Interesting thread on the success of British TERFs in shaping the debate: "The TERFs have been more successful in rolling back Le Woke than pretty much every other right-wing grifter combined."
Perhaps because they have an actual real point - the rights of women and the rights of trans do intersect. And requires mediation and compromise at that intersection. Just as when the rights of other groups intersect.
A couple of interesting snippets from the review if the C4 series on the issue.
...And we hear from Katy Jon Went, a trans woman and campaigner for dialogue and compromise between the two positions: “Moderates in both camps are the only hope for social coexistence.”..
...If there is one issue that continues the search for common ground between those who argue for each side, it is surely male violence and the damage it does, and always has done, to society. If we imagine a world in which men no longer pose an endemic threat to women, then most, if not all of these problems fall away, don’t they? ...
I fear this covid inquiry is going to be a massive ****-up. Too many people have already made up their minds either way, and will spend months and years examining in minute details decisions that ministers and others had hours or days to reach on imperfect data.
And whilst it will be used as a way to get at those who had to make decisions (rightly or wrongly), it will end up doing f-all to what we need it to do: to ensure we can improve our decision-making process if faced with such a situation in the future.
Yes. I think the problem is how on earth is a government supposed to speak to each other informally and off the record if things like WhatsApp are going to be examined in this way. In times past most of such conversations would have been on the phone or in person but now there is an electronic trail that can be followed to see what Ministers "really" thought.
My guess is that there will be a lot of sarcasm, black humour, raw politics, profound ignorance and idiotic questions in this material. I can fully see why there is some apprehension about this going to an independent inquiry and depending on them to redact the embarrassing but irrelevant stuff.
One consequence of this is that government communications will lose some of the efficiencies that come with more modern technologies as they revert to less recoverable methods of speaking to each other.
If you were prosecuting senior figures in an imaginary political party in Scotland, say for example, massive financial impropriety, wouldn't you as prosecutor expect to see all channels of communication that bolster your case to have been reviewed? You would ignore the gossip and tittle tattle, but be more than interested in the "I've syphoned off the cash I need to buy the motor cruiser (to exclusively use for party events) and it's squirrelled away in my sock drawer".
Now I understand my scenario is pure fiction but you can understand why I am suggesting viewing the electronic "paper" trail is pertinent to any review of facts. Perhaps logging events on WhatsApp isn't ideal as a tool of government.
Oh, I can quite see it from the Inquiry’s viewpoint too. Social media, sadly, plays quite a role in cases these days. I have a case starting today in fact when the evidence that moves this on from he said, she said, is entirely messages sent by the accused and recovered from his phone.
I just wanted to point out the consequences. And to me they are unlikely to be entirely benign.
I would like to know how it cost £37bn for a phone app that did not work.
That is enough to build 44 Type 26 frigates... (£4.2bn for 5 of them according to gov.uk)
FFS it didn't. Ever use a 'free' Covid test kit? That was from the 37 billion too. There are still people with hundreds of boxes of those kits in their houses. You could pick up two free boxes a day at the Uni and many did, every day, for months.
I don't understand why intelligent people still think the ap cost 37 billion.
They don't believe it, but it makes good copy to say it.
So, how much DID the app cost then?
Not £37 Billion. Don't believe everything on FBPE Twitter
I do not do Twitter.
So once again, how many frigates did the non-working app cost? Five? Ten? Fifteen?
Meanwhile in the Mail: AI 'could wipe out humanity'
Any kind of intelligence would wipe out the Daily Mail... their coverage of This Morning is bordering on the ludicrous today.
I haven't been following it is detail because it like most DM stories is so puerile, but I can't help thinking that the Daily Mail obsession with this is just a thinly disguised excuse to cause outrage amongst it's largely homophobic readership
Schofield’s behaviour, however, has been awful.
As has that of ITV in how they dealt with it. Numerous people have come out of the woodwork, not with wisdom after the event, but to say they had made official complaints or representations about it.
I suspect the beginning of the end for Pip was the queue jumping.
I am not sure, however, this is a matter for politicians seeing they are hauling in ITV to interrogate them over it.
The Heil are going after him because culture wars. He is yet another TV leftie* who comes over all sanctimonious. Instead of telling people Common Sense things like "isn't Boris great" and "the police should reopen currygate", he sits there with his heart on his sleeve with "I am gay" and people being sympathetic to his deviance.
I honestly don't care about This Morning or Schofield. What he allegedly has done sounds a little *interestng* morally, but we all live in the same greenhouse armed with stones. What IS interesting is the reaction from the right, who are going after him like he is Rolf Harris. He isn't, but the Heil readership have been induced to be so judgemental that they're lapping it up.
*anyone who isn't a GBeebies presenter is a TV leftie
Sky have been leading on the Schofield story ad infinitum
I get the impression that Schofield might just have upset a few other people in the media in the past. Both in front of, and behind, the camera.
It's quite simple: what he did should have got him sacked much earlier than it did. It also highlights (sadly, yet again) a problem in the media, with the 'talent' abusing their position and power. And my goodness, the optics of it are terrible for him.
As I understand it, PS had an affair with a much younger man while married; this came out a year or so back but was batted away by his PR deflecting the story onto him being gay. I wonder if there was a feeling in the media that he'd got away with it, and so with the story coming round again the pile-on is all the greater.
I think there’s still more to be revealed (one doesn’t have to search
PPE contracts ? A digital paper trail might be extraordinarily embarrassing.
I would hope that any criticism other PPE contracts might also include lists of companies that MPs from other parties criticised the government for not taking. You know, for context.
We should not lose sight of exactly how desperate things were at the time.
People saying this ignore the fact that many of these sweetheart deals for mates were signed well after the initial wave panic.
And you keep on saying that, and you ignore that there were other panics as well: like, for instance, the later lockdowns.
The government was pretty much in panic from March 2020 to March 2021. As were all of us. We needed PPE. Which would have been okay, except virtually every other country in the world needed PPE.
So why - when mates rates fail to deliver usable PPE - do we not claw back the money? Any boiler plate contract for anything has clauses about delivery - unless you are a mate of a Tory minister.
I am not that bothered about the lining of pockets where actually usable PPE was delivered. I am bothered when it was not - and we paid anyway. They have stolen - and it is stolen as they did not fulfil the contract - YOUR money. And you are fine with it. Why is that?
We desperately needed PPE and were willing to try anything to get it - just look at some of the companies *Labour* politicians were asking us to use as an example. If we had used normal procurement channels we would still be waiting - and people like Dr Foxy would have been placed in more danger.
The nearest parallel is a war. We were in a war, and we had to make decisions fast, with massive competition worldwide for a limited resource. There was waste, and there were charlatans. But the primary need was to get the kit. And we did - in fact, we ended up with too much. True fraudsters should be prosecuted.
It'd be interesting to know the percentages of all of this: how much was spent; how much was delivered, how much was usable etc. I think I've seen it somewhere before, but cannot immediately find it.
As I've said all through this hideous mess - I'm glad I'm not the one who had to make the decisions.
Johnson wanted to be PM. Wanted it so much he destroyed the careers of many others to make it happen.
If he didn't want the decision making that came with it, he shouldn't have done that.
It makes me wonder *why* he wanted the job, if he was not prepared to put in the work.
I think a lot want the fame and not put in the work and that is regardless of political views. I remember seeing a documentary many many years ago on the workings of the Work and Pensions Committee while Archie Kirkwood was chair. I was particularly interested because I liked Kirkwood.
What was notable was the way two different Tory MPs worked on the committee. One was a right winger with whom I had little in common. He appeared to put the hours in, look at the evidence and not be deflected by his own biases. He didn't seek publicity for his work. The other was someone whose views where akin to mine. She seemed to do little work, but just seeked publicity constantly. My views on both individuals changed after that. People you agree with can be rubbish at doing stuff and people you disagree with can do a good job regardless of their overlying views.
Bit like Cameron, isn’t it; ‘thought he’d be good at it!’. And he’s spent his life being ‘Good old Boris’ , life and soul of the party and all that. And was sufficiently well-connected to be able to have good jobs, to be picked up when he fell over and so on. In a way I think HIGNFY has a lot to answer for, in that he was introduced to a wider public.
Bit of a bizarre forecast this morning. Don't think I've ever seen Glasgow as the hottest part of the UK before !
NE wind, so something of a haar over the East parts of Scotland, though nothing more than overcast and a pleasantly cool wind. No rain, alas for the garden.
Meanwhile in the Mail: AI 'could wipe out humanity'
Any kind of intelligence would wipe out the Daily Mail... their coverage of This Morning is bordering on the ludicrous today.
I haven't been following it is detail because it like most DM stories is so puerile, but I can't help thinking that the Daily Mail obsession with this is just a thinly disguised excuse to cause outrage amongst it's largely homophobic readership
Schofield’s behaviour, however, has been awful.
As has that of ITV in how they dealt with it. Numerous people have come out of the woodwork, not with wisdom after the event, but to say they had made official complaints or representations about it.
I suspect the beginning of the end for Pip was the queue jumping.
I am not sure, however, this is a matter for politicians seeing they are hauling in ITV to interrogate them over it.
The Heil are going after him because culture wars. He is yet another TV leftie* who comes over all sanctimonious. Instead of telling people Common Sense things like "isn't Boris great" and "the police should reopen currygate", he sits there with his heart on his sleeve with "I am gay" and people being sympathetic to his deviance.
I honestly don't care about This Morning or Schofield. What he allegedly has done sounds a little *interestng* morally, but we all live in the same greenhouse armed with stones. What IS interesting is the reaction from the right, who are going after him like he is Rolf Harris. He isn't, but the Heil readership have been induced to be so judgemental that they're lapping it up.
*anyone who isn't a GBeebies presenter is a TV leftie
Sky have been leading on the Schofield story ad infinitum
I get the impression that Schofield might just have upset a few other people in the media in the past. Both in front of, and behind, the camera.
It's quite simple: what he did should have got him sacked much earlier than it did. It also highlights (sadly, yet again) a problem in the media, with the 'talent' abusing their position and power. And my goodness, the optics of it are terrible for him.
As I understand it, PS had an affair with a much younger man while married; this came out a year or so back but was batted away by his PR deflecting the story onto him being gay. I wonder if there was a feeling in the media that he'd got away with it, and so with the story coming round again the pile-on is all the greater.
I think there’s still more to be revealed (one doesn’t have to search
PPE contracts ? A digital paper trail might be extraordinarily embarrassing.
I would hope that any criticism other PPE contracts might also include lists of companies that MPs from other parties criticised the government for not taking. You know, for context.
We should not lose sight of exactly how desperate things were at the time.
People saying this ignore the fact that many of these sweetheart deals for mates were signed well after the initial wave panic.
And you keep on saying that, and you ignore that there were other panics as well: like, for instance, the later lockdowns.
The government was pretty much in panic from March 2020 to March 2021. As were all of us. We needed PPE. Which would have been okay, except virtually every other country in the world needed PPE.
So why - when mates rates fail to deliver usable PPE - do we not claw back the money? Any boiler plate contract for anything has clauses about delivery - unless you are a mate of a Tory minister.
I am not that bothered about the lining of pockets where actually usable PPE was delivered. I am bothered when it was not - and we paid anyway. They have stolen - and it is stolen as they did not fulfil the contract - YOUR money. And you are fine with it. Why is that?
We desperately needed PPE and were willing to try anything to get it - just look at some of the companies *Labour* politicians were asking us to use as an example. If we had used normal procurement channels we would still be waiting - and people like Dr Foxy would have been placed in more danger.
The nearest parallel is a war. We were in a war, and we had to make decisions fast, with massive competition worldwide for a limited resource. There was waste, and there were charlatans. But the primary need was to get the kit. And we did - in fact, we ended up with too much. True fraudsters should be prosecuted.
It'd be interesting to know the percentages of all of this: how much was spent; how much was delivered, how much was usable etc. I think I've seen it somewhere before, but cannot immediately find it.
As I've said all through this hideous mess - I'm glad I'm not the one who had to make the decisions.
Johnson wanted to be PM. Wanted it so much he destroyed the careers of many others to make it happen.
If he didn't want the decision making that came with it, he shouldn't have done that.
It makes me wonder *why* he wanted the job, if he was not prepared to put in the work.
I think a lot want the fame and not put in the work and that is regardless of political views. I remember seeing a documentary many many years ago on the workings of the Work and Pensions Committee while Archie Kirkwood was chair. I was particularly interested because I liked Kirkwood.
What was notable was the way two different Tory MPs worked on the committee. One was a right winger with whom I had little in common. He appeared to put the hours in, look at the evidence and not be deflected by his own biases. He didn't seek publicity for his work. The other was someone whose views where akin to mine. She seemed to do little work, but just seeked publicity constantly. My views on both individuals changed after that. People you agree with can be rubbish at doing stuff and people you disagree with can do a good job regardless of their overlying views.
Bit like Cameron, isn’t it; ‘thought he’d be good at it!’. And he’s spent his life being ‘Good old Boris’ , life and soul of the party and all that. And was sufficiently well-connected to be able to have good jobs, to be picked up when he fell over and so on. In a way I think HIGNFY has a lot to answer for, in that he was introduced to a wider public.
And Good Morning one and all.
Slight difference between Dave and Boris.
Dave had at least a bit of noblesse oblige; he thought he'd be good at it and so put his talents at the service of the nation. And in general, he did put in the hours, even if it was often at the last minute.
Whereas with Boris it was all about fame and the big chair.
I would like to know how it cost £37bn for a phone app that did not work.
That is enough to build 44 Type 26 frigates... (£4.2bn for 5 of them according to gov.uk)
FFS it didn't. Ever use a 'free' Covid test kit? That was from the 37 billion too. There are still people with hundreds of boxes of those kits in their houses. You could pick up two free boxes a day at the Uni and many did, every day, for months.
I don't understand why intelligent people still think the ap cost 37 billion.
They don't believe it, but it makes good copy to say it.
So, how much DID the app cost then?
Not £37 Billion. Don't believe everything on FBPE Twitter
I do not do Twitter.
So once again, how many frigates did the non-working app cost? Five? Ten? Fifteen?
I would like to know how it cost £37bn for a phone app that did not work.
That is enough to build 44 Type 26 frigates... (£4.2bn for 5 of them according to gov.uk)
FFS it didn't. Ever use a 'free' Covid test kit? That was from the 37 billion too. There are still people with hundreds of boxes of those kits in their houses. You could pick up two free boxes a day at the Uni and many did, every day, for months.
I don't understand why intelligent people still think the ap cost 37 billion.
They don't believe it, but it makes good copy to say it.
So, how much DID the app cost then?
Not £37 Billion. Don't believe everything on FBPE Twitter
I do not do Twitter.
So once again, how many frigates did the non-working app cost? Five? Ten? Fifteen?
I wonder how much Apple and Google spent on it?
You have already had the fullfact information shared with you.
Where you got your information from is wrong. Yet you persist with the stupid claim.
I would like to know how it cost £37bn for a phone app that did not work.
That is enough to build 44 Type 26 frigates... (£4.2bn for 5 of them according to gov.uk)
FFS it didn't. Ever use a 'free' Covid test kit? That was from the 37 billion too. There are still people with hundreds of boxes of those kits in their houses. You could pick up two free boxes a day at the Uni and many did, every day, for months.
I don't understand why intelligent people still think the ap cost 37 billion.
They don't believe it, but it makes good copy to say it.
So, how much DID the app cost then?
Not £37 Billion. Don't believe everything on FBPE Twitter
I do not do Twitter.
So once again, how many frigates did the non-working app cost? Five? Ten? Fifteen?
Interesting thread on the success of British TERFs in shaping the debate: "The TERFs have been more successful in rolling back Le Woke than pretty much every other right-wing grifter combined."
"TERFS" have the advantage that they are (mostly) not right wing, despite efforts to brand them as such. They are speaking to centre left folks in terms that the latter sympathise with.
Meanwhile in the Mail: AI 'could wipe out humanity'
Any kind of intelligence would wipe out the Daily Mail... their coverage of This Morning is bordering on the ludicrous today.
I haven't been following it is detail because it like most DM stories is so puerile, but I can't help thinking that the Daily Mail obsession with this is just a thinly disguised excuse to cause outrage amongst it's largely homophobic readership
Schofield’s behaviour, however, has been awful.
As has that of ITV in how they dealt with it. Numerous people have come out of the woodwork, not with wisdom after the event, but to say they had made official complaints or representations about it.
I suspect the beginning of the end for Pip was the queue jumping.
I am not sure, however, this is a matter for politicians seeing they are hauling in ITV to interrogate them over it.
The Heil are going after him because culture wars. He is yet another TV leftie* who comes over all sanctimonious. Instead of telling people Common Sense things like "isn't Boris great" and "the police should reopen currygate", he sits there with his heart on his sleeve with "I am gay" and people being sympathetic to his deviance.
I honestly don't care about This Morning or Schofield. What he allegedly has done sounds a little *interestng* morally, but we all live in the same greenhouse armed with stones. What IS interesting is the reaction from the right, who are going after him like he is Rolf Harris. He isn't, but the Heil readership have been induced to be so judgemental that they're lapping it up.
*anyone who isn't a GBeebies presenter is a TV leftie
Sky have been leading on the Schofield story ad infinitum
I get the impression that Schofield might just have upset a few other people in the media in the past. Both in front of, and behind, the camera.
It's quite simple: what he did should have got him sacked much earlier than it did. It also highlights (sadly, yet again) a problem in the media, with the 'talent' abusing their position and power. And my goodness, the optics of it are terrible for him.
As I understand it, PS had an affair with a much younger man while married; this came out a year or so back but was batted away by his PR deflecting the story onto him being gay. I wonder if there was a feeling in the media that he'd got away with it, and so with the story coming round again the pile-on is all the greater.
I think there’s still more to be revealed (one doesn’t have to search
PPE contracts ? A digital paper trail might be extraordinarily embarrassing.
I would hope that any criticism other PPE contracts might also include lists of companies that MPs from other parties criticised the government for not taking. You know, for context.
We should not lose sight of exactly how desperate things were at the time.
People saying this ignore the fact that many of these sweetheart deals for mates were signed well after the initial wave panic.
And you keep on saying that, and you ignore that there were other panics as well: like, for instance, the later lockdowns.
The government was pretty much in panic from March 2020 to March 2021. As were all of us. We needed PPE. Which would have been okay, except virtually every other country in the world needed PPE.
So why - when mates rates fail to deliver usable PPE - do we not claw back the money? Any boiler plate contract for anything has clauses about delivery - unless you are a mate of a Tory minister.
I am not that bothered about the lining of pockets where actually usable PPE was delivered. I am bothered when it was not - and we paid anyway. They have stolen - and it is stolen as they did not fulfil the contract - YOUR money. And you are fine with it. Why is that?
We desperately needed PPE and were willing to try anything to get it - just look at some of the companies *Labour* politicians were asking us to use as an example. If we had used normal procurement channels we would still be waiting - and people like Dr Foxy would have been placed in more danger.
The nearest parallel is a war. We were in a war, and we had to make decisions fast, with massive competition worldwide for a limited resource. There was waste, and there were charlatans. But the primary need was to get the kit. And we did - in fact, we ended up with too much. True fraudsters should be prosecuted.
It'd be interesting to know the percentages of all of this: how much was spent; how much was delivered, how much was usable etc. I think I've seen it somewhere before, but cannot immediately find it.
As I've said all through this hideous mess - I'm glad I'm not the one who had to make the decisions.
Johnson wanted to be PM. Wanted it so much he destroyed the careers of many others to make it happen.
If he didn't want the decision making that came with it, he shouldn't have done that.
It makes me wonder *why* he wanted the job, if he was not prepared to put in the work.
I think a lot want the fame and not put in the work and that is regardless of political views. I remember seeing a documentary many many years ago on the workings of the Work and Pensions Committee while Archie Kirkwood was chair. I was particularly interested because I liked Kirkwood.
What was notable was the way two different Tory MPs worked on the committee. One was a right winger with whom I had little in common. He appeared to put the hours in, look at the evidence and not be deflected by his own biases. He didn't seek publicity for his work. The other was someone whose views where akin to mine. She seemed to do little work, but just seeked publicity constantly. My views on both individuals changed after that. People you agree with can be rubbish at doing stuff and people you disagree with can do a good job regardless of their overlying views.
Bit like Cameron, isn’t it; ‘thought he’d be good at it!’. And he’s spent his life being ‘Good old Boris’ , life and soul of the party and all that. And was sufficiently well-connected to be able to have good jobs, to be picked up when he fell over and so on. In a way I think HIGNFY has a lot to answer for, in that he was introduced to a wider public.
And Good Morning one and all.
Slight difference between Dave and Boris.
Dave had at least a bit of noblesse oblige; he thought he'd be good at it and so put his talents at the service of the nation. And in general, he did put in the hours, even if it was often at the last minute.
Whereas with Boris it was all about fame and the big chair.
Fair point! Plus impress the impressionable ladies!
Incidentally, his older children must be now of an age to be about in the world. Wonder why we never hear from, or about, them?
Interesting thread on the success of British TERFs in shaping the debate: "The TERFs have been more successful in rolling back Le Woke than pretty much every other right-wing grifter combined."
"TERFS" have the advantage that they are (mostly) not right wing, despite efforts to brand them as such. They are speaking to centre left folks in terms that the latter sympathise with.
I should add that with enemies like their opponents, who needs friends?
Doing things like dumping bottles of urine outside the offices of the ECHR, accusing JK Rowling of "genocide", posting death and rape threats online, make the "TERFS'" case far more eloquently than they ever could.
Interesting thread on the success of British TERFs in shaping the debate: "The TERFs have been more successful in rolling back Le Woke than pretty much every other right-wing grifter combined."
"TERFS" have the advantage that they are (mostly) not right wing, despite efforts to brand them as such. They are speaking to centre left folks in terms that the latter sympathise with.
I should add that with enemies like their opponents, who needs friends?
Doing things like dumping bottles of urine outside the offices of the ECHR, accusing JK Rowling of "genocide", posting death and rape threats online, make the "TERS'" case far more eloquently than they ever could.
The question is why it's a UK-specific phenomenon.
Meanwhile in the Mail: AI 'could wipe out humanity'
Any kind of intelligence would wipe out the Daily Mail... their coverage of This Morning is bordering on the ludicrous today.
I haven't been following it is detail because it like most DM stories is so puerile, but I can't help thinking that the Daily Mail obsession with this is just a thinly disguised excuse to cause outrage amongst it's largely homophobic readership
Schofield’s behaviour, however, has been awful.
As has that of ITV in how they dealt with it. Numerous people have come out of the woodwork, not with wisdom after the event, but to say they had made official complaints or representations about it.
I suspect the beginning of the end for Pip was the queue jumping.
I am not sure, however, this is a matter for politicians seeing they are hauling in ITV to interrogate them over it.
The Heil are going after him because culture wars. He is yet another TV leftie* who comes over all sanctimonious. Instead of telling people Common Sense things like "isn't Boris great" and "the police should reopen currygate", he sits there with his heart on his sleeve with "I am gay" and people being sympathetic to his deviance.
I honestly don't care about This Morning or Schofield. What he allegedly has done sounds a little *interestng* morally, but we all live in the same greenhouse armed with stones. What IS interesting is the reaction from the right, who are going after him like he is Rolf Harris. He isn't, but the Heil readership have been induced to be so judgemental that they're lapping it up.
*anyone who isn't a GBeebies presenter is a TV leftie
Sky have been leading on the Schofield story ad infinitum
I get the impression that Schofield might just have upset a few other people in the media in the past. Both in front of, and behind, the camera.
It's quite simple: what he did should have got him sacked much earlier than it did. It also highlights (sadly, yet again) a problem in the media, with the 'talent' abusing their position and power. And my goodness, the optics of it are terrible for him.
As I understand it, PS had an affair with a much younger man while married; this came out a year or so back but was batted away by his PR deflecting the story onto him being gay. I wonder if there was a feeling in the media that he'd got away with it, and so with the story coming round again the pile-on is all the greater.
I think there’s still more to be revealed (one doesn’t have to search
PPE contracts ? A digital paper trail might be extraordinarily embarrassing.
I would hope that any criticism other PPE contracts might also include lists of companies that MPs from other parties criticised the government for not taking. You know, for context.
We should not lose sight of exactly how desperate things were at the time.
People saying this ignore the fact that many of these sweetheart deals for mates were signed well after the initial wave panic.
And you keep on saying that, and you ignore that there were other panics as well: like, for instance, the later lockdowns.
The government was pretty much in panic from March 2020 to March 2021. As were all of us. We needed PPE. Which would have been okay, except virtually every other country in the world needed PPE.
So why - when mates rates fail to deliver usable PPE - do we not claw back the money? Any boiler plate contract for anything has clauses about delivery - unless you are a mate of a Tory minister.
I am not that bothered about the lining of pockets where actually usable PPE was delivered. I am bothered when it was not - and we paid anyway. They have stolen - and it is stolen as they did not fulfil the contract - YOUR money. And you are fine with it. Why is that?
We desperately needed PPE and were willing to try anything to get it - just look at some of the companies *Labour* politicians were asking us to use as an example. If we had used normal procurement channels we would still be waiting - and people like Dr Foxy would have been placed in more danger.
The nearest parallel is a war. We were in a war, and we had to make decisions fast, with massive competition worldwide for a limited resource. There was waste, and there were charlatans. But the primary need was to get the kit. And we did - in fact, we ended up with too much. True fraudsters should be prosecuted.
It'd be interesting to know the percentages of all of this: how much was spent; how much was delivered, how much was usable etc. I think I've seen it somewhere before, but cannot immediately find it.
As I've said all through this hideous mess - I'm glad I'm not the one who had to make the decisions.
Johnson wanted to be PM. Wanted it so much he destroyed the careers of many others to make it happen.
If he didn't want the decision making that came with it, he shouldn't have done that.
It makes me wonder *why* he wanted the job, if he was not prepared to put in the work.
I think a lot want the fame and not put in the work and that is regardless of political views. I remember seeing a documentary many many years ago on the workings of the Work and Pensions Committee while Archie Kirkwood was chair. I was particularly interested because I liked Kirkwood.
What was notable was the way two different Tory MPs worked on the committee. One was a right winger with whom I had little in common. He appeared to put the hours in, look at the evidence and not be deflected by his own biases. He didn't seek publicity for his work. The other was someone whose views where akin to mine. She seemed to do little work, but just seeked publicity constantly. My views on both individuals changed after that. People you agree with can be rubbish at doing stuff and people you disagree with can do a good job regardless of their overlying views.
Bit like Cameron, isn’t it; ‘thought he’d be good at it!’. And he’s spent his life being ‘Good old Boris’ , life and soul of the party and all that. And was sufficiently well-connected to be able to have good jobs, to be picked up when he fell over and so on. In a way I think HIGNFY has a lot to answer for, in that he was introduced to a wider public.
And Good Morning one and all.
Slight difference between Dave and Boris.
Dave had at least a bit of noblesse oblige; he thought he'd be good at it and so put his talents at the service of the nation. And in general, he did put in the hours, even if it was often at the last minute.
Whereas with Boris it was all about fame and the big chair.
Fair point! Plus impress the impressionable ladies!
Incidentally, his older children must be now of an age to be about in the world. Wonder why we never hear from, or about, them?
Same reason we don’t hear anything about most children of politicians - unless they chose to do something that puts them in the public eye, why should we?
Most of the UK is being cursed by this muck from a Northeasterly flow off the North Sea, except places in the lee of mountains. Porthmadog probably warmest again today.
Cloud levels under high pressure in spring and summer are just about the hardest thing for weather models to resolve, alongside connective showers. They undercooked todays cloud.
Most of the UK is being cursed by this muck from a Northeasterly flow off the North Sea, except places in the lee of mountains. Porthmadog probably warmest again today.
Cloud levels under high pressure in spring and summer are just about the hardest thing for weather models to resolve, alongside connective showers. They undercooked todays cloud.
Hmm, Malcy will be nice and warm. Only marginal error re Glasgow, mind.
Interesting thread on the success of British TERFs in shaping the debate: "The TERFs have been more successful in rolling back Le Woke than pretty much every other right-wing grifter combined."
"TERFS" have the advantage that they are (mostly) not right wing, despite efforts to brand them as such. They are speaking to centre left folks in terms that the latter sympathise with.
I should add that with enemies like their opponents, who needs friends?
Doing things like dumping bottles of urine outside the offices of the ECHR, accusing JK Rowling of "genocide", posting death and rape threats online, make the "TERS'" case far more eloquently than they ever could.
The question is why it's a UK-specific phenomenon.
English language means that the hysteria from the US on some subjects is imported?
Interesting thread on the success of British TERFs in shaping the debate: "The TERFs have been more successful in rolling back Le Woke than pretty much every other right-wing grifter combined."
"TERFS" have the advantage that they are (mostly) not right wing, despite efforts to brand them as such. They are speaking to centre left folks in terms that the latter sympathise with.
I should add that with enemies like their opponents, who needs friends?
Doing things like dumping bottles of urine outside the offices of the ECHR, accusing JK Rowling of "genocide", posting death and rape threats online, make the "TERFS'" case far more eloquently than they ever could.
Terf Island is punching well above its weight:
Using statistics about the number of Twitter users by country, we can see that people with a UK location are 3.8x more likely to be reported as a transphobe than people with a US location. Users in the UK made up 56,421,466 tweets (18.4%) Users in the US made up 69,195,140 tweets (22.5%) Meaning the UK users in this data set on average tweeted 1.54x more than the US users in this data set
And even Australia is starting to have second thoughts......
Family Court judges have been urged to consider new evidence at odds with current legal frameworks governing cases of gender-dysphoric children, or risk contributing to the “worst medical scandal in 100 years”. A legal paper, compiled by top Victorian family law barrister Belle Lane and delivered to judges of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia last month, argues fresh research into the effects of hormone treatments and puberty blockers on young Australians refutes older research touting a gender-affirming model of care.
One of the country’s biggest medical insurers will no longer cover private practitioners prescribing gender-affirming care to adolescents, in a move that could leave young people languishing on already-stretched public waiting lists.
MDA National, one of four major medical indemnity providers insuring GPs and other private practitioners against legal claims, updated its policy this month to exclude cover for claims “arising from aspects of gender transitioning treatment for under 18-year-old patients”.
Interesting thread on the success of British TERFs in shaping the debate: "The TERFs have been more successful in rolling back Le Woke than pretty much every other right-wing grifter combined."
"TERFS" have the advantage that they are (mostly) not right wing, despite efforts to brand them as such. They are speaking to centre left folks in terms that the latter sympathise with.
I should add that with enemies like their opponents, who needs friends?
Doing things like dumping bottles of urine outside the offices of the ECHR, accusing JK Rowling of "genocide", posting death and rape threats online, make the "TERS'" case far more eloquently than they ever could.
The question is why it's a UK-specific phenomenon.
English language means that the hysteria from the US on some subjects is imported?
I mean why is it that "TERFs" have been much more successful in pushing back in the UK than the US? In the US, the mainstream left is much more in thrall to gender ideology.
I would like to know how it cost £37bn for a phone app that did not work.
That is enough to build 44 Type 26 frigates... (£4.2bn for 5 of them according to gov.uk)
It didn't cost £37 billion.
One thing that does annoy me is that so many people now talking about the app not working were staunch advocates at the time. "We must have an app! So-and-so in the EU have an app!"
Same sort of thing with the idiots who have called for both "PPE at any cost" and now criticise the "PPE waste outrage".
It took me about 30 minutes of looking at the initial Apple/Google spec for Bluetooth proximity contact tracing* to conclude "this won't bloody work". Why? Nowhere near enough uptake was plausible to make it work, unless it was mandatory, and the technical issues with enabling the service and generally crappy uncalibrated Bluetooth signal strength measures made it very unlikely to ever have a chance of working well.
People perhaps forget but there were advocates for Bluetooth based contact tracing who made claims that such a service alone would slam the lid on the pandemic by making contact tracing and case isolation extremely effective. Suffice it to say reality disagrees with them.
* I was interested because I already knew a fair bit about Bluetooth beacons/advertisments and it didn't sound like something that current Bluetooth would do well.
Interesting thread on the success of British TERFs in shaping the debate: "The TERFs have been more successful in rolling back Le Woke than pretty much every other right-wing grifter combined."
"TERFS" have the advantage that they are (mostly) not right wing, despite efforts to brand them as such. They are speaking to centre left folks in terms that the latter sympathise with.
As per my usual rant about how the British find it difficult to visualise politics (see my previous posts about how journalists who should have encountered the term "National Conservatism" decades ago were honestly surprised when Americans started using it), some things (Greenism, Euroscepticism, etc) are not mappable onto a single right-left axis
PPE contracts ? A digital paper trail might be extraordinarily embarrassing.
I would hope that any criticism other PPE contracts might also include lists of companies that MPs from other parties criticised the government for not taking. You know, for context.
We should not lose sight of exactly how desperate things were at the time.
People saying this ignore the fact that many of these sweetheart deals for mates were signed well after the initial wave panic.
And you keep on saying that, and you ignore that there were other panics as well: like, for instance, the later lockdowns.
The government was pretty much in panic from March 2020 to March 2021. As were all of us. We needed PPE. Which would have been okay, except virtually every other country in the world needed PPE.
So why - when mates rates fail to deliver usable PPE - do we not claw back the money? Any boiler plate contract for anything has clauses about delivery - unless you are a mate of a Tory minister.
I am not that bothered about the lining of pockets where actually usable PPE was delivered. I am bothered when it was not - and we paid anyway. They have stolen - and it is stolen as they did not fulfil the contract - YOUR money. And you are fine with it. Why is that?
We desperately needed PPE and were willing to try anything to get it - just look at some of the companies *Labour* politicians were asking us to use as an example. If we had used normal procurement channels we would still be waiting - and people like Dr Foxy would have been placed in more danger.
The nearest parallel is a war. We were in a war, and we had to make decisions fast, with massive competition worldwide for a limited resource. There was waste, and there were charlatans. But the primary need was to get the kit. And we did - in fact, we ended up with too much. True fraudsters should be prosecuted.
It'd be interesting to know the percentages of all of this: how much was spent; how much was delivered, how much was usable etc. I think I've seen it somewhere before, but cannot immediately find it.
As I've said all through this hideous mess - I'm glad I'm not the one who had to make the decisions.
We're largely in agreement. I want the fraudsters done over. And the people who enabled the fraudsters.
Your war analogy is interesting though. It was a war, and we had established generals (PPE companies) with a track record of fighting wars.
We ignored them. And rang our mate who had heard of war but never done it. And put him in charge of fighting our war.
I'm not voting Labour so the whataboutery doesn't work on me. The government ignored the actual PPE companies and bet our lives on Lady Mone and Matt Hancocks pub landlord...
Did we ignore the 'established' generals? I assume these were the 'generals' Labour were going on about?
In which case, I might ask how CQM Learning was an 'established general' in the PPE market. Or Issa Exchange Ltd (and those are just two from Labour's press release).
The latter looks particularly interesting if you look at their 202 accounts...
I am also interested in the fact that we have the exact same system we had before - bio degradable, expendable plastic. You can't stockpile it for too long - because it starts to disintegrate.
This is combined with a collection of face shields and masks to create a barrier full of holes, for the medical staff. This means that if the next epidemic is truly airborne, it won't work.
Modern reusable gear exists - i've used some of it for welding toxic materials (Stainless Steel). But it seems that we have an institutional problem against using it. The latest stuff has features that answer the problems that made adopting the disposable stuff seem like a good idea.
Stockpiling should involve rotation of kit in and out of storage, not filling a warehouse and hoping everything still works ten years from now (cf the Russian military, and quite possibly our own).
That should be one of the very first recommendations, and is likely one that’s already been put into practice by the NHS.
Anyone keeping emergency stockpiles of anything, should make sure that they remain serviceable and are inspected regularly.
For things like medical PPE, the stockpiles themselves should be at least one year’s supply *in the emergency scenario*, which means a lot of rotation. Domestic manufacturers should also be identified, and contracted in advance to switch production on request.
The problem is that a years supply of disposable PPE for a pandemic would be vastly greater than the amount required per year by the NHS in normal times.
So every year you would have to dispose of a huge pile of out of date PPE.
Other options that should be considered
1) Non-disposable PPE. This would have a higher capital cost, but would offer other things, such as resilience in a pandemic and the ability to have "kit" system that builds up to full airtight protection. 2) Manufacturing facilities for the PPE. Runs normally at x% of capacity. It has the raw materials for your years worth of PPE stored - they would need to be non-volatile precursors. Produces PPE for the NHS normally. Every now and then, as a practise, surges to full capacity.
Do face masks stored properly really degrade at a significant rate in just a few years?
Might it be as simple as someone actually investing to test the effectiveness of face masks after 5 and 10 years? Not in the manufacturers interest at all as they benefit from resupplying every couple of years.
Should we be throwing all this away, especially in a pandemic scenario? Has anyone checked if an N99 mask 5 years out of date is really worse than a new N95 mask? Or more importantly if it is worse than nothing.....
Interesting thread on the success of British TERFs in shaping the debate: "The TERFs have been more successful in rolling back Le Woke than pretty much every other right-wing grifter combined."
"TERFS" have the advantage that they are (mostly) not right wing, despite efforts to brand them as such. They are speaking to centre left folks in terms that the latter sympathise with.
I should add that with enemies like their opponents, who needs friends?
Doing things like dumping bottles of urine outside the offices of the ECHR, accusing JK Rowling of "genocide", posting death and rape threats online, make the "TERS'" case far more eloquently than they ever could.
The question is why it's a UK-specific phenomenon.
English language means that the hysteria from the US on some subjects is imported?
I mean why is it that "TERFs" have been much more successful in pushing back in the UK than the US? In the US, the mainstream left is much more in thrall to gender ideology.
Interesting thread on the success of British TERFs in shaping the debate: "The TERFs have been more successful in rolling back Le Woke than pretty much every other right-wing grifter combined."
"TERFS" have the advantage that they are (mostly) not right wing, despite efforts to brand them as such. They are speaking to centre left folks in terms that the latter sympathise with.
I should add that with enemies like their opponents, who needs friends?
Doing things like dumping bottles of urine outside the offices of the ECHR, accusing JK Rowling of "genocide", posting death and rape threats online, make the "TERS'" case far more eloquently than they ever could.
The question is why it's a UK-specific phenomenon.
English language means that the hysteria from the US on some subjects is imported?
I mean why is it that "TERFs" have been much more successful in pushing back in the UK than the US? In the US, the mainstream left is much more in thrall to gender ideology.
Partly because the UK is doing what it did in the pandemic - analysing data to clarify evidence - something much more easily done with a unified health system, unlike the US, for example. The profit motive is also largely absent from much UK healthcare.
Hence the Cass Review and the Tavistock enquiry. The "affirmative care" model is based on a (flawed) decades old Dutch study which ignores the critical caveats the Dutch used to qualify for participation - no mental health comorbidities and long standing gender dysphoria. Unfortunately a lot of the patients now receiving such "care" have had rapid onset gender dysphoria - frequently associated with onset of puberty - and more often than not have other mental health challenges. "Affirmative care" railroads patients onto puberty blockers - "or your kids will commit suicide" - more dodgy data - which almost always lead to cross sex hormones with lifelong health implications (sterility, inability to orgasm, ever, and bone density loss among them). But point this out, and you're a TERF and a bigot.
Interesting thread on the success of British TERFs in shaping the debate: "The TERFs have been more successful in rolling back Le Woke than pretty much every other right-wing grifter combined."
"TERFS" have the advantage that they are (mostly) not right wing, despite efforts to brand them as such. They are speaking to centre left folks in terms that the latter sympathise with.
I should add that with enemies like their opponents, who needs friends?
Doing things like dumping bottles of urine outside the offices of the ECHR, accusing JK Rowling of "genocide", posting death and rape threats online, make the "TERS'" case far more eloquently than they ever could.
The question is why it's a UK-specific phenomenon.
English language means that the hysteria from the US on some subjects is imported?
I mean why is it that "TERFs" have been much more successful in pushing back in the UK than the US? In the US, the mainstream left is much more in thrall to gender ideology.
PPE contracts ? A digital paper trail might be extraordinarily embarrassing.
I would hope that any criticism other PPE contracts might also include lists of companies that MPs from other parties criticised the government for not taking. You know, for context.
We should not lose sight of exactly how desperate things were at the time.
People saying this ignore the fact that many of these sweetheart deals for mates were signed well after the initial wave panic.
And you keep on saying that, and you ignore that there were other panics as well: like, for instance, the later lockdowns.
The government was pretty much in panic from March 2020 to March 2021. As were all of us. We needed PPE. Which would have been okay, except virtually every other country in the world needed PPE.
So why - when mates rates fail to deliver usable PPE - do we not claw back the money? Any boiler plate contract for anything has clauses about delivery - unless you are a mate of a Tory minister.
I am not that bothered about the lining of pockets where actually usable PPE was delivered. I am bothered when it was not - and we paid anyway. They have stolen - and it is stolen as they did not fulfil the contract - YOUR money. And you are fine with it. Why is that?
We desperately needed PPE and were willing to try anything to get it - just look at some of the companies *Labour* politicians were asking us to use as an example. If we had used normal procurement channels we would still be waiting - and people like Dr Foxy would have been placed in more danger.
The nearest parallel is a war. We were in a war, and we had to make decisions fast, with massive competition worldwide for a limited resource. There was waste, and there were charlatans. But the primary need was to get the kit. And we did - in fact, we ended up with too much. True fraudsters should be prosecuted.
It'd be interesting to know the percentages of all of this: how much was spent; how much was delivered, how much was usable etc. I think I've seen it somewhere before, but cannot immediately find it.
As I've said all through this hideous mess - I'm glad I'm not the one who had to make the decisions.
We're largely in agreement. I want the fraudsters done over. And the people who enabled the fraudsters.
Your war analogy is interesting though. It was a war, and we had established generals (PPE companies) with a track record of fighting wars.
We ignored them. And rang our mate who had heard of war but never done it. And put him in charge of fighting our war.
I'm not voting Labour so the whataboutery doesn't work on me. The government ignored the actual PPE companies and bet our lives on Lady Mone and Matt Hancocks pub landlord...
Did we ignore the 'established' generals? I assume these were the 'generals' Labour were going on about?
In which case, I might ask how CQM Learning was an 'established general' in the PPE market. Or Issa Exchange Ltd (and those are just two from Labour's press release).
The latter looks particularly interesting if you look at their 202 accounts...
I am also interested in the fact that we have the exact same system we had before - bio degradable, expendable plastic. You can't stockpile it for too long - because it starts to disintegrate.
This is combined with a collection of face shields and masks to create a barrier full of holes, for the medical staff. This means that if the next epidemic is truly airborne, it won't work.
Modern reusable gear exists - i've used some of it for welding toxic materials (Stainless Steel). But it seems that we have an institutional problem against using it. The latest stuff has features that answer the problems that made adopting the disposable stuff seem like a good idea.
Stockpiling should involve rotation of kit in and out of storage, not filling a warehouse and hoping everything still works ten years from now (cf the Russian military, and quite possibly our own).
The problem with rotation is the quantities involved.
From memory the UK was going through more stock of PPE per week than it would normally go through per year in normal circumstances. So how do you logistically rotate that?
So even if you rotate perfectly, you either need stuff stockpiled for ten years in normal circumstances, or you are going to run out of PPE within ten weeks.
That's why realistically if we're to have a usable stockpile that can get us through a pandemic, we need stocks that can be stored in a warehouse for years. Because we simply don't need that volume in normal circumstances.
Boat from China to warehouse. Warehouse to hospital. That's what the importers do. We just need to insert a stockpile between the two steps.
PPE contracts ? A digital paper trail might be extraordinarily embarrassing.
I would hope that any criticism other PPE contracts might also include lists of companies that MPs from other parties criticised the government for not taking. You know, for context.
We should not lose sight of exactly how desperate things were at the time.
People saying this ignore the fact that many of these sweetheart deals for mates were signed well after the initial wave panic.
And you keep on saying that, and you ignore that there were other panics as well: like, for instance, the later lockdowns.
The government was pretty much in panic from March 2020 to March 2021. As were all of us. We needed PPE. Which would have been okay, except virtually every other country in the world needed PPE.
So why - when mates rates fail to deliver usable PPE - do we not claw back the money? Any boiler plate contract for anything has clauses about delivery - unless you are a mate of a Tory minister.
I am not that bothered about the lining of pockets where actually usable PPE was delivered. I am bothered when it was not - and we paid anyway. They have stolen - and it is stolen as they did not fulfil the contract - YOUR money. And you are fine with it. Why is that?
We desperately needed PPE and were willing to try anything to get it - just look at some of the companies *Labour* politicians were asking us to use as an example. If we had used normal procurement channels we would still be waiting - and people like Dr Foxy would have been placed in more danger.
The nearest parallel is a war. We were in a war, and we had to make decisions fast, with massive competition worldwide for a limited resource. There was waste, and there were charlatans. But the primary need was to get the kit. And we did - in fact, we ended up with too much. True fraudsters should be prosecuted.
It'd be interesting to know the percentages of all of this: how much was spent; how much was delivered, how much was usable etc. I think I've seen it somewhere before, but cannot immediately find it.
As I've said all through this hideous mess - I'm glad I'm not the one who had to make the decisions.
We're largely in agreement. I want the fraudsters done over. And the people who enabled the fraudsters.
Your war analogy is interesting though. It was a war, and we had established generals (PPE companies) with a track record of fighting wars.
We ignored them. And rang our mate who had heard of war but never done it. And put him in charge of fighting our war.
I'm not voting Labour so the whataboutery doesn't work on me. The government ignored the actual PPE companies and bet our lives on Lady Mone and Matt Hancocks pub landlord...
Did we ignore the 'established' generals? I assume these were the 'generals' Labour were going on about?
In which case, I might ask how CQM Learning was an 'established general' in the PPE market. Or Issa Exchange Ltd (and those are just two from Labour's press release).
The latter looks particularly interesting if you look at their 202 accounts...
I am also interested in the fact that we have the exact same system we had before - bio degradable, expendable plastic. You can't stockpile it for too long - because it starts to disintegrate.
This is combined with a collection of face shields and masks to create a barrier full of holes, for the medical staff. This means that if the next epidemic is truly airborne, it won't work.
Modern reusable gear exists - i've used some of it for welding toxic materials (Stainless Steel). But it seems that we have an institutional problem against using it. The latest stuff has features that answer the problems that made adopting the disposable stuff seem like a good idea.
Stockpiling should involve rotation of kit in and out of storage, not filling a warehouse and hoping everything still works ten years from now (cf the Russian military, and quite possibly our own).
That should be one of the very first recommendations, and is likely one that’s already been put into practice by the NHS.
Anyone keeping emergency stockpiles of anything, should make sure that they remain serviceable and are inspected regularly.
For things like medical PPE, the stockpiles themselves should be at least one year’s supply *in the emergency scenario*, which means a lot of rotation. Domestic manufacturers should also be identified, and contracted in advance to switch production on request.
The problem is that a years supply of disposable PPE for a pandemic would be vastly greater than the amount required per year by the NHS in normal times.
So every year you would have to dispose of a huge pile of out of date PPE.
Other options that should be considered
1) Non-disposable PPE. This would have a higher capital cost, but would offer other things, such as resilience in a pandemic and the ability to have "kit" system that builds up to full airtight protection. 2) Manufacturing facilities for the PPE. Runs normally at x% of capacity. It has the raw materials for your years worth of PPE stored - they would need to be non-volatile precursors. Produces PPE for the NHS normally. Every now and then, as a practise, surges to full capacity.
Do face masks stored properly really degrade at a significant rate in just a few years?
Might it be as simple as someone actually investing to test the effectiveness of face masks after 5 and 10 years? Not in the manufacturers interest at all as they benefit from resupplying every couple of years.
Should we be throwing all this away, especially in a pandemic scenario? Has anyone checked if an N99 mask 5 years out of date is really worse than a new N95 mask? Or more importantly if it is worse than nothing.....
It’s not so much the masks as the gowns and gloves.
All three can be made non-disposable and lay for decades, though.
Miss Vance, in the... 1950s, I want to say, the US sterilised thousands of people with low IQs to make the population 'better'. Though different in nature, the end result of unneeded sterilisation is a major aspect of hormone treatments.
Bit of a bizarre forecast this morning. Don't think I've ever seen Glasgow as the hottest part of the UK before !
NE wind, so something of a haar over the East parts of Scotland, though nothing more than overcast and a pleasantly cool wind. No rain, alas for the garden.
There was rain here just north of Cheltenham, which was welcome, unless of course you are a weather forecaster.
There is not an endless well of goodwill from Remainers re Starmers new found enthusiasm for Brexit . We understand the need for him to try to walk a difficult tightrope and of course the right wing press will happy to jump on any softening of his position but the country is in a different position now .
Improving relations with the EU should be a priority and the majority of the public seem to be happy to see an improvement.
I expect to see efforts made to lower barriers for the creative industries , to put in a youth mobility scheme , similar to what’s been agreed with Australia and New Zealand and to get a veterinary agreement to help UK farming and fisheries and I also want to see a return to Erasmus . These are all things which should not be controversial.
I will be voting for Labour and am willing to allow Starmer his current new found Brexit enthusiasm. But this vote won’t be there in future elections if Labour fail to address those concerns .
PPE contracts ? A digital paper trail might be extraordinarily embarrassing.
I would hope that any criticism other PPE contracts might also include lists of companies that MPs from other parties criticised the government for not taking. You know, for context.
We should not lose sight of exactly how desperate things were at the time.
People saying this ignore the fact that many of these sweetheart deals for mates were signed well after the initial wave panic.
And you keep on saying that, and you ignore that there were other panics as well: like, for instance, the later lockdowns.
The government was pretty much in panic from March 2020 to March 2021. As were all of us. We needed PPE. Which would have been okay, except virtually every other country in the world needed PPE.
So why - when mates rates fail to deliver usable PPE - do we not claw back the money? Any boiler plate contract for anything has clauses about delivery - unless you are a mate of a Tory minister.
I am not that bothered about the lining of pockets where actually usable PPE was delivered. I am bothered when it was not - and we paid anyway. They have stolen - and it is stolen as they did not fulfil the contract - YOUR money. And you are fine with it. Why is that?
We desperately needed PPE and were willing to try anything to get it - just look at some of the companies *Labour* politicians were asking us to use as an example. If we had used normal procurement channels we would still be waiting - and people like Dr Foxy would have been placed in more danger.
The nearest parallel is a war. We were in a war, and we had to make decisions fast, with massive competition worldwide for a limited resource. There was waste, and there were charlatans. But the primary need was to get the kit. And we did - in fact, we ended up with too much. True fraudsters should be prosecuted.
It'd be interesting to know the percentages of all of this: how much was spent; how much was delivered, how much was usable etc. I think I've seen it somewhere before, but cannot immediately find it.
As I've said all through this hideous mess - I'm glad I'm not the one who had to make the decisions.
We're largely in agreement. I want the fraudsters done over. And the people who enabled the fraudsters.
Your war analogy is interesting though. It was a war, and we had established generals (PPE companies) with a track record of fighting wars.
We ignored them. And rang our mate who had heard of war but never done it. And put him in charge of fighting our war.
I'm not voting Labour so the whataboutery doesn't work on me. The government ignored the actual PPE companies and bet our lives on Lady Mone and Matt Hancocks pub landlord...
Did we ignore the 'established' generals? I assume these were the 'generals' Labour were going on about?
In which case, I might ask how CQM Learning was an 'established general' in the PPE market. Or Issa Exchange Ltd (and those are just two from Labour's press release).
The latter looks particularly interesting if you look at their 202 accounts...
I am also interested in the fact that we have the exact same system we had before - bio degradable, expendable plastic. You can't stockpile it for too long - because it starts to disintegrate.
This is combined with a collection of face shields and masks to create a barrier full of holes, for the medical staff. This means that if the next epidemic is truly airborne, it won't work.
Modern reusable gear exists - i've used some of it for welding toxic materials (Stainless Steel). But it seems that we have an institutional problem against using it. The latest stuff has features that answer the problems that made adopting the disposable stuff seem like a good idea.
Stockpiling should involve rotation of kit in and out of storage, not filling a warehouse and hoping everything still works ten years from now (cf the Russian military, and quite possibly our own).
The problem with rotation is the quantities involved.
From memory the UK was going through more stock of PPE per week than it would normally go through per year in normal circumstances. So how do you logistically rotate that?
So even if you rotate perfectly, you either need stuff stockpiled for ten years in normal circumstances, or you are going to run out of PPE within ten weeks.
That's why realistically if we're to have a usable stockpile that can get us through a pandemic, we need stocks that can be stored in a warehouse for years. Because we simply don't need that volume in normal circumstances.
Boat from China to warehouse. Warehouse to hospital. That's what the importers do. We just need to insert a stockpile between the two steps.
And every other country in the world wants that Chinese supplier's output. All of it. And more.
There were limitations throughout the supply chain.
Interesting thread on the success of British TERFs in shaping the debate: "The TERFs have been more successful in rolling back Le Woke than pretty much every other right-wing grifter combined."
"TERFS" have the advantage that they are (mostly) not right wing, despite efforts to brand them as such. They are speaking to centre left folks in terms that the latter sympathise with.
I should add that with enemies like their opponents, who needs friends?
Doing things like dumping bottles of urine outside the offices of the ECHR, accusing JK Rowling of "genocide", posting death and rape threats online, make the "TERS'" case far more eloquently than they ever could.
The question is why it's a UK-specific phenomenon.
English language means that the hysteria from the US on some subjects is imported?
I mean why is it that "TERFs" have been much more successful in pushing back in the UK than the US? In the US, the mainstream left is much more in thrall to gender ideology.
...Partly because the UK is doing what it did in the pandemic - analysing data to clarify evidence - something much more easily done with a unified health system, unlike the US, for example. The profit motive is also largely absent from much UK healthcare...
analysing data to clarify evidence...
...which in turn leads into problems in interpreting large masses of publicly accessible and updatable data. In a field where any interest group can publish a paper and call it a study, where anybody can do a review and call it a systematic review, where anybody can do a metaanalysis and get it published, where more and more papers are more and more distanced from the actual patients, where even honest analyses are done using black boxes sourced from elsewhere, where even the definition of a "study" is moot, checking and visualising this will take years.
Interesting thread on the success of British TERFs in shaping the debate: "The TERFs have been more successful in rolling back Le Woke than pretty much every other right-wing grifter combined."
"TERFS" have the advantage that they are (mostly) not right wing, despite efforts to brand them as such. They are speaking to centre left folks in terms that the latter sympathise with.
I should add that with enemies like their opponents, who needs friends?
Doing things like dumping bottles of urine outside the offices of the ECHR, accusing JK Rowling of "genocide", posting death and rape threats online, make the "TERS'" case far more eloquently than they ever could.
The question is why it's a UK-specific phenomenon.
English language means that the hysteria from the US on some subjects is imported?
I mean why is it that "TERFs" have been much more successful in pushing back in the UK than the US? In the US, the mainstream left is much more in thrall to gender ideology.
...Partly because the UK is doing what it did in the pandemic - analysing data to clarify evidence - something much more easily done with a unified health system, unlike the US, for example. The profit motive is also largely absent from much UK healthcare...
analysing data to clarify evidence...
...which in turn leads into problems in interpreting large masses of publicly accessible and updatable data. In a field where any interest group can publish a paper and call it a study, where anybody can do a review and call it a systematic review, where anybody can do a metaanalysis and get it published, where more and more papers are more and more distanced from the actual patients, where even honest analyses are done using black boxes sourced from elsewhere, where even the definition of a "study" is moot, checking and visualising this will take years.
Do you believe it's possible to be trapped in the wrong body?
Interesting thread on the success of British TERFs in shaping the debate: "The TERFs have been more successful in rolling back Le Woke than pretty much every other right-wing grifter combined."
"TERFS" have the advantage that they are (mostly) not right wing, despite efforts to brand them as such. They are speaking to centre left folks in terms that the latter sympathise with.
I should add that with enemies like their opponents, who needs friends?
Doing things like dumping bottles of urine outside the offices of the ECHR, accusing JK Rowling of "genocide", posting death and rape threats online, make the "TERS'" case far more eloquently than they ever could.
The question is why it's a UK-specific phenomenon.
English language means that the hysteria from the US on some subjects is imported?
I mean why is it that "TERFs" have been much more successful in pushing back in the UK than the US? In the US, the mainstream left is much more in thrall to gender ideology.
...Partly because the UK is doing what it did in the pandemic - analysing data to clarify evidence - something much more easily done with a unified health system, unlike the US, for example. The profit motive is also largely absent from much UK healthcare...
analysing data to clarify evidence...
...which in turn leads into problems in interpreting large masses of publicly accessible and updatable data. In a field where any interest group can publish a paper and call it a study, where anybody can do a review and call it a systematic review, where anybody can do a metaanalysis and get it published, where more and more papers are more and more distanced from the actual patients, where even honest analyses are done using black boxes sourced from elsewhere, where even the definition of a "study" is moot, checking and visualising this will take years.
Do you believe it's possible to be trapped in the wrong body?
Christiano Ronaldo has somehow managed to nick mine......
Why do women find Boris sexy, is the question I can see no answer to?
He's rich and powerful. There's a Kissinger quote about it.
Kissinger, though, was interesting, intelligent, and witty.
Arguably Boris is all of those three. Unfortunately he is also physically repellent, lazy, continously unfaithful, ungroomed, bad-teethed, and a liar. The only thing that gets him laid is the cash and the power.
PPE contracts ? A digital paper trail might be extraordinarily embarrassing.
I would hope that any criticism other PPE contracts might also include lists of companies that MPs from other parties criticised the government for not taking. You know, for context.
We should not lose sight of exactly how desperate things were at the time.
People saying this ignore the fact that many of these sweetheart deals for mates were signed well after the initial wave panic.
And you keep on saying that, and you ignore that there were other panics as well: like, for instance, the later lockdowns.
The government was pretty much in panic from March 2020 to March 2021. As were all of us. We needed PPE. Which would have been okay, except virtually every other country in the world needed PPE.
So why - when mates rates fail to deliver usable PPE - do we not claw back the money? Any boiler plate contract for anything has clauses about delivery - unless you are a mate of a Tory minister.
I am not that bothered about the lining of pockets where actually usable PPE was delivered. I am bothered when it was not - and we paid anyway. They have stolen - and it is stolen as they did not fulfil the contract - YOUR money. And you are fine with it. Why is that?
We desperately needed PPE and were willing to try anything to get it - just look at some of the companies *Labour* politicians were asking us to use as an example. If we had used normal procurement channels we would still be waiting - and people like Dr Foxy would have been placed in more danger.
The nearest parallel is a war. We were in a war, and we had to make decisions fast, with massive competition worldwide for a limited resource. There was waste, and there were charlatans. But the primary need was to get the kit. And we did - in fact, we ended up with too much. True fraudsters should be prosecuted.
It'd be interesting to know the percentages of all of this: how much was spent; how much was delivered, how much was usable etc. I think I've seen it somewhere before, but cannot immediately find it.
As I've said all through this hideous mess - I'm glad I'm not the one who had to make the decisions.
We're largely in agreement. I want the fraudsters done over. And the people who enabled the fraudsters.
Your war analogy is interesting though. It was a war, and we had established generals (PPE companies) with a track record of fighting wars.
We ignored them. And rang our mate who had heard of war but never done it. And put him in charge of fighting our war.
I'm not voting Labour so the whataboutery doesn't work on me. The government ignored the actual PPE companies and bet our lives on Lady Mone and Matt Hancocks pub landlord...
Did we ignore the 'established' generals? I assume these were the 'generals' Labour were going on about?
In which case, I might ask how CQM Learning was an 'established general' in the PPE market. Or Issa Exchange Ltd (and those are just two from Labour's press release).
The latter looks particularly interesting if you look at their 202 accounts...
I am also interested in the fact that we have the exact same system we had before - bio degradable, expendable plastic. You can't stockpile it for too long - because it starts to disintegrate.
This is combined with a collection of face shields and masks to create a barrier full of holes, for the medical staff. This means that if the next epidemic is truly airborne, it won't work.
Modern reusable gear exists - i've used some of it for welding toxic materials (Stainless Steel). But it seems that we have an institutional problem against using it. The latest stuff has features that answer the problems that made adopting the disposable stuff seem like a good idea.
Stockpiling should involve rotation of kit in and out of storage, not filling a warehouse and hoping everything still works ten years from now (cf the Russian military, and quite possibly our own).
The problem with rotation is the quantities involved.
From memory the UK was going through more stock of PPE per week than it would normally go through per year in normal circumstances. So how do you logistically rotate that?
So even if you rotate perfectly, you either need stuff stockpiled for ten years in normal circumstances, or you are going to run out of PPE within ten weeks.
That's why realistically if we're to have a usable stockpile that can get us through a pandemic, we need stocks that can be stored in a warehouse for years. Because we simply don't need that volume in normal circumstances.
Boat from China to warehouse. Warehouse to hospital. That's what the importers do. We just need to insert a stockpile between the two steps.
And every other country in the world wants that Chinese supplier's output. All of it. And more.
There were limitations throughout the supply chain.
Yeah, hence the need to stockpile! And btw this is not something invented by some random crank on the internet, it was recommended by the government's Exercise Cygnus.
Why do women find Boris sexy, is the question I can see no answer to?
He's rich and powerful. There's a Kissinger quote about it.
Kissinger, though, was interesting, intelligent, and witty.
Arguably Boris is all of those three. Unfortunately he is also physically repellent, lazy, continously unfaithful, ungroomed, bad-teethed, and a liar. The only thing that gets him laid is the cash and the power.
I suppose it just goes to show that politics is showbusiness for ugly people.
Meanwhile in the Mail: AI 'could wipe out humanity'
Any kind of intelligence would wipe out the Daily Mail... their coverage of This Morning is bordering on the ludicrous today.
I haven't been following it is detail because it like most DM stories is so puerile, but I can't help thinking that the Daily Mail obsession with this is just a thinly disguised excuse to cause outrage amongst it's largely homophobic readership
Schofield’s behaviour, however, has been awful.
As has that of ITV in how they dealt with it. Numerous people have come out of the woodwork, not with wisdom after the event, but to say they had made official complaints or representations about it.
I suspect the beginning of the end for Pip was the queue jumping.
I am not sure, however, this is a matter for politicians seeing they are hauling in ITV to interrogate them over it.
The Heil are going after him because culture wars. He is yet another TV leftie* who comes over all sanctimonious. Instead of telling people Common Sense things like "isn't Boris great" and "the police should reopen currygate", he sits there with his heart on his sleeve with "I am gay" and people being sympathetic to his deviance.
I honestly don't care about This Morning or Schofield. What he allegedly has done sounds a little *interestng* morally, but we all live in the same greenhouse armed with stones. What IS interesting is the reaction from the right, who are going after him like he is Rolf Harris. He isn't, but the Heil readership have been induced to be so judgemental that they're lapping it up.
*anyone who isn't a GBeebies presenter is a TV leftie
Sky have been leading on the Schofield story ad infinitum
I get the impression that Schofield might just have upset a few other people in the media in the past. Both in front of, and behind, the camera.
It's quite simple: what he did should have got him sacked much earlier than it did. It also highlights (sadly, yet again) a problem in the media, with the 'talent' abusing their position and power. And my goodness, the optics of it are terrible for him.
As I understand it, PS had an affair with a much younger man while married; this came out a year or so back but was batted away by his PR deflecting the story onto him being gay. I wonder if there was a feeling in the media that he'd got away with it, and so with the story coming round again the pile-on is all the greater.
I think there’s still more to be revealed (one doesn’t have to search very hard on social media).
If we’ve learnt anything from recent years, isn’t it that social media is full of lies, distortions and misunderstandings?
Interesting thread on the success of British TERFs in shaping the debate: "The TERFs have been more successful in rolling back Le Woke than pretty much every other right-wing grifter combined."
"TERFS" have the advantage that they are (mostly) not right wing, despite efforts to brand them as such. They are speaking to centre left folks in terms that the latter sympathise with.
I should add that with enemies like their opponents, who needs friends?
Doing things like dumping bottles of urine outside the offices of the ECHR, accusing JK Rowling of "genocide", posting death and rape threats online, make the "TERS'" case far more eloquently than they ever could.
The question is why it's a UK-specific phenomenon.
English language means that the hysteria from the US on some subjects is imported?
I mean why is it that "TERFs" have been much more successful in pushing back in the UK than the US? In the US, the mainstream left is much more in thrall to gender ideology.
...Partly because the UK is doing what it did in the pandemic - analysing data to clarify evidence - something much more easily done with a unified health system, unlike the US, for example. The profit motive is also largely absent from much UK healthcare...
analysing data to clarify evidence...
...which in turn leads into problems in interpreting large masses of publicly accessible and updatable data. In a field where any interest group can publish a paper and call it a study, where anybody can do a review and call it a systematic review, where anybody can do a metaanalysis and get it published, where more and more papers are more and more distanced from the actual patients, where even honest analyses are done using black boxes sourced from elsewhere, where even the definition of a "study" is moot, checking and visualising this will take years.
At least in the UK we have bodies like NICE to assess the evidence:
The evidence for using puberty blocking drugs to treat young people struggling with their gender identity is "very low", an official review has found.
The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) said existing studies of the drugs were small and "subject to bias and confounding".
PPE contracts ? A digital paper trail might be extraordinarily embarrassing.
I would hope that any criticism other PPE contracts might also include lists of companies that MPs from other parties criticised the government for not taking. You know, for context.
We should not lose sight of exactly how desperate things were at the time.
People saying this ignore the fact that many of these sweetheart deals for mates were signed well after the initial wave panic.
And you keep on saying that, and you ignore that there were other panics as well: like, for instance, the later lockdowns.
The government was pretty much in panic from March 2020 to March 2021. As were all of us. We needed PPE. Which would have been okay, except virtually every other country in the world needed PPE.
So why - when mates rates fail to deliver usable PPE - do we not claw back the money? Any boiler plate contract for anything has clauses about delivery - unless you are a mate of a Tory minister.
I am not that bothered about the lining of pockets where actually usable PPE was delivered. I am bothered when it was not - and we paid anyway. They have stolen - and it is stolen as they did not fulfil the contract - YOUR money. And you are fine with it. Why is that?
We desperately needed PPE and were willing to try anything to get it - just look at some of the companies *Labour* politicians were asking us to use as an example. If we had used normal procurement channels we would still be waiting - and people like Dr Foxy would have been placed in more danger.
The nearest parallel is a war. We were in a war, and we had to make decisions fast, with massive competition worldwide for a limited resource. There was waste, and there were charlatans. But the primary need was to get the kit. And we did - in fact, we ended up with too much. True fraudsters should be prosecuted.
It'd be interesting to know the percentages of all of this: how much was spent; how much was delivered, how much was usable etc. I think I've seen it somewhere before, but cannot immediately find it.
As I've said all through this hideous mess - I'm glad I'm not the one who had to make the decisions.
We're largely in agreement. I want the fraudsters done over. And the people who enabled the fraudsters.
Your war analogy is interesting though. It was a war, and we had established generals (PPE companies) with a track record of fighting wars.
We ignored them. And rang our mate who had heard of war but never done it. And put him in charge of fighting our war.
I'm not voting Labour so the whataboutery doesn't work on me. The government ignored the actual PPE companies and bet our lives on Lady Mone and Matt Hancocks pub landlord...
Did we ignore the 'established' generals? I assume these were the 'generals' Labour were going on about?
In which case, I might ask how CQM Learning was an 'established general' in the PPE market. Or Issa Exchange Ltd (and those are just two from Labour's press release).
The latter looks particularly interesting if you look at their 202 accounts...
I am also interested in the fact that we have the exact same system we had before - bio degradable, expendable plastic. You can't stockpile it for too long - because it starts to disintegrate.
This is combined with a collection of face shields and masks to create a barrier full of holes, for the medical staff. This means that if the next epidemic is truly airborne, it won't work.
Modern reusable gear exists - i've used some of it for welding toxic materials (Stainless Steel). But it seems that we have an institutional problem against using it. The latest stuff has features that answer the problems that made adopting the disposable stuff seem like a good idea.
Stockpiling should involve rotation of kit in and out of storage, not filling a warehouse and hoping everything still works ten years from now (cf the Russian military, and quite possibly our own).
The problem with rotation is the quantities involved.
From memory the UK was going through more stock of PPE per week than it would normally go through per year in normal circumstances. So how do you logistically rotate that?
So even if you rotate perfectly, you either need stuff stockpiled for ten years in normal circumstances, or you are going to run out of PPE within ten weeks.
That's why realistically if we're to have a usable stockpile that can get us through a pandemic, we need stocks that can be stored in a warehouse for years. Because we simply don't need that volume in normal circumstances.
Boat from China to warehouse. Warehouse to hospital. That's what the importers do. We just need to insert a stockpile between the two steps.
Why do women find Boris sexy, is the question I can see no answer to?
He's rich and powerful. There's a Kissinger quote about it.
Kissinger, though, was interesting, intelligent, and witty.
Arguably Boris is all of those three. Unfortunately he is also physically repellent, lazy, continously unfaithful, ungroomed, bad-teethed, and a liar. The only thing that gets him laid is the cash and the power.
I would imagine it starts with feeling a bit sorry for him, and then finding him a bit funny, and before they know it they're dreaming of being the woman who turned the unkempt frog into the Prince.
Meanwhile in the Mail: AI 'could wipe out humanity'
Any kind of intelligence would wipe out the Daily Mail... their coverage of This Morning is bordering on the ludicrous today.
I haven't been following it is detail because it like most DM stories is so puerile, but I can't help thinking that the Daily Mail obsession with this is just a thinly disguised excuse to cause outrage amongst it's largely homophobic readership
Schofield’s behaviour, however, has been awful.
As has that of ITV in how they dealt with it. Numerous people have come out of the woodwork, not with wisdom after the event, but to say they had made official complaints or representations about it.
I suspect the beginning of the end for Pip was the queue jumping.
I am not sure, however, this is a matter for politicians seeing they are hauling in ITV to interrogate them over it.
The Heil are going after him because culture wars. He is yet another TV leftie* who comes over all sanctimonious. Instead of telling people Common Sense things like "isn't Boris great" and "the police should reopen currygate", he sits there with his heart on his sleeve with "I am gay" and people being sympathetic to his deviance.
I honestly don't care about This Morning or Schofield. What he allegedly has done sounds a little *interestng* morally, but we all live in the same greenhouse armed with stones. What IS interesting is the reaction from the right, who are going after him like he is Rolf Harris. He isn't, but the Heil readership have been induced to be so judgemental that they're lapping it up.
*anyone who isn't a GBeebies presenter is a TV leftie
Sky have been leading on the Schofield story ad infinitum
I get the impression that Schofield might just have upset a few other people in the media in the past. Both in front of, and behind, the camera.
It's quite simple: what he did should have got him sacked much earlier than it did. It also highlights (sadly, yet again) a problem in the media, with the 'talent' abusing their position and power. And my goodness, the optics of it are terrible for him.
As I understand it, PS had an affair with a much younger man while married; this came out a year or so back but was batted away by his PR deflecting the story onto him being gay. I wonder if there was a feeling in the media that he'd got away with it, and so with the story coming round again the pile-on is all the greater.
I think there’s still more to be revealed (one doesn’t have to search very hard on social media).
If we’ve learnt anything from recent years, isn’t it that social media is full of lies, distortions and misunderstandings?
It often is. And, it often is ahead of the game. Some of the speculation about Schofield sounds very lurid, but the actualite seems bad enough.
PPE contracts ? A digital paper trail might be extraordinarily embarrassing.
I would hope that any criticism other PPE contracts might also include lists of companies that MPs from other parties criticised the government for not taking. You know, for context.
We should not lose sight of exactly how desperate things were at the time.
People saying this ignore the fact that many of these sweetheart deals for mates were signed well after the initial wave panic.
And you keep on saying that, and you ignore that there were other panics as well: like, for instance, the later lockdowns.
The government was pretty much in panic from March 2020 to March 2021. As were all of us. We needed PPE. Which would have been okay, except virtually every other country in the world needed PPE.
So why - when mates rates fail to deliver usable PPE - do we not claw back the money? Any boiler plate contract for anything has clauses about delivery - unless you are a mate of a Tory minister.
I am not that bothered about the lining of pockets where actually usable PPE was delivered. I am bothered when it was not - and we paid anyway. They have stolen - and it is stolen as they did not fulfil the contract - YOUR money. And you are fine with it. Why is that?
We desperately needed PPE and were willing to try anything to get it - just look at some of the companies *Labour* politicians were asking us to use as an example. If we had used normal procurement channels we would still be waiting - and people like Dr Foxy would have been placed in more danger.
The nearest parallel is a war. We were in a war, and we had to make decisions fast, with massive competition worldwide for a limited resource. There was waste, and there were charlatans. But the primary need was to get the kit. And we did - in fact, we ended up with too much. True fraudsters should be prosecuted.
It'd be interesting to know the percentages of all of this: how much was spent; how much was delivered, how much was usable etc. I think I've seen it somewhere before, but cannot immediately find it.
As I've said all through this hideous mess - I'm glad I'm not the one who had to make the decisions.
We're largely in agreement. I want the fraudsters done over. And the people who enabled the fraudsters.
Your war analogy is interesting though. It was a war, and we had established generals (PPE companies) with a track record of fighting wars.
We ignored them. And rang our mate who had heard of war but never done it. And put him in charge of fighting our war.
I'm not voting Labour so the whataboutery doesn't work on me. The government ignored the actual PPE companies and bet our lives on Lady Mone and Matt Hancocks pub landlord...
Did we ignore the 'established' generals? I assume these were the 'generals' Labour were going on about?
In which case, I might ask how CQM Learning was an 'established general' in the PPE market. Or Issa Exchange Ltd (and those are just two from Labour's press release).
The latter looks particularly interesting if you look at their 202 accounts...
I am also interested in the fact that we have the exact same system we had before - bio degradable, expendable plastic. You can't stockpile it for too long - because it starts to disintegrate.
This is combined with a collection of face shields and masks to create a barrier full of holes, for the medical staff. This means that if the next epidemic is truly airborne, it won't work.
Modern reusable gear exists - i've used some of it for welding toxic materials (Stainless Steel). But it seems that we have an institutional problem against using it. The latest stuff has features that answer the problems that made adopting the disposable stuff seem like a good idea.
Stockpiling should involve rotation of kit in and out of storage, not filling a warehouse and hoping everything still works ten years from now (cf the Russian military, and quite possibly our own).
The problem with rotation is the quantities involved.
From memory the UK was going through more stock of PPE per week than it would normally go through per year in normal circumstances. So how do you logistically rotate that?
So even if you rotate perfectly, you either need stuff stockpiled for ten years in normal circumstances, or you are going to run out of PPE within ten weeks.
That's why realistically if we're to have a usable stockpile that can get us through a pandemic, we need stocks that can be stored in a warehouse for years. Because we simply don't need that volume in normal circumstances.
Boat from China to warehouse. Warehouse to hospital. That's what the importers do. We just need to insert a stockpile between the two steps.
And every other country in the world wants that Chinese supplier's output. All of it. And more.
There were limitations throughout the supply chain.
Yeah, hence the need to stockpile! And btw this is not something invented by some random crank on the internet, it was recommended by the government's Exercise Cygnus.
A meaningful stockpile would mean throwing away many thousand tons of expired material each years. Usage in the pandemic reached 20x - 50x normal. So a stockpile would contain 20-50 years of normal NHS usage. Much of it wouldn’t last 3 years.
@williamglenn do you think this image is a lie or not?
If "is" can mean "is in the process of" then it's not a lie and it was true that at the time, the prospect of accelerating the accession process was dangled before Turkey.
Even if you think it was never likely to happen, the ad was fair game for a political campaign. Cameron could have said he would veto it, but it didn't because it would have contradicted British policy.
If "is" can mean "is in the process of" then we are all dead.
"-ing" means in the process of so we are all dying, we are not all dead.
Do you say that a dead person is dying? No, a dead person is already dead, only living people are dying.
Turkey hadn't joined the EU. It was joining the EU. That is a matter of fact, joining is a process and it was in that process and was having rounds of accession talks and agreements with one taking place the week before the referendum.
Turkey was going through a process to try to join the EU. It was applying to join. But it hadn’t and has never had agreement that it definitely will join. Ergo, “joining” is misleading.
If you are taking driving lessons, is it misleading to say that you are learning to drive when you might not get as far as getting a licence?
If you are taking driving lessons, it is accurate to say that you are learning to drive. It’s not accurate to say you are “passing your driving test”.
It was accurate to say that Turkey was applying to join. It was misleading to say, in the manner it was presented in that ad, that Turkey “is joining”.
PPE contracts ? A digital paper trail might be extraordinarily embarrassing.
I would hope that any criticism other PPE contracts might also include lists of companies that MPs from other parties criticised the government for not taking. You know, for context.
We should not lose sight of exactly how desperate things were at the time.
People saying this ignore the fact that many of these sweetheart deals for mates were signed well after the initial wave panic.
And you keep on saying that, and you ignore that there were other panics as well: like, for instance, the later lockdowns.
The government was pretty much in panic from March 2020 to March 2021. As were all of us. We needed PPE. Which would have been okay, except virtually every other country in the world needed PPE.
So why - when mates rates fail to deliver usable PPE - do we not claw back the money? Any boiler plate contract for anything has clauses about delivery - unless you are a mate of a Tory minister.
I am not that bothered about the lining of pockets where actually usable PPE was delivered. I am bothered when it was not - and we paid anyway. They have stolen - and it is stolen as they did not fulfil the contract - YOUR money. And you are fine with it. Why is that?
We desperately needed PPE and were willing to try anything to get it - just look at some of the companies *Labour* politicians were asking us to use as an example. If we had used normal procurement channels we would still be waiting - and people like Dr Foxy would have been placed in more danger.
The nearest parallel is a war. We were in a war, and we had to make decisions fast, with massive competition worldwide for a limited resource. There was waste, and there were charlatans. But the primary need was to get the kit. And we did - in fact, we ended up with too much. True fraudsters should be prosecuted.
It'd be interesting to know the percentages of all of this: how much was spent; how much was delivered, how much was usable etc. I think I've seen it somewhere before, but cannot immediately find it.
As I've said all through this hideous mess - I'm glad I'm not the one who had to make the decisions.
We're largely in agreement. I want the fraudsters done over. And the people who enabled the fraudsters.
Your war analogy is interesting though. It was a war, and we had established generals (PPE companies) with a track record of fighting wars.
We ignored them. And rang our mate who had heard of war but never done it. And put him in charge of fighting our war.
I'm not voting Labour so the whataboutery doesn't work on me. The government ignored the actual PPE companies and bet our lives on Lady Mone and Matt Hancocks pub landlord...
Did we ignore the 'established' generals? I assume these were the 'generals' Labour were going on about?
In which case, I might ask how CQM Learning was an 'established general' in the PPE market. Or Issa Exchange Ltd (and those are just two from Labour's press release).
The latter looks particularly interesting if you look at their 202 accounts...
I am also interested in the fact that we have the exact same system we had before - bio degradable, expendable plastic. You can't stockpile it for too long - because it starts to disintegrate.
This is combined with a collection of face shields and masks to create a barrier full of holes, for the medical staff. This means that if the next epidemic is truly airborne, it won't work.
Modern reusable gear exists - i've used some of it for welding toxic materials (Stainless Steel). But it seems that we have an institutional problem against using it. The latest stuff has features that answer the problems that made adopting the disposable stuff seem like a good idea.
Stockpiling should involve rotation of kit in and out of storage, not filling a warehouse and hoping everything still works ten years from now (cf the Russian military, and quite possibly our own).
The problem with rotation is the quantities involved.
From memory the UK was going through more stock of PPE per week than it would normally go through per year in normal circumstances. So how do you logistically rotate that?
So even if you rotate perfectly, you either need stuff stockpiled for ten years in normal circumstances, or you are going to run out of PPE within ten weeks.
That's why realistically if we're to have a usable stockpile that can get us through a pandemic, we need stocks that can be stored in a warehouse for years. Because we simply don't need that volume in normal circumstances.
Boat from China to warehouse. Warehouse to hospital. That's what the importers do. We just need to insert a stockpile between the two steps.
And every other country in the world wants that Chinese supplier's output. All of it. And more.
There were limitations throughout the supply chain.
Yeah, hence the need to stockpile! And btw this is not something invented by some random crank on the internet, it was recommended by the government's Exercise Cygnus.
A meaningful stockpile would mean throwing away many thousand tons of expired material each years. Usage in the pandemic reached 20x - 50x normal. So a stockpile would contain 20-50 years of normal NHS usage. Much of it wouldn’t last 3 years.
Does the PPE actually 'expire' though ?
I mean stuff with active charcoal will or some such might but the holes on a surgical mask aren't going to get any larger, a gown won't magically decay if it's airtight stored in a dark cupboard. Long term there's proton decay but that takes a while.
Interesting thread on the success of British TERFs in shaping the debate: "The TERFs have been more successful in rolling back Le Woke than pretty much every other right-wing grifter combined."
"TERFS" have the advantage that they are (mostly) not right wing, despite efforts to brand them as such. They are speaking to centre left folks in terms that the latter sympathise with.
I should add that with enemies like their opponents, who needs friends?
Doing things like dumping bottles of urine outside the offices of the ECHR, accusing JK Rowling of "genocide", posting death and rape threats online, make the "TERS'" case far more eloquently than they ever could.
The question is why it's a UK-specific phenomenon.
English language means that the hysteria from the US on some subjects is imported?
I mean why is it that "TERFs" have been much more successful in pushing back in the UK than the US? In the US, the mainstream left is much more in thrall to gender ideology.
...Partly because the UK is doing what it did in the pandemic - analysing data to clarify evidence - something much more easily done with a unified health system, unlike the US, for example. The profit motive is also largely absent from much UK healthcare...
analysing data to clarify evidence...
...which in turn leads into problems in interpreting large masses of publicly accessible and updatable data. In a field where any interest group can publish a paper and call it a study, where anybody can do a review and call it a systematic review, where anybody can do a metaanalysis and get it published, where more and more papers are more and more distanced from the actual patients, where even honest analyses are done using black boxes sourced from elsewhere, where even the definition of a "study" is moot, checking and visualising this will take years.
Do you believe it's possible to be trapped in the wrong body?
Me, personally? Hmm, good question. I would accept it as a metaphor whereby a person believes that their body does not reflect what they would like to be. As for considerations of a "true self", I think that's a philosophical question about the separation of mind and brain - see my previous convo with @Leon about p-zombies - which I have difficulty with. One is what one is and to be is to be embodied.
If you were talking about souls, I need to point out that souls are sexless, a point mandated in the Bible I believe
The closest I personally could get to your question is that the state we are in at time t does not dictate our state at time t+n, with the probability decreasing as n increases. What we are now is not the same as what we were then, and what we will be in the future is not dictated by what we are now. To put it simply, humans are Markov chains
But my personal opinion does not alter the facts (sigh), and the fact is that many people feel that they are trapped in the wrong body. One does not need to produce trans people to discuss this, since the existence of the disabled-from-birth amply demonstrates
And just as I would not describe somebody born without sight as "in thrall to sightist ideology", I would not describe somebody who feels themselves to be the wrong sex as "in thrall to gender ideology"
Incidentally, and to pre-empt your next question, did you catch Mary Harrington's speech in the NatCon thing. I thought her case well argued and utterly wrong.
@williamglenn do you think this image is a lie or not?
If "is" can mean "is in the process of" then it's not a lie and it was true that at the time, the prospect of accelerating the accession process was dangled before Turkey.
Even if you think it was never likely to happen, the ad was fair game for a political campaign. Cameron could have said he would veto it, but it didn't because it would have contradicted British policy.
If "is" can mean "is in the process of" then we are all dead.
"-ing" means in the process of so we are all dying, we are not all dead.
Do you say that a dead person is dying? No, a dead person is already dead, only living people are dying.
Turkey hadn't joined the EU. It was joining the EU. That is a matter of fact, joining is a process and it was in that process and was having rounds of accession talks and agreements with one taking place the week before the referendum.
Turkey was going through a process to try to join the EU. It was applying to join. But it hadn’t and has never had agreement that it definitely will join. Ergo, “joining” is misleading.
If you are taking driving lessons, is it misleading to say that you are learning to drive when you might not get as far as getting a licence?
Turkey wasn't even at the 'taking lessons' stage. Just look at how far they'd progressed on the AQ since 2005:
"Progress was slow: out of the 35 chapters necessary to complete the accession process, only 16 had been opened and one had been closed by May 2016."
Progress being slow is not the same as progress not being made or happening. If any had been opened then the process was underway, but 16 had already been opened so they were in that process. If you're in the process, then the -ing applies.
Progress was suspended after the attempted coup and associated crackdown in 2016 but that happened after the referendum so was not known about at the time.
It really doesn't. 'Joining' implies it will happen, when in reality there were a massive number of hoops for Turley to jump through - not the least being a vote of the other EU members...
'May join' would be acceptable IMO. 'Joining' is not.
The EU themselves at the time were saying it should happen and had accepted Turkey into the joining process, which was not at the time suspended.
Both Angela Merkel and David Cameron had spoken then recently and positively about accelerating the Acquis part of the joining process.
So joining was acceptable. The idea that Merkel and Cameron were speaking positively about accelerating the joining the process, but intended to veto the application later on, certainly implies dishonesty but not from the people who made the advert.
I do concur that there is a very long-standing contradiction tween the Conservative Party’s rhetoric on immigration and the Conservative Party’s policies.
Interesting thread on the success of British TERFs in shaping the debate: "The TERFs have been more successful in rolling back Le Woke than pretty much every other right-wing grifter combined."
"TERFS" have the advantage that they are (mostly) not right wing, despite efforts to brand them as such. They are speaking to centre left folks in terms that the latter sympathise with.
I should add that with enemies like their opponents, who needs friends?
Doing things like dumping bottles of urine outside the offices of the ECHR, accusing JK Rowling of "genocide", posting death and rape threats online, make the "TERS'" case far more eloquently than they ever could.
The question is why it's a UK-specific phenomenon.
English language means that the hysteria from the US on some subjects is imported?
Actually the Trans-TERF wars started mainly in the UK. This is a proud British export
@williamglenn do you think this image is a lie or not?
If "is" can mean "is in the process of" then it's not a lie and it was true that at the time, the prospect of accelerating the accession process was dangled before Turkey.
Even if you think it was never likely to happen, the ad was fair game for a political campaign. Cameron could have said he would veto it, but it didn't because it would have contradicted British policy.
If "is" can mean "is in the process of" then we are all dead.
"-ing" means in the process of so we are all dying, we are not all dead.
Do you say that a dead person is dying? No, a dead person is already dead, only living people are dying.
Turkey hadn't joined the EU. It was joining the EU. That is a matter of fact, joining is a process and it was in that process and was having rounds of accession talks and agreements with one taking place the week before the referendum.
Turkey was going through a process to try to join the EU. It was applying to join. But it hadn’t and has never had agreement that it definitely will join. Ergo, “joining” is misleading.
If you are taking driving lessons, is it misleading to say that you are learning to drive when you might not get as far as getting a licence?
If you are taking driving lessons, it is accurate to say that you are learning to drive. It’s not accurate to say you are “passing your driving test”.
It was accurate to say that Turkey was applying to join. It was misleading to say, in the manner it was presented in that ad, that Turkey “is joining”.
If in 2015 there was a betting market on Turkey joining the EU as full members by 2025, no would have been trading at 1.0x and there wouldnt have been a rush to lay it.
"Luton 'stolen' house owner still fighting to get home back
A man is still fighting to get his house back more than a year since it was sold without his knowledge. Reverend Mike Hall previously told the BBC of his shock at returning to his Luton house and finding it stripped of all furnishings in August last year. He is still working to obtain compensation for the loss of his property and has been unable to regain formal ownership of his house. A Bedfordshire Police investigation remains ongoing."
PPE contracts ? A digital paper trail might be extraordinarily embarrassing.
I would hope that any criticism other PPE contracts might also include lists of companies that MPs from other parties criticised the government for not taking. You know, for context.
We should not lose sight of exactly how desperate things were at the time.
People saying this ignore the fact that many of these sweetheart deals for mates were signed well after the initial wave panic.
And you keep on saying that, and you ignore that there were other panics as well: like, for instance, the later lockdowns.
The government was pretty much in panic from March 2020 to March 2021. As were all of us. We needed PPE. Which would have been okay, except virtually every other country in the world needed PPE.
So why - when mates rates fail to deliver usable PPE - do we not claw back the money? Any boiler plate contract for anything has clauses about delivery - unless you are a mate of a Tory minister.
I am not that bothered about the lining of pockets where actually usable PPE was delivered. I am bothered when it was not - and we paid anyway. They have stolen - and it is stolen as they did not fulfil the contract - YOUR money. And you are fine with it. Why is that?
We desperately needed PPE and were willing to try anything to get it - just look at some of the companies *Labour* politicians were asking us to use as an example. If we had used normal procurement channels we would still be waiting - and people like Dr Foxy would have been placed in more danger.
The nearest parallel is a war. We were in a war, and we had to make decisions fast, with massive competition worldwide for a limited resource. There was waste, and there were charlatans. But the primary need was to get the kit. And we did - in fact, we ended up with too much. True fraudsters should be prosecuted.
It'd be interesting to know the percentages of all of this: how much was spent; how much was delivered, how much was usable etc. I think I've seen it somewhere before, but cannot immediately find it.
As I've said all through this hideous mess - I'm glad I'm not the one who had to make the decisions.
We're largely in agreement. I want the fraudsters done over. And the people who enabled the fraudsters.
Your war analogy is interesting though. It was a war, and we had established generals (PPE companies) with a track record of fighting wars.
We ignored them. And rang our mate who had heard of war but never done it. And put him in charge of fighting our war.
I'm not voting Labour so the whataboutery doesn't work on me. The government ignored the actual PPE companies and bet our lives on Lady Mone and Matt Hancocks pub landlord...
Did we ignore the 'established' generals? I assume these were the 'generals' Labour were going on about?
In which case, I might ask how CQM Learning was an 'established general' in the PPE market. Or Issa Exchange Ltd (and those are just two from Labour's press release).
The latter looks particularly interesting if you look at their 202 accounts...
I am also interested in the fact that we have the exact same system we had before - bio degradable, expendable plastic. You can't stockpile it for too long - because it starts to disintegrate.
This is combined with a collection of face shields and masks to create a barrier full of holes, for the medical staff. This means that if the next epidemic is truly airborne, it won't work.
Modern reusable gear exists - i've used some of it for welding toxic materials (Stainless Steel). But it seems that we have an institutional problem against using it. The latest stuff has features that answer the problems that made adopting the disposable stuff seem like a good idea.
Stockpiling should involve rotation of kit in and out of storage, not filling a warehouse and hoping everything still works ten years from now (cf the Russian military, and quite possibly our own).
The problem with rotation is the quantities involved.
From memory the UK was going through more stock of PPE per week than it would normally go through per year in normal circumstances. So how do you logistically rotate that?
So even if you rotate perfectly, you either need stuff stockpiled for ten years in normal circumstances, or you are going to run out of PPE within ten weeks.
That's why realistically if we're to have a usable stockpile that can get us through a pandemic, we need stocks that can be stored in a warehouse for years. Because we simply don't need that volume in normal circumstances.
Boat from China to warehouse. Warehouse to hospital. That's what the importers do. We just need to insert a stockpile between the two steps.
And every other country in the world wants that Chinese supplier's output. All of it. And more.
There were limitations throughout the supply chain.
Yeah, hence the need to stockpile! And btw this is not something invented by some random crank on the internet, it was recommended by the government's Exercise Cygnus.
A meaningful stockpile would mean throwing away many thousand tons of expired material each years. Usage in the pandemic reached 20x - 50x normal. So a stockpile would contain 20-50 years of normal NHS usage. Much of it wouldn’t last 3 years.
Does the PPE actually 'expire' though ?
I mean stuff with active charcoal will or some such might but the holes on a surgical mask aren't going to get any larger, a gown won't magically decay if it's airtight stored in a dark cupboard. Long term there's proton decay but that takes a while.
Bio degradable plastic degrades over time. No matter the storage conditions.
Ch4 - after their shocking un-evidenced hit-piece on the head of the EHRC had a documentary last night on "Gender Wars" and in particular Kathleen Stock's experience of them - worth a watch:
The trans participants in it feel they were induced to take part under false pretences, though why an "Emeritus Professor of Law" thinks a sub-judice case should have featured I don't know.....
"Luton 'stolen' house owner still fighting to get home back
A man is still fighting to get his house back more than a year since it was sold without his knowledge. Reverend Mike Hall previously told the BBC of his shock at returning to his Luton house and finding it stripped of all furnishings in August last year. He is still working to obtain compensation for the loss of his property and has been unable to regain formal ownership of his house. A Bedfordshire Police investigation remains ongoing."
The conveyancing solicitors acting for the fraudulent seller have been negligent.
PPE contracts ? A digital paper trail might be extraordinarily embarrassing.
I would hope that any criticism other PPE contracts might also include lists of companies that MPs from other parties criticised the government for not taking. You know, for context.
We should not lose sight of exactly how desperate things were at the time.
People saying this ignore the fact that many of these sweetheart deals for mates were signed well after the initial wave panic.
And you keep on saying that, and you ignore that there were other panics as well: like, for instance, the later lockdowns.
The government was pretty much in panic from March 2020 to March 2021. As were all of us. We needed PPE. Which would have been okay, except virtually every other country in the world needed PPE.
So why - when mates rates fail to deliver usable PPE - do we not claw back the money? Any boiler plate contract for anything has clauses about delivery - unless you are a mate of a Tory minister.
I am not that bothered about the lining of pockets where actually usable PPE was delivered. I am bothered when it was not - and we paid anyway. They have stolen - and it is stolen as they did not fulfil the contract - YOUR money. And you are fine with it. Why is that?
We desperately needed PPE and were willing to try anything to get it - just look at some of the companies *Labour* politicians were asking us to use as an example. If we had used normal procurement channels we would still be waiting - and people like Dr Foxy would have been placed in more danger.
The nearest parallel is a war. We were in a war, and we had to make decisions fast, with massive competition worldwide for a limited resource. There was waste, and there were charlatans. But the primary need was to get the kit. And we did - in fact, we ended up with too much. True fraudsters should be prosecuted.
It'd be interesting to know the percentages of all of this: how much was spent; how much was delivered, how much was usable etc. I think I've seen it somewhere before, but cannot immediately find it.
As I've said all through this hideous mess - I'm glad I'm not the one who had to make the decisions.
We're largely in agreement. I want the fraudsters done over. And the people who enabled the fraudsters.
Your war analogy is interesting though. It was a war, and we had established generals (PPE companies) with a track record of fighting wars.
We ignored them. And rang our mate who had heard of war but never done it. And put him in charge of fighting our war.
I'm not voting Labour so the whataboutery doesn't work on me. The government ignored the actual PPE companies and bet our lives on Lady Mone and Matt Hancocks pub landlord...
Did we ignore the 'established' generals? I assume these were the 'generals' Labour were going on about?
In which case, I might ask how CQM Learning was an 'established general' in the PPE market. Or Issa Exchange Ltd (and those are just two from Labour's press release).
The latter looks particularly interesting if you look at their 202 accounts...
I am also interested in the fact that we have the exact same system we had before - bio degradable, expendable plastic. You can't stockpile it for too long - because it starts to disintegrate.
This is combined with a collection of face shields and masks to create a barrier full of holes, for the medical staff. This means that if the next epidemic is truly airborne, it won't work.
Modern reusable gear exists - i've used some of it for welding toxic materials (Stainless Steel). But it seems that we have an institutional problem against using it. The latest stuff has features that answer the problems that made adopting the disposable stuff seem like a good idea.
Stockpiling should involve rotation of kit in and out of storage, not filling a warehouse and hoping everything still works ten years from now (cf the Russian military, and quite possibly our own).
The problem with rotation is the quantities involved.
From memory the UK was going through more stock of PPE per week than it would normally go through per year in normal circumstances. So how do you logistically rotate that?
So even if you rotate perfectly, you either need stuff stockpiled for ten years in normal circumstances, or you are going to run out of PPE within ten weeks.
That's why realistically if we're to have a usable stockpile that can get us through a pandemic, we need stocks that can be stored in a warehouse for years. Because we simply don't need that volume in normal circumstances.
Boat from China to warehouse. Warehouse to hospital. That's what the importers do. We just need to insert a stockpile between the two steps.
Much of the material has short shelf life.
Yes, so we go warehouse to stockpile to hospital, rather than warehouse to hospital while a big pile of gloves rots in the stockpile. We all do something similar when buying food: shop to fridge to frying pan, not shop to frying pan and only look in the fridge on high days and holidays.
Team Trump is scrambling to uncover the names of the FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors who are investigating the former president. The goal is to target them for an "immediate" purge, should Trump win again. https://twitter.com/NoahShachtman/status/1663545717208801283
I would like to know how it cost £37bn for a phone app that did not work.
That is enough to build 44 Type 26 frigates... (£4.2bn for 5 of them according to gov.uk)
£37bn !!?!
Have the government admitted it cost that much?
That was the total cost - at one point in time, may have ended up higher - for all of test and trace. But mainly it was just for the testing, as HMG were very lacklustre on the tracing and isolating bits of the long-established method for controlling spread of an infectious disease.
Slightly unfair. Most infectious disease tracing takes place for disease where you are only contagious with symptoms, and is handled by local authorities. Covid was spreading by asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic people.
COVID was spread by asymptomatic *and* symptomatic individuals. That’s also the case for lots of other infections, e.g. monkeypox.
There’s plenty to support LostPassword’s contention, as I discussed in my own submission to the Inquiry. (I think I declared that I didn’t have any WhatsApp messages and they’ve not gone through my emails, but I’ve been warned they might… seems unlikely by this point.)
PPE contracts ? A digital paper trail might be extraordinarily embarrassing.
I would hope that any criticism other PPE contracts might also include lists of companies that MPs from other parties criticised the government for not taking. You know, for context.
We should not lose sight of exactly how desperate things were at the time.
People saying this ignore the fact that many of these sweetheart deals for mates were signed well after the initial wave panic.
And you keep on saying that, and you ignore that there were other panics as well: like, for instance, the later lockdowns.
The government was pretty much in panic from March 2020 to March 2021. As were all of us. We needed PPE. Which would have been okay, except virtually every other country in the world needed PPE.
So why - when mates rates fail to deliver usable PPE - do we not claw back the money? Any boiler plate contract for anything has clauses about delivery - unless you are a mate of a Tory minister.
I am not that bothered about the lining of pockets where actually usable PPE was delivered. I am bothered when it was not - and we paid anyway. They have stolen - and it is stolen as they did not fulfil the contract - YOUR money. And you are fine with it. Why is that?
We desperately needed PPE and were willing to try anything to get it - just look at some of the companies *Labour* politicians were asking us to use as an example. If we had used normal procurement channels we would still be waiting - and people like Dr Foxy would have been placed in more danger.
The nearest parallel is a war. We were in a war, and we had to make decisions fast, with massive competition worldwide for a limited resource. There was waste, and there were charlatans. But the primary need was to get the kit. And we did - in fact, we ended up with too much. True fraudsters should be prosecuted.
It'd be interesting to know the percentages of all of this: how much was spent; how much was delivered, how much was usable etc. I think I've seen it somewhere before, but cannot immediately find it.
As I've said all through this hideous mess - I'm glad I'm not the one who had to make the decisions.
We're largely in agreement. I want the fraudsters done over. And the people who enabled the fraudsters.
Your war analogy is interesting though. It was a war, and we had established generals (PPE companies) with a track record of fighting wars.
We ignored them. And rang our mate who had heard of war but never done it. And put him in charge of fighting our war.
I'm not voting Labour so the whataboutery doesn't work on me. The government ignored the actual PPE companies and bet our lives on Lady Mone and Matt Hancocks pub landlord...
Did we ignore the 'established' generals? I assume these were the 'generals' Labour were going on about?
In which case, I might ask how CQM Learning was an 'established general' in the PPE market. Or Issa Exchange Ltd (and those are just two from Labour's press release).
The latter looks particularly interesting if you look at their 202 accounts...
I am also interested in the fact that we have the exact same system we had before - bio degradable, expendable plastic. You can't stockpile it for too long - because it starts to disintegrate.
This is combined with a collection of face shields and masks to create a barrier full of holes, for the medical staff. This means that if the next epidemic is truly airborne, it won't work.
Modern reusable gear exists - i've used some of it for welding toxic materials (Stainless Steel). But it seems that we have an institutional problem against using it. The latest stuff has features that answer the problems that made adopting the disposable stuff seem like a good idea.
Stockpiling should involve rotation of kit in and out of storage, not filling a warehouse and hoping everything still works ten years from now (cf the Russian military, and quite possibly our own).
The problem with rotation is the quantities involved.
From memory the UK was going through more stock of PPE per week than it would normally go through per year in normal circumstances. So how do you logistically rotate that?
So even if you rotate perfectly, you either need stuff stockpiled for ten years in normal circumstances, or you are going to run out of PPE within ten weeks.
That's why realistically if we're to have a usable stockpile that can get us through a pandemic, we need stocks that can be stored in a warehouse for years. Because we simply don't need that volume in normal circumstances.
Boat from China to warehouse. Warehouse to hospital. That's what the importers do. We just need to insert a stockpile between the two steps.
Much of the material has short shelf life.
Yes, so we go warehouse to stockpile to hospital, rather than warehouse to hospital while a big pile of gloves rots in the stockpile. We all do something similar when buying food: shop to fridge to frying pan, not shop to frying pan and only look in the fridge on high days and holidays.
The point being that you need 20x-50X as much PPE in a pandemic as normal. Which means that a years supply is 20-50 years of normal consumption.
Why do women find Boris sexy, is the question I can see no answer to?
He's rich and powerful. There's a Kissinger quote about it.
Kissinger, though, was interesting, intelligent, and witty.
Arguably Boris is all of those three. Unfortunately he is also physically repellent, lazy, continously unfaithful, ungroomed, bad-teethed, and a liar. The only thing that gets him laid is the cash and the power.
I would imagine it starts with feeling a bit sorry for him, and then finding him a bit funny, and before they know it they're dreaming of being the woman who turned the unkempt frog into the Prince.
If you're meeting in person - and sometimes not even then - shortcomings in physical appearance can be overcome quite easily. Confidence is key - and Boris has that.
"Wilkes was notoriously ugly, being called the ugliest man in England at the time. He possessed an unsightly squint and protruding jaw, but he had a charm that carried all before it. He boasted that it "took him only half an hour to talk away his face", though the duration required changed on the several occasions Wilkes repeated the claim. He also declared that "a month's start of his rival on account of his face" would secure him the conquest in any love affair.
He was well known for his verbal wit and his snappy responses to insults. For instance, when told by a constituent that he would rather vote for the devil, Wilkes responded: "Naturally." He then added: "And if your friend decides against standing, can I count on your vote?"
"Luton 'stolen' house owner still fighting to get home back
A man is still fighting to get his house back more than a year since it was sold without his knowledge. Reverend Mike Hall previously told the BBC of his shock at returning to his Luton house and finding it stripped of all furnishings in August last year. He is still working to obtain compensation for the loss of his property and has been unable to regain formal ownership of his house. A Bedfordshire Police investigation remains ongoing."
The conveyancing solicitors acting for the fraudulent seller have been negligent.
If there was a qualified solicitor acting for the ‘seller’ (as opposed to the ‘seller’ doing it all himself by impersonating others), they’ll be getting one hell of a claim against their PI insurance.
I think the key to this one, is that he bought the house in 1990, so perhaps there was no mortgage on the property.
Solicitors having insurance, is the primary reason that rest of us pay a few hundred quid to protect an investment of a few hundred grand!
Including yesterday's announcement Andy Carter (Warrington North), we're already up to 47 MPs elected as Conservatives who won't be standing for the same/successor seat as a Conservative at the next general election. 38 are still sitting as Conservatives and are standing down out of choice, plus 4 who have been deselected, 4 who have lost the whip or been expelled, and 1 defector to Labour.
The comparable figure for the last parliament to run its full course (2015 GE) was 38 Conservatives. 22 of those stood down no more than one year before the 2015 general election.
So the numbers are well up and there's still a year to go. Many jumping to avoid the expected push?
Why do women find Boris sexy, is the question I can see no answer to?
He's rich and powerful. There's a Kissinger quote about it.
Kissinger, though, was interesting, intelligent, and witty.
Arguably Boris is all of those three. Unfortunately he is also physically repellent, lazy, continously unfaithful, ungroomed, bad-teethed, and a liar. The only thing that gets him laid is the cash and the power.
I would imagine it starts with feeling a bit sorry for him, and then finding him a bit funny, and before they know it they're dreaming of being the woman who turned the unkempt frog into the Prince.
If you're meeting in person - and sometimes not even then - shortcomings in physical appearance can be overcome quite easily. Confidence is key - and Boris has that.
"Wilkes was notoriously ugly, being called the ugliest man in England at the time. He possessed an unsightly squint and protruding jaw, but he had a charm that carried all before it. He boasted that it "took him only half an hour to talk away his face", though the duration required changed on the several occasions Wilkes repeated the claim. He also declared that "a month's start of his rival on account of his face" would secure him the conquest in any love affair.
He was well known for his verbal wit and his snappy responses to insults. For instance, when told by a constituent that he would rather vote for the devil, Wilkes responded: "Naturally." He then added: "And if your friend decides against standing, can I count on your vote?"
Boris is funny and rich. That'll do for a lot of women. Power helps, too
Why do women find Boris sexy, is the question I can see no answer to?
He's rich and powerful. There's a Kissinger quote about it.
Kissinger, though, was interesting, intelligent, and witty.
Arguably Boris is all of those three. Unfortunately he is also physically repellent, lazy, continously unfaithful, ungroomed, bad-teethed, and a liar. The only thing that gets him laid is the cash and the power.
I would imagine it starts with feeling a bit sorry for him, and then finding him a bit funny, and before they know it they're dreaming of being the woman who turned the unkempt frog into the Prince.
If you're meeting in person - and sometimes not even then - shortcomings in physical appearance can be overcome quite easily. Confidence is key - and Boris has that.
"Wilkes was notoriously ugly, being called the ugliest man in England at the time. He possessed an unsightly squint and protruding jaw, but he had a charm that carried all before it. He boasted that it "took him only half an hour to talk away his face", though the duration required changed on the several occasions Wilkes repeated the claim. He also declared that "a month's start of his rival on account of his face" would secure him the conquest in any love affair.
He was well known for his verbal wit and his snappy responses to insults. For instance, when told by a constituent that he would rather vote for the devil, Wilkes responded: "Naturally." He then added: "And if your friend decides against standing, can I count on your vote?"
When the Earl of Sandwich, a sometime friend, told him that "you will die either on the gallows, or of the pox."
Wilkes said, "That must depend on whether I embrace your lordship's principles or your mistress."
First real use case for electric flying passenger aircraft.
https://www.eetimes.com/amprius-high-density-batteries-go-aloft/ ...“Now they barely fly something like 15-20 minutes, of which about 4 minutes is the takeoff and then landing,” Amprius CTO Ionel Stefan told EE Times. “That’s a range of about 20 or 30 miles with the best flying cars—with batteries that are around 300 watthours per kilogram. With 400 to 500 watthours, this range can be extended to 100 to 200 miles. Imagine how much more application you can get from a flying car: those 20 miles, just a little hop, now going to 100 or 200 miles.” One likely location for trials is Silicon Valley, served by three international airports. “You have San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland,” Stefan predicted. “With a short aerial jump, you can get from one to another in 15 minutes at most. It will be much better than by car, which takes an hour or so.”..
...Amprius has developed a silicon-anode material.
“It is a lithium-ion battery in function,” Stefan said. “Silicon itself has a capacity that’s about 10 times as high as graphite in storing lithium. If we replace only this component, we are easily achieving anywhere between 80% to over 100% improvement over graphite.” One of the main advantages of silicon is that the anode is much thinner than with graphite, allowing very fast charging, Stefan said. “Pure silicon is very high capability, and we have demonstrated five-minute charging capability for some cell designs,” he added. In air transportation applications, batteries must charge quickly because vehicles will fly as many as 12 roundtrips each day, landing and departing in 15 minutes. Usually, one trip will consume one battery charge...
Including yesterday's announcement Andy Carter (Warrington North), we're already up to 47 MPs elected as Conservatives who won't be standing for the same/successor seat as a Conservative at the next general election. 38 are still sitting as Conservatives and are standing down out of choice, plus 4 who have been deselected, 4 who have lost the whip or been expelled, and 1 defector to Labour.
The comparable figure for the last parliament to run its full course (2015 GE) was 38 Conservatives. 22 of those stood down no more than one year before the 2015 general election.
So the numbers are well up and there's still a year to go. Many jumping to avoid the expected push?
This is yet another indicator that Tories can expect a wipe-out. More telling than much of the polling evidence.
I would like to know how it cost £37bn for a phone app that did not work.
That is enough to build 44 Type 26 frigates... (£4.2bn for 5 of them according to gov.uk)
£37bn !!?!
Have the government admitted it cost that much?
That was the total cost - at one point in time, may have ended up higher - for all of test and trace. But mainly it was just for the testing, as HMG were very lacklustre on the tracing and isolating bits of the long-established method for controlling spread of an infectious disease.
Slightly unfair. Most infectious disease tracing takes place for disease where you are only contagious with symptoms, and is handled by local authorities. Covid was spreading by asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic people.
COVID was spread by asymptomatic *and* symptomatic individuals. That’s also the case for lots of other infections, e.g. monkeypox.
There’s plenty to support LostPassword’s contention, as I discussed in my own submission to the Inquiry. (I think I declared that I didn’t have any WhatsApp messages and they’ve not gone through my emails, but I’ve been warned they might… seems unlikely by this point.)
Thanks for the correction (I didn't mean to imply symptomatic people didn't spread the disease, which looking back I kind of have...)
"Luton 'stolen' house owner still fighting to get home back
A man is still fighting to get his house back more than a year since it was sold without his knowledge. Reverend Mike Hall previously told the BBC of his shock at returning to his Luton house and finding it stripped of all furnishings in August last year. He is still working to obtain compensation for the loss of his property and has been unable to regain formal ownership of his house. A Bedfordshire Police investigation remains ongoing."
The conveyancing solicitors acting for the fraudulent seller have been negligent.
But that doesn't give the original owner and the new buyer someone to claim against.
Including yesterday's announcement Andy Carter (Warrington North), we're already up to 47 MPs elected as Conservatives who won't be standing for the same/successor seat as a Conservative at the next general election. 38 are still sitting as Conservatives and are standing down out of choice, plus 4 who have been deselected, 4 who have lost the whip or been expelled, and 1 defector to Labour.
The comparable figure for the last parliament to run its full course (2015 GE) was 38 Conservatives. 22 of those stood down no more than one year before the 2015 general election.
So the numbers are well up and there's still a year to go. Many jumping to avoid the expected push?
I always wonder about this because my understanding is that the system essentially offers an incentive to be pushed rather than jump because there is a payment given out to incumbents who lose their seats, £10,000 iirc. I'd let the public kick a bucket of shit at me for one night at that price.
Astonishing that the immorality in their culture is embedded so deep that even the school teachers put Russian war mongering above caring for innocent children. What a shithole country.
Why do women find Boris sexy, is the question I can see no answer to?
He's rich and powerful. There's a Kissinger quote about it.
Kissinger, though, was interesting, intelligent, and witty.
Arguably Boris is all of those three. Unfortunately he is also physically repellent, lazy, continously unfaithful, ungroomed, bad-teethed, and a liar. The only thing that gets him laid is the cash and the power.
I would imagine it starts with feeling a bit sorry for him, and then finding him a bit funny, and before they know it they're dreaming of being the woman who turned the unkempt frog into the Prince.
If you're meeting in person - and sometimes not even then - shortcomings in physical appearance can be overcome quite easily. Confidence is key - and Boris has that.
"Wilkes was notoriously ugly, being called the ugliest man in England at the time. He possessed an unsightly squint and protruding jaw, but he had a charm that carried all before it. He boasted that it "took him only half an hour to talk away his face", though the duration required changed on the several occasions Wilkes repeated the claim. He also declared that "a month's start of his rival on account of his face" would secure him the conquest in any love affair.
He was well known for his verbal wit and his snappy responses to insults. For instance, when told by a constituent that he would rather vote for the devil, Wilkes responded: "Naturally." He then added: "And if your friend decides against standing, can I count on your vote?"
Boris is funny and rich. That'll do for a lot of women. Power helps, too
Indeed. And it's not obvious to me that that's any better or worse than the implied 'approved' metric of being good-looking.
I would like to know how it cost £37bn for a phone app that did not work.
That is enough to build 44 Type 26 frigates... (£4.2bn for 5 of them according to gov.uk)
FFS it didn't. Ever use a 'free' Covid test kit? That was from the 37 billion too. There are still people with hundreds of boxes of those kits in their houses. You could pick up two free boxes a day at the Uni and many did, every day, for months.
I don't understand why intelligent people still think the ap cost 37 billion.
The test kits were more than likely cost effective (though the ability to acquire such things without granting massive profit margins to middle men is something we should develop). Track and trace was a huge waste of money - and obviously so long before it was closed down.
I think track and trace was very effective in places like.Korea and.Taiwan. But it does require a high level of compliance. Not sure the application was mainly at fault here.
First real use case for electric flying passenger aircraft.
https://www.eetimes.com/amprius-high-density-batteries-go-aloft/ ...“Now they barely fly something like 15-20 minutes, of which about 4 minutes is the takeoff and then landing,” Amprius CTO Ionel Stefan told EE Times. “That’s a range of about 20 or 30 miles with the best flying cars—with batteries that are around 300 watthours per kilogram. With 400 to 500 watthours, this range can be extended to 100 to 200 miles. Imagine how much more application you can get from a flying car: those 20 miles, just a little hop, now going to 100 or 200 miles.” One likely location for trials is Silicon Valley, served by three international airports. “You have San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland,” Stefan predicted. “With a short aerial jump, you can get from one to another in 15 minutes at most. It will be much better than by car, which takes an hour or so.”..
...Amprius has developed a silicon-anode material.
“It is a lithium-ion battery in function,” Stefan said. “Silicon itself has a capacity that’s about 10 times as high as graphite in storing lithium. If we replace only this component, we are easily achieving anywhere between 80% to over 100% improvement over graphite.” One of the main advantages of silicon is that the anode is much thinner than with graphite, allowing very fast charging, Stefan said. “Pure silicon is very high capability, and we have demonstrated five-minute charging capability for some cell designs,” he added. In air transportation applications, batteries must charge quickly because vehicles will fly as many as 12 roundtrips each day, landing and departing in 15 minutes. Usually, one trip will consume one battery charge...
PPE contracts ? A digital paper trail might be extraordinarily embarrassing.
I would hope that any criticism other PPE contracts might also include lists of companies that MPs from other parties criticised the government for not taking. You know, for context.
We should not lose sight of exactly how desperate things were at the time.
People saying this ignore the fact that many of these sweetheart deals for mates were signed well after the initial wave panic.
And you keep on saying that, and you ignore that there were other panics as well: like, for instance, the later lockdowns.
The government was pretty much in panic from March 2020 to March 2021. As were all of us. We needed PPE. Which would have been okay, except virtually every other country in the world needed PPE.
So why - when mates rates fail to deliver usable PPE - do we not claw back the money? Any boiler plate contract for anything has clauses about delivery - unless you are a mate of a Tory minister.
I am not that bothered about the lining of pockets where actually usable PPE was delivered. I am bothered when it was not - and we paid anyway. They have stolen - and it is stolen as they did not fulfil the contract - YOUR money. And you are fine with it. Why is that?
We desperately needed PPE and were willing to try anything to get it - just look at some of the companies *Labour* politicians were asking us to use as an example. If we had used normal procurement channels we would still be waiting - and people like Dr Foxy would have been placed in more danger.
The nearest parallel is a war. We were in a war, and we had to make decisions fast, with massive competition worldwide for a limited resource. There was waste, and there were charlatans. But the primary need was to get the kit. And we did - in fact, we ended up with too much. True fraudsters should be prosecuted.
It'd be interesting to know the percentages of all of this: how much was spent; how much was delivered, how much was usable etc. I think I've seen it somewhere before, but cannot immediately find it.
As I've said all through this hideous mess - I'm glad I'm not the one who had to make the decisions.
We're largely in agreement. I want the fraudsters done over. And the people who enabled the fraudsters.
Your war analogy is interesting though. It was a war, and we had established generals (PPE companies) with a track record of fighting wars.
We ignored them. And rang our mate who had heard of war but never done it. And put him in charge of fighting our war.
I'm not voting Labour so the whataboutery doesn't work on me. The government ignored the actual PPE companies and bet our lives on Lady Mone and Matt Hancocks pub landlord...
Did we ignore the 'established' generals? I assume these were the 'generals' Labour were going on about?
In which case, I might ask how CQM Learning was an 'established general' in the PPE market. Or Issa Exchange Ltd (and those are just two from Labour's press release).
The latter looks particularly interesting if you look at their 202 accounts...
I am also interested in the fact that we have the exact same system we had before - bio degradable, expendable plastic. You can't stockpile it for too long - because it starts to disintegrate.
This is combined with a collection of face shields and masks to create a barrier full of holes, for the medical staff. This means that if the next epidemic is truly airborne, it won't work.
Modern reusable gear exists - i've used some of it for welding toxic materials (Stainless Steel). But it seems that we have an institutional problem against using it. The latest stuff has features that answer the problems that made adopting the disposable stuff seem like a good idea.
Stockpiling should involve rotation of kit in and out of storage, not filling a warehouse and hoping everything still works ten years from now (cf the Russian military, and quite possibly our own).
The problem with rotation is the quantities involved.
From memory the UK was going through more stock of PPE per week than it would normally go through per year in normal circumstances. So how do you logistically rotate that?
So even if you rotate perfectly, you either need stuff stockpiled for ten years in normal circumstances, or you are going to run out of PPE within ten weeks.
That's why realistically if we're to have a usable stockpile that can get us through a pandemic, we need stocks that can be stored in a warehouse for years. Because we simply don't need that volume in normal circumstances.
Boat from China to warehouse. Warehouse to hospital. That's what the importers do. We just need to insert a stockpile between the two steps.
Much of the material has short shelf life.
How short is short though ? The "shelf life" is simply a recommended use by date. The material does not go off after that.
There is no reason why they cannot be used after expiration date after a risk assessment. Indeed that happened quite a bit and no reason why alternatives cannot be used that are more available after a similar process. Something my company did with its operations.
One thing the whole COVID issue showed is extended global supply chains cannot really operate on a just in time basis effectively.
Including yesterday's announcement Andy Carter (Warrington North), we're already up to 47 MPs elected as Conservatives who won't be standing for the same/successor seat as a Conservative at the next general election. 38 are still sitting as Conservatives and are standing down out of choice, plus 4 who have been deselected, 4 who have lost the whip or been expelled, and 1 defector to Labour.
The comparable figure for the last parliament to run its full course (2015 GE) was 38 Conservatives. 22 of those stood down no more than one year before the 2015 general election.
So the numbers are well up and there's still a year to go. Many jumping to avoid the expected push?
I always wonder about this because my understanding is that the system essentially offers an incentive to be pushed rather than jump because there is a payment given out to incumbents who lose their seats, £10,000 iirc. I'd let the public kick a bucket of shit at me for one night at that price.
Jumping must make it a little easier to arrange future employment.
Including yesterday's announcement Andy Carter (Warrington North), we're already up to 47 MPs elected as Conservatives who won't be standing for the same/successor seat as a Conservative at the next general election. 38 are still sitting as Conservatives and are standing down out of choice, plus 4 who have been deselected, 4 who have lost the whip or been expelled, and 1 defector to Labour.
The comparable figure for the last parliament to run its full course (2015 GE) was 38 Conservatives. 22 of those stood down no more than one year before the 2015 general election.
So the numbers are well up and there's still a year to go. Many jumping to avoid the expected push?
I always wonder about this because my understanding is that the system essentially offers an incentive to be pushed rather than jump because there is a payment given out to incumbents who lose their seats, £10,000 iirc. I'd let the public kick a bucket of shit at me for one night at that price.
I can only imagine that there must be a better chance of lining up a lucrative post-parliamentary career while sitting as an MP, rather than waiting until you're unemployed.
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/may/30/gender-wars-review-youd-need-hundreds-more-of-these-shows-to-truly-address-the-issues-around-trans-rights
...And we hear from Katy Jon Went, a trans woman and campaigner for dialogue and compromise between the two positions: “Moderates in both camps are the only hope for social coexistence.”..
...If there is one issue that continues the search for common ground between those who argue for each side, it is surely male violence and the damage it does, and always has done, to society. If we imagine a world in which men no longer pose an endemic threat to women, then most, if not all of these problems fall away, don’t they? ...
I just wanted to point out the consequences. And to me they are unlikely to be entirely benign.
If men are 'an endemic threat' to women, what are they to men?
So once again, how many frigates did the non-working app cost? Five? Ten? Fifteen?
I wonder how much Apple and Google spent on it?
And he’s spent his life being ‘Good old Boris’ , life and soul of the party and all that. And was sufficiently well-connected to be able to have good jobs, to be picked up when he fell over and so on.
In a way I think HIGNFY has a lot to answer for, in that he was introduced to a wider public.
And Good Morning one and all.
Dave had at least a bit of noblesse oblige; he thought he'd be good at it and so put his talents at the service of the nation. And in general, he did put in the hours, even if it was often at the last minute.
Whereas with Boris it was all about fame and the big chair.
https://fullfact.org/online/37-billion-test-and-trace-app-scam/
says £35 million
Which in turn comes from
https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Test-and-trace-in-England-progress-update.pdf#page=35
EDIT: I found this by using Google. literally 30 seconds work.
Where you got your information from is wrong. Yet you persist with the stupid claim.
Let them go on believing we spent £37 Billion on an app that did not work because people say so on social media.
I think there’s still more to be revealed (one doesn’t have to search "TERFS" have the advantage that they are (mostly) not right wing, despite efforts to brand them as such. They are speaking to centre left folks in terms that the latter sympathise with.
https://twitter.com/GitGrumpygit/status/1663788043961024513?s=20
Plus impress the impressionable ladies!
Incidentally, his older children must be now of an age to be about in the world. Wonder why we never hear from, or about, them?
Doing things like dumping bottles of urine outside the offices of the ECHR, accusing JK Rowling of "genocide", posting death and rape threats online, make the "TERFS'" case far more eloquently than they ever could.
Ken Livingstone comes to mind.
Most of the UK is being cursed by this muck from a Northeasterly flow off the North Sea, except places in the lee of mountains. Porthmadog probably warmest again today.
Cloud levels under high pressure in spring and summer are just about the hardest thing for weather models to resolve, alongside connective showers. They undercooked todays cloud.
Using statistics about the number of Twitter users by country, we can see that people with a UK location are 3.8x more likely to be reported as a transphobe than people with a US location.
Users in the UK made up 56,421,466 tweets (18.4%)
Users in the US made up 69,195,140 tweets (22.5%)
Meaning the UK users in this data set on average tweeted 1.54x more than the US users in this data set
https://bethylamine.github.io/library/whatisawomanbot/twitter_transphobe_stats
And even Australia is starting to have second thoughts......
Family Court judges have been urged to consider new evidence at odds with current legal frameworks governing cases of gender-dysphoric children, or risk contributing to the “worst medical scandal in 100 years”.
A legal paper, compiled by top Victorian family law barrister Belle Lane and delivered to judges of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia last month, argues fresh research into the effects of hormone treatments and puberty blockers on young Australians refutes older research touting a gender-affirming model of care.
https://archive.md/2023.05.29-105517/https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/judges-warned-on-gender-protocols/news-story/cd785c19ceb9a826e2c28cc2f0d092c3?amp&nk=7dd139d749cc4efe5f5b27a23fd1fe8a-1685357759#selection-365.5-378.0
One of the country’s biggest medical insurers will no longer cover private practitioners prescribing gender-affirming care to adolescents, in a move that could leave young people languishing on already-stretched public waiting lists.
MDA National, one of four major medical indemnity providers insuring GPs and other private practitioners against legal claims, updated its policy this month to exclude cover for claims “arising from aspects of gender transitioning treatment for under 18-year-old patients”.
https://www.smh.com.au/healthcare/what-s-the-real-risk-gender-transition-insurance-cover-cut-for-gps-20230523-p5damx.html
One thing that does annoy me is that so many people now talking about the app not working were staunch advocates at the time. "We must have an app! So-and-so in the EU have an app!"
Same sort of thing with the idiots who have called for both "PPE at any cost" and now criticise the "PPE waste outrage".
It took me about 30 minutes of looking at the initial Apple/Google spec for Bluetooth proximity contact tracing* to conclude "this won't bloody work". Why? Nowhere near enough uptake was plausible to make it work, unless it was mandatory, and the technical issues with enabling the service and generally crappy uncalibrated Bluetooth signal strength measures made it very unlikely to ever have a chance of working well.
People perhaps forget but there were advocates for Bluetooth based contact tracing who made claims that such a service alone would slam the lid on the pandemic by making contact tracing and case isolation extremely effective. Suffice it to say reality disagrees with them.
* I was interested because I already knew a fair bit about Bluetooth beacons/advertisments and it didn't sound like something that current Bluetooth would do well.
Might it be as simple as someone actually investing to test the effectiveness of face masks after 5 and 10 years? Not in the manufacturers interest at all as they benefit from resupplying every couple of years.
Should we be throwing all this away, especially in a pandemic scenario? Has anyone checked if an N99 mask 5 years out of date is really worse than a new N95 mask? Or more importantly if it is worse than nothing.....
(Incidentally, "in thrall to gender ideology"???? They're trans, not Jedi)
Hence the Cass Review and the Tavistock enquiry. The "affirmative care" model is based on a (flawed) decades old Dutch study which ignores the critical caveats the Dutch used to qualify for participation - no mental health comorbidities and long standing gender dysphoria. Unfortunately a lot of the patients now receiving such "care" have had rapid onset gender dysphoria - frequently associated with onset of puberty - and more often than not have other mental health challenges. "Affirmative care" railroads patients onto puberty blockers - "or your kids will commit suicide" - more dodgy data - which almost always lead to cross sex hormones with lifelong health implications (sterility, inability to orgasm, ever, and bone density loss among them). But point this out, and you're a TERF and a bigot.
(Incidentally, not all of the ideologues are trans, by any means.)
All three can be made non-disposable and lay for decades, though.
Improving relations with the EU should be a priority and the majority of the public seem to be happy to see an improvement.
I expect to see efforts made to lower barriers for the creative industries , to put in a youth mobility scheme , similar to what’s been agreed with Australia and New Zealand and to get a veterinary agreement to help UK farming and fisheries and I also want to see a return to Erasmus . These are all things which should not be controversial.
I will be voting for Labour and am willing to allow Starmer his current new found Brexit enthusiasm. But this vote won’t be there in future elections if Labour fail to address those concerns .
There were limitations throughout the supply chain.
...which in turn leads into problems in interpreting large masses of publicly accessible and updatable data. In a field where any interest group can publish a paper and call it a study, where anybody can do a review and call it a systematic review, where anybody can do a metaanalysis and get it published, where more and more papers are more and more distanced from the actual patients, where even honest analyses are done using black boxes sourced from elsewhere, where even the definition of a "study" is moot, checking and visualising this will take years.
The evidence for using puberty blocking drugs to treat young people struggling with their gender identity is "very low", an official review has found.
The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) said existing studies of the drugs were small and "subject to bias and confounding".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56601386
Along with potentially harmful activist groups, whose role in this is now becoming public.
Interestingly in Florida when De Santis wanted to restrict "gender affirming care" (sic) he got the Board of Medicine to look at the evidence first.
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/florida-medical-board-votes-ban-gender-affirming-care-transgender-mino-rcna54632
Of course critics dispute the evidence - but evidence isn't their strong suit either.
It was accurate to say that Turkey was applying to join. It was misleading to say, in the manner it was presented in that ad, that Turkey “is joining”.
“No way??!”
“Are they joking??”
And
“Oh”
>>>
“Top Chinese scientist says don’t rule out Covid lab leak”
https://twitter.com/bbcworld/status/1663433076066721795?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
I mean stuff with active charcoal will or some such might but the holes on a surgical mask aren't going to get any larger, a gown won't magically decay if it's airtight stored in a dark cupboard.
Long term there's proton decay but that takes a while.
If you were talking about souls, I need to point out that souls are sexless, a point mandated in the Bible I believe
The closest I personally could get to your question is that the state we are in at time t does not dictate our state at time t+n, with the probability decreasing as n increases. What we are now is not the same as what we were then, and what we will be in the future is not dictated by what we are now. To put it simply, humans are Markov chains
But my personal opinion does not alter the facts (sigh), and the fact is that many people feel that they are trapped in the wrong body. One does not need to produce trans people to discuss this, since the existence of the disabled-from-birth amply demonstrates
And just as I would not describe somebody born without sight as "in thrall to sightist ideology", I would not describe somebody who feels themselves to be the wrong sex as "in thrall to gender ideology"
Incidentally, and to pre-empt your next question, did you catch Mary Harrington's speech in the NatCon thing. I thought her case well argued and utterly wrong.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-65762503
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-63392025
"Luton 'stolen' house owner still fighting to get home back
A man is still fighting to get his house back more than a year since it was sold without his knowledge. Reverend Mike Hall previously told the BBC of his shock at returning to his Luton house and finding it stripped of all furnishings in August last year. He is still working to obtain compensation for the loss of his property and has been unable to regain formal ownership of his house. A Bedfordshire Police investigation remains ongoing."
"Just so you know, it's NOT that common, it doesn't happen to every guy and it IS A BIG DEAL!"
https://www.channel4.com/programmes/gender-wars/on-demand/74736-001
The trans participants in it feel they were induced to take part under false pretences, though why an "Emeritus Professor of Law" thinks a sub-judice case should have featured I don't know.....
https://c4genderwars.blogspot.com/2023/05/when-it-comes-to-trans-and-non-binary.html
https://twitter.com/NoahShachtman/status/1663545717208801283
There’s plenty to support LostPassword’s contention, as I discussed in my own submission to the Inquiry. (I think I declared that I didn’t have any WhatsApp messages and they’ve not gone through my emails, but I’ve been warned they might… seems unlikely by this point.)
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4026334-trump-pledges-to-end-birthright-citizenship-on-first-day-in-office/
There appears to be a movement from Reform to the Conservatives whilst the other parties have stayed still since the previous week.
I refer you to the example of John Wilkes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkes
"Wilkes was notoriously ugly, being called the ugliest man in England at the time. He possessed an unsightly squint and protruding jaw, but he had a charm that carried all before it. He boasted that it "took him only half an hour to talk away his face", though the duration required changed on the several occasions Wilkes repeated the claim. He also declared that "a month's start of his rival on account of his face" would secure him the conquest in any love affair.
He was well known for his verbal wit and his snappy responses to insults. For instance, when told by a constituent that he would rather vote for the devil, Wilkes responded: "Naturally." He then added: "And if your friend decides against standing, can I count on your vote?"
Pregnancy tourism to the States is a big thing in my part of the world, and no doubt a much bigger issue with Mexicans and other Hispanics.
I think the key to this one, is that he bought the house in 1990, so perhaps there was no mortgage on the property.
Solicitors having insurance, is the primary reason that rest of us pay a few hundred quid to protect an investment of a few hundred grand!
The comparable figure for the last parliament to run its full course (2015 GE) was 38 Conservatives. 22 of those stood down no more than one year before the 2015 general election.
So the numbers are well up and there's still a year to go. Many jumping to avoid the expected push?
Has he thought this through?
When the Earl of Sandwich, a sometime friend, told him that "you will die either on the gallows, or of the pox."
Wilkes said, "That must depend on whether I embrace your lordship's principles or your mistress."
https://www.eetimes.com/amprius-high-density-batteries-go-aloft/
...“Now they barely fly something like 15-20 minutes, of which about 4 minutes is the takeoff and then landing,” Amprius CTO Ionel Stefan told EE Times. “That’s a range of about 20 or 30 miles with the best flying cars—with batteries that are around 300 watthours per kilogram. With 400 to 500 watthours, this range can be extended to 100 to 200 miles. Imagine how much more application you can get from a flying car: those 20 miles, just a little hop, now going to 100 or 200 miles.”
One likely location for trials is Silicon Valley, served by three international airports.
“You have San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland,” Stefan predicted. “With a short aerial jump, you can get from one to another in 15 minutes at most. It will be much better than by car, which takes an hour or so.”..
...Amprius has developed a silicon-anode material.
“It is a lithium-ion battery in function,” Stefan said. “Silicon itself has a capacity that’s about 10 times as high as graphite in storing lithium. If we replace only this component, we are easily achieving anywhere between 80% to over 100% improvement over graphite.”
One of the main advantages of silicon is that the anode is much thinner than with graphite, allowing very fast charging, Stefan said.
“Pure silicon is very high capability, and we have demonstrated five-minute charging capability for some cell designs,” he added.
In air transportation applications, batteries must charge quickly because vehicles will fly as many as 12 roundtrips each day, landing and departing in 15 minutes. Usually, one trip will consume one battery charge...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65641304
Astonishing that the immorality in their culture is embedded so deep that even the school teachers put Russian war mongering above caring for innocent children. What a shithole country.
United have apparently ordered the vehicles.
@YouGov
Latest Westminster voting intention (25-26 May)
Con: 25% (no change from 17-18 May)
Lab: 43% (=)
Lib Dem: 11% (-1)
Green: 7% (-1)
Reform UK: 7% (+1)
SNP: 4% (+1)
There is no reason why they cannot be used after expiration date after a risk assessment. Indeed that happened quite a bit and no reason why alternatives cannot be used that are more available after a similar process. Something my company did with its operations.
One thing the whole COVID issue showed is extended global supply chains cannot really operate on a just in time basis effectively.