@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
This "they were just following the expert advice" argument is flawed on three fronts:
1. They were not following the weight of international advice, especially from actual experts on pandemics. They were only following advice from a very small group of people and institutions in related fields.
2. The government's experts are government appointed. I totally disagree that you can appoint somebody to a role then entirely avoid blame for mistakes they make. Responsibility is shared.
3. This idea that scientists were just going and doing science and the politicians were just hearing the results is wrong. We've already had it reported that their modelling had political assumptions underpinning it- such as lockdown not being an option. In fact, many dimensions of this are political, such as weighing the cost of lives. It's impossible to give any kind of advice on how to handle COVID19 without making many of these political decisions. Politicians are responsible for these, not scientists.
Agreed - "following the expert advice" is a nonsense excuse.
When there was all the fuss about herd immunity, there was an insider account suggesting this was the "advice" that most appealed to some of the number 10 team. True or not, it's hardly news that govts often follow the "expert advice" they matches what they want to do in the first place - just ask Sir Humphrey.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
You are right, political leadership does matter to people. At this stage the polling on the government's handling of the crisis suggests that the views of you and your Italian friends are not shared by the majority in the UK.
Forgive me....but I really don't give a flying fuck about opinion polls right now...I do care about how many will die in the UK, the economic hit this country takes, the length of time it takes us to recover, and the competence of our politicians to make the right decisions.....
I expect all those polled care about all those things too, why would they not. They just don't agree with you and your Italian friends, at least for now. I'm rather surprised the Italian and American media are so obsessed with how apparently badly the UK is handling the virus. It's not exactly obvious that their own virus problems have been well handled, and in the case of Italy exactly how the economic hit can be recovered.
The public don't follow things as closely as we do on here.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
Our policies over coronavirus, for better or worse, have been UK wide and coordinated. Nicola Sturgeon has not sworn loyalty on Brexit, but she has followed the same advice as Boris, and indeed allowed French rugby fans to invade Edinburgh for the 6 Nations. You say you're not playing politics but somehow it feels very like you are.
She should be ploughing her own furrow, not meekly following Westminster orders which we know are extremely dodgy given the clowns running the show. She needs to grow a pair and where required follow our own path.
Has it occurred to you that she thinks the UK approach is the right one? Or do you just think Sturgeon following your own path for the sake of doing something different. Of course doing that makes one more accountable for the results.
I expect her to look at all the data and make her own decision , not just be a lapdog to Westminster who we know have no thought or care for SCOTLAND AND WILL ONLY BE INTERESTED IN THEIR OWN PATCH. I expect to see leadership , not just taking easy option so she can blame Boris at some later stage.
The idea you Scottish nationalists have about elitist Westminster politicians being 'interested in their own patch' is very quaint Malc. You really think those types feel more affinity for Essex chavs than they do for the Glasgow variety? It's all the same.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
I’m past disgust and utterly bemused at how the government’s usual apologists seem to think it acceptable for a Prime Minister to take a hands-off approach to a looming pandemic. It begs the question what they think he is there for, if not to take an interest in such serious threats to the nation.
The PM was being told by our experts that it 2as low to medium risk. That's the failure.
If the PM had torn himself away for five minutes from shagging his missus in February to read the newspapers he would have seen ample coverage of Covid-19 for himself. But he simply didn’t care to find out more.
But our experts are the best in the world, why would he need to see what other experts are saying?
As I said previously, it's a no win situation. The government was (and still is) getting horrendous advice from its experts. Follow the advice and be damned or ignore it and be damned.
The experts said it was low to medium risk while Boris wasn't attending meetings and getting summaries. I think it was a bad decision and it's clear Hancock was and is completely out of his depth so Boris being there would probably have been helpful. However, and you'll disagree I'm sure, it was categorised as a low to medium risk, you can't expect the PM to be in the room for all low to medium risk strategy meetings.
He might actually have turned up for one of those meetings to quiz the experts himself. I don’t think that was really optional for a man who purports to lead the nation for a threat of such potential gravity.
There’s a lot of rewriting of timelines going on, On 19 February, I wrote:
“If you aren’t worried, you haven’t been paying attention.”
I’m just some bloke who blogs in my spare time. I’m no expert and I don’t think I was particularly far-sighted. I was really doing a capsule summary at that point.
The previous day, the French health minister said that the Coronavirus turning into a pandemic was both a working assumption and a credible risk.
If all the Conservative fanboys took their heads out of their fundaments, they would appreciate how shocking it is that the Prime Minister was so incurious at a critical time about a looming threat.
There's nothing you've written that I disagree with. As I said earlier in the day, his reaction to the early stages of the crisis have shown that Boris isn't up to the task of being PM.
My point is more a political one, government gets advice, it follows the advice, the advice is bad and people die. The government will successfully shift the blame onto the experts, same as Boris will.
I've been saying for a while now that the system we have of farming out the decision making to unaccountable experts is a poor one, but apparently I'm fairly lonely in that pursuit. It turns out we haven't had enough of experts.
No, you are far from alone in that. And I’d add that they’ve effectively delegated decisions which are nothing to do with the experts area of expertise, too.
Rather strange not using a cargo plane - maybe with all the passenger planes out of service, they offered a staggeringly cheap rate.
Or maybe the material doesn't like the cold in cargo bays?
The cargo bays are air conditioned just like the cabin, the temp is controllable if required. More likely is that the space in the cabin allowed a lot more low-density cargo to be carried.
It would have been a nightmare for the Captain and Dispatcher to work out the weight and balance calculations for the plane, with cargo carried in the cabin.
Cargo planes are all completely full at the moment, even the massive (and massively expensive) AN-225 is shipping medical supplies around the world.
Once had the pleasure of getting into the cockpit of an AN-225. It is a long way up.
Wow, avgeek points for that! There is only the one of them, although they still have a half-built second one in the Kiev factory. It's just come out of an 18-month heavy maintenance window, and was spotted last week flying from China to Poland full of medical supplies.
She was clear and precise and Marr gave her the time she needed to be both. Lurking in the background for any company is the fear of litigation if there are side-effects some years down the line. Your only hope then is to shoot the American lawyers waiting to sue.
If I were that company I would talk to the government and seek ... immunity.
I believe that, generally in the US, vaccine companies are given liability indemnity.
I imagine that must be the case.
So long as they are not blatantly negligent presumably being the one caveat.
Still no acknowledgement that: 1. UK is on track to be one of the worst in Europe 2. PPE is a problem & NHS staff have concerns 3. We need to massively increase testing through drive-through/walking stations 4. Containment is wise until we know more about this virus. https://twitter.com/devisridhar/status/1251912457339232258
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
“The science” ? There is no such thing. There is scientific advice from individuals - which may differ from that offered by others. And as anyone with even a passing interest knows, the areas of uncertainty are considerable.
And, as I’ve pointed out several times, there are decisions which actively contradict the best scientific consensus. Discharging infected patients into care homes - which is still, AFAIK, still official policy, being the most blatant.
Jenny Harries was very much on the defensive today. I suspect she has realised that when this is all over she will be one of the experts thrown to the dogs by her political masters.
Rather strange not using a cargo plane - maybe with all the passenger planes out of service, they offered a staggeringly cheap rate.
Or maybe the material doesn't like the cold in cargo bays?
The cargo bays are air conditioned just like the cabin, the temp is controllable if required. More likely is that the space in the cabin allowed a lot more low-density cargo to be carried.
It would have been a nightmare for the Captain and Dispatcher to work out the weight and balance calculations for the plane, with cargo carried in the cabin.
Cargo planes are all completely full at the moment, even the massive (and massively expensive) AN-225 is shipping medical supplies around the world.
Yes - one of the presentations we had at work discussed how well cargo operations are doing in the current environment - Most European airlines do not however have large cargo arms.
BA for example generated about 7% of pre virus revenues from cargo ops.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
That would be the same Italy with the highest death rate in Europe?
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
That would be the same Italy with the highest death rate in Europe?
The Italy that gave us 3 weeks warning of what was coming. Which the government you support ignored. And cost thousands of lives.
Macron is right. A supply side monetary response is urgently required by the EU and the EZ in particular. If it does not happen several EZ countries such as Italy and Spain will have an economic disaster of the sort not seen since Hoover. Its not just a question of whether the EU would survive such a calamity, it is a question of whether it should.
Its back to the fundamental problem of the EU - too much, too fast.
The Germans were told by their leaders that their sacrificing wage increase and being frugal led the the German boom. Which reinforced the notion that Germany was carrying the weight in Europe. In reality, the Euro helped Germany immensely at the expense of other parts of Europe.
In those other parts, the leaders talked of reform. But did not rebuild their economic systems to the German model. Because to even start, would to have been thrown from office, with ignominy. Who now remembers the Professor of economics in Athens, who was pitched out of his job, for suggesting in the boom years that the deficit the government was running was a bad idea? Motorcycle boy said he deserved it (and the death threats) at the time... no apology later.
Either the EU converages to carry out the fiscal transfers required, or they do nothing, or they split.
They will do nothing for as long as possible.
There will need to be fiscal transfers if the Euro is to work long term but that is not the current urgency. What is urgent now is that there is an ECB response similar to that of the BoE and the Fed with a major QE injection to protect the economy from very severe economic damage (some is inevitable). For a single currency bloc that means Coronabonds and the ECB essentially underwriting the bond issues of member states to the extent needed to fund the fiscal response to the crisis. Germany and Holland are blocking this because they can afford a much bigger fiscal response and can borrow pretty much unlimited sums at minimal cost. Spain and Italy can't. Its really shameful.
Coronabonds are a fiscal transfer by another name - putting Germany and the other contributors on the line for the others debts.
Yup. What else did they expect when they all agreed to sign up to a single currency?
The politicians lied to each other and to their electorates.
The Greek politicians said they would become good Germans. The Greek politicians told the electorate that there would be reforms. And then did nothing at the slightest sign of opposition. The Germans told their people that everyone in Europe would become fiscally responsible. And that low wage rises were making Germany competitive and strong. And that big fiscal transfers would not be needed. etc. etc.
Everyone triangulated everyone.
Don't forget to name-check Goldman Sachs (with the Greece debacle).
And don't forget that it's not optimal for neighbouring countries with similar economies who trade a lot together all to have their own silly little currencies.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
Our policies over coronavirus, for better or worse, have been UK wide and coordinated. Nicola Sturgeon has not sworn loyalty on Brexit, but she has followed the same advice as Boris, and indeed allowed French rugby fans to invade Edinburgh for the 6 Nations. You say you're not playing politics but somehow it feels very like you are.
I've largely kept my powder dry...apart from PPE equipment due to my personal interest....
But it now seems likely that we will come out of this crisis....with worse fatalities and poorer than our comparables...
Our economy is particularly vulnerable to......so, longer, deeper, harder....and this is just the start.....
The Press are on to it......it's not looking good. It's going to be a slo mo of John Major's ERM debacle played out over 2 years or so....
Twenty four hour rolling news and the impending financial meltdown are what this Government should fear most. This would have been true even if their response to Covid-19 had been textbook.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
That’s funny. All of my overseas friends and relations are too concerned about what is going on their own countries to give a monkeys about what is happening here. There has been little mention of us on Rai News - today’s Sunday Times revelations merited a relatively short staid report.
And the rest of your post is weird too. There was only one Champions League game in England in March, Liverpool v Athletico on 10 March, the others were in Valencia, Paris and Leipzig. The first leg of the Valencia v Atalantia in Feb was a notorious vector, and although the return leg in Spain on 10 March was held behind closed doors, fans still congregated outside. Widespread lockdowns in Europe did not commence until the following week. I’m not aware of any European or N American country closing down all its airports
I am not going to defend the Government, questions need to be answered, but you have frequently posted on here about the rest of the world being apparently “homing in” on what is going on here. I don’t mean to burst your bubble but they have bigger fish to fry. The EU on the split between the Northern and Southern countries, the US on the looming clash between Trump and the Dem states. Events in the UK have rarely had less interest for the world at large.
Rather strange not using a cargo plane - maybe with all the passenger planes out of service, they offered a staggeringly cheap rate.
Or maybe the material doesn't like the cold in cargo bays?
The cargo bays are air conditioned just like the cabin, the temp is controllable if required. More likely is that the space in the cabin allowed a lot more low-density cargo to be carried.
It would have been a nightmare for the Captain and Dispatcher to work out the weight and balance calculations for the plane, with cargo carried in the cabin.
Cargo planes are all completely full at the moment, even the massive (and massively expensive) AN-225 is shipping medical supplies around the world.
Yes - one of the presentations we had at work discussed how well cargo operations are doing in the current environment - Most European airlines do not however have large cargo arms.
BA for example generated about 7% of pre virus revenues from cargo ops.
A lot of surplus space in the holds of passenger planes is usually taken up with cargo, but with so many fewer pax planes flying that cargo still needs to be delivered - alongside crisis-specific cargo such as PPE.
A few friends of mine are captains at Emirates, they have a number of 777s flying around now with no passengers but full loads of cargo - which can be a lot more weight than usual if the rest of the plane is empty.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
That would be the same Italy with the highest death rate in Europe?
The Italy that gave us 3 weeks warning of what was coming. Which the government you support ignored. And cost thousands of lives.
That fact they had triggered emergency orders of PPE during this window suggests otherwise.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
That would be the same Italy with the highest death rate in Europe?
The Italy that gave us 3 weeks warning of what was coming. Which the government you support ignored. And cost thousands of lives.
Did it? If that was the case Sweden which has still not locked down would have the highest death rate in Europe, it does not.
The UK despite having the third highest population in Europe currently only has the fourth highest number of deaths, so on that basis the UK government is doing above average even if not as well as Germany
So nearly 22,000 tests yesterday but Capacity is now approaching 40,000. Time for all those NHS staff treating Covid 19 patients to get their tests whether or not they are symptomatic
More frontline symptomatic is the next expansion.
A small research project by Stanford using antibody testing concluded that California's true COVID exposure is 50-100 x the reported positives from testing. I take that as good news - it means we'll get to herd immunity quicker and that, even if the implication is that the R0 is higher than previously calculated, that the social distancing is working despite that higher R0
Yet we never reach herd immunity if the worries from the WHO yesterday turn out to be accurate.
Missed it. Is that the worry that asymptomatic and paucisymptomatic persons are not developing high antibody titres?
Can you please stop peddling this herd immunity, wishful thinking nonsense.....it's a vaccine, or a gamechanging anti-viral, or massive testing and contact tracing that gets us out of this....
What do you think a vaccine gives - a clue, it's herd immunity.
Only if enough people take it.
Of course. Though there is also the technique of ring vaccination for controlling local outbreaks.
The WHO caveats are pretty generic ones. As far as this particular virus is concerned, it is quite likely that a vaccine which provides effective protection for some years will be developed. Though it’s probably true that the first vaccines available (likely the RNA ones) might be only partly effective.
I caught the Oxford Prof on Marr earlier, talking about the vaccine she and her team are working on. Impressed with her. She gave me some confidence. Also explained how they go about testing. They get a large group of people and divide them into 2 equal groups. A gets the vax and B gets placebo. Then they tell those people to go out and live their lives but check in if they get sick. Whereby each one who does get sick gets tested for you know what. The bingo outcome? A good number DO get sick and all of them are in B. If so, full steam ahead with mass production and rollout.
But here's the thing. This is me, now, not her. I think they test this way because it is unethical to deliberately infect large numbers of people with the virus. They must "get it" naturally. And preferably quickly, given time is of the essence. You don't want it taking six months. So the ideal vax testing conditions are when the virus is rife and there is no social distancing. You want these testees going into pubs and gyms and all the rest of it. Conversely, therefore, if by the time the vax is ready for testing we have successfully squashed the virus with lockdown (and still have lockdown), what we have also done is made it harder to test the vax, and thus delayed its ultimate delivery.
kinbalu - vaccine tests are normally in 3 phases. Phase 1 is in a small cohort of young, healthy persons. The aim is to ensure that the vaccine is safe. Phase 2, which the Oxford vaccine is about to enter, is for a far larger cohort across a larger range of demographics. The aim is primarily to ascertain whether the vaccine is effective - i.e. whether it confers adequate immunity to a sufficiently high percentage of recipients (while being acceptably safe). Phase 3 is mostly about fine tuning to dosage of the vaccine to minimize adverse side effects while maintaining efficacy.
PS Moderna in the US and CanSino Biologics in China are both a little ahead of Oxford in the vaccine approval process.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
So nearly 22,000 tests yesterday but Capacity is now approaching 40,000. Time for all those NHS staff treating Covid 19 patients to get their tests whether or not they are symptomatic
More frontline symptomatic is the next expansion.
A small research project by Stanford using antibody testing concluded that California's true COVID exposure is 50-100 x the reported positives from testing. I take that as good news - it means we'll get to herd immunity quicker and that, even if the implication is that the R0 is higher than previously calculated, that the social distancing is working despite that higher R0
Yet we never reach herd immunity if the worries from the WHO yesterday turn out to be accurate.
Missed it. Is that the worry that asymptomatic and paucisymptomatic persons are not developing high antibody titres?
Can you please stop peddling this herd immunity, wishful thinking nonsense.....it's a vaccine, or a gamechanging anti-viral, or massive testing and contact tracing that gets us out of this....
What do you think a vaccine gives - a clue, it's herd immunity.
Only if enough people take it.
Of course. Though there is also the technique of ring vaccination for controlling local outbreaks.
The WHO caveats are pretty generic ones. As far as this particular virus is concerned, it is quite likely that a vaccine which provides effective protection for some years will be developed. Though it’s probably true that the first vaccines available (likely the RNA ones) might be only partly effective.
I caught the Oxford Prof on Marr earlier, talking about the vaccine she and her team are working on. Impressed with her. She gave me some confidence. Also explained how they go about testing. They get a large group of people and divide them into 2 equal groups. A gets the vax and B gets placebo. Then they tell those people to go out and live their lives but check in if they get sick. Whereby each one who does get sick gets tested for you know what. The bingo outcome? A good number DO get sick and all of them are in B. If so, full steam ahead with mass production and rollout.
But here's the thing. This is me, now, not her. I think they test this way because it is unethical to deliberately infect large numbers of people with the virus. They must "get it" naturally. And preferably quickly, given time is of the essence. You don't want it taking six months. So the ideal vax testing conditions are when the virus is rife and there is no social distancing. You want these testees going into pubs and gyms and all the rest of it. Conversely, therefore, if by the time the vax is ready for testing we have successfully squashed the virus with lockdown (and still have lockdown), what we have also done is made it harder to test the vax, and thus delayed its ultimate delivery.
kinbalu - vaccine tests are normally in 3 phases. Phase 1 is in a small cohort of young, healthy persons. The aim is to ensure that the vaccine is safe. Phase 2, which the Oxford vaccine is about to enter, is for a far larger cohort across a larger range of demographics. The aim is primarily to ascertain whether the vaccine is effective - i.e. whether it confers adequate immunity to a sufficiently high percentage of recipients (while being acceptably safe). Phase 3 is mostly about fine tuning to dosage of the vaccine to minimize adverse side effects while maintaining efficacy.
PS Moderna in the US and CanSino Biologics in China are both a little ahead of Oxford in the vaccine approval process.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It'll be a cold day in hell before either the Italians or the Americans get to lecture us on the correct handling of a pandemic.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
So nearly 22,000 tests yesterday but Capacity is now approaching 40,000. Time for all those NHS staff treating Covid 19 patients to get their tests whether or not they are symptomatic
More frontline symptomatic is the next expansion.
A small research project by Stanford using antibody testing concluded that California's true COVID exposure is 50-100 x the reported positives from testing. I take that as good news - it means we'll get to herd immunity quicker and that, even if the implication is that the R0 is higher than previously calculated, that the social distancing is working despite that higher R0
Yet we never reach herd immunity if the worries from the WHO yesterday turn out to be accurate.
Missed it. Is that the worry that asymptomatic and paucisymptomatic persons are not developing high antibody titres?
Can you please stop peddling this herd immunity, wishful thinking nonsense.....it's a vaccine, or a gamechanging anti-viral, or massive testing and contact tracing that gets us out of this....
What do you think a vaccine gives - a clue, it's herd immunity.
Only if enough people take it.
Of course. Though there is also the technique of ring vaccination for controlling local outbreaks.
The WHO caveats are pretty generic ones. As far as this particular virus is concerned, it is quite likely that a vaccine which provides effective protection for some years will be developed. Though it’s probably true that the first vaccines available (likely the RNA ones) might be only partly effective.
I caught the Oxford Prof on Marr earlier, talking about the vaccine she and her team are working on. Impressed with her. She gave me some confidence. Also explained how they go about testing. They get a large group of people and divide them into 2 equal groups. A gets the vax and B gets placebo. Then they tell those people to go out and live their lives but check in if they get sick. Whereby each one who does get sick gets tested for you know what. The bingo outcome? A good number DO get sick and all of them are in B. If so, full steam ahead with mass production and rollout.
But here's the thing. This is me, now, not her. I think they test this way because it is unethical to deliberately infect large numbers of people with the virus. They must "get it" naturally. And preferably quickly, given time is of the essence. You don't want it taking six months. So the ideal vax testing conditions are when the virus is rife and there is no social distancing. You want these testees going into pubs and gyms and all the rest of it. Conversely, therefore, if by the time the vax is ready for testing we have successfully squashed the virus with lockdown (and still have lockdown), what we have also done is made it harder to test the vax, and thus delayed its ultimate delivery.
kinbalu - vaccine tests are normally in 3 phases. Phase 1 is in a small cohort of young, healthy persons. The aim is to ensure that the vaccine is safe. Phase 2, which the Oxford vaccine is about to enter, is for a far larger cohort across a larger range of demographics. The aim is primarily to ascertain whether the vaccine is effective - i.e. whether it confers adequate immunity to a sufficiently high percentage of recipients (while being acceptably safe). Phase 3 is mostly about fine tuning to dosage of the vaccine to minimize adverse side effects while maintaining efficacy.
PS Moderna in the US and CanSino Biologics in China are both a little ahead of Oxford in the vaccine approval process.
Is the fact they are through phase 1 promising?
Yes but unsurprising. Most of the most advanced vaccine companies are using well-characterized processes and vectors.
Macron is right. A supply side monetary response is urgently required by the EU and the EZ in particular. If it does not happen several EZ countries such as Italy and Spain will have an economic disaster of the sort not seen since Hoover. Its not just a question of whether the EU would survive such a calamity, it is a question of whether it should.
Its back to the fundamental problem of the EU - too much, too fast.
The Germans were told by their leaders that their sacrificing wage increase and being frugal led the the German boom. Which reinforced the notion that Germany was carrying the weight in Europe. In reality, the Euro helped Germany immensely at the expense of other parts of Europe.
In those other parts, the leaders talked of reform. But did not rebuild their economic systems to the German model. Because to even start, would to have been thrown from office, with ignominy. Who now remembers the Professor of economics in Athens, who was pitched out of his job, for suggesting in the boom years that the deficit the government was running was a bad idea? Motorcycle boy said he deserved it (and the death threats) at the time... no apology later.
Either the EU converages to carry out the fiscal transfers required, or they do nothing, or they split.
They will do nothing for as long as possible.
There will need to be fiscal transfers if the Euro is to work long term but that is not the current urgency. What is urgent now is that there is an ECB response similar to that of the BoE and the Fed with a major QE injection to protect the economy from very severe economic damage (some is inevitable). For a single currency bloc that means Coronabonds and the ECB essentially underwriting the bond issues of member states to the extent needed to fund the fiscal response to the crisis. Germany and Holland are blocking this because they can afford a much bigger fiscal response and can borrow pretty much unlimited sums at minimal cost. Spain and Italy can't. Its really shameful.
Coronabonds are a fiscal transfer by another name - putting Germany and the other contributors on the line for the others debts.
Yup. What else did they expect when they all agreed to sign up to a single currency?
The politicians lied to each other and to their electorates.
The Greek politicians said they would become good Germans. The Greek politicians told the electorate that there would be reforms. And then did nothing at the slightest sign of opposition. The Germans told their people that everyone in Europe would become fiscally responsible. And that low wage rises were making Germany competitive and strong. And that big fiscal transfers would not be needed. etc. etc.
Everyone triangulated everyone.
Don't forget to name-check Goldman Sachs (with the Greece debacle).
And don't forget that it's not optimal for neighbouring countries with similar economies who trade a lot together all to have their own silly little currencies.
The issue was that they didn't have similar economies.
Which meant that a single currency is like tight mooring a ship to a pier. No slack and the pier gets torn apart as the tide rises and falls.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
So nearly 22,000 tests yesterday but Capacity is now approaching 40,000. Time for all those NHS staff treating Covid 19 patients to get their tests whether or not they are symptomatic
More frontline symptomatic is the next expansion.
A small research project by Stanford using antibody testing concluded that California's true COVID exposure is 50-100 x the reported positives from testing. I take that as good news - it means we'll get to herd immunity quicker and that, even if the implication is that the R0 is higher than previously calculated, that the social distancing is working despite that higher R0
Yet we never reach herd immunity if the worries from the WHO yesterday turn out to be accurate.
Missed it. Is that the worry that asymptomatic and paucisymptomatic persons are not developing high antibody titres?
Can you please stop peddling this herd immunity, wishful thinking nonsense.....it's a vaccine, or a gamechanging anti-viral, or massive testing and contact tracing that gets us out of this....
What do you think a vaccine gives - a clue, it's herd immunity.
Only if enough people take it.
Of course. Though there is also the technique of ring vaccination for controlling local outbreaks.
The WHO caveats are pretty generic ones. As far as this particular virus is concerned, it is quite likely that a vaccine which provides effective protection for some years will be developed. Though it’s probably true that the first vaccines available (likely the RNA ones) might be only partly effective.
I caught the Oxford Prof on Marr earlier, talking about the vaccine she and her team are working on. Impressed with her. She gave me some confidence. Also explained how they go about testing. They get a large group of people and divide them into 2 equal groups. A gets the vax and B gets placebo. Then they tell those people to go out and live their lives but check in if they get sick. Whereby each one who does get sick gets tested for you know what. The bingo outcome? A good number DO get sick and all of them are in B. If so, full steam ahead with mass production and rollout.
But here's the thing. This is me, now, not her. I think they test this way because it is unethical to deliberately infect large numbers of people with the virus. They must "get it" naturally. And preferably quickly, given time is of the essence. You don't want it taking six months. So the ideal vax testing conditions are when the virus is rife and there is no social distancing. You want these testees going into pubs and gyms and all the rest of it. Conversely, therefore, if by the time the vax is ready for testing we have successfully squashed the virus with lockdown (and still have lockdown), what we have also done is made it harder to test the vax, and thus delayed its ultimate delivery.
kinbalu - vaccine tests are normally in 3 phases. Phase 1 is in a small cohort of young, healthy persons. The aim is to ensure that the vaccine is safe. Phase 2, which the Oxford vaccine is about to enter, is for a far larger cohort across a larger range of demographics. The aim is primarily to ascertain whether the vaccine is effective - i.e. whether it confers adequate immunity to a sufficiently high percentage of recipients (while being acceptably safe). Phase 3 is mostly about fine tuning to dosage of the vaccine to minimize adverse side effects while maintaining efficacy.
PS Moderna in the US and CanSino Biologics in China are both a little ahead of Oxford in the vaccine approval process.
Right thanks. Yes, so Phase 2 is what I was talking about there. Very interesting.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
That would be the same Italy with the highest death rate in Europe?
The Italy that gave us 3 weeks warning of what was coming. Which the government you support ignored. And cost thousands of lives.
That fact they had triggered emergency orders of PPE during this window suggests otherwise.
Meanwhile letting the rest of us go to the races, footy and pub. Thereby ensuring that all the extra PPE would be required.
So nearly 22,000 tests yesterday but Capacity is now approaching 40,000. Time for all those NHS staff treating Covid 19 patients to get their tests whether or not they are symptomatic
More frontline symptomatic is the next expansion.
A small research project by Stanford using antibody testing concluded that California's true COVID exposure is 50-100 x the reported positives from testing. I take that as good news - it means we'll get to herd immunity quicker and that, even if the implication is that the R0 is higher than previously calculated, that the social distancing is working despite that higher R0
Yet we never reach herd immunity if the worries from the WHO yesterday turn out to be accurate.
Missed it. Is that the worry that asymptomatic and paucisymptomatic persons are not developing high antibody titres?
Can you please stop peddling this herd immunity, wishful thinking nonsense.....it's a vaccine, or a gamechanging anti-viral, or massive testing and contact tracing that gets us out of this....
What do you think a vaccine gives - a clue, it's herd immunity.
Only if enough people take it.
Of course. Though there is also the technique of ring vaccination for controlling local outbreaks.
The WHO caveats are pretty generic ones. As far as this particular virus is concerned, it is quite likely that a vaccine which provides effective protection for some years will be developed. Though it’s probably true that the first vaccines available (likely the RNA ones) might be only partly effective.
I caught the Oxford Prof on Marr earlier, talking about the vaccine she and her team are working on. Impressed with her. She gave me some confidence. Also explained how they go about testing. They get a large group of people and divide them into 2 equal groups. A gets the vax and B gets placebo. Then they tell those people to go out and live their lives but check in if they get sick. Whereby each one who does get sick gets tested for you know what. The bingo outcome? A good number DO get sick and all of them are in B. If so, full steam ahead with mass production and rollout.
But here's the thing. This is me, now, not her. I think they test this way because it is unethical to deliberately infect large numbers of people with the virus. They must "get it" naturally. And preferably quickly, given time is of the essence. You don't want it taking six months. So the ideal vax testing conditions are when the virus is rife and there is no social distancing. You want these testees going into pubs and gyms and all the rest of it. Conversely, therefore, if by the time the vax is ready for testing we have successfully squashed the virus with lockdown (and still have lockdown), what we have also done is made it harder to test the vax, and thus delayed its ultimate delivery.
kinbalu - vaccine tests are normally in 3 phases. Phase 1 is in a small cohort of young, healthy persons. The aim is to ensure that the vaccine is safe. Phase 2, which the Oxford vaccine is about to enter, is for a far larger cohort across a larger range of demographics. The aim is primarily to ascertain whether the vaccine is effective - i.e. whether it confers adequate immunity to a sufficiently high percentage of recipients (while being acceptably safe). Phase 3 is mostly about fine tuning to dosage of the vaccine to minimize adverse side effects while maintaining efficacy.
PS Moderna in the US and CanSino Biologics in China are both a little ahead of Oxford in the vaccine approval process.
Is the fact they are through phase 1 promising?
It needs to get through phase one, so yes it is promising. But each phase gets harder to pass thna the last.
BTW this is the process for all medicines not just vaccines.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
To be honest I have not heard of her, other than is she in neighbours ?
You see, I have no time for celebrities and have no interest in them other than when Beckham's wife rips off our taxpayers, including our nurses, by furloughing her employees, without any thought
I’m past disgust and utterly bemused at how the government’s usual apologists seem to think it acceptable for a Prime Minister to take a hands-off approach to a looming pandemic. It begs the question what they think he is there for, if not to take an interest in such serious threats to the nation.
The PM was being told by our experts that it 2as low to medium risk. That's the failure.
If the PM had torn himself away for five minutes from shagging his missus in February to read the newspapers he would have seen ample coverage of Covid-19 for himself. But he simply didn’t care to find out more.
He wasn't been kept up to date with what was happening during February?
Transpires that from Feb 10 he disappeared to Chevening with his mistress for two weeks -perhaps he was exhausted after that fortnight in the Caribbean or wherever it was over Christmas.
The Tories knew they were choosing a chancer who was never going to put in the hard work required. Pity we are all going to pay the price for it.
Is Boris still an electoral asset? That's what Tory MPs will be wondering.
Course he is. It either all went pear shaped before he was on board or whilst he was off sick. He will be furious when he arrives back and sees it has all gone to hell in a handcart.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
That would be the same Italy with the highest death rate in Europe?
The Italy that gave us 3 weeks warning of what was coming. Which the government you support ignored. And cost thousands of lives.
Did it? If that was the case Sweden which has still not locked down would have the highest death rate in Europe, it does not.
The UK despite having the third highest population in Europe currently only has the fourth highest number of deaths, so on that basis the UK government is doing above average even if not as well as Germany
You are comparing the UK with other countries that were hit earlier. We are tracking the Italian death toll day by day, despite having the early warning that they did not have.
Wait until everyone has got through the first wave, and then provide your comparison.
Macron is right. A supply side monetary response is urgently required by the EU and the EZ in particular. If it does not happen several EZ countries such as Italy and Spain will have an economic disaster of the sort not seen since Hoover. Its not just a question of whether the EU would survive such a calamity, it is a question of whether it should.
Its back to the fundamental problem of the EU - too much, too fast.
The Germans were told by their leaders that their sacrificing wage increase and being frugal led the the German boom. Which reinforced the notion that Germany was carrying the weight in Europe. In reality, the Euro helped Germany immensely at the expense of other parts of Europe.
In those other parts, the leaders talked of reform. But did not rebuild their economic systems to the German model. Because to even start, would to have been thrown from office, with ignominy. Who now remembers the Professor of economics in Athens, who was pitched out of his job, for suggesting in the boom years that the deficit the government was running was a bad idea? Motorcycle boy said he deserved it (and the death threats) at the time... no apology later.
Either the EU converages to carry out the fiscal transfers required, or they do nothing, or they split.
They will do nothing for as long as possible.
There will need to be fiscal transfers if the Euro is to work long term but that is not the current urgency. What is urgent now is that there is an ECB response similar to that of the BoE and the Fed with a major QE injection to protect the economy from very severe economic damage (some is inevitable). For a single currency bloc that means Coronabonds and the ECB essentially underwriting the bond issues of member states to the extent needed to fund the fiscal response to the crisis. Germany and Holland are blocking this because they can afford a much bigger fiscal response and can borrow pretty much unlimited sums at minimal cost. Spain and Italy can't. Its really shameful.
Coronabonds are a fiscal transfer by another name - putting Germany and the other contributors on the line for the others debts.
Yup. What else did they expect when they all agreed to sign up to a single currency?
The politicians lied to each other and to their electorates.
The Greek politicians said they would become good Germans. The Greek politicians told the electorate that there would be reforms. And then did nothing at the slightest sign of opposition. The Germans told their people that everyone in Europe would become fiscally responsible. And that low wage rises were making Germany competitive and strong. And that big fiscal transfers would not be needed. etc. etc.
Everyone triangulated everyone.
Don't forget to name-check Goldman Sachs (with the Greece debacle).
And don't forget that it's not optimal for neighbouring countries with similar economies who trade a lot together all to have their own silly little currencies.
The issue was that they didn't have similar economies.
Which meant that a single currency is like tight mooring a ship to a pier. No slack and the pier gets torn apart as the tide rises and falls.
Agreed for Greece. But not for many of the other EZ countries. Makes perfect sense for them.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
I am sitting watching Britain's most scenic railway on channel 5 with the full journey of the 'Jacobite' express from Fort William to Mallaig and it is just magic
On the Sunday Times incendiary investigation, it's rather curious that Tim Shipman is not one of the accredited journalists.
Not really, it's a piece by the award winning Insight team, not the political team.
Indeed so, but don't you think it's odd that the ST is investigating the PM and government about this level of crisis and the Political Editor is apparently not involved?
The so called sources quoted don't feel to me to be government insiders, certainly not the types that Shipman would have access to. Besides which the article smells anti Brexit and viciously anti Boris. I detect an agenda, as I think eadric did last night.
On the Sunday Times incendiary investigation, it's rather curious that Tim Shipman is not one of the accredited journalists.
Not really, it's a piece by the award winning Insight team, not the political team.
Indeed so, but don't you think it's odd that the ST is investigating the PM and government about this level of crisis and the Political Editor is apparently not involved?
The so called sources quoted don't feel to me to be government insiders, certainly not the types that Shipman would have access to. Besides which the article smells anti Brexit and viciously anti Boris. I detect an agenda, as I think eadric did last night.
Well they've not used Tim Shipman for their other pieces that have turned out to be true about Boris Johnson.
Macron is right. A supply side monetary response is urgently required by the EU and the EZ in particular. If it does not happen several EZ countries such as Italy and Spain will have an economic disaster of the sort not seen since Hoover. Its not just a question of whether the EU would survive such a calamity, it is a question of whether it should.
Its back to the fundamental problem of the EU - too much, too fast.
The Germans were told by their leaders that their sacrificing wage increase and being frugal led the the German boom. Which reinforced the notion that Germany was carrying the weight in Europe. In reality, the Euro helped Germany immensely at the expense of other parts of Europe.
In those other parts, the leaders talked of reform. But did not rebuild their economic systems to the German model. Because to even start, would to have been thrown from office, with ignominy. Who now remembers the Professor of economics in Athens, who was pitched out of his job, for suggesting in the boom years that the deficit the government was running was a bad idea? Motorcycle boy said he deserved it (and the death threats) at the time... no apology later.
Either the EU converages to carry out the fiscal transfers required, or they do nothing, or they split.
They will do nothing for as long as possible.
There will need to be fiscal transfers if the Euro is to work long term but that is not the current urgency. What is urgent now is that there is an ECB response similar to that of the BoE and the Fed with a major QE injection to protect the economy from very severe economic damage (some is inevitable). For a single currency bloc that means Coronabonds and the ECB essentially underwriting the bond issues of member states to the extent needed to fund the fiscal response to the crisis. Germany and Holland are blocking this because they can afford a much bigger fiscal response and can borrow pretty much unlimited sums at minimal cost. Spain and Italy can't. Its really shameful.
Coronabonds are a fiscal transfer by another name - putting Germany and the other contributors on the line for the others debts.
Yup. What else did they expect when they all agreed to sign up to a single currency?
The politicians lied to each other and to their electorates.
The Greek politicians said they would become good Germans. The Greek politicians told the electorate that there would be reforms. And then did nothing at the slightest sign of opposition. The Germans told their people that everyone in Europe would become fiscally responsible. And that low wage rises were making Germany competitive and strong. And that big fiscal transfers would not be needed. etc. etc.
Everyone triangulated everyone.
Don't forget to name-check Goldman Sachs (with the Greece debacle).
And don't forget that it's not optimal for neighbouring countries with similar economies who trade a lot together all to have their own silly little currencies.
The issue was that they didn't have similar economies.
Which meant that a single currency is like tight mooring a ship to a pier. No slack and the pier gets torn apart as the tide rises and falls.
Agreed for Greece. But not for many of the other EZ countries. Makes perfect sense for them.
Except the Eurozone "core" which is easily compatible with Germany is actually quite small.
One of the reasons that Germany wanted the UK to stay is that without us, the voting mathematics begins to move against them - towards those inclined to looser fiscal policy. And the pressure mounts for more and more QMV on more and more areas.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
To be honest I have not heard of her, other than is she in neighbours ?
You see, I have no time for celebrities and have no interest in them other than when Beckham's wife rips off our taxpayers, including our nurses, by furloughing her employees, without any thought
Shame on her
She was in Neighbours, yes. Also in that big American show, Friends, that ran for years and years.
As for abuse of the Furlough scheme. No, not great, and I am sure it is rife. Hopefully they factored this into the thinking because it was somewhat inevitable.
On the Sunday Times incendiary investigation, it's rather curious that Tim Shipman is not one of the accredited journalists.
Not really, it's a piece by the award winning Insight team, not the political team.
Indeed so, but don't you think it's odd that the ST is investigating the PM and government about this level of crisis and the Political Editor is apparently not involved?
The so called sources quoted don't feel to me to be government insiders, certainly not the types that Shipman would have access to. Besides which the article smells anti Brexit and viciously anti Boris. I detect an agenda, as I think eadric did last night.
Well they've not used Tim Shipman for their other pieces that have turned out to be true about Boris Johnson.
On the Sunday Times incendiary investigation, it's rather curious that Tim Shipman is not one of the accredited journalists.
Not really, it's a piece by the award winning Insight team, not the political team.
Indeed so, but don't you think it's odd that the ST is investigating the PM and government about this level of crisis and the Political Editor is apparently not involved?
The so called sources quoted don't feel to me to be government insiders, certainly not the types that Shipman would have access to. Besides which the article smells anti Brexit and viciously anti Boris. I detect an agenda, as I think eadric did last night.
Well they've not used Tim Shipman for their other pieces that have turned out to be true about Boris Johnson.
Ok, but this is incendiary stuff about the government's handling of the biggest crisis since WW2. It just seems odd that Shipman was not involved given the magnitude of the story. And unless I misunderstood, you said downthread one of the journos accredited has previously written critically about Boris.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
To be honest I have not heard of her, other than is she in neighbours ?
You see, I have no time for celebrities and have no interest in them other than when Beckham's wife rips off our taxpayers, including our nurses, by furloughing her employees, without any thought
Shame on her
She was in Neighbours, yes. Also in that big American show, Friends, that ran for years and years.
As for abuse of the Furlough scheme. No, not great, and I am sure it is rife. Hopefully they factored this into the thinking because it was somewhat inevitable.
You need to excuse my absence of knowledge of any celebrities as I really have no interest in them, indeed I never have
On the Sunday Times incendiary investigation, it's rather curious that Tim Shipman is not one of the accredited journalists.
Not really, it's a piece by the award winning Insight team, not the political team.
Indeed so, but don't you think it's odd that the ST is investigating the PM and government about this level of crisis and the Political Editor is apparently not involved?
The so called sources quoted don't feel to me to be government insiders, certainly not the types that Shipman would have access to. Besides which the article smells anti Brexit and viciously anti Boris. I detect an agenda, as I think eadric did last night.
Well they've not used Tim Shipman for their other pieces that have turned out to be true about Boris Johnson.
On the Sunday Times incendiary investigation, it's rather curious that Tim Shipman is not one of the accredited journalists.
Not really, it's a piece by the award winning Insight team, not the political team.
Indeed so, but don't you think it's odd that the ST is investigating the PM and government about this level of crisis and the Political Editor is apparently not involved?
The so called sources quoted don't feel to me to be government insiders, certainly not the types that Shipman would have access to. Besides which the article smells anti Brexit and viciously anti Boris. I detect an agenda, as I think eadric did last night.
Well they've not used Tim Shipman for their other pieces that have turned out to be true about Boris Johnson.
Ok, but this is incendiary stuff about the government's handling of the biggest crisis since WW2. It just seems odd that Shipman was not involved given the magnitude of the story. And unless I misunderstood, you said downthread one of the journos accredited has previously written critically about Boris.
See Shipman tweet, he said he's currently writing about the future, whilst is article is about the past.
As for the Insight team, they've written award winning, law changing articles, I'll trust their track record over yours.
And it wasn't critical, it was factual, the actual has triggered a couple of investigations IIRC.
On the Sunday Times incendiary investigation, it's rather curious that Tim Shipman is not one of the accredited journalists.
Not really, it's a piece by the award winning Insight team, not the political team.
Indeed so, but don't you think it's odd that the ST is investigating the PM and government about this level of crisis and the Political Editor is apparently not involved?
The so called sources quoted don't feel to me to be government insiders, certainly not the types that Shipman would have access to. Besides which the article smells anti Brexit and viciously anti Boris. I detect an agenda, as I think eadric did last night.
Well they've not used Tim Shipman for their other pieces that have turned out to be true about Boris Johnson.
On the Sunday Times incendiary investigation, it's rather curious that Tim Shipman is not one of the accredited journalists.
Not really, it's a piece by the award winning Insight team, not the political team.
Indeed so, but don't you think it's odd that the ST is investigating the PM and government about this level of crisis and the Political Editor is apparently not involved?
The so called sources quoted don't feel to me to be government insiders, certainly not the types that Shipman would have access to. Besides which the article smells anti Brexit and viciously anti Boris. I detect an agenda, as I think eadric did last night.
Well they've not used Tim Shipman for their other pieces that have turned out to be true about Boris Johnson.
Ok, but this is incendiary stuff about the government's handling of the biggest crisis since WW2. It just seems odd that Shipman was not involved given the magnitude of the story. And unless I misunderstood, you said downthread one of the journos accredited has previously written critically about Boris.
See Shipman tweet, he said he's currently writing about the future, whilst is article is about the past.
As for the Insight team, they've written award winning, law changing articles, I'll trust their track record over yours.
I had contact with the Insight team in the mid 80’s at the height of Thatcherism, the had heard, an incorrect, rumor that I Han inside info on large scale Tory gaming on the housing and planning process in the SE. whilst it was possibly true I couldn’t help, just because it was a Tory government didn’t stop the digging.
On the Sunday Times incendiary investigation, it's rather curious that Tim Shipman is not one of the accredited journalists.
Not really, it's a piece by the award winning Insight team, not the political team.
Indeed so, but don't you think it's odd that the ST is investigating the PM and government about this level of crisis and the Political Editor is apparently not involved?
The so called sources quoted don't feel to me to be government insiders, certainly not the types that Shipman would have access to. Besides which the article smells anti Brexit and viciously anti Boris. I detect an agenda, as I think eadric did last night.
Well they've not used Tim Shipman for their other pieces that have turned out to be true about Boris Johnson.
On the Sunday Times incendiary investigation, it's rather curious that Tim Shipman is not one of the accredited journalists.
Not really, it's a piece by the award winning Insight team, not the political team.
Indeed so, but don't you think it's odd that the ST is investigating the PM and government about this level of crisis and the Political Editor is apparently not involved?
The so called sources quoted don't feel to me to be government insiders, certainly not the types that Shipman would have access to. Besides which the article smells anti Brexit and viciously anti Boris. I detect an agenda, as I think eadric did last night.
Well they've not used Tim Shipman for their other pieces that have turned out to be true about Boris Johnson.
Ok, but this is incendiary stuff about the government's handling of the biggest crisis since WW2.
Its a concise analysis of information that was already in the public domain. Their skill is in pulling it together and presenting it well, not digging out new information (apart from unattributed quotes).
Much of what is in the ST was covered by Reuters two weeks ago.
On the Sunday Times incendiary investigation, it's rather curious that Tim Shipman is not one of the accredited journalists.
Not really, it's a piece by the award winning Insight team, not the political team.
Indeed so, but don't you think it's odd that the ST is investigating the PM and government about this level of crisis and the Political Editor is apparently not involved?
The so called sources quoted don't feel to me to be government insiders, certainly not the types that Shipman would have access to. Besides which the article smells anti Brexit and viciously anti Boris. I detect an agenda, as I think eadric did last night.
Well they've not used Tim Shipman for their other pieces that have turned out to be true about Boris Johnson.
On the Sunday Times incendiary investigation, it's rather curious that Tim Shipman is not one of the accredited journalists.
Not really, it's a piece by the award winning Insight team, not the political team.
Indeed so, but don't you think it's odd that the ST is investigating the PM and government about this level of crisis and the Political Editor is apparently not involved?
The so called sources quoted don't feel to me to be government insiders, certainly not the types that Shipman would have access to. Besides which the article smells anti Brexit and viciously anti Boris. I detect an agenda, as I think eadric did last night.
Well they've not used Tim Shipman for their other pieces that have turned out to be true about Boris Johnson.
Ok, but this is incendiary stuff about the government's handling of the biggest crisis since WW2. It just seems odd that Shipman was not involved given the magnitude of the story. And unless I misunderstood, you said downthread one of the journos accredited has previously written critically about Boris.
See Shipman tweet, he said he's currently writing about the future, whilst is article is about the past.
As for the Insight team, they've written award winning, law changing articles, I'll trust their track record over yours.
And it wasn't critical, it was factual, the actual has triggered a couple of investigations IIRC.
Time will tell whether the article was factual. Steerpike over at Coffee House has raised several questions regarding its accuracy/conclusions.
Not sure what my track record has to do with this exchange but I'm interested to know what you are referring to as my track record?
Macron is right. A supply side monetary response is urgently required by the EU and the EZ in particular. If it does not happen several EZ countries such as Italy and Spain will have an economic disaster of the sort not seen since Hoover. Its not just a question of whether the EU would survive such a calamity, it is a question of whether it should.
Its back to the fundamental problem of the EU - too much, too fast.
The Germans were told by their leaders that their sacrificing wage increase and being frugal led the the German boom. Which reinforced the notion that Germany was carrying the weight in Europe. In reality, the Euro helped Germany immensely at the expense of other parts of Europe.
In those other parts, the leaders talked of reform. But did not rebuild their economic systems to the German model. Because to even start, would to have been thrown from office, with ignominy. Who now remembers the Professor of economics in Athens, who was pitched out of his job, for suggesting in the boom years that the deficit the government was running was a bad idea? Motorcycle boy said he deserved it (and the death threats) at the time... no apology later.
Either the EU converages to carry out the fiscal transfers required, or they do nothing, or they split.
They will do nothing for as long as possible.
There will need to be fiscal transfers if the Euro is to work long term but that is not the current urgency. What is urgent now is that there is an ECB response similar to that of the BoE and the Fed with a major QE injection to protect the economy from very severe economic damage (some is inevitable). For a single currency bloc that means Coronabonds and the ECB essentially underwriting the bond issues of member states to the extent needed to fund the fiscal response to the crisis. Germany and Holland are blocking this because they can afford a much bigger fiscal response and can borrow pretty much unlimited sums at minimal cost. Spain and Italy can't. Its really shameful.
Coronabonds are a fiscal transfer by another name - putting Germany and the other contributors on the line for the others debts.
Yup. What else did they expect when they all agreed to sign up to a single currency?
The politicians lied to each other and to their electorates.
The Greek politicians said they would become good Germans. The Greek politicians told the electorate that there would be reforms. And then did nothing at the slightest sign of opposition. The Germans told their people that everyone in Europe would become fiscally responsible. And that low wage rises were making Germany competitive and strong. And that big fiscal transfers would not be needed. etc. etc.
Everyone triangulated everyone.
Don't forget to name-check Goldman Sachs (with the Greece debacle).
And don't forget that it's not optimal for neighbouring countries with similar economies who trade a lot together all to have their own silly little currencies.
The issue was that they didn't have similar economies.
Which meant that a single currency is like tight mooring a ship to a pier. No slack and the pier gets torn apart as the tide rises and falls.
Agreed for Greece. But not for many of the other EZ countries. Makes perfect sense for them.
Except the Eurozone "core" which is easily compatible with Germany is actually quite small.
One of the reasons that Germany wanted the UK to stay is that without us, the voting mathematics begins to move against them - towards those inclined to looser fiscal policy. And the pressure mounts for more and more QMV on more and more areas.
I would say it is quite large, since you do not need massive convergence for it to make sense, you need a threshold level (70% say), enough to avoid your nice ship and dock analogy, then once hooked up the convergence will naturally trend higher because you are hooked up.
It is very like a marriage. You need a core level of compatibility going in. Nothing like 100% but around 70%. If you have this, and work at it, the union will work. If you don't it will be turbulent and unhappy - and probably end badly.
Only threw that in because YOU did an analogy. Wouldn't have, otherwise. Trying to ween myself off them.
Time will tell whether the article was factual. Steerpike over at Coffee House has raised several questions regarding its accuracy/conclusions.
Not sure what my track record has to do with this exchange but I'm interested to know what you are referring to as my track record?
You have no track record that I'm aware as an award winning journalist, they do.
One of the reasons I subscribe to The Times/Sunday Times is the Insight Team, they were the ones that finally exposed FIFA for the corrupt organisation we all knew it was. It was led by journalist listed in today's article.
On the Sunday Times incendiary investigation, it's rather curious that Tim Shipman is not one of the accredited journalists.
Not really, it's a piece by the award winning Insight team, not the political team.
Indeed so, but don't you think it's odd that the ST is investigating the PM and government about this level of crisis and the Political Editor is apparently not involved?
The so called sources quoted don't feel to me to be government insiders, certainly not the types that Shipman would have access to. Besides which the article smells anti Brexit and viciously anti Boris. I detect an agenda, as I think eadric did last night.
Well they've not used Tim Shipman for their other pieces that have turned out to be true about Boris Johnson.
On the Sunday Times incendiary investigation, it's rather curious that Tim Shipman is not one of the accredited journalists.
Not really, it's a piece by the award winning Insight team, not the political team.
Indeed so, but don't you think it's odd that the ST is investigating the PM and government about this level of crisis and the Political Editor is apparently not involved?
The so called sources quoted don't feel to me to be government insiders, certainly not the types that Shipman would have access to. Besides which the article smells anti Brexit and viciously anti Boris. I detect an agenda, as I think eadric did last night.
Well they've not used Tim Shipman for their other pieces that have turned out to be true about Boris Johnson.
Ok, but this is incendiary stuff about the government's handling of the biggest crisis since WW2. It just seems odd that Shipman was not involved given the magnitude of the story. And unless I misunderstood, you said downthread one of the journos accredited has previously written critically about Boris.
See Shipman tweet, he said he's currently writing about the future, whilst is article is about the past.
As for the Insight team, they've written award winning, law changing articles, I'll trust their track record over yours.
And it wasn't critical, it was factual, the actual has triggered a couple of investigations IIRC.
FIFA was probably their biggest scalp. Though not sure a lot has changed.
Rachel Aniston wasn’t in Neighbours as far as I know! She was in Friends.
Coincidentally Rachel Friend was in Neighbours, but she is a different woman entirely.
Yes, Friends obvs. But @Big_G_NorthWales said she was also in Neighbours and I wasn't about to argue because for all I know she might have done of those guest appearances that sometimes happens in Albert Square. Think Donald Trump did one?
FIFA was probably their biggest scalp. Though not sure a lot has changed.
They almost had Lance Armstrong until he confessed.
It was the Insight team that led to the cash for honours scandal being exposed which buggered John Major's administration and of course they were the ones that broke the cash for honours story under Blair.
Rachel Aniston wasn’t in Neighbours as far as I know! She was in Friends.
Coincidentally Rachel Friend was in Neighbours, but she is a different woman entirely.
Yes, Friends obvs. But @Big_G_NorthWales said she was also in Neighbours and I wasn't about to argue because for all I know she might have done of those guest appearances that sometimes happens in Albert Square. Think Donald Trump did one?
Not really
I asked if she was in neighbours but to be honest it could be emmerdale or coronation street for as much as I know about her
FIFA was probably their biggest scalp. Though not sure a lot has changed.
They almost had Lance Armstrong until he confessed.
It was the Insight team that led to the cash for honours scandal being exposed which buggered John Major's administration and of course they were the ones that broke the cash for honours story under Blair.
I was surprised to read that the Rotherham grooming scandal investigation wasn't them but the investigative team from The Times.
I’m past disgust and utterly bemused at how the government’s usual apologists seem to think it acceptable for a Prime Minister to take a hands-off approach to a looming pandemic. It begs the question what they think he is there for, if not to take an interest in such serious threats to the nation.
The PM was being told by our experts that it 2as low to medium risk. That's the failure.
If the PM had torn himself away for five minutes from shagging his missus in February to read the newspapers he would have seen ample coverage of Covid-19 for himself. But he simply didn’t care to find out more.
He wasn't been kept up to date with what was happening during February?
Transpires that from Feb 10 he disappeared to Chevening with his mistress for two weeks -perhaps he was exhausted after that fortnight in the Caribbean or wherever it was over Christmas.
The Tories knew they were choosing a chancer who was never going to put in the hard work required. Pity we are all going to pay the price for it.
Boris was picked to beat Corbyn and deliver Brexit, both if which he delivered on
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
To be honest I have not heard of her, other than is she in neighbours ?
You see, I have no time for celebrities and have no interest in them other than when Beckham's wife rips off our taxpayers, including our nurses, by furloughing her employees, without any thought
Shame on her
To be fair to Victoria Beckham she did pay the final 20% of her employees wages the government did not pay
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
To be honest I have not heard of her, other than is she in neighbours ?
You see, I have no time for celebrities and have no interest in them other than when Beckham's wife rips off our taxpayers, including our nurses, by furloughing her employees, without any thought
Shame on her
To be fair to Victoria Beckham she did pay the final 20% of her employees wages the government did not pay
So very good of her as she rips us off for 80% despite her multi millions
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
That would be the same Italy with the highest death rate in Europe?
The Italy that gave us 3 weeks warning of what was coming. Which the government you support ignored. And cost thousands of lives.
Did it? If that was the case Sweden which has still not locked down would have the highest death rate in Europe, it does not.
The UK despite having the third highest population in Europe currently only has the fourth highest number of deaths, so on that basis the UK government is doing above average even if not as well as Germany
You are comparing the UK with other countries that were hit earlier. We are tracking the Italian death toll day by day, despite having the early warning that they did not have.
Wait until everyone has got through the first wave, and then provide your comparison.
We have still not hit the over 1000 deaths a day peak France did for example and I am not going to criticise the government excessively when there is no real evidence we are doing any worse than the European average
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
To be honest I have not heard of her, other than is she in neighbours ?
You see, I have no time for celebrities and have no interest in them other than when Beckham's wife rips off our taxpayers, including our nurses, by furloughing her employees, without any thought
Shame on her
She was in Neighbours, yes. Also in that big American show, Friends, that ran for years and years.
As for abuse of the Furlough scheme. No, not great, and I am sure it is rife. Hopefully they factored this into the thinking because it was somewhat inevitable.
You need to excuse my absence of knowledge of any celebrities as I really have no interest in them, indeed I never have
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
To be honest I have not heard of her, other than is she in neighbours ?
You see, I have no time for celebrities and have no interest in them other than when Beckham's wife rips off our taxpayers, including our nurses, by furloughing her employees, without any thought
Shame on her
She was in Neighbours, yes. Also in that big American show, Friends, that ran for years and years.
As for abuse of the Furlough scheme. No, not great, and I am sure it is rife. Hopefully they factored this into the thinking because it was somewhat inevitable.
You need to excuse my absence of knowledge of any celebrities as I really have no interest in them, indeed I never have
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
To be honest I have not heard of her, other than is she in neighbours ?
You see, I have no time for celebrities and have no interest in them other than when Beckham's wife rips off our taxpayers, including our nurses, by furloughing her employees, without any thought
Shame on her
She was in Neighbours, yes. Also in that big American show, Friends, that ran for years and years.
As for abuse of the Furlough scheme. No, not great, and I am sure it is rife. Hopefully they factored this into the thinking because it was somewhat inevitable.
You need to excuse my absence of knowledge of any celebrities as I really have no interest in them, indeed I never have
Boris ?
He is a politician
Not his most conspicuous characteristic.
You are very quick to respond when I mention him. Less so when I talk about care homes.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
To be honest I have not heard of her, other than is she in neighbours ?
You see, I have no time for celebrities and have no interest in them other than when Beckham's wife rips off our taxpayers, including our nurses, by furloughing her employees, without any thought
Shame on her
To be fair to Victoria Beckham she did pay the final 20% of her employees wages the government did not pay
VB Fashion has been close to bankrupt for years. It’s only the directors putting money in (DB) that has kept it afloat.
Sadly, plenty of dead businesses will have been propped up by the government furlough scheme.
And France heisted our bona fide order and demonstrated how shameful Macron is
I cannot imagine what would be said if Boris did the same but I have not read one post of condemnation from remainers on this forum of Macron's actions
Comments
When there was all the fuss about herd immunity, there was an insider account suggesting this was the "advice" that most appealed to some of the number 10 team. True or not, it's hardly news that govts often follow the "expert advice" they matches what they want to do in the first place - just ask Sir Humphrey.
And I’d add that they’ve effectively delegated decisions which are nothing to do with the experts area of expertise, too.
https://twitter.com/Johnrashton47/status/1251699663000014849
So long as they are not blatantly negligent presumably being the one caveat.
1. UK is on track to be one of the worst in Europe
2. PPE is a problem & NHS staff have concerns
3. We need to massively increase testing through drive-through/walking stations
4. Containment is wise until we know more about this virus.
https://twitter.com/devisridhar/status/1251912457339232258
There is no such thing. There is scientific advice from individuals - which may differ from that offered by others.
And as anyone with even a passing interest knows, the areas of uncertainty are considerable.
And, as I’ve pointed out several times, there are decisions which actively contradict the best scientific consensus.
Discharging infected patients into care homes - which is still, AFAIK, still official policy, being the most blatant.
BA for example generated about 7% of pre virus revenues from cargo ops.
And don't forget that it's not optimal for neighbouring countries with similar economies who trade a lot together all to have their own silly little currencies.
And the rest of your post is weird too. There was only one Champions League game in England in March, Liverpool v Athletico on 10 March, the others were in Valencia, Paris and Leipzig. The first leg of the Valencia v Atalantia in Feb was a notorious vector, and although the return leg in Spain on 10 March was held behind closed doors, fans still congregated outside. Widespread lockdowns in Europe did not commence until the following week. I’m not aware of any European or N American country closing down all its airports
I am not going to defend the Government, questions need to be answered, but you have frequently posted on here about the rest of the world being apparently “homing in” on what is going on here. I don’t mean to burst your bubble but they have bigger fish to fry. The EU on the split between the Northern and Southern countries, the US on the looming clash between Trump and the Dem states. Events in the UK have rarely had less interest for the world at large.
A few friends of mine are captains at Emirates, they have a number of 777s flying around now with no passengers but full loads of cargo - which can be a lot more weight than usual if the rest of the plane is empty.
The UK despite having the third highest population in Europe currently only has the fourth highest number of deaths, so on that basis the UK government is doing above average even if not as well as Germany
PS Moderna in the US and CanSino Biologics in China are both a little ahead of Oxford in the vaccine approval process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17Uhv131Ggk
Which meant that a single currency is like tight mooring a ship to a pier. No slack and the pier gets torn apart as the tide rises and falls.
Vid below.
BTW this is the process for all medicines not just vaccines.
You see, I have no time for celebrities and have no interest in them other than when Beckham's wife rips off our taxpayers, including our nurses, by furloughing her employees, without any thought
Shame on her
The Tories knew they were choosing a chancer who was never going to put in the hard work required. Pity we are all going to pay the price for it.
It was the very first thing that sprung to my mind with this debate about "Boris" and his "science".
Probably just me.
Wait until everyone has got through the first wave, and then provide your comparison.
The so called sources quoted don't feel to me to be government insiders, certainly not the types that Shipman would have access to. Besides which the article smells anti Brexit and viciously anti Boris. I detect an agenda, as I think eadric did last night.
One of the reasons that Germany wanted the UK to stay is that without us, the voting mathematics begins to move against them - towards those inclined to looser fiscal policy. And the pressure mounts for more and more QMV on more and more areas.
Which was nice.
Also, I've been able to add some IPA to Friday's Abel and Cole order.
Small pleasures count at the moment.
As for abuse of the Furlough scheme. No, not great, and I am sure it is rife. Hopefully they factored this into the thinking because it was somewhat inevitable.
As for the Insight team, they've written award winning, law changing articles, I'll trust their track record over yours.
And it wasn't critical, it was factual, the actual has triggered a couple of investigations IIRC.
Much of what is in the ST was covered by Reuters two weeks ago.
Coincidentally Rachel Friend was in Neighbours, but she is a different woman entirely.
Not sure what my track record has to do with this exchange but I'm interested to know what you are referring to as my track record?
It is very like a marriage. You need a core level of compatibility going in. Nothing like 100% but around 70%. If you have this, and work at it, the union will work. If you don't it will be turbulent and unhappy - and probably end badly.
Only threw that in because YOU did an analogy. Wouldn't have, otherwise. Trying to ween myself off them.
The lockdown is getting seriously dull.
Hopefully Sir Richard Burgon will be on BGT next saturday... golden buzzer nailed on if so.
One of the reasons I subscribe to The Times/Sunday Times is the Insight Team, they were the ones that finally exposed FIFA for the corrupt organisation we all knew it was. It was led by journalist listed in today's article.
But they have other successes.
https://twitter.com/econinbricks/status/1251826637458624512?s=20
It was the Insight team that led to the cash for honours scandal being exposed which buggered John Major's administration and of course they were the ones that broke the cash for honours story under Blair.
I asked if she was in neighbours but to be honest it could be emmerdale or coronation street for as much as I know about her
He wasn't chosen to be our crisis prime minister.
His jokey, it will be okay attitude plays well for Brexit where people don't want to think about it any more. But for COVID?
Again, shame on her
https://twitter.com/marynmck/status/1251538798292467712
You are very quick to respond when I mention him. Less so when I talk about care homes.
Sadly, plenty of dead businesses will have been propped up by the government furlough scheme.
I cannot imagine what would be said if Boris did the same but I have not read one post of condemnation from remainers on this forum of Macron's actions