrestrial origin ... posited that cephalopods are alien lifeforms that originated from frozen eggs that were transported to earth via meteor...."
The vast majority of Tory losses are likely to be to Labour now, especially in the redwall
I remember the YouGov panel suggested the answer was (1) powerless Royals (2) powerless global celebrities of the Michelle Obama ilk (3) Alan Sugar and Deborah Meaden.
Really groundbreaking and important research has a hell of a time breaking this stupidity ceiling.
What matters, of course, is the change in the amount of tactical voting compared to last time.
We've just had four GEs in a row with the same boundaries. Next time there will be new boundaries which on the face of it should reduce tactical voting if anything - as a good chunk of people won't be familiar with the situation in their constituency (or won't even know what their constituency even is).
Now someone will immediately say it'll all be on social media etc - the sort of people who will find that will almost all be voting Labour in any case.
Labour 46% (+1)
Conservatives 29% (-1)
Liberal Democrats 9% (+1)
Green 5% (+1)
SNP 5% (nc)
Reform UK 4% (-1)
Fieldwork 8-12 December
https://youtu.be/nECryoxvS5c
Fancy a bet?
£20 says there won't be a Tory lead in any of the BPC polls, before midnight Dec 31st, 2022?
He’s left me in severe pain.
I even said thank you, at the end.
I never want another wisdom tooth removal, ever again.
Commiserations.
Good academic writing is the fresh air that keeps us alive.