Sadly the wokeist idiocy has gone global. Plenty of them in the UK too.
But the teaching of history in the UK has to be better than the US - judging from films, it could hardly be worse ...
I had a very expensively-educated US friend at uni who thought that the USA created the first English dictionary and knew the name of the American who (in the 19th century!) created it. As if Dr Johnson never happened. But what he actually knew was when the first American dictionary was created. Not sure what the point is of teaching them that.
"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel" - Samuel Johnson
As a long-time Tory hack, the good Doctor knew of which he spoke!
FYI, Noah Webster was ALSO a right-wing hack, in his case for the Federalist Party.
That said, both made signal contributions to their nations and the world, in particular their dictionaries, both of which were great leaps forward for the English language.
Johnson's dictionary was of course first. But Webster's was better.
IF you disagree, stick it in your Funk & Wagnalls!
But Dr Johnson wasn't criticising patriotism. His meaning was that even after all other virtues (honour, chivalry etc.) had been abandoned, patriotism was the last one to go. Most people who quote him now just use it to criticise the notion of patriotism and patriots.
"Former Tory vice-chairman Ben Bradley declares he will REFUSE to take part in 'unconscious bias' training for MPs involving a giant blue puppet, saying Tory voters 'abhor the antics' of Black Lives Matter
Mansfield MP attacked programme for MPs created after BLM protests Blasted 'metropolitan groupthink that is intolerant to any diversity of views' Parliament has paid Challenge Consultancy £7,000 to design the course "
If you want to go to the pub or have any life at all that's worth living, I suggest you do it now. Its not going to last. We're going into lockdown again.
If you want to go to the pub or have any life at all that's worth living, I suggest you do it now. Its not going to last. We're going into lockdown again.
Its Robert Peston....woohooo, that means Christmas and New Year will be defo back to normal.
Sadly the wokeist idiocy has gone global. Plenty of them in the UK too.
But the teaching of history in the UK has to be better than the US - judging from films, it could hardly be worse ...
Perhaps in America they just don't want to learn.
I asked a guide in Antigua why there was no mention of the slave trade in her presentation. She explained that most of her customers are American and many just don't want to hear about slavery. She said she was once told by a tourist from the USA that there were no slaves they were indentured servants.
When it comes to truly mindless ignorance, no doubt about it - USA is Number One!
However, note that among our teaming masses & wretched refuge are VERY many who truly care about (and actually know at least some) history - and NOT (always) for (strictly) ideological purposes & motives.
Of that I have no doubt, and every last man jack of them will not be voting Trump.
Sadly do NOT agree with your final sentence. Because yours truly knows different.
On other hand, it IS possible to have mutually fruitful discussions with most Trumskyites who are sincerely interested in history. For while their politics and/or ideology may be wacked out (from my perspective anyway) they at least appreciate that there is ALWAYS more sides in any controversy - historic OR contemporary.
If you want to go to the pub or have any life at all that's worth living, I suggest you do it now. Its not going to last. We're going into lockdown again.
Its Robert Peston....woohooo, that means Christmas and New Year will be defo back to normal.
Sadly the wokeist idiocy has gone global. Plenty of them in the UK too.
But the teaching of history in the UK has to be better than the US - judging from films, it could hardly be worse ...
I had a very expensively-educated US friend at uni who thought that the USA created the first English dictionary and knew the name of the American who (in the 19th century!) created it. As if Dr Johnson never happened. But what he actually knew was when the first American dictionary was created. Not sure what the point is of teaching them that.
"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel" - Samuel Johnson
As a long-time Tory hack, the good Doctor knew of which he spoke!
FYI, Noah Webster was ALSO a right-wing hack, in his case for the Federalist Party.
That said, both made signal contributions to their nations and the world, in particular their dictionaries, both of which were great leaps forward for the English language.
Johnson's dictionary was of course first. But Webster's was better.
IF you disagree, stick it in your Funk & Wagnalls!
But Dr Johnson wasn't criticising patriotism. His meaning was that even after all other virtues (honour, chivalry etc.) had been abandoned, patriotism was the last one to go. Most people who quote him now just use it to criticise the notion of patriotism and patriots.
Dr Johnson was criticizing William Pitt the Elder aka Earl of Chatham (or visa versa).
Essentially, it seems the Lords themselves decide, on the basis that if the government disagrees, it can call an election. But I’ve got a feeling in recent years the Speaker has had a role.
Okay, so essentially it comes down to a matter of opinion. Interesting to read that the origins was in a sense that the Lords had to not use its power of veto almost all the time in order to retain it for when it really mattered.
Can't think of a better time for them to go out in a blaze of glory than by attempting to keep the government to its word.
But Dr Johnson wasn't criticising patriotism. His meaning was that even after all other virtues (honour, chivalry etc.) had been abandoned, patriotism was the last one to go. Most people who quote him now just use it to criticise the notion of patriotism and patriots.
I understand him to mean that appeals to patriotism should not be taken as excuses for bad behaviour - breaking the law, to take a random example. It's not against patriotism, but rather its use as a cover.
But Dr Johnson wasn't criticising patriotism. His meaning was that even after all other virtues (honour, chivalry etc.) had been abandoned, patriotism was the last one to go. Most people who quote him now just use it to criticise the notion of patriotism and patriots.
I understand him to mean that appeals to patriotism should not be taken as excuses for bad behaviour - breaking the law, to take a random example. It's not against patriotism, but rather its use as a cover.
"patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."
Dr Johnson was of course talking about the other Johnson, even though he didn't know him personally.
"Former Tory vice-chairman Ben Bradley declares he will REFUSE to take part in 'unconscious bias' training for MPs involving a giant blue puppet, saying Tory voters 'abhor the antics' of Black Lives Matter
Mansfield MP attacked programme for MPs created after BLM protests Blasted 'metropolitan groupthink that is intolerant to any diversity of views' Parliament has paid Challenge Consultancy £7,000 to design the course "
Boris once again negotiating with himself and his lickspittle MPs, rather than with the EU. It's hilarious, or would be if we weren't all going to be hit by the consequences in a few weeks' time. Our EU ex-friends must be looking at all this with a mixture of amusement, horror, anger, impatience, and above all disbelief.
Our MPs are more important, they set the law the EU does not. Its called Taking Back Control, maybe a concept you should get used to . . . laws set by MPs we elected, what a novel concept!
--------
On the topic of the compromise if it is along the lines of the Neill amendment is entirely reasonable. It keeps and puts into law the principle that the UK can override as an emergency "backstop" if required, but puts a reasonable check on that so that the elected Commons must vote first and Ministers can't do it on their own. Quite right to compromise here, I said yesterday I expected this would happen.
You spent most of yesterday arguing laws don’t matter. International laws, domestic laws, all mere bagatelle according to you.
Sadly the wokeist idiocy has gone global. Plenty of them in the UK too.
But the teaching of history in the UK has to be better than the US - judging from films, it could hardly be worse ...
I had a very expensively-educated US friend at uni who thought that the USA created the first English dictionary and knew the name of the American who (in the 19th century!) created it. As if Dr Johnson never happened. But what he actually knew was when the first American dictionary was created. Not sure what the point is of teaching them that.
It runs both ways. I’ve a degree in history from a reasonably prestigious university and got very sniffy in Boston when I was told that the USS Constitution was the oldest commissioned warship still afloat and loudly claimed it was HMS Victory. I felt a right plonker when the guide pointed out that the Victory is in dry dock,
"Former Tory vice-chairman Ben Bradley declares he will REFUSE to take part in 'unconscious bias' training for MPs involving a giant blue puppet, saying Tory voters 'abhor the antics' of Black Lives Matter
Mansfield MP attacked programme for MPs created after BLM protests Blasted 'metropolitan groupthink that is intolerant to any diversity of views' Parliament has paid Challenge Consultancy £7,000 to design the course "
And in the GE he increased his majority from just over 1000 to nearly 16000.
I'd rather the Tories all engaged in this sort of culture war rather than breaking international agreements. Less economically damaging, more electoral mileage.
If you want to go to the pub or have any life at all that's worth living, I suggest you do it now. It's not going to last. We're going into lockdown again.
Logically one would've thought that we're not going back to April, because the country can't afford another lockdown and it would reduce the economy to rubble. In practice, however, the Government are such a completely useless shower that you can imagine them getting us back there through an escalating series of measures. Put simply, I think the longer the testing problems go on for, and the hospital numbers creep up despite the new measures - both of which look highly likely to happen - the more panicky and desperate they will become.
On the one hand, reluctance to impose another lockdown because they don't want to extend the furlough and try to borrow another two or three hundred billion quid to hose the burning economy down with money. On the other hand, increasingly loud screaming from under-pressure hospitals and morgues filling back up with octogenarians. The risk from all this is that they don't administer a single killer blow to the economy, but that they do slowly strangle it to death through salami slicing measures like curfews, more and more picky and restrictive masking rules, and more radical social distancing measures (like dumping the rule of six and just telling people to have no social contact at all with anyone outside their own household, except to attend to essential care needs.)
Meanwhile, it is reported that Sweden - which continues to refuse to force people to go around in masks - has just registered its *lowest* seven-day average value for new cases for six months. The medical profession seems to have made some meaningful progress in terms of treatments for seriously ill patients, but do epidemiologists honestly have a substantially better idea of how this bloody disease works than they did in March?
"I feel there has been definite “mission creep” in our country’s response to this Covid situation. Initially we were asked to stay home to “flatten the curve” and avoid overwhelming the NHS. Now we no longer concern ourselves with hospital admissions or deaths. We are only interested in “cases” which are detected using flawed methods. We have used case data to implement mandatory masks on public transport, shops and schools with a complete absence of evidence for their effectiveness. Now we are no longer allowed to socialise in groups larger than six. Where is this all going to end? What is our aim with these policies?"
This is precisely what I was saying on here a few nights ago. We started off with flattening the sombrero and now we are in some kind of unspoken zero-covid policy.
Who is in charge of the strategy and what is it? And how do we get out of this if there is no vaccine for another year or two?
We should not allow ourselves to be distracted by Johnson's very dead cat of a WA agreement mess from asking these questions.
But Dr Johnson wasn't criticising patriotism. His meaning was that even after all other virtues (honour, chivalry etc.) had been abandoned, patriotism was the last one to go. Most people who quote him now just use it to criticise the notion of patriotism and patriots.
I understand him to mean that appeals to patriotism should not be taken as excuses for bad behaviour - breaking the law, to take a random example. It's not against patriotism, but rather its use as a cover.
"patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."
Dr Johnson was of course talking about the other Johnson, even though he didn't know him personally.
BoJo IS Dr. Johnson, thanks to his honorary LL.D from Brunel University.
If you want to go to the pub or have any life at all that's worth living, I suggest you do it now. It's not going to last. We're going into lockdown again.
Logically one would've thought that we're not going back to April, because the country can't afford another lockdown and it would reduce the economy to rubble. In practice, however, the Government are such a completely useless shower that you can imagine them getting us back there through an escalating series of measures. Put simply, I think the longer the testing problems go on for, and the hospital numbers creep up despite the new measures - both of which look highly likely to happen - the more panicky and desperate they will become.
On the one hand, reluctance to impose another lockdown because they don't want to extend the furlough and try to borrow another two or three hundred billion quid to hose the burning economy down with money. On the other hand, increasingly loud screaming from under-pressure hospitals and morgues filling back up with octogenarians. The risk from all this is that they don't administer a single killer blow to the economy, but that they do slowly strangle it to death through salami slicing measures like curfews, more and more picky and restrictive masking rules, and more radical social distancing measures (like dumping the rule of six and just telling people to have no social contact at all with anyone outside their own household, except to attend to essential care needs.)
Meanwhile, it is reported that Sweden - which continues to refuse to force people to go around in masks - has just registered its *lowest* seven-day average value for new cases for six months. The medical profession seems to have made some meaningful progress in terms of treatments for seriously ill patients, but do epidemiologists honestly have a substantially better idea of how this bloody disease works than they did in March?
I just do not understand why parliamentarians are not demanding a full and frank debate on the strategy here during which we have a full discussion of Sweden.
The executive is being left to make a mess of this day after day after day.
I'd start by asking why Carl Heneghan hasn't been co-opted on to SAGE.
Incidentally, I am just back from a long weekend visiting family in Wales, and can report that the efforts of the Government to cajole people into resuming the daily commute have, indeed, failed completely. The 17:09 from Kings Cross to Ely left London about 10% full, if that.
The train journeys in and out of the capital in both directions were generally quiet, except for the GWR going from Paddington to Swansea at Saturday lunchtime, which was about half-full: I wouldn't be at all surprised if the trains are now busier at the weekends with visits to friends and family than they are during the week with office workers. The journey through London was OK on Saturday, but awful this afternoon. I shan't bore you with the details: suffice it to say that it was a fresh reminder of why I hate London. There's a lot there that's worth visiting, but having to haul yourself in, out and around the wretched place is a nightmarish experience. If it wasn't sometimes necessary to travel through it to get somewhere else then I might never set foot there again.
I don't know what it is about James Delingpole but the way he talks the way he writes what he says - it's all cringeworthy and embarrassing.
I'm making the mistake of watching something on his "channel".
It's like he's a socially inept 14-year old boy trapped in a 55-year old man's body, and desperate for both approval and attention.
I think his main problem is that almost all the people with whom he spent the formative years of his young adulthood have grown up to be vastly more successful than he is. He's got some of the right instincts on culture, but he's also so fundamentally anti-rational as to be maddening.
Delingpole is the perfect contra-indicator. Whatever position he holds on any issue will inevitably be the exact opposite of the correct one. Kind of like Trump in that regard, but even Trump was right about John Bolton being a war-mongering loon.
"I feel there has been definite “mission creep” in our country’s response to this Covid situation. Initially we were asked to stay home to “flatten the curve” and avoid overwhelming the NHS. Now we no longer concern ourselves with hospital admissions or deaths. We are only interested in “cases” which are detected using flawed methods. We have used case data to implement mandatory masks on public transport, shops and schools with a complete absence of evidence for their effectiveness. Now we are no longer allowed to socialise in groups larger than six. Where is this all going to end? What is our aim with these policies?"
This is precisely what I was saying on here a few nights ago. We started off with flattening the sombrero and now we are in some kind of unspoken zero-covid policy.
Who is in charge of the strategy and what is it? And how do we get out of this if there is no vaccine for another year or two?
We should not allow ourselves to be distracted by Johnson's very dead cat of a WA agreement mess from asking these questions.
"I feel there has been definite “mission creep” in our country’s response to this Covid situation. Initially we were asked to stay home to “flatten the curve” and avoid overwhelming the NHS. Now we no longer concern ourselves with hospital admissions or deaths. We are only interested in “cases” which are detected using flawed methods. We have used case data to implement mandatory masks on public transport, shops and schools with a complete absence of evidence for their effectiveness. Now we are no longer allowed to socialise in groups larger than six. Where is this all going to end? What is our aim with these policies?"
There’s an actual aim to these policies? I assumed they just got drunk and spouted whatever came into their heads at the time.
If you want to go to the pub or have any life at all that's worth living, I suggest you do it now. It's not going to last. We're going into lockdown again.
Logically one would've thought that we're not going back to April, because the country can't afford another lockdown and it would reduce the economy to rubble. In practice, however, the Government are such a completely useless shower that you can imagine them getting us back there through an escalating series of measures. Put simply, I think the longer the testing problems go on for, and the hospital numbers creep up despite the new measures - both of which look highly likely to happen - the more panicky and desperate they will become.
On the one hand, reluctance to impose another lockdown because they don't want to extend the furlough and try to borrow another two or three hundred billion quid to hose the burning economy down with money. On the other hand, increasingly loud screaming from under-pressure hospitals and morgues filling back up with octogenarians. The risk from all this is that they don't administer a single killer blow to the economy, but that they do slowly strangle it to death through salami slicing measures like curfews, more and more picky and restrictive masking rules, and more radical social distancing measures (like dumping the rule of six and just telling people to have no social contact at all with anyone outside their own household, except to attend to essential care needs.)
Meanwhile, it is reported that Sweden - which continues to refuse to force people to go around in masks - has just registered its *lowest* seven-day average value for new cases for six months. The medical profession seems to have made some meaningful progress in terms of treatments for seriously ill patients, but do epidemiologists honestly have a substantially better idea of how this bloody disease works than they did in March?
As with the spring, the reality is that if the conditions worsen, there will be a de facto rather than de jure lockdown anyway. This really is a bugger of a virus.
I am contemplating two weeks self isolation before Christmas so that I can see my folks properly, with a hug, Christmas cheer etc. Anything else will be grim...
But Dr Johnson wasn't criticising patriotism. His meaning was that even after all other virtues (honour, chivalry etc.) had been abandoned, patriotism was the last one to go. Most people who quote him now just use it to criticise the notion of patriotism and patriots.
I understand him to mean that appeals to patriotism should not be taken as excuses for bad behaviour - breaking the law, to take a random example. It's not against patriotism, but rather its use as a cover.
If Dr Johnson had said "A scoundrel's last resort is patriotism" it would have been easier for later generations to understand that he was talking about the behaviour of scoundrels, not about the moral worth of patriotism. ISTR making this point in a 6th-form debate about 52 years ago!
It's not even a new cartoon - just a retweet of one that appeared in December 2019 after the General Election. Which makes it look even more mental in that context.
Sadly the wokeist idiocy has gone global. Plenty of them in the UK too.
But the teaching of history in the UK has to be better than the US - judging from films, it could hardly be worse ...
I had a very expensively-educated US friend at uni who thought that the USA created the first English dictionary and knew the name of the American who (in the 19th century!) created it. As if Dr Johnson never happened. But what he actually knew was when the first American dictionary was created. Not sure what the point is of teaching them that.
It runs both ways. I’ve a degree in history from a reasonably prestigious university and got very sniffy in Boston when I was told that the USS Constitution was the oldest commissioned warship still afloat and loudly claimed it was HMS Victory. I felt a right plonker when the guide pointed out that the Victory is in dry dock,
We’ve all been there, Doug.
You could have confounded him by pointing out that the dock isn’t technically dry, as they have to hose the hull with water to stop it drying out...
But Dr Johnson wasn't criticising patriotism. His meaning was that even after all other virtues (honour, chivalry etc.) had been abandoned, patriotism was the last one to go. Most people who quote him now just use it to criticise the notion of patriotism and patriots.
I understand him to mean that appeals to patriotism should not be taken as excuses for bad behaviour - breaking the law, to take a random example. It's not against patriotism, but rather its use as a cover.
If Dr Johnson had said "A scoundrel's last resort is patriotism" it would have been easier for later generations to understand that he was talking about the behaviour of scoundrels, not about the moral worth of patriotism. ISTR making this point in a 6th-form debate about 52 years ago!
Who does the UK look to to get a grip of the current covid situation? Is there anyone who can take control? Although as with most things one mans control is someone else’s lack of freedoms.
If you want to go to the pub or have any life at all that's worth living, I suggest you do it now. It's not going to last. We're going into lockdown again.
Logically one would've thought that we're not going back to April, because the country can't afford another lockdown and it would reduce the economy to rubble. In practice, however, the Government are such a completely useless shower that you can imagine them getting us back there through an escalating series of measures. Put simply, I think the longer the testing problems go on for, and the hospital numbers creep up despite the new measures - both of which look highly likely to happen - the more panicky and desperate they will become.
On the one hand, reluctance to impose another lockdown because they don't want to extend the furlough and try to borrow another two or three hundred billion quid to hose the burning economy down with money. On the other hand, increasingly loud screaming from under-pressure hospitals and morgues filling back up with octogenarians. The risk from all this is that they don't administer a single killer blow to the economy, but that they do slowly strangle it to death through salami slicing measures like curfews, more and more picky and restrictive masking rules, and more radical social distancing measures (like dumping the rule of six and just telling people to have no social contact at all with anyone outside their own household, except to attend to essential care needs.)
Meanwhile, it is reported that Sweden - which continues to refuse to force people to go around in masks - has just registered its *lowest* seven-day average value for new cases for six months. The medical profession seems to have made some meaningful progress in terms of treatments for seriously ill patients, but do epidemiologists honestly have a substantially better idea of how this bloody disease works than they did in March?
From the speccy article:
"A senior member of the government told me he was acutely aware of the scientists’ concern. 'There is no possibility of us waiting for the death rate to rise before we act"
It's not even a new cartoon - just a retweet of one that appeared in December 2019 after the General Election. Which makes it look even more mental in that context.
If you want to go to the pub or have any life at all that's worth living, I suggest you do it now. It's not going to last. We're going into lockdown again.
Logically one would've thought that we're not going back to April, because the country can't afford another lockdown and it would reduce the economy to rubble. In practice, however, the Government are such a completely useless shower that you can imagine them getting us back there through an escalating series of measures. Put simply, I think the longer the testing problems go on for, and the hospital numbers creep up despite the new measures - both of which look highly likely to happen - the more panicky and desperate they will become.
On the one hand, reluctance to impose another lockdown because they don't want to extend the furlough and try to borrow another two or three hundred billion quid to hose the burning economy down with money. On the other hand, increasingly loud screaming from under-pressure hospitals and morgues filling back up with octogenarians. The risk from all this is that they don't administer a single killer blow to the economy, but that they do slowly strangle it to death through salami slicing measures like curfews, more and more picky and restrictive masking rules, and more radical social distancing measures (like dumping the rule of six and just telling people to have no social contact at all with anyone outside their own household, except to attend to essential care needs.)
Meanwhile, it is reported that Sweden - which continues to refuse to force people to go around in masks - has just registered its *lowest* seven-day average value for new cases for six months. The medical profession seems to have made some meaningful progress in terms of treatments for seriously ill patients, but do epidemiologists honestly have a substantially better idea of how this bloody disease works than they did in March?
As with the spring, the reality is that if the conditions worsen, there will be a de facto rather than de jure lockdown anyway. This really is a bugger of a virus.
I am contemplating two weeks self isolation before Christmas so that I can see my folks properly, with a hug, Christmas cheer etc. Anything else will be grim...
By contrast I am hoping NOT to see my in-laws. Anything else would be grim.
If you want to go to the pub or have any life at all that's worth living, I suggest you do it now. It's not going to last. We're going into lockdown again.
Logically one would've thought that we're not going back to April, because the country can't afford another lockdown and it would reduce the economy to rubble. In practice, however, the Government are such a completely useless shower that you can imagine them getting us back there through an escalating series of measures. Put simply, I think the longer the testing problems go on for, and the hospital numbers creep up despite the new measures - both of which look highly likely to happen - the more panicky and desperate they will become.
On the one hand, reluctance to impose another lockdown because they don't want to extend the furlough and try to borrow another two or three hundred billion quid to hose the burning economy down with money. On the other hand, increasingly loud screaming from under-pressure hospitals and morgues filling back up with octogenarians. The risk from all this is that they don't administer a single killer blow to the economy, but that they do slowly strangle it to death through salami slicing measures like curfews, more and more picky and restrictive masking rules, and more radical social distancing measures (like dumping the rule of six and just telling people to have no social contact at all with anyone outside their own household, except to attend to essential care needs.)
Meanwhile, it is reported that Sweden - which continues to refuse to force people to go around in masks - has just registered its *lowest* seven-day average value for new cases for six months. The medical profession seems to have made some meaningful progress in terms of treatments for seriously ill patients, but do epidemiologists honestly have a substantially better idea of how this bloody disease works than they did in March?
As with the spring, the reality is that if the conditions worsen, there will be a de facto rather than de jure lockdown anyway. This really is a bugger of a virus.
I am contemplating two weeks self isolation before Christmas so that I can see my folks properly, with a hug, Christmas cheer etc. Anything else will be grim...
By contrast I am hoping NOT to see my in-laws. Anything else would be grim.
You could have confounded him by pointing out that the dock isn’t technically dry, as they have to hose the hull with water to stop it drying out...
My proudest moment in the study of history was when, as a schoolboy, my teacher's assessment of an essay I had written was: "Excellent. And not a fact in it."
You could have confounded him by pointing out that the dock isn’t technically dry, as they have to hose the hull with water to stop it drying out...
My proudest moment in the study of history was when, as a schoolboy, my teacher's assessment of an essay I had written was: "Excellent. And not a fact in it."
I don't know what it is about James Delingpole but the way he talks the way he writes what he says - it's all cringeworthy and embarrassing.
I'm making the mistake of watching something on his "channel".
It's like he's a socially inept 14-year old boy trapped in a 55-year old man's body, and desperate for both approval and attention.
I think his main problem is that almost all the people with whom he spent the formative years of his young adulthood have grown up to be vastly more successful than he is. He's got some of the right instincts on culture, but he's also so fundamentally anti-rational as to be maddening.
Delingpole is the perfect contra-indicator. Whatever position he holds on any issue will inevitably be the exact opposite of the correct one. Kind of like Trump in that regard, but even Trump was right about John Bolton being a war-mongering loon.
...which begs the question: why did he appoint him?
Sadly the wokeist idiocy has gone global. Plenty of them in the UK too.
But the teaching of history in the UK has to be better than the US - judging from films, it could hardly be worse ...
I had a very expensively-educated US friend at uni who thought that the USA created the first English dictionary and knew the name of the American who (in the 19th century!) created it. As if Dr Johnson never happened. But what he actually knew was when the first American dictionary was created. Not sure what the point is of teaching them that.
It runs both ways. I’ve a degree in history from a reasonably prestigious university and got very sniffy in Boston when I was told that the USS Constitution was the oldest commissioned warship still afloat and loudly claimed it was HMS Victory. I felt a right plonker when the guide pointed out that the Victory is in dry dock,
We’ve all been there, Doug.
You could have confounded him by pointing out that the dock isn’t technically dry, as they have to hose the hull with water to stop it drying out...
Good point but it is stretching the definition of “afloat” a bit...
Sadly the wokeist idiocy has gone global. Plenty of them in the UK too.
But the teaching of history in the UK has to be better than the US - judging from films, it could hardly be worse ...
I had a very expensively-educated US friend at uni who thought that the USA created the first English dictionary and knew the name of the American who (in the 19th century!) created it. As if Dr Johnson never happened. But what he actually knew was when the first American dictionary was created. Not sure what the point is of teaching them that.
It runs both ways. I’ve a degree in history from a reasonably prestigious university and got very sniffy in Boston when I was told that the USS Constitution was the oldest commissioned warship still afloat and loudly claimed it was HMS Victory. I felt a right plonker when the guide pointed out that the Victory is in dry dock,
We’ve all been there, Doug.
You could have confounded him by pointing out that the dock isn’t technically dry, as they have to hose the hull with water to stop it drying out...
Good point but it is stretching the definition of “afloat” a bit...
So? You were having a contest on pedantry. You said Victory was older. He said it was in dry dock. You could point out it’s not a dry dock. THat would confuse him.
Channel your inner Hyufd. You might even enjoy it...
I don't know what it is about James Delingpole but the way he talks the way he writes what he says - it's all cringeworthy and embarrassing.
I'm making the mistake of watching something on his "channel".
It's like he's a socially inept 14-year old boy trapped in a 55-year old man's body, and desperate for both approval and attention.
I first came across him writing a music column in (my parents') Telegraph, discovered that he seemed to share my taste and bought a few albums off his recommendations, not all classics, but all quite interesting. I was surprised a few years later when he popped up on the BBC giving 'balance' on a climate change debate (might not surprise many that he's a denier) and he turned out, not only for that, to be a complete bell-end.
Sadly the wokeist idiocy has gone global. Plenty of them in the UK too.
But the teaching of history in the UK has to be better than the US - judging from films, it could hardly be worse ...
I had a very expensively-educated US friend at uni who thought that the USA created the first English dictionary and knew the name of the American who (in the 19th century!) created it. As if Dr Johnson never happened. But what he actually knew was when the first American dictionary was created. Not sure what the point is of teaching them that.
It runs both ways. I’ve a degree in history from a reasonably prestigious university and got very sniffy in Boston when I was told that the USS Constitution was the oldest commissioned warship still afloat and loudly claimed it was HMS Victory. I felt a right plonker when the guide pointed out that the Victory is in dry dock,
We’ve all been there, Doug.
You could have confounded him by pointing out that the dock isn’t technically dry, as they have to hose the hull with water to stop it drying out...
Good point but it is stretching the definition of “afloat” a bit...
So? You were having a contest on pedantry. You said Victory was older. He said it was in dry dock. You could point out it’s not a dry dock. THat would confuse him.
Channel your inner Hyufd. You might even enjoy it...
6 weeks ago I was ridiculed on here by all and sundry for my view that it was a mistake to have enforced mask wearing in UK and that it would lead to an increase in cases. I see tonight a number of posts (including a comment from a GP) raising doubts regarding the mask policy.
Mask wearing by the general public is such a massive error. We need to get back to social distancing.
6 weeks ago I was ridiculed on here by all and sundry for my view that it was a mistake to have enforced mask wearing in UK and that it would lead to an increase in cases. I see tonight a number of posts (including a comment from a GP) raising doubts regarding the mask policy.
Mask wearing by the general public is such a massive error. We need to get back to social distancing.
Sadly the wokeist idiocy has gone global. Plenty of them in the UK too.
But the teaching of history in the UK has to be better than the US - judging from films, it could hardly be worse ...
I had a very expensively-educated US friend at uni who thought that the USA created the first English dictionary and knew the name of the American who (in the 19th century!) created it. As if Dr Johnson never happened. But what he actually knew was when the first American dictionary was created. Not sure what the point is of teaching them that.
It runs both ways. I’ve a degree in history from a reasonably prestigious university and got very sniffy in Boston when I was told that the USS Constitution was the oldest commissioned warship still afloat and loudly claimed it was HMS Victory. I felt a right plonker when the guide pointed out that the Victory is in dry dock,
We’ve all been there, Doug.
You could have confounded him by pointing out that the dock isn’t technically dry, as they have to hose the hull with water to stop it drying out...
Good point but it is stretching the definition of “afloat” a bit...
So? You were having a contest on pedantry. You said Victory was older. He said it was in dry dock. You could point out it’s not a dry dock. THat would confuse him.
Channel your inner Hyufd. You might even enjoy it...
Channel my inner HYUFD? Goodness...
There’s a little bit in all of us I think that hates being wrong...
If you want to go to the pub or have any life at all that's worth living, I suggest you do it now. It's not going to last. We're going into lockdown again.
Logically one would've thought that we're not going back to April, because the country can't afford another lockdown and it would reduce the economy to rubble. In practice, however, the Government are such a completely useless shower that you can imagine them getting us back there through an escalating series of measures. Put simply, I think the longer the testing problems go on for, and the hospital numbers creep up despite the new measures - both of which look highly likely to happen - the more panicky and desperate they will become.
On the one hand, reluctance to impose another lockdown because they don't want to extend the furlough and try to borrow another two or three hundred billion quid to hose the burning economy down with money. On the other hand, increasingly loud screaming from under-pressure hospitals and morgues filling back up with octogenarians. The risk from all this is that they don't administer a single killer blow to the economy, but that they do slowly strangle it to death through salami slicing measures like curfews, more and more picky and restrictive masking rules, and more radical social distancing measures (like dumping the rule of six and just telling people to have no social contact at all with anyone outside their own household, except to attend to essential care needs.)
Meanwhile, it is reported that Sweden - which continues to refuse to force people to go around in masks - has just registered its *lowest* seven-day average value for new cases for six months. The medical profession seems to have made some meaningful progress in terms of treatments for seriously ill patients, but do epidemiologists honestly have a substantially better idea of how this bloody disease works than they did in March?
I just do not understand why parliamentarians are not demanding a full and frank debate on the strategy here during which we have a full discussion of Sweden.
The executive is being left to make a mess of this day after day after day.
I'd start by asking why Carl Heneghan hasn't been co-opted on to SAGE.
They would never dare to entertain the possibility that the Swedes might've been onto something. The Government, the devolved administrations and the entirety of the Commons are all up to their necks in lockdown and the vast economic and social cost of it, the continuing restrictions, and the possibility of worse still to come. If there were even the suspicion that the whole policy had been worse than useless then it would completely destroy any remaining public confidence in Britain's governance and practically all of the people behind it. Everything would burn except the Monarchy.
The current mechanism of imposing draconian restrictions until the problem subsides, easing them and then tightening them again in seemingly endless cycles until a vaccine or a cure is found *might* be the least worst option, but if it turns out not to be then the likelihood of the people who've been enforcing it for all this time admitting the fact is absolutely zero.
"I feel there has been definite “mission creep” in our country’s response to this Covid situation. Initially we were asked to stay home to “flatten the curve” and avoid overwhelming the NHS. Now we no longer concern ourselves with hospital admissions or deaths. We are only interested in “cases” which are detected using flawed methods. We have used case data to implement mandatory masks on public transport, shops and schools with a complete absence of evidence for their effectiveness. Now we are no longer allowed to socialise in groups larger than six. Where is this all going to end? What is our aim with these policies?"
This is precisely what I was saying on here a few nights ago. We started off with flattening the sombrero and now we are in some kind of unspoken zero-covid policy.
Who is in charge of the strategy and what is it? And how do we get out of this if there is no vaccine for another year or two?
We should not allow ourselves to be distracted by Johnson's very dead cat of a WA agreement mess from asking these questions.
More than that, we started out not even aiming to flatten any curve at all. Back at the start of January.
Then covid came along to the UK. The “flatten the curve” strategy was because they thought at the time that fatalities and serious long-term effects would be rare, so the point was to avoid hospitals being overloaded. Then the fatalities turned out to be far higher than anticipated and the “let it rip in a controlled fashion” strategy was abandoned.
But there are still the ones who prefer the surrender-to-the-virus idea (letting it run through until it runs out of victims is just that, of course), and they try to pretend that the change of strategy was arcane and confusing, rather than the subject of announcements in mid-March.
It's not even a new cartoon - just a retweet of one that appeared in December 2019 after the General Election. Which makes it look even more mental in that context.
The willingness of some Germans to compare Britain voting to leave the EU (and then having the audacity to carry it through) to their own Nazi past is quite gobsmacking.
If you want to go to the pub or have any life at all that's worth living, I suggest you do it now. It's not going to last. We're going into lockdown again.
Logically one would've thought that we're not going back to April, because the country can't afford another lockdown and it would reduce the economy to rubble. In practice, however, the Government are such a completely useless shower that you can imagine them getting us back there through an escalating series of measures. Put simply, I think the longer the testing problems go on for, and the hospital numbers creep up despite the new measures - both of which look highly likely to happen - the more panicky and desperate they will become.
On the one hand, reluctance to impose another lockdown because they don't want to extend the furlough and try to borrow another two or three hundred billion quid to hose the burning economy down with money. On the other hand, increasingly loud screaming from under-pressure hospitals and morgues filling back up with octogenarians. The risk from all this is that they don't administer a single killer blow to the economy, but that they do slowly strangle it to death through salami slicing measures like curfews, more and more picky and restrictive masking rules, and more radical social distancing measures (like dumping the rule of six and just telling people to have no social contact at all with anyone outside their own household, except to attend to essential care needs.)
Meanwhile, it is reported that Sweden - which continues to refuse to force people to go around in masks - has just registered its *lowest* seven-day average value for new cases for six months. The medical profession seems to have made some meaningful progress in terms of treatments for seriously ill patients, but do epidemiologists honestly have a substantially better idea of how this bloody disease works than they did in March?
I just do not understand why parliamentarians are not demanding a full and frank debate on the strategy here during which we have a full discussion of Sweden.
The executive is being left to make a mess of this day after day after day.
I'd start by asking why Carl Heneghan hasn't been co-opted on to SAGE.
They would never dare to entertain the possibility that the Swedes might've been onto something. The Government, the devolved administrations and the entirety of the Commons are all up to their necks in lockdown and the vast economic and social cost of it, the continuing restrictions, and the possibility of worse still to come. If there were even the suspicion that the whole policy had been worse than useless then it would completely destroy any remaining public confidence in Britain's governance and practically all of the people behind it. Everything would burn except the Monarchy.
The current mechanism of imposing draconian restrictions until the problem subsides, easing them and then tightening them again in seemingly endless cycles until a vaccine or a cure is found *might* be the least worst option, but if it turns out not to be then the likelihood of the people who've been enforcing it for all this time admitting the fact is absolutely zero.
Sadly the wokeist idiocy has gone global. Plenty of them in the UK too.
But the teaching of history in the UK has to be better than the US - judging from films, it could hardly be worse ...
I had a very expensively-educated US friend at uni who thought that the USA created the first English dictionary and knew the name of the American who (in the 19th century!) created it. As if Dr Johnson never happened. But what he actually knew was when the first American dictionary was created. Not sure what the point is of teaching them that.
It runs both ways. I’ve a degree in history from a reasonably prestigious university and got very sniffy in Boston when I was told that the USS Constitution was the oldest commissioned warship still afloat and loudly claimed it was HMS Victory. I felt a right plonker when the guide pointed out that the Victory is in dry dock,
We’ve all been there, Doug.
You could have confounded him by pointing out that the dock isn’t technically dry, as they have to hose the hull with water to stop it drying out...
Good point but it is stretching the definition of “afloat” a bit...
So? You were having a contest on pedantry. You said Victory was older. He said it was in dry dock. You could point out it’s not a dry dock. THat would confuse him.
Channel your inner Hyufd. You might even enjoy it...
Channel my inner HYUFD? Goodness...
There’s a little bit in all of us I think that hates being wrong...
You get used to it with repeated practice - I know I have!
My take is that what the government is doing on the rule of six very much matches the 2008 bank bailouts in attitude. Now they've had time to look at it, they've opted for household lockdown - save all interaction that puts money into a businesses pocket and bread on their tables, but limit anything that is purely household. They've evolved here via many iterations, but for all its strangenesses it is fairly consistent and it does have a logic and I'm not against the basic idea behind this.
If you want to go to the pub or have any life at all that's worth living, I suggest you do it now. It's not going to last. We're going into lockdown again.
Logically one would've thought that we're not going back to April, because the country can't afford another lockdown and it would reduce the economy to rubble. In practice, however, the Government are such a completely useless shower that you can imagine them getting us back there through an escalating series of measures. Put simply, I think the longer the testing problems go on for, and the hospital numbers creep up despite the new measures - both of which look highly likely to happen - the more panicky and desperate they will become.
On the one hand, reluctance to impose another lockdown because they don't want to extend the furlough and try to borrow another two or three hundred billion quid to hose the burning economy down with money. On the other hand, increasingly loud screaming from under-pressure hospitals and morgues filling back up with octogenarians. The risk from all this is that they don't administer a single killer blow to the economy, but that they do slowly strangle it to death through salami slicing measures like curfews, more and more picky and restrictive masking rules, and more radical social distancing measures (like dumping the rule of six and just telling people to have no social contact at all with anyone outside their own household, except to attend to essential care needs.)
Meanwhile, it is reported that Sweden - which continues to refuse to force people to go around in masks - has just registered its *lowest* seven-day average value for new cases for six months. The medical profession seems to have made some meaningful progress in terms of treatments for seriously ill patients, but do epidemiologists honestly have a substantially better idea of how this bloody disease works than they did in March?
I just do not understand why parliamentarians are not demanding a full and frank debate on the strategy here during which we have a full discussion of Sweden.
The executive is being left to make a mess of this day after day after day.
I'd start by asking why Carl Heneghan hasn't been co-opted on to SAGE.
They would never dare to entertain the possibility that the Swedes might've been onto something. The Government, the devolved administrations and the entirety of the Commons are all up to their necks in lockdown and the vast economic and social cost of it, the continuing restrictions, and the possibility of worse still to come. If there were even the suspicion that the whole policy had been worse than useless then it would completely destroy any remaining public confidence in Britain's governance and practically all of the people behind it. Everything would burn except the Monarchy.
The current mechanism of imposing draconian restrictions until the problem subsides, easing them and then tightening them again in seemingly endless cycles until a vaccine or a cure is found *might* be the least worst option, but if it turns out not to be then the likelihood of the people who've been enforcing it for all this time admitting the fact is absolutely zero.
I think that's overstating the case. They'd just think the Government made a wrong decision. Far better to revise the policy on the basis of new information (if there is new information) than double down.
Are people still eating out to help out now there is no subsidy?
I ate out on a Thursday during the Eat Out campaign. Deliberately. Not only was I giving some dosh to the owner on a new slow night, but as nobody else was there, we ate in relative covid-free security. Well worth an extra £5 each or so on the meal.
My take is that what the government is doing on the rule of six very much matches the 2008 bank bailouts in attitude. Now they've had time to look at it, they've opted for household lockdown - save all interaction that puts money into a businesses pocket and bread on their tables, but limit anything that is purely household. They've evolved here via many iterations, but for all its strangenesses it is fairly consistent and it does have a logic and I'm not against the basic idea behind this.
That's a slightly cynical take, which probably has some basis. Also the number of household interactions is probably a lot higher in total than commercial ones. Given restrictions are made by category not incidents, you can do a lot more virus suppression by banning household visits. Also those household visits won't normally be risk assessed and mitigated unlike most businesses. Granny doesn't wipe down every surface with sanitiser and erect plastic screens.
But Dr Johnson wasn't criticising patriotism. His meaning was that even after all other virtues (honour, chivalry etc.) had been abandoned, patriotism was the last one to go. Most people who quote him now just use it to criticise the notion of patriotism and patriots.
I understand him to mean that appeals to patriotism should not be taken as excuses for bad behaviour - breaking the law, to take a random example. It's not against patriotism, but rather its use as a cover.
If Dr Johnson had said "A scoundrel's last resort is patriotism" it would have been easier for later generations to understand that he was talking about the behaviour of scoundrels, not about the moral worth of patriotism. ISTR making this point in a 6th-form debate about 52 years ago!
Dr Johnson: good at words, crap at word-order.
Takes a brave soul indeed to criticize Samuel Johnson's English!
Again, the good doctor used a witty turn of phrase to make a POLITICAL attack against Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham. When SJ uttered the words in 1775, the noble earl had spent the previous forty years leading the "Patriot Whigs".
The great man (also Dr. Johnson the Lesser) had no problem coming up with an apt sound bite! He knew what he wanted to say, and said it well - so well that we are still saying it, albeit in much different context.
If you want to go to the pub or have any life at all that's worth living, I suggest you do it now. It's not going to last. We're going into lockdown again.
Logically one would've thought that we're not going back to April, because the country can't afford another lockdown and it would reduce the economy to rubble. In practice, however, the Government are such a completely useless shower that you can imagine them getting us back there through an escalating series of measures. Put simply, I think the longer the testing problems go on for, and the hospital numbers creep up despite the new measures - both of which look highly likely to happen - the more panicky and desperate they will become.
On the one hand, reluctance to impose another lockdown because they don't want to extend the furlough and try to borrow another two or three hundred billion quid to hose the burning economy down with money. On the other hand, increasingly loud screaming from under-pressure hospitals and morgues filling back up with octogenarians. The risk from all this is that they don't administer a single killer blow to the economy, but that they do slowly strangle it to death through salami slicing measures like curfews, more and more picky and restrictive masking rules, and more radical social distancing measures (like dumping the rule of six and just telling people to have no social contact at all with anyone outside their own household, except to attend to essential care needs.)
Meanwhile, it is reported that Sweden - which continues to refuse to force people to go around in masks - has just registered its *lowest* seven-day average value for new cases for six months. The medical profession seems to have made some meaningful progress in terms of treatments for seriously ill patients, but do epidemiologists honestly have a substantially better idea of how this bloody disease works than they did in March?
I just do not understand why parliamentarians are not demanding a full and frank debate on the strategy here during which we have a full discussion of Sweden.
The executive is being left to make a mess of this day after day after day.
I'd start by asking why Carl Heneghan hasn't been co-opted on to SAGE.
They would never dare to entertain the possibility that the Swedes might've been onto something.
I wish we locked down as much as the Swedes, banning international flights from outside the EEA early, banning care Holm visits, both of which are still in effect.
6 weeks ago I was ridiculed on here by all and sundry for my view that it was a mistake to have enforced mask wearing in UK and that it would lead to an increase in cases. I see tonight a number of posts (including a comment from a GP) raising doubts regarding the mask policy.
Mask wearing by the general public is such a massive error. We need to get back to social distancing.
It's not even a new cartoon - just a retweet of one that appeared in December 2019 after the General Election. Which makes it look even more mental in that context.
The willingness of some Germans to compare Britain voting to leave the EU (and then having the audacity to carry it through) to their own Nazi past is quite gobsmacking.
When you have a govt that is passing bills to make itself immune to the Rule of Law, abrogating its own treaties, creating an informer network and talking of curfews, the comparison does not look all that much of a stretch.
It's not even a new cartoon - just a retweet of one that appeared in December 2019 after the General Election. Which makes it look even more mental in that context.
Or prescient.
Not entirely prescient by December.
By then, we'd had the Purge, we'd had the Prorogation. Both of which, when you stop and think, or look from outside, were utterly bonkers.
Expelling Churchill's grandson, and the most substantial PM-we-never-had, and a recent Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the engaging future hope because they voted against you? With Johnson's reputation for loyalty?
Closing down Parliament because you can? And shrugging off a unanimous condemnation from the Supreme Court, headed by the excellent Girton Lady with the spider brooch?
This is not normal.
And a plurality of the Great British Public- as is their democratic right- endorsed this with an 80 seat majority.
And other nations- as is their sovereign right- think we've completely lost our national marbles. They might be wrong, but it's not easy to argue with them.
Are people still eating out to help out now there is no subsidy?
I ate out on a Thursday during the Eat Out campaign. Deliberately. Not only was I giving some dosh to the owner on a new slow night, but as nobody else was there, we ate in relative covid-free security. Well worth an extra £5 each or so on the meal.
Only an extra £5 each? Those were cheap meals then!
But seriously - admire your sentiments - we did the same (it cost us a £10 Rishi each though)
6 weeks ago I was ridiculed on here by all and sundry for my view that it was a mistake to have enforced mask wearing in UK and that it would lead to an increase in cases. I see tonight a number of posts (including a comment from a GP) raising doubts regarding the mask policy.
Mask wearing by the general public is such a massive error. We need to get back to social distancing.
We need to do both, South Korea has worn masks from the start and has far fewer cases than Sweden despite a far bigger population while also having a limited lockdown
6 weeks ago I was ridiculed on here by all and sundry for my view that it was a mistake to have enforced mask wearing in UK and that it would lead to an increase in cases. I see tonight a number of posts (including a comment from a GP) raising doubts regarding the mask policy.
Mask wearing by the general public is such a massive error. We need to get back to social distancing.
90% plus compliance in Asda in Fratton at lunchtime today.
People are getting used to wearing them. So long as everyone continues with the other measures too, it can only be a positive.
But Dr Johnson wasn't criticising patriotism. His meaning was that even after all other virtues (honour, chivalry etc.) had been abandoned, patriotism was the last one to go. Most people who quote him now just use it to criticise the notion of patriotism and patriots.
I understand him to mean that appeals to patriotism should not be taken as excuses for bad behaviour - breaking the law, to take a random example. It's not against patriotism, but rather its use as a cover.
If Dr Johnson had said "A scoundrel's last resort is patriotism" it would have been easier for later generations to understand that he was talking about the behaviour of scoundrels, not about the moral worth of patriotism. ISTR making this point in a 6th-form debate about 52 years ago!
Dr Johnson: good at words, crap at word-order.
Takes a brave soul indeed to criticize Samuel Johnson's English!
Again, the good doctor used a witty turn of phrase to make a POLITICAL attack against Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham. When SJ uttered the words in 1775, the noble earl had spent the previous forty years leading the "Patriot Whigs".
The great man (also Dr. Johnson the Lesser) had no problem coming up with an apt sound bite! He knew what he wanted to say, and said it well - so well that we are still saying it, albeit in much different context.
OR is it?
I wasn't being too serious, though I do think Boswell himself had the right attitude: 'I profess to write, not his panegyrick, which must be all praise, but his Life; which, great and good as he was, must not be supposed to be entirely perfect...'
It's not even a new cartoon - just a retweet of one that appeared in December 2019 after the General Election. Which makes it look even more mental in that context.
The willingness of some Germans to compare Britain voting to leave the EU (and then having the audacity to carry it through) to their own Nazi past is quite gobsmacking.
When you have a govt that is passing bills to make itself immune to the Rule of Law, abrogating its own treaties, creating an informer network and talking of curfews, the comparison does not look all that much of a stretch.
To be fair they haven't actually managed to pass the Enabling Act (oops) Internal Markets Act yet.
If you want to go to the pub or have any life at all that's worth living, I suggest you do it now. It's not going to last. We're going into lockdown again.
Logically one would've thought that we're not going back to April, because the country can't afford another lockdown and it would reduce the economy to rubble. In practice, however, the Government are such a completely useless shower that you can imagine them getting us back there through an escalating series of measures. Put simply, I think the longer the testing problems go on for, and the hospital numbers creep up despite the new measures - both of which look highly likely to happen - the more panicky and desperate they will become.
On the one hand, reluctance to impose another lockdown because they don't want to extend the furlough and try to borrow another two or three hundred billion quid to hose the burning economy down with money. On the other hand, increasingly loud screaming from under-pressure hospitals and morgues filling back up with octogenarians. The risk from all this is that they don't administer a single killer blow to the economy, but that they do slowly strangle it to death through salami slicing measures like curfews, more and more picky and restrictive masking rules, and more radical social distancing measures (like dumping the rule of six and just telling people to have no social contact at all with anyone outside their own household, except to attend to essential care needs.)
Meanwhile, it is reported that Sweden - which continues to refuse to force people to go around in masks - has just registered its *lowest* seven-day average value for new cases for six months. The medical profession seems to have made some meaningful progress in terms of treatments for seriously ill patients, but do epidemiologists honestly have a substantially better idea of how this bloody disease works than they did in March?
I just do not understand why parliamentarians are not demanding a full and frank debate on the strategy here during which we have a full discussion of Sweden.
The executive is being left to make a mess of this day after day after day.
I'd start by asking why Carl Heneghan hasn't been co-opted on to SAGE.
They would never dare to entertain the possibility that the Swedes might've been onto something. The Government, the devolved administrations and the entirety of the Commons are all up to their necks in lockdown and the vast economic and social cost of it, the continuing restrictions, and the possibility of worse still to come. If there were even the suspicion that the whole policy had been worse than useless then it would completely destroy any remaining public confidence in Britain's governance and practically all of the people behind it. Everything would burn except the Monarchy.
The current mechanism of imposing draconian restrictions until the problem subsides, easing them and then tightening them again in seemingly endless cycles until a vaccine or a cure is found *might* be the least worst option, but if it turns out not to be then the likelihood of the people who've been enforcing it for all this time admitting the fact is absolutely zero.
This is just wrong. No UK government would have got away with doing a Sweden when no other country in the world was; the pressure to u turn as the numbers rose wouldhave been irresistible. Not that doing a Sweden was as different as people think it was.
6 weeks ago I was ridiculed on here by all and sundry for my view that it was a mistake to have enforced mask wearing in UK and that it would lead to an increase in cases. I see tonight a number of posts (including a comment from a GP) raising doubts regarding the mask policy.
Mask wearing by the general public is such a massive error. We need to get back to social distancing.
I ridiculed you earlier for continuing this ludicrous assertion there is "enforced mask wearing" in the UK. The law abiding people of rural Hampshire may be wearing masks but in inner London they aren't and the whole social distancing/mark wearing ethos is breaking down and to be fair has been since Easter.
The consequence of that has been an increase in cases - as others have pointed out, where mask wearing is more general such as in South Korea, case numbers remain low.
If you want to go to the pub or have any life at all that's worth living, I suggest you do it now. It's not going to last. We're going into lockdown again.
Logically one would've thought that we're not going back to April, because the country can't afford another lockdown and it would reduce the economy to rubble. In practice, however, the Government are such a completely useless shower that you can imagine them getting us back there through an escalating series of measures. Put simply, I think the longer the testing problems go on for, and the hospital numbers creep up despite the new measures - both of which look highly likely to happen - the more panicky and desperate they will become.
On the one hand, reluctance to impose another lockdown because they don't want to extend the furlough and try to borrow another two or three hundred billion quid to hose the burning economy down with money. On the other hand, increasingly loud screaming from under-pressure hospitals and morgues filling back up with octogenarians. The risk from all this is that they don't administer a single killer blow to the economy, but that they do slowly strangle it to death through salami slicing measures like curfews, more and more picky and restrictive masking rules, and more radical social distancing measures (like dumping the rule of six and just telling people to have no social contact at all with anyone outside their own household, except to attend to essential care needs.)
Meanwhile, it is reported that Sweden - which continues to refuse to force people to go around in masks - has just registered its *lowest* seven-day average value for new cases for six months. The medical profession seems to have made some meaningful progress in terms of treatments for seriously ill patients, but do epidemiologists honestly have a substantially better idea of how this bloody disease works than they did in March?
I just do not understand why parliamentarians are not demanding a full and frank debate on the strategy here during which we have a full discussion of Sweden.
The executive is being left to make a mess of this day after day after day.
I'd start by asking why Carl Heneghan hasn't been co-opted on to SAGE.
They would never dare to entertain the possibility that the Swedes might've been onto something. The Government, the devolved administrations and the entirety of the Commons are all up to their necks in lockdown and the vast economic and social cost of it, the continuing restrictions, and the possibility of worse still to come. If there were even the suspicion that the whole policy had been worse than useless then it would completely destroy any remaining public confidence in Britain's governance and practically all of the people behind it. Everything would burn except the Monarchy.
The current mechanism of imposing draconian restrictions until the problem subsides, easing them and then tightening them again in seemingly endless cycles until a vaccine or a cure is found *might* be the least worst option, but if it turns out not to be then the likelihood of the people who've been enforcing it for all this time admitting the fact is absolutely zero.
This is just wrong. No UK government would have got away with doing a Sweden when no other country in the world was; the pressure to u turn as the numbers rose wouldhave been irresistible. Not that doing a Sweden was as different as people think it was.
6 weeks ago I was ridiculed on here by all and sundry for my view that it was a mistake to have enforced mask wearing in UK and that it would lead to an increase in cases. I see tonight a number of posts (including a comment from a GP) raising doubts regarding the mask policy.
Mask wearing by the general public is such a massive error. We need to get back to social distancing.
You were ridiculed for failing to observe that correlation does not always imply causation, and even when it does one has to ask is a causing b or b causing a?
We don't need to get back to social distancing because we never left it. Your theory that mask wearing subverts it looks wrong to me. There's those that both wear masks and observe distancing, and twats who do neither.
But Dr Johnson wasn't criticising patriotism. His meaning was that even after all other virtues (honour, chivalry etc.) had been abandoned, patriotism was the last one to go. Most people who quote him now just use it to criticise the notion of patriotism and patriots.
I understand him to mean that appeals to patriotism should not be taken as excuses for bad behaviour - breaking the law, to take a random example. It's not against patriotism, but rather its use as a cover.
If Dr Johnson had said "A scoundrel's last resort is patriotism" it would have been easier for later generations to understand that he was talking about the behaviour of scoundrels, not about the moral worth of patriotism. ISTR making this point in a 6th-form debate about 52 years ago!
Dr Johnson: good at words, crap at word-order.
Takes a brave soul indeed to criticize Samuel Johnson's English!
Again, the good doctor used a witty turn of phrase to make a POLITICAL attack against Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham. When SJ uttered the words in 1775, the noble earl had spent the previous forty years leading the "Patriot Whigs".
The great man (also Dr. Johnson the Lesser) had no problem coming up with an apt sound bite! He knew what he wanted to say, and said it well - so well that we are still saying it, albeit in much different context.
OR is it?
Samuel Johnson's meaning seems clear to me, so I don't agree with @Alphabet_Soup and @BluestBlue's critique.
Something has just struck me. James Boswell both quoted Johnson then qualified Johnson's remarks to say that he wasn't talking about sincere partiotism. Boswell and Johnson didn't see eye to eye on politics despite being firm friends. Johnson was a high Tory while Boswell was a Whig presumably of the patriotic sort that Johnson despised. It would be in Boswell's character to quote something deprecating to himself. Boswell was completely fascinated by himself but also very self-aware.
Take this with a pinch of salt, purely anecdotal... A friend of my mother's son-in-law came down with Covid-like symptoms last week. He had it earlier in the year - confirmed with antibody test. Troubling if true. Obviously, a sample size of one, but will be interesting to see if any similar stories come to light over the coming months.
The PB.com new look is a great improvement but the loading speeds definitely seem to be slower... which would not be an issue but AFAIK the only way to see new comments is to re-load the page.
I am not complaining - PB is a free service after all but if anyone has any suggestions on changes I could mak to speed things up, I'd be obliged.
In the interests of balance, I feel that lockdown, the range and pace of loosening, and the subsequent tightening has been got broadly correct. Just about the only thing, but nonetheless...
It's not even a new cartoon - just a retweet of one that appeared in December 2019 after the General Election. Which makes it look even more mental in that context.
The willingness of some Germans to compare Britain voting to leave the EU (and then having the audacity to carry it through) to their own Nazi past is quite gobsmacking.
When you have a govt that is passing bills to make itself immune to the Rule of Law, abrogating its own treaties, creating an informer network and talking of curfews, the comparison does not look all that much of a stretch.
Comments
If you want to go to the pub or have any life at all that's worth living, I suggest you do it now. Its not going to last. We're going into lockdown again.
On other hand, it IS possible to have mutually fruitful discussions with most Trumskyites who are sincerely interested in history. For while their politics and/or ideology may be wacked out (from my perspective anyway) they at least appreciate that there is ALWAYS more sides in any controversy - historic OR contemporary.
Biggles he ain't!
Can't think of a better time for them to go out in a blaze of glory than by attempting to keep the government to its word.
Dr Johnson was of course talking about the other Johnson, even though he didn't know him personally.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54161951
On the one hand, reluctance to impose another lockdown because they don't want to extend the furlough and try to borrow another two or three hundred billion quid to hose the burning economy down with money. On the other hand, increasingly loud screaming from under-pressure hospitals and morgues filling back up with octogenarians. The risk from all this is that they don't administer a single killer blow to the economy, but that they do slowly strangle it to death through salami slicing measures like curfews, more and more picky and restrictive masking rules, and more radical social distancing measures (like dumping the rule of six and just telling people to have no social contact at all with anyone outside their own household, except to attend to essential care needs.)
Meanwhile, it is reported that Sweden - which continues to refuse to force people to go around in masks - has just registered its *lowest* seven-day average value for new cases for six months. The medical profession seems to have made some meaningful progress in terms of treatments for seriously ill patients, but do epidemiologists honestly have a substantially better idea of how this bloody disease works than they did in March?
https://twitter.com/ddiamond/status/1305942309821992960
"I feel there has been definite “mission creep” in our country’s response to this Covid situation. Initially we were asked to stay home to “flatten the curve” and avoid overwhelming the NHS. Now we no longer concern ourselves with hospital admissions or deaths. We are only interested in “cases” which are detected using flawed methods. We have used case data to implement mandatory masks on public transport, shops and schools with a complete absence of evidence for their effectiveness. Now we are no longer allowed to socialise in groups larger than six. Where is this all going to end? What is our aim with these policies?"
https://lockdownsceptics.org/
This is precisely what I was saying on here a few nights ago. We started off with flattening the sombrero and now we are in some kind of unspoken zero-covid policy.
Who is in charge of the strategy and what is it? And how do we get out of this if there is no vaccine for another year or two?
We should not allow ourselves to be distracted by Johnson's very dead cat of a WA agreement mess from asking these questions.
The executive is being left to make a mess of this day after day after day.
I'd start by asking why Carl Heneghan hasn't been co-opted on to SAGE.
The train journeys in and out of the capital in both directions were generally quiet, except for the GWR going from Paddington to Swansea at Saturday lunchtime, which was about half-full: I wouldn't be at all surprised if the trains are now busier at the weekends with visits to friends and family than they are during the week with office workers. The journey through London was OK on Saturday, but awful this afternoon. I shan't bore you with the details: suffice it to say that it was a fresh reminder of why I hate London. There's a lot there that's worth visiting, but having to haul yourself in, out and around the wretched place is a nightmarish experience. If it wasn't sometimes necessary to travel through it to get somewhere else then I might never set foot there again.
https://twitter.com/JenWilliamsMEN/status/1305872181616881665
I am contemplating two weeks self isolation before Christmas so that I can see my folks properly, with a hug, Christmas cheer etc. Anything else will be grim...
You could have confounded him by pointing out that the dock isn’t technically dry, as they have to hose the hull with water to stop it drying out...
"A senior member of the government told me he was acutely aware of the scientists’ concern. 'There is no possibility of us waiting for the death rate to rise before we act"
So positive tests rates rise but deaths don't but we shut down everything anyway. And what if many of these + results are false? See Heneghan's discussions of this e.g. https://www.cebm.net/2020/09/pitfalls-of-repeat-testing-illustrated-with-the-house-of-commons/
Edit - what’s the penalty of bigamy?
Two mothers in law.
Channel your inner Hyufd. You might even enjoy it...
Makes me question my music taste
Mask wearing by the general public is such a massive error. We need to get back to social distancing.
The current mechanism of imposing draconian restrictions until the problem subsides, easing them and then tightening them again in seemingly endless cycles until a vaccine or a cure is found *might* be the least worst option, but if it turns out not to be then the likelihood of the people who've been enforcing it for all this time admitting the fact is absolutely zero.
Then covid came along to the UK. The “flatten the curve” strategy was because they thought at the time that fatalities and serious long-term effects would be rare, so the point was to avoid hospitals being overloaded. Then the fatalities turned out to be far higher than anticipated and the “let it rip in a controlled fashion” strategy was abandoned.
But there are still the ones who prefer the surrender-to-the-virus idea (letting it run through until it runs out of victims is just that, of course), and they try to pretend that the change of strategy was arcane and confusing, rather than the subject of announcements in mid-March.
Again, the good doctor used a witty turn of phrase to make a POLITICAL attack against Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham. When SJ uttered the words in 1775, the noble earl had spent the previous forty years leading the "Patriot Whigs".
The great man (also Dr. Johnson the Lesser) had no problem coming up with an apt sound bite! He knew what he wanted to say, and said it well - so well that we are still saying it, albeit in much different context.
OR is it?
By then, we'd had the Purge, we'd had the Prorogation. Both of which, when you stop and think, or look from outside, were utterly bonkers.
Expelling Churchill's grandson, and the most substantial PM-we-never-had, and a recent Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the engaging future hope because they voted against you? With Johnson's reputation for loyalty?
Closing down Parliament because you can? And shrugging off a unanimous condemnation from the Supreme Court, headed by the excellent Girton Lady with the spider brooch?
This is not normal.
And a plurality of the Great British Public- as is their democratic right- endorsed this with an 80 seat majority.
And other nations- as is their sovereign right- think we've completely lost our national marbles. They might be wrong, but it's not easy to argue with them.
But seriously - admire your sentiments - we did the same (it cost us a £10 Rishi each though)
People are getting used to wearing them. So long as everyone continues with the other measures too, it can only be a positive.
Here in Dorset it has felt pretty safe with low infection rates and good social distancing in the restaurants we've visited.
The consequence of that has been an increase in cases - as others have pointed out, where mask wearing is more general such as in South Korea, case numbers remain low.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8736507/Jim-Davidson-sparks-Twitter-fury-racist-YouTube-rant.html
We don't need to get back to social distancing because we never left it. Your theory that mask wearing subverts it looks wrong to me. There's those that both wear masks and observe distancing, and twats who do neither.
As they are voting for the other guy that seems a good sentiment.
and it isn't even a real photo, its a 3d mock up made by an artist.
Something has just struck me. James Boswell both quoted Johnson then qualified Johnson's remarks to say that he wasn't talking about sincere partiotism. Boswell and Johnson didn't see eye to eye on politics despite being firm friends. Johnson was a high Tory while Boswell was a Whig presumably of the patriotic sort that Johnson despised. It would be in Boswell's character to quote something deprecating to himself. Boswell was completely fascinated by himself but also very self-aware.
https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1305714354067828737
I am not complaining - PB is a free service after all but if anyone has any suggestions on changes I could mak to speed things up, I'd be obliged.
Just about the only thing, but nonetheless...