Maybe a Christmas with no friends should be rebranded Australia style to make it sound better?
An Australia-style Christmas means barbecues, sunshine and swimming in a pool.
I doubt any English Christmas can ever be rebranded Australia style.
Actually Christmas Down Under can be quite weird. I have had one in Sydney and another in Auckland. While there are some local traditions such as Santa arriving in Sydney by surfboat, Christmas decorations and traditions are often Northern Hemisphere, with snow decorated shop windows, Christmas trees, Turkey and stuffing etc, all in stifling heat.
I know, I spent eight Christmas's there from age 10 to 17.
It can be rather discombombulating having White Christmas sang in air conditioning or outdoors when its over 30 degrees celsius outside.
Quite strange spending it in a non-Christian country without Northern European traditions, too.We spent one in Thailand. With family so 'our normal' food-wise, although a Thai prawn dish for starters.
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
Market forces, dear Mr Hannan!, decolonising the curriculum is what boarding school customers choose.
While the faculty at Boarding schools reflect the demographics of Olde Englande, the places are increasingly taken by overseas pupils from China, Africa, Russia and elsewhere, as well as second generation migrants. It can be quite a hard sell to teach British Imperialism as a good thing to them.
Sunak was Head Boy at Winchester, but that is only in line with how times have changed.
Wokery is tiresome at times but anti-wokery much more so in my experience.
A question I have always thought useful to pose. Accepting for the sake of argument that there is such a thing as the Liberal Elite, who would you prefer to be governed by? Them, the Liberal Elite, or the type of folk - at which point picture them - who are constantly frothing about the Liberal Elite?
I think most people accept/expect that those in a national parliament should be on average older than the average voter.
Is that right? Older than the average working age voter yes, but older than the average voter I am not so sure. The age distribution in the UK HoC looks reasonable enough actually but the HoL is horrific.
HoL wants experts and the accomplished, so people with decades of experience are more likely. Add to that the more common experience of it being treated as a retirement home for MPs and plaything of donors and people who've helped out top politicians and it trends even more to the old.
I'm not opposed in principle to an appointed chamber if done right, but I'm not sure it could have a more balanced age ratio if its kept.
Plus the fact that appointments are made for life, so someone appointed 25 years ago may still be a Lord but will be 25 years older now. So its a later age of appointment combined with post-appointment ageing.
The Lords can't be age-balanced without total abolition of it.
Market forces, dear Mr Hannan!, decolonising the curriculum is what boarding school customers choose.
While the faculty at Boarding schools reflect the demographics of Olde Englande, the places are increasingly taken by overseas pupils from China, Africa, Russia and elsewhere, as well as second generation migrants. It can be quite a hard sell to teach British Imperialism as a good thing to them.
Sunak was Head Boy at Winchester, but that is only in line with how times have changed.
Wokery is tiresome at times but anti-wokery much more so in my experience.
A question I have always thought useful to pose. Accepting for the sake of argument that there is such a thing as the Liberal Elite, who would you prefer to be governed by? Them, the Liberal Elite, or the type of folk - at which point picture them - who are constantly frothing about the Liberal Elite?
Neither. I would like to be governed by people who do not think like is a matter of black and white but realise it is various shades of grey and act accordingly.
The entire argument of the "just let us decide our own risk" crowd totally fails to take into account that they're asking to decide everyone else's risk as well. And it's an asymmetric risk profile.
The ones wanting to choose for themselves and others to accept the risk are almost invariably the ones with the least risk. But they almost always look at the "risk of me being infected" and gloss over "the risk of me infecting others," and, in a public health scenario with an infectious pandemic: that is the crucial element.
After all, not one person in the UK (with the possible exception of Allison Pearson) has wanted anyone else to be infected, and no-one who has infected someone else has deliberately done so.
Yet over 5 million people have been infected nevertheless in the UK.
Those who did the infecting have indeed, overwhelmingly been okay. To the tune of 96% or so not needing hospitalisation and 99% or so not dying.
Yet 60,000 people who those infectors managed to infect have gone on to die. Given that most of these were in the higher risk categories, it's highly probable that very few of those 60,000 made the choice to face exposure and risk; instead others made the choice for them - and they ended up dying.
Nearly quarter of a million of the people those infectors did infect have been so sick they were hospitalised. A lot of those needing assistance to merely breathe.
At least a third of a million people face long-term consequences with what has been termed "long covid," many of these suffering organ damage.
Too many of those people infected - the third of a million with long covid, the quarter of a million so sick they were hospitalised, and the 60,000+ dead - had not made a decision to face higher risk.
They had that decision made for them.
By people whose own risk was low, and who did not fully think through the cost to others.
Another excellent post from Andy. Very thought-provoking - deserves a similarly thoughtful response to engage with his view (which is so widely held). So I`ll give it a go.
I`ve said before that lockdown skeptics should avoid tangling with the science and stick to principles only. For example, they should say that they don`t hold anyone else responsible for their own health; one`s own health is one`s own responsibility. This is the elephant in the room. It always has been. The opposition should come from philosophy not from scientific illiteracy, deliberate misinterpretation and mischief. Back in March I said here that at his briefings Johnson should have been flanked by a healthcare scientist, an economist and a philosopher - not just solely the former.
This is the bit I`m struggling with. Andy`s post reveals himself as a strong utilitarian. A moral framework that I don`t hold. I believe that good and bad acts come from intentions not consequences. Therefore you cannot apportion blame to someone who passes on a virus without even knowing that they had it themselves. Andy himself points out that no one has deliberately infected another person with Covid as far as we know (unlike what happened in small numbers with HIV). And, of course, an infection is not imprinted with the signature of the person it came from.
I think people who know me in real life would say that I`m as thoughtful and polite and caring and gentle as they come. But I don`t accept responsibility for other people`s health outside of my closest family. Of course I wish no one ill, but it is not my responsibility. I can`t get away from this. Utilitarians are not going to guilt-trip me into thinking otherwise. We need to stop blaming each other for things. This year has been ugly.
The vaccines are great news. But will they get us out? Only partial I think. The virus will still be present. As far as I know, a vaccine will protect that particular person from symptoms but will not prevent that person from spreading it to others. Covid is not, therefore, going away. And, of course, not everyone will agree to be vaccinated. Social-distancing will still be a thing. Covid will still be here. We still have to learn to live with it. Sorry.
This is bleak outlook - though doesn`t match @Black_Rook levels of bleakness. I`m betting that those holding a utilitarian outlook (which lends itself more to totalitarianism than liberalism I think) who are also risk-averse, and probably financially comfortable in themselves, will still have no intention of learning to live with Covid and will selfishly continue to chide, bully and rebuke the rest of us, who just want to live their lives in the ways we choose in a precious liberal society. For me, the selfishness is on the other side.
If you don`t agree, at least give me the courtesy of being honest.
I think most people accept/expect that those in a national parliament should be on average older than the average voter.
Is that right? Older than the average working age voter yes, but older than the average voter I am not so sure. The age distribution in the UK HoC looks reasonable enough actually but the HoL is horrific.
HoL wants experts and the accomplished, so people with decades of experience are more likely. Add to that the more common experience of it being treated as a retirement home for MPs and plaything of donors and people who've helped out top politicians and it trends even more to the old.
I'm not opposed in principle to an appointed chamber if done right, but I'm not sure it could have a more balanced age ratio if its kept.
The problem is appointments for life. Appointing a 30 something to the Lords means having to put up with them ruling on our laws for 50 years or longer.
Fixed term life peerages would be one way of limiting such daftness, but far better to scrap the whole thing in my eyes.
Maybe a Christmas with no friends should be rebranded Australia style to make it sound better?
An Australia-style Christmas means barbecues, sunshine and swimming in a pool.
I doubt any English Christmas can ever be rebranded Australia style.
Actually Christmas Down Under can be quite weird. I have had one in Sydney and another in Auckland. While there are some local traditions such as Santa arriving in Sydney by surfboat, Christmas decorations and traditions are often Northern Hemisphere, with snow decorated shop windows, Christmas trees, Turkey and stuffing etc, all in stifling heat.
I know, I spent eight Christmas's there from age 10 to 17.
It can be rather discombombulating having White Christmas sang in air conditioning or outdoors when its over 30 degrees celsius outside.
Quite strange spending it in a non-Christian country without Northern European traditions, too.We spent one in Thailand. With family so 'our normal' food-wise, although a Thai prawn dish for starters.
Istanbul was the weirdest. We had Dinner in the Four Seasons hotel which meant a trip via ferry across the Bosphorus (no different to a normal day) followed by a walk up to Hague Sophia which likewise was just a normal business day.
Then we pulled crackers and watched the waiters try to work out what to do as they weren't sure if it was rubbish to be instantly removed or left in place.
Market forces, dear Mr Hannan!, decolonising the curriculum is what boarding school customers choose.
While the faculty at Boarding schools reflect the demographics of Olde Englande, the places are increasingly taken by overseas pupils from China, Africa, Russia and elsewhere, as well as second generation migrants. It can be quite a hard sell to teach British Imperialism as a good thing to them.
Sunak was Head Boy at Winchester, but that is only in line with how times have changed.
I'm not sure wokery is a great selling point for the sons of the Chinese and Russian oligarchs. Or maybe I have missed that Eton publishes its progressive views of transgenderism in its marketing material in those markets.
Market forces, dear Mr Hannan!, decolonising the curriculum is what boarding school customers choose.
While the faculty at Boarding schools reflect the demographics of Olde Englande, the places are increasingly taken by overseas pupils from China, Africa, Russia and elsewhere, as well as second generation migrants. It can be quite a hard sell to teach British Imperialism as a good thing to them.
Sunak was Head Boy at Winchester, but that is only in line with how times have changed.
Wokery is tiresome at times but anti-wokery much more so in my experience.
A question I have always thought useful to pose. Accepting for the sake of argument that there is such a thing as the Liberal Elite, who would you prefer to be governed by? Them, the Liberal Elite, or the type of folk - at which point picture them - who are constantly frothing about the Liberal Elite?
Neither. I would like to be governed by people who do not think like is a matter of black and white but realise it is various shades of grey and act accordingly.
I would have thought that there might be at least some orange in your palette...
I think most people accept/expect that those in a national parliament should be on average older than the average voter.
Is that right? Older than the average working age voter yes, but older than the average voter I am not so sure. The age distribution in the UK HoC looks reasonable enough actually but the HoL is horrific.
HoL wants experts and the accomplished, so people with decades of experience are more likely. Add to that the more common experience of it being treated as a retirement home for MPs and plaything of donors and people who've helped out top politicians and it trends even more to the old.
I'm not opposed in principle to an appointed chamber if done right, but I'm not sure it could have a more balanced age ratio if its kept.
Plus the fact that appointments are made for life, so someone appointed 25 years ago may still be a Lord but will be 25 years older now. So its a later age of appointment combined with post-appointment ageing.
The Lords can't be age-balanced without total abolition of it.
Yes. Mandatory retirement (albeit older than the standard), maximum length of service that sort of thing would have an impact without sacrificing the intent of the place, but it will be al elders council regardless.
My first suggestion would be at least a five or ten year gap between serving in the Commons vs the Lords. It shouldn't be a bauble to persuade some codger MP to retire, and its encourage those who step down or lose their seats to continue to try and serve the public somehow to earn a place, and prevent PMs easily giving peerages to cronies.
Minimum attendance also to be mandated or else lose your place automatically.
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
Market forces, dear Mr Hannan!, decolonising the curriculum is what boarding school customers choose.
While the faculty at Boarding schools reflect the demographics of Olde Englande, the places are increasingly taken by overseas pupils from China, Africa, Russia and elsewhere, as well as second generation migrants. It can be quite a hard sell to teach British Imperialism as a good thing to them.
Sunak was Head Boy at Winchester, but that is only in line with how times have changed.
I'm not sure wokery is a great selling point for the sons of the Chinese and Russian oligarchs. Or maybe I have missed that Eton publishes its progressive views of transgenderism in its marketing material in those markets.
Eton is a private business, so know their market. They have an active LBGT society, though presumably as a boys school require people to identify as male. Also a feminist society run by boys!
Piece in the Observer yesterday compared Brexit to going back to the Gold Standard in the 20's. That didn't turn out well.
I'd be curious to read that as my thinking is that it is the polar opposite!
Joining the Euro is like the Gold Standard and has had similar consequences too with comparable consequences for the nations struggling under it.
I would say that rejoining the Gold Standard in 1925 (especially at the previous parity) was far worse than either joining the euro or leaving the EU. I can see parallels to Brexit (based on a fundamental misjudgement about the way the world works and the UK's place in it) and joining the euro (fixing your currency and removing an important channel for macroeconomic adjustment). The euro and the gold standard are both reasonable propositions that can work well for countries that fulfill the necessary conditions for it to work, but are disastrous for countries that don't. On the other hand it is hard to see an economic argument for Brexit under any circumstances. You can argue that there are political benefits that offset the economic costs, of course.
Maybe a Christmas with no friends should be rebranded Australia style to make it sound better?
An Australia-style Christmas means barbecues, sunshine and swimming in a pool.
I doubt any English Christmas can ever be rebranded Australia style.
Actually Christmas Down Under can be quite weird. I have had one in Sydney and another in Auckland. While there are some local traditions such as Santa arriving in Sydney by surfboat, Christmas decorations and traditions are often Northern Hemisphere, with snow decorated shop windows, Christmas trees, Turkey and stuffing etc, all in stifling heat.
I know, I spent eight Christmas's there from age 10 to 17.
It can be rather discombombulating having White Christmas sang in air conditioning or outdoors when its over 30 degrees celsius outside.
Quite strange spending it in a non-Christian country without Northern European traditions, too.We spent one in Thailand. With family so 'our normal' food-wise, although a Thai prawn dish for starters.
Istanbul was the weirdest. We had Dinner in the Four Seasons hotel which meant a trip via ferry across the Bosphorus (no different to a normal day) followed by a walk up to Hague Sophia which likewise was just a normal business day.
Then we pulled crackers and watched the waiters try to work out what to do as they weren't sure if it was rubbish to be instantly removed or left in place.
I’ve done everything from barbecues on the beach, to boozy hotel brunches, to staying at home with a takeaway turkey. This year will definitely be the latter.
Makes a change from being told "you Jocks were slavers just as bad as us". Which might be convincing if there hadn't been so much genuinely fascinating work put into reassessing the history of Scotland and slavery before woke came along.
Market forces, dear Mr Hannan!, decolonising the curriculum is what boarding school customers choose.
While the faculty at Boarding schools reflect the demographics of Olde Englande, the places are increasingly taken by overseas pupils from China, Africa, Russia and elsewhere, as well as second generation migrants. It can be quite a hard sell to teach British Imperialism as a good thing to them.
Sunak was Head Boy at Winchester, but that is only in line with how times have changed.
I'm not sure wokery is a great selling point for the sons of the Chinese and Russian oligarchs. Or maybe I have missed that Eton publishes its progressive views of transgenderism in its marketing material in those markets.
Eton is a private business, so know their market. They have an active LBGT society, though presumably as a boys school require people to identify as male. Also a feminist society run by boys!
My kids' co-ed comprehensive has a feminist society. My daughter complains that the boys tend to monopolise it. I see that as an important part of her feminist education.
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
The entire argument of the "just let us decide our own risk" crowd totally fails to take into account that they're asking to decide everyone else's risk as well. And it's an asymmetric risk profile.
The ones wanting to choose for themselves and others to accept the risk are almost invariably the ones with the least risk. But they almost always look at the "risk of me being infected" and gloss over "the risk of me infecting others," and, in a public health scenario with an infectious pandemic: that is the crucial element.
After all, not one person in the UK (with the possible exception of Allison Pearson) has wanted anyone else to be infected, and no-one who has infected someone else has deliberately done so.
Yet over 5 million people have been infected nevertheless in the UK.
Those who did the infecting have indeed, overwhelmingly been okay. To the tune of 96% or so not needing hospitalisation and 99% or so not dying.
Yet 60,000 people who those infectors managed to infect have gone on to die. Given that most of these were in the higher risk categories, it's highly probable that very few of those 60,000 made the choice to face exposure and risk; instead others made the choice for them - and they ended up dying.
Nearly quarter of a million of the people those infectors did infect have been so sick they were hospitalised. A lot of those needing assistance to merely breathe.
At least a third of a million people face long-term consequences with what has been termed "long covid," many of these suffering organ damage.
Too many of those people infected - the third of a million with long covid, the quarter of a million so sick they were hospitalised, and the 60,000+ dead - had not made a decision to face higher risk.
They had that decision made for them.
By people whose own risk was low, and who did not fully think through the cost to others.
Another excellent post from Andy. Very thought-provoking - deserves a similarly thoughtful response to engage with his view (which is so widely held). So I`ll give it a go.
I`ve said before that lockdown skeptics should avoid tangling with the science and stick to principles only. For example, they should say that they don`t hold anyone else responsible for their own health; one`s own health is one`s own responsibility. This is the elephant in the room. It always has been. The opposition should come from philosophy not from scientific illiteracy, deliberate misinterpretation and mischief. Back in March I said here that at his briefings Johnson should have been flanked by a healthcare scientist, an economist and a philosopher - not just solely the former.
This is the bit I`m struggling with. Andy`s post reveals himself as a strong utilitarian. A moral framework that I don`t hold. I believe that good and bad acts come from intentions not consequences. Therefore you cannot apportion blame to someone who passes on a virus without even knowing that they had it themselves. Andy himself points out that no one has deliberately infected another person with Covid as far as we know (unlike what happened in small numbers with HIV). And, of course, an infection is not imprinted with the signature of the person it came from.
I think people who know me in real life would say that I`m as thoughtful and polite and caring and gentle as they come. But I don`t accept responsibility for other people`s health outside of my closest family. Of course I wish no one ill, but it is not my responsibility. I can`t get away from this. Utilitarians are not going to guilt-trip me into thinking otherwise. We need to stop blaming each other for things. This year has been ugly.
The vaccines are great news. But will they get us out? Only partial I think. The virus will still be present. As far as I know, a vaccine will protect that particular person from symptoms but will not prevent that person from spreading it to others. Covid is not, therefore, going away. And, of course, not everyone will agree to be vaccinated. Social-distancing will still be a thing. Covid will still be here. We still have to learn to live with it. Sorry.
This is bleak outlook - though doesn`t match @Black_Rook levels of bleakness. I`m betting that those holding a utilitarian outlook (which lends itself more to totalitarianism than liberalism I think) who are also risk-averse, and probably financially comfortable in themselves, will still have no intention of learning to live with Covid and will selfishly continue to chide, bully and rebuke the rest of us, who just want to live their lives in the ways we choose in a precious liberal society. For me, the selfishness is on the other side.
If you don`t agree, at least give me the courtesy of being honest.
"I believe that good and bad acts come from intentions not consequences. Therefore you cannot apportion blame to someone who passes on a virus without even knowing that they had it themselves."
The problem is that most things in life are about probabilities - cast iron certainty only occurs in certain kinds of Hollywood movies.
So you have a *possibility* that you have the virus. How do you act?
According to your position, no one should take any action that constrains their own actions unless they are *certain* that harm will result. So why drive at 20 in built up areas?
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
You were over a barrel without any PPE coming and they stepped up to the plate and made it for you.
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
Piece in the Observer yesterday compared Brexit to going back to the Gold Standard in the 20's. That didn't turn out well.
I'd be curious to read that as my thinking is that it is the polar opposite!
Joining the Euro is like the Gold Standard and has had similar consequences too with comparable consequences for the nations struggling under it.
I would say that rejoining the Gold Standard in 1925 (especially at the previous parity) was far worse than either joining the euro or leaving the EU. I can see parallels to Brexit (based on a fundamental misjudgement about the way the world works and the UK's place in it) and joining the euro (fixing your currency and removing an important channel for macroeconomic adjustment). The euro and the gold standard are both reasonable propositions that can work well for countries that fulfill the necessary conditions for it to work, but are disastrous for countries that don't. On the other hand it is hard to see an economic argument for Brexit under any circumstances. You can argue that there are political benefits that offset the economic costs, of course.
Churchill's disastrous 1925 policy of joining the gold standard was mostly a problem because of the pre war rate that he joined. Times had moved on and British Industry was much less competitive than 1913.
I can see some parallel with trying to go back to the UK economy of 1972, rather than deal with more recent trading conditions.
3. Ignore vested interests squealing at this stage of negotiations. They exaggerate for effect what they want to try and get what they want agreed.
You want to ignore the vested interests of the fishing industry. To negotiate a deal. For the fishing industry. That largely shuts them down.
What they want is what they were sold. Salvation. The CFP was massively damaging to them, lets get out. So we get out, but stop them from economically exporting which kills them completely.
What a victory for Britain. Patriotism at its finest.
Yes, ignore them.
A deal won't shut them down. No deal won't shut them down. Fish can be exported to the EU on WTO terms, it just needs to be frozen first. So if that is what happens they will need to freeze it first, at which point it can be sold to the EU - or sold anywhere in the globe too.
They will want a deal tweaked to what they prefer, so would Nissan, so would anyone else. But ignore them all. Its as much bullshit as the supposed idea Nissan are going to close likely is bullshit too.
Para 2. Difficult with shellfish and similar.And needs lots of equipment.
Never seems to be a problem when I hit the supermarkets. Prawns scallops lobster mussels all abundantly available.
As for equipment, are you against investment ?
Investment in fishing will be needed, won't it? Have I misunderstood the fishing debate? If we lock out EU trawlers, who will replace them? Do we have an unused, fully-crewed fishing fleet ready to fill the gap, or will we just sell permits to the Spanish crews working now? And if we do that, how have we helped our fishing industry?
Whats wrong with investment, it's what drives productivity and increases wages ?
As for fishing. control your own waters and you can set your own policy to suit. We can sell licences if we want, expand the catch or designate larger slices of our waters as no fishing zones to allow the oceans to recover.
Which ever way we look at it it gives us more options than today.
And you are thinking the oil under our territory is our oil?
The pool goes under their territory and their wells sucked it up.
Maybe a Christmas with no friends should be rebranded Australia style to make it sound better?
An Australia-style Christmas means barbecues, sunshine and swimming in a pool.
I doubt any English Christmas can ever be rebranded Australia style.
Actually Christmas Down Under can be quite weird. I have had one in Sydney and another in Auckland. While there are some local traditions such as Santa arriving in Sydney by surfboat, Christmas decorations and traditions are often Northern Hemisphere, with snow decorated shop windows, Christmas trees, Turkey and stuffing etc, all in stifling heat.
I know, I spent eight Christmas's there from age 10 to 17.
It can be rather discombombulating having White Christmas sang in air conditioning or outdoors when its over 30 degrees celsius outside.
Quite strange spending it in a non-Christian country without Northern European traditions, too.We spent one in Thailand. With family so 'our normal' food-wise, although a Thai prawn dish for starters.
Istanbul was the weirdest. We had Dinner in the Four Seasons hotel which meant a trip via ferry across the Bosphorus (no different to a normal day) followed by a walk up to Hague Sophia which likewise was just a normal business day.
Then we pulled crackers and watched the waiters try to work out what to do as they weren't sure if it was rubbish to be instantly removed or left in place.
Went to Istanbul for Xmas a couple of years ago. There had a been a few terrorist incidents shortly before so it was very quiet - no crowds - and everywhere was open, of course. It was a truly wonderful place to wander around. Extraordinary. The city resonates with history - remarkable things to see on every corner, and we were made very welcome.
I have to say that I'm saddened that Erdogan has turned the Hagia Sophia back into a mosque, as it's breathtaking. You look at it, walk round it, and can scarcely believe its antiquity.
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
You were over a barrel without any PPE coming and they stepped up to the plate and made it for you.
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
I am sure that gongs for the racketeers, middlemen, and chumocracy will go down very well in Hartlepool and Stoke.
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
And companies in the UK that were previously producing PPE appear to have been ignored.
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
You were over a barrel without any PPE coming and they stepped up to the plate and made it for you.
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
I am sure that gongs for the racketeers, middlemen, and chumocracy will go down very well in Hartlepool and Stoke.
I'm sure having no PPE would have gone down well with you. 🤦🏻♂️
There's no winning with you is there? I read countless posts from you complaining that you were going to run out of PPE - now you didn't and you're angry that you didn't get it for the same price Chinese sweatshops make it for.
Istanbul was the weirdest. We had Dinner in the Four Seasons hotel which meant a trip via ferry across the Bosphorus (no different to a normal day) followed by a walk up to Hague Sophia which likewise was just a normal business day.
Then we pulled crackers and watched the waiters try to work out what to do as they weren't sure if it was rubbish to be instantly removed or left in place.
Xmas in Basra 2003 was my worst. Due to military logistical difficulties, which will almost certainly not be repeated in vaccine distribution, we robbed an Iraqi supermarket for Xmas Dinner ingredients. By this stage in proceedings the Basrans had worked out that the British serviceman was nature's unsurpassed stealing machine and shot at us on sight.
Piece in the Observer yesterday compared Brexit to going back to the Gold Standard in the 20's. That didn't turn out well.
I'd be curious to read that as my thinking is that it is the polar opposite!
Joining the Euro is like the Gold Standard and has had similar consequences too with comparable consequences for the nations struggling under it.
I would say that rejoining the Gold Standard in 1925 (especially at the previous parity) was far worse than either joining the euro or leaving the EU. I can see parallels to Brexit (based on a fundamental misjudgement about the way the world works and the UK's place in it) and joining the euro (fixing your currency and removing an important channel for macroeconomic adjustment). The euro and the gold standard are both reasonable propositions that can work well for countries that fulfill the necessary conditions for it to work, but are disastrous for countries that don't. On the other hand it is hard to see an economic argument for Brexit under any circumstances. You can argue that there are political benefits that offset the economic costs, of course.
Churchill's disastrous 1925 policy of joining the gold standard was mostly a problem because of the pre war rate that he joined. Times had moved on and British Industry was much less competitive than 1913.
I can see some parallel with trying to go back to the UK economy of 1972, rather than deal with more recent trading conditions.
Of course the situation was pretty dire in 1972, that was why we were so desperate to join. Those who can't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Market forces, dear Mr Hannan!, decolonising the curriculum is what boarding school customers choose.
While the faculty at Boarding schools reflect the demographics of Olde Englande, the places are increasingly taken by overseas pupils from China, Africa, Russia and elsewhere, as well as second generation migrants. It can be quite a hard sell to teach British Imperialism as a good thing to them.
Sunak was Head Boy at Winchester, but that is only in line with how times have changed.
I'm not sure wokery is a great selling point for the sons of the Chinese and Russian oligarchs. Or maybe I have missed that Eton publishes its progressive views of transgenderism in its marketing material in those markets.
Eton is a private business, so know their market. They have an active LBGT society, though presumably as a boys school require people to identify as male. Also a feminist society run by boys!
Charity, of course. ;-)
And the market is rather wider now since they run half a dozen schools.
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
You were over a barrel without any PPE coming and they stepped up to the plate and made it for you.
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
I am sure that gongs for the racketeers, middlemen, and chumocracy will go down very well in Hartlepool and Stoke.
I'm sure having no PPE would have gone down well with you. 🤦🏻♂️
There's no winning with you is there? I read countless posts from you complaining that you were going to run out of PPE - now you didn't and you're angry that you didn't get it for the same price Chinese sweatshops make it for.
Some people are never happy. First they whine when a lack of planning means we run out of PPE, then they moan when the government pays over the odds to their spivvy mates for it. Shut up and know your place!
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
You were over a barrel without any PPE coming and they stepped up to the plate and made it for you.
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
I am sure that gongs for the racketeers, middlemen, and chumocracy will go down very well in Hartlepool and Stoke.
I'm sure having no PPE would have gone down well with you. 🤦🏻♂️
There's no winning with you is there? I read countless posts from you complaining that you were going to run out of PPE - now you didn't and you're angry that you didn't get it for the same price Chinese sweatshops make it for.
Some people are never happy. First they whine when a lack of planning means we run out of PPE, then they moan when the government pays over the odds to their spivvy mates for it. Shut up and know your place!
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
You were over a barrel without any PPE coming and they stepped up to the plate and made it for you.
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
I am sure that gongs for the racketeers, middlemen, and chumocracy will go down very well in Hartlepool and Stoke.
I'm sure having no PPE would have gone down well with you. 🤦🏻♂️
There's no winning with you is there? I read countless posts from you complaining that you were going to run out of PPE - now you didn't and you're angry that you didn't get it for the same price Chinese sweatshops make it for.
Some people are never happy. First they whine when a lack of planning means we run out of PPE, then they moan when the government pays over the odds to their spivvy mates for it. Shut up and know your place!
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
You were over a barrel without any PPE coming and they stepped up to the plate and made it for you.
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
I am sure that gongs for the racketeers, middlemen, and chumocracy will go down very well in Hartlepool and Stoke.
I'm sure having no PPE would have gone down well with you. 🤦🏻♂️
There's no winning with you is there? I read countless posts from you complaining that you were going to run out of PPE - now you didn't and you're angry that you didn't get it for the same price Chinese sweatshops make it for.
Some people are never happy. First they whine when a lack of planning means we run out of PPE, then they moan when the government pays over the odds to their spivvy mates for it. Shut up and know your place!
Except we never ran out of PPE.
But we did. We most certainly did. Hospitals, care homes, orfinasry people such as me, tradesmen needing PPE for their work, I needing it for DIY. And there were hints at the time that that was partly due to Government diverting what was available in a chaotic and non-open manner.
I say again Trump will have to be forcibly removed.
No he won't, he won't screw around with the Secret Service - and if they had to remove him they would do so immediately, they don't mess around.
This is all a farce for show. Whinging like Kevin and Perry that it is all so unfair on Twitter is one thing, messing around with the Secret Service is something else entirely.
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
You were over a barrel without any PPE coming and they stepped up to the plate and made it for you.
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
I am sure that gongs for the racketeers, middlemen, and chumocracy will go down very well in Hartlepool and Stoke.
I'm sure having no PPE would have gone down well with you. 🤦🏻♂️
There's no winning with you is there? I read countless posts from you complaining that you were going to run out of PPE - now you didn't and you're angry that you didn't get it for the same price Chinese sweatshops make it for.
Some people are never happy. First they whine when a lack of planning means we run out of PPE, then they moan when the government pays over the odds to their spivvy mates for it. Shut up and know your place!
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
You were over a barrel without any PPE coming and they stepped up to the plate and made it for you.
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
I am sure that gongs for the racketeers, middlemen, and chumocracy will go down very well in Hartlepool and Stoke.
I'm sure having no PPE would have gone down well with you. 🤦🏻♂️
There's no winning with you is there? I read countless posts from you complaining that you were going to run out of PPE - now you didn't and you're angry that you didn't get it for the same price Chinese sweatshops make it for.
Some people are never happy. First they whine when a lack of planning means we run out of PPE, then they moan when the government pays over the odds to their spivvy mates for it. Shut up and know your place!
Except we never ran out of PPE.
But we did. We most certainly did. Hospitals, care homes, orfinasry people such as me, tradesmen needing PPE for their work, I needing it for DIY. And there were hints at the time that that was partly due to Government diverting what was available in a chaotic and non-open manner.
Fair enough, the NHS didn't run out because it was requisitioned for them, everyone else did get disrupted that is a very fair point.
And so there was a massive shortage in the market that the Chinese sweatshops couldn't keep up with and British businesses stepped into that and filled the void.
Istanbul was the weirdest. We had Dinner in the Four Seasons hotel which meant a trip via ferry across the Bosphorus (no different to a normal day) followed by a walk up to Hague Sophia which likewise was just a normal business day.
Then we pulled crackers and watched the waiters try to work out what to do as they weren't sure if it was rubbish to be instantly removed or left in place.
Xmas in Basra 2003 was my worst. Due to military logistical difficulties, which will almost certainly not be repeated in vaccine distribution, we robbed an Iraqi supermarket for Xmas Dinner ingredients. By this stage in proceedings the Basrans had worked out that the British serviceman was nature's unsurpassed stealing machine and shot at us on sight.
🕊️Peace and good will to all men.🕊️
Basran shopkeepers and Santa
He sees you when you're sleeping He knows when you're awake He knows if you've been bad or good So be good for goodness sake.
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
You were over a barrel without any PPE coming and they stepped up to the plate and made it for you.
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
I am sure that gongs for the racketeers, middlemen, and chumocracy will go down very well in Hartlepool and Stoke.
I'm sure having no PPE would have gone down well with you. 🤦🏻♂️
There's no winning with you is there? I read countless posts from you complaining that you were going to run out of PPE - now you didn't and you're angry that you didn't get it for the same price Chinese sweatshops make it for.
Some people are never happy. First they whine when a lack of planning means we run out of PPE, then they moan when the government pays over the odds to their spivvy mates for it. Shut up and know your place!
Except we never ran out of PPE.
Teeth and skin comes to mind. And no thanks to the idiots who scrapped the pandemic plans.
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
You were over a barrel without any PPE coming and they stepped up to the plate and made it for you.
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
I am sure that gongs for the racketeers, middlemen, and chumocracy will go down very well in Hartlepool and Stoke.
I'm sure having no PPE would have gone down well with you. 🤦🏻♂️
There's no winning with you is there? I read countless posts from you complaining that you were going to run out of PPE - now you didn't and you're angry that you didn't get it for the same price Chinese sweatshops make it for.
Some people are never happy. First they whine when a lack of planning means we run out of PPE, then they moan when the government pays over the odds to their spivvy mates for it. Shut up and know your place!
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
You were over a barrel without any PPE coming and they stepped up to the plate and made it for you.
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
I am sure that gongs for the racketeers, middlemen, and chumocracy will go down very well in Hartlepool and Stoke.
I'm sure having no PPE would have gone down well with you. 🤦🏻♂️
There's no winning with you is there? I read countless posts from you complaining that you were going to run out of PPE - now you didn't and you're angry that you didn't get it for the same price Chinese sweatshops make it for.
Some people are never happy. First they whine when a lack of planning means we run out of PPE, then they moan when the government pays over the odds to their spivvy mates for it. Shut up and know your place!
Except we never ran out of PPE.
But we did. We most certainly did. Hospitals, care homes, orfinasry people such as me, tradesmen needing PPE for their work, I needing it for DIY. And there were hints at the time that that was partly due to Government diverting what was available in a chaotic and non-open manner.
Fair enough, the NHS didn't run out because it was requisitioned for them, everyone else did get disrupted that is a very fair point.
And so there was a massive shortage in the market that the Chinese sweatshops couldn't keep up with and British businesses stepped into that and filled the void.
Initial Results From A Massive Experiment: Over 3 Million Coronavirus Tests At New England Colleges https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2020/11/25/on-campus-testing-colleges-broad ...the region has seen nothing like the huge outbreaks affecting thousands in the south and midwest. The University of Florida has had over 5,000 cases, for example, as has Clemson University in South Carolina.
"It’s my understanding that schools that have done frequent testing of asymptomatic students have kept their rates at well below 1% positivity," says Gabriel from the Broad, "whereas schools that use another approach, of only testing symptomatic or only contacts of positives, have a rate at least tenfold higher."...
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
You were over a barrel without any PPE coming and they stepped up to the plate and made it for you.
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
I am sure that gongs for the racketeers, middlemen, and chumocracy will go down very well in Hartlepool and Stoke.
I'm sure having no PPE would have gone down well with you. 🤦🏻♂️
There's no winning with you is there? I read countless posts from you complaining that you were going to run out of PPE - now you didn't and you're angry that you didn't get it for the same price Chinese sweatshops make it for.
Some people are never happy. First they whine when a lack of planning means we run out of PPE, then they moan when the government pays over the odds to their spivvy mates for it. Shut up and know your place!
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
You were over a barrel without any PPE coming and they stepped up to the plate and made it for you.
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
I am sure that gongs for the racketeers, middlemen, and chumocracy will go down very well in Hartlepool and Stoke.
I'm sure having no PPE would have gone down well with you. 🤦🏻♂️
There's no winning with you is there? I read countless posts from you complaining that you were going to run out of PPE - now you didn't and you're angry that you didn't get it for the same price Chinese sweatshops make it for.
Some people are never happy. First they whine when a lack of planning means we run out of PPE, then they moan when the government pays over the odds to their spivvy mates for it. Shut up and know your place!
Except we never ran out of PPE.
But we did. We most certainly did. Hospitals, care homes, orfinasry people such as me, tradesmen needing PPE for their work, I needing it for DIY. And there were hints at the time that that was partly due to Government diverting what was available in a chaotic and non-open manner.
Fair enough, the NHS didn't run out because it was requisitioned for them, everyone else did get disrupted that is a very fair point.
And so there was a massive shortage in the market that the Chinese sweatshops couldn't keep up with and British businesses stepped into that and filled the void.
By importing PPE from China ?
Some, but mostly domestically produced. We have gone in a few months from 99% imported to 70% domestically produced.
Of course domestic manufacturers charge domestic rates not Chinese sweatshop rates. That should be a good thing I would have thought?
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
You were over a barrel without any PPE coming and they stepped up to the plate and made it for you.
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
I am sure that gongs for the racketeers, middlemen, and chumocracy will go down very well in Hartlepool and Stoke.
I'm sure having no PPE would have gone down well with you. 🤦🏻♂️
There's no winning with you is there? I read countless posts from you complaining that you were going to run out of PPE - now you didn't and you're angry that you didn't get it for the same price Chinese sweatshops make it for.
Some people are never happy. First they whine when a lack of planning means we run out of PPE, then they moan when the government pays over the odds to their spivvy mates for it. Shut up and know your place!
Except we never ran out of PPE.
Teeth and skin comes to mind. And no thanks to the idiots who scrapped the pandemic plans.
Considering the Pandemic began a few weeks after Boris won his general election who is the idiot you are thinking of and what post does he or she hold now?
I agree with the Header that he's not helping himself in this regard. Mind you, I don't see how he could without undergoing a procedure which I don't believe is yet available - a complete character and personality transplant. Normally, when a political leader in the democratic world falls, I seek to find something good to say about them and their tenure. This applies as much to politicians of the Right as of the Centre or Left. In fact it applies especially to those on the Right since saying something positive about them virtue signals the objectivity and balance for which I am known. But here, with Donald J Trump, the 45th President of the United States, it is simply not possible. He has been a huge and unremitting disaster for America and the wider world, soup to nuts. There isn't a single positive aspect to his legacy. Worse even than that, he didn't even try to do any good. If I could detect just a shred of benign intention, albeit frustrated in delivery by a lack of intellect or competence, then I would jump avidly on that and highlight it, now he's going. But I can't because there was none. 100% self gratification 0% public service. Amazing. RIP Donald Trump. You made Boris Johnson look like Mahatma Gandhi.
Istanbul was the weirdest. We had Dinner in the Four Seasons hotel which meant a trip via ferry across the Bosphorus (no different to a normal day) followed by a walk up to Hague Sophia which likewise was just a normal business day.
Then we pulled crackers and watched the waiters try to work out what to do as they weren't sure if it was rubbish to be instantly removed or left in place.
Xmas in Basra 2003 was my worst. Due to military logistical difficulties, which will almost certainly not be repeated in vaccine distribution, we robbed an Iraqi supermarket for Xmas Dinner ingredients. By this stage in proceedings the Basrans had worked out that the British serviceman was nature's unsurpassed stealing machine and shot at us on sight.
🕊️Peace and good will to all men.🕊️
Basran shopkeepers and Santa
He sees you when you're sleeping He knows when you're awake He knows if you've been bad or good So be good for goodness sake.
You better reload You better not miss You better take cover And not take the piss Because al-Sadr is coming to town
He knows when you've been Sunni He knows when you've been Shi-ite And he knows if you've been bad or good Don't step on an IED for goodness' sake
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
You were over a barrel without any PPE coming and they stepped up to the plate and made it for you.
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
I am sure that gongs for the racketeers, middlemen, and chumocracy will go down very well in Hartlepool and Stoke.
I'm sure having no PPE would have gone down well with you. 🤦🏻♂️
There's no winning with you is there? I read countless posts from you complaining that you were going to run out of PPE - now you didn't and you're angry that you didn't get it for the same price Chinese sweatshops make it for.
Some people are never happy. First they whine when a lack of planning means we run out of PPE, then they moan when the government pays over the odds to their spivvy mates for it. Shut up and know your place!
Except we never ran out of PPE.
Teeth and skin comes to mind. And no thanks to the idiots who scrapped the pandemic plans.
Considering the Pandemic began a few weeks after Boris won his general election who is the idiot you are thinking of and what post does he or she hold now?
Remind me who the PM was BEFORE the election, and which party has been in sole charge since 2015.
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
You were over a barrel without any PPE coming and they stepped up to the plate and made it for you.
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
I am sure that gongs for the racketeers, middlemen, and chumocracy will go down very well in Hartlepool and Stoke.
I'm sure having no PPE would have gone down well with you. 🤦🏻♂️
There's no winning with you is there? I read countless posts from you complaining that you were going to run out of PPE - now you didn't and you're angry that you didn't get it for the same price Chinese sweatshops make it for.
Some people are never happy. First they whine when a lack of planning means we run out of PPE, then they moan when the government pays over the odds to their spivvy mates for it. Shut up and know your place!
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
You were over a barrel without any PPE coming and they stepped up to the plate and made it for you.
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
I am sure that gongs for the racketeers, middlemen, and chumocracy will go down very well in Hartlepool and Stoke.
I'm sure having no PPE would have gone down well with you. 🤦🏻♂️
There's no winning with you is there? I read countless posts from you complaining that you were going to run out of PPE - now you didn't and you're angry that you didn't get it for the same price Chinese sweatshops make it for.
Some people are never happy. First they whine when a lack of planning means we run out of PPE, then they moan when the government pays over the odds to their spivvy mates for it. Shut up and know your place!
Except we never ran out of PPE.
But we did. We most certainly did. Hospitals, care homes, orfinasry people such as me, tradesmen needing PPE for their work, I needing it for DIY. And there were hints at the time that that was partly due to Government diverting what was available in a chaotic and non-open manner.
Fair enough, the NHS didn't run out because it was requisitioned for them, everyone else did get disrupted that is a very fair point.
And so there was a massive shortage in the market that the Chinese sweatshops couldn't keep up with and British businesses stepped into that and filled the void.
By importing PPE from China ?
Some, but mostly domestically produced. We have gone in a few months from 99% imported to 70% domestically produced.
Of course domestic manufacturers charge domestic rates not Chinese sweatshop rates. That should be a good thing I would have thought?
We're going round in circles here. You criticised Foxy for suggesting that potentially profiteering contracts for the supply of PPE in the first half of the year (mainly imports) should be looked into a little more closely. Saying that we've since developed more domestic manufacturing doesn't really address the case.
I agree with the Header that he's not helping himself in this regard. Mind you, I don't see how he could without undergoing a procedure which I don't believe is yet available - a complete character and personality transplant. Normally, when a political leader in the democratic world falls, I seek to find something good to say about them and their tenure. This applies as much to politicians of the Right as of the Centre or Left. In fact it applies especially to those on the Right since saying something positive about them virtue signals the objectivity and balance for which I am known. But here, with Donald J Trump, the 45th President of the United States, it is simply not possible. He has been a huge and unremitting disaster for America and the wider world, soup to nuts. There isn't a single positive aspect to his legacy. Worse even than that, he didn't even try to do any good. If I could detect just a shred of benign intention, albeit frustrated in delivery by a lack of intellect or competence, then I would jump avidly on that and highlight it, now he's going. But I can't because there was none. 100% self gratification 0% public service. Amazing. RIP Donald Trump. You made Boris Johnson look like Mahatma Gandhi.
To be fair to Trump in terms of any positives under his administration, the economy grew pre Covid and he has started fewer foreign wars or launched fewer US airstrikes abroad than any US President since Carter (Biden will be more of a hawk against Russia and North Korea and in the Middle East outside Iran than Trump was), however Carter was also the last President to lose after only one term of his party in the White House
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
No, we were over a barrel. I just want the profiteers to be held up to public scrutiny along with the connections that landed them the contracts. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for cronyism and kleptocracy.
You were over a barrel without any PPE coming and they stepped up to the plate and made it for you.
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
I am sure that gongs for the racketeers, middlemen, and chumocracy will go down very well in Hartlepool and Stoke.
I'm sure having no PPE would have gone down well with you. 🤦🏻♂️
There's no winning with you is there? I read countless posts from you complaining that you were going to run out of PPE - now you didn't and you're angry that you didn't get it for the same price Chinese sweatshops make it for.
Sometimes you have to handover your wallet to a mugger with a knife, but don't expect gratitude for the mugger.
Initial Results From A Massive Experiment: Over 3 Million Coronavirus Tests At New England Colleges https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2020/11/25/on-campus-testing-colleges-broad ...the region has seen nothing like the huge outbreaks affecting thousands in the south and midwest. The University of Florida has had over 5,000 cases, for example, as has Clemson University in South Carolina.
"It’s my understanding that schools that have done frequent testing of asymptomatic students have kept their rates at well below 1% positivity," says Gabriel from the Broad, "whereas schools that use another approach, of only testing symptomatic or only contacts of positives, have a rate at least tenfold higher."...
That's interesting. Whilst the US is a Covid disaster area generally there have been a few States with conspicuously low rates , notable Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire. You could say that the population distribution, geography and demographics play a big part in that but then by that reckoning you wouldn't have thought the Dakotas would have been the worst performers, which they clearly are,
Seems that sensible administration and listening to the science does make a difference.
Market forces, dear Mr Hannan!, decolonising the curriculum is what boarding school customers choose.
While the faculty at Boarding schools reflect the demographics of Olde Englande, the places are increasingly taken by overseas pupils from China, Africa, Russia and elsewhere, as well as second generation migrants. It can be quite a hard sell to teach British Imperialism as a good thing to them.
Sunak was Head Boy at Winchester, but that is only in line with how times have changed.
Wokery is tiresome at times but anti-wokery much more so in my experience.
A question I have always thought useful to pose. Accepting for the sake of argument that there is such a thing as the Liberal Elite, who would you prefer to be governed by? Them, the Liberal Elite, or the type of folk - at which point picture them - who are constantly frothing about the Liberal Elite?
Neither. I would like to be governed by people who do not think like is a matter of black and white but realise it is various shades of grey and act accordingly.
Well of course. All will agree. But a forced binary question - so long as it remains hypothetical - can be a useful clarifier.
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
And companies in the UK that were previously producing PPE appear to have been ignored.
This is the main one. There are at least 2 established PPE manufacturers and suppliers in my corner of West Yorkshire saying the same thing.
The issue is not that we did some emergency procurement through fasttrack methods or paid spot prices.
The issue isn't that we ran out of PPE - there was a short lived pinch in the first wave for PPE in non COVID settings - and ultimately we did broadly succeed in acquiring and distributing PPE.
The issue was that regular, reliable suppliers seem to have been eschewed in favour of the government's variably qualified mates, and that the prices paid were further inflated, to the benefit of chums, because that route was taken.
Across the pandemic, it is the roads pointedly not taken that throw the roads taken into stark relief. For PPE we got away with it, albeit with our wallets frisked, in other areas, such as test and trace, the roads we have failed to take have been much more detrimental to the end result.
Makes a change from being told "you Jocks were slavers just as bad as us". Which might be convincing if there hadn't been so much genuinely fascinating work put into reassessing the history of Scotland and slavery before woke came along.
The Scots loved the British Empire, so it wasn't Scots being "just as bad as us", they were (and still are) "us". Maybe that is the reason why they are falling out of love with being part of UK now that we spend less time bossing people around the world about?
The entire argument of the "just let us decide our own risk" crowd totally fails to take into account that they're asking to decide everyone else's risk as well. And it's an asymmetric risk profile.
The ones wanting to choose for themselves and others to accept the risk are almost invariably the ones with the least risk. But they almost always look at the "risk of me being infected" and gloss over "the risk of me infecting others," and, in a public health scenario with an infectious pandemic: that is the crucial element.
After all, not one person in the UK (with the possible exception of Allison Pearson) has wanted anyone else to be infected, and no-one who has infected someone else has deliberately done so.
Yet over 5 million people have been infected nevertheless in the UK.
Those who did the infecting have indeed, overwhelmingly been okay. To the tune of 96% or so not needing hospitalisation and 99% or so not dying.
Yet 60,000 people who those infectors managed to infect have gone on to die. Given that most of these were in the higher risk categories, it's highly probable that very few of those 60,000 made the choice to face exposure and risk; instead others made the choice for them - and they ended up dying.
Nearly quarter of a million of the people those infectors did infect have been so sick they were hospitalised. A lot of those needing assistance to merely breathe.
At least a third of a million people face long-term consequences with what has been termed "long covid," many of these suffering organ damage.
Too many of those people infected - the third of a million with long covid, the quarter of a million so sick they were hospitalised, and the 60,000+ dead - had not made a decision to face higher risk.
They had that decision made for them.
By people whose own risk was low, and who did not fully think through the cost to others.
Another excellent post from Andy. Very thought-provoking - deserves a similarly thoughtful response to engage with his view (which is so widely held). So I`ll give it a go.
I`ve said before that lockdown skeptics should avoid tangling with the science and stick to principles only. For example, they should say that they don`t hold anyone else responsible for their own health; one`s own health is one`s own responsibility. This is the elephant in the room. It always has been. The opposition should come from philosophy not from scientific illiteracy, deliberate misinterpretation and mischief. Back in March I said here that at his briefings Johnson should have been flanked by a healthcare scientist, an economist and a philosopher - not just solely the former.
This is the bit I`m struggling with. Andy`s post reveals himself as a strong utilitarian. A moral framework that I don`t hold. I believe that good and bad acts come from intentions not consequences. Therefore you cannot apportion blame to someone who passes on a virus without even knowing that they had it themselves. Andy himself points out that no one has deliberately infected another person with Covid as far as we know (unlike what happened in small numbers with HIV). And, of course, an infection is not imprinted with the signature of the person it came from.
I think people who know me in real life would say that I`m as thoughtful and polite and caring and gentle as they come. But I don`t accept responsibility for other people`s health outside of my closest family. Of course I wish no one ill, but it is not my responsibility. I can`t get away from this. Utilitarians are not going to guilt-trip me into thinking otherwise. We need to stop blaming each other for things. This year has been ugly.
The vaccines are great news. But will they get us out? Only partial I think. The virus will still be present. As far as I know, a vaccine will protect that particular person from symptoms but will not prevent that person from spreading it to others. Covid is not, therefore, going away. And, of course, not everyone will agree to be vaccinated. Social-distancing will still be a thing. Covid will still be here. We still have to learn to live with it. Sorry.
This is bleak outlook - though doesn`t match @Black_Rook levels of bleakness. I`m betting that those holding a utilitarian outlook (which lends itself more to totalitarianism than liberalism I think) who are also risk-averse, and probably financially comfortable in themselves, will still have no intention of learning to live with Covid and will selfishly continue to chide, bully and rebuke the rest of us, who just want to live their lives in the ways we choose in a precious liberal society. For me, the selfishness is on the other side.
If you don`t agree, at least give me the courtesy of being honest.
"I believe that good and bad acts come from intentions not consequences. Therefore you cannot apportion blame to someone who passes on a virus without even knowing that they had it themselves."
The problem is that most things in life are about probabilities - cast iron certainty only occurs in certain kinds of Hollywood movies.
So you have a *possibility* that you have the virus. How do you act?
According to your position, no one should take any action that constrains their own actions unless they are *certain* that harm will result. So why drive at 20 in built up areas?
This is perhaps why we've had to legislate lock-downs in this country rather than just asking people nicely as in Sweden, which worked for them to a fair extent (and why we have smoking bans inside, drink-driving laws etc - I don't believe smokers were deliberately causing cancer in others nor that people who get behind the wheel after a few drinks intend to kill someone).
But with a quick test you are usually prepared for some fals positives because it is the false negatives that cause the problem.
Mr X turns up at the airport. Has a quick test, it is negative and so boards the plane. But it was a false neagtive, so he goes on to infect 20 other passengers.
Mrs Y turns up at the airport. Has a quick test, it is positive, so has a 4 hour test and it turns out to be negative. She's annoyed at having to wait a day before being able to travel, but she is relieved to be Covid free and has not infected any other passengers.
The governments latest attempt to spin their farming changes will lead to smaller farms going out of business . They’ve couched their changes under the help the environment tag to try and dupe the public . Eustice continues to lie about what these changes mean for farmers which is par for the course from this rancid government .
If you’re a farmer and voted for Brexit then you clearly want to end up on the dole. The level of stupidity amongst some farmers beggars belief .
@Philip_Thompson seems to be suggesting that these "middlemen" were making our PPE but they weren't, were they? They were simply acting as middlemen as the name suggests.
They should certainly have been able to make a profit if they created avenues to PPE that we would otherwise not have had access to, but not millions of pounds of profit. That's just disaster capitalism.
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
That's not profiteering, nor racketeering, that is supply and demand Foxy. Demand went up by over 5000%. When demand skyrockets prices go up that is basic economics.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
And companies in the UK that were previously producing PPE appear to have been ignored.
This is the main one. There are at least 2 established PPE manufacturers and suppliers in my corner of West Yorkshire saying the same thing.
The issue is not that we did some emergency procurement through fasttrack methods or paid spot prices.
The issue isn't that we ran out of PPE - there was a short lived pinch in the first wave for PPE in non COVID settings - and ultimately we did broadly succeed in acquiring and distributing PPE.
The issue was that regular, reliable suppliers seem to have been eschewed in favour of the government's variably qualified mates, and that the prices paid were further inflated, to the benefit of chums, because that route was taken.
Across the pandemic, it is the roads pointedly not taken that throw the roads taken into stark relief. For PPE we got away with it, albeit with our wallets frisked, in other areas, such as test and trace, the roads we have failed to take have been much more detrimental to the end result.
Test and trace is already at £22bn and counting. Some of that expenditure was inevitable, as public health capacity was so degraded over the last couple of decades. What has happened since the first lockdown was not.
The entire argument of the "just let us decide our own risk" crowd totally fails to take into account that they're asking to decide everyone else's risk as well. And it's an asymmetric risk profile.
The ones wanting to choose for themselves and others to accept the risk are almost invariably the ones with the least risk. But they almost always look at the "risk of me being infected" and gloss over "the risk of me infecting others," and, in a public health scenario with an infectious pandemic: that is the crucial element.
After all, not one person in the UK (with the possible exception of Allison Pearson) has wanted anyone else to be infected, and no-one who has infected someone else has deliberately done so.
Yet over 5 million people have been infected nevertheless in the UK.
Those who did the infecting have indeed, overwhelmingly been okay. To the tune of 96% or so not needing hospitalisation and 99% or so not dying.
Yet 60,000 people who those infectors managed to infect have gone on to die. Given that most of these were in the higher risk categories, it's highly probable that very few of those 60,000 made the choice to face exposure and risk; instead others made the choice for them - and they ended up dying.
Nearly quarter of a million of the people those infectors did infect have been so sick they were hospitalised. A lot of those needing assistance to merely breathe.
At least a third of a million people face long-term consequences with what has been termed "long covid," many of these suffering organ damage.
Too many of those people infected - the third of a million with long covid, the quarter of a million so sick they were hospitalised, and the 60,000+ dead - had not made a decision to face higher risk.
They had that decision made for them.
By people whose own risk was low, and who did not fully think through the cost to others.
Another excellent post from Andy. Very thought-provoking - deserves a similarly thoughtful response to engage with his view (which is so widely held). So I`ll give it a go.
I`ve said before that lockdown skeptics should avoid tangling with the science and stick to principles only. For example, they should say that they don`t hold anyone else responsible for their own health; one`s own health is one`s own responsibility. This is the elephant in the room. It always has been. The opposition should come from philosophy not from scientific illiteracy, deliberate misinterpretation and mischief. Back in March I said here that at his briefings Johnson should have been flanked by a healthcare scientist, an economist and a philosopher - not just solely the former.
This is the bit I`m struggling with. Andy`s post reveals himself as a strong utilitarian. A moral framework that I don`t hold. I believe that good and bad acts come from intentions not consequences. Therefore you cannot apportion blame to someone who passes on a virus without even knowing that they had it themselves. Andy himself points out that no one has deliberately infected another person with Covid as far as we know (unlike what happened in small numbers with HIV). And, of course, an infection is not imprinted with the signature of the person it came from.
I think people who know me in real life would say that I`m as thoughtful and polite and caring and gentle as they come. But I don`t accept responsibility for other people`s health outside of my closest family. Of course I wish no one ill, but it is not my responsibility. I can`t get away from this. Utilitarians are not going to guilt-trip me into thinking otherwise. We need to stop blaming each other for things. This year has been ugly.
The vaccines are great news. But will they get us out? Only partial I think. The virus will still be present. As far as I know, a vaccine will protect that particular person from symptoms but will not prevent that person from spreading it to others. Covid is not, therefore, going away. And, of course, not everyone will agree to be vaccinated. Social-distancing will still be a thing. Covid will still be here. We still have to learn to live with it. Sorry.
This is bleak outlook - though doesn`t match @Black_Rook levels of bleakness. I`m betting that those holding a utilitarian outlook (which lends itself more to totalitarianism than liberalism I think) who are also risk-averse, and probably financially comfortable in themselves, will still have no intention of learning to live with Covid and will selfishly continue to chide, bully and rebuke the rest of us, who just want to live their lives in the ways we choose in a precious liberal society. For me, the selfishness is on the other side.
If you don`t agree, at least give me the courtesy of being honest.
Thank you for a well thought-out reply, and the up-front compliment.
I have no idea whether or not I am a utilitarian; I'm not really up on moral philosophy. I usually see myself as a liberal: everyone should have the right to pilot their own life in whatever way they can.
But the freedom to swing one's fist ends at someone else's face.
I did highlight that no-one has intentionally infected others. But that others have been infected nevertheless - and at a staggering scale. That actions, in a global pandemic, have huge externalities (in economics terms). If I exercise my freedom and, in doing so, knowingly impair the freedoms of many others to live their lives, that's illiberal of me. I'll have taken away all the choices they could have made in future and made them for them.
If I take some actions that could knowingly hurt others, I am at fault. If I refuse a set of actions that exist to protect others, I am at fault. Of course, as The Good Place covers, virtually every action we can take or refrain from taking will have knock-on consequences and we can't prevent all negative outcomes - but we can look at ones where we know the negative outcomes are huge. Normal actions, where the harm theoretically caused is either hugely unlikely, or very limited in scope, or limited in effect - that's all of life, almost. We blunder through as best we can.
This, though, is nowhere near normal life.
The restrictions we did put successfully kicked the can down the road. Not only do we have vaccines that will be going into people's arms within days, we have vastly improved our treatments and the prognosis of people who are ill. We will continue to do so. There is hope. And there are also indications that some vaccines at least will either prevent spread or hugely reduce spread. We're not in a static scenario; the potential outcomes are improving day by day.
The "lockdown sceptics" and those of the Toby Young side that argue the libertarian case do always seem to gloss over the spreading-the-disease onwards aspect. Mary Mallon certainly had her personal freedoms hugely curtailed - but doing so stopped her from taking a load of life choices away from others. Totalitarianism is usually seen as people having choices imposed upon them rather than being able to make them themselves. Surely taking actions that can be reasonably seen to, en masse, take a lot of choices away from others (when killed or disabled by anothers choices, a lot of potential choices evaporate) isn't truly a liberal course of action?
(I'm also not sure that "risk-averse" sums me up. I've been accused of the opposite in the past, with the skydiving and the microlighting, but that could simply be a different category of risk. I'd say I'm risk averse when my risk-taking could affect my family or others; I really don't think "totalitarian" applies to me, but I could be wrong there as well).
But with a quick test you are usually prepared for some false positives because it is the false negatives that cause the problem.
No, it isn't. Particularly if you know that the test is not 100% sensitive.
The whole point of cheap antigen tests is for mass population testing irrespective of symptoms, as a far cheaper and more effective way to drive down infection levels. If we'd had them after the summer, we wouldn't have had a second lockdown.
They are not to tell you if you're 100% safe - though they will catch the vast majority of those at peak infection (which would be your superspreaders).
Market forces, dear Mr Hannan!, decolonising the curriculum is what boarding school customers choose.
While the faculty at Boarding schools reflect the demographics of Olde Englande, the places are increasingly taken by overseas pupils from China, Africa, Russia and elsewhere, as well as second generation migrants. It can be quite a hard sell to teach British Imperialism as a good thing to them.
Sunak was Head Boy at Winchester, but that is only in line with how times have changed.
I'm not sure wokery is a great selling point for the sons of the Chinese and Russian oligarchs. Or maybe I have missed that Eton publishes its progressive views of transgenderism in its marketing material in those markets.
Another way of looking at it, and that article: some of those schools are now imposing "immigration control" rather than allowing "free movement" because they understand it will otherwise fundamentally change the nature of those schools.
@Philip_Thompson seems to be suggesting that these "middlemen" were making our PPE but they weren't, were they? They were simply acting as middlemen as the name suggests.
They should certainly have been able to make a profit if they created avenues to PPE that we would otherwise not have had access to, but not millions of pounds of profit. That's just disaster capitalism.
Defending such behaviour is beyond the pale.
Why not millions of pounds of profit?
What percentage of trade being a profit is OK to you? Hypothetically someone invests in creating a plant that manufacturers PPE and gets a contract for say over £100mn with 98% going to total costs and a 2% margin then is that acceptable or unacceptable in your eyes?
Market forces, dear Mr Hannan!, decolonising the curriculum is what boarding school customers choose.
While the faculty at Boarding schools reflect the demographics of Olde Englande, the places are increasingly taken by overseas pupils from China, Africa, Russia and elsewhere, as well as second generation migrants. It can be quite a hard sell to teach British Imperialism as a good thing to them.
Sunak was Head Boy at Winchester, but that is only in line with how times have changed.
I'm not sure wokery is a great selling point for the sons of the Chinese and Russian oligarchs. Or maybe I have missed that Eton publishes its progressive views of transgenderism in its marketing material in those markets.
Eton is a private business, so know their market. They have an active LBGT society, though presumably as a boys school require people to identify as male. Also a feminist society run by boys!
My kids' co-ed comprehensive has a feminist society. My daughter complains that the boys tend to monopolise it. I see that as an important part of her feminist education.
Boys join feminist societies to show they're "on side" and thereby have a better shot with girls, whom they're also more likely to meet in such societies.
@Philip_Thompson seems to be suggesting that these "middlemen" were making our PPE but they weren't, were they? They were simply acting as middlemen as the name suggests.
They should certainly have been able to make a profit if they created avenues to PPE that we would otherwise not have had access to, but not millions of pounds of profit. That's just disaster capitalism.
Defending such behaviour is beyond the pale.
Why not millions of pounds of profit?
What percentage of trade being a profit is OK to you? Hypothetically someone invests in creating a plant that manufacturers PPE and gets a contract for say over £100mn with 98% going to total costs and a 2% margin then is that acceptable or unacceptable in your eyes?
WHO are you talking about? We're talking about middlemen, not about people investing in factories. Which is it?
3. Ignore vested interests squealing at this stage of negotiations. They exaggerate for effect what they want to try and get what they want agreed.
You want to ignore the vested interests of the fishing industry. To negotiate a deal. For the fishing industry. That largely shuts them down.
What they want is what they were sold. Salvation. The CFP was massively damaging to them, lets get out. So we get out, but stop them from economically exporting which kills them completely.
What a victory for Britain. Patriotism at its finest.
Yes, ignore them.
A deal won't shut them down. No deal won't shut them down. Fish can be exported to the EU on WTO terms, it just needs to be frozen first. So if that is what happens they will need to freeze it first, at which point it can be sold to the EU - or sold anywhere in the globe too.
They will want a deal tweaked to what they prefer, so would Nissan, so would anyone else. But ignore them all. Its as much bullshit as the supposed idea Nissan are going to close likely is bullshit too.
Para 2. Difficult with shellfish and similar.And needs lots of equipment.
Never seems to be a problem when I hit the supermarkets. Prawns scallops lobster mussels all abundantly available.
As for equipment, are you against investment ?
Indeed.
Shellfish is traded and frozen all over the globe. I bought some recently (frozen) that was labelled on the packaging as coming from Canada amusingly enough.
How amusing. Hur hur.
Frozen and fresh shellfish are COMPLETELY different products, businesses and markets, like fresh vs tinned strawberries. The ignorance of food, cooking, and how the world works in that post is just gobsmacking. There are prosperous businesses to whom saying "just freeze it" is like telling an unemployed miner you don't see his problem, why doesn't he retrain as a stockbroker? Still, it's one more downside to brexit which turns out to be fine because PT from a position of absolute ignorance doesn't see the problem and is personally unaffected by it. Phew.
The entire argument of the "just let us decide our own risk" crowd totally fails to take into account that they're asking to decide everyone else's risk as well. And it's an asymmetric risk profile.
The ones wanting to choose for themselves and others to accept the risk are almost invariably the ones with the least risk. But they almost always look at the "risk of me being infected" and gloss over "the risk of me infecting others," and, in a public health scenario with an infectious pandemic: that is the crucial element.
"The ones wanting to choose for themselves and others to accept the risk are almost invariably the ones with the least risk."
But, that is not always the case. The much harder example is suppose a high risk person wants to meet a low risk person and is fully aware of the risks involved.
Should an old person be allowed to take their chances with the virus if they prefer that to cutting themselves off from society?
If an elderly person (with perhaps not much to live for other than occasional contact with family) really wants to meet their grand-children at Christmas, and is fully aware of the risks that this meeting may kill him or her, should they be allowed to do so?
I think this is not quite so easy to decide. (I am perfectly well aware of the wider public health implications).
@Philip_Thompson seems to be suggesting that these "middlemen" were making our PPE but they weren't, were they? They were simply acting as middlemen as the name suggests.
They should certainly have been able to make a profit if they created avenues to PPE that we would otherwise not have had access to, but not millions of pounds of profit. That's just disaster capitalism.
Defending such behaviour is beyond the pale.
Why not millions of pounds of profit?
What percentage of trade being a profit is OK to you? Hypothetically someone invests in creating a plant that manufacturers PPE and gets a contract for say over £100mn with 98% going to total costs and a 2% margin then is that acceptable or unacceptable in your eyes?
WHO are you talking about? We're talking about middlemen, not about people investing in factories. Which is it?
We are not talking about middlemen primarily.
We have gone from 99% imported to 30% imported. That is a dramatic transformation.
As for those engaged in the import business, that has costs too of course it does. And when we were 99% imported of course we needed to import some.
I agree with the Header that he's not helping himself in this regard. Mind you, I don't see how he could without undergoing a procedure which I don't believe is yet available - a complete character and personality transplant. Normally, when a political leader in the democratic world falls, I seek to find something good to say about them and their tenure. This applies as much to politicians of the Right as of the Centre or Left. In fact it applies especially to those on the Right since saying something positive about them virtue signals the objectivity and balance for which I am known. But here, with Donald J Trump, the 45th President of the United States, it is simply not possible. He has been a huge and unremitting disaster for America and the wider world, soup to nuts. There isn't a single positive aspect to his legacy. Worse even than that, he didn't even try to do any good. If I could detect just a shred of benign intention, albeit frustrated in delivery by a lack of intellect or competence, then I would jump avidly on that and highlight it, now he's going. But I can't because there was none. 100% self gratification 0% public service. Amazing. RIP Donald Trump. You made Boris Johnson look like Mahatma Gandhi.
To be fair to Trump in terms of any positives under his administration, the economy grew pre Covid and he has started fewer foreign wars or launched fewer US airstrikes abroad than any US President since Carter (Biden will be more of a hawk against Russia and North Korea and in the Middle East outside Iran than Trump was), however Carter was also the last President to lose after only one term of his party in the White House
He inherited a strong and balanced economy from Obama who had inherited one in the toilet (the economy, I mean, not Obama) then frothed it up at the expense of the fiscal balance by somehow managing to find the resolution and political skill to get a package cutting taxes skewed in favour of the wealthy and big corporates through a Republican Congress.
But, ok, he didn't start WW3. Which was a genuine relief. Spent zillions on the military but seemed to want them more as a prop than anything else.
@Philip_Thompson seems to be suggesting that these "middlemen" were making our PPE but they weren't, were they? They were simply acting as middlemen as the name suggests.
They should certainly have been able to make a profit if they created avenues to PPE that we would otherwise not have had access to, but not millions of pounds of profit. That's just disaster capitalism.
Defending such behaviour is beyond the pale.
Why not millions of pounds of profit?
What percentage of trade being a profit is OK to you? Hypothetically someone invests in creating a plant that manufacturers PPE and gets a contract for say over £100mn with 98% going to total costs and a 2% margin then is that acceptable or unacceptable in your eyes?
WHO are you talking about? We're talking about middlemen, not about people investing in factories. Which is it?
We are not talking about middlemen primarily.
We have gone from 99% imported to 30% imported. That is a dramatic transformation.
As for those engaged in the import business, that has costs too of course it does. And when we were 99% imported of course we needed to import some.
Foxy is criticising middlemen. Not factory owners in the UK. You've completely moved the goalposts.
Market forces, dear Mr Hannan!, decolonising the curriculum is what boarding school customers choose.
While the faculty at Boarding schools reflect the demographics of Olde Englande, the places are increasingly taken by overseas pupils from China, Africa, Russia and elsewhere, as well as second generation migrants. It can be quite a hard sell to teach British Imperialism as a good thing to them.
Sunak was Head Boy at Winchester, but that is only in line with how times have changed.
I'm not sure wokery is a great selling point for the sons of the Chinese and Russian oligarchs. Or maybe I have missed that Eton publishes its progressive views of transgenderism in its marketing material in those markets.
Eton is a private business, so know their market. They have an active LBGT society, though presumably as a boys school require people to identify as male. Also a feminist society run by boys!
My kids' co-ed comprehensive has a feminist society. My daughter complains that the boys tend to monopolise it. I see that as an important part of her feminist education.
Boys join feminist societies to show they're "on side" and thereby have a better shot with girls, whom they're also more likely to meet in such societies.
Ha ha, you are speaking to someone who chose their college on the basis that it had the most advantageous sex ratio. I know how these things work!
I agree with the Header that he's not helping himself in this regard. Mind you, I don't see how he could without undergoing a procedure which I don't believe is yet available - a complete character and personality transplant. Normally, when a political leader in the democratic world falls, I seek to find something good to say about them and their tenure. This applies as much to politicians of the Right as of the Centre or Left. In fact it applies especially to those on the Right since saying something positive about them virtue signals the objectivity and balance for which I am known. But here, with Donald J Trump, the 45th President of the United States, it is simply not possible. He has been a huge and unremitting disaster for America and the wider world, soup to nuts. There isn't a single positive aspect to his legacy. Worse even than that, he didn't even try to do any good. If I could detect just a shred of benign intention, albeit frustrated in delivery by a lack of intellect or competence, then I would jump avidly on that and highlight it, now he's going. But I can't because there was none. 100% self gratification 0% public service. Amazing. RIP Donald Trump. You made Boris Johnson look like Mahatma Gandhi.
To be fair to Trump in terms of any positives under his administration, the economy grew pre Covid and he has started fewer foreign wars or launched fewer US airstrikes abroad than any US President since Carter (Biden will be more of a hawk against Russia and North Korea and in the Middle East outside Iran than Trump was), however Carter was also the last President to lose after only one term of his party in the White House
He's been less of a disaster than I thought he would be but then I thought there was a real chance he might start a nuclear war so I set the bar pretty low.
I agree with you about the lack of wars. I suspect the reason is that he just didn't understand foreign affairs so didn't meddle. (I believe Obama referred to him having the understanding of international affairs of a thirteen year old, which sounds about right.) When he did, it was to suit his domestic agenda. The Turkish Kurds episode was appalling and the US will be paying for that for decades. His Middle East initiative however seems to have done little harm and may possibly lead to some good when Biden picks up the threads.
I can't give him a pass on the economy. He inherited a very healthy situation. Again, he didn't stuff it up but he did favor the rich corporations and did little to rebuild the country's ailing infrastructure. It was however a case of missed opportunities rather than malfeasance.
The big downside was of course his perversion of the State and undermining of democracy. I remember Nixon and the concerns then that he was subverting democracy and the institutions of State but outside the Socialist Workers Party nobody reallly thought the US was turning into a despotism. For the first time in my long life I really worried that this might happen under Trump, particularly when he first indicated his intention to disregard the election result. I still do think it may have come to pass if the result had been a bit closer. It seems the danger has passed now though, whatever he (and Betfair) may think.
He has been without doubt the worst US President of my lifetime, and quite possibly the worst ever. James Buchanan's long reign as holder of that unwanted title may be about to end.
Most normal people, in a time of national crisis, would not say to the Government:
"I know a factory in China who has plenty of PPE they can send us. I will tell you ONLY if I get 10% of every order."
They would say:
"I know a factory in China who has plenty of PPE they can send us. Here are their details."
Most normal people aren't middle-men putting buyers in contact with sellers. In the real world, I suspect they would just go to another buyer.
So they are disaster profiteers then? Not something to defend. Should have been illegal really.
I suspect if you did that it would have dried up supply really fast as all those unscrupulous individuals sold it to the next buyer on the list.
Not if they can no longer enter Britain due to fear of arrest.
It would be illegal not to do business with the UK? They are free not to work with whoever they want.
In normal circumstances. Not in times of war and disaster. If I was Health Secretary and my mate sent me a WhatsApp message with details of availability of a ton of PPE, for example, I would expect such information to be provided free of charge, not in return for millions of pounds of kickbacks.
if they were offering services to facilitate it's import, then they could be paid a small nominal rate to cover the cost, again not millions of pounds.
@Philip_Thompson seems to be suggesting that these "middlemen" were making our PPE but they weren't, were they? They were simply acting as middlemen as the name suggests.
They should certainly have been able to make a profit if they created avenues to PPE that we would otherwise not have had access to, but not millions of pounds of profit. That's just disaster capitalism.
Defending such behaviour is beyond the pale.
Why not millions of pounds of profit?
What percentage of trade being a profit is OK to you? Hypothetically someone invests in creating a plant that manufacturers PPE and gets a contract for say over £100mn with 98% going to total costs and a 2% margin then is that acceptable or unacceptable in your eyes?
WHO are you talking about? We're talking about middlemen, not about people investing in factories. Which is it?
We are not talking about middlemen primarily.
We have gone from 99% imported to 30% imported. That is a dramatic transformation.
As for those engaged in the import business, that has costs too of course it does. And when we were 99% imported of course we needed to import some.
Foxy is criticising middlemen. Not factory owners in the UK. You've completely moved the goalposts.
No I've not as the transformation that has happened in the last few months has been going from 99% imported (pre existing circumstances) which will inevitably involve what you term "middle men" to 30% imported.
How do you propose cutting out middle men and getting the goods from China to the UK? Teleportation spells? Magic portals? Wishful thinking?
Most people in Britain were brought up in a country that offered the faint hope of justice. The police would investigate corruption, if only occasionally. Politicians would dodge and weave but avoid flat-out lies. Political parties had moral standards, however flexible, and if a minister disgraced himself or herself they could resign. Opposition politicians, journalists, satirists, charities and alliances of concerned citizens worked on the assumption that if they exposed wrongdoing there was a chance it would stop.
I don’t wish to romanticise the past. My small point is that we have not always been as shamefully governed as we are governed today. Countries change and not always for the better. Corruptions of public life in Britain that were once challenged now pass unpunished. The old codes that restrained the powerful have proved useless against politicians who say: “We can break them and no one can stop us.” Boris Johnson’s administration now lies as a matter of policy and a matter of course.
Boris is Trump. Both leaders have shown that what we thought were checks and balances, were not; that our constitutional and democratic conventions were just that, conventions. The only mitigating factor is neither Boris nor Trump is consistent or dogmatic, let alone evil, but this cannot be guaranteed of their successors.
“Rulers’ self-restraint is one of the most important – if less formal – ways by which governments control themselves. The belief that there are some limits, generally understood and shared despite political differences, beyond which you do not go because it is not the “done thing”, not the British way, not least because when you are out of power you don’t want to be on the receiving end. It is the “good chaps” theory of government. Coupled with that is a belief that even a democratic system requires checks and balances, that the system of government has a value which should be preserved and endure beyond the needs or desires of those in power at any one time.”
“The British conventions governing democracy and the consensus around them endure for as long as they are understood, believed and accepted. They become vulnerable, their weaknesses exposed when the reasons for them are forgotten or not valued or not understood. What if it is not “good chaps” who are elected? What if they are seen as stultifying by those impatient to effect change and willing to get rid of anything in their way? Or if checks and balances are simply described as obstruction and not seen as having any inherent value? Some do think that a government with a Parliamentary majority should be free to do whatever it wants and can get through Parliament: electoral might is right.”
Everything Cohen describes follows from the fact that we have people in power who think nothing should stand in their way, that, for instance, corruption is fine if done by an elected government or because it is an emergency or a necessity.
And of course the definition of “emergency” or “necessity” becomes ever wider until it becomes the norm and no-one even bothers to call it for what it is.
So if it becomes necessary to pay “middlemen” or “intermediaries” who happen to be the Minister’s neighbour or best friend or golf partner or whatever humongous sums of money to fly in Covid vaccines because the ports are blocked etc no- one will bat an eye lid and many will applaud. We have seen some of that on here already.
But in the real world the "middlemen" tasked with flying in the vaccines isn't "best friends" it is the military.
While for PPE 99.5% of PPE purchased has been consumable and there was a global shortage of availability. Those businesses that stepped into the gap and provided millions of items of PPE should be thanked not condemned.
We paid £12 billion for PPE worth £2 billion the year before. Clearly some people made massively inflated profits by this racketeering. An investigation of who, how authorised and how connected is perfectly fitting. While we are at it, looking at how depleted our pandemic stocks were prior to the outbreak could be usefully incorporated.
Market forces, dear Mr Hannan!, decolonising the curriculum is what boarding school customers choose.
While the faculty at Boarding schools reflect the demographics of Olde Englande, the places are increasingly taken by overseas pupils from China, Africa, Russia and elsewhere, as well as second generation migrants. It can be quite a hard sell to teach British Imperialism as a good thing to them.
Sunak was Head Boy at Winchester, but that is only in line with how times have changed.
I'm not sure wokery is a great selling point for the sons of the Chinese and Russian oligarchs. Or maybe I have missed that Eton publishes its progressive views of transgenderism in its marketing material in those markets.
Eton is a private business, so know their market. They have an active LBGT society, though presumably as a boys school require people to identify as male. Also a feminist society run by boys!
My kids' co-ed comprehensive has a feminist society. My daughter complains that the boys tend to monopolise it. I see that as an important part of her feminist education.
Boys join feminist societies to show they're "on side" and thereby have a better shot with girls, whom they're also more likely to meet in such societies.
Ha ha, you are speaking to someone who chose their college on the basis that it had the most advantageous sex ratio. I know how these things work!
V. true. It was art school or English at uni for me; no contest.
Most normal people, in a time of national crisis, would not say to the Government:
"I know a factory in China who has plenty of PPE they can send us. I will tell you ONLY if I get 10% of every order."
They would say:
"I know a factory in China who has plenty of PPE they can send us. Here are their details."
Most normal people aren't middle-men putting buyers in contact with sellers. In the real world, I suspect they would just go to another buyer.
So they are disaster profiteers then? Not something to defend. Should have been illegal really.
I suspect if you did that it would have dried up supply really fast as all those unscrupulous individuals sold it to the next buyer on the list.
Not if they can no longer enter Britain due to fear of arrest.
It would be illegal not to do business with the UK? They are free not to work with whoever they want.
In normal circumstances. Not in times of war and disaster. If I was Health Secretary and my mate sent me a WhatsApp message with details of availability of a ton of PPE, for example, I would expect such information to be provided free of charge, not in return for millions of pounds of kickbacks.
if they were offering services to facilitate it's import, then they could be paid a small nominal rate to cover the cost, again not millions of pounds.
It really is beyond the pale.
My point was if the law was there they wouldn't be doing that in the first place.
@Philip_Thompson seems to be suggesting that these "middlemen" were making our PPE but they weren't, were they? They were simply acting as middlemen as the name suggests.
They should certainly have been able to make a profit if they created avenues to PPE that we would otherwise not have had access to, but not millions of pounds of profit. That's just disaster capitalism.
Defending such behaviour is beyond the pale.
Why not millions of pounds of profit?
What percentage of trade being a profit is OK to you? Hypothetically someone invests in creating a plant that manufacturers PPE and gets a contract for say over £100mn with 98% going to total costs and a 2% margin then is that acceptable or unacceptable in your eyes?
WHO are you talking about? We're talking about middlemen, not about people investing in factories. Which is it?
We are not talking about middlemen primarily.
We have gone from 99% imported to 30% imported. That is a dramatic transformation.
As for those engaged in the import business, that has costs too of course it does. And when we were 99% imported of course we needed to import some.
Foxy is criticising middlemen. Not factory owners in the UK. You've completely moved the goalposts.
No I've not as the transformation that has happened in the last few months has been going from 99% imported (pre existing circumstances) which will inevitably involve what you term "middle men" to 30% imported.
How do you propose cutting out middle men and getting the goods from China to the UK? Teleportation spells? Magic portals? Wishful thinking?
If said "middlemen" provided a freight forwarding or logistics service then they could have been paid a nominal sum to cover their costs. War profiteering is wrong. Disaster profiteering is wrong. It's really as simple as that.
Substantial meals are a pre-existing licensing term. It isn't rocket science and isn't new much as it may bemuse media trolls like you.
Fear of Scottish independence sees Scotch Eggs privileged over Cornish Pasties. Cornwall needs to up its separatist game.
I think Eustice is wrong, unless he's adding pickles and beetroot, or some cocktail sausages.
"This sent social media into a flurry, with many asking what constituted such a serving. As ever, legal Twitter was on hand, specifically barrister Charles Holland who helpfully cited the 1965 case of Timmis v Millman.
The story goes that respondents Millman and Yarnold had been discovered in a hotel bar at 11.30pm consuming light ale and stout outside of permitted hours (but within the supper hour extension of the time). Justices found the sandwiches the pair were eating ‘were so substantial, and assisted by the pickles and beetroot so as to justify that it was a table meal and not a mere snack from the bar’.
I agree with the Header that he's not helping himself in this regard. Mind you, I don't see how he could without undergoing a procedure which I don't believe is yet available - a complete character and personality transplant. Normally, when a political leader in the democratic world falls, I seek to find something good to say about them and their tenure. This applies as much to politicians of the Right as of the Centre or Left. In fact it applies especially to those on the Right since saying something positive about them virtue signals the objectivity and balance for which I am known. But here, with Donald J Trump, the 45th President of the United States, it is simply not possible. He has been a huge and unremitting disaster for America and the wider world, soup to nuts. There isn't a single positive aspect to his legacy. Worse even than that, he didn't even try to do any good. If I could detect just a shred of benign intention, albeit frustrated in delivery by a lack of intellect or competence, then I would jump avidly on that and highlight it, now he's going. But I can't because there was none. 100% self gratification 0% public service. Amazing. RIP Donald Trump. You made Boris Johnson look like Mahatma Gandhi.
To be fair to Trump in terms of any positives under his administration, the economy grew pre Covid and he has started fewer foreign wars or launched fewer US airstrikes abroad than any US President since Carter (Biden will be more of a hawk against Russia and North Korea and in the Middle East outside Iran than Trump was), however Carter was also the last President to lose after only one term of his party in the White House
He inherited a strong and balanced economy from Obama who had inherited one in the toilet (the economy, I mean, not Obama) then frothed it up at the expense of the fiscal balance by somehow managing to find the resolution and political skill to get a package cutting taxes skewed in favour of the wealthy and big corporates through a Republican Congress.
But, ok, he didn't start WW3. Which was a genuine relief. Spent zillions on the military but seemed to want them more as a prop than anything else.
Trump was arguably the least hawkish candidate bar Sanders in both 2016 and 2020 for all his other faults
Most normal people, in a time of national crisis, would not say to the Government:
"I know a factory in China who has plenty of PPE they can send us. I will tell you ONLY if I get 10% of every order."
They would say:
"I know a factory in China who has plenty of PPE they can send us. Here are their details."
Most normal people aren't middle-men putting buyers in contact with sellers. In the real world, I suspect they would just go to another buyer.
So they are disaster profiteers then? Not something to defend. Should have been illegal really.
I suspect if you did that it would have dried up supply really fast as all those unscrupulous individuals sold it to the next buyer on the list.
Not if they can no longer enter Britain due to fear of arrest.
It would be illegal not to do business with the UK? They are free not to work with whoever they want.
In normal circumstances. Not in times of war and disaster. If I was Health Secretary and my mate sent me a WhatsApp message with details of availability of a ton of PPE, for example, I would expect such information to be provided free of charge, not in return for millions of pounds of kickbacks.
if they were offering services to facilitate it's import, then they could be paid a small nominal rate to cover the cost, again not millions of pounds.
It really is beyond the pale.
If the law was there they wouldn't be doing that in the first place, that was my point.
I'm not saying what they did was illegal. I'm saying it was immoral and not something to celebrate.
I agree with the Header that he's not helping himself in this regard. Mind you, I don't see how he could without undergoing a procedure which I don't believe is yet available - a complete character and personality transplant. Normally, when a political leader in the democratic world falls, I seek to find something good to say about them and their tenure. This applies as much to politicians of the Right as of the Centre or Left. In fact it applies especially to those on the Right since saying something positive about them virtue signals the objectivity and balance for which I am known. But here, with Donald J Trump, the 45th President of the United States, it is simply not possible. He has been a huge and unremitting disaster for America and the wider world, soup to nuts. There isn't a single positive aspect to his legacy. Worse even than that, he didn't even try to do any good. If I could detect just a shred of benign intention, albeit frustrated in delivery by a lack of intellect or competence, then I would jump avidly on that and highlight it, now he's going. But I can't because there was none. 100% self gratification 0% public service. Amazing. RIP Donald Trump. You made Boris Johnson look like Mahatma Gandhi.
To be fair to Trump in terms of any positives under his administration, the economy grew pre Covid and he has started fewer foreign wars or launched fewer US airstrikes abroad than any US President since Carter (Biden will be more of a hawk against Russia and North Korea and in the Middle East outside Iran than Trump was), however Carter was also the last President to lose after only one term of his party in the White House
He's been less of a disaster than I thought he would be but then I thought there was a real chance he might start a nuclear war so I set the bar pretty low.
I agree with you about the lack of wars. I suspect the reason is that he just didn't understand foreign affairs so didn't meddle. (I believe Obama referred to him having the understanding of international affairs of a thirteen year old, which sounds about right.) When he did, it was to suit his domestic agenda. The Turkish Kurds episode was appalling and the US will be paying for that for decades. His Middle East initiative however seems to have done little harm and may possibly lead to some good when Biden picks up the threads.
I can't give him a pass on the economy. He inherited a very healthy situation. Again, he didn't stuff it up but he did favor the rich corporations and did little to rebuild the country's ailing infrastructure. It was however a case of missed opportunities rather than malfeasance.
The big downside was of course his perversion of the State and undermining of democracy. I remember Nixon and the concerns then that he was subverting democracy and the institutions of State but outside the Socialist Workers Party nobody reallly thought the US was turning into a despotism. For the first time in my long life I really worried that this might happen under Trump, particularly when he first indicated his intention to disregard the election result. I still do think it may have come to pass if the result had been a bit closer. It seems the danger has passed now though, whatever he (and Betfair) may think.
He has been without doubt the worst US President of my lifetime, and quite possibly the worst ever. James Buchanan's long reign as holder of that unwanted title may be about to end.
For the DC establishment he was certainly the worst US President ever
Comments
Joining the Euro is like the Gold Standard and has had similar consequences too with comparable consequences for the nations struggling under it.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tory-steve-dechans-276m-in-ppe-contracts-lands-him-a-place-in-the-country-zgbmmtn8q
The Lords can't be age-balanced without total abolition of it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-55098415
I`ve said before that lockdown skeptics should avoid tangling with the science and stick to principles only. For example, they should say that they don`t hold anyone else responsible for their own health; one`s own health is one`s own responsibility. This is the elephant in the room. It always has been. The opposition should come from philosophy not from scientific illiteracy, deliberate misinterpretation and mischief. Back in March I said here that at his briefings Johnson should have been flanked by a healthcare scientist, an economist and a philosopher - not just solely the former.
This is the bit I`m struggling with. Andy`s post reveals himself as a strong utilitarian. A moral framework that I don`t hold. I believe that good and bad acts come from intentions not consequences. Therefore you cannot apportion blame to someone who passes on a virus without even knowing that they had it themselves. Andy himself points out that no one has deliberately infected another person with Covid as far as we know (unlike what happened in small numbers with HIV). And, of course, an infection is not imprinted with the signature of the person it came from.
I think people who know me in real life would say that I`m as thoughtful and polite and caring and gentle as they come. But I don`t accept responsibility for other people`s health outside of my closest family. Of course I wish no one ill, but it is not my responsibility. I can`t get away from this. Utilitarians are not going to guilt-trip me into thinking otherwise. We need to stop blaming each other for things. This year has been ugly.
The vaccines are great news. But will they get us out? Only partial I think. The virus will still be present. As far as I know, a vaccine will protect that particular person from symptoms but will not prevent that person from spreading it to others. Covid is not, therefore, going away. And, of course, not everyone will agree to be vaccinated. Social-distancing will still be a thing. Covid will still be here. We still have to learn to live with it. Sorry.
This is bleak outlook - though doesn`t match @Black_Rook levels of bleakness. I`m betting that those holding a utilitarian outlook (which lends itself more to totalitarianism than liberalism I think) who are also risk-averse, and probably financially comfortable in themselves, will still have no intention of learning to live with Covid and will selfishly continue to chide, bully and rebuke the rest of us, who just want to live their lives in the ways we choose in a precious liberal society. For me, the selfishness is on the other side.
If you don`t agree, at least give me the courtesy of being honest.
Fixed term life peerages would be one way of limiting such daftness, but far better to scrap the whole thing in my eyes.
Then we pulled crackers and watched the waiters try to work out what to do as they weren't sure if it was rubbish to be instantly removed or left in place.
My first suggestion would be at least a five or ten year gap between serving in the Commons vs the Lords. It shouldn't be a bauble to persuade some codger MP to retire, and its encourage those who step down or lose their seats to continue to try and serve the public somehow to earn a place, and prevent PMs easily giving peerages to cronies.
Minimum attendance also to be mandated or else lose your place automatically.
Plus previously 99% of PPE we bought was imported. In case you haven't noticed sweatshops in China can produce a bit cheaper than domestic businesses can.
Companies in the UK that were never previously producing PPE suddenly needed to in order to supply you with the goods that you needed - and you are objecting over a change in price? Do you think that British businesses producing PPE during a pandemic should only be paid the same price as Chinese factories were paid?
Should the British employees working in those factories be paid Chinese sweatshop wages?
The problem is that most things in life are about probabilities - cast iron certainty only occurs in certain kinds of Hollywood movies.
So you have a *possibility* that you have the virus. How do you act?
According to your position, no one should take any action that constrains their own actions unless they are *certain* that harm will result. So why drive at 20 in built up areas?
Without them you would have ran out of PPE. 🤷🏻♂️
That is the market in action. Analyse it all you like but gongs to thank those who stepped up to the plate would be more appropriate than condemnation.
I can see some parallel with trying to go back to the UK economy of 1972, rather than deal with more recent trading conditions.
The pool goes under their territory and their wells sucked it up.
I have to say that I'm saddened that Erdogan has turned the Hagia Sophia back into a mosque, as it's breathtaking. You look at it, walk round it, and can scarcely believe its antiquity.
Mersey company forced to lay off staff as PPE contracts go to Tory connected firms buying from abroad
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/mersey-company-forced-lay-staff-19311174.amp
"Only last year we were picked out by the government as one of four model successful factory firms - yet we weren’t model enough to even quote for a contract"
There's no winning with you is there? I read countless posts from you complaining that you were going to run out of PPE - now you didn't and you're angry that you didn't get it for the same price Chinese sweatshops make it for.
🕊️Peace and good will to all men.🕊️
And the market is rather wider now since they run half a dozen schools.
This is all a farce for show. Whinging like Kevin and Perry that it is all so unfair on Twitter is one thing, messing around with the Secret Service is something else entirely.
And so there was a massive shortage in the market that the Chinese sweatshops couldn't keep up with and British businesses stepped into that and filled the void.
He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake.
https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2020/11/25/on-campus-testing-colleges-broad
...the region has seen nothing like the huge outbreaks affecting thousands in the south and midwest. The University of Florida has had over 5,000 cases, for example, as has Clemson University in South Carolina.
"It’s my understanding that schools that have done frequent testing of asymptomatic students have kept their rates at well below 1% positivity," says Gabriel from the Broad, "whereas schools that use another approach, of only testing symptomatic or only contacts of positives, have a rate at least tenfold higher."...
Of course domestic manufacturers charge domestic rates not Chinese sweatshop rates. That should be a good thing I would have thought?
I agree with the Header that he's not helping himself in this regard. Mind you, I don't see how he could without undergoing a procedure which I don't believe is yet available - a complete character and personality transplant. Normally, when a political leader in the democratic world falls, I seek to find something good to say about them and their tenure. This applies as much to politicians of the Right as of the Centre or Left. In fact it applies especially to those on the Right since saying something positive about them virtue signals the objectivity and balance for which I am known. But here, with Donald J Trump, the 45th President of the United States, it is simply not possible. He has been a huge and unremitting disaster for America and the wider world, soup to nuts. There isn't a single positive aspect to his legacy. Worse even than that, he didn't even try to do any good. If I could detect just a shred of benign intention, albeit frustrated in delivery by a lack of intellect or competence, then I would jump avidly on that and highlight it, now he's going. But I can't because there was none. 100% self gratification 0% public service. Amazing. RIP Donald Trump. You made Boris Johnson look like Mahatma Gandhi.
You better not miss
You better take cover
And not take the piss
Because al-Sadr is coming to town
He knows when you've been Sunni
He knows when you've been Shi-ite
And he knows if you've been bad or good
Don't step on an IED for goodness' sake
You criticised Foxy for suggesting that potentially profiteering contracts for the supply of PPE in the first half of the year (mainly imports) should be looked into a little more closely.
Saying that we've since developed more domestic manufacturing doesn't really address the case.
https://twitter.com/jhuber/status/1333137047238840320
Seems that sensible administration and listening to the science does make a difference.
The issue is not that we did some emergency procurement through fasttrack methods or paid spot prices.
The issue isn't that we ran out of PPE - there was a short lived pinch in the first wave for PPE in non COVID settings - and ultimately we did broadly succeed in acquiring and distributing PPE.
The issue was that regular, reliable suppliers seem to have been eschewed in favour of the government's variably qualified mates, and that the prices paid were further inflated, to the benefit of chums, because that route was taken.
Across the pandemic, it is the roads pointedly not taken that throw the roads taken into stark relief. For PPE we got away with it, albeit with our wallets frisked, in other areas, such as test and trace, the roads we have failed to take have been much more detrimental to the end result.
Mr X turns up at the airport. Has a quick test, it is negative and so boards the plane. But it was a false neagtive, so he goes on to infect 20 other passengers.
Mrs Y turns up at the airport. Has a quick test, it is positive, so has a 4 hour test and it turns out to be negative. She's annoyed at having to wait a day before being able to travel, but she is relieved to be Covid free and has not infected any other passengers.
If you’re a farmer and voted for Brexit then you clearly want to end up on the dole. The level of stupidity amongst some farmers beggars belief .
They should certainly have been able to make a profit if they created avenues to PPE that we would otherwise not have had access to, but not millions of pounds of profit. That's just disaster capitalism.
Defending such behaviour is beyond the pale.
Some of that expenditure was inevitable, as public health capacity was so degraded over the last couple of decades. What has happened since the first lockdown was not.
I have no idea whether or not I am a utilitarian; I'm not really up on moral philosophy. I usually see myself as a liberal: everyone should have the right to pilot their own life in whatever way they can.
But the freedom to swing one's fist ends at someone else's face.
I did highlight that no-one has intentionally infected others. But that others have been infected nevertheless - and at a staggering scale. That actions, in a global pandemic, have huge externalities (in economics terms). If I exercise my freedom and, in doing so, knowingly impair the freedoms of many others to live their lives, that's illiberal of me. I'll have taken away all the choices they could have made in future and made them for them.
If I take some actions that could knowingly hurt others, I am at fault. If I refuse a set of actions that exist to protect others, I am at fault. Of course, as The Good Place covers, virtually every action we can take or refrain from taking will have knock-on consequences and we can't prevent all negative outcomes - but we can look at ones where we know the negative outcomes are huge. Normal actions, where the harm theoretically caused is either hugely unlikely, or very limited in scope, or limited in effect - that's all of life, almost. We blunder through as best we can.
This, though, is nowhere near normal life.
The restrictions we did put successfully kicked the can down the road. Not only do we have vaccines that will be going into people's arms within days, we have vastly improved our treatments and the prognosis of people who are ill. We will continue to do so. There is hope. And there are also indications that some vaccines at least will either prevent spread or hugely reduce spread. We're not in a static scenario; the potential outcomes are improving day by day.
The "lockdown sceptics" and those of the Toby Young side that argue the libertarian case do always seem to gloss over the spreading-the-disease onwards aspect. Mary Mallon certainly had her personal freedoms hugely curtailed - but doing so stopped her from taking a load of life choices away from others. Totalitarianism is usually seen as people having choices imposed upon them rather than being able to make them themselves. Surely taking actions that can be reasonably seen to, en masse, take a lot of choices away from others (when killed or disabled by anothers choices, a lot of potential choices evaporate) isn't truly a liberal course of action?
(I'm also not sure that "risk-averse" sums me up. I've been accused of the opposite in the past, with the skydiving and the microlighting, but that could simply be a different category of risk. I'd say I'm risk averse when my risk-taking could affect my family or others; I really don't think "totalitarian" applies to me, but I could be wrong there as well).
https://twitter.com/RaeComm/status/1333369042065907713?s=20
The whole point of cheap antigen tests is for mass population testing irrespective of symptoms, as a far cheaper and more effective way to drive down infection levels.
If we'd had them after the summer, we wouldn't have had a second lockdown.
They are not to tell you if you're 100% safe - though they will catch the vast majority of those at peak infection (which would be your superspreaders).
"I know a factory in China who has plenty of PPE they can send us. I will tell you ONLY if I get 10% of every order."
They would say:
"I know a factory in China who has plenty of PPE they can send us. Here are their details."
What percentage of trade being a profit is OK to you? Hypothetically someone invests in creating a plant that manufacturers PPE and gets a contract for say over £100mn with 98% going to total costs and a 2% margin then is that acceptable or unacceptable in your eyes?
Frozen and fresh shellfish are COMPLETELY different products, businesses and markets, like fresh vs tinned strawberries. The ignorance of food, cooking, and how the world works in that post is just gobsmacking. There are prosperous businesses to whom saying "just freeze it" is like telling an unemployed miner you don't see his problem, why doesn't he retrain as a stockbroker? Still, it's one more downside to brexit which turns out to be fine because PT from a position of absolute ignorance doesn't see the problem and is personally unaffected by it. Phew.
But, that is not always the case. The much harder example is suppose a high risk person wants to meet a low risk person and is fully aware of the risks involved.
Should an old person be allowed to take their chances with the virus if they prefer that to cutting themselves off from society?
If an elderly person (with perhaps not much to live for other than occasional contact with family) really wants to meet their grand-children at Christmas, and is fully aware of the risks that this meeting may kill him or her, should they be allowed to do so?
I think this is not quite so easy to decide. (I am perfectly well aware of the wider public health implications).
We have gone from 99% imported to 30% imported. That is a dramatic transformation.
As for those engaged in the import business, that has costs too of course it does. And when we were 99% imported of course we needed to import some.
But, ok, he didn't start WW3. Which was a genuine relief. Spent zillions on the military but seemed to want them more as a prop than anything else.
I agree with you about the lack of wars. I suspect the reason is that he just didn't understand foreign affairs so didn't meddle. (I believe Obama referred to him having the understanding of international affairs of a thirteen year old, which sounds about right.) When he did, it was to suit his domestic agenda. The Turkish Kurds episode was appalling and the US will be paying for that for decades. His Middle East initiative however seems to have done little harm and may possibly lead to some good when Biden picks up the threads.
I can't give him a pass on the economy. He inherited a very healthy situation. Again, he didn't stuff it up but he did favor the rich corporations and did little to rebuild the country's ailing infrastructure. It was however a case of missed opportunities rather than malfeasance.
The big downside was of course his perversion of the State and undermining of democracy. I remember Nixon and the concerns then that he was subverting democracy and the institutions of State but outside the Socialist Workers Party nobody reallly thought the US was turning into a despotism. For the first time in my long life I really worried that this might happen under Trump, particularly when he first indicated his intention to disregard the election result. I still do think it may have come to pass if the result had been a bit closer. It seems the danger has passed now though, whatever he (and Betfair) may think.
He has been without doubt the worst US President of my lifetime, and quite possibly the worst ever. James Buchanan's long reign as holder of that unwanted title may be about to end.
if they were offering services to facilitate it's import, then they could be paid a small nominal rate to cover the cost, again not millions of pounds.
It really is beyond the pale.
How do you propose cutting out middle men and getting the goods from China to the UK? Teleportation spells? Magic portals? Wishful thinking?
https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/1333376802568478722
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1333378386841006084
It was art school or English at uni for me; no contest.
"This sent social media into a flurry, with many asking what constituted such a serving. As ever, legal Twitter was on hand, specifically barrister Charles Holland who helpfully cited the 1965 case of Timmis v Millman.
The story goes that respondents Millman and Yarnold had been discovered in a hotel bar at 11.30pm consuming light ale and stout outside of permitted hours (but within the supper hour extension of the time). Justices found the sandwiches the pair were eating ‘were so substantial, and assisted by the pickles and beetroot so as to justify that it was a table meal and not a mere snack from the bar’.
Timmis followed the 1955 case of Solomon v Green where sandwiches and sausages on sticks were found to constitute a meal."
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/obiter/a-substantial-meal-try-pickles-and-beetroot-to-stay-legal/5105974.article#.X4WgEypxNm4.twitter