I have a feeling that come Jan 21st many senior Republicans are going to start turning on Trump.
They're too afraid too right now and I don't entirely blame them. The bizarre constitutional set up that generates a near 3-month gap from election to inauguration is to blame. It relies on decency but breaks down when you have an as5hole in the White House.
Stripped of office, Trump will no longer look or sound like a person of power. He will still rant and rave but he will come to regret making so many enemies. There's that moment in House of Cards when the big cheese Raymond Tusk suddenly finds himself facing jail ...
We’ll see. I don’t think that’s a foregone conclusion at all. It’s just as likely, perhaps more so, that the party remains in thrall to him.
The problem is there are now two GOP parties and one is basically a Trump personality cult. Only one will survive the coming party civil war and I don't think it will be the sane branch.
Maybe a new centre right party will be the medium term solution? There's been mutterings.
The problem in the US is that the voter base for a sane centre right party is smaller than that of a far right populist nationalist party, which is why Trumpism will be hard for the Republican party to destroy through the primary process too. We are probably heading in the same direction here, owing to the same processes - the hollowing out of the middle class and the growing liberalism of what remains of it.
Biden is a sane centre right politician and will be a more popular President than either a Trumpist or a Sanders/Warren type could be. As was Obama. It is not the voter base that is the problem....
That is a large assumption now.
The voter base definitely has a large number of poorly educated people who can be sold random theories via social media. In itself that would not be a problem in terms of electing Presidents if party chiefs appointed candidates without the primary process.
Primaries (and one member one vote here) are more democratic for the party memberships but less democratic and more divisive for the countries they run.
Indeed, but once a significant proportion of the electorate is hooked on conspiracy theories and hatred, expecting them to change that worldview any time soon is ... optimistic.
It's not impossible, but there is simply no Republican leader in sight who might attempt such a process, or possess the capacity to carry it out.
Over the years that I've been following US politics I've watched the GoP transform from the conservative party into the stupid party. As a general rule you can now tell whether somebody is likely to be a Democrat or a Republican by assessing how stupid they are.
This makes it very difficult for a Leader other than a Trump-like snake-oil salesman and populist to emerge and gain traction with the voters.
In 2012, just 8 years ago, Romney was picked as the GOP nominee in the primaries and even won college graduates in the general election over Obama.
Romney still lost. McCain lost. The type of Republicans the left likes. Plucky losers who maintain the fiction the old America is there, somewhere, and might get into power one day.
What is the "old" America in this context?
What's the mental picture?
Bedford Falls. Trump is more of a Pottersville kind of guy.
Mmm. I can see that, yes. A good reference, actually, that film. Jimmy Stewart (America) lived through a nightmare and when it ended was flooded with relief and joy. Him waking up was in essence the call of Pennsylvania.
The irony is that Stewart was a rock solid conservative Republican - campaigned for Goldwater and Reagan.
There's a cringey R4 programme wherein celebs host imaginary dinner parties with recordings of dead celebs spliced together to make up the table talk. Alison Steadman chose Jimmy Stewart as one of her guests; he spoke movingly about how his son had died in Vietnam, rather less movingly about how the war had been lost because the US had not been united behind its government(s). I fear if he was still with us that he would have taken the Jack Nicklaus & Jon Voight path of accommodating the Donald.
Apparently he once got into a physical fight with the liberal Henry Fonda about politics. Fonda won, because left-wingers are notoriously handy in a ruck. The two remained close friends and didn't talk about politics again.
Nowadays they'd have only had a twitter spat, though it would probably fester on and on without the resolution of a sock to the jaw. Maybe things were better in olden times.
I have a feeling that come Jan 21st many senior Republicans are going to start turning on Trump.
They're too afraid too right now and I don't entirely blame them. The bizarre constitutional set up that generates a near 3-month gap from election to inauguration is to blame. It relies on decency but breaks down when you have an as5hole in the White House.
Stripped of office, Trump will no longer look or sound like a person of power. He will still rant and rave but he will come to regret making so many enemies. There's that moment in House of Cards when the big cheese Raymond Tusk suddenly finds himself facing jail ...
We’ll see. I don’t think that’s a foregone conclusion at all. It’s just as likely, perhaps more so, that the party remains in thrall to him.
The problem is there are now two GOP parties and one is basically a Trump personality cult. Only one will survive the coming party civil war and I don't think it will be the sane branch.
Maybe a new centre right party will be the medium term solution? There's been mutterings.
The problem in the US is that the voter base for a sane centre right party is smaller than that of a far right populist nationalist party, which is why Trumpism will be hard for the Republican party to destroy through the primary process too. We are probably heading in the same direction here, owing to the same processes - the hollowing out of the middle class and the growing liberalism of what remains of it.
Biden is a sane centre right politician and will be a more popular President than either a Trumpist or a Sanders/Warren type could be. As was Obama. It is not the voter base that is the problem....
That is a large assumption now.
The voter base definitely has a large number of poorly educated people who can be sold random theories via social media. In itself that would not be a problem in terms of electing Presidents if party chiefs appointed candidates without the primary process.
Primaries (and one member one vote here) are more democratic for the party memberships but less democratic and more divisive for the countries they run.
Indeed, but once a significant proportion of the electorate is hooked on conspiracy theories and hatred, expecting them to change that worldview any time soon is ... optimistic.
It's not impossible, but there is simply no Republican leader in sight who might attempt such a process, or possess the capacity to carry it out.
Over the years that I've been following US politics I've watched the GoP transform from the conservative party into the stupid party. As a general rule you can now tell whether somebody is likely to be a Democrat or a Republican by assessing how stupid they are.
This makes it very difficult for a Leader other than a Trump-like snake-oil salesman and populist to emerge and gain traction with the voters.
In 2012, just 8 years ago, Romney was picked as the GOP nominee in the primaries and even won college graduates in the general election over Obama.
Romney still lost. McCain lost. The type of Republicans the left likes. Plucky losers who maintain the fiction the old America is there, somewhere, and might get into power one day.
What is the "old" America in this context?
What's the mental picture?
Bedford Falls. Trump is more of a Pottersville kind of guy.
Mmm. I can see that, yes. A good reference, actually, that film. Jimmy Stewart (America) lived through a nightmare and when it ended was flooded with relief and joy. Him waking up was in essence the call of Pennsylvania.
The irony is that Stewart was a rock solid conservative Republican - campaigned for Goldwater and Reagan.
There's a cringey R4 programme wherein celebs host imaginary dinner parties with recordings of dead celebs spliced together to make up the table talk. Alison Steadman chose Jimmy Stewart as one of her guests; he spoke movingly about how his son had died in Vietnam, rather less movingly about how the war had been lost because the US had not been united behind its government(s). I fear if he was still with us that he would have taken the Jack Nicklaus & Jon Voight path of accommodating the Donald.
Apparently he once got into a physical fight with the liberal Henry Fonda about politics. Fonda won, because left-wingers are notoriously handy in a ruck. The two remained close friends and didn't talk about politics again.
Nowadays they'd have only had a twitter spat, though it would probably fester on and on without the resolution of a sock to the jaw. Maybe things were better in olden times.
Boris does seem to be more confident and I suspect if he achieves an EU deal and with the vaccine rolling out talk of his removal from office will dissipate
I notice the PHW website is again delayed in updating it's figures by 30 mins at the moment. This is ridiculous. Yet again PHW has failed to do as it said it would. When I used to work for a private school as a teacher, if I failed to meet deadlines on a regular basis I would have been fired, and too right!
Thank you. They were both very old, knackered and ready to go, I think in both cases, without Covid, they wouldn't have been around for much longer anyway. The worst thing was not being able to see either of them before they went. They both died in hospital surrounded by strangers, not having seen any family for a long time.
Yes, also sorry to hear your news. Comes down to views about quality of life versus quantity.
Thank you. It's hard not seeing them but still my advice is don't risk seeing your mum.
You vote for a third party. If there are sufficient intelligent right of centre voters who do so, the Republican party will eventually get the message.
Wouldn’t that take at least a couple of electoral cycles to filter through? There doesn’t seem to be much taste for strategic delayed gratification in the GOP at the moment, go for the big voter pool of crazies and complain about fraud and stolen elections seems more their thing. Doesn't help that quite a few of their elected members are also crazies..
Everything always seem more intense and extreme in America. Our versions of what they have always a bit bargain basement. Like, I caught a chap on the telly yesterday, an MP by the name of Desmond Swayne, and he radiated some definite essence of Tea Party but I found it impossible to take him seriously. Not sure why - just something about him.
Something to do with "we're paying too much attention to health professionals and scientists on health and science issues" ?
Or was it the ridiculous collar ?
It was mainly the collar if I'm honest. What on earth was going on there? Was it bespoke to him? Guess it must be.
Care homes: the nightmare for my mother continues.
A few weeks ago the media widely reported a change to government rules regarding care home visits. This, said the media and the government, would - at last - herald meaningful inside visits with our loved ones, starting before Christmas.
My mum`s care home were gearing up for this, waiting for the rapid test (LFT) kits to arrive. I`d informed my mum of the positive change that was on the way, and I would be able to see her at Christmas.
However, yesterday, out of the blue, the care home emailed relatives saying that it has been found that negative lateral flow device results are only 75% reliable, and “this has led to many scientists, organisations and local authorities advising against their use for visiting as this does not remove risk sufficiently”. So, the care home management has decided not to implement these new rules.
Note that the government guidance specifically covers this imperfection. It says “while rapid testing can reduce the risks around visiting it does not completely remove the risk of infection”. Therefore, this factor is already discounted into their more relaxed new guidance.
Unfortunately the same guidance gives license for individual care homes to “dynamically assess risk” and the care homes are using this license to exercise judgement about when, and in what circumstances, visits can be safely supported, which - it is clear - is resulting in them applying rules which are more risk-averse than the government guidelines allows, citing resident and carer safety as their reason. (The less gullible (or more cynical) may think that the main reason is commercial: they are being supplied the test kits but not being funded to administer them.)
I`m furious. Thoughts?
As frustrating and difficult as not seeing your mum at Christmas is, please be patient. My elderly grandma died yesterday in hospital, after contracting Covid in her care home.
She was taken to hospital last week with low oxygen levels, a few hours later the care home rang my mum to say my grandma's latest test had returned positive. Told the hospital, they did a test that came back negative. Couple of days later they did another test, that came back positive.
She died of a double whammy of Covid and pneumonia. Six weeks after being widowed after a mix of Covid, COPD and asbestosis got my grandad.
So my advice is stay away, don't risk it.
Condolences on your loss.
The single benefit of losing my mother in a home last Christmas is that I have been spared through 2020 the constant worry of the call telling me she had contracted Covid.
Thank you. I'm sorry for your loss, but I think you make a good point.
Thank you. They were both very old, knackered and ready to go, I think in both cases, without Covid, they wouldn't have been around for much longer anyway. The worst thing was not being able to see either of them before they went. They both died in hospital surrounded by strangers, not having seen any family for a long time.
Yes, also sorry to hear your news. Comes down to views about quality of life versus quantity.
Thank you. It's hard not seeing them but still my advice is don't risk seeing your mum.
Edit - and I've knackered the block quotes...
Condolences Mr Monkey. I am glad my wife's mother and auntie finished their time in their care homes in previous years, for their sakes and ours.
Trump 1.06 to leave office in 2021. Absolubtely incredible. Will have to get this market to all the MAGA loons so they can keep the liquidity up. 65 for 2020 if you prefer to buy resignation insurance (I have given the sum involved backing the 1.06)
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record.
Maybe because you're not engaging with the real issue?
I don't think anyone (certainly not here) is contesting that some minorities, particularly black people, experience disadvantage in the UK. The pub-nudge, street-crossing, kids in the bank queue, eye-averting and hovering security guard all being personal examples that were shared with me. It exists. It's real. Not everyone does it, but enough do to make the experiences of black people living here uncomfortable. It needs to end.
The problem with "White Privilege" is that when you say it anyone who is white hears that because they are white they have privilege. That will instantly make many say, "no, I'm not" because privilege is commonly understood to mean being granted special rights but they've often had very hard lives, and suffer unemployment, bad health and bad education. It will then in turn makes others say, "yes, you do" because of the reasons in my first paragraph, possibly coupled with a slight that if they disagree they're either totally ignorant or a secret racist too. A number of the latter then double-down with nonsense about slavery and colonialism too, which introduces another complexifying vector into it - particular if your family ancestors had a really rough time of it down the factories and mines in the 19th Century too.
It therefore ends up with the conversation almost entirely about White people, who fight out its interpretation amongst themselves, and takes the attention and energy away from the real disadvantages many minority people face. I call many of its defenders "Woke" because I think they narcissistically want to make it all about themselves due to holding deep-seated insecurities and guilt - particularly prevalent amongst the professional and educated classes - which is why they make so many public declarations of their faith and belief in public, and call out transgressors, whilst doing virtually nothing to address the underlying issues at heart. I can see straight through that, it properly winds me up and I find it hard to respect people who do it.
Like "defund the police" it's a clickbaity type slogan that rises amongst the maelstrom in social media and grabs the headlines but risks making society more split, not worse.
Language matters and it's time we starting using the right language if we're interested in real results, rather than just ourselves.
So we agree, white privilege exists but White Privilege isn't a useful political slogan. I haven't engaged in the issue of the slogan's effectiveness because it isn't interesting to me. BTW white privilege should be a conversation primarily involving white people because they are where the problem lies and it will only go away if they try to fix it. That is why the phrase is accurate, even if it gets people's backs up.
Boris does seem to be more confident and I suspect if he achieves an EU deal and with the vaccine rolling out talk of his removal from office will dissipate
Since he has shaken off Covid he has got better and better at PMQ. He easily deflected away everything Starmer spewed at him today, and Boris threw a couple of real zingers, proper knockout blows.
Starmer meanwhile has now revealed himself to be a one club golfer, labour problem though is they have nothing better. Burnham? Khan? You are having a laugh.
If that were so these 'solutions' wouldn't need a huge helping hand from the taxpayer and the regulator. We wouldn;t need the Maoist step of banning petrol cars in 2030, for example. We could trust the market and the consumer.
The market and consumer are changing. Even in my road in a not fashionable bit of London, there are now at least three and maybe four electric cars, and several hybrids. Charging points are springing up all over the place, and in some areas they are becoming very common. What the goverment is doing is giving the market a nudge, but there's no doubt in my mind that we will see cars switch to electric motors no matter what the goverment wants, because the technological trends favour batteries and electric motors.
Once you have ditched the gearbox and been propelled by electric motors its very hard to go back to something that feels antiquated. I love my big Volvo, but ditching it for a Tesla is still really tempting.
I would imagine that EVs are likely to be more reliable than ICE-powered vehicles too.
My car is currently back at the garage for the second time, where they are trying to figure out why it conks out after about 5 miles of driving and won't start when hot. They've tried cleaning and changing the spark plugs to no avail; the latest suspect is the crankshaft sensor. Roll on (affordable) EVs, I say!
O2 sensor? For the first 5 miles the ECU is in open loop until it thinks the O2 sensor is warmed up then goes into closed loop, gets garbage from the 02 sensor and shits itself.
I have a feeling that come Jan 21st many senior Republicans are going to start turning on Trump.
They're too afraid too right now and I don't entirely blame them. The bizarre constitutional set up that generates a near 3-month gap from election to inauguration is to blame. It relies on decency but breaks down when you have an as5hole in the White House.
Stripped of office, Trump will no longer look or sound like a person of power. He will still rant and rave but he will come to regret making so many enemies. There's that moment in House of Cards when the big cheese Raymond Tusk suddenly finds himself facing jail ...
We’ll see. I don’t think that’s a foregone conclusion at all. It’s just as likely, perhaps more so, that the party remains in thrall to him.
The problem is there are now two GOP parties and one is basically a Trump personality cult. Only one will survive the coming party civil war and I don't think it will be the sane branch.
Maybe a new centre right party will be the medium term solution? There's been mutterings.
The problem in the US is that the voter base for a sane centre right party is smaller than that of a far right populist nationalist party, which is why Trumpism will be hard for the Republican party to destroy through the primary process too. We are probably heading in the same direction here, owing to the same processes - the hollowing out of the middle class and the growing liberalism of what remains of it.
Biden is a sane centre right politician and will be a more popular President than either a Trumpist or a Sanders/Warren type could be. As was Obama. It is not the voter base that is the problem....
That is a large assumption now.
The voter base definitely has a large number of poorly educated people who can be sold random theories via social media. In itself that would not be a problem in terms of electing Presidents if party chiefs appointed candidates without the primary process.
Primaries (and one member one vote here) are more democratic for the party memberships but less democratic and more divisive for the countries they run.
Indeed, but once a significant proportion of the electorate is hooked on conspiracy theories and hatred, expecting them to change that worldview any time soon is ... optimistic.
It's not impossible, but there is simply no Republican leader in sight who might attempt such a process, or possess the capacity to carry it out.
Over the years that I've been following US politics I've watched the GoP transform from the conservative party into the stupid party. As a general rule you can now tell whether somebody is likely to be a Democrat or a Republican by assessing how stupid they are.
This makes it very difficult for a Leader other than a Trump-like snake-oil salesman and populist to emerge and gain traction with the voters.
In 2012, just 8 years ago, Romney was picked as the GOP nominee in the primaries and even won college graduates in the general election over Obama.
Romney still lost. McCain lost. The type of Republicans the left likes. Plucky losers who maintain the fiction the old America is there, somewhere, and might get into power one day.
What is the "old" America in this context?
What's the mental picture?
Bedford Falls. Trump is more of a Pottersville kind of guy.
Mmm. I can see that, yes. A good reference, actually, that film. Jimmy Stewart (America) lived through a nightmare and when it ended was flooded with relief and joy. Him waking up was in essence the call of Pennsylvania.
The irony is that Stewart was a rock solid conservative Republican - campaigned for Goldwater and Reagan.
There's a cringey R4 programme wherein celebs host imaginary dinner parties with recordings of dead celebs spliced together to make up the table talk. Alison Steadman chose Jimmy Stewart as one of her guests; he spoke movingly about how his son had died in Vietnam, rather less movingly about how the war had been lost because the US had not been united behind its government(s). I fear if he was still with us that he would have taken the Jack Nicklaus & Jon Voight path of accommodating the Donald.
Apparently he once got into a physical fight with the liberal Henry Fonda about politics. Fonda won, because left-wingers are notoriously handy in a ruck. The two remained close friends and didn't talk about politics again.
Nowadays they'd have only had a twitter spat, though it would probably fester on and on without the resolution of a sock to the jaw. Maybe things were better in olden times.
Perhaps someone should organise a PB pub brawl once Covid is out of the way.
Care homes: the nightmare for my mother continues.
A few weeks ago the media widely reported a change to government rules regarding care home visits. This, said the media and the government, would - at last - herald meaningful inside visits with our loved ones, starting before Christmas.
My mum`s care home were gearing up for this, waiting for the rapid test (LFT) kits to arrive. I`d informed my mum of the positive change that was on the way, and I would be able to see her at Christmas.
However, yesterday, out of the blue, the care home emailed relatives saying that it has been found that negative lateral flow device results are only 75% reliable, and “this has led to many scientists, organisations and local authorities advising against their use for visiting as this does not remove risk sufficiently”. So, the care home management has decided not to implement these new rules.
Note that the government guidance specifically covers this imperfection. It says “while rapid testing can reduce the risks around visiting it does not completely remove the risk of infection”. Therefore, this factor is already discounted into their more relaxed new guidance.
Unfortunately the same guidance gives license for individual care homes to “dynamically assess risk” and the care homes are using this license to exercise judgement about when, and in what circumstances, visits can be safely supported, which - it is clear - is resulting in them applying rules which are more risk-averse than the government guidelines allows, citing resident and carer safety as their reason. (The less gullible (or more cynical) may think that the main reason is commercial: they are being supplied the test kits but not being funded to administer them.)
I`m furious. Thoughts?
As frustrating and difficult as not seeing your mum at Christmas is, please be patient. My elderly grandma died yesterday in hospital, after contracting Covid in her care home.
She was taken to hospital last week with low oxygen levels, a few hours later the care home rang my mum to say my grandma's latest test had returned positive. Told the hospital, they did a test that came back negative. Couple of days later they did another test, that came back positive.
She died of a double whammy of Covid and pneumonia. Six weeks after being widowed after a mix of Covid, COPD and asbestosis got my grandad.
So my advice is stay away, don't risk it.
Very sorry to hear that.
Thank you. They were both very old, knackered and ready to go, I think in both cases, without Covid, they wouldn't have been around for much longer anyway. The worst thing was not being able to see either of them before they went. They both died in hospital surrounded by strangers, not having seen any family for a long time.
Sorry to hear it. One of the more painful things still about my mother's death is that though I saw her in the hospice the day before, she died with no family around while I was driving through after the 'you'd better get through here asap' phone call. I can only imagine what having that magnified by weeks or months feels like.
My mam got that call yesterday afternoon but she couldn't risk it as her husband is extremely vulnerable so she didn't go. She feels terrible about it but I think she made the right decision, as awful as it was.
It's a terrible disease and it is never nice losing family but at least they were old, both in their 90s, in poor health and had lived their life. It was hard not seeing them but that's a horrible part of this pandemic. Many people are having it much, much worse. My missus's friend lost her 8 year old, previously perfectly healthy, nephew to it the other day. That is a real tragedy.
SHAGGER: "All 4 nations are unanimous". Yet before he finishes admonishing Keith for his lack of recognition of this fact, Wales announces a change both to Christmas rules and to a Level 4 lockdown immediately afterwards.
A lie? Or simply not in possession of the facts and just busking?
Actually the Welsh Government have agreed with all the UK nations to continue to allow three households to mix between 23rd and 27th December, so actually the message is the same over Christmas
Wales probably just got in early with what awaits the rest of us.....
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record.
Maybe because you're not engaging with the real issue?
I don't think anyone (certainly not here) is contesting that some minorities, particularly black people, experience disadvantage in the UK. The pub-nudge, street-crossing, kids in the bank queue, eye-averting and hovering security guard all being personal examples that were shared with me. It exists. It's real. Not everyone does it, but enough do to make the experiences of black people living here uncomfortable. It needs to end.
The problem with "White Privilege" is that when you say it anyone who is white hears that because they are white they have privilege. That will instantly make many say, "no, I'm not" because privilege is commonly understood to mean being granted special rights but they've often had very hard lives, and suffer unemployment, bad health and bad education. It will then in turn makes others say, "yes, you do" because of the reasons in my first paragraph, possibly coupled with a slight that if they disagree they're either totally ignorant or a secret racist too. A number of the latter then double-down with nonsense about slavery and colonialism too, which introduces another complexifying vector into it - particular if your family ancestors had a really rough time of it down the factories and mines in the 19th Century too.
It therefore ends up with the conversation almost entirely about White people, who fight out its interpretation amongst themselves, and takes the attention and energy away from the real disadvantages many minority people face. I call many of its defenders "Woke" because I think they narcissistically want to make it all about themselves due to holding deep-seated insecurities and guilt - particularly prevalent amongst the professional and educated classes - which is why they make so many public declarations of their faith and belief in public, and call out transgressors, whilst doing virtually nothing to address the underlying issues at heart. I can see straight through that, it properly winds me up and I find it hard to respect people who do it.
Like "defund the police" it's a clickbaity type slogan that rises amongst the maelstrom in social media and grabs the headlines but risks making society more split, not worse.
Language matters and it's time we starting using the right language if we're interested in real results, rather than just ourselves.
So we agree, white privilege exists but White Privilege isn't a useful political slogan. I haven't engaged in the issue of the slogan's effectiveness because it isn't interesting to me. BTW white privilege should be a conversation primarily involving white people because they are where the problem lies and it will only go away if they try to fix it. That is why the phrase is accurate, even if it gets people's backs up.
There is no one who is not aware of the Covid risks. Whether they be 20 or 80. Hence we should be trusted to do what we believe we want to or think right. For some that will be seeing their 80-yr old parents; for some that will not be seeing their 80-yr old parents.
I don't think anyone will go directly from a knees-up at Spoons to their 80-yr old parents.
I think given the risk profile it is mostly for the 80-yr old parents to decide ultimately. For some of those, Christmas and seeing family is a hugely important part of their lives in a pretty miserable year, perhaps enough for it to be a significant factor in their mental health wellbeing; for others they will not mind waiting a few more months to see the family.
I guess the question is whether Covid is a seat belts (protect the people in your car) or a drink driving (protect everyone on the road) kind of situation. I would say that it's more like the latter so the government absolutely should be able to tell people what to do. I think this whole "let's keep Christmas going" thing is horseshit, especially when the government was happy to shut down Eid with a few hours' notice. They've had plenty of time to see that their approach will lead to people dying unnecessarily and should have the guts to tell people that the situation has changed.
Let's not forget that it is and was supposed to be about protecting the NHS. If people want to bungee jump, drive racing cars, 3-day event or what have you the government says nothing about it and rightly so.
But of course bungee jumping, etc doesn't impact others and hence we are at your "protecting others". But this is your family. This is precisely people in your car and hence your former example. Of course wearing seatbelts is imo rightly mandated by law but I believe Christmas, for some people, is a special case. For others, it is not and they presumably won't have one this year.
But it's not just your family. You give it to aunty Brenda, who passes it onto a work colleague, who dies. You give it to your granny, who ends up in hospital, where the nurse treating her catches it and dies. This is how infectious diseases work: if they could only be passed on once they would die out!
Here's an interesting thought experiment.
Stats from the US suggest that accidents caused by someone loading an unloaded gun and this leads to death/injury are in the 1 in 1,000,000 category. The kind of thing where someone puts the gun down, someone else fiddles with it, loads it and the first person comes back later, not realising....
So, if my idea of fun is going out in the garden. waving my gun at my neighbours and going "Click"...
- I can claim I had emptied the gun. To the best of my knowledge. So not my fault. - I can claim that the probability of my injuring someone is extremely small. - It's my right....
Hmm. ,that 1 in 1000000 is for everybody. Once you have left the gun lying around, it's not that any more ...
Nope - the probability that my gun, which I unloaded, is still unloaded, is still in the millions to one.
Kind of the probability that I have COVID, and give it to someone who gets seriously ill/dies from it....
It's a very rare kind of accident.
But why should mucking about with guns be obviously wrong, as opposed to not taking precautions with COVID?
"White privilege" is simply that white people (especially white, straight, men) face less barriers and obstacles in life and society, on the whole. This is due to a whole manner of historical reasons.
That doesn't mean that white people don't suffer or that white people don't earn their success. It also doesn't mean that the struggles of the white working class, for example, are any less meaningful.
There's nothing "woke" about it as a concept and it annoys me when Twitter idiots turn it into a whole lifestyle.
If you're explaining, you're losing. It's an unhelpful convection that crudely categorises people, and therefore polarises them, and it should be ditched for that reason alone.
See Robert's excellent post at the start of the thread.
Consider the following 2 sentiments -
(1) We are all individuals, unique in our differences, and should never be viewed primarily as a cog in a machine or as a mere unit of a racial or gender or class grouping. To do so is dehumanizing and alienating and does not help in the practical improvement of relationships in society.
(2) Although we are all unique individuals, a massive factor influencing life outcomes is birth circumstances. What race and gender we are, and what class are parents are. Society cannot therefore be understood unless viewed through the prism of identity.
Both these are true. (1) is an obvious truth and (2) is more challenging to accept.
So for me we need to first accept the truth of (2) and decide if we wish to do the work to make it less true. If we do, we should then bear in mind the truth of (1) when going about it.
The trouble is far too many are solely viewing society through the prism of the latter - and making everything about that.
Rather than serving to remove what remaining discriminatory attitudes we still have, which are in the minority, it's likely to increase them.
Which is basically what every trade deal looks like. Both sides set standards in the treaty and if either one diverges from them an arbitrator will set allowable tariffs for the injured party.
That coupled with the two directional ratchet (which is actually now just an EU way of saying non-regression) means the LPF is basically everything we've been asking for from the beginning.
You can call it what you want or say the EU are just repackaging ideas but they have moved significantly and basically agreed to give us almost identical terms on the LPF they gave to Canada and Japan.
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record.
Maybe because you're not engaging with the real issue?
I don't think anyone (certainly not here) is contesting that some minorities, particularly black people, experience disadvantage in the UK. The pub-nudge, street-crossing, kids in the bank queue, eye-averting and hovering security guard all being personal examples that were shared with me. It exists. It's real. Not everyone does it, but enough do to make the experiences of black people living here uncomfortable. It needs to end.
The problem with "White Privilege" is that when you say it anyone who is white hears that because they are white they have privilege. That will instantly make many say, "no, I'm not" because privilege is commonly understood to mean being granted special rights but they've often had very hard lives, and suffer unemployment, bad health and bad education. It will then in turn makes others say, "yes, you do" because of the reasons in my first paragraph, possibly coupled with a slight that if they disagree they're either totally ignorant or a secret racist too. A number of the latter then double-down with nonsense about slavery and colonialism too, which introduces another complexifying vector into it - particular if your family ancestors had a really rough time of it down the factories and mines in the 19th Century too.
It therefore ends up with the conversation almost entirely about White people, who fight out its interpretation amongst themselves, and takes the attention and energy away from the real disadvantages many minority people face. I call many of its defenders "Woke" because I think they narcissistically want to make it all about themselves due to holding deep-seated insecurities and guilt - particularly prevalent amongst the professional and educated classes - which is why they make so many public declarations of their faith and belief in public, and call out transgressors, whilst doing virtually nothing to address the underlying issues at heart. I can see straight through that, it properly winds me up and I find it hard to respect people who do it.
Like "defund the police" it's a clickbaity type slogan that rises amongst the maelstrom in social media and grabs the headlines but risks making society more split, not worse.
Language matters and it's time we starting using the right language if we're interested in real results, rather than just ourselves.
So we agree, white privilege exists but White Privilege isn't a useful political slogan. I haven't engaged in the issue of the slogan's effectiveness because it isn't interesting to me. BTW white privilege should be a conversation primarily involving white people because they are where the problem lies and it will only go away if they try to fix it. That is why the phrase is accurate, even if it gets people's backs up.
Do you view this as a global issue that transcends national states?
If that were so these 'solutions' wouldn't need a huge helping hand from the taxpayer and the regulator. We wouldn;t need the Maoist step of banning petrol cars in 2030, for example. We could trust the market and the consumer.
The market and consumer are changing. Even in my road in a not fashionable bit of London, there are now at least three and maybe four electric cars, and several hybrids. Charging points are springing up all over the place, and in some areas they are becoming very common. What the goverment is doing is giving the market a nudge, but there's no doubt in my mind that we will see cars switch to electric motors no matter what the goverment wants, because the technological trends favour batteries and electric motors.
Once you have ditched the gearbox and been propelled by electric motors its very hard to go back to something that feels antiquated. I love my big Volvo, but ditching it for a Tesla is still really tempting.
I would imagine that EVs are likely to be more reliable than ICE-powered vehicles too.
My car is currently back at the garage for the second time, where they are trying to figure out why it conks out after about 5 miles of driving and won't start when hot. They've tried cleaning and changing the spark plugs to no avail; the latest suspect is the crankshaft sensor. Roll on (affordable) EVs, I say!
O2 sensor? For the first 5 miles the ECU is in open loop until it thinks the O2 sensor is warmed up then goes into closed loop, gets garbage from the 02 sensor and shits itself.
That certainly sounds plausible. I'll post back if/when they find out.
I have a feeling that come Jan 21st many senior Republicans are going to start turning on Trump.
They're too afraid too right now and I don't entirely blame them. The bizarre constitutional set up that generates a near 3-month gap from election to inauguration is to blame. It relies on decency but breaks down when you have an as5hole in the White House.
Stripped of office, Trump will no longer look or sound like a person of power. He will still rant and rave but he will come to regret making so many enemies. There's that moment in House of Cards when the big cheese Raymond Tusk suddenly finds himself facing jail ...
We’ll see. I don’t think that’s a foregone conclusion at all. It’s just as likely, perhaps more so, that the party remains in thrall to him.
The problem is there are now two GOP parties and one is basically a Trump personality cult. Only one will survive the coming party civil war and I don't think it will be the sane branch.
Maybe a new centre right party will be the medium term solution? There's been mutterings.
The problem in the US is that the voter base for a sane centre right party is smaller than that of a far right populist nationalist party, which is why Trumpism will be hard for the Republican party to destroy through the primary process too. We are probably heading in the same direction here, owing to the same processes - the hollowing out of the middle class and the growing liberalism of what remains of it.
Biden is a sane centre right politician and will be a more popular President than either a Trumpist or a Sanders/Warren type could be. As was Obama. It is not the voter base that is the problem....
That is a large assumption now.
The voter base definitely has a large number of poorly educated people who can be sold random theories via social media. In itself that would not be a problem in terms of electing Presidents if party chiefs appointed candidates without the primary process.
Primaries (and one member one vote here) are more democratic for the party memberships but less democratic and more divisive for the countries they run.
Indeed, but once a significant proportion of the electorate is hooked on conspiracy theories and hatred, expecting them to change that worldview any time soon is ... optimistic.
It's not impossible, but there is simply no Republican leader in sight who might attempt such a process, or possess the capacity to carry it out.
Over the years that I've been following US politics I've watched the GoP transform from the conservative party into the stupid party. As a general rule you can now tell whether somebody is likely to be a Democrat or a Republican by assessing how stupid they are.
This makes it very difficult for a Leader other than a Trump-like snake-oil salesman and populist to emerge and gain traction with the voters.
In 2012, just 8 years ago, Romney was picked as the GOP nominee in the primaries and even won college graduates in the general election over Obama.
Romney still lost. McCain lost. The type of Republicans the left likes. Plucky losers who maintain the fiction the old America is there, somewhere, and might get into power one day.
What is the "old" America in this context?
What's the mental picture?
Bedford Falls. Trump is more of a Pottersville kind of guy.
Mmm. I can see that, yes. A good reference, actually, that film. Jimmy Stewart (America) lived through a nightmare and when it ended was flooded with relief and joy. Him waking up was in essence the call of Pennsylvania.
The irony is that Stewart was a rock solid conservative Republican - campaigned for Goldwater and Reagan.
There's a cringey R4 programme wherein celebs host imaginary dinner parties with recordings of dead celebs spliced together to make up the table talk. Alison Steadman chose Jimmy Stewart as one of her guests; he spoke movingly about how his son had died in Vietnam, rather less movingly about how the war had been lost because the US had not been united behind its government(s). I fear if he was still with us that he would have taken the Jack Nicklaus & Jon Voight path of accommodating the Donald.
More than accommodating from Jack. He facebooked for Trump, which was so disappointing. Hopefully he's not buying into the "fix" as well. He does seem to have gotten over any disappointment, judging by the smiling pictures oh him from the nuptials of Christie and Todger.
I have a feeling that come Jan 21st many senior Republicans are going to start turning on Trump.
They're too afraid too right now and I don't entirely blame them. The bizarre constitutional set up that generates a near 3-month gap from election to inauguration is to blame. It relies on decency but breaks down when you have an as5hole in the White House.
Stripped of office, Trump will no longer look or sound like a person of power. He will still rant and rave but he will come to regret making so many enemies. There's that moment in House of Cards when the big cheese Raymond Tusk suddenly finds himself facing jail ...
We’ll see. I don’t think that’s a foregone conclusion at all. It’s just as likely, perhaps more so, that the party remains in thrall to him.
I think perhaps somewhere in between. Senators with more than 2 years left of their term will probably be ready to turn on him. Many in the House, who are elected every 2 years, probably won't until we've seen how strong Trump's influence remains in the party after his departure from the White House - perhaps not until after the 2022 mid-terms.
Perhaps someone should organise a PB pub brawl once Covid is out of the way.
That'd be an excellent PB Christmas parlour game, the various tribes split up into teams then speculation on who would win. Glad that I'll have malc on my team
There is no one who is not aware of the Covid risks. Whether they be 20 or 80. Hence we should be trusted to do what we believe we want to or think right. For some that will be seeing their 80-yr old parents; for some that will not be seeing their 80-yr old parents.
I don't think anyone will go directly from a knees-up at Spoons to their 80-yr old parents.
I think given the risk profile it is mostly for the 80-yr old parents to decide ultimately. For some of those, Christmas and seeing family is a hugely important part of their lives in a pretty miserable year, perhaps enough for it to be a significant factor in their mental health wellbeing; for others they will not mind waiting a few more months to see the family.
I guess the question is whether Covid is a seat belts (protect the people in your car) or a drink driving (protect everyone on the road) kind of situation. I would say that it's more like the latter so the government absolutely should be able to tell people what to do. I think this whole "let's keep Christmas going" thing is horseshit, especially when the government was happy to shut down Eid with a few hours' notice. They've had plenty of time to see that their approach will lead to people dying unnecessarily and should have the guts to tell people that the situation has changed.
Let's not forget that it is and was supposed to be about protecting the NHS. If people want to bungee jump, drive racing cars, 3-day event or what have you the government says nothing about it and rightly so.
But of course bungee jumping, etc doesn't impact others and hence we are at your "protecting others". But this is your family. This is precisely people in your car and hence your former example. Of course wearing seatbelts is imo rightly mandated by law but I believe Christmas, for some people, is a special case. For others, it is not and they presumably won't have one this year.
Bungee jumping impacts you if standing in the wrong place...
Nice to see the Flying Childers in Stanton-in-the-Peak get a mention at PMQ.
I have a feeling that come Jan 21st many senior Republicans are going to start turning on Trump.
They're too afraid too right now and I don't entirely blame them. The bizarre constitutional set up that generates a near 3-month gap from election to inauguration is to blame. It relies on decency but breaks down when you have an as5hole in the White House.
Stripped of office, Trump will no longer look or sound like a person of power. He will still rant and rave but he will come to regret making so many enemies. There's that moment in House of Cards when the big cheese Raymond Tusk suddenly finds himself facing jail ...
We’ll see. I don’t think that’s a foregone conclusion at all. It’s just as likely, perhaps more so, that the party remains in thrall to him.
The problem is there are now two GOP parties and one is basically a Trump personality cult. Only one will survive the coming party civil war and I don't think it will be the sane branch.
Maybe a new centre right party will be the medium term solution? There's been mutterings.
The problem in the US is that the voter base for a sane centre right party is smaller than that of a far right populist nationalist party, which is why Trumpism will be hard for the Republican party to destroy through the primary process too. We are probably heading in the same direction here, owing to the same processes - the hollowing out of the middle class and the growing liberalism of what remains of it.
Biden is a sane centre right politician and will be a more popular President than either a Trumpist or a Sanders/Warren type could be. As was Obama. It is not the voter base that is the problem....
That is a large assumption now.
The voter base definitely has a large number of poorly educated people who can be sold random theories via social media. In itself that would not be a problem in terms of electing Presidents if party chiefs appointed candidates without the primary process.
Primaries (and one member one vote here) are more democratic for the party memberships but less democratic and more divisive for the countries they run.
Indeed, but once a significant proportion of the electorate is hooked on conspiracy theories and hatred, expecting them to change that worldview any time soon is ... optimistic.
It's not impossible, but there is simply no Republican leader in sight who might attempt such a process, or possess the capacity to carry it out.
Over the years that I've been following US politics I've watched the GoP transform from the conservative party into the stupid party. As a general rule you can now tell whether somebody is likely to be a Democrat or a Republican by assessing how stupid they are.
This makes it very difficult for a Leader other than a Trump-like snake-oil salesman and populist to emerge and gain traction with the voters.
In 2012, just 8 years ago, Romney was picked as the GOP nominee in the primaries and even won college graduates in the general election over Obama.
Romney still lost. McCain lost. The type of Republicans the left likes. Plucky losers who maintain the fiction the old America is there, somewhere, and might get into power one day.
What is the "old" America in this context?
What's the mental picture?
Bedford Falls. Trump is more of a Pottersville kind of guy.
Mmm. I can see that, yes. A good reference, actually, that film. Jimmy Stewart (America) lived through a nightmare and when it ended was flooded with relief and joy. Him waking up was in essence the call of Pennsylvania.
The irony is that Stewart was a rock solid conservative Republican - campaigned for Goldwater and Reagan.
There's a cringey R4 programme wherein celebs host imaginary dinner parties with recordings of dead celebs spliced together to make up the table talk. Alison Steadman chose Jimmy Stewart as one of her guests; he spoke movingly about how his son had died in Vietnam, rather less movingly about how the war had been lost because the US had not been united behind its government(s). I fear if he was still with us that he would have taken the Jack Nicklaus & Jon Voight path of accommodating the Donald.
Apparently he once got into a physical fight with the liberal Henry Fonda about politics. Fonda won, because left-wingers are notoriously handy in a ruck. The two remained close friends and didn't talk about politics again.
Nowadays they'd have only had a twitter spat, though it would probably fester on and on without the resolution of a sock to the jaw. Maybe things were better in olden times.
The whole fight very nearly happened without a single sock to the jaw if you can bear to watch it.
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record.
Maybe because you're not engaging with the real issue?
I don't think anyone (certainly not here) is contesting that some minorities, particularly black people, experience disadvantage in the UK. The pub-nudge, street-crossing, kids in the bank queue, eye-averting and hovering security guard all being personal examples that were shared with me. It exists. It's real. Not everyone does it, but enough do to make the experiences of black people living here uncomfortable. It needs to end.
The problem with "White Privilege" is that when you say it anyone who is white hears that because they are white they have privilege. That will instantly make many say, "no, I'm not" because privilege is commonly understood to mean being granted special rights but they've often had very hard lives, and suffer unemployment, bad health and bad education. It will then in turn makes others say, "yes, you do" because of the reasons in my first paragraph, possibly coupled with a slight that if they disagree they're either totally ignorant or a secret racist too. A number of the latter then double-down with nonsense about slavery and colonialism too, which introduces another complexifying vector into it - particular if your family ancestors had a really rough time of it down the factories and mines in the 19th Century too.
It therefore ends up with the conversation almost entirely about White people, who fight out its interpretation amongst themselves, and takes the attention and energy away from the real disadvantages many minority people face. I call many of its defenders "Woke" because I think they narcissistically want to make it all about themselves due to holding deep-seated insecurities and guilt - particularly prevalent amongst the professional and educated classes - which is why they make so many public declarations of their faith and belief in public, and call out transgressors, whilst doing virtually nothing to address the underlying issues at heart. I can see straight through that, it properly winds me up and I find it hard to respect people who do it.
Like "defund the police" it's a clickbaity type slogan that rises amongst the maelstrom in social media and grabs the headlines but risks making society more split, not worse.
Language matters and it's time we starting using the right language if we're interested in real results, rather than just ourselves.
Sure, but in this context, 'white privilege' simply means the freedom from what you describe in the first paragraph.
'The problem with...' is why it took a hundred years for anyone to do very much about it in the US.
Care homes: the nightmare for my mother continues.
A few weeks ago the media widely reported a change to government rules regarding care home visits. This, said the media and the government, would - at last - herald meaningful inside visits with our loved ones, starting before Christmas.
My mum`s care home were gearing up for this, waiting for the rapid test (LFT) kits to arrive. I`d informed my mum of the positive change that was on the way, and I would be able to see her at Christmas.
However, yesterday, out of the blue, the care home emailed relatives saying that it has been found that negative lateral flow device results are only 75% reliable, and “this has led to many scientists, organisations and local authorities advising against their use for visiting as this does not remove risk sufficiently”. So, the care home management has decided not to implement these new rules.
Note that the government guidance specifically covers this imperfection. It says “while rapid testing can reduce the risks around visiting it does not completely remove the risk of infection”. Therefore, this factor is already discounted into their more relaxed new guidance.
Unfortunately the same guidance gives license for individual care homes to “dynamically assess risk” and the care homes are using this license to exercise judgement about when, and in what circumstances, visits can be safely supported, which - it is clear - is resulting in them applying rules which are more risk-averse than the government guidelines allows, citing resident and carer safety as their reason. (The less gullible (or more cynical) may think that the main reason is commercial: they are being supplied the test kits but not being funded to administer them.)
I`m furious. Thoughts?
As frustrating and difficult as not seeing your mum at Christmas is, please be patient. My elderly grandma died yesterday in hospital, after contracting Covid in her care home.
She was taken to hospital last week with low oxygen levels, a few hours later the care home rang my mum to say my grandma's latest test had returned positive. Told the hospital, they did a test that came back negative. Couple of days later they did another test, that came back positive.
She died of a double whammy of Covid and pneumonia. Six weeks after being widowed after a mix of Covid, COPD and asbestosis got my grandad.
So my advice is stay away, don't risk it.
Very sorry to hear that.
Thank you. They were both very old, knackered and ready to go, I think in both cases, without Covid, they wouldn't have been around for much longer anyway. The worst thing was not being able to see either of them before they went. They both died in hospital surrounded by strangers, not having seen any family for a long time.
My commiserations and best wishes. That must be one of the saddest aspects of the pandemic - people who have died in circumstances like that with visits not allowed.
That thread is wonderfully obtuse. The AG is both a lawyer and a politician, and losing a case in court can lead to a very satisfactory political victory.
See R (Miller) v The Prime Minister and Cherry v Advocate General for Scotland ([2019] UKSC 41 for a recent example
Yes and the maximum sentence for manslaughter is already life in prison, it depends on the judge's discretion.
So the AG was right to make the application, at least the judges rejected their application to reduce their sentence even if they did not agree their sentences should be raised
Perhaps someone should organise a PB pub brawl once Covid is out of the way.
That'd be an excellent PB Christmas parlour game, the various tribes split up into teams then speculation on who would win. Glad that I'll have malc on my team
Wasn't Topping once going to kick fuck out of 'Byronic' in a pub car park?
"White privilege" is simply that white people (especially white, straight, men) face less barriers and obstacles in life and society, on the whole. This is due to a whole manner of historical reasons.
That doesn't mean that white people don't suffer or that white people don't earn their success. It also doesn't mean that the struggles of the white working class, for example, are any less meaningful.
There's nothing "woke" about it as a concept and it annoys me when Twitter idiots turn it into a whole lifestyle.
If you're explaining, you're losing. It's an unhelpful convection that crudely categorises people, and therefore polarises them, and it should be ditched for that reason alone.
See Robert's excellent post at the start of the thread.
Consider the following 2 sentiments -
(1) We are all individuals, unique in our differences, and should never be viewed primarily as a cog in a machine or as a mere unit of a racial or gender or class grouping. To do so is dehumanizing and alienating and does not help in the practical improvement of relationships in society.
(2) Although we are all unique individuals, a massive factor influencing life outcomes is birth circumstances. What race and gender we are, and what class are parents are. Society cannot therefore be understood unless viewed through the prism of identity.
Both these are true. (1) is an obvious truth and (2) is more challenging to accept.
So for me we need to first accept the truth of (2) and decide if we wish to do the work to make it less true. If we do, we should then bear in mind the truth of (1) when going about it.
The trouble is far too many are solely viewing society through the prism of the latter - and making everything about that.
Rather than serving to remove what remaining discriminatory attitudes we still have, which are in the minority, it's likely to increase them.
And the Procrustean process of fitting reality to the ideology gives us the idea of "white" Indians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Ghanians etc etc.
Care homes: the nightmare for my mother continues.
A few weeks ago the media widely reported a change to government rules regarding care home visits. This, said the media and the government, would - at last - herald meaningful inside visits with our loved ones, starting before Christmas.
My mum`s care home were gearing up for this, waiting for the rapid test (LFT) kits to arrive. I`d informed my mum of the positive change that was on the way, and I would be able to see her at Christmas.
However, yesterday, out of the blue, the care home emailed relatives saying that it has been found that negative lateral flow device results are only 75% reliable, and “this has led to many scientists, organisations and local authorities advising against their use for visiting as this does not remove risk sufficiently”. So, the care home management has decided not to implement these new rules.
Note that the government guidance specifically covers this imperfection. It says “while rapid testing can reduce the risks around visiting it does not completely remove the risk of infection”. Therefore, this factor is already discounted into their more relaxed new guidance.
Unfortunately the same guidance gives license for individual care homes to “dynamically assess risk” and the care homes are using this license to exercise judgement about when, and in what circumstances, visits can be safely supported, which - it is clear - is resulting in them applying rules which are more risk-averse than the government guidelines allows, citing resident and carer safety as their reason. (The less gullible (or more cynical) may think that the main reason is commercial: they are being supplied the test kits but not being funded to administer them.)
I`m furious. Thoughts?
As frustrating and difficult as not seeing your mum at Christmas is, please be patient. My elderly grandma died yesterday in hospital, after contracting Covid in her care home.
She was taken to hospital last week with low oxygen levels, a few hours later the care home rang my mum to say my grandma's latest test had returned positive. Told the hospital, they did a test that came back negative. Couple of days later they did another test, that came back positive.
She died of a double whammy of Covid and pneumonia. Six weeks after being widowed after a mix of Covid, COPD and asbestosis got my grandad.
So my advice is stay away, don't risk it.
Very sorry to hear that.
Thank you. They were both very old, knackered and ready to go, I think in both cases, without Covid, they wouldn't have been around for much longer anyway. The worst thing was not being able to see either of them before they went. They both died in hospital surrounded by strangers, not having seen any family for a long time.
Sorry to hear it. One of the more painful things still about my mother's death is that though I saw her in the hospice the day before, she died with no family around while I was driving through after the 'you'd better get through here asap' phone call. I can only imagine what having that magnified by weeks or months feels like.
I was laid really low last December by this cousin-of-Covid bug. I just didn't get better, so the already daunting 500 mile round trip to see my mother was put off until I got shot of it and could visit her in the home.
As it turned out, she died Christmas Day and I never did get to see her again.
There is something soul-achingly sad about wrapped Christmas presents that will never get opened by their intended recipients.
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record.
Maybe because you're not engaging with the real issue?
I don't think anyone (certainly not here) is contesting that some minorities, particularly black people, experience disadvantage in the UK. The pub-nudge, street-crossing, kids in the bank queue, eye-averting and hovering security guard all being personal examples that were shared with me. It exists. It's real. Not everyone does it, but enough do to make the experiences of black people living here uncomfortable. It needs to end.
The problem with "White Privilege" is that when you say it anyone who is white hears that because they are white they have privilege. That will instantly make many say, "no, I'm not" because privilege is commonly understood to mean being granted special rights but they've often had very hard lives, and suffer unemployment, bad health and bad education. It will then in turn makes others say, "yes, you do" because of the reasons in my first paragraph, possibly coupled with a slight that if they disagree they're either totally ignorant or a secret racist too. A number of the latter then double-down with nonsense about slavery and colonialism too, which introduces another complexifying vector into it - particular if your family ancestors had a really rough time of it down the factories and mines in the 19th Century too.
It therefore ends up with the conversation almost entirely about White people, who fight out its interpretation amongst themselves, and takes the attention and energy away from the real disadvantages many minority people face. I call many of its defenders "Woke" because I think they narcissistically want to make it all about themselves due to holding deep-seated insecurities and guilt - particularly prevalent amongst the professional and educated classes - which is why they make so many public declarations of their faith and belief in public, and call out transgressors, whilst doing virtually nothing to address the underlying issues at heart. I can see straight through that, it properly winds me up and I find it hard to respect people who do it.
Like "defund the police" it's a clickbaity type slogan that rises amongst the maelstrom in social media and grabs the headlines but risks making society more split, not worse.
Language matters and it's time we starting using the right language if we're interested in real results, rather than just ourselves.
Sure, but in this context, 'white privilege' simply means the freedom from what you describe in the first paragraph.
'The problem with...' is why it took a hundred years for anyone to do very much about it in the US.
Same applies to a whole host of other characteristics. For years I would get stopped and searched when going into football grounds as an away fan whilst my considerably older friend would get straight in.
Perhaps someone should organise a PB pub brawl once Covid is out of the way.
That'd be an excellent PB Christmas parlour game, the various tribes split up into teams then speculation on who would win. Glad that I'll have malc on my team
Wasn't Topping once going to kick fuck out of 'Byronic' in a pub car park?
"White privilege" is simply that white people (especially white, straight, men) face less barriers and obstacles in life and society, on the whole. This is due to a whole manner of historical reasons.
That doesn't mean that white people don't suffer or that white people don't earn their success. It also doesn't mean that the struggles of the white working class, for example, are any less meaningful.
There's nothing "woke" about it as a concept and it annoys me when Twitter idiots turn it into a whole lifestyle.
If you're explaining, you're losing. It's an unhelpful convection that crudely categorises people, and therefore polarises them, and it should be ditched for that reason alone.
See Robert's excellent post at the start of the thread.
Consider the following 2 sentiments -
(1) We are all individuals, unique in our differences, and should never be viewed primarily as a cog in a machine or as a mere unit of a racial or gender or class grouping. To do so is dehumanizing and alienating and does not help in the practical improvement of relationships in society.
(2) Although we are all unique individuals, a massive factor influencing life outcomes is birth circumstances. What race and gender we are, and what class are parents are. Society cannot therefore be understood unless viewed through the prism of identity.
Both these are true. (1) is an obvious truth and (2) is more challenging to accept.
So for me we need to first accept the truth of (2) and decide if we wish to do the work to make it less true. If we do, we should then bear in mind the truth of (1) when going about it.
I'd agree (2) is true, but the problem lies in it being both (sometimes willfully) misunderstood and mis-applied. The temptation that it creates is to categorize people into separate boxes, whereas in reality there is, as Robert indicates in his excellent post, huge overlap of each group.
Rather than a nuanced discussion and policy-making approach, (2) often results in a crude us vs them competition for empathy and resources. And as we have seen, some (many?) politicians on both sides of the spectrum are not averse to pouring fuel on that particular fire.
I like being privileged. I enjoy the privileges I have, and I'm excited about the thought of accruing more privileges as I go through life. I don't wish others were less privileged so I could be more privileged - that seems like screwed up logic.
Congratulations on finding a new way of spectacularly missing the point on the issue of white privilege, a significant achievement given the wide range of bone-headed responses we've already seen on this topic here.
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record. Bottom line - living in a multiracial household I belive white privilege to be real, I have seen it in action. It is one of many ways (like class or sex) that some groups are treated better than others in ways that are unconnected to their talents or intrinsic worth. To be honest, it surprises me that people find it controversial and put so much effort into proving it doesn't exist, rather than listening to those who say it has affected them and finding ways of making society fairer.
The idea of white privilege is (afaik) that white people communicating with other white people benefit from a sort of unconscious shortcut of supposed familiarity and approbation. So is the 'solution' to this problem that white people should be more suspicious and disapproving of each other? How would that help society? The problem is not white people being too privileged, it is non-white people not being privileged enough, and therefore the solution does not lie in attacking white privilege, but building non-white privilege. See also every other problem based on 'those people' having 'too much'. That's why white privilege being a problem is an absurdity.
"Instead of throwing good money after bad on random mass testing, which will cost billions and get us nowhere, the massive “moonshot” commitment of funds and manpower should be diverted to the vaccine"
Which is basically what every trade deal looks like. Both sides set standards in the treaty and if either one diverges from them an arbitrator will set allowable tariffs for the injured party.
That coupled with the two directional ratchet (which is actually now just an EU way of saying non-regression) means the LPF is basically everything we've been asking for from the beginning.
You can call it what you want or say the EU are just repackaging ideas but they have moved significantly and basically agreed to give us almost identical terms on the LPF they gave to Canada and Japan.
The key issues are, I think, the right of bi-lateral action and an arbitration mechanism.
If nothing else, game theory points to such a structure being stable.
I like being privileged. I enjoy the privileges I have, and I'm excited about the thought of accruing more privileges as I go through life. I don't wish others were less privileged so I could be more privileged - that seems like screwed up logic.
Congratulations on finding a new way of spectacularly missing the point on the issue of white privilege, a significant achievement given the wide range of bone-headed responses we've already seen on this topic here.
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record. Bottom line - living in a multiracial household I belive white privilege to be real, I have seen it in action. It is one of many ways (like class or sex) that some groups are treated better than others in ways that are unconnected to their talents or intrinsic worth. To be honest, it surprises me that people find it controversial and put so much effort into proving it doesn't exist, rather than listening to those who say it has affected them and finding ways of making society fairer.
The idea of white privilege is (afaik) that white people communicating with other white people benefit from a sort of unconscious shortcut of supposed familiarity and approbation. So is the 'solution' to this problem that white people should be more suspicious and disapproving of each other? How would that help society? The problem is not white people being too privileged, it is non-white people not being privileged enough, and therefore the solution does not lie in attacking white privilege, but building non-white privilege. See also every other problem based on 'those people' having 'too much'. That's why white privilege being a problem is an absurdity.
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record.
Maybe because you're not engaging with the real issue?
I don't think anyone (certainly not here) is contesting that some minorities, particularly black people, experience disadvantage in the UK. The pub-nudge, street-crossing, kids in the bank queue, eye-averting and hovering security guard all being personal examples that were shared with me. It exists. It's real. Not everyone does it, but enough do to make the experiences of black people living here uncomfortable. It needs to end.
The problem with "White Privilege" is that when you say it anyone who is white hears that because they are white they have privilege. That will instantly make many say, "no, I'm not" because privilege is commonly understood to mean being granted special rights but they've often had very hard lives, and suffer unemployment, bad health and bad education. It will then in turn makes others say, "yes, you do" because of the reasons in my first paragraph, possibly coupled with a slight that if they disagree they're either totally ignorant or a secret racist too. A number of the latter then double-down with nonsense about slavery and colonialism too, which introduces another complexifying vector into it - particular if your family ancestors had a really rough time of it down the factories and mines in the 19th Century too.
It therefore ends up with the conversation almost entirely about White people, who fight out its interpretation amongst themselves, and takes the attention and energy away from the real disadvantages many minority people face. I call many of its defenders "Woke" because I think they narcissistically want to make it all about themselves due to holding deep-seated insecurities and guilt - particularly prevalent amongst the professional and educated classes - which is why they make so many public declarations of their faith and belief in public, and call out transgressors, whilst doing virtually nothing to address the underlying issues at heart. I can see straight through that, it properly winds me up and I find it hard to respect people who do it.
Like "defund the police" it's a clickbaity type slogan that rises amongst the maelstrom in social media and grabs the headlines but risks making society more split, not worse.
Language matters and it's time we starting using the right language if we're interested in real results, rather than just ourselves.
So we agree, white privilege exists but White Privilege isn't a useful political slogan. I haven't engaged in the issue of the slogan's effectiveness because it isn't interesting to me. BTW white privilege should be a conversation primarily involving white people because they are where the problem lies and it will only go away if they try to fix it. That is why the phrase is accurate, even if it gets people's backs up.
If we can at least agree it's not a useful political slogan then I will take that as progress.
I think in any society with a majority ethnicity a visible minority can suffer disadvantages - just try not being an ethnic Han in China - and I think the idea of some global transcendental "white privilege" is out of date. So I describe it differently and I think more accurately.
On your last point I largely disagree. I think the conversations should be between white people and minority people, particularly black people from all sorts of backgrounds, which is where I've learnt the most. And I accept I did have things to learn.
Ha, I heard KSI talking to Louis Theroux about this very thing a few weeks ago on the radio. KSI must be giving away a stone and a couple of inches at least. Paul looks like he comes from the Trump school of gracious losing.
"Instead of throwing good money after bad on random mass testing, which will cost billions and get us nowhere, the massive “moonshot” commitment of funds and manpower should be diverted to the vaccine"
That thread is wonderfully obtuse. The AG is both a lawyer and a politician, and losing a case in court can lead to a very satisfactory political victory.
See R (Miller) v The Prime Minister and Cherry v Advocate General for Scotland ([2019] UKSC 41 for a recent example
Yes and the maximum sentence for manslaughter is already life in prison, it depends on the judge's discretion.
So the AG was right to make the application, at least the judges rejected their application to reduce their sentence even if they did not agree their sentences should be raised
So the lawyers working with the Attorney General telling her with their legal training and experience not to make the application know less than you do with whatever legal training and experience you have.
Question then is why does the government employ them...?
Care homes: the nightmare for my mother continues.
A few weeks ago the media widely reported a change to government rules regarding care home visits. This, said the media and the government, would - at last - herald meaningful inside visits with our loved ones, starting before Christmas.
My mum`s care home were gearing up for this, waiting for the rapid test (LFT) kits to arrive. I`d informed my mum of the positive change that was on the way, and I would be able to see her at Christmas.
However, yesterday, out of the blue, the care home emailed relatives saying that it has been found that negative lateral flow device results are only 75% reliable, and “this has led to many scientists, organisations and local authorities advising against their use for visiting as this does not remove risk sufficiently”. So, the care home management has decided not to implement these new rules.
Note that the government guidance specifically covers this imperfection. It says “while rapid testing can reduce the risks around visiting it does not completely remove the risk of infection”. Therefore, this factor is already discounted into their more relaxed new guidance.
Unfortunately the same guidance gives license for individual care homes to “dynamically assess risk” and the care homes are using this license to exercise judgement about when, and in what circumstances, visits can be safely supported, which - it is clear - is resulting in them applying rules which are more risk-averse than the government guidelines allows, citing resident and carer safety as their reason. (The less gullible (or more cynical) may think that the main reason is commercial: they are being supplied the test kits but not being funded to administer them.)
I`m furious. Thoughts?
As frustrating and difficult as not seeing your mum at Christmas is, please be patient. My elderly grandma died yesterday in hospital, after contracting Covid in her care home.
She was taken to hospital last week with low oxygen levels, a few hours later the care home rang my mum to say my grandma's latest test had returned positive. Told the hospital, they did a test that came back negative. Couple of days later they did another test, that came back positive.
She died of a double whammy of Covid and pneumonia. Six weeks after being widowed after a mix of Covid, COPD and asbestosis got my grandad.
So my advice is stay away, don't risk it.
Very sorry to hear that.
Thank you. They were both very old, knackered and ready to go, I think in both cases, without Covid, they wouldn't have been around for much longer anyway. The worst thing was not being able to see either of them before they went. They both died in hospital surrounded by strangers, not having seen any family for a long time.
Sorry to hear it. One of the more painful things still about my mother's death is that though I saw her in the hospice the day before, she died with no family around while I was driving through after the 'you'd better get through here asap' phone call. I can only imagine what having that magnified by weeks or months feels like.
My mam got that call yesterday afternoon but she couldn't risk it as her husband is extremely vulnerable so she didn't go. She feels terrible about it but I think she made the right decision, as awful as it was.
It's a terrible disease and it is never nice losing family but at least they were old, both in their 90s, in poor health and had lived their life. It was hard not seeing them but that's a horrible part of this pandemic. Many people are having it much, much worse. My missus's friend lost her 8 year old, previously perfectly healthy, nephew to it the other day. That is a real tragedy.
Very sorry to hear this.
Lots of pb'ers have had a horrible year this year.
"White privilege" is simply that white people (especially white, straight, men) face less barriers and obstacles in life and society, on the whole. This is due to a whole manner of historical reasons.
That doesn't mean that white people don't suffer or that white people don't earn their success. It also doesn't mean that the struggles of the white working class, for example, are any less meaningful.
There's nothing "woke" about it as a concept and it annoys me when Twitter idiots turn it into a whole lifestyle.
If you're explaining, you're losing. It's an unhelpful convection that crudely categorises people, and therefore polarises them, and it should be ditched for that reason alone.
See Robert's excellent post at the start of the thread.
Consider the following 2 sentiments -
(1) We are all individuals, unique in our differences, and should never be viewed primarily as a cog in a machine or as a mere unit of a racial or gender or class grouping. To do so is dehumanizing and alienating and does not help in the practical improvement of relationships in society.
(2) Although we are all unique individuals, a massive factor influencing life outcomes is birth circumstances. What race and gender we are, and what class are parents are. Society cannot therefore be understood unless viewed through the prism of identity.
Both these are true. (1) is an obvious truth and (2) is more challenging to accept.
So for me we need to first accept the truth of (2) and decide if we wish to do the work to make it less true. If we do, we should then bear in mind the truth of (1) when going about it.
The trouble is far too many are solely viewing society through the prism of the latter - and making everything about that.
Rather than serving to remove what remaining discriminatory attitudes we still have, which are in the minority, it's likely to increase them.
I do get that point. If your messaging in the cause of racial justice is getting in the way rather than helping, you have to look hard at it.
But I'll give you one back.
Many white people are in denial that there is a real problem to be addressed and so they never get to sentiment (2) in my example. They just stop at (1).
Then what that becomes is less an important truth than a trite - "People are People wherever They be" - sentiment employed to deflect and close down on an issue they are uncomfortable with.
Ha, I heard KSI talking to Louis Theroux about this very thing a few weeks ago on the radio. KSI must be giving away a stone and a couple of inches at least. Paul looks like he comes from the Trump school of gracious losing.
I mean he was throwing out bombs like a bastard, but as AJ found out on Saturday, that also bollockses up your stamina if your opponent is still standing.
Neither of them got behind their jabs but I don't suppose it was that kind of fight.
The four nations have agreed the three family rules at Christmas remains but in Wales the guidance is for two
So the law is 3 but guidance is 2 in Wales
You could not make this up
BBC pathetically confused.
Unable to decide whether Mr Drakeford's changes in Wales are "advice" or "Rules".
They are advice
There is a big problem with advice in general when it comes to corporations, in my experience. To avoid both legal liability and moral judgment, advice tends to get treated as a rule - and with some margin superimposed on the 'advice' to ensure you don't accidentally 'break' that 'advice'.
Much of the time, that is an inconvenience (e.g. advice on how heavy an item delivery person is required under their job description to lift). However, when that advice covers something that is already a careful balance of benefits (COVID infection control) and costs (loss of access to near death relatives), pursuing the 'advice' PLUS reflexively can get you a long way from the optimal balance point very quickly.
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
I heard from my octogenarian step-mother that she is due to be vaccinated on Friday in a fairly small Devon town, so things seem to be moving ahead quite well.
The talk of Lockdown 3 in Febraury is daft as by then I would imagine that the vast majority of 80+ people in this country would have had a double dose and thus be immune.
So it will be safe to let the virus spread unhindered through the whole population aged 79 and less?
One would have thought that by now the message about the danger of mutations from large-scale infections would have penetrated even the thickest of skulls.
Do you think society should only go back to "normal" once everyone has been vaccinated?
One of the first signs of "normal" will be the vaccinated over-80's jetting off for those ultra-low cost cruises. Once that happens, it will be rather more difficult to get the young buying into tight lockdowns...
The problem the cruise ships will have is getting a vaccinated crew
Which is basically what every trade deal looks like. Both sides set standards in the treaty and if either one diverges from them an arbitrator will set allowable tariffs for the injured party.
That coupled with the two directional ratchet (which is actually now just an EU way of saying non-regression) means the LPF is basically everything we've been asking for from the beginning.
You can call it what you want or say the EU are just repackaging ideas but they have moved significantly and basically agreed to give us almost identical terms on the LPF they gave to Canada and Japan.
If we look carefully at the detail of the thread we can see the fudge on fish shaping up too. This will basically be to give Macron more in the Channel but less off Cornwall and Scotland, where the bigger fish and leave communities are.
This will be unpopular with the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain - who will probably take an even greater haircut as a result - but at the end of the day they won't veto where the French will.
So it'll come down to a transition period, a bung of cash and some registry hocus-pocus but the UK will get a better deal that the EU will dance to.
"White privilege" is simply that white people (especially white, straight, men) face less barriers and obstacles in life and society, on the whole. This is due to a whole manner of historical reasons.
That doesn't mean that white people don't suffer or that white people don't earn their success. It also doesn't mean that the struggles of the white working class, for example, are any less meaningful.
There's nothing "woke" about it as a concept and it annoys me when Twitter idiots turn it into a whole lifestyle.
If you're explaining, you're losing. It's an unhelpful convection that crudely categorises people, and therefore polarises them, and it should be ditched for that reason alone.
See Robert's excellent post at the start of the thread.
Consider the following 2 sentiments -
(1) We are all individuals, unique in our differences, and should never be viewed primarily as a cog in a machine or as a mere unit of a racial or gender or class grouping. To do so is dehumanizing and alienating and does not help in the practical improvement of relationships in society.
(2) Although we are all unique individuals, a massive factor influencing life outcomes is birth circumstances. What race and gender we are, and what class are parents are. Society cannot therefore be understood unless viewed through the prism of identity.
Both these are true. (1) is an obvious truth and (2) is more challenging to accept.
So for me we need to first accept the truth of (2) and decide if we wish to do the work to make it less true. If we do, we should then bear in mind the truth of (1) when going about it.
The trouble is far too many are solely viewing society through the prism of the latter - and making everything about that.
Rather than serving to remove what remaining discriminatory attitudes we still have, which are in the minority, it's likely to increase them.
I do get that point. If your messaging in the cause of racial justice is getting in the way rather than helping, you have to look hard at it.
But I'll give you one back.
Many white people are in denial that there is a real problem to be addressed and so they never get to sentiment (2) in my example. They just stop at (1).
Then what that becomes is less an important truth than a trite - "People are People wherever They be" - sentiment employed to deflect and close down on an issue they are uncomfortable with.
I think about 10-20% of white people are, yes, and many of those are genuinely racist. The trouble is you get 50:50 polarisation on this and this doesn't explain the balance of all the opposition (I think my post, Robert's and others do).
I'm not seeing anyone on this forum who's in denial there's a problem?
Ha, I heard KSI talking to Louis Theroux about this very thing a few weeks ago on the radio. KSI must be giving away a stone and a couple of inches at least. Paul looks like he comes from the Trump school of gracious losing.
I mean he was throwing out bombs like a bastard, but as AJ found out on Saturday, that also bollockses up your stamina if your opponent is still standing.
Neither of them got behind their jabs but I don't suppose it was that kind of fight.
Did KSI come off well?
I thought so, quite funny and self deprecating. From memory he was pretty honest about the whole thing being a fantastic publicity/career move.
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record.
Maybe because you're not engaging with the real issue?
I don't think anyone (certainly not here) is contesting that some minorities, particularly black people, experience disadvantage in the UK. The pub-nudge, street-crossing, kids in the bank queue, eye-averting and hovering security guard all being personal examples that were shared with me. It exists. It's real. Not everyone does it, but enough do to make the experiences of black people living here uncomfortable. It needs to end.
The problem with "White Privilege" is that when you say it anyone who is white hears that because they are white they have privilege. That will instantly make many say, "no, I'm not" because privilege is commonly understood to mean being granted special rights but they've often had very hard lives, and suffer unemployment, bad health and bad education. It will then in turn makes others say, "yes, you do" because of the reasons in my first paragraph, possibly coupled with a slight that if they disagree they're either totally ignorant or a secret racist too. A number of the latter then double-down with nonsense about slavery and colonialism too, which introduces another complexifying vector into it - particular if your family ancestors had a really rough time of it down the factories and mines in the 19th Century too.
It therefore ends up with the conversation almost entirely about White people, who fight out its interpretation amongst themselves, and takes the attention and energy away from the real disadvantages many minority people face. I call many of its defenders "Woke" because I think they narcissistically want to make it all about themselves due to holding deep-seated insecurities and guilt - particularly prevalent amongst the professional and educated classes - which is why they make so many public declarations of their faith and belief in public, and call out transgressors, whilst doing virtually nothing to address the underlying issues at heart. I can see straight through that, it properly winds me up and I find it hard to respect people who do it.
Like "defund the police" it's a clickbaity type slogan that rises amongst the maelstrom in social media and grabs the headlines but risks making society more split, not worse.
Language matters and it's time we starting using the right language if we're interested in real results, rather than just ourselves.
So we agree, white privilege exists but White Privilege isn't a useful political slogan. I haven't engaged in the issue of the slogan's effectiveness because it isn't interesting to me. BTW white privilege should be a conversation primarily involving white people because they are where the problem lies and it will only go away if they try to fix it. That is why the phrase is accurate, even if it gets people's backs up.
Does the same apply to Black Crime?
Why the question?
White Privilege is clearly not an equivalent term to Black Crime.
"Instead of throwing good money after bad on random mass testing, which will cost billions and get us nowhere, the massive “moonshot” commitment of funds and manpower should be diverted to the vaccine"
Exactly, these are not mutually exclusive and all the evidence is that throwing more money after the vaccine route at this point would actually not increase the benefit to us.
Ha, I heard KSI talking to Louis Theroux about this very thing a few weeks ago on the radio. KSI must be giving away a stone and a couple of inches at least. Paul looks like he comes from the Trump school of gracious losing.
I mean he was throwing out bombs like a bastard, but as AJ found out on Saturday, that also bollockses up your stamina if your opponent is still standing.
Neither of them got behind their jabs but I don't suppose it was that kind of fight.
Did KSI come off well?
I thought so, quite funny and self deprecating. From memory he was pretty honest about the whole thing being a fantastic publicity/career move.
Good to hear. Plus stepping through the ropes is not to be sneered at however big a Youtube star they are.
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
Which is basically what every trade deal looks like. Both sides set standards in the treaty and if either one diverges from them an arbitrator will set allowable tariffs for the injured party.
That coupled with the two directional ratchet (which is actually now just an EU way of saying non-regression) means the LPF is basically everything we've been asking for from the beginning.
You can call it what you want or say the EU are just repackaging ideas but they have moved significantly and basically agreed to give us almost identical terms on the LPF they gave to Canada and Japan.
If we look carefully at the detail of the thread we can see the fudge on fish shaping up too. This will basically be to give Macron more in the Channel but less off Cornwall and Scotland, where the bigger fish and leave communities are.
This will be unpopular with the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain - who will probably take an even greater haircut as a result - but at the end of the day they won't veto where the French will.
So it'll come down to a transition period, a bung of cash and some registry hocus-pocus but the UK will get a better deal that the EU will dance to.
Having watched that pirate ship being stormed out of the window, I was looking forward to my ringside seat as the navy took on the foreign trawlers. Looks like I may be disappointed.
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
Somewhere in between. They did conclude there was interference, but they could not assess its impact on the outcome.
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
Nonsense. There have been sanctions, criminal charges, convictions, and there are still many criminal cases ongoing, Assange is at the heart of one right now, although Trump may pardon him yet.
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
"the investigation "also does not exonerate" Trump, finding both public and private actions "by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations".[26] Ten episodes of potential obstruction by the president were described."
Which is basically what every trade deal looks like. Both sides set standards in the treaty and if either one diverges from them an arbitrator will set allowable tariffs for the injured party.
That coupled with the two directional ratchet (which is actually now just an EU way of saying non-regression) means the LPF is basically everything we've been asking for from the beginning.
You can call it what you want or say the EU are just repackaging ideas but they have moved significantly and basically agreed to give us almost identical terms on the LPF they gave to Canada and Japan.
If we look carefully at the detail of the thread we can see the fudge on fish shaping up too. This will basically be to give Macron more in the Channel but less off Cornwall and Scotland, where the bigger fish and leave communities are.
This will be unpopular with the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain - who will probably take an even greater haircut as a result - but at the end of the day they won't veto where the French will.
So it'll come down to a transition period, a bung of cash and some registry hocus-pocus but the UK will get a better deal that the EU will dance to.
I think the government stance on protecting territorial waters has concentrated minds all across Europe. The suggestions of doing a side deal on fishing while in no deal was completely ridiculous and I think if May and Robbins were in charge we'd have ended up giving it away for no gain, as usual.
The four nations have agreed the three family rules at Christmas remains but in Wales the guidance is for two
So the law is 3 but guidance is 2 in Wales
You could not make this up
BBC pathetically confused.
Unable to decide whether Mr Drakeford's changes in Wales are "advice" or "Rules".
They are advice
There is a big problem with advice in general when it comes to corporations, in my experience. To avoid both legal liability and moral judgment, advice tends to get treated as a rule - and with some margin superimposed on the 'advice' to ensure you don't accidentally 'break' that 'advice'.
Much of the time, that is an inconvenience (e.g. advice on how heavy an item delivery person is required under their job description to lift). However, when that advice covers something that is already a careful balance of benefits (COVID infection control) and costs (loss of access to near death relatives), pursuing the 'advice' PLUS reflexively can get you a long way from the optimal balance point very quickly.
As we can witness from the care home discussion below - people want to visit the residents, the residents want their children to visit but the risk is so great that the only solution is to not allow any visitors and watch everyone complain.
I heard from my octogenarian step-mother that she is due to be vaccinated on Friday in a fairly small Devon town, so things seem to be moving ahead quite well.
The talk of Lockdown 3 in Febraury is daft as by then I would imagine that the vast majority of 80+ people in this country would have had a double dose and thus be immune.
So it will be safe to let the virus spread unhindered through the whole population aged 79 and less?
One would have thought that by now the message about the danger of mutations from large-scale infections would have penetrated even the thickest of skulls.
Do you think society should only go back to "normal" once everyone has been vaccinated?
One of the first signs of "normal" will be the vaccinated over-80's jetting off for those ultra-low cost cruises. Once that happens, it will be rather more difficult to get the young buying into tight lockdowns...
The problem the cruise ships will have is getting a vaccinated crew
Private sector vaccination surely has to become a thing in short order?
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
Somewhere in between. They did conclude there was interference, but they could not assess its impact on the outcome.
And now the Trump will spend the next four years trying to tie Joe to China.
Not that Joe's gonna last four years. Four months maybe.
Part of the reason will be a lack of trust in the authorities from minorities, readers can call it what they like and think about why there is less trust for themselves.
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
"the investigation "also does not exonerate" Trump, finding both public and private actions "by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations".[26] Ten episodes of potential obstruction by the president were described."
Not exactly zip.
Seriously do me a favour. If Trump's many powerful enemies could have got him anywhere near a court they would have.
I heard from my octogenarian step-mother that she is due to be vaccinated on Friday in a fairly small Devon town, so things seem to be moving ahead quite well.
The talk of Lockdown 3 in Febraury is daft as by then I would imagine that the vast majority of 80+ people in this country would have had a double dose and thus be immune.
So it will be safe to let the virus spread unhindered through the whole population aged 79 and less?
One would have thought that by now the message about the danger of mutations from large-scale infections would have penetrated even the thickest of skulls.
Do you think society should only go back to "normal" once everyone has been vaccinated?
One of the first signs of "normal" will be the vaccinated over-80's jetting off for those ultra-low cost cruises. Once that happens, it will be rather more difficult to get the young buying into tight lockdowns...
The problem the cruise ships will have is getting a vaccinated crew
Private sector vaccination surely has to become a thing in short order?
Not for a while, is my guess. Once there’s a batch of vaccines approved and a flood of supply, I expect some will leak into the private sector allowing companies and individuals to pay to jump the queue. But I’d be surprised if that happens in the early stages when governments are taking and allocating it all.
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
Somewhere in between. They did conclude there was interference, but they could not assess its impact on the outcome.
How on earth could they assess its impact on the outcome? That is setting it up to fail.
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
"the investigation "also does not exonerate" Trump, finding both public and private actions "by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations".[26] Ten episodes of potential obstruction by the president were described."
Not exactly zip.
Seriously do me a favour. If Trump's many powerful enemies could have got him anywhere near a court they would have.
I suspect they will in the next 6 months or so, once his protections as President from federal prosecutions lapses.
I heard from my octogenarian step-mother that she is due to be vaccinated on Friday in a fairly small Devon town, so things seem to be moving ahead quite well.
The talk of Lockdown 3 in Febraury is daft as by then I would imagine that the vast majority of 80+ people in this country would have had a double dose and thus be immune.
So it will be safe to let the virus spread unhindered through the whole population aged 79 and less?
One would have thought that by now the message about the danger of mutations from large-scale infections would have penetrated even the thickest of skulls.
Do you think society should only go back to "normal" once everyone has been vaccinated?
One of the first signs of "normal" will be the vaccinated over-80's jetting off for those ultra-low cost cruises. Once that happens, it will be rather more difficult to get the young buying into tight lockdowns...
The problem the cruise ships will have is getting a vaccinated crew
Private sector vaccination surely has to become a thing in short order?
Not for a while, is my guess. Once there’s a batch of vaccines approved and a flood of supply, I expect some will leak into the private sector allowing companies and individuals to pay to jump the queue. But I’d be surprised if that happens in the early stages when governments are taking and allocating it all.
Indeed, I doubt this will become a thing until there is a significant over-supply
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
Especially after the democrats set such a cracking example in 2016.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
The reason they don't say "Donald beat us fair and square" is because the intelligence community, House, Senate, DOJ, Special Counsel, prosecutors and the courts all agree that the Trump campaign was being aided by the Russian goverment's interference in the election. This is a matter of record now. It happened. The only thing to be decided is how much the Trump campaign cooperated with Russian agents acting for the GRU. Hopefully the new Presidency will enable that aspect to be investigated at long last.
Fantasy land. Enormous resources were poured into trying to make allegations stick.
They came up with zip.
Somewhere in between. They did conclude there was interference, but they could not assess its impact on the outcome.
How on earth could they assess its impact on the outcome? That is setting it up to fail.
Indeed. But there was pressure from the Democratic party to try, and from Trump to not.
I heard from my octogenarian step-mother that she is due to be vaccinated on Friday in a fairly small Devon town, so things seem to be moving ahead quite well.
The talk of Lockdown 3 in Febraury is daft as by then I would imagine that the vast majority of 80+ people in this country would have had a double dose and thus be immune.
So it will be safe to let the virus spread unhindered through the whole population aged 79 and less?
One would have thought that by now the message about the danger of mutations from large-scale infections would have penetrated even the thickest of skulls.
Do you think society should only go back to "normal" once everyone has been vaccinated?
One of the first signs of "normal" will be the vaccinated over-80's jetting off for those ultra-low cost cruises. Once that happens, it will be rather more difficult to get the young buying into tight lockdowns...
The problem the cruise ships will have is getting a vaccinated crew
Private sector vaccination surely has to become a thing in short order?
Not for a while, is my guess. Once there’s a batch of vaccines approved and a flood of supply, I expect some will leak into the private sector allowing companies and individuals to pay to jump the queue. But I’d be surprised if that happens in the early stages when governments are taking and allocating it all.
That Russian vaccine will no doubt become available, courtesy of those arch-capitalists in the Kremlin....
I heard from my octogenarian step-mother that she is due to be vaccinated on Friday in a fairly small Devon town, so things seem to be moving ahead quite well.
The talk of Lockdown 3 in Febraury is daft as by then I would imagine that the vast majority of 80+ people in this country would have had a double dose and thus be immune.
So it will be safe to let the virus spread unhindered through the whole population aged 79 and less?
One would have thought that by now the message about the danger of mutations from large-scale infections would have penetrated even the thickest of skulls.
Do you think society should only go back to "normal" once everyone has been vaccinated?
One of the first signs of "normal" will be the vaccinated over-80's jetting off for those ultra-low cost cruises. Once that happens, it will be rather more difficult to get the young buying into tight lockdowns...
The problem the cruise ships will have is getting a vaccinated crew
Private sector vaccination surely has to become a thing in short order?
Not for a while, is my guess. Once there’s a batch of vaccines approved and a flood of supply, I expect some will leak into the private sector allowing companies and individuals to pay to jump the queue. But I’d be surprised if that happens in the early stages when governments are taking and allocating it all.
Yeah I can't see hiving off vaccines for Cruise Ship crew vs giving it to, say, Somalia is going to play well.
We await your insightful contributions with interest.
I've said loads on this topic, I feel like a broken record.
Maybe because you're not engaging with the real issue?
I don't think anyone (certainly not here) is contesting that some minorities, particularly black people, experience disadvantage in the UK. The pub-nudge, street-crossing, kids in the bank queue, eye-averting and hovering security guard all being personal examples that were shared with me. It exists. It's real. Not everyone does it, but enough do to make the experiences of black people living here uncomfortable. It needs to end.
The problem with "White Privilege" is that when you say it anyone who is white hears that because they are white they have privilege. That will instantly make many say, "no, I'm not" because privilege is commonly understood to mean being granted special rights but they've often had very hard lives, and suffer unemployment, bad health and bad education. It will then in turn makes others say, "yes, you do" because of the reasons in my first paragraph, possibly coupled with a slight that if they disagree they're either totally ignorant or a secret racist too. A number of the latter then double-down with nonsense about slavery and colonialism too, which introduces another complexifying vector into it - particular if your family ancestors had a really rough time of it down the factories and mines in the 19th Century too.
It therefore ends up with the conversation almost entirely about White people, who fight out its interpretation amongst themselves, and takes the attention and energy away from the real disadvantages many minority people face. I call many of its defenders "Woke" because I think they narcissistically want to make it all about themselves due to holding deep-seated insecurities and guilt - particularly prevalent amongst the professional and educated classes - which is why they make so many public declarations of their faith and belief in public, and call out transgressors, whilst doing virtually nothing to address the underlying issues at heart. I can see straight through that, it properly winds me up and I find it hard to respect people who do it.
Like "defund the police" it's a clickbaity type slogan that rises amongst the maelstrom in social media and grabs the headlines but risks making society more split, not worse.
Language matters and it's time we starting using the right language if we're interested in real results, rather than just ourselves.
So we agree, white privilege exists but White Privilege isn't a useful political slogan. I haven't engaged in the issue of the slogan's effectiveness because it isn't interesting to me. BTW white privilege should be a conversation primarily involving white people because they are where the problem lies and it will only go away if they try to fix it. That is why the phrase is accurate, even if it gets people's backs up.
Does the same apply to Black Crime?
Why the question?
White Privilege is clearly not an equivalent term to Black Crime.
Comments
Thank you. They were both very old, knackered and ready to go, I think in both cases, without Covid, they wouldn't have been around for much longer anyway. The worst thing was not being able to see either of them before they went. They both died in hospital surrounded by strangers, not having seen any family for a long time.
Yes, also sorry to hear your news. Comes down to views about quality of life versus quantity.
Thank you. It's hard not seeing them but still my advice is don't risk seeing your mum.
Edit - and I've knackered the block quotes...
He's an incompetent narcissist who should be removed from office at the first opportunity.
https://twitter.com/BBCkatyaadler/status/1339174510667427841?s=20
Yes, also sorry to hear your news. Comes down to views about quality of life versus quantity.
Thank you. It's hard not seeing them but still my advice is don't risk seeing your mum.
Edit - and I've knackered the block quotes...
Condolences Mr Monkey. I am glad my wife's mother and auntie finished their time in their care homes in previous years, for their sakes and ours.
65 for 2020 if you prefer to buy resignation insurance (I have given the sum involved backing the 1.06)
BTW white privilege should be a conversation primarily involving white people because they are where the problem lies and it will only go away if they try to fix it. That is why the phrase is accurate, even if it gets people's backs up.
Starmer meanwhile has now revealed himself to be a one club golfer, labour problem though is they have nothing better. Burnham? Khan? You are having a laugh.
https://twitter.com/Fraser_Knight/status/1339187171622842368?s=20
It's a terrible disease and it is never nice losing family but at least they were old, both in their 90s, in poor health and had lived their life. It was hard not seeing them but that's a horrible part of this pandemic. Many people are having it much, much worse. My missus's friend lost her 8 year old, previously perfectly healthy, nephew to it the other day. That is a real tragedy.
So the law is 3 but guidance is 2 in Wales
You could not make this up
Kind of the probability that I have COVID, and give it to someone who gets seriously ill/dies from it....
It's a very rare kind of accident.
But why should mucking about with guns be obviously wrong, as opposed to not taking precautions with COVID?
Rather than serving to remove what remaining discriminatory attitudes we still have, which are in the minority, it's likely to increase them.
https://twitter.com/BBCkatyaadler/status/1339174513427292160?s=19
Not that that is a high bar. In fact, it would be the qualifying height for the world limbo championships....
That coupled with the two directional ratchet (which is actually now just an EU way of saying non-regression) means the LPF is basically everything we've been asking for from the beginning.
You can call it what you want or say the EU are just repackaging ideas but they have moved significantly and basically agreed to give us almost identical terms on the LPF they gave to Canada and Japan.
"A study from the Royal Society for Public Health found 57% of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people said they would take the vaccine.
This compared with 79% of white people who would take a Covid vaccine."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55332321
Unable to decide whether Mr Drakeford's changes in Wales are "advice" or "Rules".
Nice to see the Flying Childers in Stanton-in-the-Peak get a mention at PMQ.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBbMhQi_vMk
Honest words from the one of Trump's more prominent MAGA outriders
'The problem with...' is why it took a hundred years for anyone to do very much about it in the US.
So the AG was right to make the application, at least the judges rejected their application to reduce their sentence even if they did not agree their sentences should be raised
As it turned out, she died Christmas Day and I never did get to see her again.
There is something soul-achingly sad about wrapped Christmas presents that will never get opened by their intended recipients.
'Its a fair cop, guv'nor, the Donald beat us fair and square' said no senior democrat whatsoever, either then or since.
Rather than a nuanced discussion and policy-making approach, (2) often results in a crude us vs them competition for empathy and resources. And as we have seen, some (many?) politicians on both sides of the spectrum are not averse to pouring fuel on that particular fire.
"Instead of throwing good money after bad on random mass testing, which will cost billions and get us nowhere, the massive “moonshot” commitment of funds and manpower should be diverted to the vaccine"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/15/stop-wasting-billions-testing-vaccine-can-save-us-now/
If nothing else, game theory points to such a structure being stable.
I think in any society with a majority ethnicity a visible minority can suffer disadvantages - just try not being an ethnic Han in China - and I think the idea of some global transcendental "white privilege" is out of date. So I describe it differently and I think more accurately.
On your last point I largely disagree. I think the conversations should be between white people and minority people, particularly black people from all sorts of backgrounds, which is where I've learnt the most. And I accept I did have things to learn.
Question then is why does the government employ them...?
Lots of pb'ers have had a horrible year this year.
But I'll give you one back.
Many white people are in denial that there is a real problem to be addressed and so they never get to sentiment (2) in my example. They just stop at (1).
Then what that becomes is less an important truth than a trite - "People are People wherever They be" - sentiment employed to deflect and close down on an issue they are uncomfortable with.
Neither of them got behind their jabs but I don't suppose it was that kind of fight.
Did KSI come off well?
Much of the time, that is an inconvenience (e.g. advice on how heavy an item delivery person is required under their job description to lift). However, when that advice covers something that is already a careful balance of benefits (COVID infection control) and costs (loss of access to near death relatives), pursuing the 'advice' PLUS reflexively can get you a long way from the optimal balance point very quickly.
This will be unpopular with the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain - who will probably take an even greater haircut as a result - but at the end of the day they won't veto where the French will.
So it'll come down to a transition period, a bung of cash and some registry hocus-pocus but the UK will get a better deal that the EU will dance to.
I'm not seeing anyone on this forum who's in denial there's a problem?
White Privilege is clearly not an equivalent term to Black Crime.
They came up with zip.
Not exactly zip.
Not that Joe's gonna last four years. Four months maybe.