I'm holding my Tesla shares for the long term and bought a few more yesterday. Despite huge recent drops I'm still up overall. I believe that the electric car transformation is still on the steeply increasing part of the 'S' curve. Tesla have recently opened new Gigafactories in Berlin and Texas to add to those in California and China, so it's not surprising that their production can now exceed sales. It also means that the waiting time for a Tesla has dropped significantly which is good for the company. Tesla make around $10,000 on each sale whereas other companies struggle to make any profit on EVs, this means that Tesla could afford to drop their prices in order to maintain demand. They may not have to for a while at least in the US as they will be eligible for a $7,500 Inflation Reduction Act subsidy. Twitter was a big mistake for Musk but Tesla is still a huge success and will continue to be.
The car business lives and dies on new models. Tesla's product lifecycles are too long and the new model pipeline is constipated. Model S is now ten years old with no replacement in sight. Taycan outsells it 2:1 and is getting a mid-lifecycle upgrade next year before being completely replaced in 2025. That's the speed Tesla needs.
I'm not sure that EVs need the cost of replacements every 5-7 years. The new S - when it launches here - is a fundamentally different car to the old one - the battery, motors, on-board tech, body panels and interior have completely changed. Its got the same silhouette and the same name, that's about it.
DA is speaking from a product perspective, not a consumer perspective. The Model S is still their best car and it hasn't had any real updates since it launched while the competition has iterated their own cars and caught up/exceeded the Model S. Tesla put too much time and energy into the Model 3 and it shows because the rest of the range screams dated.
‘The British Empire was much worse than you realise’
In the twentieth century’s hierarchy of state-sponsored violence, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, and Hirohito’s Japan typically take top spots…. Britain is rarely seen as among the worst offenders, given a reputation for decency that the Harvard historian Caroline Elkins has spent more than two decades trying to undermine. “Legacy of Violence” (Knopf), her astringent new history of the British Empire, brings detailed context to individual stories like Tudor’s…. Britain’s use of systematic violence was no better than that of its rivals. The British were simply more skilled at hiding it.
From Ireland had come paramilitary techniques and the use of armored cars; from Mesopotamia, expertise in aerial bombing and the strafing of villages; from South Africa, the use of Dobermans for tracking and attacking suspects; from India, interrogation methods and the systematic use of solitary confinement; and, from the Raj’s North-West Frontier, the use of human shields to clear land mines. As one soldier recalled about the deployment of Arab prisoners, “If there was any land mines it was them that hit them. Rather a dirty trick, but we enjoyed it.”
Well worth a read. There is quite an interesting set of works on the dark side of our Empire emerging. The past may well be a different country with differing norms and standards, but much of this end of empire is well within living memory.
Good to know that Ms Elkins has brought all the rigour of the impartial Historian to her work having spent '20 years trying to undermine' Britain's reputation for decency....
Who ever said Britain had a reputation for decency? Not counting the British.
The polling does. The UK is ranked first for overall attractiveness and second for trust in the G20:
I'm struggling to find it but there's also a poll in the last 18 months that shows that the country that trusts us most after their own is.... India.
"the data from European countries reveals an enduring negative impact from the UK’s exit from the EU"
It's absolutely hilarious that you ignore the headline messages and selectively pluck out the one thing that accords with the firmly established views you already hold.
I just thought you might like me to mention it as you seemed to have accidentally omitted it from your otherwise excellent summary.
‘The British Empire was much worse than you realise’
In the twentieth century’s hierarchy of state-sponsored violence, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, and Hirohito’s Japan typically take top spots…. Britain is rarely seen as among the worst offenders, given a reputation for decency that the Harvard historian Caroline Elkins has spent more than two decades trying to undermine. “Legacy of Violence” (Knopf), her astringent new history of the British Empire, brings detailed context to individual stories like Tudor’s…. Britain’s use of systematic violence was no better than that of its rivals. The British were simply more skilled at hiding it.
From Ireland had come paramilitary techniques and the use of armored cars; from Mesopotamia, expertise in aerial bombing and the strafing of villages; from South Africa, the use of Dobermans for tracking and attacking suspects; from India, interrogation methods and the systematic use of solitary confinement; and, from the Raj’s North-West Frontier, the use of human shields to clear land mines. As one soldier recalled about the deployment of Arab prisoners, “If there was any land mines it was them that hit them. Rather a dirty trick, but we enjoyed it.”
Well worth a read. There is quite an interesting set of works on the dark side of our Empire emerging. The past may well be a different country with differing norms and standards, but much of this end of empire is well within living memory.
Good to know that Ms Elkins has brought all the rigour of the impartial Historian to her work having spent '20 years trying to undermine' Britain's reputation for decency....
Who ever said Britain had a reputation for decency? Not counting the British.
The polling does. The UK is ranked first for overall attractiveness and second for trust in the G20:
I'm struggling to find it but there's also a poll in the last 18 months that shows that the country that trusts us most after their own is.... India.
Your link says 6th after Germany Japan Canada Italy and France.
The poll is from the British Council published in July 2021:
"The report focusses on data on trust and attractiveness. The headline finding is that the UK is the most attractive country in the G20 group of nations, but it is very much first amongst equals with other leading liberal, capitalist democracies like Canada, Germany and Japan also performing strongly."
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
I made this point yesterday and was labelled a crazy xenophobe for my pains
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
I made this point yesterday and was labelled a crazy xenophobe for my pains
‘The British Empire was much worse than you realise’
In the twentieth century’s hierarchy of state-sponsored violence, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, and Hirohito’s Japan typically take top spots…. Britain is rarely seen as among the worst offenders, given a reputation for decency that the Harvard historian Caroline Elkins has spent more than two decades trying to undermine. “Legacy of Violence” (Knopf), her astringent new history of the British Empire, brings detailed context to individual stories like Tudor’s…. Britain’s use of systematic violence was no better than that of its rivals. The British were simply more skilled at hiding it.
From Ireland had come paramilitary techniques and the use of armored cars; from Mesopotamia, expertise in aerial bombing and the strafing of villages; from South Africa, the use of Dobermans for tracking and attacking suspects; from India, interrogation methods and the systematic use of solitary confinement; and, from the Raj’s North-West Frontier, the use of human shields to clear land mines. As one soldier recalled about the deployment of Arab prisoners, “If there was any land mines it was them that hit them. Rather a dirty trick, but we enjoyed it.”
Well worth a read. There is quite an interesting set of works on the dark side of our Empire emerging. The past may well be a different country with differing norms and standards, but much of this end of empire is well within living memory.
Good to know that Ms Elkins has brought all the rigour of the impartial Historian to her work having spent '20 years trying to undermine' Britain's reputation for decency....
Her classic work "Britain's Gulag" is well worth a read, and won the Pulitzer prize. It is hard to see the Empire as a benign, decent affair after reading that.
Things were different at different times and places in the Empire, but this wasn't atypical.
Doesn't alter my point. Not sure many would claim everything about any country's past did not bear some crticism. I would questiion the motive of any Historian on a 20 year anti-British mission. The 'rantings of Mr Dickson on these matters are something quite different - unless of course one accepts that no Scot ever played any part in the UK governments since the Act of Union.
I'd say that historical texts from c.1990-2015 were pretty balanced on the Empire and its legacy, from Lawrence James, David Anderson, through to James Walvin, and even Kwasi Kwarteng, and corrected a more positive lilt in the decades previously.
What's changed in the last few years is that texts about the Empire are now almost exclusively negative -ironically, often marketed as "the truth" - but tell us much more about contemporary politics and campaigns related to things like 'structural racism' than they do objectively about history. .
I was chatting recently with someone who had a small group meeting with Keir Starmer. They said he was lovely, warm, witty and completely different from the image some would have us believe.
Just saying.
Just what the planet needs, a lovely, warm, witty Brexiteer. Different packaging, same damaged goods.
Sorry, Stuart, but when it comes to Starmer you seem to lose all balance.
Keir Starmer isn't a Brexiteer. If you're basing that remark on his comments about not reversing Brexit then you surely understand and know that he doesn't want to open that can of worms in the run up to the election? The last thing he needs is to make the 2023 or 2024 General Election a Brexit re-run.
I know you know this so you are being mischievous.
A vote for the Conservatives = a vote for Brexit
A vote for Labour = a vote for Brexit
A vote for the Liberal Democrats = a vote for Brexit
A vote for the Scottish National Party = a vote for EU membership
That’s not “mischievous”, that’s a plain statement of fact.
There’s an awful lot of “cans of worms” that Keir Starmer doesn’t want to open, like fair pay for nurses, democracy for Scots, and keeping 200 nuclear warheads just outside Glasgow.
The Tories are about to remove equal pay for women. What’s the likelihood that Starmer won’t oppose it? Very high.
The Tories have morphed into UKIP and Labour have morphed into the Tories. England has lurched tragically to the far right. It is an error of huge historical consequence, and this is just the start.
Or a vote for the SNP, Starmer Labour, the LDs or Greens is a vote for gender recognition legislation for sex changes without even doctors approval.
A vote for the Conservatives, Alba or RefUK is not
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
Indeed
“An explosion of Covid-19 cases in China could create a "potential breeding ground" for new variants to emerge, health experts warn
u.afp.com/igcr
📸 Covid-19 patients crowd a hospital in Tianjin on December 28”
‘The British Empire was much worse than you realise’
In the twentieth century’s hierarchy of state-sponsored violence, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, and Hirohito’s Japan typically take top spots…. Britain is rarely seen as among the worst offenders, given a reputation for decency that the Harvard historian Caroline Elkins has spent more than two decades trying to undermine. “Legacy of Violence” (Knopf), her astringent new history of the British Empire, brings detailed context to individual stories like Tudor’s…. Britain’s use of systematic violence was no better than that of its rivals. The British were simply more skilled at hiding it.
From Ireland had come paramilitary techniques and the use of armored cars; from Mesopotamia, expertise in aerial bombing and the strafing of villages; from South Africa, the use of Dobermans for tracking and attacking suspects; from India, interrogation methods and the systematic use of solitary confinement; and, from the Raj’s North-West Frontier, the use of human shields to clear land mines. As one soldier recalled about the deployment of Arab prisoners, “If there was any land mines it was them that hit them. Rather a dirty trick, but we enjoyed it.”
Well worth a read. There is quite an interesting set of works on the dark side of our Empire emerging. The past may well be a different country with differing norms and standards, but much of this end of empire is well within living memory.
Good to know that Ms Elkins has brought all the rigour of the impartial Historian to her work having spent '20 years trying to undermine' Britain's reputation for decency....
Who ever said Britain had a reputation for decency? Not counting the British.
The polling does. The UK is ranked first for overall attractiveness and second for trust in the G20:
I'm struggling to find it but there's also a poll in the last 18 months that shows that the country that trusts us most after their own is.... India.
"the data from European countries reveals an enduring negative impact from the UK’s exit from the EU"
It's absolutely hilarious that you ignore the headline messages and selectively pluck out the one thing that accords with the firmly established views you already hold.
I just thought you might like me to mention it as you seemed to have accidentally omitted it from your otherwise excellent summary.
I have no doubt that Brexit has raised eyebrows on the continent of Europe, and damaged perceptions of us there - perceptions which I spend quite a bit of time correcting in my extended family and wider friendship circle.
But, what that poll does show, is that Britain is viewed as both attractive and trusted by the world at large, and therefore decent, and is not irremediably damned in the eyes of others as some seem to think (hope?) it is.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
Mr. Boy, it'd be interesting to compare European polling regarding the UK from countries like Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic tigers (perhaps also Sweden/Finland) and countries such as Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, etc (ie those who fear Russian aggression and those unlikely to be worried about it affecting their country directly).
Those are two entirely separate issues. I'm sure those countries are happy about our excellent and resolute support for Ukraine, but that doesn't alter the fact that we've soiled our reputation with many Europeans (including many Scandis, I can tell you from personal interactions) as a result of Brexit.
Norway and Iceland of course are not and never have been in the EU anyway
My own personal experience is that our reputation (in the 'scandis') recovered last year. Obviously it depends who you are talking to, but my general experience is that Brexit has been overshadowed by Ukraine. Maybe some people on the 'progressive left' still have Brexit trauma, but actually a lot of people are not that happy with the EU, there is quite a bit of frustration on this front.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
Indeed
“An explosion of Covid-19 cases in China could create a "potential breeding ground" for new variants to emerge, health experts warn
u.afp.com/igcr
📸 Covid-19 patients crowd a hospital in Tianjin on December 28”
I was chatting recently with someone who had a small group meeting with Keir Starmer. They said he was lovely, warm, witty and completely different from the image some would have us believe.
Just saying.
Just what the planet needs, a lovely, warm, witty Brexiteer. Different packaging, same damaged goods.
Sorry, Stuart, but when it comes to Starmer you seem to lose all balance.
Keir Starmer isn't a Brexiteer. If you're basing that remark on his comments about not reversing Brexit then you surely understand and know that he doesn't want to open that can of worms in the run up to the election? The last thing he needs is to make the 2023 or 2024 General Election a Brexit re-run.
I know you know this so you are being mischievous.
A vote for Labour = a vote for Brexit
A vote for the Liberal Democrats = a vote for Brexit
Neither of those sentences is true.
It's obvious that under Labour / LibDems Britain's relationship with Europe will be revisited. It simply cannot be a priority right now and it cannot be something made overt in the run up to the election, when there are other pressing matters.
Starmer has to be savvy and electable. If he goes full tonto socialist he will never get the keys to No 10.
There will be plenty of time later to lead the British public on a constructive journey.
I think you know this full well, so I repeat that you are being mischievous.
Starmer should troll the Tories and suggest that the UK's future relationship with the EU should be May's deal. Presumably Sunak voted for it.
I'm holding my Tesla shares for the long term and bought a few more yesterday. Despite huge recent drops I'm still up overall. I believe that the electric car transformation is still on the steeply increasing part of the 'S' curve. Tesla have recently opened new Gigafactories in Berlin and Texas to add to those in California and China, so it's not surprising that their production can now exceed sales. It also means that the waiting time for a Tesla has dropped significantly which is good for the company. Tesla make around $10,000 on each sale whereas other companies struggle to make any profit on EVs, this means that Tesla could afford to drop their prices in order to maintain demand. They may not have to for a while at least in the US as they will be eligible for a $7,500 Inflation Reduction Act subsidy. Twitter was a big mistake for Musk but Tesla is still a huge success and will continue to be.
The car business lives and dies on new models. Tesla's product lifecycles are too long and the new model pipeline is constipated. Model S is now ten years old with no replacement in sight. Taycan outsells it 2:1 and is getting a mid-lifecycle upgrade next year before being completely replaced in 2025. That's the speed Tesla needs.
I'm not sure that EVs need the cost of replacements every 5-7 years. The new S - when it launches here - is a fundamentally different car to the old one - the battery, motors, on-board tech, body panels and interior have completely changed. Its got the same silhouette and the same name, that's about it.
Surely, Dura has a point? Why would EVs succeed with fewer refreshes than conventional cars?
His point is that he doesn't know what he is talking about on this particular subject. Bar the chassis the entire vehicle has been changed, most changes at fundamental level - completely new batteries / motors / automation. The new Model S which is finally coming to Europe next year has the same profile as the original car and thats it. He mentioned Porsche - famous for issuing new 911s that look the same as the old 911. So whats the point being made - that people don't buy the new car if it looks like the old car? Giving Porsche - who have done that doe decades - as the example?
What 'new' Model S? The 2021 Palladium refresh changed the fog lights, added black door handles and that's it. A lot of the tech underneath has changed but it still looks the same. When it launched in 2012 it was the most exciting EV you could buy and that novelty was a huge part of its appeal. There is no novelty now, everybody is familiar with it and there is no sizzle. That staleness is reflected in the relentless decline of Model S sales relative to the competition. And that's before the all electric BMW M5 and Porsche Panemera arrive to rough it up even more.
Porsche give us a completely new 911 every 7-9 years and that must cost them billions. They aren't doing it for a laugh, they do it because the 'new' 911 always sells like coke at the tory party conference and new 911 buyers are very well aware of the differences between generations.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
Death is inevitable. Doesn’t stop people trying to “hold back the tide of death” - and quite understandably
If a nasty new variant emerges as ~1bn people simultaneously get Covid for the first time then it would be quite good to have three months breathing space to prepare, before it attacks US
I'm holding my Tesla shares for the long term and bought a few more yesterday. Despite huge recent drops I'm still up overall. I believe that the electric car transformation is still on the steeply increasing part of the 'S' curve. Tesla have recently opened new Gigafactories in Berlin and Texas to add to those in California and China, so it's not surprising that their production can now exceed sales. It also means that the waiting time for a Tesla has dropped significantly which is good for the company. Tesla make around $10,000 on each sale whereas other companies struggle to make any profit on EVs, this means that Tesla could afford to drop their prices in order to maintain demand. They may not have to for a while at least in the US as they will be eligible for a $7,500 Inflation Reduction Act subsidy. Twitter was a big mistake for Musk but Tesla is still a huge success and will continue to be.
The car business lives and dies on new models. Tesla's product lifecycles are too long and the new model pipeline is constipated. Model S is now ten years old with no replacement in sight. Taycan outsells it 2:1 and is getting a mid-lifecycle upgrade next year before being completely replaced in 2025. That's the speed Tesla needs.
I'm not sure that EVs need the cost of replacements every 5-7 years. The new S - when it launches here - is a fundamentally different car to the old one - the battery, motors, on-board tech, body panels and interior have completely changed. Its got the same silhouette and the same name, that's about it.
Surely, Dura has a point? Why would EVs succeed with fewer refreshes than conventional cars?
His point is that he doesn't know what he is talking about on this particular subject. Bar the chassis the entire vehicle has been changed, most changes at fundamental level - completely new batteries / motors / automation. The new Model S which is finally coming to Europe next year has the same profile as the original car and thats it. He mentioned Porsche - famous for issuing new 911s that look the same as the old 911. So whats the point being made - that people don't buy the new car if it looks like the old car? Giving Porsche - who have done that doe decades - as the example?
What 'new' Model S? The 2021 Palladium refresh changed the fog lights, added black door handles and that's it. A lot of the tech underneath has changed but it still looks the same. When it launched in 2012 it was the most exciting EV you could buy and that novelty was a huge part of its appeal. There is no novelty now, everybody is familiar with it and there is no sizzle. That staleness is reflected in the relentless decline of Model S relative to the competition. And that's before the all electric BMW M5 and Porsche Panemera arrive to rough it up even more.
Porsche give us a completely new 911 every 7-9 years and that must cost them billions. They aren't doing it for a laugh, they do it because the 'new' 911 always sells like coke at the tory party conference and new 911 buyers are very well aware of the differences between generations.
The other issue with not doing a timely refresh is that it puts buyers off who expect one, no one wants to get the current model a year before they think a new version is due. The Model S has been in that cycle for at least 5 years now, people staying away because they think Elon will announce a new one for next year.
I made a post last night that I worded badly (nothing new there) re an update on my father (96) who was literally at death's door on Christmas day. He is now pretty well and desperate to get out of hospital. He was by Boxing Day. I was told he would be going home then and everyday since I have been told that, only for the hospital to change its mind by the evening. He is in isolation because he has covid, but doesn't understand that so is angry about it and just wants to get home. They are going to move him to a rehabilitation ward.
We do seemed to have moved on regarding covid. Although he is isolated from other patients I am allowed to visit him and he will be discharged with it. 4 days on from very close contact with him when he was lying on the floor I have no signs of covid at all. Having visited him in the isolation ward I have obviously given myself additional opportunities to get it.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
I was chatting recently with someone who had a small group meeting with Keir Starmer. They said he was lovely, warm, witty and completely different from the image some would have us believe.
Just saying.
Just what the planet needs, a lovely, warm, witty Brexiteer. Different packaging, same damaged goods.
Sorry, Stuart, but when it comes to Starmer you seem to lose all balance.
Keir Starmer isn't a Brexiteer. If you're basing that remark on his comments about not reversing Brexit then you surely understand and know that he doesn't want to open that can of worms in the run up to the election? The last thing he needs is to make the 2023 or 2024 General Election a Brexit re-run.
I know you know this so you are being mischievous.
A vote for the Conservatives = a vote for Brexit
A vote for Labour = a vote for Brexit
A vote for the Liberal Democrats = a vote for Brexit
A vote for the Scottish National Party = a vote for EU membership
That’s not “mischievous”, that’s a plain statement of fact.
There’s an awful lot of “cans of worms” that Keir Starmer doesn’t want to open, like fair pay for nurses, democracy for Scots, and keeping 200 nuclear warheads just outside Glasgow.
The Tories are about to remove equal pay for women. What’s the likelihood that Starmer won’t oppose it? Very high.
The Tories have morphed into UKIP and Labour have morphed into the Tories. England has lurched tragically to the far right. It is an error of huge historical consequence, and this is just the start.
Or a vote for the SNP, Starmer Labour, the LDs or Greens is a vote for gender recognition legislation for sex changes without even doctors approval.
A vote for the Conservatives, Alba or RefUK is not
Yet many Tories also support it. Michael Fabricant was on Twitter extolling the virtues of the legislation yesterday.
Michael Fabricant supporting something is not necessarily a sign it is a good policy. Rather the reverse, in fact.
Maybe, but the gender recognition law changes in Scotland are not clearly opposed by the Tories and who knows what Tory policy will be in 2024/5 when we have the election ? A significant chunk of the PCP supports it.
90% of Scottish Conservative MSPs voted against the gender recognition Bill and Alistair Jack is seeking to reverse it from Westminster too
Do you really think that is wise given the relationship between the SNP govt and Westminster. It just plays into their arguments.
I was also,talking about the PCP support not SCON. I’m not saying it is overwhelming but certainly a sizeable chunk.
68% of Scots think the gender recognition bill poses a threat to womens' safety
I was chatting recently with someone who had a small group meeting with Keir Starmer. They said he was lovely, warm, witty and completely different from the image some would have us believe.
Just saying.
Just what the planet needs, a lovely, warm, witty Brexiteer. Different packaging, same damaged goods.
Sorry, Stuart, but when it comes to Starmer you seem to lose all balance.
Keir Starmer isn't a Brexiteer. If you're basing that remark on his comments about not reversing Brexit then you surely understand and know that he doesn't want to open that can of worms in the run up to the election? The last thing he needs is to make the 2023 or 2024 General Election a Brexit re-run.
I know you know this so you are being mischievous.
A vote for Labour = a vote for Brexit
A vote for the Liberal Democrats = a vote for Brexit
Neither of those sentences is true.
It's obvious that under Labour / LibDems Britain's relationship with Europe will be revisited. It simply cannot be a priority right now and it cannot be something made overt in the run up to the election, when there are other pressing matters.
Starmer has to be savvy and electable. If he goes full tonto socialist he will never get the keys to No 10.
There will be plenty of time later to lead the British public on a constructive journey.
I think you know this full well, so I repeat that you are being mischievous.
Starmer should troll the Tories and suggest that the UK's future relationship with the EU should be May's deal. Presumably Sunak voted for it.
The one that Sir Keir led Labour in opposing, and which would have passed if they'd supported it? That deal?
Sure, if they want to take responsibility for everything that has happened economically for the last few years!
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
I was chatting recently with someone who had a small group meeting with Keir Starmer. They said he was lovely, warm, witty and completely different from the image some would have us believe.
Just saying.
Just what the planet needs, a lovely, warm, witty Brexiteer. Different packaging, same damaged goods.
Sorry, Stuart, but when it comes to Starmer you seem to lose all balance.
Keir Starmer isn't a Brexiteer. If you're basing that remark on his comments about not reversing Brexit then you surely understand and know that he doesn't want to open that can of worms in the run up to the election? The last thing he needs is to make the 2023 or 2024 General Election a Brexit re-run.
I know you know this so you are being mischievous.
A vote for the Conservatives = a vote for Brexit
A vote for Labour = a vote for Brexit
A vote for the Liberal Democrats = a vote for Brexit
A vote for the Scottish National Party = a vote for EU membership
That’s not “mischievous”, that’s a plain statement of fact.
There’s an awful lot of “cans of worms” that Keir Starmer doesn’t want to open, like fair pay for nurses, democracy for Scots, and keeping 200 nuclear warheads just outside Glasgow.
The Tories are about to remove equal pay for women. What’s the likelihood that Starmer won’t oppose it? Very high.
The Tories have morphed into UKIP and Labour have morphed into the Tories. England has lurched tragically to the far right. It is an error of huge historical consequence, and this is just the start.
Or a vote for the SNP, Starmer Labour, the LDs or Greens is a vote for gender recognition legislation for sex changes without even doctors approval.
A vote for the Conservatives, Alba or RefUK is not
Yet many Tories also support it. Michael Fabricant was on Twitter extolling the virtues of the legislation yesterday.
Michael Fabricant supporting something is not necessarily a sign it is a good policy. Rather the reverse, in fact.
Maybe, but the gender recognition law changes in Scotland are not clearly opposed by the Tories and who knows what Tory policy will be in 2024/5 when we have the election ? A significant chunk of the PCP supports it.
90% of Scottish Conservative MSPs voted against the gender recognition Bill and Alistair Jack is seeking to reverse it from Westminster too
Do you really think that is wise given the relationship between the SNP govt and Westminster. It just plays into their arguments.
I was also,talking about the PCP support not SCON. I’m not saying it is overwhelming but certainly a sizeable chunk.
68% of Scots think the gender recognition bill poses a threat to womens' safety
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
@HYUFD re the earlier discussion you were having with @ydoethur. People do horrible things in war. Some things, by the nature of war are necessary. Some might have been wrong, but we only know with hindsight so were justified at the time and are argued about by historians. However some things are clearly war crimes and are never justifiable.
But key, and I make this point because you seemed to justify something because the other side did something worse, an atrocity can never be justified solely because the other side did something worse. It might be mitigated by the 'heat of the moment' (how would any of us know how we would react in similar situations) but it can never be justified if premeditated no matter what the other side did.
I think it is fair to say that carpet bombing late in the war and the atomic bombs were considered justifiable at the time and are fiercely argued about since by historians, but gas chambers never. The consequences of atrocities should be trials and punishment as a deterrent, but not to kill and mutilate innocent civilians on the other side.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Sadly, yes. The world should have blocked Chinese flights from last week and let COVID stay there for another two months. As long as they can go somewhere whatever variants they have will be seeded all over the world.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Yes, I think they are. The only meaningful reason to restrict entry would be if there were a known variant against which the population were unprotected, but for which we had a vaccine that was ready to roll out in a few weeks.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
The million plus U.K. residents currently with covid. Chinese imports will be a drop in the ocean.
Ironically in light of last night's (actually very erudite and civilised) discussion, one place we will undoubtedly see it ripping through is private schools as Chinese students carry it into the boarding houses...
I made a post last night that I worded badly (nothing new there) re an update on my father (96) who was literally at death's door on Christmas day. He is now pretty well and desperate to get out of hospital. He was by Boxing Day. I was told he would be going home then and everyday since I have been told that, only for the hospital to change its mind by the evening. He is in isolation because he has covid, but doesn't understand that so is angry about it and just wants to get home. They are going to move him to a rehabilitation ward.
We do seemed to have moved on regarding covid. Although he is isolated from other patients I am allowed to visit him and he will be discharged with it. 4 days on from very close contact with him when he was lying on the floor I have no signs of covid at all. Having visited him in the isolation ward I have obviously given myself additional opportunities to get it.
Good to hear he has rallied and hopefully he gets home soon.
‘The British Empire was much worse than you realise’
In the twentieth century’s hierarchy of state-sponsored violence, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, and Hirohito’s Japan typically take top spots…. Britain is rarely seen as among the worst offenders, given a reputation for decency that the Harvard historian Caroline Elkins has spent more than two decades trying to undermine. “Legacy of Violence” (Knopf), her astringent new history of the British Empire, brings detailed context to individual stories like Tudor’s…. Britain’s use of systematic violence was no better than that of its rivals. The British were simply more skilled at hiding it.
From Ireland had come paramilitary techniques and the use of armored cars; from Mesopotamia, expertise in aerial bombing and the strafing of villages; from South Africa, the use of Dobermans for tracking and attacking suspects; from India, interrogation methods and the systematic use of solitary confinement; and, from the Raj’s North-West Frontier, the use of human shields to clear land mines. As one soldier recalled about the deployment of Arab prisoners, “If there was any land mines it was them that hit them. Rather a dirty trick, but we enjoyed it.”
Well worth a read. There is quite an interesting set of works on the dark side of our Empire emerging. The past may well be a different country with differing norms and standards, but much of this end of empire is well within living memory.
Good to know that Ms Elkins has brought all the rigour of the impartial Historian to her work having spent '20 years trying to undermine' Britain's reputation for decency....
Who ever said Britain had a reputation for decency? Not counting the British.
The polling does. The UK is ranked first for overall attractiveness and second for trust in the G20:
I'm struggling to find it but there's also a poll in the last 18 months that shows that the country that trusts us most after their own is.... India.
Your link says 6th after Germany Japan Canada Italy and France.
The poll is from the British Council published in July 2021:
"The report focusses on data on trust and attractiveness. The headline finding is that the UK is the most attractive country in the G20 group of nations, but it is very much first amongst equals with other leading liberal, capitalist democracies like Canada, Germany and Japan also performing strongly."
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Come on Leon you’re smarter than this. Yes they’re completely pointless. The democratic West can’t and shouldn’t try to hermetically seal itself off. Even if there were a new virus X that justified this, stopping direct flights from China would not in the round make a jot of difference unless you also stop flights from everywhere the Chinese fly to.
I bet the UK ends up putting restrictions on Chinese visitors - but 2 weeks after everyone else. As normal
“Italy asks the European Commissioner for Transport, Adina Vălean that checks and possible limitations be applied throughout Europe on those arriving from China due to high levels of COVID positive cases on flights screened.”
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Sadly, yes. The world should have blocked Chinese flights from last week and let COVID stay there for another two months. As long as they can go somewhere whatever variants they have will be seeded all over the world.
Why are people worried about perhaps a billion cases of covid in China in the next six months causing a Disease X variant, when globally there’s going to be multiples of that case load happening anyway? Sounds like a lot of tired thinking going on from policy makers.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Yes, I think they are. The only meaningful reason to restrict entry would be if there were a known variant against which the population were unprotected, but for which we had a vaccine that was ready to roll out in a few weeks.
No, the meaningful reason would be: just WTF is China doing? How can we be sure they aren’t deliberately seeding a new variant around the world?
The painful answer from history is: we can’t. So make all Chinese visitors do a test and maybe stop Chinese flights. Sequence those tests
Will this stop the bug coming from China? No. Will it slow the spread of a new variant? Yes
Remember: China probably made this virus in the first place
The whole closing borders thing does seem rather 2020. I’m surprised there’s so much enthusiasm for it, but perhaps there’s a tiny bit of schadenfreude involved after China banned incoming flights for so long from the rest of the world.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Come on Leon you’re smarter than this. Yes they’re completely pointless. The democratic West can’t and shouldn’t try to hermetically seal itself off. Even if there were a new virus X that justified this, stopping direct flights from China would not in the round make a jot of difference unless you also stop flights from everywhere the Chinese fly to.
Which is, of course, to a reasonable approximation: everywhere.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Yes, I think they are. The only meaningful reason to restrict entry would be if there were a known variant against which the population were unprotected, but for which we had a vaccine that was ready to roll out in a few weeks.
No, the meaningful reason would be: just WTF is China doing? How can we be sure they aren’t deliberately seeding a new variant around the world?
The painful answer from history is: we can’t. So make all Chinese visitors do a test and maybe stop Chinese flights. Sequence those tests
Will this stop the bug coming from China? No. Will it slow the spread of a new variant? Yes
Remember: China probably made this virus in the first place
Just nuke them and be done with it if that’s the attitude
Even on the worst polls for Brexit at least 36%+ support it still which would still be 10% more than the Tories often are polling now. When the question is about rejoin that is even higher.
The problem is some Leavers have gone to RefUK and some back to Labour. Though Sunak is doing a bit better in the bluewall with Remainers than Boris was
Sunak’s performance in the bluewall is catastrophic. Tory VI in “Rest of South” and the Midlands are way down on The Oaf’s numbers.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Yes, I think they are. The only meaningful reason to restrict entry would be if there were a known variant against which the population were unprotected, but for which we had a vaccine that was ready to roll out in a few weeks.
No, the meaningful reason would be: just WTF is China doing? How can we be sure they aren’t deliberately seeding a new variant around the world?
The painful answer from history is: we can’t. So make all Chinese visitors do a test and maybe stop Chinese flights. Sequence those tests
Will this stop the bug coming from China? No. Will it slow the spread of a new variant? Yes
Remember: China probably made this virus in the first place
You need to snap out the mindset that governments should ever again be placing physical restrictions due to fears of covid variants. The whole world wet their knickers at a great unknown in 2020 and copied the policies of the world’s most evil totalitarian state. Huge mistake to be doing so again.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Come on Leon you’re smarter than this. Yes they’re completely pointless. The democratic West can’t and shouldn’t try to hermetically seal itself off. Even if there were a new virus X that justified this, stopping direct flights from China would not in the round make a jot of difference unless you also stop flights from everywhere the Chinese fly to.
Which is, of course, to a reasonable approximation: everywhere.
Indeed. And as we saw, the uk economy is too open to international trade and movements of people to do that effectively. Don’t try. Trust the human immune system, it’s got us pretty far as a species so far.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Yes. These new variants will end up here anyway and apparently spread very quickly. What are we hoping to achieve? If isolation worked China would not be in this mess.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Yes, I think they are. The only meaningful reason to restrict entry would be if there were a known variant against which the population were unprotected, but for which we had a vaccine that was ready to roll out in a few weeks.
No, the meaningful reason would be: just WTF is China doing? How can we be sure they aren’t deliberately seeding a new variant around the world?
The painful answer from history is: we can’t. So make all Chinese visitors do a test and maybe stop Chinese flights. Sequence those tests
Will this stop the bug coming from China? No. Will it slow the spread of a new variant? Yes
Remember: China probably made this virus in the first place
Hmm. Sequencing those positive cases that do come out of China might be a reasonable thing to do.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Sadly, yes. The world should have blocked Chinese flights from last week and let COVID stay there for another two months. As long as they can go somewhere whatever variants they have will be seeded all over the world.
Why are people worried about perhaps a billion cases of covid in China in the next six months causing a Disease X variant, when globally there’s going to be multiples of that case load happening anyway? Sounds like a lot of tired thinking going on from policy makers.
I just don't want Chinese tourists back in London. If we can delay that by a few months then I'm all for travel bans.
I was chatting recently with someone who had a small group meeting with Keir Starmer. They said he was lovely, warm, witty and completely different from the image some would have us believe.
Just saying.
Just what the planet needs, a lovely, warm, witty Brexiteer. Different packaging, same damaged goods.
Sorry, Stuart, but when it comes to Starmer you seem to lose all balance.
Keir Starmer isn't a Brexiteer. If you're basing that remark on his comments about not reversing Brexit then you surely understand and know that he doesn't want to open that can of worms in the run up to the election? The last thing he needs is to make the 2023 or 2024 General Election a Brexit re-run.
I know you know this so you are being mischievous.
A vote for the Conservatives = a vote for Brexit
A vote for Labour = a vote for Brexit
A vote for the Liberal Democrats = a vote for Brexit
A vote for the Scottish National Party = a vote for EU membership
That’s not “mischievous”, that’s a plain statement of fact.
There’s an awful lot of “cans of worms” that Keir Starmer doesn’t want to open, like fair pay for nurses, democracy for Scots, and keeping 200 nuclear warheads just outside Glasgow.
The Tories are about to remove equal pay for women. What’s the likelihood that Starmer won’t oppose it? Very high.
The Tories have morphed into UKIP and Labour have morphed into the Tories. England has lurched tragically to the far right. It is an error of huge historical consequence, and this is just the start.
Or a vote for the SNP, Starmer Labour, the LDs or Greens is a vote for gender recognition legislation for sex changes without even doctors approval.
A vote for the Conservatives, Alba or RefUK is not
So we've never needed Alba and RefUK more?
Mini Franco conveniently ignoring that 3 Tory MSPs also supported the legislation.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Sadly, yes. The world should have blocked Chinese flights from last week and let COVID stay there for another two months. As long as they can go somewhere whatever variants they have will be seeded all over the world.
Why are people worried about perhaps a billion cases of covid in China in the next six months causing a Disease X variant, when globally there’s going to be multiples of that case load happening anyway? Sounds like a lot of tired thinking going on from policy makers.
I just don't want Chinese tourists back in London. If we can delay that by a few months then I'm all for travel bans.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Fallacy of big numbers going on. 1m is 0.07% of chinapersons.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Yes, I think they are. The only meaningful reason to restrict entry would be if there were a known variant against which the population were unprotected, but for which we had a vaccine that was ready to roll out in a few weeks.
No, the meaningful reason would be: just WTF is China doing? How can we be sure they aren’t deliberately seeding a new variant around the world?
The painful answer from history is: we can’t. So make all Chinese visitors do a test and maybe stop Chinese flights. Sequence those tests
Will this stop the bug coming from China? No. Will it slow the spread of a new variant? Yes
Remember: China probably made this virus in the first place
Hmm. Sequencing those positive cases that do come out of China might be a reasonable thing to do.
It would because more info is always good. But the initial promise of mrna vaccines being reprogrammed and churned out on mass in a 6 week timeframe look some way from realisation, so practically I’m not sure it would achieve that much.
“Sean Lin, a virologist and former lab director at the viral disease branch of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, said that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) opening up of the country is actually a strategy to get everyone infected not only within China, but around the world.
“When they can’t control the outbreak, they push it to the whole world. Just like when COVID first broke out in Wuhan, people who had been infected in Wuhan were allowed to travel around the world. The strategy is the same now as before,” he said.”
I was chatting recently with someone who had a small group meeting with Keir Starmer. They said he was lovely, warm, witty and completely different from the image some would have us believe.
Just saying.
Just what the planet needs, a lovely, warm, witty Brexiteer. Different packaging, same damaged goods.
Sorry, Stuart, but when it comes to Starmer you seem to lose all balance.
Keir Starmer isn't a Brexiteer. If you're basing that remark on his comments about not reversing Brexit then you surely understand and know that he doesn't want to open that can of worms in the run up to the election? The last thing he needs is to make the 2023 or 2024 General Election a Brexit re-run.
I know you know this so you are being mischievous.
A vote for Labour = a vote for Brexit
A vote for the Liberal Democrats = a vote for Brexit
Neither of those sentences is true.
It's obvious that under Labour / LibDems Britain's relationship with Europe will be revisited. It simply cannot be a priority right now and it cannot be something made overt in the run up to the election, when there are other pressing matters.
Starmer has to be savvy and electable. If he goes full tonto socialist he will never get the keys to No 10.
There will be plenty of time later to lead the British public on a constructive journey.
I think you know this full well, so I repeat that you are being mischievous.
Starmer should troll the Tories and suggest that the UK's future relationship with the EU should be May's deal. Presumably Sunak voted for it.
The one that Sir Keir led Labour in opposing, and which would have passed if they'd supported it? That deal?
Sure, if they want to take responsibility for everything that has happened economically for the last few years!
Quite.
It was an uncharacteristically cynical post from Alan.
“Sean Lin, a virologist and former lab director at the viral disease branch of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, said that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) opening up of the country is actually a strategy to get everyone infected not only within China, but around the world.
“When they can’t control the outbreak, they push it to the whole world. Just like when COVID first broke out in Wuhan, people who had been infected in Wuhan were allowed to travel around the world. The strategy is the same now as before,” he said.”
So what? If have we learned anything from the last 3 years it is surely that by the time that Western governments have realised there's something going on it's already too late to do anything.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Yes, I think they are. The only meaningful reason to restrict entry would be if there were a known variant against which the population were unprotected, but for which we had a vaccine that was ready to roll out in a few weeks.
No, the meaningful reason would be: just WTF is China doing? How can we be sure they aren’t deliberately seeding a new variant around the world?
The painful answer from history is: we can’t. So make all Chinese visitors do a test and maybe stop Chinese flights. Sequence those tests
Will this stop the bug coming from China? No. Will it slow the spread of a new variant? Yes
Remember: China probably made this virus in the first place
Hmm. Sequencing those positive cases that do come out of China might be a reasonable thing to do.
It would because more info is always good. But the initial promise of mrna vaccines being reprogrammed and churned out on mass in a 6 week timeframe look some way from realisation, so practically I’m not sure it would achieve that much.
So, wait, now you DO want Chinese people tested? Please hurry up and decide what is “pointless and performative” and what isn’t
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
UK immunity levels.
But yeah, abundance of caution etc. I can't see the downside of insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China.
(On reflection, maybe we don't have the capacity to implement such a requirement, given the UK Border Force is somewhat f*cked by all accounts.)
Passport control was the most efficient bit of Heathrow this morning (posting from the Elizabeth line).
But the people doing the checks had very nice uniforms on
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Come on Leon you’re smarter than this. Yes they’re completely pointless. The democratic West can’t and shouldn’t try to hermetically seal itself off. Even if there were a new virus X that justified this, stopping direct flights from China would not in the round make a jot of difference unless you also stop flights from everywhere the Chinese fly to.
When such restrictions were tried before, it just resulted in certain complex itineraries reaching ridiculous prices.
“Sean Lin, a virologist and former lab director at the viral disease branch of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, said that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) opening up of the country is actually a strategy to get everyone infected not only within China, but around the world.
“When they can’t control the outbreak, they push it to the whole world. Just like when COVID first broke out in Wuhan, people who had been infected in Wuhan were allowed to travel around the world. The strategy is the same now as before,” he said.”
So what? If have we learned anything from the last 3 years it is surely that by the time that Western governments have realised there's something going on it's already too late to do anything.
The learned helplessness of this comment is as striking as it is pathetic
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Yes, I think they are. The only meaningful reason to restrict entry would be if there were a known variant against which the population were unprotected, but for which we had a vaccine that was ready to roll out in a few weeks.
No, the meaningful reason would be: just WTF is China doing? How can we be sure they aren’t deliberately seeding a new variant around the world?
The painful answer from history is: we can’t. So make all Chinese visitors do a test and maybe stop Chinese flights. Sequence those tests
Will this stop the bug coming from China? No. Will it slow the spread of a new variant? Yes
Remember: China probably made this virus in the first place
Hmm. Sequencing those positive cases that do come out of China might be a reasonable thing to do.
It would because more info is always good. But the initial promise of mrna vaccines being reprogrammed and churned out on mass in a 6 week timeframe look some way from realisation, so practically I’m not sure it would achieve that much.
So, wait, now you DO want Chinese people tested? Please hurry up and decide what is “pointless and performative” and what isn’t
Conceptually “it might be a reasonable thing to do”. Practically it wouldn’t achieve much.
PB has gone from “any restrictions on Chinese people are meaningless theatre and probably racist” to “yes we should test all of them” in about ten minutes. With a side order of “but it’s too late because they are much cleverer than us in the West”
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Yes, I think they are. The only meaningful reason to restrict entry would be if there were a known variant against which the population were unprotected, but for which we had a vaccine that was ready to roll out in a few weeks.
No, the meaningful reason would be: just WTF is China doing? How can we be sure they aren’t deliberately seeding a new variant around the world?
The painful answer from history is: we can’t. So make all Chinese visitors do a test and maybe stop Chinese flights. Sequence those tests
Will this stop the bug coming from China? No. Will it slow the spread of a new variant? Yes
Remember: China probably made this virus in the first place
Hmm. Sequencing those positive cases that do come out of China might be a reasonable thing to do.
It would because more info is always good. But the initial promise of mrna vaccines being reprogrammed and churned out on mass in a 6 week timeframe look some way from realisation, so practically I’m not sure it would achieve that much.
So, wait, now you DO want Chinese people tested? Please hurry up and decide what is “pointless and performative” and what isn’t
Conceptually “it might be a reasonable thing to do”. Practically it wouldn’t achieve much.
PB has gone from “any restrictions on Chinese people are meaningless theatre and probably racist” to “yes we should test all of them” in about ten minutes. With a side order of “but it’s too late because they are much cleverer than us in the West”
“Sean Lin, a virologist and former lab director at the viral disease branch of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, said that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) opening up of the country is actually a strategy to get everyone infected not only within China, but around the world.
“When they can’t control the outbreak, they push it to the whole world. Just like when COVID first broke out in Wuhan, people who had been infected in Wuhan were allowed to travel around the world. The strategy is the same now as before,” he said.”
So what? If have we learned anything from the last 3 years it is surely that by the time that Western governments have realised there's something going on it's already too late to do anything.
The learned helplessness of this comment is as striking as it is pathetic
If you haven't learned that we are effectively helpless against a virus, you haven't been paying attention for the last three years.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
UK immunity levels.
But yeah, abundance of caution etc. I can't see the downside of insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China.
(On reflection, maybe we don't have the capacity to implement such a requirement, given the UK Border Force is somewhat f*cked by all accounts.)
Passport control was the most efficient bit of Heathrow this morning (posting from the Elizabeth line).
But the people doing the checks had very nice uniforms on
The border force strike has to be the worst strike (for the strikers) in decades.
Granted the rules border force enforce may have been softened to make things easier for the soldiers replacing them but the stories I’m hearing from everyone travelling is that things are easier and quicker than they usually are.
Which merely shows that border force needs to be seriously restructured
“Sean Lin, a virologist and former lab director at the viral disease branch of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, said that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) opening up of the country is actually a strategy to get everyone infected not only within China, but around the world.
“When they can’t control the outbreak, they push it to the whole world. Just like when COVID first broke out in Wuhan, people who had been infected in Wuhan were allowed to travel around the world. The strategy is the same now as before,” he said.”
So what? If have we learned anything from the last 3 years it is surely that by the time that Western governments have realised there's something going on it's already too late to do anything.
The learned helplessness of this comment is as striking as it is pathetic
If you haven't learned that we are effectively helpless against a virus, you haven't been paying attention for the last three years.
Yeah, those vaccines eh? Waste of time. We are “effectively helpless”
PB has gone from “any restrictions on Chinese people are meaningless theatre and probably racist” to “yes we should test all of them” in about ten minutes. With a side order of “but it’s too late because they are much cleverer than us in the West”
Impressive
We should be continuing to sequence a sample of covid infections but really given our capacity, we should be sequencing a sample of viral infections of every type. That doesn’t mean it’s going to achieve much in the short term stopping Chinese from entering the country or locking you in quarantine in your flat again. What continued sequencing does achieve is improve our understanding of viral evolution and improve future vaccines and therapeutics. Stop stressing about covid and go for a walk. The reasons the outbreak in China is bad for the rest of the world are economic.
I'm holding my Tesla shares for the long term and bought a few more yesterday. Despite huge recent drops I'm still up overall. I believe that the electric car transformation is still on the steeply increasing part of the 'S' curve. Tesla have recently opened new Gigafactories in Berlin and Texas to add to those in California and China, so it's not surprising that their production can now exceed sales. It also means that the waiting time for a Tesla has dropped significantly which is good for the company. Tesla make around $10,000 on each sale whereas other companies struggle to make any profit on EVs, this means that Tesla could afford to drop their prices in order to maintain demand. They may not have to for a while at least in the US as they will be eligible for a $7,500 Inflation Reduction Act subsidy. Twitter was a big mistake for Musk but Tesla is still a huge success and will continue to be.
Probably. One caveat is that China is a big risk for them for the next few years, given how much of their production is based there.
PB has gone from “any restrictions on Chinese people are meaningless theatre and probably racist” to “yes we should test all of them” in about ten minutes. With a side order of “but it’s too late because they are much cleverer than us in the West”
PB has gone from “any restrictions on Chinese people are meaningless theatre and probably racist” to “yes we should test all of them” in about ten minutes. With a side order of “but it’s too late because they are much cleverer than us in the West”
Impressive
*Checks watch*
Early start?
Old Jonesy is impressive, how can he panic about so many things.
‘The British Empire was much worse than you realise’
In the twentieth century’s hierarchy of state-sponsored violence, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, and Hirohito’s Japan typically take top spots…. Britain is rarely seen as among the worst offenders, given a reputation for decency that the Harvard historian Caroline Elkins has spent more than two decades trying to undermine. “Legacy of Violence” (Knopf), her astringent new history of the British Empire, brings detailed context to individual stories like Tudor’s…. Britain’s use of systematic violence was no better than that of its rivals. The British were simply more skilled at hiding it.
From Ireland had come paramilitary techniques and the use of armored cars; from Mesopotamia, expertise in aerial bombing and the strafing of villages; from South Africa, the use of Dobermans for tracking and attacking suspects; from India, interrogation methods and the systematic use of solitary confinement; and, from the Raj’s North-West Frontier, the use of human shields to clear land mines. As one soldier recalled about the deployment of Arab prisoners, “If there was any land mines it was them that hit them. Rather a dirty trick, but we enjoyed it.”
Well worth a read. There is quite an interesting set of works on the dark side of our Empire emerging. The past may well be a different country with differing norms and standards, but much of this end of empire is well within living memory.
Good to know that Ms Elkins has brought all the rigour of the impartial Historian to her work having spent '20 years trying to undermine' Britain's reputation for decency....
Who ever said Britain had a reputation for decency? Not counting the British.
The polling does. The UK is ranked first for overall attractiveness and second for trust in the G20:
I'm struggling to find it but there's also a poll in the last 18 months that shows that the country that trusts us most after their own is.... India.
Your link says 6th after Germany Japan Canada Italy and France.
The poll is from the British Council published in July 2021:
"The report focusses on data on trust and attractiveness. The headline finding is that the UK is the most attractive country in the G20 group of nations, but it is very much first amongst equals with other leading liberal, capitalist democracies like Canada, Germany and Japan also performing strongly."
“Sean Lin, a virologist and former lab director at the viral disease branch of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, said that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) opening up of the country is actually a strategy to get everyone infected not only within China, but around the world.
“When they can’t control the outbreak, they push it to the whole world. Just like when COVID first broke out in Wuhan, people who had been infected in Wuhan were allowed to travel around the world. The strategy is the same now as before,” he said.”
So what? If have we learned anything from the last 3 years it is surely that by the time that Western governments have realised there's something going on it's already too late to do anything.
The learned helplessness of this comment is as striking as it is pathetic
If you haven't learned that we are effectively helpless against a virus, you haven't been paying attention for the last three years.
Yeah, those vaccines eh? Waste of time. We are “effectively helpless”
We cannot stop viruses as infectious as this one from spreading without unsustainable economic damage. So we rely on our vaccines, our herd immunity and the tendency of viruses to become less virulent as they age (because killing their host is not an optimum strategy for spread).
There are risks, the tendency mentioned does have exceptions, but this is the sensible way to proceed, whatever China thinks it is doing.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Sadly, yes. The world should have blocked Chinese flights from last week and let COVID stay there for another two months. As long as they can go somewhere whatever variants they have will be seeded all over the world.
Why are people worried about perhaps a billion cases of covid in China in the next six months causing a Disease X variant, when globally there’s going to be multiples of that case load happening anyway? Sounds like a lot of tired thinking going on from policy makers.
I just don't want Chinese tourists back in London. If we can delay that by a few months then I'm all for travel bans.
That’s just your own self-interest not public policy
PB has gone from “any restrictions on Chinese people are meaningless theatre and probably racist” to “yes we should test all of them” in about ten minutes. With a side order of “but it’s too late because they are much cleverer than us in the West”
PB has gone from “any restrictions on Chinese people are meaningless theatre and probably racist” to “yes we should test all of them” in about ten minutes. With a side order of “but it’s too late because they are much cleverer than us in the West”
Impressive
*Checks watch*
Early start?
Old Jonesy is impressive, how can he panic about so many things.
I’m sitting in my sunlit living room, sipping coffee, serenely watching the dominos fall
I am right. Many (most?) countries will now institute some kind of travel restriction on China
“ITALY PM MELONI: ITALY'S MANDATORY COVID TESTS FOR TRAVELLERS FROM CHINA RISK NOT BEING EFFECTIVE UNLESS FOLLOWED AT THE EU LEVEL.”
I'm holding my Tesla shares for the long term and bought a few more yesterday. Despite huge recent drops I'm still up overall. I believe that the electric car transformation is still on the steeply increasing part of the 'S' curve. Tesla have recently opened new Gigafactories in Berlin and Texas to add to those in California and China, so it's not surprising that their production can now exceed sales. It also means that the waiting time for a Tesla has dropped significantly which is good for the company. Tesla make around $10,000 on each sale whereas other companies struggle to make any profit on EVs, this means that Tesla could afford to drop their prices in order to maintain demand. They may not have to for a while at least in the US as they will be eligible for a $7,500 Inflation Reduction Act subsidy. Twitter was a big mistake for Musk but Tesla is still a huge success and will continue to be.
Probably. One caveat is that China is a big risk for them for the next few years, given how much of their production is based there.
Yeah the Chinese black swan is an overhang to be sure. It’s not clear to me either that Tesla will be able to easily repatriate profits earned onshore in China, so any prudent valuation might choose to discount the value of Chinese sales.
Tesla upgrades its cars all the time for example the use of giga castings and earlier the introduction of the heat pump and 'chrome delete'. Those are just the hardware changes, there's also the Over The Air software changes. You could wake up and find that your 3 year old Tesla has new improved functions.
That's great for people who've bought one but it doesn't help sell new ones because it looks almost exactly the same, inside and out, as it did in 2012.
It also means there is less incentive for people who have one to buy a new one.
I don't think Tesla are completely fucked but their product line is very stale with no replacements in sight in an industry which richly rewards continuous renewal. Simply being Tesla isn't enough any more.
What percentage of Tesla’s sales is represented by the S ? The EV market is still in the rapid growth phase; they’ll introduce new models when it suits them. Like the Cybertruck sometime this year.
The game is about production costs and production capacity - both currently battery dominated. Tesla is a decent bet at this level.
PB has gone from “any restrictions on Chinese people are meaningless theatre and probably racist” to “yes we should test all of them” in about ten minutes. With a side order of “but it’s too late because they are much cleverer than us in the West”
PB has gone from “any restrictions on Chinese people are meaningless theatre and probably racist” to “yes we should test all of them” in about ten minutes. With a side order of “but it’s too late because they are much cleverer than us in the West”
Impressive
*Checks watch*
Early start?
Old Jonesy is impressive, how can he panic about so many things.
I’m sitting in my sunlit living room, sipping coffee, serenely watching the dominos fall
I am right. Many (most?) countries will now institute some kind of travel restriction on China
“ITALY PM MELONI: ITALY'S MANDATORY COVID TESTS FOR TRAVELLERS FROM CHINA RISK NOT BEING EFFECTIVE UNLESS FOLLOWED AT THE EU LEVEL.”
You might be right that shit governments around the world will one by one enact a pointless and counterproductive short term policy. That is not the same thing as having to “brace” for some disaster scenario playing out in your head.
PB has gone from “any restrictions on Chinese people are meaningless theatre and probably racist” to “yes we should test all of them” in about ten minutes. With a side order of “but it’s too late because they are much cleverer than us in the West”
PB has gone from “any restrictions on Chinese people are meaningless theatre and probably racist” to “yes we should test all of them” in about ten minutes. With a side order of “but it’s too late because they are much cleverer than us in the West”
Impressive
*Checks watch*
Early start?
Old Jonesy is impressive, how can he panic about so many things.
I’m sitting in my sunlit living room, sipping coffee, serenely watching the dominos fall
I am right. Many (most?) countries will now institute some kind of travel restriction on China
“ITALY PM MELONI: ITALY'S MANDATORY COVID TESTS FOR TRAVELLERS FROM CHINA RISK NOT BEING EFFECTIVE UNLESS FOLLOWED AT THE EU LEVEL.”
“Sean Lin, a virologist and former lab director at the viral disease branch of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, said that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) opening up of the country is actually a strategy to get everyone infected not only within China, but around the world.
“When they can’t control the outbreak, they push it to the whole world. Just like when COVID first broke out in Wuhan, people who had been infected in Wuhan were allowed to travel around the world. The strategy is the same now as before,” he said.”
So what? If have we learned anything from the last 3 years it is surely that by the time that Western governments have realised there's something going on it's already too late to do anything.
The learned helplessness of this comment is as striking as it is pathetic
If you haven't learned that we are effectively helpless against a virus, you haven't been paying attention for the last three years.
Yeah, those vaccines eh? Waste of time. We are “effectively helpless”
We cannot stop viruses as infectious as this one from spreading without unsustainable economic damage. So we rely on our vaccines, our herd immunity and the tendency of viruses to become less virulent as they age (because killing their host is not an optimum strategy for spread).
There are risks, the tendency mentioned does have exceptions, but this is the sensible way to proceed, whatever China thinks it is doing.
The idea that viruses naturally evolve to be less pathogenic is disputed by many
Here’s ChatGPT:
“Viruses can evolve to be less pathogenic over time, but this is not necessarily a natural process. The evolution of viruses is driven by the process of natural selection, which is based on the survival and reproduction of the fittest individuals in a population. In the case of viruses, the fittest individuals are those that are most successful at replicating and spreading to new hosts.
There are several factors that can influence the evolution of viruses, including the immune response of the host, the presence of other pathogens, and the availability of nutrients. In some cases, viruses may evolve to be less pathogenic as a result of these factors. For example, if a virus is causing severe illness in its host, the host may be less able to spread the virus to other individuals, which can reduce the overall fitness of the virus. As a result, the virus may evolve to be less pathogenic in order to increase its chances of spreading to new hosts.
However, it is important to note that viruses can also evolve to become more pathogenic over time. This can occur if the virus is able to evade the host's immune system or if it is able to adapt to new environments or host species.”
Tesla upgrades its cars all the time for example the use of giga castings and earlier the introduction of the heat pump and 'chrome delete'. Those are just the hardware changes, there's also the Over The Air software changes. You could wake up and find that your 3 year old Tesla has new improved functions.
That's great for people who've bought one but it doesn't help sell new ones because it looks almost exactly the same, inside and out, as it did in 2012.
It also means there is less incentive for people who have one to buy a new one.
I don't think Tesla are completely fucked but their product line is very stale with no replacements in sight in an industry which richly rewards continuous renewal. Simply being Tesla isn't enough any more.
What percentage of Tesla’s sales is represented by the S ? The EV market is still in the rapid growth phase; they’ll introduce new models when it suits them. Like the Cybertruck sometime this year.
The game is about production costs and production capacity - both currently battery dominated. Tesla is a decent bet at this level.
Tesla could stop selling the S and X and it wouldn't really make much of a difference to their cashflow. Musk has said multiple times that at this point they keep them on the product slate partly for nostalgia and partly because why not.
O/T, but … Not insisting on negative covid tests for travellers entering the UK from China seems a bit foolish, to say the least, given what is currently happening in China. It seems like we’re going to repeat previous mistakes. What am I missing?
We've given up pretending that travel restrictions or quarantine actually works without unacceptable restrictions on our freedom and unsustainable damage to our economy.
I suppose it is really a question of the risk of a 'new variant' emerging from China given the amount of cases/deaths there.
No reason a new variant is more likely to emerge from there than anywhere else, especially given the immunity-naive Chinese population are just as susceptible to good old basic Omicron so there’s less selection pressure.
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
One reason to put a temporary stop on Chinese visitors is this frankly bizarre behaviour of the CCP. Going from Zero Covid to total openness in about a week, and thereby allowing 1m deaths - or so it seems
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
Even if they are, it's already far too late to do anything about it.
So the decisions made by Japan, Taiwan, Italy and the USA - to restrict Chinese tourism/visitors - are completely pointless?
Sadly, yes. The world should have blocked Chinese flights from last week and let COVID stay there for another two months. As long as they can go somewhere whatever variants they have will be seeded all over the world.
Why are people worried about perhaps a billion cases of covid in China in the next six months causing a Disease X variant, when globally there’s going to be multiples of that case load happening anyway? Sounds like a lot of tired thinking going on from policy makers.
I just don't want Chinese tourists back in London. If we can delay that by a few months then I'm all for travel bans.
That’s just your own self-interest not public policy
Well yes, but it's a good policy. London without Chinese tourists is a completely different city. I've found myself no longer avoiding the Covent Garden/Piccadilly area as I'd done for years before COVID. It will be sad when Londoners, once again, get pushed out of parts of our own city because Chinese tourists make it unbearable.
For the very first time in decades, my first response to an interesting and complex question - do viruses evolve to be less pathogenic - was NOT to reach for Google. Instead I went for ChatGPT
‘The British Empire was much worse than you realise’
In the twentieth century’s hierarchy of state-sponsored violence, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, and Hirohito’s Japan typically take top spots…. Britain is rarely seen as among the worst offenders, given a reputation for decency that the Harvard historian Caroline Elkins has spent more than two decades trying to undermine. “Legacy of Violence” (Knopf), her astringent new history of the British Empire, brings detailed context to individual stories like Tudor’s…. Britain’s use of systematic violence was no better than that of its rivals. The British were simply more skilled at hiding it.
From Ireland had come paramilitary techniques and the use of armored cars; from Mesopotamia, expertise in aerial bombing and the strafing of villages; from South Africa, the use of Dobermans for tracking and attacking suspects; from India, interrogation methods and the systematic use of solitary confinement; and, from the Raj’s North-West Frontier, the use of human shields to clear land mines. As one soldier recalled about the deployment of Arab prisoners, “If there was any land mines it was them that hit them. Rather a dirty trick, but we enjoyed it.”
Well worth a read. There is quite an interesting set of works on the dark side of our Empire emerging. The past may well be a different country with differing norms and standards, but much of this end of empire is well within living memory.
Good to know that Ms Elkins has brought all the rigour of the impartial Historian to her work having spent '20 years trying to undermine' Britain's reputation for decency....
Her classic work "Britain's Gulag" is well worth a read, and won the Pulitzer prize. It is hard to see the Empire as a benign, decent affair after reading that.
Things were different at different times and places in the Empire, but this wasn't atypical.
Doesn't alter my point. Not sure many would claim everything about any country's past did not bear some crticism. I would questiion the motive of any Historian on a 20 year anti-British mission. The 'rantings of Mr Dickson on these matters are something quite different - unless of course one accepts that no Scot ever played any part in the UK governments since the Act of Union.
I'd say that historical texts from c.1990-2015 were pretty balanced on the Empire and its legacy, from Lawrence James, David Anderson, through to James Walvin, and even Kwasi Kwarteng, and corrected a more positive lilt in the decades previously.
What's changed in the last few years is that texts about the Empire are now almost exclusively negative -ironically, often marketed as "the truth" - but tell us much more about contemporary politics and campaigns related to things like 'structural racism' than they do objectively about history. .
It’s just redressing a century of propaganda in the other direction. No need to get overly exercised about it.
Objectively, a lot of the crap we did simply wasn’t written about before.
“Sean Lin, a virologist and former lab director at the viral disease branch of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, said that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) opening up of the country is actually a strategy to get everyone infected not only within China, but around the world.
“When they can’t control the outbreak, they push it to the whole world. Just like when COVID first broke out in Wuhan, people who had been infected in Wuhan were allowed to travel around the world. The strategy is the same now as before,” he said.”
So what? If have we learned anything from the last 3 years it is surely that by the time that Western governments have realised there's something going on it's already too late to do anything.
The learned helplessness of this comment is as striking as it is pathetic
If you haven't learned that we are effectively helpless against a virus, you haven't been paying attention for the last three years.
Yeah, those vaccines eh? Waste of time. We are “effectively helpless”
We cannot stop viruses as infectious as this one from spreading without unsustainable economic damage. So we rely on our vaccines, our herd immunity and the tendency of viruses to become less virulent as they age (because killing their host is not an optimum strategy for spread).
There are risks, the tendency mentioned does have exceptions, but this is the sensible way to proceed, whatever China thinks it is doing.
Banning flights from China (direct and indirect) doesn't constitute unsustainable economic damage, though. I don't think we're going to go back into lockdown either way, yet I'm sure there's zero harm in banning flights from China and indirect travel from China for a few months while their exit wave peters out.
For the very first time in decades, my first response to an interesting and complex question - do viruses evolve to be less pathogenic - was NOT to reach for Google. Instead I went for ChatGPT
Google might be in trouble
Neither is going to take you to a good answer to that, as there isn’t a simple one. ChatGPT is likely to be less reliable, in its current incarnation.
PB has gone from “any restrictions on Chinese people are meaningless theatre and probably racist” to “yes we should test all of them” in about ten minutes. With a side order of “but it’s too late because they are much cleverer than us in the West”
PB has gone from “any restrictions on Chinese people are meaningless theatre and probably racist” to “yes we should test all of them” in about ten minutes. With a side order of “but it’s too late because they are much cleverer than us in the West”
Impressive
*Checks watch*
Early start?
Old Jonesy is impressive, how can he panic about so many things.
I’m sitting in my sunlit living room, sipping coffee, serenely watching the dominos fall
I am right. Many (most?) countries will now institute some kind of travel restriction on China
“ITALY PM MELONI: ITALY'S MANDATORY COVID TESTS FOR TRAVELLERS FROM CHINA RISK NOT BEING EFFECTIVE UNLESS FOLLOWED AT THE EU LEVEL.”
You might be right that shit governments around the world will one by one enact a pointless and counterproductive short term policy. That is not the same thing as having to “brace” for some disaster scenario playing out in your head.
Once again, what is counter productive about banning flights and indirect travel from China? Let them get their own house in order before exporting yet more COVID around the world.
Tesla upgrades its cars all the time for example the use of giga castings and earlier the introduction of the heat pump and 'chrome delete'. Those are just the hardware changes, there's also the Over The Air software changes. You could wake up and find that your 3 year old Tesla has new improved functions.
That's great for people who've bought one but it doesn't help sell new ones because it looks almost exactly the same, inside and out, as it did in 2012.
It also means there is less incentive for people who have one to buy a new one.
I don't think Tesla are completely fucked but their product line is very stale with no replacements in sight in an industry which richly rewards continuous renewal. Simply being Tesla isn't enough any more.
What percentage of Tesla’s sales is represented by the S ? The EV market is still in the rapid growth phase; they’ll introduce new models when it suits them. Like the Cybertruck sometime this year.
The game is about production costs and production capacity - both currently battery dominated. Tesla is a decent bet at this level.
Tesla could stop selling the S and X and it wouldn't really make much of a difference to their cashflow. Musk has said multiple times that at this point they keep them on the product slate partly for nostalgia and partly because why not.
That was my point. I don’t expect DA to buy one, but that doesn’t matter. (Though he might be tempted by the ‘truck ?)
PB has gone from “any restrictions on Chinese people are meaningless theatre and probably racist” to “yes we should test all of them” in about ten minutes. With a side order of “but it’s too late because they are much cleverer than us in the West”
PB has gone from “any restrictions on Chinese people are meaningless theatre and probably racist” to “yes we should test all of them” in about ten minutes. With a side order of “but it’s too late because they are much cleverer than us in the West”
Impressive
*Checks watch*
Early start?
Old Jonesy is impressive, how can he panic about so many things.
I’m sitting in my sunlit living room, sipping coffee, serenely watching the dominos fall
I am right. Many (most?) countries will now institute some kind of travel restriction on China
“ITALY PM MELONI: ITALY'S MANDATORY COVID TESTS FOR TRAVELLERS FROM CHINA RISK NOT BEING EFFECTIVE UNLESS FOLLOWED AT THE EU LEVEL.”
You might be right that shit governments around the world will one by one enact a pointless and counterproductive short term policy. That is not the same thing as having to “brace” for some disaster scenario playing out in your head.
Sequencing Chinese arrivals is really not pointless and counter productive. We have no idea what the fuck is brewing in China and the more I think about it, the more the sudden lurch by China to “total opening” looks suspicious
Was Xi really freaked by a few protests against Zero Covid? This is a man prepared to put 1m Uighurs in concentration camps. Yet students holding blank pieces of A4 terrified him so much he abandoned a three year long policy of quarantine and repression, overnight?
Really? Do we believe that?
Perhaps we do. But it is at least possible that Xi was told: China has a new unstoppable variant which is going to cripple us, the best thing we can do is spread it around the world so everyone suffers - like we did with Wuhan flu in 2020
PB has gone from “any restrictions on Chinese people are meaningless theatre and probably racist” to “yes we should test all of them” in about ten minutes. With a side order of “but it’s too late because they are much cleverer than us in the West”
PB has gone from “any restrictions on Chinese people are meaningless theatre and probably racist” to “yes we should test all of them” in about ten minutes. With a side order of “but it’s too late because they are much cleverer than us in the West”
Impressive
*Checks watch*
Early start?
Old Jonesy is impressive, how can he panic about so many things.
I’m sitting in my sunlit living room, sipping coffee, serenely watching the dominos fall
I am right. Many (most?) countries will now institute some kind of travel restriction on China
“ITALY PM MELONI: ITALY'S MANDATORY COVID TESTS FOR TRAVELLERS FROM CHINA RISK NOT BEING EFFECTIVE UNLESS FOLLOWED AT THE EU LEVEL.”
You might be right that shit governments around the world will one by one enact a pointless and counterproductive short term policy. That is not the same thing as having to “brace” for some disaster scenario playing out in your head.
Once again, what is counter productive about banning flights and indirect travel from China? Let them get their own house in order before exporting yet more COVID around the world.
Rather a selfish position if I may say so. You might not have business dependencies or family connections to China but many do. Given the policy achieves nothing, why do it?
PB has gone from “any restrictions on Chinese people are meaningless theatre and probably racist” to “yes we should test all of them” in about ten minutes. With a side order of “but it’s too late because they are much cleverer than us in the West”
Impressive
*Checks watch*
Early start?
At least it's not stupid AI shit. Small mercies and all that.
‘The British Empire was much worse than you realise’
In the twentieth century’s hierarchy of state-sponsored violence, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, and Hirohito’s Japan typically take top spots…. Britain is rarely seen as among the worst offenders, given a reputation for decency that the Harvard historian Caroline Elkins has spent more than two decades trying to undermine. “Legacy of Violence” (Knopf), her astringent new history of the British Empire, brings detailed context to individual stories like Tudor’s…. Britain’s use of systematic violence was no better than that of its rivals. The British were simply more skilled at hiding it.
From Ireland had come paramilitary techniques and the use of armored cars; from Mesopotamia, expertise in aerial bombing and the strafing of villages; from South Africa, the use of Dobermans for tracking and attacking suspects; from India, interrogation methods and the systematic use of solitary confinement; and, from the Raj’s North-West Frontier, the use of human shields to clear land mines. As one soldier recalled about the deployment of Arab prisoners, “If there was any land mines it was them that hit them. Rather a dirty trick, but we enjoyed it.”
Comments
"The report focusses on data on trust and attractiveness. The headline finding is that the UK is the most attractive country in the G20 group of nations, but it is very much first amongst equals with other leading liberal, capitalist democracies like Canada, Germany and Japan also performing strongly."
https://www.britishcouncil.org/research-policy-insight/policy-reports/global-britain-uk-soft-power-advantage
What's changed in the last few years is that texts about the Empire are now almost exclusively negative -ironically, often marketed as "the truth" - but tell us much more about contemporary politics and campaigns related to things like 'structural racism' than they do objectively about history.
.
“An explosion of Covid-19 cases in China could create a "potential breeding ground" for new variants to emerge, health experts warn
u.afp.com/igcr
📸 Covid-19 patients crowd a hospital in Tianjin on December 28”
https://twitter.com/afp/status/1608314647622594561?s=46&t=mbjTskMZasflLGUwlte6zQ
But, what that poll does show, is that Britain is viewed as both attractive and trusted by the world at large, and therefore decent, and is not irremediably damned in the eyes of others as some seem to think (hope?) it is.
https://twitter.com/AlboMP/status/1608321951747182593?s=20&t=0eFva6MaQA_cAtABikTHJA
Even if 100% of arriving travellers were positive it would be a drop in the ocean
compared with the number who already have it here. And if a new variant does get through: well, if there’s one thing the Chinese experience surely shows us it’s that holding back the tide just delays the inevitable.
Presumably Sunak voted for it.
That would not necessarily make him look like a man of fine judgement.
Porsche give us a completely new 911 every 7-9 years and that must cost them billions. They aren't doing it for a laugh, they do it because the 'new' 911 always sells like coke at the tory party conference and new 911 buyers are very well aware of the differences between generations.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/G20
If a nasty new variant emerges as ~1bn people simultaneously get Covid for the first time then it would be quite good to have three months breathing space to prepare, before it attacks US
We do seemed to have moved on regarding covid. Although he is isolated from other patients I am allowed to visit him and he will be discharged with it. 4 days on from very close contact with him when he was lying on the floor I have no signs of covid at all. Having visited him in the isolation ward I have obviously given myself additional opportunities to get it.
Can we be sure they aren’t covertly exporting a horrible new variant to make sure the world suffers alongside them?
Sadly, they have form on this
With a slack jaw and not much to say
I said to the man, "Are you trying to tempt me?
Because I come from the land of plenty"
And he said
Oh, "Do you come from a land down under? (Oh, yeah-yeah)
Where women glow and men plunder?
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover"
Sure, if they want to take responsibility for everything that has happened economically for the last few years!
But key, and I make this point because you seemed to justify something because the other side did something worse, an atrocity can never be justified solely because the other side did something worse. It might be mitigated by the 'heat of the moment' (how would any of us know how we would react in similar situations) but it can never be justified if premeditated no matter what the other side did.
I think it is fair to say that carpet bombing late in the war and the atomic bombs were considered justifiable at the time and are fiercely argued about since by historians, but gas chambers never. The consequences of atrocities should be trials and punishment as a deterrent, but not to kill and mutilate innocent civilians on the other side.
The only meaningful reason to restrict entry would be if there were a known variant against which the population were unprotected, but for which we had a vaccine that was ready to roll out in a few weeks.
6th in poll dated 2022. Perhaps it dropped five places in the last year?
https://www.visitbritain.org/britain’s-image-overseas
“Italy asks the European Commissioner for Transport, Adina Vălean that checks and possible limitations be applied throughout Europe on those arriving from China due to high levels of COVID positive cases on flights screened.”
https://twitter.com/fromitalynow/status/1608409003599757312?s=46&t=mbjTskMZasflLGUwlte6zQ
The painful answer from history is: we can’t. So make all Chinese visitors do a test and maybe stop Chinese flights. Sequence those tests
Will this stop the bug coming from China? No. Will it slow the spread of a new variant? Yes
Remember: China probably made this virus in the first place
“When they can’t control the outbreak, they push it to the whole world. Just like when COVID first broke out in Wuhan, people who had been infected in Wuhan were allowed to travel around the world. The strategy is the same now as before,” he said.”
We never learn. Do not trust the CCP
https://twitter.com/davidcranmerun1/status/1608200484426219521?s=46&t=mbjTskMZasflLGUwlte6zQ
It was an uncharacteristically cynical post from Alan.
But the people doing the checks had very nice uniforms on
Impressive
This is genuinely fascinating. Do go on
Early start?
Granted the rules border force enforce may have been softened to make things easier for the soldiers replacing them but the stories I’m hearing from everyone travelling is that things are easier and quicker than they usually are.
Which merely shows that border force needs to be seriously restructured
One caveat is that China is a big risk for them for the next few years, given how much of their production is based there.
HERE WE GO, GUYS. BRACE
There are risks, the tendency mentioned does have exceptions, but this is the sensible way to proceed, whatever China thinks it is doing.
I am right. Many (most?) countries will now institute some kind of travel restriction on China
“ITALY PM MELONI: ITALY'S MANDATORY COVID TESTS FOR TRAVELLERS FROM CHINA RISK NOT BEING EFFECTIVE UNLESS FOLLOWED AT THE EU LEVEL.”
https://twitter.com/stockeys1/status/1608418289239171073?s=46&t=mbjTskMZasflLGUwlte6zQ
The EV market is still in the rapid growth phase; they’ll introduce new models when it suits them. Like the Cybertruck sometime this year.
The game is about production costs and production capacity - both currently battery dominated. Tesla is a decent bet at this level.
Here’s ChatGPT:
“Viruses can evolve to be less pathogenic over time, but this is not necessarily a natural process. The evolution of viruses is driven by the process of natural selection, which is based on the survival and reproduction of the fittest individuals in a population. In the case of viruses, the fittest individuals are those that are most successful at replicating and spreading to new hosts.
There are several factors that can influence the evolution of viruses, including the immune response of the host, the presence of other pathogens, and the availability of nutrients. In some cases, viruses may evolve to be less pathogenic as a result of these factors. For example, if a virus is causing severe illness in its host, the host may be less able to spread the virus to other individuals, which can reduce the overall fitness of the virus. As a result, the virus may evolve to be less pathogenic in order to increase its chances of spreading to new hosts.
However, it is important to note that viruses can also evolve to become more pathogenic over time. This can occur if the virus is able to evade the host's immune system or if it is able to adapt to new environments or host species.”
For the very first time in decades, my first response to an interesting and complex question - do viruses evolve to be less pathogenic - was NOT to reach for Google. Instead I went for ChatGPT
Google might be in trouble
No need to get overly exercised about it.
Objectively, a lot of the crap we did simply wasn’t written about before.
ChatGPT is likely to be less reliable, in its current incarnation.
I don’t expect DA to buy one, but that doesn’t matter. (Though he might be tempted by the ‘truck ?)
Was Xi really freaked by a few protests against Zero Covid? This is a man prepared to put 1m Uighurs in concentration camps. Yet students holding blank pieces of A4 terrified him so much he abandoned a three year long policy of quarantine and repression, overnight?
Really? Do we believe that?
Perhaps we do. But it is at least possible that Xi was told: China has a new unstoppable variant which is going to cripple us, the best thing we can do is spread it around the world so everyone suffers - like we did with Wuhan flu in 2020
And he said Yes, open the borders
family connections to China but many do. Given the policy achieves nothing, why do it?