It's interesting that the Government keeps referring to the "North East Combined Authority" when in fact Newcastle upon Tyne, North Tyneside, and Northumberland left the North East Combined Authority in November 2018.
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory all the time. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
This is a Vernichtungskrieg and we're going to win.
... said Hitler in 1941.
The right lost that one too 🤣
No the National Socialists lost.
Churchill didn't lose - and the UK won as an across the board national coalition.
The war ended with PM Attlee, not Churchill 🙄
Yes when the Japanese fell.
The National Socialists were defeated, Hitler died and Berlin fell under Churchill, in coalition with Attlee. Of course the UK continued to be involved in the far East but I don't believe Attlee rather than Churchill was critically instrumental in the usage of the nuclear weapons in Japan or ending the war there.
On the question of vaccine rollout, which vaccine and so on and so forth I'd hope the gov't would be employing the services/awaiting peer reviewed work by professors of medical statistics to calculate efficacy, population efficacy, safety and so forth. Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
I think one thing people are missing here is that Moderna as are taking orders from private sector companies as well as governments. A very large number of tech companies and banks are going to get the Moderna vaccine for their employees from Q1 in the US and Q2 in Europe. That will change the government's roll out scheme as a whole host of 24-50 year olds in the private sector might already be vaccinated.
Do you think the UK government is going to allow private import of vaccines, and a grey market to develop? The political optics of that are absolutely terrible, the headlines would write themselves.
Why the hell is Q2 data being used in November against total deaths past Q2?
That is not comparing like-for-like at all.
Because not all countries have published data for Q3 yet, duh. If you used the IMF's forecasts for 2020 as a whole the chart wouldn't look much different. In particular, the UK would still look shit. Because your boys have fucked this up big time.
Did you actually check that before you said it?
IMF forecasts for 2020 (WEO October 2020):
US -4.3% Germany -6.0 Canada -7.1 UK -9.8 France -9.8 Italy -10.6 Spain -12.8
UK decidedly middling.
Put it together with terrible Covid stats and we are bang in the bottom left quadrant of the chart, only Italy worse in the G7, just like if you use the Q2 numbers. Which is exactly the point I was making.
Would you have a view on how much of the economic side is down to UK pre existing structural issues making us prone to a pandemic and how much down to this years policies?
Interesting question. Austerity, poor quality housing and poor health outcomes generally I think left us vulnerable. We were too slow to lockdown and cut off infections from abroad which meant we had to lock down in a more destructive way once we did. Unforgivable given we had more advance warning than most countries on the Continent. Track and trace has been a disaster but that has been true in other Western countries I think. Mixed messaging eg Barnard Castle hasn't helped. I think more local capacity to fight this would have been really helpful, austerity has decimated local govt and I think that has been a big factor. The care homes issue is a big cause of the high death toll but probably marginal on the economic front. We seem to be doing better in this wave, thankfully. We really must learn lessons from this incident, we are very much in the lower tier in terms of response - whether we are the absolute worst or not when the dust settles is neither here nor there.
On topic, I like a description I'd heard of the upcoming demographic issues with a big increase of the elderly, as a 'Silver Tsunami'. Sounds better than 'Grey Bomb'.
Mancock announcing that we're not continuing the national restrictions. So instead of lockdown where the pubs are closed and its illegal to see my family and friends in the various places they live, I will instead be enjoying the pubs being closed and it being illegal to see my family and friends.
What a relief that lockdown is about to end.
Though shops will be reopening, so even Tier 3 is less stringent than the national lockdown was.
Tier 3 areas will surely most likely be kept in Tier 3 until after Christmas now?
Philip I can hardly find a shop that has been closed. They've all declared themselves "essential". Toy Shops fully open. Essential. Even the likes of Matalan and Currys are open the same hours as they were before on a "stand outside the shop place an order and they carry it out to you basis".
There's a difference between being open for collection only and open properly.
Especially in December!
Shoppers hanging around outdoors will have a low contribution to R so all in favour of shops selling what they can like that. Are they allowed the same trick in shopping centres - I guess so, and that is a bit more problematic if they get busy with Xmas shoppers.
Any chance of creating a homeland on Antartica for the culture warriors, where they can throw their childish insults at each other while the rest of us get on with our lives?
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
Defund the police almost got us a second term of Trump ! The detail, as proposed by obvious moderates such as Biden himself was a good idea (Shifting burden to MH services and so forth) but proposing cuts to police is never a good idea politically as May found out in 2017. One of those if you're explaining, you're losing.
The changes that the US police are resisting making are very largely the ones that have been done, years ago in the UK.
- Increased educational requirements - Background checks on recruits - Training in conflict de-escalation - Cracking down on internal racism - Expecting that "social work" is part of policing*.
This is not to say that UK policing is perfect. Just that US policing is a long, long way behind on the modern ideas of policing.
*A local PCSO is a perfect example of this - she systematically goes round checking on the 3-4 regular rough sleepers. Not hassling them, checking if they are OK, dealing with the conflicts with the people trying to muscle in on the Big Issue pitches etc.
The US police, most obviously the NYPD seem actively to be on the MAGA side in the riots/protests and so forth. Now obviously there's a whole bunch of wrong'uns amongst Antifa (pretty much all of them) but there's an obvious antagonistic element to the policing which isn't really here in the UK.
The police really should be neutral to BLM/anti-lockdown protest (Here in the UK they've been a bit on the other side) - but in the US it's been really really blatant and at the end of the day that's not good for the police or community.
On the question of vaccine rollout, which vaccine and so on and so forth I'd hope the gov't would be employing the services/awaiting peer reviewed work by professors of medical statistics to calculate efficacy, population efficacy, safety and so forth. Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
I think one thing people are missing here is that Moderna as are taking orders from private sector companies as well as governments. A very large number of tech companies and banks are going to get the Moderna vaccine for their employees from Q1 in the US and Q2 in Europe. That will change the government's roll out scheme as a whole host of 24-50 year olds in the private sector might already be vaccinated.
There is also the matter of pace - once the vaccines are available, they are talking about vaccinating 3-4 million+ per week via the public route.
At that rate, simply using the NHS flu lists first (elderly and vulnerable) then opening it up to everyone may be simpler than trying to construct a more elaborate methodology.
Why the hell is Q2 data being used in November against total deaths past Q2?
That is not comparing like-for-like at all.
Because not all countries have published data for Q3 yet, duh. If you used the IMF's forecasts for 2020 as a whole the chart wouldn't look much different. In particular, the UK would still look shit. Because your boys have fucked this up big time.
Did you actually check that before you said it?
IMF forecasts for 2020 (WEO October 2020):
US -4.3% Germany -6.0 Canada -7.1 UK -9.8 France -9.8 Italy -10.6 Spain -12.8
UK decidedly middling.
Put it together with terrible Covid stats and we are bang in the bottom left quadrant of the chart, only Italy worse in the G7, just like if you use the Q2 numbers. Which is exactly the point I was making.
Would you have a view on how much of the economic side is down to UK pre existing structural issues making us prone to a pandemic and how much down to this years policies?
Interesting question. Austerity, poor quality housing and poor health outcomes generally I think left us vulnerable. We were too slow to lockdown and cut off infections from abroad which meant we had to lock down in a more destructive way once we did. Unforgivable given we had more advance warning than most countries on the Continent. Track and trace has been a disaster but that has been true in other Western countries I think. Mixed messaging eg Barnard Castle hasn't helped. I think more local capacity to fight this would have been really helpful, austerity has decimated local govt and I think that has been a big factor. The care homes issue is a big cause of the high death toll but probably marginal on the economic front. We seem to be doing better in this wave, thankfully. We really must learn lessons from this incident, we are very much in the lower tier in terms of response - whether we are the absolute worst or not when the dust settles is neither here nor there.
Thanks, and agree very much on the local capacity and infrastructure. It seems simple things like regulating what happens within bars or restaurants are beyond us, whereas other countries have local police or officials who are more active. We just create law after law with little thought of how they can be enforced or by whom.
On the question of vaccine rollout, which vaccine and so on and so forth I'd hope the gov't would be employing the services/awaiting peer reviewed work by professors of medical statistics to calculate efficacy, population efficacy, safety and so forth. Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
I think one thing people are missing here is that Moderna as are taking orders from private sector companies as well as governments. A very large number of tech companies and banks are going to get the Moderna vaccine for their employees from Q1 in the US and Q2 in Europe. That will change the government's roll out scheme as a whole host of 24-50 year olds in the private sector might already be vaccinated.
Do you think the UK government is going to allow private import of vaccines, and allow a grey market to exist? The political optics of that are absolutely terrible, the headlines would write themselves.
I'm not sure that they can, ultimately if the Moderna vaccine receives MHRA approval then it's going to be very difficult to stop companies from getting it. Additionally I don't think they'll want to as it relieves the pressure on the state scheme and companies in the US will be going great guns with employee vaccination as it comes with gigantic economic benefits.
In some ways having companies do it privately is a shortcut to reviving inner city economies such as London, Manchester, Edinburgh etc... which have been struggling without office workers.
Why the hell is Q2 data being used in November against total deaths past Q2?
That is not comparing like-for-like at all.
Because not all countries have published data for Q3 yet, duh. If you used the IMF's forecasts for 2020 as a whole the chart wouldn't look much different. In particular, the UK would still look shit. Because your boys have fucked this up big time.
Did you actually check that before you said it?
IMF forecasts for 2020 (WEO October 2020):
US -4.3% Germany -6.0 Canada -7.1 UK -9.8 France -9.8 Italy -10.6 Spain -12.8
UK decidedly middling.
Put it together with terrible Covid stats and we are bang in the bottom left quadrant of the chart, only Italy worse in the G7, just like if you use the Q2 numbers. Which is exactly the point I was making.
Would you have a view on how much of the economic side is down to UK pre existing structural issues making us prone to a pandemic and how much down to this years policies?
Interesting question. Austerity, poor quality housing and poor health outcomes generally I think left us vulnerable. We were too slow to lockdown and cut off infections from abroad which meant we had to lock down in a more destructive way once we did. Unforgivable given we had more advance warning than most countries on the Continent. Track and trace has been a disaster but that has been true in other Western countries I think. Mixed messaging eg Barnard Castle hasn't helped. I think more local capacity to fight this would have been really helpful, austerity has decimated local govt and I think that has been a big factor. The care homes issue is a big cause of the high death toll but probably marginal on the economic front. We seem to be doing better in this wave, thankfully. We really must learn lessons from this incident, we are very much in the lower tier in terms of response - whether we are the absolute worst or not when the dust settles is neither here nor there.
Thanks, and agree very much on the local capacity and infrastructure. It seems simple things like regulating what happens within bars or restaurants are beyond us, whereas other countries have local police or officials who are more active. We just create law after law with little thought of how they can be enforced or by whom.
Exactly. They can't be enforced because councils are broke and can barely meet their statutory responsibilities in areas like adult social care and collect the bins.
Any chance of creating a homeland on Antartica for the culture warriors, where they can throw their childish insults at each other while the rest of us get on with our lives?
It's called twitter.
Farcebook it were they scribble in long form....
Emperor Penguins have a hard life as it is. Making them live with the Twatter mobs would be really, really nasty.
On the question of vaccine rollout, which vaccine and so on and so forth I'd hope the gov't would be employing the services/awaiting peer reviewed work by professors of medical statistics to calculate efficacy, population efficacy, safety and so forth. Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
You clearly have no idea how the MHRA works. This is exactly what is being done right now. The press releases are media fluff, the actual approval depends on a few highly specialised experts in the field. Not long to wait now.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
Which is why you replace not abolish
I haven’t done the numbers but how about linking it in some way to the minimum wage?
Have Betfair paid out on the result of that match yet?
I realise that Betfair paying out is a joke, but it has made me think about how much the world has changed in such a short time. As I watched Maradonna's hand go up it was the month I turned 18 and 3 months before I started uni. The only people who had computers at home were a few teenagers like me and the odd self employed person being adventurous with their accounting methods. The graphics in Donkey Kong were sophisticated. As good as no-one had access to the outside world via a network. At uni the multiuser (multics) computers were huge monsters of integrated circuit boards and wires filling a large room and they broke down almost every hour. The reseachers were just starting to get workstations, one for each small group, if they worked in a field that required number crunching. The idea of Betfair in 1986 was totally unimaginable.
In 2006 just 20 years later, when the big World Cup news involved a bald head rather than an Argentinian hand, Betfair was already well established. Most people had some kind of computer at home with broadband access to the rest of the world. The numeric and graphical power of one laptop in 2006 was more than the Multics campus wide computers of the mid 80's.
Since then the changes have been less visible at the PC/Laptop level (although a lot of progress has been made) and of course the big development has been with smartphones. Everyone is online. Most people are at a loss if they have to spend a day at home offline. It is now quite difficult to imagine just how unconnected the world was when I first went to uni, and just how much it has changed since then.
If you want a nostalgic quirky TV series on PC development I would definitely recommend Halt and Catch Fire on Amazon Prime.
A plane just landed in Tel Aviv from Dubai, the first scheduled passenger service between a Gulf Arab country and Israel, and following normalisation of diplomatic relations between the UAE and Israel a couple of months ago. It was met by president Netanyahu.
On the question of vaccine rollout, which vaccine and so on and so forth I'd hope the gov't would be employing the services/awaiting peer reviewed work by professors of medical statistics to calculate efficacy, population efficacy, safety and so forth. Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
You clearly have no idea how the MHRA works. This is exactly what is being done right now. The press releases are media fluff, the actual approval depends on a few highly specialised experts in the field. Not long to wait now.
I don't even know without googling what MHRA stands for, was simply stating my opinion on how I believe things should work. That it apparently is being done this way is undoubtedly a 'good thing'.
I think you've read into my comment more than I've written.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
Which is why you replace not abolish
I haven’t done the numbers but how about linking it in some way to the minimum wage?
Anything that means some people get less would be called outrage. I'm very cynical when it comes to grey vote incentives.
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory all the time. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
This is a Vernichtungskrieg and we're going to win.
... said Hitler in 1941.
The right lost that one too 🤣
No the National Socialists lost.
Churchill didn't lose - and the UK won as an across the board national coalition.
The war ended with PM Attlee, not Churchill 🙄
And the British empire, industry, and public finances variously lost, on the way out, worn out and knackered. The first at least was rather important to Mr Churchill.
Edit: not that anyone remotely of his persuasion had any choice. But it's certainly possibvle to argue that the British lost the war as well.
Looking beyond Poland's independence (lost) and retaining the Empire (lost, and a good thing it was), the thing that Britain won due to fighting the war was freedom from Nazi subjugation.
That's definitely a win, even if the price was high.
Here’s some polling for them to get their metropolitan liberal heads around:
Don't be such a tit. The government is full of "metropolitan liberals". The Prime Minister is one of them for goodness sake.
Stop ramping your stupid culture war.
LOL. One poll shows 66/18 and the other 59/17 in favour of cutting the aid budget.
Dare I suggest that a poll asking the same question in marginal seats in the Midlands and North might be even more in favour of the cuts.
It’s something that only rich metropolitan types, operating at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, care about. The rest of the country thinks that such money is better spent domestically at a time of crisis - especially when it’s borrowed money that your generation will have to pay back.
Rich metropolitan types like uh, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak? Get a grip man.
No one is doubting the polling that the country is in favour of the policy - of course they are. What point are you trying to make?
Other than an opportunity to get a snide culture war reference in, of course.
The only people pushing the Culture War narrative are the left.
My point is that everyone in politics and media is talking about this and almost nothing else this morning, while most of the country are laughing at them and supporting the government.
You push the Culture War narrative constantly. Ergo your post is total bollocks.
I believe in freedom of speech, if that’s what you mean.
The post is total truth, cutting state aid is the single most popular policy this government is enacting. Too many in the media never speak to people who don’t live in Islington.
I also believe in freedom of speech. I also agree that cutting the aid budget is very popular. So what is your point?
You still push the culture war narrative constantly, in almost all of your posts. It's pretty despicable really.
Meanwhile, back in 1939....
UK: 'I say, your subjugation of Poland could be considered a bit much. Would you mind backing off and returning to normal, civilized behaviour'?
Germany: 'How very despicable of you to point that out! Now we will do it more!'
What exactly are you equating to the Nazis?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
That's quite the hysterical take.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
For fuck's sake man up. How exactly did the Edward Colston event affect you?
"...what they did in one year..." boo fucking hoo. Come out from under the table.
Not exactly a raging example of muscular Conservativism are you?
Absolutely, "snowflake" is the modern vernacular I believe.
This is a little disingenuous as a line of argument. By definition, 'culture' is not an immediate bread and butter issue for most people. However, cultural trends are important in the medium to long term for all of us. It isn't reasonable to expect anyone to just depart from the cultural debate and let the other side make all the running because 'it doesn't affect you'. The statue of Edward Colston being present didn't have a material effect on anyone either.
Not at all, anyone on either side bringing up their hurt about Colston statue in a discussion about foreign aid is a snowflake (imo). It is just not relevant.
Anyone on either side bringing up their hurt about Colston statue in a debate about statues, fair enough.
And, just to assuage the feelings of the right, many of those being cancelled were politically on the left 😉
UCL relabelled the Pearson buildings -- Karl Pearson was a prominent socialist and friend of Karl Marx.
Marie Stopes International renamed itself in November -- Marie Stopes described herself as a "socialist and extreme feminist".
Margaret Sanger building was renamed in NYC -- Sanger was a left-wing heroine of the civil rights movement.
Given the prevalence of eugenics in intellectual left-wing circles in the 1920s/1930s, in the Labour Party and especially the Liberal Party (through their connections with the Darwin family) -- we should soon have a whole generation of left-wing intellectuals/politicians cancelled.
We have yet to really start on the renaming of the eugenicists -- HG Wells, GB Shaw, almost the whole Bloomsbury group, J. Maynard Keynes.
Plenty for our iconoclastic fury. Plenty on the left for renaming as well, to cheer up BluestBlue.
Cornwall in Tier 1 - yet has a 100-man outbreak at a Bodmin meat processing plant.
Go figure. (Maybe there is a benefit in having only Conservative MPs in your county when it comes to lobbying....)
Hancock just said outbreaks are a specific factor they're looking at, eg other data might suggest Tier 3 but if there's a specific outbreak then it might be Tier 2.
On the question of vaccine rollout, which vaccine and so on and so forth I'd hope the gov't would be employing the services/awaiting peer reviewed work by professors of medical statistics to calculate efficacy, population efficacy, safety and so forth. Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
I think one thing people are missing here is that Moderna as are taking orders from private sector companies as well as governments. A very large number of tech companies and banks are going to get the Moderna vaccine for their employees from Q1 in the US and Q2 in Europe. That will change the government's roll out scheme as a whole host of 24-50 year olds in the private sector might already be vaccinated.
Do you think the UK government is going to allow private import of vaccines, and allow a grey market to exist? The political optics of that are absolutely terrible, the headlines would write themselves.
I'm not sure that they can, ultimately if the Moderna vaccine receives MHRA approval then it's going to be very difficult to stop companies from getting it. Additionally I don't think they'll want to as it relieves the pressure on the state scheme and companies in the US will be going great guns with employee vaccination as it comes with gigantic economic benefits.
In some ways having companies do it privately is a shortcut to reviving inner city economies such as London, Manchester, Edinburgh etc... which have been struggling without office workers.
I don't disagree, but they're more likely want to commandeer any vaccines for the elderly while there is limited supply.
Anything that looks like some people able to bypass the queue, will be an utter nightmare politically for the government.
On the question of vaccine rollout, which vaccine and so on and so forth I'd hope the gov't would be employing the services/awaiting peer reviewed work by professors of medical statistics to calculate efficacy, population efficacy, safety and so forth. Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
I think one thing people are missing here is that Moderna as are taking orders from private sector companies as well as governments. A very large number of tech companies and banks are going to get the Moderna vaccine for their employees from Q1 in the US and Q2 in Europe. That will change the government's roll out scheme as a whole host of 24-50 year olds in the private sector might already be vaccinated.
Do you think the UK government is going to allow private import of vaccines, and allow a grey market to exist? The political optics of that are absolutely terrible, the headlines would write themselves.
I'm not sure that they can, ultimately if the Moderna vaccine receives MHRA approval then it's going to be very difficult to stop companies from getting it. Additionally I don't think they'll want to as it relieves the pressure on the state scheme and companies in the US will be going great guns with employee vaccination as it comes with gigantic economic benefits.
In some ways having companies do it privately is a shortcut to reviving inner city economies such as London, Manchester, Edinburgh etc... which have been struggling without office workers.
I don't disagree, but they're more likely want to commandeer any vaccines for the elderly while there is limited supply.
Anything that looks like some people able to bypass the queue, will be an utter nightmare politically for the government.
It is worth noting that N95 masks were being... appropriated on import by the government earlier in the year. Seized by Customs....
Why the hell is Q2 data being used in November against total deaths past Q2?
That is not comparing like-for-like at all.
Because not all countries have published data for Q3 yet, duh. If you used the IMF's forecasts for 2020 as a whole the chart wouldn't look much different. In particular, the UK would still look shit. Because your boys have fucked this up big time.
Did you actually check that before you said it?
IMF forecasts for 2020 (WEO October 2020):
US -4.3% Germany -6.0 Canada -7.1 UK -9.8 France -9.8 Italy -10.6 Spain -12.8
UK decidedly middling.
Put it together with terrible Covid stats and we are bang in the bottom left quadrant of the chart, only Italy worse in the G7, just like if you use the Q2 numbers. Which is exactly the point I was making.
Would you have a view on how much of the economic side is down to UK pre existing structural issues making us prone to a pandemic and how much down to this years policies?
Interesting question. Austerity, poor quality housing and poor health outcomes generally I think left us vulnerable. We were too slow to lockdown and cut off infections from abroad which meant we had to lock down in a more destructive way once we did. Unforgivable given we had more advance warning than most countries on the Continent. Track and trace has been a disaster but that has been true in other Western countries I think. Mixed messaging eg Barnard Castle hasn't helped. I think more local capacity to fight this would have been really helpful, austerity has decimated local govt and I think that has been a big factor. The care homes issue is a big cause of the high death toll but probably marginal on the economic front. We seem to be doing better in this wave, thankfully. We really must learn lessons from this incident, we are very much in the lower tier in terms of response - whether we are the absolute worst or not when the dust settles is neither here nor there.
I know Barnard Castle constantly gets brought up, but my sense is that the overwhelming majority thought it was wrong, he should have been sacked/resigned, but don't use it as an excuse to break rules themselves. Those that do break rules and bring it up, I am convinced, would have done it anyway, and its just a convenient thing to say.
Here’s some polling for them to get their metropolitan liberal heads around:
Don't be such a tit. The government is full of "metropolitan liberals". The Prime Minister is one of them for goodness sake.
Stop ramping your stupid culture war.
LOL. One poll shows 66/18 and the other 59/17 in favour of cutting the aid budget.
Dare I suggest that a poll asking the same question in marginal seats in the Midlands and North might be even more in favour of the cuts.
It’s something that only rich metropolitan types, operating at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, care about. The rest of the country thinks that such money is better spent domestically at a time of crisis - especially when it’s borrowed money that your generation will have to pay back.
Rich metropolitan types like uh, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak? Get a grip man.
No one is doubting the polling that the country is in favour of the policy - of course they are. What point are you trying to make?
Other than an opportunity to get a snide culture war reference in, of course.
The only people pushing the Culture War narrative are the left.
My point is that everyone in politics and media is talking about this and almost nothing else this morning, while most of the country are laughing at them and supporting the government.
You push the Culture War narrative constantly. Ergo your post is total bollocks.
I believe in freedom of speech, if that’s what you mean.
The post is total truth, cutting state aid is the single most popular policy this government is enacting. Too many in the media never speak to people who don’t live in Islington.
I also believe in freedom of speech. I also agree that cutting the aid budget is very popular. So what is your point?
You still push the culture war narrative constantly, in almost all of your posts. It's pretty despicable really.
Meanwhile, back in 1939....
UK: 'I say, your subjugation of Poland could be considered a bit much. Would you mind backing off and returning to normal, civilized behaviour'?
Germany: 'How very despicable of you to point that out! Now we will do it more!'
What exactly are you equating to the Nazis?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
That's quite the hysterical take.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
For fuck's sake man up. How exactly did the Edward Colston event affect you?
"...what they did in one year..." boo fucking hoo. Come out from under the table.
Not exactly a raging example of muscular Conservativism are you?
Absolutely, "snowflake" is the modern vernacular I believe.
This is a little disingenuous as a line of argument. By definition, 'culture' is not an immediate bread and butter issue for most people. However, cultural trends are important in the medium to long term for all of us. It isn't reasonable to expect anyone to just depart from the cultural debate and let the other side make all the running because 'it doesn't affect you'. The statue of Edward Colston being present didn't have a material effect on anyone either.
Not at all, anyone on either side bringing up their hurt about Colston statue in a discussion about foreign aid is a snowflake (imo). It is just not relevant.
Anyone on either side bringing up their hurt about Colston statue in a debate about statues, fair enough.
And, just to assuage the feelings of the right, many of those being cancelled were politically on the left 😉
UCL relabelled the Pearson buildings -- Karl Pearson was a prominent socialist and friend of Karl Marx.
Marie Stopes International renamed itself in November -- Marie Stopes described herself as a "socialist and extreme feminist".
Margaret Sanger building was renamed in NYC -- Sanger was a left-wing heroine of the civil rights movement.
Given the prevalence of eugenics in intellectual left-wing circles in the 1920s/1930s, in the Labour Party and especially the Liberal Party (through their connections with the Darwin family) -- we should soon have a whole generation of left-wing intellectuals/politicians cancelled.
We have yet to really start on the renaming of the eugenicists -- HG Wells, GB Shaw, almost the whole Bloomsbury group, J. Maynard Keynes.
Plenty for our iconoclastic fury. Plenty on the left for renaming as well, to cheer up BluestBlue.
Here’s some polling for them to get their metropolitan liberal heads around:
Don't be such a tit. The government is full of "metropolitan liberals". The Prime Minister is one of them for goodness sake.
Stop ramping your stupid culture war.
LOL. One poll shows 66/18 and the other 59/17 in favour of cutting the aid budget.
Dare I suggest that a poll asking the same question in marginal seats in the Midlands and North might be even more in favour of the cuts.
It’s something that only rich metropolitan types, operating at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, care about. The rest of the country thinks that such money is better spent domestically at a time of crisis - especially when it’s borrowed money that your generation will have to pay back.
Rich metropolitan types like uh, Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak? Get a grip man.
No one is doubting the polling that the country is in favour of the policy - of course they are. What point are you trying to make?
Other than an opportunity to get a snide culture war reference in, of course.
The only people pushing the Culture War narrative are the left.
My point is that everyone in politics and media is talking about this and almost nothing else this morning, while most of the country are laughing at them and supporting the government.
You push the Culture War narrative constantly. Ergo your post is total bollocks.
I believe in freedom of speech, if that’s what you mean.
The post is total truth, cutting state aid is the single most popular policy this government is enacting. Too many in the media never speak to people who don’t live in Islington.
I also believe in freedom of speech. I also agree that cutting the aid budget is very popular. So what is your point?
You still push the culture war narrative constantly, in almost all of your posts. It's pretty despicable really.
Meanwhile, back in 1939....
UK: 'I say, your subjugation of Poland could be considered a bit much. Would you mind backing off and returning to normal, civilized behaviour'?
Germany: 'How very despicable of you to point that out! Now we will do it more!'
What exactly are you equating to the Nazis?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
That's quite the hysterical take.
What a surprise that you'd like to minimize the reality. 2020 was the year of a major left offensive in the culture war. BLM, 'Defund the Police', decapitating statues or throwing them in the river, taking cancel culture to ludicrous new heights - the British Library putting Ted Hughes on a list because his ancestors allegedly owned slaves in 1592 was a particularly brainless highlight - and now crying because the UK will still be borrowing £10 billion a year just to give it away.
That was just a small sample of what they did in one year, but apparently even mentioning it is 'despicable' now ... apparently.
For fuck's sake man up. How exactly did the Edward Colston event affect you?
"...what they did in one year..." boo fucking hoo. Come out from under the table.
Not exactly a raging example of muscular Conservativism are you?
Absolutely, "snowflake" is the modern vernacular I believe.
This is a little disingenuous as a line of argument. By definition, 'culture' is not an immediate bread and butter issue for most people. However, cultural trends are important in the medium to long term for all of us. It isn't reasonable to expect anyone to just depart from the cultural debate and let the other side make all the running because 'it doesn't affect you'. The statue of Edward Colston being present didn't have a material effect on anyone either.
Not at all, anyone on either side bringing up their hurt about Colston statue in a discussion about foreign aid is a snowflake (imo). It is just not relevant.
Anyone on either side bringing up their hurt about Colston statue in a debate about statues, fair enough.
And, just to assuage the feelings of the right, many of those being cancelled were politically on the left 😉
UCL relabelled the Pearson buildings -- Karl Pearson was a prominent socialist and friend of Karl Marx.
Marie Stopes International renamed itself in November -- Marie Stopes described herself as a "socialist and extreme feminist".
Margaret Sanger building was renamed in NYC -- Sanger was a left-wing heroine of the civil rights movement.
Given the prevalence of eugenics in intellectual left-wing circles in the 1920s/1930s, in the Labour Party and especially the Liberal Party (through their connections with the Darwin family) -- we should soon have a whole generation of left-wing intellectuals/politicians cancelled.
We have yet to really start on the renaming of the eugenicists -- HG Wells, GB Shaw, almost the whole Bloomsbury group, J. Maynard Keynes.
Plenty for our iconoclastic fury. Plenty on the left for renaming as well, to cheer up BluestBlue.
You mean Keynesian economics could be cancelled? And Milton Keynes too? Things are looking up at last!
Have Betfair paid out on the result of that match yet?
I realise that Betfair paying out is a joke, but it has made me think about how much the world has changed in such a short time. As I watched Maradonna's hand go up it was the month I turned 18 and 3 months before I started uni. The only people who had computers at home were a few teenagers like me and the odd self employed person being adventurous with their accounting methods. The graphics in Donkey Kong were sophisticated. As good as no-one had access to the outside world via a network. At uni the multiuser (multics) computers were huge monsters of integrated circuit boards and wires filling a large room and they broke down almost every hour. The reseachers were just starting to get workstations, one for each small group, if they worked in a field that required number crunching. The idea of Betfair in 1986 was totally unimaginable.
In 2006 just 20 years later, when the big World Cup news involved a bald head rather than an Argentinian hand, Betfair was already well established. Most people had some kind of computer at home with broadband access to the rest of the world. The numeric and graphical power of one laptop in 2006 was more than the Multics campus wide computers of the mid 80's.
Since then the changes have been less visible at the PC/Laptop level (although a lot of progress has been made) and of course the big development has been with smartphones. Everyone is online. Most people are at a loss if they have to spend a day at home offline. It is now quite difficult to imagine just how unconnected the world was when I first went to uni, and just how much it has changed since then.
1986 was about the time I stopped being at interested in football. I can't remember watching any of the World Cup games. Ipswich had just been relegated (seems an odd thing to be surprised by now but as 12 year old in the mid 80s I had known nearly nothing but their success under Bobby Robson), Heysel had left me sick & ashamed and, most importantly, I had singularly and spectcularly failed to get anywhere near my new secondary school team.
I was, at that time, trying without success to get my Dad to buy me a modem so I could play massive multiplayer online games on my C64 (and then Amiga) but he couldn't see the point and wanted me to try playing rugby instead..
Cornwall in Tier 1 - yet has a 100-man outbreak at a Bodmin meat processing plant.
Go figure. (Maybe there is a benefit in having only Conservative MPs in your county when it comes to lobbying....)
If that's the place I'm thinking of (where a friend of mine briefly worked) then knowledge of its hygiene practices could well turn someone vegetarian.
I believe Cyclefree Jr is in Cumbria? Looks from the rationale there it will be more likely to move to Tier 1 than Tier 3 in the future.
"The picture in Cumbria is broadly improving although case rates in Carlisle and South Lakeland are increasing – with increases likely due to a large school outbreak. Case rates in over 60s are above 100 per 100,000 in Carlisle and Barrow-in-Furness. These case rates are too high for allocation to Tier 1 but Cumbria’s trajectory does currently not warrant inclusion in Tier 3."
On the question of vaccine rollout, which vaccine and so on and so forth I'd hope the gov't would be employing the services/awaiting peer reviewed work by professors of medical statistics to calculate efficacy, population efficacy, safety and so forth. Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
I think one thing people are missing here is that Moderna as are taking orders from private sector companies as well as governments. A very large number of tech companies and banks are going to get the Moderna vaccine for their employees from Q1 in the US and Q2 in Europe. That will change the government's roll out scheme as a whole host of 24-50 year olds in the private sector might already be vaccinated.
Do you think the UK government is going to allow private import of vaccines, and allow a grey market to exist? The political optics of that are absolutely terrible, the headlines would write themselves.
I'm not sure that they can, ultimately if the Moderna vaccine receives MHRA approval then it's going to be very difficult to stop companies from getting it. Additionally I don't think they'll want to as it relieves the pressure on the state scheme and companies in the US will be going great guns with employee vaccination as it comes with gigantic economic benefits.
In some ways having companies do it privately is a shortcut to reviving inner city economies such as London, Manchester, Edinburgh etc... which have been struggling without office workers.
I don't disagree, but they're more likely want to commandeer any vaccines for the elderly while there is limited supply.
Anything that looks like some people able to bypass the queue, will be an utter nightmare politically for the government.
Nah, because it's the Moderna vaccine of which the state is only buying 5m doses. I don't see it as a huge concern.
On the question of vaccine rollout, which vaccine and so on and so forth I'd hope the gov't would be employing the services/awaiting peer reviewed work by professors of medical statistics to calculate efficacy, population efficacy, safety and so forth. Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
I think one thing people are missing here is that Moderna as are taking orders from private sector companies as well as governments. A very large number of tech companies and banks are going to get the Moderna vaccine for their employees from Q1 in the US and Q2 in Europe. That will change the government's roll out scheme as a whole host of 24-50 year olds in the private sector might already be vaccinated.
Do you think the UK government is going to allow private import of vaccines, and allow a grey market to exist? The political optics of that are absolutely terrible, the headlines would write themselves.
I'm not sure that they can, ultimately if the Moderna vaccine receives MHRA approval then it's going to be very difficult to stop companies from getting it. Additionally I don't think they'll want to as it relieves the pressure on the state scheme and companies in the US will be going great guns with employee vaccination as it comes with gigantic economic benefits.
In some ways having companies do it privately is a shortcut to reviving inner city economies such as London, Manchester, Edinburgh etc... which have been struggling without office workers.
I don't disagree, but they're more likely want to commandeer any vaccines for the elderly while there is limited supply.
Anything that looks like some people able to bypass the queue, will be an utter nightmare politically for the government.
It is worth noting that N95 masks were being... appropriated on import by the government earlier in the year. Seized by Customs....
I didn't know that, but hardly surprising. I can see the same happening with vaccines - if government wants to lose 20 points in the polls in a week, they'll allow a private VIP vaccine service.
On the question of vaccine rollout, which vaccine and so on and so forth I'd hope the gov't would be employing the services/awaiting peer reviewed work by professors of medical statistics to calculate efficacy, population efficacy, safety and so forth. Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
I think one thing people are missing here is that Moderna as are taking orders from private sector companies as well as governments. A very large number of tech companies and banks are going to get the Moderna vaccine for their employees from Q1 in the US and Q2 in Europe. That will change the government's roll out scheme as a whole host of 24-50 year olds in the private sector might already be vaccinated.
Do you think the UK government is going to allow private import of vaccines, and allow a grey market to exist? The political optics of that are absolutely terrible, the headlines would write themselves.
I'm not sure that they can, ultimately if the Moderna vaccine receives MHRA approval then it's going to be very difficult to stop companies from getting it. Additionally I don't think they'll want to as it relieves the pressure on the state scheme and companies in the US will be going great guns with employee vaccination as it comes with gigantic economic benefits.
In some ways having companies do it privately is a shortcut to reviving inner city economies such as London, Manchester, Edinburgh etc... which have been struggling without office workers.
Wouldnt it be quite easy to do this with the licensing? License it subject to being distributed by the NHS approved list and make it illegal elsewhere?
I would expect it to be unavailable privately in the UK, but for there to be a vaccine tourism industry for the super elite where they fly somewhere to get it.
Why the hell is Q2 data being used in November against total deaths past Q2?
That is not comparing like-for-like at all.
Because not all countries have published data for Q3 yet, duh. If you used the IMF's forecasts for 2020 as a whole the chart wouldn't look much different. In particular, the UK would still look shit. Because your boys have fucked this up big time.
Did you actually check that before you said it?
IMF forecasts for 2020 (WEO October 2020):
US -4.3% Germany -6.0 Canada -7.1 UK -9.8 France -9.8 Italy -10.6 Spain -12.8
UK decidedly middling.
Put it together with terrible Covid stats and we are bang in the bottom left quadrant of the chart, only Italy worse in the G7, just like if you use the Q2 numbers. Which is exactly the point I was making.
Would you have a view on how much of the economic side is down to UK pre existing structural issues making us prone to a pandemic and how much down to this years policies?
Interesting question. Austerity, poor quality housing and poor health outcomes generally I think left us vulnerable. We were too slow to lockdown and cut off infections from abroad which meant we had to lock down in a more destructive way once we did. Unforgivable given we had more advance warning than most countries on the Continent. Track and trace has been a disaster but that has been true in other Western countries I think. Mixed messaging eg Barnard Castle hasn't helped. I think more local capacity to fight this would have been really helpful, austerity has decimated local govt and I think that has been a big factor. The care homes issue is a big cause of the high death toll but probably marginal on the economic front. We seem to be doing better in this wave, thankfully. We really must learn lessons from this incident, we are very much in the lower tier in terms of response - whether we are the absolute worst or not when the dust settles is neither here nor there.
I know Barnard Castle constantly gets brought up, but my sense is that the overwhelming majority thought it was wrong, he should have been sacked/resigned, but don't use it as an excuse to break rules themselves. Those that do break rules and bring it up, I am convinced, would have done it anyway, and its just a convenient thing to say.
If Barnard Castle has any lasting significance it will be if Starmer manages to make his "one rule for the public, one rule for the PM friends" stick going forward. If so then it will be significant - it doesn't really have any other significance IMHO.
On the question of vaccine rollout, which vaccine and so on and so forth I'd hope the gov't would be employing the services/awaiting peer reviewed work by professors of medical statistics to calculate efficacy, population efficacy, safety and so forth. Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
I think one thing people are missing here is that Moderna as are taking orders from private sector companies as well as governments. A very large number of tech companies and banks are going to get the Moderna vaccine for their employees from Q1 in the US and Q2 in Europe. That will change the government's roll out scheme as a whole host of 24-50 year olds in the private sector might already be vaccinated.
'A whole host' I'm not sure the percentage of the population that work in said firms but I doubt it is significant. Or that they represent the highest risk categories.
I can't see a better way of indicating the disparity of wealth and health in the country than the city folk and 'fintech bros' vaccinated ahead of those with a true need. Ms Rand would be so happy
Looks like incitement to me. Nasty little shit stirring fascist.
He is being a complete prick. It's like lockdown if people break the rules, because they'll inevitably end up in Tier 3. If people aren't the total c*nts that Farage obviously think they are, and stick to the rules, they'll likely move into Tier 1.
I wonder if all the SE London MPs who argued strongly for their constituencies to be in the Kent rather than London covid area in October still feel the same way......
Looks like incitement to me. Nasty little shit stirring fascist.
He is being a complete prick. It's like lockdown if people break the rules, because they'll inevitably end up in Tier 3. If people aren't the total c*nts that Farage obviously think they are, and stick to the rules, they'll likely move into Tier 1.
What difference does it make? We've been in "Tier 2" since mid September and it's getting worse not better.
Surely if ever there was a moment when HMG could escape the chains of the triple-lock it is now. I cannot think there are many beneficiaries who would object loudly.
Oh I think you'd be wrong about that. Itd be the WASPI women times 100 probably.
But you're right if ever there was a moment to justify it itd be now. But the opposition would oppose it and Boris would get scared of a polling hit.
Let's net forget that the much vaunted so-called "triple lock" has turned out to be tougher on state pensioners than the settlement they would have got had Labour's scheme continued. Basically because one of the three elements was changed to redefine inflation using the CPI rather than the higher RPI. Labour's scheme used the higher of 2.5% or RPI. The current scheme uses the higher of 2.5%, average wage growth or CPI. Because wage growth has been so anaemic since 2010, the switch to CPI had the greater impact.
It was basically one of Osborne's con tricks. He introduced the link to earnings at precisely the point when he knew that wage growth was about to collapse with the onset of austerity.
Just coming back in the house, reckon the government have gone slightly stricter than I called on Tuesday, but I'm not too displeased with my calls or, indeed, the government's. My misses are primarily extra caution in taking counties a little under 300 per 100k and reducing rates out of T3.
My misses: North Lancs (predicted 2 is 3), NE ex. Tees (predicted 2 is 3), S. Yorks (pred 2 is 3), Notts (pred 2 is 3), Derbs, Leics, Lincs (pred part 3 are full 3), Cov & Warks (pred 2 is 3), Avon (pred 2 is 3), IoW (pred 2 is 1 - but called Cornwall).
Looks like incitement to me. Nasty little shit stirring fascist.
He is being a complete prick. It's like lockdown if people break the rules, because they'll inevitably end up in Tier 3. If people aren't the total c*nts that Farage obviously think they are, and stick to the rules, they'll likely move into Tier 1.
What difference does it make? We've been in "Tier 2" since mid September and it's getting worse not better.
May be that enough people up there aren't sticking to the rules?
On the question of vaccine rollout, which vaccine and so on and so forth I'd hope the gov't would be employing the services/awaiting peer reviewed work by professors of medical statistics to calculate efficacy, population efficacy, safety and so forth. Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
I think one thing people are missing here is that Moderna as are taking orders from private sector companies as well as governments. A very large number of tech companies and banks are going to get the Moderna vaccine for their employees from Q1 in the US and Q2 in Europe. That will change the government's roll out scheme as a whole host of 24-50 year olds in the private sector might already be vaccinated.
Do you think the UK government is going to allow private import of vaccines, and allow a grey market to exist? The political optics of that are absolutely terrible, the headlines would write themselves.
I'm not sure that they can, ultimately if the Moderna vaccine receives MHRA approval then it's going to be very difficult to stop companies from getting it. Additionally I don't think they'll want to as it relieves the pressure on the state scheme and companies in the US will be going great guns with employee vaccination as it comes with gigantic economic benefits.
In some ways having companies do it privately is a shortcut to reviving inner city economies such as London, Manchester, Edinburgh etc... which have been struggling without office workers.
Wouldnt it be quite easy to do this with the licensing? License it subject to being distributed by the NHS approved list and make it illegal elsewhere?
I would expect it to be unavailable privately in the UK, but for there to be a vaccine tourism industry for the super elite where they fly somewhere to get it.
FFS we are not talking about spending millions of dollars to be infused with the blood of newborn infants, we are talking about spending £100 out of one's own pocket, freeing up NHS resources in the process. There are people who can't afford that but they are not the norm. A pandemic is bad enough without using it as a pretext to introduce authoritarian communism while you're at it.
Looks like incitement to me. Nasty little shit stirring fascist.
He is being a complete prick. It's like lockdown if people break the rules, because they'll inevitably end up in Tier 3. If people aren't the total c*nts that Farage obviously think they are, and stick to the rules, they'll likely move into Tier 1.
What difference does it make? We've been in "Tier 2" since mid September and it's getting worse not better.
May be that enough people up there aren't sticking to the rules?
I don't blame them now to be honest. Everyone I know is completely sick of it.
Looks like incitement to me. Nasty little shit stirring fascist.
He is being a complete prick. It's like lockdown if people break the rules, because they'll inevitably end up in Tier 3. If people aren't the total c*nts that Farage obviously think they are, and stick to the rules, they'll likely move into Tier 1.
What difference does it make? We've been in "Tier 2" since mid September and it's getting worse not better.
May be that enough people up there aren't sticking to the rules?
I don't blame them now to be honest. Everyone I know is completely sick of it.
I hope they don't get completely sick of something else as a result. But chances are..
Looks like incitement to me. Nasty little shit stirring fascist.
He is being a complete prick. It's like lockdown if people break the rules, because they'll inevitably end up in Tier 3. If people aren't the total c*nts that Farage obviously think they are, and stick to the rules, they'll likely move into Tier 1.
What difference does it make? We've been in "Tier 2" since mid September and it's getting worse not better.
May be that enough people up there aren't sticking to the rules?
I don't blame them now to be honest. Everyone I know is completely sick of it.
I hope they don't get completely sick of something else as a result. But chances are..
On the question of vaccine rollout, which vaccine and so on and so forth I'd hope the gov't would be employing the services/awaiting peer reviewed work by professors of medical statistics to calculate efficacy, population efficacy, safety and so forth. Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
I think one thing people are missing here is that Moderna as are taking orders from private sector companies as well as governments. A very large number of tech companies and banks are going to get the Moderna vaccine for their employees from Q1 in the US and Q2 in Europe. That will change the government's roll out scheme as a whole host of 24-50 year olds in the private sector might already be vaccinated.
Do you think the UK government is going to allow private import of vaccines, and allow a grey market to exist? The political optics of that are absolutely terrible, the headlines would write themselves.
I'm not sure that they can, ultimately if the Moderna vaccine receives MHRA approval then it's going to be very difficult to stop companies from getting it. Additionally I don't think they'll want to as it relieves the pressure on the state scheme and companies in the US will be going great guns with employee vaccination as it comes with gigantic economic benefits.
In some ways having companies do it privately is a shortcut to reviving inner city economies such as London, Manchester, Edinburgh etc... which have been struggling without office workers.
I don't disagree, but they're more likely want to commandeer any vaccines for the elderly while there is limited supply.
Anything that looks like some people able to bypass the queue, will be an utter nightmare politically for the government.
Nah, because it's the Moderna vaccine of which the state is only buying 5m doses. I don't see it as a huge concern.
The numbers themselves would be small, and unlikely to make much of a difference to the big picture, on that we can agree.
But the optics and politics of having certain groups of rich people able to jump the queue for vaccines, while elderly and vulnerable are still waiting for NHS vaccines, are absolutely horrific!
At the moment it's a proxy fight with poor old "Honest John" Swinney taking the punches. He looked pretty ashen last night during the debate.
Next step is likely to be a vote of No Confidence in Swinney if ScotGov continues to withhold the evidence.
When this all kicked off most people dismissed Salmond's charges that there was a conspiracy against him. Quite a few folk are revising their opinion.
Worth keeping an eye on although I appreciate most PB-ers are bored to tears with matters Caledonian, and don't wish to provoke MalcolmG et al anymore than they have to....
I wouldn't take the P&J as gospel.
But I'm not sure that Malky and I would react in the way you assume. In particular, I am increasingly convinced that neither you nor anyone else at PB - let alone the SCUP and their little helpers have thought this one right through to the wider implications.
Not sure what you mean as taking P&J as gospel. It's looks like fairly straight reporting rather than comment.
Intrigued by your latter point. What's the downside to SCUP etc of an SNP civil war? If Sturgeon goes down the optics won't be great, surely?
On the question of vaccine rollout, which vaccine and so on and so forth I'd hope the gov't would be employing the services/awaiting peer reviewed work by professors of medical statistics to calculate efficacy, population efficacy, safety and so forth. Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
I think one thing people are missing here is that Moderna as are taking orders from private sector companies as well as governments. A very large number of tech companies and banks are going to get the Moderna vaccine for their employees from Q1 in the US and Q2 in Europe. That will change the government's roll out scheme as a whole host of 24-50 year olds in the private sector might already be vaccinated.
Do you think the UK government is going to allow private import of vaccines, and allow a grey market to exist? The political optics of that are absolutely terrible, the headlines would write themselves.
I'm not sure that they can, ultimately if the Moderna vaccine receives MHRA approval then it's going to be very difficult to stop companies from getting it. Additionally I don't think they'll want to as it relieves the pressure on the state scheme and companies in the US will be going great guns with employee vaccination as it comes with gigantic economic benefits.
In some ways having companies do it privately is a shortcut to reviving inner city economies such as London, Manchester, Edinburgh etc... which have been struggling without office workers.
Wouldnt it be quite easy to do this with the licensing? License it subject to being distributed by the NHS approved list and make it illegal elsewhere?
I would expect it to be unavailable privately in the UK, but for there to be a vaccine tourism industry for the super elite where they fly somewhere to get it.
FFS we are not talking about spending millions of dollars to be infused with the blood of newborn infants, we are talking about spending £100 out of one's own pocket, freeing up NHS resources in the process. There are people who can't afford that but they are not the norm. A pandemic is bad enough without using it as a pretext to introduce authoritarian communism while you're at it.
I would probably buy one if I could for selfish reasons, I certainly wouldn't think of it as helping the NHS, more queue jumping but would probably still do it. If I was in charge of govt policy I would absolutely put up barriers to the queue jumping, and I think this govt will do so as well.
It is already pretty hard to get a private flu jab now, with the govt agreeing with the big chains to treat by NHS priority lists. If they are doing that for flu, expect it with covid.
On the question of vaccine rollout, which vaccine and so on and so forth I'd hope the gov't would be employing the services/awaiting peer reviewed work by professors of medical statistics to calculate efficacy, population efficacy, safety and so forth. Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
I think one thing people are missing here is that Moderna as are taking orders from private sector companies as well as governments. A very large number of tech companies and banks are going to get the Moderna vaccine for their employees from Q1 in the US and Q2 in Europe. That will change the government's roll out scheme as a whole host of 24-50 year olds in the private sector might already be vaccinated.
Do you think the UK government is going to allow private import of vaccines, and allow a grey market to exist? The political optics of that are absolutely terrible, the headlines would write themselves.
I'm not sure that they can, ultimately if the Moderna vaccine receives MHRA approval then it's going to be very difficult to stop companies from getting it. Additionally I don't think they'll want to as it relieves the pressure on the state scheme and companies in the US will be going great guns with employee vaccination as it comes with gigantic economic benefits.
In some ways having companies do it privately is a shortcut to reviving inner city economies such as London, Manchester, Edinburgh etc... which have been struggling without office workers.
I don't disagree, but they're more likely want to commandeer any vaccines for the elderly while there is limited supply.
Anything that looks like some people able to bypass the queue, will be an utter nightmare politically for the government.
Nah, because it's the Moderna vaccine of which the state is only buying 5m doses. I don't see it as a huge concern.
The numbers themselves would be small, and unlikely to make much of a difference to the big picture, on that we can agree.
But the optics and politics of having certain groups of rich people able to jump the queue for vaccines, while elderly and vulnerable are still waiting for NHS vaccines, are absolutely horrific!
I don't think it would be legal to restrict a vaccine licence to NHS. If a private company can legitimately lay hands on a stock, they should be legal to use it.
On the question of vaccine rollout, which vaccine and so on and so forth I'd hope the gov't would be employing the services/awaiting peer reviewed work by professors of medical statistics to calculate efficacy, population efficacy, safety and so forth. Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
I think one thing people are missing here is that Moderna as are taking orders from private sector companies as well as governments. A very large number of tech companies and banks are going to get the Moderna vaccine for their employees from Q1 in the US and Q2 in Europe. That will change the government's roll out scheme as a whole host of 24-50 year olds in the private sector might already be vaccinated.
Do you think the UK government is going to allow private import of vaccines, and allow a grey market to exist? The political optics of that are absolutely terrible, the headlines would write themselves.
I'm not sure that they can, ultimately if the Moderna vaccine receives MHRA approval then it's going to be very difficult to stop companies from getting it. Additionally I don't think they'll want to as it relieves the pressure on the state scheme and companies in the US will be going great guns with employee vaccination as it comes with gigantic economic benefits.
In some ways having companies do it privately is a shortcut to reviving inner city economies such as London, Manchester, Edinburgh etc... which have been struggling without office workers.
I don't disagree, but they're more likely want to commandeer any vaccines for the elderly while there is limited supply.
Anything that looks like some people able to bypass the queue, will be an utter nightmare politically for the government.
Nah, because it's the Moderna vaccine of which the state is only buying 5m doses. I don't see it as a huge concern.
The numbers themselves would be small, and unlikely to make much of a difference to the big picture, on that we can agree.
But the optics and politics of having certain groups of rich people able to jump the queue for vaccines, while elderly and vulnerable are still waiting for NHS vaccines, are absolutely horrific!
I don't think it would be legal to restrict a vaccine licence to NHS. If a private company can legitimately lay hands on a stock, they should be legal to use it.
Didnt the govt requisition all private hospitals early in the pandemic? Why cant they do the same with chemists and others licensed to offer vaccines?
Looks like incitement to me. Nasty little shit stirring fascist.
He is being a complete prick. It's like lockdown if people break the rules, because they'll inevitably end up in Tier 3. If people aren't the total c*nts that Farage obviously think they are, and stick to the rules, they'll likely move into Tier 1.
What difference does it make? We've been in "Tier 2" since mid September and it's getting worse not better.
May be that enough people up there aren't sticking to the rules?
I don't blame them now to be honest. Everyone I know is completely sick of it.
I hope they don't get completely sick of something else as a result. But chances are..
Innumeracy.
The chances are very much against catching Covid-19, less so being made seriously ill by it.
On the question of vaccine rollout, which vaccine and so on and so forth I'd hope the gov't would be employing the services/awaiting peer reviewed work by professors of medical statistics to calculate efficacy, population efficacy, safety and so forth. Moderna, Pfizer, Astra all doubtless have pros and cons and so forth but the headline press releases likely don't tell the full story. As someone with some knowledge of statistics (BSc Maths) I certainly couldn't work out from the limited public knowledge available which is 'best' - the Gov't should be looking to academic statisticians to make that determination, and then go with that.
I think one thing people are missing here is that Moderna as are taking orders from private sector companies as well as governments. A very large number of tech companies and banks are going to get the Moderna vaccine for their employees from Q1 in the US and Q2 in Europe. That will change the government's roll out scheme as a whole host of 24-50 year olds in the private sector might already be vaccinated.
Do you think the UK government is going to allow private import of vaccines, and allow a grey market to exist? The political optics of that are absolutely terrible, the headlines would write themselves.
I'm not sure that they can, ultimately if the Moderna vaccine receives MHRA approval then it's going to be very difficult to stop companies from getting it. Additionally I don't think they'll want to as it relieves the pressure on the state scheme and companies in the US will be going great guns with employee vaccination as it comes with gigantic economic benefits.
In some ways having companies do it privately is a shortcut to reviving inner city economies such as London, Manchester, Edinburgh etc... which have been struggling without office workers.
Wouldnt it be quite easy to do this with the licensing? License it subject to being distributed by the NHS approved list and make it illegal elsewhere?
I would expect it to be unavailable privately in the UK, but for there to be a vaccine tourism industry for the super elite where they fly somewhere to get it.
FFS we are not talking about spending millions of dollars to be infused with the blood of newborn infants, we are talking about spending £100 out of one's own pocket, freeing up NHS resources in the process. There are people who can't afford that but they are not the norm. A pandemic is bad enough without using it as a pretext to introduce authoritarian communism while you're at it.
The vaccines have been public-private initiatives. It is not communism to want the vaccine to go to those who need it not those who can pay.
Looks like incitement to me. Nasty little shit stirring fascist.
He is being a complete prick. It's like lockdown if people break the rules, because they'll inevitably end up in Tier 3. If people aren't the total c*nts that Farage obviously think they are, and stick to the rules, they'll likely move into Tier 1.
What difference does it make? We've been in "Tier 2" since mid September and it's getting worse not better.
May be that enough people up there aren't sticking to the rules?
I'm saying that in the culture war the left has been driving their tanks all over us for decades, claiming more and more territory all the time. Only now, when the right has just started to push back a little, they're losing their shit at the idea that they will no longer go unchallenged in the space they have dominated for so long, and where even after all their advances they're still not happy with what they've got.
This is a Vernichtungskrieg and we're going to win.
To paraphrase Stalin in 1941, if they want a Vernichtungskrieg, then they will get one...
I'm confused, who are the Stalinists in this puerile metaphor now?
Looks like incitement to me. Nasty little shit stirring fascist.
He is being a complete prick. It's like lockdown if people break the rules, because they'll inevitably end up in Tier 3. If people aren't the total c*nts that Farage obviously think they are, and stick to the rules, they'll likely move into Tier 1.
What difference does it make? We've been in "Tier 2" since mid September and it's getting worse not better.
May be that enough people up there aren't sticking to the rules?
I don't blame them now to be honest. Everyone I know is completely sick of it.
I hope they don't get completely sick of something else as a result. But chances are..
Innumeracy.
The chances are very much against catching Covid-19, less so being made seriously ill by it.
The chances are... increased, if people don't follow the rules. For both the rule breakers, and those around them. They're unlikely to die directly of innumeracy.
Comments
They are clueless about the North East.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/full-list-of-local-restriction-tiers-by-area
The National Socialists were defeated, Hitler died and Berlin fell under Churchill, in coalition with Attlee. Of course the UK continued to be involved in the far East but I don't believe Attlee rather than Churchill was critically instrumental in the usage of the nuclear weapons in Japan or ending the war there.
The police really should be neutral to BLM/anti-lockdown protest (Here in the UK they've been a bit on the other side) - but in the US it's been really really blatant and at the end of the day that's not good for the police or community.
This says "Page not found" now? https://www.gov.uk/guidance/full-list-of-local-restriction-tiers-by-area
At that rate, simply using the NHS flu lists first (elderly and vulnerable) then opening it up to everyone may be simpler than trying to construct a more elaborate methodology.
In some ways having companies do it privately is a shortcut to reviving inner city economies such as London, Manchester, Edinburgh etc... which have been struggling without office workers.
Emperor Penguins have a hard life as it is. Making them live with the Twatter mobs would be really, really nasty.
Not long to wait now.
I haven’t done the numbers but how about linking it in some way to the minimum wage?
A plane just landed in Tel Aviv from Dubai, the first scheduled passenger service between a Gulf Arab country and Israel, and following normalisation of diplomatic relations between the UAE and Israel a couple of months ago. It was met by president Netanyahu.
https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/gcc/flydubai-lands-in-israeli-we-re-flying-into-a-new-era-says-netanyahu-1.1118198
Another small step towards peace in the region.
I think you've read into my comment more than I've written.
That's good, wasn't expecting that because of the sheer volume of regions being placed into tiers.
https://twitter.com/AndyBurnhamGM/status/1331884141223309313
Go figure. (Maybe there is a benefit in having only Conservative MPs in your county when it comes to lobbying....)
I wonder what the other four are.
As far as I know they've not been published previously.
That's definitely a win, even if the price was high.
UCL relabelled the Pearson buildings -- Karl Pearson was a prominent socialist and friend of Karl Marx.
Marie Stopes International renamed itself in November -- Marie Stopes described herself as a "socialist and extreme feminist".
Margaret Sanger building was renamed in NYC -- Sanger was a left-wing heroine of the civil rights movement.
Given the prevalence of eugenics in intellectual left-wing circles in the 1920s/1930s, in the Labour Party and especially the Liberal Party (through their connections with the Darwin family) -- we should soon have a whole generation of left-wing intellectuals/politicians cancelled.
We have yet to really start on the renaming of the eugenicists -- HG Wells, GB Shaw, almost the whole Bloomsbury group, J. Maynard Keynes.
Plenty for our iconoclastic fury. Plenty on the left for renaming as well, to cheer up BluestBlue.
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2020-11-26/hcws608
So looks like exactly that is relevant there too.
Anything that looks like some people able to bypass the queue, will be an utter nightmare politically for the government.
I believe Cyclefree Jr is in Cumbria? Looks from the rationale there it will be more likely to move to Tier 1 than Tier 3 in the future.
I was, at that time, trying without success to get my Dad to buy me a modem so I could play massive multiplayer online games on my C64 (and then Amiga) but he couldn't see the point and wanted me to try playing rugby instead..
Er.....
I would expect it to be unavailable privately in the UK, but for there to be a vaccine tourism industry for the super elite where they fly somewhere to get it.
I can't see a better way of indicating the disparity of wealth and health in the country than the city folk and 'fintech bros' vaccinated ahead of those with a true need. Ms Rand would be so happy
Go back to America and drown your sorrows with Trumpists.
It was basically one of Osborne's con tricks. He introduced the link to earnings at precisely the point when he knew that wage growth was about to collapse with the onset of austerity.
My misses: North Lancs (predicted 2 is 3), NE ex. Tees (predicted 2 is 3), S. Yorks (pred 2 is 3), Notts (pred 2 is 3), Derbs, Leics, Lincs (pred part 3 are full 3), Cov & Warks (pred 2 is 3), Avon (pred 2 is 3), IoW (pred 2 is 1 - but called Cornwall).
That'll larn yer.....
But the optics and politics of having certain groups of rich people able to jump the queue for vaccines, while elderly and vulnerable are still waiting for NHS vaccines, are absolutely horrific!
Intrigued by your latter point. What's the downside to SCUP etc of an SNP civil war? If Sturgeon goes down the optics won't be great, surely?
It is already pretty hard to get a private flu jab now, with the govt agreeing with the big chains to treat by NHS priority lists. If they are doing that for flu, expect it with covid.
Practicality not communism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_election_in_England
The chances are very much against catching Covid-19, less so being made seriously ill by it.