Wearing a mask when you suffer from hayfever isn't pleasant - sneezing with a mask on doesn't end well.
YOU WEAR IT TO PROTECT OTHERS WHEN YOU SNEEZE
Well done, you have just proved the British have an average IQ of 9, and that’s why we are dying
The trouble with masks is they fog up your glasses (they direct hot breath upwards which condenses on the cold lenses). I read somewhere that washing the lenses with soap helps, though I never remember to try it.
Hay fever sufferers might do better with the posh masks with filters that can intercept pollen.
And so, finally, WHO say we should all wear masks or face coverings. The last to yield, have yielded
What a total fucking shitshow, and yes I am looking at you, Boris “handshake” Johnson
I bought my first masks in mid Feb and was much mocked on here for doing so, and for wearing them.
If we had all behaved like me, then, we wouldn’t be staring at the economic abyss and medical disaster, now.
I'm not sure how masks would be prevented any 'economic abyss', unless you think the rejuvenated mask industry was enough to pick up the slack.
I hate to swear so long before the lagershed, but JESUS H TWATTING CHRIST
if we’d had (nshallah) Czech style death rates (they wore masks, minimal deaths) or (Deus vult!) Korea style death rates (mandatory masks, basically no dead) we would now be able to confidently open our economy, with some careful restrictions.
As it happens, we have a moron political class advised by a cretinous scientific elite, and they told us not to wear masks for three months before completely changing their advice, so we are one of the most fucked countries in the world, still not taking minimal mask precautions, and our economy will now suffer thereby
Seems like masks reduce the spread of the disease although they are not a silver bullet.
It's interesting to speculate why we have been reluctant to go down this route.
UnBritish?
Or just our particularly stupid political and scientific establishment advising us wrongly for months?
Imagine if Boris had started wearing a mask in early March. The optics would have been startling, and people would have taken notice. It would have been leadership, even if it embarrassed him. He did not do that. He preferred to joke about “handshaking corona patients” - then he got it and nearly died.
But the politicians - left and right - are not solely to blame. They were guided by the science and total fucking idiots like Van Tam and Harries were saying Don’t Wear Masks! until very recently
They should be sacked and their pensions should be taken away, and they should count themselves lucky they are not in jail. That is all there is to it.
God, I remember when some PBers said face coverings were unBritish and anyone who wore a face covering should be deported to Saudi Arabia.
There should be a German compound noun for this feeling: “the dismay upon discovering that you are governed by people much less intelligent than yourself, and you already consider yourself to be an idiot”
Being intelligent is no guarantee of being a good PM.
Of our post-war PMs with 1st class degrees, Eden, Macmillan, Wilson, Brown and Cameron it is a mixed bag in terms of record.
None of our best PMs in the last 100 years, Churchill, Attlee and Thatcher had a first class degree and Churchill did not even go to university
Having a degree of any kind is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for being intelligent. Churchill was o9f course hugely, ferociously intelligent. Mags wasn't, dunno about Attlee.
Thatcher was superbly intelligent. A grammar school girl who became an esteemed biochemist who became the best peacetime prime minister in 100 years, and fighting misogyny all the way?
Peace be upon her
As the years pass her achievement looks all the greater, not lesser, and all her successors seem similarly diminished
She was fandabidozy, don't get me wrong, but I would put courage, tenacity, conviction and political instinct above intelligence in the list of her virtues. And was she that much of a chemist? I thought she worked for Persil or similar.
Didn’t she, apocryphally, help invent that hideous Mr Whippee ice cream?
Anyway, I stand by my judgement. You do not get where she did: leadership of the Tory party, and then the first female PM of the whole country, and this in a time of casual misogyny - without having a phenomenal natural intelligence.
She was the Obama of Gender, in the UK.
The difference is that, unlike Obama, who disappointed in office, after shining in his campaign, Thatcher then went on to be a globally and historically transformative premier, as well.
I don’t know how you personally measure intellect. Ability to do calculus on the hoof? But I cannot see how Thatcher fails on any rational test. She was very clever and very able
There's a weird snobbery among certain intellectuals about Thatcher. They seem to think she didn't really understand anything and was just "just a bigoted woman".
And so, finally, WHO say we should all wear masks or face coverings. The last to yield, have yielded
What a total fucking shitshow, and yes I am looking at you, Boris “handshake” Johnson
I bought my first masks in mid Feb and was much mocked on here for doing so, and for wearing them.
If we had all behaved like me, then, we wouldn’t be staring at the economic abyss and medical disaster, now.
I'm not wearing one while walking around outside in the middle of nowhere.
And that’s fair enough, I’m the same
But in any potentially crowded indoor space - shops, buses, trains, taxis - yes you should be wearing a face covering. To limit the potential transmission (personal protection is a lesser issue, but still a factor).
I fear this is a very basic national IQ test which several western nations have failed, and the British have been amongst the worst. This is a national DERRRRR
If >50% wear one I will wear one.
If <50% wear I will not wear one.
Its as simple as that and no I can't explain why my level of intelligence and education reduces my thought process to that either.
That is, let me point out, for shops - I would be far more likely to wear a mask on public transport.</p>
Why not be a sheep dog rather than a sheep?
I’m sorry, but your attitude is pathetic. If the overwhelming evidence convinces you, wear one, for the sake of your fellow citizens. If it does not, tell us why, when there are now no significant bodies on planet earth which are not advising the wearing of face coverings.
Because I don't want to look like a prat - either one way or another - and yes it is pathetic.
Now if the government wants people to wear masks in the shops then give them 10p off their bill and they will - the reverse of the plastic bag charge.
You admit is is pathetic but you continue to do it. Ye Gods.
If it helps, think of it this way. Not wearing a face covering is like blatant littering. You are casually spreading your potentially fatal aerosols around, and fuck everyone else “because putting it in a bin makes me look like a prat”
That is the level of your thinking.
I do not for one moment believe you are the kind of person who would casually scatter litter everywhere, for others to collect. Let alone if that litter was poisonous.
That’s an exact analogy.
Dude, do the right thing. Forget your vanity, wear a mask. Just for now
A good argument.
But for two provisos.
Firstly I'm very unlikely to be infected now having probably been infected in April.
Secondly I'm not sure that some passing of the virus through the low risk, ie the people I might come into contact with, is a bad thing when the threat of a second wave this winter remains.
Your second point there is very permanent and not getting discussed much.
If and its a Big if the virus is more seasonally affected than we realise, then some if and possibly most of the improvements that are happening across Europe and north america could be because of the increase in tempricher.
In the winter R could go up and possible a lot, leading to a second wave, and it may be harder to have a second lock-down if the economy is suffering already.
A few more infections now, while not obviously a good thing, in the short term. may be a long term benefit if it leaves us with a higher risiduall 'heard immunity'
And so, finally, WHO say we should all wear masks or face coverings. The last to yield, have yielded
What a total fucking shitshow, and yes I am looking at you, Boris “handshake” Johnson
I bought my first masks in mid Feb and was much mocked on here for doing so, and for wearing them.
If we had all behaved like me, then, we wouldn’t be staring at the economic abyss and medical disaster, now.
I'm not sure how masks would be prevented any 'economic abyss', unless you think the rejuvenated mask industry was enough to pick up the slack.
I hate to swear so long before the lagershed, but JESUS H TWATTING CHRIST
if we’d had (nshallah) Czech style death rates (they wore masks, minimal deaths) or (Deus vult!) Korea style death rates (mandatory masks, basically no dead) we would now be able to confidently open our economy, with some careful restrictions.
As it happens, we have a moron political class advised by a cretinous scientific elite, and they told us not to wear masks for three months before completely changing their advice, so we are one of the most fucked countries in the world, still not taking minimal mask precautions, and our economy will now suffer thereby
I hate to agree with you, as a matter of general principle, but on this you are absolutely correct.
I've always thought the mask thing was a no brainer, even if it achieves very little there is no downside.
Seriously what is it with the British? Are we really thicker than the rest of the world? Even the majority of Americans seem to be wearing them these days. I think a couple of weeks ago Casino even commented that no normal person would wear a mask. Perhaps we just deserve to be the last out of lockdown and have about the worst record in Europe.
Because if you wear a mask you look like a divvy.
Gonna have to get used to it.
We are maybe 15% of the way through this, if the antibody data is correct.
The advantage of masks is that at all times people out and about are visually reminded we are in a crisis. That must feed into other aspects of social caution such as not shaking hands or standing apart.
Personally I've lost faith in all this conflicting advice. Masks are useless, except now they're not, only they might be worse than useless because you might infect yourself when you're fiddling with them. The R number is 0.5 to 0.9, or 0.7 to 0.9, or perhaps 0.7 to 1.0, or 0.9 to 1.0, except that it's probably wildly different in the community to what it is in care homes but we're not really sure and we don't know what it is in either setting and it might be bleeding back out of the care homes fast enough to make a difference or it might not. The lockdown was essential except that the timing of the peak of the first wave suggests that new cases started dropping off before lockdown began. Immunity amongst the population might be very low or very high because we don't know whether innate resistance to the virus exists and whether or not antibodies to other coronaviruses offer some immunity. The only thing that everyone seems to be able to agree on is that you probably won't catch it if you're stood alone in the middle of an otherwise empty field.
Never mind the medical profession, the Delphic Oracle would give one about as much useful counsel on what to do next.
It's natural to throw your hands up and say "it's all too complicated".
But you shouldn't.
It's really terribly simple: places where mask wearing is common have had far smaller problems with CV-19 than places where it is not.
It didn't work in Wuhan. The Chinese got out of jail through being a police state. If we'd sent squads of heavies in hazmat suits to barricade people inside their homes or physically drag suspected cases to field hospitals under armed guard then we'd presumably have made a better fist of putting a lid on this disease as well.
When this is all over it might just as easily transpire that China's East Asian neighbours got lucky and had a less lethal and less easily transmissible strain of the virus than that which was spread to Italy.
The advantages of mask wearing in non-clinical settings aren't conclusively proven or anywhere close and the concerns about their drawbacks appear valid. Hence all the dissenting opinions and the flip-flopping on the subject.
Wearing a mask when you suffer from hayfever isn't pleasant - sneezing with a mask on doesn't end well.
YOU WEAR IT TO PROTECT OTHERS WHEN YOU SNEEZE
Well done, you have just proved the British have an average IQ of 9, and that’s why we are dying
The trouble with masks is they fog up your glasses (they direct hot breath upwards which condenses on the cold lenses). I read somewhere that washing the lenses with soap helps, though I never remember to try it.
Hay fever sufferers might do better with the posh masks with filters that can intercept pollen.
You can get glasses defogger liquid, but simpler and better is to put a strip of micropore tape along the top. Exhalation is then ventilated from the other sides, posteriorly and downwards.
And so, finally, WHO say we should all wear masks or face coverings. The last to yield, have yielded
What a total fucking shitshow, and yes I am looking at you, Boris “handshake” Johnson
I bought my first masks in mid Feb and was much mocked on here for doing so, and for wearing them.
If we had all behaved like me, then, we wouldn’t be staring at the economic abyss and medical disaster, now.
I'm not sure how masks would be prevented any 'economic abyss', unless you think the rejuvenated mask industry was enough to pick up the slack.
I hate to swear so long before the lagershed, but JESUS H TWATTING CHRIST
if we’d had (nshallah) Czech style death rates (they wore masks, minimal deaths) or (Deus vult!) Korea style death rates (mandatory masks, basically no dead) we would now be able to confidently open our economy, with some careful restrictions.
As it happens, we have a moron political class advised by a cretinous scientific elite, and they told us not to wear masks for three months before completely changing their advice, so we are one of the most fucked countries in the world, still not taking minimal mask precautions, and our economy will now suffer thereby
I hate to agree with you, as a matter of general principle, but on this you are absolutely correct.
I've always thought the mask thing was a no brainer, even if it achieves very little there is no downside.
Seriously what is it with the British? Are we really thicker than the rest of the world? Even the majority of Americans seem to be wearing them these days. I think a couple of weeks ago Casino even commented that no normal person would wear a mask. Perhaps we just deserve to be the last out of lockdown and have about the worst record in Europe.
Because if you wear a mask you look like a divvy.
Gonna have to get used to it.
We are maybe 15% of the way through this, if the antibody data is correct.
Obviously. But those frothing about why people are resistant to wearing masks the answer is simple: you look like a divvy.
FPT HYUFD said 'Heath won in 1970 in the TV age against the more charismatic Wilson as the economy was in an awful state, the pound devalued etc and Major won in 1992 over Kinnock as he was seen as more centrist and Kinnock not trusted on the economy, also in the TV age.'
In what way was the economy in an awful state in 1970? Wilson bequeathed a Balance of Payments surplus to Heath - and a Budget Surplus. When was the last time a Tory Government managed to do either - never mind both - tpoa Labour Government? The economy was in pretty good shape in 1970 - far better than in March 1974 when Wilson returned to office in the aftermath of the 3 Day Week.Far better than the economy left by Thatcher in November 1990 when inflation was circa 10%.
I thought Wilson lost in 1970 because England got beaten by West Germany in the world Cup.
A lesser-explored reason for Labour losing in 1970 is that Tony Benn (although he would have still been Anthony Wedgwood Benn in those days) closed down all the pirate radio stations, and replaced them in 1967 with Radios 1 and 2.
Wearing a mask when you suffer from hayfever isn't pleasant - sneezing with a mask on doesn't end well.
YOU WEAR IT TO PROTECT OTHERS WHEN YOU SNEEZE
Well done, you have just proved the British have an average IQ of 9, and that’s why we are dying
The trouble with masks is they fog up your glasses (they direct hot breath upwards which condenses on the cold lenses). I read somewhere that washing the lenses with soap helps, though I never remember to try it.
Hay fever sufferers might do better with the posh masks with filters that can intercept pollen.
Yes, I’m having (like many others (lack of pollution?)) a notably bad hay fever season.
A proper FFP2 or N95 mask helps this.
And the idea that there is shortage is now nonsense (if it was ever entirely true). You can freely buy them on amazon. For delivery within a couple of days
Even if that's true then that will change PDQ if 15 million old people all start wanting them at once. And that's without counting the domino effect of teachers, police and prison officers, bus drivers, supermarket shelf stackers and everybody else who counts or identifies as a key worker then starting to demand them as well.
And so, finally, WHO say we should all wear masks or face coverings. The last to yield, have yielded
What a total fucking shitshow, and yes I am looking at you, Boris “handshake” Johnson
I bought my first masks in mid Feb and was much mocked on here for doing so, and for wearing them.
If we had all behaved like me, then, we wouldn’t be staring at the economic abyss and medical disaster, now.
I'm not sure how masks would be prevented any 'economic abyss', unless you think the rejuvenated mask industry was enough to pick up the slack.
I hate to swear so long before the lagershed, but JESUS H TWATTING CHRIST
if we’d had (nshallah) Czech style death rates (they wore masks, minimal deaths) or (Deus vult!) Korea style death rates (mandatory masks, basically no dead) we would now be able to confidently open our economy, with some careful restrictions.
As it happens, we have a moron political class advised by a cretinous scientific elite, and they told us not to wear masks for three months before completely changing their advice, so we are one of the most fucked countries in the world, still not taking minimal mask precautions, and our economy will now suffer thereby
Seems like masks reduce the spread of the disease although they are not a silver bullet.
It's interesting to speculate why we have been reluctant to go down this route.
UnBritish?
Or just our particularly stupid political and scientific establishment advising us wrongly for months?
Imagine if Boris had started wearing a mask in early March. The optics would have been startling, and people would have taken notice. It would have been leadership, even if it embarrassed him. He did not do that. He preferred to joke about “handshaking corona patients” - then he got it and nearly died.
But the politicians - left and right - are not solely to blame. They were guided by the science and total fucking idiots like Van Tam and Harries were saying Don’t Wear Masks! until very recently
They should be sacked and their pensions should be taken away, and they should count themselves lucky they are not in jail. That is all there is to it.
God, I remember when some PBers said face coverings were unBritish and anyone who wore a face covering should be deported to Saudi Arabia.
There should be a German compound noun for this feeling: “the dismay upon discovering that you are governed by people much less intelligent than yourself, and you already consider yourself to be an idiot”
Being intelligent is no guarantee of being a good PM.
Of our post-war PMs with 1st class degrees, Eden, Macmillan, Wilson, Brown and Cameron it is a mixed bag in terms of record.
None of our best PMs in the last 100 years, Churchill, Attlee and Thatcher had a first class degree and Churchill did not even go to university
Having a degree of any kind is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for being intelligent. Churchill was o9f course hugely, ferociously intelligent. Mags wasn't, dunno about Attlee.
Thatcher was superbly intelligent. A grammar school girl who became an esteemed biochemist who became the best peacetime prime minister in 100 years, and fighting misogyny all the way?
Peace be upon her
As the years pass her achievement looks all the greater, not lesser, and all her successors seem similarly diminished
She was fandabidozy, don't get me wrong, but I would put courage, tenacity, conviction and political instinct above intelligence in the list of her virtues. And was she that much of a chemist? I thought she worked for Persil or similar.
Didn’t she, apocryphally, help invent that hideous Mr Whippee ice cream?
Anyway, I stand by my judgement. You do not get where she did: leadership of the Tory party, and then the first female PM of the whole country, and this in a time of casual misogyny - without having a phenomenal natural intelligence.
She was the Obama of Gender, in the UK.
The difference is that, unlike Obama, who disappointed in office, after shining in his campaign, Thatcher then went on to be a globally and historically transformative premier, as well.
I don’t know how you personally measure intellect. Ability to do calculus on the hoof? But I cannot see how Thatcher fails on any rational test. She was very clever and very able
There's a weird snobbery among certain intellectuals about Thatcher. They seem to think she didn't really understand anything and was just "just a bigoted woman".
Perhaps I am being snobbish. My feeling is that she didn't have much breadth of interest outside politics. And she really did say in answer to a question about her current reading matter "I'm rereading the latest Freddie Forsyth."
And so, finally, WHO say we should all wear masks or face coverings. The last to yield, have yielded
What a total fucking shitshow, and yes I am looking at you, Boris “handshake” Johnson
I bought my first masks in mid Feb and was much mocked on here for doing so, and for wearing them.
If we had all behaved like me, then, we wouldn’t be staring at the economic abyss and medical disaster, now.
I'm not sure how masks would be prevented any 'economic abyss', unless you think the rejuvenated mask industry was enough to pick up the slack.
I hate to swear so long before the lagershed, but JESUS H TWATTING CHRIST
if we’d had (nshallah) Czech style death rates (they wore masks, minimal deaths) or (Deus vult!) Korea style death rates (mandatory masks, basically no dead) we would now be able to confidently open our economy, with some careful restrictions.
As it happens, we have a moron political class advised by a cretinous scientific elite, and they told us not to wear masks for three months before completely changing their advice, so we are one of the most fucked countries in the world, still not taking minimal mask precautions, and our economy will now suffer thereby
I hate to agree with you, as a matter of general principle, but on this you are absolutely correct.
I've always thought the mask thing was a no brainer, even if it achieves very little there is no downside.
Seriously what is it with the British? Are we really thicker than the rest of the world? Even the majority of Americans seem to be wearing them these days. I think a couple of weeks ago Casino even commented that no normal person would wear a mask. Perhaps we just deserve to be the last out of lockdown and have about the worst record in Europe.
Because if you wear a mask you look like a divvy.
Gonna have to get used to it.
We are maybe 15% of the way through this, if the antibody data is correct.
Obviously. But those frothing about why people are resistant to wearing masks the answer is simple: you look like a divvy.
So we need to switch that around. You are a divvy if you don’t wear a mask. As, indeed, you are
Nah, everyone outside a hospital wearing a mask looks like a divvy, whether they are beneficial or not. I don’t make the rules unfortunately.
And so, finally, WHO say we should all wear masks or face coverings. The last to yield, have yielded
What a total fucking shitshow, and yes I am looking at you, Boris “handshake” Johnson
I bought my first masks in mid Feb and was much mocked on here for doing so, and for wearing them.
If we had all behaved like me, then, we wouldn’t be staring at the economic abyss and medical disaster, now.
I'm not sure how masks would be prevented any 'economic abyss', unless you think the rejuvenated mask industry was enough to pick up the slack.
I hate to swear so long before the lagershed, but JESUS H TWATTING CHRIST
if we’d had (nshallah) Czech style death rates (they wore masks, minimal deaths) or (Deus vult!) Korea style death rates (mandatory masks, basically no dead) we would now be able to confidently open our economy, with some careful restrictions.
As it happens, we have a moron political class advised by a cretinous scientific elite, and they told us not to wear masks for three months before completely changing their advice, so we are one of the most fucked countries in the world, still not taking minimal mask precautions, and our economy will now suffer thereby
Seems like masks reduce the spread of the disease although they are not a silver bullet.
It's interesting to speculate why we have been reluctant to go down this route.
UnBritish?
Or just our particularly stupid political and scientific establishment advising us wrongly for months?
Imagine if Boris had started wearing a mask in early March. The optics would have been startling, and people would have taken notice. It would have been leadership, even if it embarrassed him. He did not do that. He preferred to joke about “handshaking corona patients” - then he got it and nearly died.
But the politicians - left and right - are not solely to blame. They were guided by the science and total fucking idiots like Van Tam and Harries were saying Don’t Wear Masks! until very recently
They should be sacked and their pensions should be taken away, and they should count themselves lucky they are not in jail. That is all there is to it.
God, I remember when some PBers said face coverings were unBritish and anyone who wore a face covering should be deported to Saudi Arabia.
There should be a German compound noun for this feeling: “the dismay upon discovering that you are governed by people much less intelligent than yourself, and you already consider yourself to be an idiot”
Being intelligent is no guarantee of being a good PM.
Of our post-war PMs with 1st class degrees, Eden, Macmillan, Wilson, Brown and Cameron it is a mixed bag in terms of record.
None of our best PMs in the last 100 years, Churchill, Attlee and Thatcher had a first class degree and Churchill did not even go to university
Having a degree of any kind is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for being intelligent. Churchill was o9f course hugely, ferociously intelligent. Mags wasn't, dunno about Attlee.
Thatcher was superbly intelligent. A grammar school girl who became an esteemed biochemist who became the best peacetime prime minister in 100 years, and fighting misogyny all the way?
Peace be upon her
As the years pass her achievement looks all the greater, not lesser, and all her successors seem similarly diminished
She was fandabidozy, don't get me wrong, but I would put courage, tenacity, conviction and political instinct above intelligence in the list of her virtues. And was she that much of a chemist? I thought she worked for Persil or similar.
Didn’t she, apocryphally, help invent that hideous Mr Whippee ice cream?
Anyway, I stand by my judgement. You do not get where she did: leadership of the Tory party, and then the first female PM of the whole country, and this in a time of casual misogyny - without having a phenomenal natural intelligence.
She was the Obama of Gender, in the UK.
The difference is that, unlike Obama, who disappointed in office, after shining in his campaign, Thatcher then went on to be a globally and historically transformative premier, as well.
I don’t know how you personally measure intellect. Ability to do calculus on the hoof? But I cannot see how Thatcher fails on any rational test. She was very clever and very able
There's a weird snobbery among certain intellectuals about Thatcher. They seem to think she didn't really understand anything and was just "just a bigoted woman".
Perhaps I am being snobbish. My feeling is that she didn't have much breadth of interest outside politics. And she really did say in answer to a question about her current reading matter "I'm rereading the latest Freddie Forsyth."
Isn’t that just a politician’s answer? I doubt that’s really what she was reading.
Well done, you have just proved the British have an average IQ of 9, and that’s why we are dying
I'll carry on wearing my mask and you can go on contemplating all the S.K Tremayne novels gathering dust in the cheap bins of WH Smith.
You used to be witty, sharp even acerbic once.
Shame...
I have recently finished reading The Ice Twins by S K Tremayne. I enjoyed it. I also have a copy of "The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming" by one Nicholas Palmer on my bookshelf.
And so, finally, WHO say we should all wear masks or face coverings. The last to yield, have yielded
What a total fucking shitshow, and yes I am looking at you, Boris “handshake” Johnson
I bought my first masks in mid Feb and was much mocked on here for doing so, and for wearing them.
If we had all behaved like me, then, we wouldn’t be staring at the economic abyss and medical disaster, now.
I'm not sure how masks would be prevented any 'economic abyss', unless you think the rejuvenated mask industry was enough to pick up the slack.
I hate to swear so long before the lagershed, but JESUS H TWATTING CHRIST
if we’d had (nshallah) Czech style death rates (they wore masks, minimal deaths) or (Deus vult!) Korea style death rates (mandatory masks, basically no dead) we would now be able to confidently open our economy, with some careful restrictions.
As it happens, we have a moron political class advised by a cretinous scientific elite, and they told us not to wear masks for three months before completely changing their advice, so we are one of the most fucked countries in the world, still not taking minimal mask precautions, and our economy will now suffer thereby
Seems like masks reduce the spread of the disease although they are not a silver bullet.
It's interesting to speculate why we have been reluctant to go down this route.
UnBritish?
Or just our particularly stupid political and scientific establishment advising us wrongly for months?
Imagine if Boris had started wearing a mask in early March. The optics would have been startling, and people would have taken notice. It would have been leadership, even if it embarrassed him. He did not do that. He preferred to joke about “handshaking corona patients” - then he got it and nearly died.
But the politicians - left and right - are not solely to blame. They were guided by the science and total fucking idiots like Van Tam and Harries were saying Don’t Wear Masks! until very recently
They should be sacked and their pensions should be taken away, and they should count themselves lucky they are not in jail. That is all there is to it.
God, I remember when some PBers said face coverings were unBritish and anyone who wore a face covering should be deported to Saudi Arabia.
There should be a German compound noun for this feeling: “the dismay upon discovering that you are governed by people much less intelligent than yourself, and you already consider yourself to be an idiot”
Being intelligent is no guarantee of being a good PM.
Of our post-war PMs with 1st class degrees, Eden, Macmillan, Wilson, Brown and Cameron it is a mixed bag in terms of record.
None of our best PMs in the last 100 years, Churchill, Attlee and Thatcher had a first class degree and Churchill did not even go to university
Having a degree of any kind is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for being intelligent. Churchill was o9f course hugely, ferociously intelligent. Mags wasn't, dunno about Attlee.
Thatcher was superbly intelligent. A grammar school girl who became an esteemed biochemist who became the best peacetime prime minister in 100 years, and fighting misogyny all the way?
Peace be upon her
As the years pass her achievement looks all the greater, not lesser, and all her successors seem similarly diminished
She was fandabidozy, don't get me wrong, but I would put courage, tenacity, conviction and political instinct above intelligence in the list of her virtues. And was she that much of a chemist? I thought she worked for Persil or similar.
Didn’t she, apocryphally, help invent that hideous Mr Whippee ice cream?
Anyway, I stand by my judgement. You do not get where she did: leadership of the Tory party, and then the first female PM of the whole country, and this in a time of casual misogyny - without having a phenomenal natural intelligence.
She was the Obama of Gender, in the UK.
The difference is that, unlike Obama, who disappointed in office, after shining in his campaign, Thatcher then went on to be a globally and historically transformative premier, as well.
I don’t know how you personally measure intellect. Ability to do calculus on the hoof? But I cannot see how Thatcher fails on any rational test. She was very clever and very able
There's a weird snobbery among certain intellectuals about Thatcher. They seem to think she didn't really understand anything and was just "just a bigoted woman".
Perhaps I am being snobbish. My feeling is that she didn't have much breadth of interest outside politics. And she really did say in answer to a question about her current reading matter "I'm rereading the latest Freddie Forsyth."
Hmmm.
I am being snobbish; I have read The Odessa File more times than I can count. But I'm not sure I would volunteer the information - Proust or Rilke is a better answer.,
And so, finally, WHO say we should all wear masks or face coverings. The last to yield, have yielded
What a total fucking shitshow, and yes I am looking at you, Boris “handshake” Johnson
I bought my first masks in mid Feb and was much mocked on here for doing so, and for wearing them.
If we had all behaved like me, then, we wouldn’t be staring at the economic abyss and medical disaster, now.
I'm not sure how masks would be prevented any 'economic abyss', unless you think the rejuvenated mask industry was enough to pick up the slack.
I hate to swear so long before the lagershed, but JESUS H TWATTING CHRIST
if we’d had (nshallah) Czech style death rates (they wore masks, minimal deaths) or (Deus vult!) Korea style death rates (mandatory masks, basically no dead) we would now be able to confidently open our economy, with some careful restrictions.
As it happens, we have a moron political class advised by a cretinous scientific elite, and they told us not to wear masks for three months before completely changing their advice, so we are one of the most fucked countries in the world, still not taking minimal mask precautions, and our economy will now suffer thereby
I hate to agree with you, as a matter of general principle, but on this you are absolutely correct.
I've always thought the mask thing was a no brainer, even if it achieves very little there is no downside.
Seriously what is it with the British? Are we really thicker than the rest of the world? Even the majority of Americans seem to be wearing them these days. I think a couple of weeks ago Casino even commented that no normal person would wear a mask. Perhaps we just deserve to be the last out of lockdown and have about the worst record in Europe.
Because if you wear a mask you look like a divvy.
Gonna have to get used to it.
We are maybe 15% of the way through this, if the antibody data is correct.
Obviously. But those frothing about why people are resistant to wearing masks the answer is simple: you look like a divvy.
Yes, for a famously baldly dressed and unkempt nation*, we are strangely self conscious about these things.
Did someone seriously say that Mrs Thatcher wasn't intelligent???
Getting into Oxford as a woman in the 1930s was very far from easy. Going on to do research was even harder. She was a master of her brief, according to all who worked with her.
Now, she did go a bit mad towards the end, but even her worst critics would have to concede she was extremely intelligent.
Did someone seriously say that Mrs Thatcher wasn't intelligent???
Getting into Oxford as a woman in the 1930s was very far from easy. Going on to do research was even harder. She was a master of her brief, according to all who worked with her.
Now, she did go a bit mad towards the end, but even her worst critics would have to concede she was extremely intelligent.
You know all those FT reports showing how badly the UK has done compared to elsewhere well um
I'm just pissed off with the FT posting charts on Twitter where there is literally a five week difference between reporting dates. When you see the Tweet you think it is for a like to like comparison, when you view the chart at full size you realise it is not. It is definitely misleading, but whether or not it is done deliberately I do not know. Either way it reflects very poorly on the person posting and the FT.
It’s maths and I find that most journalists last willingly did maths at GCSE level.
You know all those FT reports showing how badly the UK has done compared to elsewhere well um
I'm just pissed off with the FT posting charts on Twitter where there is literally a five week difference between reporting dates. When you see the Tweet you think it is for a like to like comparison, when you view the chart at full size you realise it is not. It is definitely misleading, but whether or not it is done deliberately I do not know. Either way it reflects very poorly on the person posting and the FT.
It’s maths and I find that most journalists last willingly did maths at GCSE level.
I'm fairly sure that those charts were from someone calling themself a data scientist or something similar.
It's not that the data and charts are false, but it rubs me up the wrong way when I see charts, tables, diagrams and the like that mislead rather than clarify.
Saw a face mask discarded in the street this evening. I wonder if people will start hanging them from fences and hedges the way they do with bags of dogshit.
Did someone seriously say that Mrs Thatcher wasn't intelligent???
Getting into Oxford as a woman in the 1930s was very far from easy. Going on to do research was even harder. She was a master of her brief, according to all who worked with her.
Now, she did go a bit mad towards the end, but even her worst critics would have to concede she was extremely intelligent.
She got into Oxford at 15 or younger? Was that the university or just for a picnic?
Did someone seriously say that Mrs Thatcher wasn't intelligent???
Getting into Oxford as a woman in the 1930s was very far from easy. Going on to do research was even harder. She was a master of her brief, according to all who worked with her.
Now, she did go a bit mad towards the end, but even her worst critics would have to concede she was extremely intelligent.
1940s, otherwise fair point.
Mrs Thatcher went up to Oxford in 1943. I'd imagine it was quite easy to get in, since a lot of the men who'd normally have been there were in uniform.
She was, as @rcs1000 says, a master of her brief. It was Mrs Thatcher who started the modern practice of PMQs by answering all questions. Up to then, departmental queries would have been fielded by the relevant ministers. It was, of course, a huge power grab as it meant departments now had to run everything through Number 10. Boris might prefer a return to the old style!
Mrs Thatcher's father was a Methodist lay preacher. Gordon Brown and Theresa May were son and daughter of the manse. Perhaps that instilled a sense of public duty.
Saw a face mask discarded in the street this evening. I wonder if people will start hanging them from fences and hedges the way they do with bags of dogshit.
Another one I know the answer to! Yes the govt and their team disagree with this, hence their actions. As do all the lockdown sceptics, and most "neutrals".
Another one I know the answer to! Yes the govt and their team disagree with this, hence their actions. As do all the lockdown sceptics, and most "neutrals".
It is hardly going to have been a priority during a health crisis, even if it had been a good idea (which Id imagine it isnt with the caveat of not having looked into it).
FPT HYUFD said 'Heath won in 1970 in the TV age against the more charismatic Wilson as the economy was in an awful state, the pound devalued etc and Major won in 1992 over Kinnock as he was seen as more centrist and Kinnock not trusted on the economy, also in the TV age.'
In what way was the economy in an awful state in 1970? Wilson bequeathed a Balance of Payments surplus to Heath - and a Budget Surplus. When was the last time a Tory Government managed to do either - never mind both - tpoa Labour Government? The economy was in pretty good shape in 1970 - far better than in March 1974 when Wilson returned to office in the aftermath of the 3 Day Week.Far better than the economy left by Thatcher in November 1990 when inflation was circa 10%.
Inflation and unemployment was rising in 1970 and he had been forced to devalue the pound as the balance of payments was so bad.
The Thatcher Major governments cut inflation and Thatcher also cut the number of strikes and increased GDP per capita
Unemployment was actually falling in June 1970 and inflation was barely 5%. The pound was devalued in November 1967 to address the Balance of Payments problem and by 1970 the policy had clearly succeeded in that it delivered a substantial surplus. Inflation when Thatcher left office in 1990 was virtually unchanged from the level inherited in May 1979 - 9.7% compared with 10.2%. Unemployment was still high , the balance of payments was back in deficit despite the bonus of North Sea Oil and the Public Finances were in trouble notwithstanding the proceeds of Privatisation.. The position was far worse than what Heath had inherited from Wilson in June 1970.
He said it was an interesting idea. You don't need a feasibility study for that.
February:
“Now Johnson has instructed civil servants to look at how the project can be delivered and is awaiting an official assessment on whether it is feasible.
A representative for Johnson said on Monday that "work is underway" on the project, adding that "it's an idea that the prime minister has expressed interest in in the past, and as he said at the time, 'Watch this space.'"
He said it was an interesting idea. You don't need a feasibility study for that.
February:
“Now Johnson has instructed civil servants to look at how the project can be delivered and is awaiting an official assessment on whether it is feasible.
A representative for Johnson said on Monday that "work is underway" on the project, adding that "it's an idea that the prime minister has expressed interest in in the past, and as he said at the time, 'Watch this space.'"
And so, finally, WHO say we should all wear masks or face coverings. The last to yield, have yielded
What a total fucking shitshow, and yes I am looking at you, Boris “handshake” Johnson
I bought my first masks in mid Feb and was much mocked on here for doing so, and for wearing them.
If we had all behaved like me, then, we wouldn’t be staring at the economic abyss and medical disaster, now.
I'm not sure how masks would be prevented any 'economic abyss', unless you think the rejuvenated mask industry was enough to pick up the slack.
I hate to swear so long before the lagershed, but JESUS H TWATTING CHRIST
if we’d had (nshallah) Czech style death rates (they wore masks, minimal deaths) or (Deus vult!) Korea style death rates (mandatory masks, basically no dead) we would now be able to confidently open our economy, with some careful restrictions.
As it happens, we have a moron political class advised by a cretinous scientific elite, and they told us not to wear masks for three months before completely changing their advice, so we are one of the most fucked countries in the world, still not taking minimal mask precautions, and our economy will now suffer thereby
Seems like masks reduce the spread of the disease although they are not a silver bullet.
It's interesting to speculate why we have been reluctant to go down this route.
UnBritish?
Or just our particularly stupid political and scientific establishment advising us wrongly for months?
Imagine if Boris had started wearing a mask in early March. The optics would have been startling, and people would have taken notice. It would have been leadership, even if it embarrassed him. He did not do that. He preferred to joke about “handshaking corona patients” - then he got it and nearly died.
But the politicians - left and right - are not solely to blame. They were guided by the science and total fucking idiots like Van Tam and Harries were saying Don’t Wear Masks! until very recently
They should be sacked and their pensions should be taken away, and they should count themselves lucky they are not in jail. That is all there is to it.
God, I remember when some PBers said face coverings were unBritish and anyone who wore a face covering should be deported to Saudi Arabia.
There should be a German compound noun for this feeling: “the dismay upon discovering that you are governed by people much less intelligent than yourself, and you already consider yourself to be an idiot”
Being intelligent is no guarantee of being a good PM.
Of our post-war PMs with 1st class degrees, Eden, Macmillan, Wilson, Brown and Cameron it is a mixed bag in terms of record.
None of our best PMs in the last 100 years, Churchill, Attlee and Thatcher had a first class degree and Churchill did not even go to university
Did someone seriously say that Mrs Thatcher wasn't intelligent???
Getting into Oxford as a woman in the 1930s was very far from easy. Going on to do research was even harder. She was a master of her brief, according to all who worked with her.
Now, she did go a bit mad towards the end, but even her worst critics would have to concede she was extremely intelligent.
1940s, otherwise fair point.
Mrs Thatcher went up to Oxford in 1943. I'd imagine it was quite easy to get in, since a lot of the men who'd normally have been there were in uniform.
She was, as @rcs1000 says, a master of her brief. It was Mrs Thatcher who started the modern practice of PMQs by answering all questions. Up to then, departmental queries would have been fielded by the relevant ministers. It was, of course, a huge power grab as it meant departments now had to run everything through Number 10. Boris might prefer a return to the old style!
Mrs Thatcher's father was a Methodist lay preacher. Gordon Brown and Theresa May were son and daughter of the manse. Perhaps that instilled a sense of public duty.
"I'd imagine it was quite easy to get in, since a lot of the men who'd normally have been there were in uniform."
It's hardly Cambridge or Hull, but I'm sure she was justifiably proud to do so.
Thatcher was really bright, in fact I can't think of a PM in my lifetime who's brighter.
I got a 2:2 in my undergraduate engineering degree because I was too busy sinking treble vodkas and chasing after women. I’m not sure if it is any reflection on my intelligence as a whole.
Did someone seriously say that Mrs Thatcher wasn't intelligent???
Getting into Oxford as a woman in the 1930s was very far from easy. Going on to do research was even harder. She was a master of her brief, according to all who worked with her.
Now, she did go a bit mad towards the end, but even her worst critics would have to concede she was extremely intelligent.
Thatcher was born in October 1925 so will not have entered Oxford before Autumn 1943. How easy was it to gain admission during World War 2?
Nothing has revealed Labour’s struggle for relevance north of the border as much as its hokey-cokey on independence. It has gone from a firm “No” in 2014 to a half-hearted “we’d rather not, but maybe”, to “if people vote for it, we can’t deny them the choice”, then back to a firm “No”.
Leonard is attempting to create a “third position” on Scotland’s future – no to independence, no to stubborn, unshifting unionism, yes to a living, breathing devolution settlement that adapts to fit the times. “There are obviously two dominant positions,” says a party insider. “Our dithering of the past few years has been a disaster.”
Did someone seriously say that Mrs Thatcher wasn't intelligent???
Getting into Oxford as a woman in the 1930s was very far from easy. Going on to do research was even harder. She was a master of her brief, according to all who worked with her.
Now, she did go a bit mad towards the end, but even her worst critics would have to concede she was extremely intelligent.
1940s, otherwise fair point.
Mrs Thatcher went up to Oxford in 1943. I'd imagine it was quite easy to get in, since a lot of the men who'd normally have been there were in uniform.
She was, as @rcs1000 says, a master of her brief. It was Mrs Thatcher who started the modern practice of PMQs by answering all questions. Up to then, departmental queries would have been fielded by the relevant ministers. It was, of course, a huge power grab as it meant departments now had to run everything through Number 10. Boris might prefer a return to the old style!
Mrs Thatcher's father was a Methodist lay preacher. Gordon Brown and Theresa May were son and daughter of the manse. Perhaps that instilled a sense of public duty.
A lot of the men who would ordinarily have been at ... Somerville?
And so, finally, WHO say we should all wear masks or face coverings. The last to yield, have yielded
What a total fucking shitshow, and yes I am looking at you, Boris “handshake” Johnson
I bought my first masks in mid Feb and was much mocked on here for doing so, and for wearing them.
If we had all behaved like me, then, we wouldn’t be staring at the economic abyss and medical disaster, now.
I'm not sure how masks would be prevented any 'economic abyss', unless you think the rejuvenated mask industry was enough to pick up the slack.
I hate to swear so long before the lagershed, but JESUS H TWATTING CHRIST
if we’d had (nshallah) Czech style death rates (they wore masks, minimal deaths) or (Deus vult!) Korea style death rates (mandatory masks, basically no dead) we would now be able to confidently open our economy, with some careful restrictions.
As it happens, we have a moron political class advised by a cretinous scientific elite, and they told us not to wear masks for three months before completely changing their advice, so we are one of the most fucked countries in the world, still not taking minimal mask precautions, and our economy will now suffer thereby
Seems like masks reduce the spread of the disease although they are not a silver bullet.
It's interesting to speculate why we have been reluctant to go down this route.
UnBritish?
Or just our particularly stupid political and scientific establishment advising us wrongly for months?
Imagine if Boris had started wearing a mask in early March. The optics would have been startling, and people would have taken notice. It would have been leadership, even if it embarrassed him. He did not do that. He preferred to joke about “handshaking corona patients” - then he got it and nearly died.
But the politicians - left and right - are not solely to blame. They were guided by the science and total fucking idiots like Van Tam and Harries were saying Don’t Wear Masks! until very recently
They should be sacked and their pensions should be taken away, and they should count themselves lucky they are not in jail. That is all there is to it.
God, I remember when some PBers said face coverings were unBritish and anyone who wore a face covering should be deported to Saudi Arabia.
There should be a German compound noun for this feeling: “the dismay upon discovering that you are governed by people much less intelligent than yourself, and you already consider yourself to be an idiot”
Being intelligent is no guarantee of being a good PM.
Of our post-war PMs with 1st class degrees, Eden, Macmillan, Wilson, Brown and Cameron it is a mixed bag in terms of record.
None of our best PMs in the last 100 years, Churchill, Attlee and Thatcher had a first class degree and Churchill did not even go to university
Having a degree of any kind is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for being intelligent. Churchill was o9f course hugely, ferociously intelligent. Mags wasn't, dunno about Attlee.
Thatcher was superbly intelligent. A grammar school girl who became an esteemed biochemist who became the best peacetime prime minister in 100 years, and fighting misogyny all the way?
Peace be upon her
As the years pass her achievement looks all the greater, not lesser, and all her successors seem similarly diminished
She was a chemist not a biochemist and not for long as changed career firstly to law and then politics.
Though it has been claimed she had a hand in Mr Whippy.
I tell this to people to complain about the hardships of the Thatcher era - you have to take the rough with the smooth.
The Economist on how covid in the developing world is still gathering pace
"How to prevent new surges in cases? How to reopen businesses in an era of social distancing? How to revive prone economies? These are the questions preoccupying most of the rich world, where covid-19’s first wave, at least, is mercifully ebbing. But elsewhere the pandemic remains far from any crest. Brazil is adding around 25,000 new confirmed cases a day, more than the United States. Russia and India are not far behind, with 8,000 or so apiece. All told, poorer countries account for some three-quarters of the 100,000 or so new cases detected around the world each day.
These numbers are alarming, especially because they are grave underestimates...."
The Economist on how covid in the developing world is still gathering pace
"How to prevent new surges in cases? How to reopen businesses in an era of social distancing? How to revive prone economies? These are the questions preoccupying most of the rich world, where covid-19’s first wave, at least, is mercifully ebbing. But elsewhere the pandemic remains far from any crest. Brazil is adding around 25,000 new confirmed cases a day, more than the United States. Russia and India are not far behind, with 8,000 or so apiece. All told, poorer countries account for some three-quarters of the 100,000 or so new cases detected around the world each day.
These numbers are alarming, especially because they are grave underestimates...."
While I don't disagree with the premise, it would be helpful to know the relative populations of those two groupings. The chart in there just shows absolute number of cases, yet I suspect far more people live in developing countries than developed ones.
Well done, you have just proved the British have an average IQ of 9, and that’s why we are dying
I'll carry on wearing my mask and you can go on contemplating all the S.K Tremayne novels gathering dust in the cheap bins of WH Smith.
You used to be witty, sharp even acerbic once.
Shame...
I have recently finished reading The Ice Twins by S K Tremayne. I enjoyed it. I also have a copy of "The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming" by one Nicholas Palmer on my bookshelf.
Blush. YoWhat other PB authors do you need to collect for a full set?
The Economist on how covid in the developing world is still gathering pace
"How to prevent new surges in cases? How to reopen businesses in an era of social distancing? How to revive prone economies? These are the questions preoccupying most of the rich world, where covid-19’s first wave, at least, is mercifully ebbing. But elsewhere the pandemic remains far from any crest. Brazil is adding around 25,000 new confirmed cases a day, more than the United States. Russia and India are not far behind, with 8,000 or so apiece. All told, poorer countries account for some three-quarters of the 100,000 or so new cases detected around the world each day.
These numbers are alarming, especially because they are grave underestimates...."
While I don't disagree with the premise, it would be helpful to know the relative populations of those two groupings. The chart in there just shows absolute number of cases, yet I suspect far more people live in developing countries than developed ones.
Developing normally includes the BRICs (as also indicated by the text) so would be far more people than the advanced, probably a ratio something like 4:1 or 5:1.
The other problem with the graphic is we dont have reliable or comparable numbers from many developing countries.
Did someone seriously say that Mrs Thatcher wasn't intelligent???
Getting into Oxford as a woman in the 1930s was very far from easy. Going on to do research was even harder. She was a master of her brief, according to all who worked with her.
Now, she did go a bit mad towards the end, but even her worst critics would have to concede she was extremely intelligent.
1940s, otherwise fair point.
Mrs Thatcher went up to Oxford in 1943. I'd imagine it was quite easy to get in, since a lot of the men who'd normally have been there were in uniform.
She was, as @rcs1000 says, a master of her brief. It was Mrs Thatcher who started the modern practice of PMQs by answering all questions. Up to then, departmental queries would have been fielded by the relevant ministers. It was, of course, a huge power grab as it meant departments now had to run everything through Number 10. Boris might prefer a return to the old style!
Mrs Thatcher's father was a Methodist lay preacher. Gordon Brown and Theresa May were son and daughter of the manse. Perhaps that instilled a sense of public duty.
A lot of the men who would ordinarily have been at ... Somerville?
And so, finally, WHO say we should all wear masks or face coverings. The last to yield, have yielded
What a total fucking shitshow, and yes I am looking at you, Boris “handshake” Johnson
I bought my first masks in mid Feb and was much mocked on here for doing so, and for wearing them.
If we had all behaved like me, then, we wouldn’t be staring at the economic abyss and medical disaster, now.
I'm not sure how masks would be prevented any 'economic abyss', unless you think the rejuvenated mask industry was enough to pick up the slack.
I hate to swear so long before the lagershed, but JESUS H TWATTING CHRIST
if we’d had (nshallah) Czech style death rates (they wore masks, minimal deaths) or (Deus vult!) Korea style death rates (mandatory masks, basically no dead) we would now be able to confidently open our economy, with some careful restrictions.
As it happens, we have a moron political class advised by a cretinous scientific elite, and they told us not to wear masks for three months before completely changing their advice, so we are one of the most fucked countries in the world, still not taking minimal mask precautions, and our economy will now suffer thereby
Seems like masks reduce the spread of the disease although they are not a silver bullet.
It's interesting to speculate why we have been reluctant to go down this route.
UnBritish?
Or just our particularly stupid political and scientific establishment advising us wrongly for months?
Imagine if Boris had started wearing a mask in early March. The optics would have been startling, and people would have taken notice. It would have been leadership, even if it embarrassed him. He did not do that. He preferred to joke about “handshaking corona patients” - then he got it and nearly died.
But the politicians - left and right - are not solely to blame. They were guided by the science and total fucking idiots like Van Tam and Harries were saying Don’t Wear Masks! until very recently
They should be sacked and their pensions should be taken away, and they should count themselves lucky they are not in jail. That is all there is to it.
God, I remember when some PBers said face coverings were unBritish and anyone who wore a face covering should be deported to Saudi Arabia.
There should be a German compound noun for this feeling: “the dismay upon discovering that you are governed by people much less intelligent than yourself, and you already consider yourself to be an idiot”
Being intelligent is no guarantee of being a good PM.
Of our post-war PMs with 1st class degrees, Eden, Macmillan, Wilson, Brown and Cameron it is a mixed bag in terms of record.
None of our best PMs in the last 100 years, Churchill, Attlee and Thatcher had a first class degree and Churchill did not even go to university
Having a degree of any kind is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for being intelligent. Churchill was o9f course hugely, ferociously intelligent. Mags wasn't, dunno about Attlee.
Thatcher was superbly intelligent. A grammar school girl who became an esteemed biochemist who became the best peacetime prime minister in 100 years, and fighting misogyny all the way?
Peace be upon her
As the years pass her achievement looks all the greater, not lesser, and all her successors seem similarly diminished
She was fandabidozy, don't get me wrong, but I would put courage, tenacity, conviction and political instinct above intelligence in the list of her virtues. And was she that much of a chemist? I thought she worked for Persil or similar.
Didn’t she, apocryphally, help invent that hideous Mr Whippee ice cream?
Anyway, I stand by my judgement. You do not get where she did: leadership of the Tory party, and then the first female PM of the whole country, and this in a time of casual misogyny - without having a phenomenal natural intelligence.
She was the Obama of Gender, in the UK.
The difference is that, unlike Obama, who disappointed in office, after shining in his campaign, Thatcher then went on to be a globally and historically transformative premier, as well.
I don’t know how you personally measure intellect. Ability to do calculus on the hoof? But I cannot see how Thatcher fails on any rational test. She was very clever and very able
There's a weird snobbery among certain intellectuals about Thatcher. They seem to think she didn't really understand anything and was just "just a bigoted woman".
Perhaps I am being snobbish. My feeling is that she didn't have much breadth of interest outside politics. And she really did say in answer to a question about her current reading matter "I'm rereading the latest Freddie Forsyth."
Isn’t that just a politician’s answer? I doubt that’s really what she was reading.
It was Jeffrey Archer. Even Magrit would have a twinge of shame at admitting that.
I think the latter is very good value. Will probably be an almost identical result to 2016 in seats with hardly any constituency seats changing hands except maybe Harvie winning the Kelvin seat, Roseanna Cunningham possibly losing her constituency to the Tories, maybe Banffshire coast as well and the SNP wasting a lot of list votes again in Central Scotland. SLAB will do very poorly again on the list again overall but the Starmer effect will cancel things out on the list in Edinburgh etc and the residual Labour middle aged core vote around Glasgow/Lanarkshire will mostly hold and they will hold their 3 constituencies.
To be fair, since this bridge is never going to happen, any money spent on it is just money spaffed up the wall, as I believe the phrase goes. So I for one am glad that there has been no feasibility study. Although a little surprised given the PM's penchant for wasting our money.
Did someone seriously say that Mrs Thatcher wasn't intelligent???
Getting into Oxford as a woman in the 1930s was very far from easy. Going on to do research was even harder. She was a master of her brief, according to all who worked with her.
Now, she did go a bit mad towards the end, but even her worst critics would have to concede she was extremely intelligent.
Thatcher was born in October 1925 so will not have entered Oxford before Autumn 1943. How easy was it to gain admission during World War 2?
Even if you assume she was lucky to get in, the number of women hired as research chemists was not high.
I'd also note that the "got in after another candidate withdrew" is specifically in relation to her scholarship application, not her general admission.
We are maybe 15% of the way through this, if the antibody data is correct.
Yes, that's a daft argument, like cyclists who are embarrassed to wear helmets and would rather risk brain ijnury.
You don’t wear your cycle helmet in Tesco, or in the pub, or when browsing Fenwicks though. And neither does a cycle helmet hide your identity. It’s not quite the same is it?
And besides, plenty of people do not wear a cycle helmet for exactly that reason!
And so, finally, WHO say we should all wear masks or face coverings. The last to yield, have yielded
What a total fucking shitshow, and yes I am looking at you, Boris “handshake” Johnson
I bought my first masks in mid Feb and was much mocked on here for doing so, and for wearing them.
If we had all behaved like me, then, we wouldn’t be staring at the economic abyss and medical disaster, now.
I'm not sure how masks would be prevented any 'economic abyss', unless you think the rejuvenated mask industry was enough to pick up the slack.
I hate to swear so long before the lagershed, but JESUS H TWATTING CHRIST
if we’d had (nshallah) Czech style death rates (they wore masks, minimal deaths) or (Deus vult!) Korea style death rates (mandatory masks, basically no dead) we would now be able to confidently open our economy, with some careful restrictions.
As it happens, we have a moron political class advised by a cretinous scientific elite, and they told us not to wear masks for three months before completely changing their advice, so we are one of the most fucked countries in the world, still not taking minimal mask precautions, and our economy will now suffer thereby
Seems like masks reduce the spread of the disease although they are not a silver bullet.
It's interesting to speculate why we have been reluctant to go down this route.
UnBritish?
Or just our particularly stupid political and scientific establishment advising us wrongly for months?
Imagine if Boris had started wearing a mask in early March. The optics would have been startling, and people would have taken notice. It would have been leadership, even if it embarrassed him. He did not do that. He preferred to joke about “handshaking corona patients” - then he got it and nearly died.
But the politicians - left and right - are not solely to blame. They were guided by the science and total fucking idiots like Van Tam and Harries were saying Don’t Wear Masks! until very recently
They should be sacked and their pensions should be taken away, and they should count themselves lucky they are not in jail. That is all there is to it.
God, I remember when some PBers said face coverings were unBritish and anyone who wore a face covering should be deported to Saudi Arabia.
There should be a German compound noun for this feeling: “the dismay upon discovering that you are governed by people much less intelligent than yourself, and you already consider yourself to be an idiot”
Being intelligent is no guarantee of being a good PM.
Of our post-war PMs with 1st class degrees, Eden, Macmillan, Wilson, Brown and Cameron it is a mixed bag in terms of record.
None of our best PMs in the last 100 years, Churchill, Attlee and Thatcher had a first class degree and Churchill did not even go to university
Having a degree of any kind is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for being intelligent. Churchill was o9f course hugely, ferociously intelligent. Mags wasn't, dunno about Attlee.
Thatcher was superbly intelligent. A grammar school girl who became an esteemed biochemist who became the best peacetime prime minister in 100 years, and fighting misogyny all the way?
Peace be upon her
As the years pass her achievement looks all the greater, not lesser, and all her successors seem similarly diminished
She was fandabidozy, don't get me wrong, but I would put courage, tenacity, conviction and political instinct above intelligence in the list of her virtues. And was she that much of a chemist? I thought she worked for Persil or similar.
Didn’t she, apocryphally, help invent that hideous Mr Whippee ice cream?
Anyway, I stand by my judgement. You do not get where she did: leadership of the Tory party, and then the first female PM of the whole country, and this in a time of casual misogyny - without having a phenomenal natural intelligence.
She was the Obama of Gender, in the UK.
The difference is that, unlike Obama, who disappointed in office, after shining in his campaign, Thatcher then went on to be a globally and historically transformative premier, as well.
I don’t know how you personally measure intellect. Ability to do calculus on the hoof? But I cannot see how Thatcher fails on any rational test. She was very clever and very able
There's a weird snobbery among certain intellectuals about Thatcher. They seem to think she didn't really understand anything and was just "just a bigoted woman".
Whereas she understood perfectly well and knew she was a bigoted woman
Well done, you have just proved the British have an average IQ of 9, and that’s why we are dying
I'll carry on wearing my mask and you can go on contemplating all the S.K Tremayne novels gathering dust in the cheap bins of WH Smith.
You used to be witty, sharp even acerbic once.
Shame...
I have recently finished reading The Ice Twins by S K Tremayne. I enjoyed it. I also have a copy of "The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming" by one Nicholas Palmer on my bookshelf.
Blush. YoWhat other PB authors do you need to collect for a full set?
Did someone seriously say that Mrs Thatcher wasn't intelligent???
Getting into Oxford as a woman in the 1930s was very far from easy. Going on to do research was even harder. She was a master of her brief, according to all who worked with her.
Now, she did go a bit mad towards the end, but even her worst critics would have to concede she was extremely intelligent.
1940s, otherwise fair point.
Mrs Thatcher went up to Oxford in 1943. I'd imagine it was quite easy to get in, since a lot of the men who'd normally have been there were in uniform.
She was, as @rcs1000 says, a master of her brief. It was Mrs Thatcher who started the modern practice of PMQs by answering all questions. Up to then, departmental queries would have been fielded by the relevant ministers. It was, of course, a huge power grab as it meant departments now had to run everything through Number 10. Boris might prefer a return to the old style!
Mrs Thatcher's father was a Methodist lay preacher. Gordon Brown and Theresa May were son and daughter of the manse. Perhaps that instilled a sense of public duty.
"I'd imagine it was quite easy to get in, since a lot of the men who'd normally have been there were in uniform."
It's hardly Cambridge or Hull, but I'm sure she was justifiably proud to do so.
Thatcher was really bright, in fact I can't think of a PM in my lifetime who's brighter.
Wasn't Wilson Oxford's youngest Don? Or did I dream it?
They haven't even resigned from the force, just from the bit of it that they thought gave them the right to assault people with impunity.
If they think that investigating cops for cracking the skull of a peacefully protesting 75 year old is sufficient reason to resign from that squad, then they should be sacked. They clearly should not be policemen.
Well done, you have just proved the British have an average IQ of 9, and that’s why we are dying
I'll carry on wearing my mask and you can go on contemplating all the S.K Tremayne novels gathering dust in the cheap bins of WH Smith.
You used to be witty, sharp even acerbic once.
Shame...
I have recently finished reading The Ice Twins by S K Tremayne. I enjoyed it. I also have a copy of "The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming" by one Nicholas Palmer on my bookshelf.
Blush. YoWhat other PB authors do you need to collect for a full set?
Mine? And I believe Mr Dancer has several ...
I own a Mr Dancer book and a Mr Tremayne. I do not own any Louise Bagshawe books.
Well done, you have just proved the British have an average IQ of 9, and that’s why we are dying
I'll carry on wearing my mask and you can go on contemplating all the S.K Tremayne novels gathering dust in the cheap bins of WH Smith.
You used to be witty, sharp even acerbic once.
Shame...
I have recently finished reading The Ice Twins by S K Tremayne. I enjoyed it. I also have a copy of "The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming" by one Nicholas Palmer on my bookshelf.
Blush. YoWhat other PB authors do you need to collect for a full set?
Mine? And I believe Mr Dancer has several ...
I own a Mr Dancer book and a Mr Tremayne. I do not own any Louise Bagshawe books.
Does anyone else find the whole BoZo thing as tedious as the ZaNuLieBore people were in the 00s?
No. I find it is becoming a more accurate description with every passing day.
Whatever else he has, BoJo definitely lacks a mojo..
It's just boring.
If I referred to every post about Corbyn calling him Corby Trouser Press or Cor, what an antisemite, you'd get tired of it after the first few times.
Making fun of people's names is petty schoolground stuff. As others have pointed out, there are plenty of things to criticise about the man without making fun of his name.
Did someone seriously say that Mrs Thatcher wasn't intelligent???
Getting into Oxford as a woman in the 1930s was very far from easy. Going on to do research was even harder. She was a master of her brief, according to all who worked with her.
Now, she did go a bit mad towards the end, but even her worst critics would have to concede she was extremely intelligent.
Thatcher was born in October 1925 so will not have entered Oxford before Autumn 1943. How easy was it to gain admission during World War 2?
Even if you assume she was lucky to get in, the number of women hired as research chemists was not high.
I'd also note that the "got in after another candidate withdrew" is specifically in relation to her scholarship application, not her general admission.
In that era candidates from the state sector were rarely able to proceed to Oxbridge without a Scholarship or Exhibition of some kind - in that they were likely to lack the private means required of those who entered on the basis of general admission. On the other hand, I believe 'winning a Scholarship' had a rather wider meaning than is the case today. In addition to Scholarships and Exhibitions offered by the Universities and individual Colleges, they were - I believe - awarded by Local Authorities on a competitive basis.
Mrs Thatcher went up to Oxford in 1943. I'd imagine it was quite easy to get in, since a lot of the men who'd normally have been there were in uniform.
Since men and women attended completely separate colleges, and admissions were the responsibility of the colleges, I don't think the lack of men applying would have had any effect at all on the difficulty of a woman getting a place.
Well done, you have just proved the British have an average IQ of 9, and that’s why we are dying
I'll carry on wearing my mask and you can go on contemplating all the S.K Tremayne novels gathering dust in the cheap bins of WH Smith.
You used to be witty, sharp even acerbic once.
Shame...
I have recently finished reading The Ice Twins by S K Tremayne. I enjoyed it. I also have a copy of "The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming" by one Nicholas Palmer on my bookshelf.
Blush. YoWhat other PB authors do you need to collect for a full set?
Mine? And I believe Mr Dancer has several ...
I own a Mr Dancer book and a Mr Tremayne. I do not own any Louise Bagshawe books.
Well done, you have just proved the British have an average IQ of 9, and that’s why we are dying
I'll carry on wearing my mask and you can go on contemplating all the S.K Tremayne novels gathering dust in the cheap bins of WH Smith.
You used to be witty, sharp even acerbic once.
Shame...
I have recently finished reading The Ice Twins by S K Tremayne. I enjoyed it. I also have a copy of "The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming" by one Nicholas Palmer on my bookshelf.
Blush. YoWhat other PB authors do you need to collect for a full set?
Mine? And I believe Mr Dancer has several ...
I own a Mr Dancer book and a Mr Tremayne. I do not own any Louise Bagshawe books.
Did someone seriously say that Mrs Thatcher wasn't intelligent???
Getting into Oxford as a woman in the 1930s was very far from easy. Going on to do research was even harder. She was a master of her brief, according to all who worked with her.
Now, she did go a bit mad towards the end, but even her worst critics would have to concede she was extremely intelligent.
1940s, otherwise fair point.
Mrs Thatcher went up to Oxford in 1943. I'd imagine it was quite easy to get in, since a lot of the men who'd normally have been there were in uniform.
She was, as @rcs1000 says, a master of her brief. It was Mrs Thatcher who started the modern practice of PMQs by answering all questions. Up to then, departmental queries would have been fielded by the relevant ministers. It was, of course, a huge power grab as it meant departments now had to run everything through Number 10. Boris might prefer a return to the old style!
Mrs Thatcher's father was a Methodist lay preacher. Gordon Brown and Theresa May were son and daughter of the manse. Perhaps that instilled a sense of public duty.
"I'd imagine it was quite easy to get in, since a lot of the men who'd normally have been there were in uniform."
It's hardly Cambridge or Hull, but I'm sure she was justifiably proud to do so.
Thatcher was really bright, in fact I can't think of a PM in my lifetime who's brighter.
Wasn't Wilson Oxford's youngest Don? Or did I dream it?
Wikipedia is my friend. 1st in PPE. Alphas on every paper. Don at 21.
Does anyone else find the whole BoZo thing as tedious as the ZaNuLieBore people were in the 00s?
No. I find it is becoming a more accurate description with every passing day.
Whatever else he has, BoJo definitely lacks a mojo..
It's just boring.
If I referred to every post about Corbyn calling him Corby Trouser Press or Cor, what an antisemite, you'd get tired of it after the first few times.
Making fun of people's names is petty schoolground stuff. As others have pointed out, there are plenty of things to criticise about the man without making fun of his name.
Does anyone else find the whole BoZo thing as tedious as the ZaNuLieBore people were in the 00s?
No. I find it is becoming a more accurate description with every passing day.
Whatever else he has, BoJo definitely lacks a mojo..
It's just boring.
If I referred to every post about Corbyn calling him Corby Trouser Press or Cor, what an antisemite, you'd get tired of it after the first few times.
Making fun of people's names is petty schoolground stuff. As others have pointed out, there are plenty of things to criticise about the man without making fun of his name.
I usually refer to him as Boris
Yes, but there are plenty of people who think calling him "BoZo" is the height of comedy. Just as people thought calling New Labour ZaNu LieBore was hilarious at one point.
Whatever happened to them? (I assume they joined UKIP).
Well done, you have just proved the British have an average IQ of 9, and that’s why we are dying
I'll carry on wearing my mask and you can go on contemplating all the S.K Tremayne novels gathering dust in the cheap bins of WH Smith.
You used to be witty, sharp even acerbic once.
Shame...
I have recently finished reading The Ice Twins by S K Tremayne. I enjoyed it. I also have a copy of "The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming" by one Nicholas Palmer on my bookshelf.
Blush. YoWhat other PB authors do you need to collect for a full set?
Mine? And I believe Mr Dancer has several ...
I own a Mr Dancer book and a Mr Tremayne. I do not own any Louise Bagshawe books.
https://lawandcrime.com/george-floyd-death/aoc-slams-nyc-judge-for-suspension-of-habeas-corpus-in-response-to-george-floyd-protests/ ... New York City Criminal Court Judge James Burke agreed to a request by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to allow for detention of anyone arrested in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan without criminal charges longer than the 24-hours mandated by state law during a hearing in response to a writ filed by The Legal Aid Society of New York City on behalf of hundreds of protestors still in jail.
“There is a crisis within a crisis,” Burke said before denying the request. “All writs are denied, Brooklyn, Bronx and Manhattan.”...
Does anyone else find the whole BoZo thing as tedious as the ZaNuLieBore people were in the 00s?
No. I find it is becoming a more accurate description with every passing day.
Whatever else he has, BoJo definitely lacks a mojo..
It's just boring.
If I referred to every post about Corbyn calling him Corby Trouser Press or Cor, what an antisemite, you'd get tired of it after the first few times.
Making fun of people's names is petty schoolground stuff. As others have pointed out, there are plenty of things to criticise about the man without making fun of his name.
I usually refer to him as Boris
Apparently his real name in private life is Alexander or Alex.
Well done, you have just proved the British have an average IQ of 9, and that’s why we are dying
I'll carry on wearing my mask and you can go on contemplating all the S.K Tremayne novels gathering dust in the cheap bins of WH Smith.
You used to be witty, sharp even acerbic once.
Shame...
I have recently finished reading The Ice Twins by S K Tremayne. I enjoyed it. I also have a copy of "The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming" by one Nicholas Palmer on my bookshelf.
Blush. YoWhat other PB authors do you need to collect for a full set?
Mine? And I believe Mr Dancer has several ...
I own a Mr Dancer book and a Mr Tremayne. I do not own any Louise Bagshawe books.
Just seen the ban on evictions extended by 2 months. Which I guess is right and proper. But. Boy is this government storing up problems to be unleashed in the Autumn.
Did someone seriously say that Mrs Thatcher wasn't intelligent???
Getting into Oxford as a woman in the 1930s was very far from easy. Going on to do research was even harder. She was a master of her brief, according to all who worked with her.
Now, she did go a bit mad towards the end, but even her worst critics would have to concede she was extremely intelligent.
1940s, otherwise fair point.
Mrs Thatcher went up to Oxford in 1943. I'd imagine it was quite easy to get in, since a lot of the men who'd normally have been there were in uniform.
She was, as @rcs1000 says, a master of her brief. It was Mrs Thatcher who started the modern practice of PMQs by answering all questions. Up to then, departmental queries would have been fielded by the relevant ministers. It was, of course, a huge power grab as it meant departments now had to run everything through Number 10. Boris might prefer a return to the old style!
Mrs Thatcher's father was a Methodist lay preacher. Gordon Brown and Theresa May were son and daughter of the manse. Perhaps that instilled a sense of public duty.
"I'd imagine it was quite easy to get in, since a lot of the men who'd normally have been there were in uniform."
It's hardly Cambridge or Hull, but I'm sure she was justifiably proud to do so.
Thatcher was really bright, in fact I can't think of a PM in my lifetime who's brighter.
Wasn't Wilson Oxford's youngest Don? Or did I dream it?
Enoch Powell was remarkably intelligent, but intelligence is no guarantee of empathy and compassion below PM level too.
I rather liked Wilson, and unusually amongst British PMs, he didn't try to cash in on his status, and lived modestly.
Cathy Newman's comment is more disturbing than that of Will Hutton. Whilst there is no obligation for the Government to provide a representative for television or radio broadcasts, it seems an affront to democracy and accountability to be effectively censoring questions in this way.
Comments
Hay fever sufferers might do better with the posh masks with filters that can intercept pollen.
If and its a Big if the virus is more seasonally affected than we realise, then some if and possibly most of the improvements that are happening across Europe and north america could be because of the increase in tempricher.
In the winter R could go up and possible a lot, leading to a second wave, and it may be harder to have a second lock-down if the economy is suffering already.
A few more infections now, while not obviously a good thing, in the short term. may be a long term benefit if it leaves us with a higher risiduall 'heard immunity'
When this is all over it might just as easily transpire that China's East Asian neighbours got lucky and had a less lethal and less easily transmissible strain of the virus than that which was spread to Italy.
The advantages of mask wearing in non-clinical settings aren't conclusively proven or anywhere close and the concerns about their drawbacks appear valid. Hence all the dissenting opinions and the flip-flopping on the subject.
It stops you needing to handle the mask too.
I also have a copy of "The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming" by one Nicholas Palmer on my bookshelf.
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1268530877786619906
Scotland-Northern Ireland bridge: No feasibility study commissioned
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-scotland-52935602
I am being snobbish; I have read The Odessa File more times than I can count. But I'm not sure I would volunteer the information - Proust or Rilke is a better answer.,
*not yours truly obvs
Getting into Oxford as a woman in the 1930s was very far from easy. Going on to do research was even harder. She was a master of her brief, according to all who worked with her.
Now, she did go a bit mad towards the end, but even her worst critics would have to concede she was extremely intelligent.
https://twitter.com/anichols03/status/1268993070999076864
The street renaming is a complete piece of class
It's not that the data and charts are false, but it rubs me up the wrong way when I see charts, tables, diagrams and the like that mislead rather than clarify.
She was, as @rcs1000 says, a master of her brief. It was Mrs Thatcher who started the modern practice of PMQs by answering all questions. Up to then, departmental queries would have been fielded by the relevant ministers. It was, of course, a huge power grab as it meant departments now had to run everything through Number 10. Boris might prefer a return to the old style!
Mrs Thatcher's father was a Methodist lay preacher. Gordon Brown and Theresa May were son and daughter of the manse. Perhaps that instilled a sense of public duty.
“Now Johnson has instructed civil servants to look at how the project can be delivered and is awaiting an official assessment on whether it is feasible.
A representative for Johnson said on Monday that "work is underway" on the project, adding that "it's an idea that the prime minister has expressed interest in in the past, and as he said at the time, 'Watch this space.'"
https://www.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-northern-ireland-scotland-sea-bridge-plans-twenty-billion-2020-2?r=US&IR=T
It's hardly Cambridge or Hull, but I'm sure she was justifiably proud to do so.
Thatcher was really bright, in fact I can't think of a PM in my lifetime who's brighter.
Leonard is attempting to create a “third position” on Scotland’s future – no to independence, no to stubborn, unshifting unionism, yes to a living, breathing devolution settlement that adapts to fit the times. “There are obviously two dominant positions,” says a party insider. “Our dithering of the past few years has been a disaster.”
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/scotland/2020/06/has-scottish-labour-finally-taken-position-independence
Whatever else he has, BoJo definitely lacks a mojo..
"How to prevent new surges in cases? How to reopen businesses in an era of social distancing? How to revive prone economies? These are the questions preoccupying most of the rich world, where covid-19’s first wave, at least, is mercifully ebbing. But elsewhere the pandemic remains far from any crest. Brazil is adding around 25,000 new confirmed cases a day, more than the United States. Russia and India are not far behind, with 8,000 or so apiece. All told, poorer countries account for some three-quarters of the 100,000 or so new cases detected around the world each day.
These numbers are alarming, especially because they are grave underestimates...."
https://tinyurl.com/yba2lc26
SNP Majority 5/6
No SNP Majority 5/6
The other problem with the graphic is we dont have reliable or comparable numbers from many developing countries.
...for a wedding
Can you imagine the shit thrown his way if he had people talking about a bridge before Covid is controlled and the EU discussions resolved?
I'd also note that the "got in after another candidate withdrew" is specifically in relation to her scholarship application, not her general admission.
And besides, plenty of people do not wear a cycle helmet for exactly that reason!
They haven't even resigned from the force, just from the bit of it that they thought gave them the right to assault people with impunity.
Or did I dream it?
If I referred to every post about Corbyn calling him Corby Trouser Press or Cor, what an antisemite, you'd get tired of it after the first few times.
Making fun of people's names is petty schoolground stuff. As others have pointed out, there are plenty of things to criticise about the man without making fun of his name.
Whatever happened to them? (I assume they joined UKIP).
https://lawandcrime.com/george-floyd-death/aoc-slams-nyc-judge-for-suspension-of-habeas-corpus-in-response-to-george-floyd-protests/
... New York City Criminal Court Judge James Burke agreed to a request by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to allow for detention of anyone arrested in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan without criminal charges longer than the 24-hours mandated by state law during a hearing in response to a writ filed by The Legal Aid Society of New York City on behalf of hundreds of protestors still in jail.
“There is a crisis within a crisis,” Burke said before denying the request. “All writs are denied, Brooklyn, Bronx and Manhattan.”...
https://twitter.com/CNBC/status/1268927124452380672/photo/1
https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/501321-members-of-minneapolis-city-council-vow-to-dismantle-police
But. Boy is this government storing up problems to be unleashed in the Autumn.
I rather liked Wilson, and unusually amongst British PMs, he didn't try to cash in on his status, and lived modestly.