Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
So far better out than in, AR.
Believe me I will be only too pleased to acknowledge this if and when evidence surfaces. I'd like to see us make a decent effort of capitalising on our sovereignity though if only so that we will know unambigously before long just how successful the enterprise has been, or not, as the case may be.
It will be interesting to see.
On a theoretical/academic view the implementation of an independent trade policy can be judged fairly now that the incompetent Fox has been removed.
Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
So far better out than in, AR.
Believe me I will be only too pleased to acknowledge this if and when evidence surfaces. I'd like to see us make a decent effort of capitalising on our sovereignity though if only so that we will know unambigously before long just how successful the enterprise has been, or not, as the case may be.
It will be interesting to see.
On a theoretical/academic view the implementation of an independent trade policy can be judged fairly now that the incompetent Fox has been removed.
To be honest I'd be happy enough to see the £/Euro exchange rates and our international credit rating return to pre-referendum levels, but I don't think either is very likely for some considerable while.
Why?
Given our endemic trade deficit the £/€ exchange rate was surely overvalued.
If the £/€ exchange rate goes south but the trade deficit closes then might that not be a good thing?
Just suggesting them as benchmarks, Philip. I recall the exchange rate dropped sharply after the referendum and the drop in credit-rating followed soon after.
I'm not saying these are definitive or that other circustances need not be considered, but they're not bad broad-brush indicators. I mean, if Brexit was such a great idea, why didn't they both move up?
Because moving up isn't necessarily a good thing was my point.
This was the substance of my letter to the Gambling Commission which I published on here.
You don't think they are copying me, do you?
The premise of the argument is stupid.
I had a bet on him staying in power and I’m not a trumpeter. The bet was not support for trump, but a punt he could pull it off.
He might yet still remain president I think, so it’s still worth betting on, has a secret pact with the extra terrestrials that are here as reported in a paper. Remember how that played out in the Transformers movie.
I'd really like to check whether Rentoul has been cribbing from PB, Alistair Meekes and/or myself, but the full article is behind a paywall. Would it be possible for someone to send me a copy?
Sterile debate today, defenders defending, attackers trying to pin blame, no suggestions as to a better way forward just who may have said what, when.
What’s needed is to police the restrictions seriously, none of this prosecution is a last resort Ensure the rollout of the vaccine is in the hands of logistics experts
Start investigating the claims of fraud from all sides, government, claimants etc
The UK government looks like a soft pushover waiting to be taken advantage of by its own citizens.
How on earth do you police this though. That is the problem with trying to make this law. Everyone knows it is unenforceable.
A story to illustrate.
Just over a year ago on November 6th 2019 a good friend of mine died. He had been suffering from lung cancer but his death was sudden due to a pulmonary haemorrhage whilst he was at home alone. A mutual friend had turned up but could not get in so called myself and also the police. After identifying my friend I spent a couple of hours with the policeman helping him with details and waiting for the undertakers to arrive. In that time it turned out that the total police force present in Newark that Tuesday evening was the copper I was talking to, one other who was investigating an assault in one of the villages and a desk sergeant. When I expressed surprise at how few police were on duty he said that this was pretty good for the town and that Nottingham that evening had 15 officers on duty - for a city of some 330,000 people.
Policing in this country is by consent. It has to be because there simply isn't the power to do it any other way on a day to day basis. The idea we can police covid restrictions in any meaningful manner when so many do not believe in them is completely unrealistic.
Indeed. The Tories have absolutely gutted the police of resources. The same MPs who voted again and again and again to cut funding and thus officer numbers then whine about the lack of officers.
In Scotland the Tories claimed they made the SNP recruit extra officers (which migjt well be true).
So much for the Union.
Crowds of Tories behaving that badly?
I wouldn't like to say. No, only joking - they made the SNP recruit more polis as a condition of passing the budget a few years back.
But increasing police per head in Scotland and decreasing it in England is odd for a Unionist party when it makes them diverge quite a bit, even allowing for slightly different counting. I polis per 316 Scots vs a much lower English figure (around 200 a couple of years back?)
All those soldiers Hyufd is sending into Scotland won't be able to guard their own tanks, you know.
Oh, please don't encourage him. But actually that's a core issue - why bother with the union if its own party actively encourages divergence in a key area of their characteristic manifesto?
Why bother with devolution at all if there isn't some divergence?
Quite. But from the Tories?
So you want the Tories to scrap Holyrood and reimpose direct rule from Westminster then? I am sure Boris could arrange for that next year if you really want
No, you are as usual completely wrong, and no doubt deliberately. It's not about your fixation on Mr Johnson banning democracy. It's that I want the Tories to explain something.
They are Unionists. Yet they think More Polis in Scotland Is Good. I do too. But More Police in England is Bad. I disagree. What's a person to think?
My take is unchanged. Talk of no deal "from UK sources" can be dismissed. It's hype. Moving from frictionless trade to WTO terms is a plan Z for the EU and is not an option at all for the UK. It will not be happening. Things might not get finished and ratified in time, in which case extension or implementation period, but there will be a deal. Intuition says so. Common sense says so. The behavioural evidence, past and present, says so. If only I could find a way to transmit my certainty on this into the heads of the millions of people who are understandably worrying about it. I'd love to be able to perform such a public service. Give something back.
While I feel that a deal is more likely than not there is a part of me that would enjoy no deal just to see you eating some humble pie.
I wonder if the Germans have a word for that too?
I bet they do. But tbf there's a part of you - the Redwood part - that would in any case enjoy this particular Not Happening Event happening regardless of its undoubtedly devastating impact on my cred. NO DEAL = PROPER LEAVE. If I were a Brexit Headbanger it's what I would want.
I am not a Brexit Headbanger.
If anything I am a Democracy Headbanger.
Democracy must be respected even if, perhaps especially if, the people vote for what you consider to be the Wrong Thing (TM).
In 2016 had we voted to Remain then I would have been OK with that. We did not though. We voted to Take Back Control of our laws and sovereignty and I want that respected.
Well yes everything Redwood says in that Tweet is reasonable, unless the EU move further as I hope they do.
The difference is Redwood doesn't want the EU to move I think. He wants No Deal I suspect, I'm just willing to accept it as possibly necessary.
It’s a tweet for the history books. The true history is in that tweet, the Tory party over run with UK Independence Party thinking in order to get the country to take this dramatic change.
Sterile debate today, defenders defending, attackers trying to pin blame, no suggestions as to a better way forward just who may have said what, when.
What’s needed is to police the restrictions seriously, none of this prosecution is a last resort Ensure the rollout of the vaccine is in the hands of logistics experts
Start investigating the claims of fraud from all sides, government, claimants etc
The UK government looks like a soft pushover waiting to be taken advantage of by its own citizens.
How on earth do you police this though. That is the problem with trying to make this law. Everyone knows it is unenforceable.
A story to illustrate.
Just over a year ago on November 6th 2019 a good friend of mine died. He had been suffering from lung cancer but his death was sudden due to a pulmonary haemorrhage whilst he was at home alone. A mutual friend had turned up but could not get in so called myself and also the police. After identifying my friend I spent a couple of hours with the policeman helping him with details and waiting for the undertakers to arrive. In that time it turned out that the total police force present in Newark that Tuesday evening was the copper I was talking to, one other who was investigating an assault in one of the villages and a desk sergeant. When I expressed surprise at how few police were on duty he said that this was pretty good for the town and that Nottingham that evening had 15 officers on duty - for a city of some 330,000 people.
Policing in this country is by consent. It has to be because there simply isn't the power to do it any other way on a day to day basis. The idea we can police covid restrictions in any meaningful manner when so many do not believe in them is completely unrealistic.
Indeed. The Tories have absolutely gutted the police of resources. The same MPs who voted again and again and again to cut funding and thus officer numbers then whine about the lack of officers.
In Scotland the Tories claimed they made the SNP recruit extra officers (which migjt well be true).
So much for the Union.
Crowds of Tories behaving that badly?
I wouldn't like to say. No, only joking - they made the SNP recruit more polis as a condition of passing the budget a few years back.
But increasing police per head in Scotland and decreasing it in England is odd for a Unionist party when it makes them diverge quite a bit, even allowing for slightly different counting. I polis per 316 Scots vs a much lower English figure (around 200 a couple of years back?)
I believe that the number for Nottinghamshire overall is 1 sworn officer per 480 people. That includes PCSOs.
On the EU negotiations. It looks like they are in the haggle stage. EU turning the screws on the UK to extract as much fish as possible and the UK holding out. Rightly so in the case of the UK. Fish quotas are a miniscule Brexit win to set against vast Brexit losses. But it is a win nevertheless and should be maximised,
My question to you is, does our deal on fishing concede to work with our neighbours to prevent over fishing as it does now? Will the deal allow EU to sell us the fish we need we can’t get from our waters, like cod? Will it allow our fishing industry to easily sell the fish they catch to EU country’s.
And a follow up if I may. Was the use of EU fishing boats in our waters imposed on us by EU, or something UK asked for, on basis smaller fish on the way to our waters were getting fished before they got here and UK created this policy on basis why not let them grow big and share the big ones, because without agreement we don’t have fish in our waters they fished before they get here?
On the last one, fishery was declared a common resource for EU countries in 1970 just before the four countries (UK, RI, Denmark and Norway) with significant fishing resources in handed in their applications to join. I term that a simple mugging.
"The first rules were created in 1970. The original six Common Market members realised that four countries applying to join the Common Market at that time (Britain, Ireland, Denmark including Greenland, and Norway) would control the richest fishing grounds in the world. The original six therefore drew up Council Regulation 2141/70 giving all Members equal access to all fishing waters, even though the Treaty of Rome did not explicitly include fisheries in its agriculture chapter. This was adopted on the morning of 30 June 1970, a few hours before the applications to join were officially received. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Fisheries_Policy
Norway chose to walk away at that point. Greenland walked away when they gained more autonomy from Denmark. Iceland later withdrew its later application to join over EU access to all their fishing waters.
It's certainly visceral.
Personally I don't see that the EU fisheries policy can regulate its way out of a wet paper bag - the throwing back dead fish that did not fit the quota has been known for decades and not addressed, or compare the relative success of Marine Conservations Zones between northern waters and the Mediterranean.
Yes totally agree. Although great for winning elections, Boris excessively Nationalistic platform about as considered as “kill all sparrows” was.
Shall I write to the Government's Anti-Corruption Tsar, John Penrose MP (husband of Dido Harding) offering my services?
Or would that be what is known in my trade as a total fucking waste of time?
I was amazed how easy it was for me to get a business continuity loan of 5 figures on the basis of my private practice. It took 20 min of form filling.
Entirely legit of course, and allowed me to keep my secretary and credit controller employed for 6 months until got some income again.
It's quite a contrast with the Hunger Games people on benefits have to go through.
There's a colourful German proverb for that: "Der Teufel scheißt immer auf den größten Haufen."
My take is unchanged. Talk of no deal "from UK sources" can be dismissed. It's hype. Moving from frictionless trade to WTO terms is a plan Z for the EU and is not an option at all for the UK. It will not be happening. Things might not get finished and ratified in time, in which case extension or implementation period, but there will be a deal. Intuition says so. Common sense says so. The behavioural evidence, past and present, says so. If only I could find a way to transmit my certainty on this into the heads of the millions of people who are understandably worrying about it. I'd love to be able to perform such a public service. Give something back.
While I feel that a deal is more likely than not there is a part of me that would enjoy no deal just to see you eating some humble pie.
I wonder if the Germans have a word for that too?
I bet they do. But tbf there's a part of you - the Redwood part - that would in any case enjoy this particular Not Happening Event happening regardless of its undoubtedly devastating impact on my cred. NO DEAL = PROPER LEAVE. If I were a Brexit Headbanger it's what I would want.
I am not a Brexit Headbanger.
If anything I am a Democracy Headbanger.
Democracy must be respected even if, perhaps especially if, the people vote for what you consider to be the Wrong Thing (TM).
In 2016 had we voted to Remain then I would have been OK with that. We did not though. We voted to Take Back Control of our laws and sovereignty and I want that respected.
Well yes everything Redwood says in that Tweet is reasonable, unless the EU move further as I hope they do.
The difference is Redwood doesn't want the EU to move I think. He wants No Deal I suspect, I'm just willing to accept it as possibly necessary.
It’s a tweet for the history books. The true history is in that tweet, the Tory party over run with UK Independence Party thinking in order to get the country to take this dramatic change.
I may have only been a child/teenager in the 1990s but my memory is that Redwood was an arch Eurosceptic then long before UKIP was formed or became famous.
Since the government was seemingly willing to allow C-19 to remain in the English population at a much higher level than many other parts of the world, so long as the NHS was not overwhelmed, was it not therefore more likely that more mutations would likely be occurring here in England that other places which tried to keep the infection rates far lower?
Since the premise of your comment is completely wrong then the subsequent question is pointless.
Hancock’s statement to the House on Monday - “Over the last few days, thanks to our world-class genomic capability in the UK, we have identified a new variant of coronavirus which may be associated with the faster spread in the South East of England. Initial analysis suggests that this variant is growing faster than the existing variants.”
Hancock on the telly this morning says ministers only learnt about the infectivity of the new variant at 15.00 BST on Friday and Saturday's response was "one of the fastest decisions" taken during the pandemic.
So it’s a matter of degree.
It seems the main evidence for the higher transmissibility is the increasing incidence of the new strain.
One thing that was said was that it was at 28% in London in mid November and 60% on 9 December. That means it outcompeted other strains, and not just by the factor of two that those percentages suggest. You have to look at the ratios between the strains, where the new one increased from 28/72 to 60/40, which is a factor of 3.85.
That was over about three weeks, so taking the cubic root yields a weekly factor of 1.57, which is in the general ballpark of the "up to 70%" higher transmissibility that's been mentioned.
Anyone seen anything more concrete?
Why cubic root?
What are the causes you have factored in there?
(Geniune interest)
Cheers
Cubic root, or third root, just because it's three weeks. 1.57*1.57*1.57 = 3.87.
Got you, time I was trying to make it fit the other dimension, as I took it as a model proportional to the third power, like power required proportional to cube of speed in a ship.
And I see I failed to read your final para, which explained it. Doh.
Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
So far better out than in, AR.
Believe me I will be only too pleased to acknowledge this if and when evidence surfaces. I'd like to see us make a decent effort of capitalising on our sovereignity though if only so that we will know unambigously before long just how successful the enterprise has been, or not, as the case may be.
It will be interesting to see.
On a theoretical/academic view the implementation of an independent trade policy can be judged fairly now that the incompetent Fox has been removed.
Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
So far better out than in, AR.
Believe me I will be only too pleased to acknowledge this if and when evidence surfaces. I'd like to see us make a decent effort of capitalising on our sovereignity though if only so that we will know unambigously before long just how successful the enterprise has been, or not, as the case may be.
It will be interesting to see.
On a theoretical/academic view the implementation of an independent trade policy can be judged fairly now that the incompetent Fox has been removed.
To be honest I'd be happy enough to see the £/Euro exchange rates and our international credit rating return to pre-referendum levels, but I don't think either is very likely for some considerable while.
Why?
Given our endemic trade deficit the £/€ exchange rate was surely overvalued.
If the £/€ exchange rate goes south but the trade deficit closes then might that not be a good thing?
Just suggesting them as benchmarks, Philip. I recall the exchange rate dropped sharply after the referendum and the drop in credit-rating followed soon after.
I'm not saying these are definitive or that other circustances need not be considered, but they're not bad broad-brush indicators. I mean, if Brexit was such a great idea, why didn't they both move up?
Because moving up isn't necessarily a good thing was my point.
Yes, I can see there are circumstances where it might be smart to let an exchange rate drift down. I'm less sure about the credit rating, but you can correct me if you like.
I didn't however get the impression that either movement was an indication of clever economic forethought, but rather a sharp intake of breath from the international business community.
Since the government was seemingly willing to allow C-19 to remain in the English population at a much higher level than many other parts of the world, so long as the NHS was not overwhelmed, was it not therefore more likely that more mutations would likely be occurring here in England that other places which tried to keep the infection rates far lower?
Since the premise of your comment is completely wrong then the subsequent question is pointless.
We have had fewer restrictions, government policy, than many other countries and have amongst the highest death rates as a consequence does not equate to government policy leading to higher infection rates?
Since the government was seemingly willing to allow C-19 to remain in the English population at a much higher level than many other parts of the world, so long as the NHS was not overwhelmed, was it not therefore more likely that more mutations would likely be occurring here in England that other places which tried to keep the infection rates far lower?
Since the premise of your comment is completely wrong then the subsequent question is pointless.
We have had fewer restrictions, government policy, than many other countries and have amongst the highest death rates as a consequence does not equate to government policy leading to higher infection rates?
But, it is a difficult argument to make.
In general, mutations are good, as the virus mutates to a less deadly version (it is not in the virus' interests to kill the host).
There are have already been 20,000 mutations recorded.
So, you could argue that allowing plenty of opportunity to mutate is a good thing.
It is always easier to break something to fix it -- and that goes for viruses too. The more it is allowed to mutate, probably the better.
On the EU negotiations. It looks like they are in the haggle stage. EU turning the screws on the UK to extract as much fish as possible and the UK holding out. Rightly so in the case of the UK. Fish quotas are a miniscule Brexit win to set against vast Brexit losses. But it is a win nevertheless and should be maximised,
My question to you is, does our deal on fishing concede to work with our neighbours to prevent over fishing as it does now? Will the deal allow EU to sell us the fish we need we can’t get from our waters, like cod? Will it allow our fishing industry to easily sell the fish they catch to EU country’s.
And a follow up if I may. Was the use of EU fishing boats in our waters imposed on us by EU, or something UK asked for, on basis smaller fish on the way to our waters were getting fished before they got here and UK created this policy on basis why not let them grow big and share the big ones, because without agreement we don’t have fish in our waters they fished before they get here?
On the last one, fishery was declared a common resource for EU countries in 1970 just before the four countries (UK, RI, Denmark and Norway) with significant fishing resources in handed in their applications to join. I term that a simple mugging.
"The first rules were created in 1970. The original six Common Market members realised that four countries applying to join the Common Market at that time (Britain, Ireland, Denmark including Greenland, and Norway) would control the richest fishing grounds in the world. The original six therefore drew up Council Regulation 2141/70 giving all Members equal access to all fishing waters, even though the Treaty of Rome did not explicitly include fisheries in its agriculture chapter. This was adopted on the morning of 30 June 1970, a few hours before the applications to join were officially received. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Fisheries_Policy
Norway chose to walk away at that point.
Norway didn't walk away at that point. The only reason they didn't join is that the referendum went narrowly against it in 1972.
Dunno. Seems a ton of Londoners reacted to the new strain last night.
By rushing to the railway stations heading North.
Actually for once a pretty good reproduction of the authentic Blitz spirit.
Yes. You’ve convinced me. The cowardice of us Londoners is well known. We indeed are the scum of the Earth. If only we could all be as flawless as the saintly Scots, braver than brave, gooder than good. But there is clearly something in our DNA that renders us incapable of basic humanity.
Still more disastrous polling for the Prime Minister as the nation ... overwhelmingly supports his decisions?? [Shurely shome mishtake - Ed]
Good of you to admit how disastrously out of step with public opinion the PM was before he was reluctatnly forced into this decision yesterday. I hope you're not a spin doctor because you're not very good at it.
No need to be quite so salty about it. I know that to the lawyerly mind being forced to contradict oneself or retract one's position equals game over, but in politics as long as you dust yourself off and carry on regardless, you tend to get away with it - especially when the policy you end up with is an overwhelmingly popular one. People tend to care about the destination, not the road taken to get there. Once again, despite the desperate wishes of his detractors, Boris lives to fight another day...
Since the government was seemingly willing to allow C-19 to remain in the English population at a much higher level than many other parts of the world, so long as the NHS was not overwhelmed, was it not therefore more likely that more mutations would likely be occurring here in England that other places which tried to keep the infection rates far lower?
Since the premise of your comment is completely wrong then the subsequent question is pointless.
We have had fewer restrictions, government policy, than many other countries and have amongst the highest death rates as a consequence does not equate to government policy leading to higher infection rates?
No we didn't. Not since March.
Case numbers are far higher in recent months in France, Spain and other countries than the UK.
Boris it turns out is quite shit at politics when he doesn’t have Dommo there. ....................................................... Philip is dead wrong. This is without doubt now the worst government of his lifetime by just about any metric I would care to mention. I wish I’d voted for Corbyn. At least then conservative principles would have lived to fight another day.
I have to say that I think it's the worst Government of my lifetime. Worse than the last stages of the Heath Govt in 1973/4
Depends. Boris is grappling with something beyond him (& almost all other leaders of Western democracies).
By contrast, Blair inherited benign economic conditions, had massive majorities & immense political capital.
To those who are given, much more is expected. 😀
'Worst Government' is a high bar, and you certainly have to make allowances for those that cocked up in favorable circumstances as well as those that managed difficult circumstances pretty well.
Boris's bunch must be contenders but it's a crowded field and they have time to surprise us yet.
Boris it turns out is quite shit at politics when he doesn’t have Dommo there. ....................................................... Philip is dead wrong. This is without doubt now the worst government of his lifetime by just about any metric I would care to mention. I wish I’d voted for Corbyn. At least then conservative principles would have lived to fight another day.
I have to say that I think it's the worst Government of my lifetime. Worse than the last stages of the Heath Govt in 1973/4
Depends. Boris is grappling with something beyond him (& almost all other leaders of Western democracies).
By contrast, Blair inherited benign economic conditions, had massive majorities & immense political capital.
To those who are given, much more is expected. 😀
'Worst Government' is a high bar, and you certainly have to make allowances for those that cocked up in favorable circumstances as well as those that managed difficult circumstances pretty well.
Boris's bunch must be contenders but it's a crowded field and they have time to surprise us yet.
You would not normally judge a government in the heat of a crisis, it could go either way
Says the man who spent months telling PB that Boris was s**t, before suddenly deciding to vote for him.
Just out of interest how many years of lockdown do you think we need to endure before politicians aren't telling journalists asking questions that they are still on mute?
In fairness it has become a routine part of any multi-party meeting that I have been a part of since lockdown started. You can see that people are clearly talking but can't hear them. I think the default encouragement of mute because of feedback issues makes this inevitable.
I've found it's far better to work on headphones.Doing so effectively mutes extraneous noise.
I bought a really nice pair of noise-cancelling headphones in January, expecting to spend a lot of time on planes this year. That obviously didn’t happen, but the headphones have been brilliant for conference calls.
Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
So far better out than in, AR.
Believe me I will be only too pleased to acknowledge this if and when evidence surfaces. I'd like to see us make a decent effort of capitalising on our sovereignity though if only so that we will know unambigously before long just how successful the enterprise has been, or not, as the case may be.
It will be interesting to see.
On a theoretical/academic view the implementation of an independent trade policy can be judged fairly now that the incompetent Fox has been removed.
Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
So far better out than in, AR.
Believe me I will be only too pleased to acknowledge this if and when evidence surfaces. I'd like to see us make a decent effort of capitalising on our sovereignity though if only so that we will know unambigously before long just how successful the enterprise has been, or not, as the case may be.
It will be interesting to see.
On a theoretical/academic view the implementation of an independent trade policy can be judged fairly now that the incompetent Fox has been removed.
To be honest I'd be happy enough to see the £/Euro exchange rates and our international credit rating return to pre-referendum levels, but I don't think either is very likely for some considerable while.
Why?
Given our endemic trade deficit the £/€ exchange rate was surely overvalued.
If the £/€ exchange rate goes south but the trade deficit closes then might that not be a good thing?
Just suggesting them as benchmarks, Philip. I recall the exchange rate dropped sharply after the referendum and the drop in credit-rating followed soon after.
I'm not saying these are definitive or that other circustances need not be considered, but they're not bad broad-brush indicators. I mean, if Brexit was such a great idea, why didn't they both move up?
Because moving up isn't necessarily a good thing was my point.
Yes, I can see there are circumstances where it might be smart to let an exchange rate drift down. I'm less sure about the credit rating, but you can correct me if you like.
I didn't however get the impression that either movement was an indication of clever economic forethought, but rather a sharp intake of breath from the international business community.
Well indeed in the short term there'll be more disruption, I don't think anyone reasonable disputes this.
In the medium to long term though it's a different matter.
One remarkable statistic is that despite all the protestations of doom about if the UK chose not to join the Euro, or chose to hold an EU referendum, or voted to Leave . . . Is that in both the 2000-2009 and 2010-2019 decades the UK grew faster than the Eurozone per capita.
An interest judgement as to how Brexit goes over the next decade will be to make the same comparison in a decades time. It wouldn't surprise me if the UK over the next decade grows faster again per capita than the Eurozone. If so then I think that it is safe to say the UK has done OK in Brexiting, what do you think?
Spent an hour looking over European case data by region, I think this new more virulent mutation is basically in every country. There are odd spikes in case numbers in at least one major area in all European countries similar to how this started off in Kent a month ago.
The next three months are going to be absolutely terrible. The continent is on fire and right now we have one line fireman in one part of it aiming one small hose at it. I also think European people can wave goodbye to global travel without vaccination, there's no way Asian countries are going to let any of us in without proof of vaccination. The threat that this new strain poses to densely populated city based economies is absolutely deadly.
Whatever resources we can shovel to pharma to ramp up vaccine production should now be unlocked. European countries are among the richest in the world, it's time to stop haggling over pennies per dose and subsidise manufacturing capacity in the short term, even if we never need it again and those sites are mothballed after a year.
Are we still the only European country with an approved vaccine? How long are the EU going to wait for the EMA? The Germans are apparently seriously unhappy and rightly so.
I read a report this morning that 15,000 avoudable deaths within the EU will come about as a result of the delay in the vaccine
In hindsight UK government looks good to have bitten the bullet with fast tracking . Or is it related though to throwing cash at stocks? How much has it cost economy to throw so much money at vaccine buying?
I do not know but it must a lot
I agree with you Big G. I’m still not saying our government done the wrong thing, but eye watering sums of money to middlemen to jump a q may look bad in several ways, once the satisfaction of getting vaccinated before EU wears off, the eye watering sums just to shady middlemen will be compared to the cost of free school meals for example and give impression of not good use of tax payers money?
Personally I don’t think UK government have boosted the anti vaccine contingent by cutting corners, so its EU who have made the mistake, but all the wealthy countries of the world use their wealth to leave the 2nd, 3rd and 4th worlds behind in getting hands on vaccine might not show up well in the long run? Suppose that is wether our mind set is in “look after your own” or “lend a hand to everyone” and Brexit Global Britain is definitely the former and we will all have to get used to this mindset?
We can and will lend a hand to everyone but in case of emergency always put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others.
It seems only Merkel has made a point about helping third world with vaccine, not our government. Our government instead slashed foreign aid as point of Global Britain’s new priorities. It chucked obscene amounts of money to get hands on vaccine first.
And we know why don’t we Phillip. Merkels Party, though right of centre, has the world Christian in its name. Meanwhile in UK there is no party influenced by Christian values.
Sounds like a good holiday season header imo, to ask what it means for future policy now no UK party is influenced by Christian values.
Boris it turns out is quite shit at politics when he doesn’t have Dommo there. ....................................................... Philip is dead wrong. This is without doubt now the worst government of his lifetime by just about any metric I would care to mention. I wish I’d voted for Corbyn. At least then conservative principles would have lived to fight another day.
I have to say that I think it's the worst Government of my lifetime. Worse than the last stages of the Heath Govt in 1973/4
Depends. Boris is grappling with something beyond him (& almost all other leaders of Western democracies).
By contrast, Blair inherited benign economic conditions, had massive majorities & immense political capital.
To those who are given, much more is expected. 😀
'Worst Government' is a high bar, and you certainly have to make allowances for those that cocked up in favorable circumstances as well as those that managed difficult circumstances pretty well.
Boris's bunch must be contenders but it's a crowded field and they have time to surprise us yet.
You think that things can get worse still?
I do, most certainly. But then, I´m an optimist. Things are not yet as bad as they can get....
This was the substance of my letter to the Gambling Commission which I published on here.
You don't think they are copying me, do you?
Rentoul is surely a lurker.
But does he look at PB?
Doesn’t matter, how premise of the pro punter argument is stupid.
Sorry to be provocative. This argument doesn’t understand how betting works I’m afraid to say.
If I think Trumps deal with the decepticons decides who is sworn as president, I should be allowed to bet on that.
I know what you will respond with: “But the decipticons don’t exist!”
Oh but they do exist, as a metaphor in a when should a market be declared as certain result, closed and paid out discussion. The system of US politics of “called” by media, concession speeches, unfaithful electors, courts making decisions on who won and lost etc is at root of blame on betting companies, and so that blame on betting firms has to be seen as wrong to some degree.
Walker is wrong. This bounce has been clever politics by his government. For example, deliberately waiting till Parliament closed bounced both Walker and Starmer simultaneously.
The coronavirus crisis could not have been more cunningly engineered to expose Mr Johnson’s flaws. He was made prime minister not because anyone thought that he was a cool and decisive head with the leadership skills and moral seriousness required to handle the gravest public health emergency in a century.
Few of his strengths as a politician have been of much utility in this emergency. All of his weaknesses have been searingly exposed. A man who spent his career ducking responsibility was suddenly confronted with a challenge that could not be run from, though that didn’t stop him vanishing at the outset when he went missing from critical meetings.
The wrong criticism is to say that he has made mistakes. Confronted with a novel disease for which the country was unprepared, any prime minister would have made errors. The correct criticism is that he has failed to learn from his mistakes and egregiously repeated them.
Even Tories concede that their government’s record is at the bottom end of the international league table. Britain has suffered the double-whammy of having one of the highest death levels per million of population while enduring the most severe hit to the economy among the G7 club of prosperous states.
In the summer, Mr Johnson foolishly tied himself to a guarantee that Britain would enjoy a “significant return to normality” by Christmas, a promise that his scientific advisers conspicuously declined to endorse at the time and which was dramatically proved completely false last night. That misjudgment, like all the other ones, flows from his personality. Just below the surface of his performative face lurks an insecure character who trusts no one and yearns to be loved by everyone. He hates being the bearer of bad news and tough choices. One of the many women in his life, Petronella Wyatt, once excused his mendacity on the grounds that “he will do anything to avoid an argument, which leads to a degree of duplicity”.
“In the new year,” says one senior Tory, “we will need bouncy old Boris back to cheer us up that there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
The light will have to be exceedingly bright to wipe away all the memories of how long and dark, stumbling and flailing has been the nation’s journey through the tunnel.
On the EU negotiations. It looks like they are in the haggle stage. EU turning the screws on the UK to extract as much fish as possible and the UK holding out. Rightly so in the case of the UK. Fish quotas are a miniscule Brexit win to set against vast Brexit losses. But it is a win nevertheless and should be maximised,
My question to you is, does our deal on fishing concede to work with our neighbours to prevent over fishing as it does now? Will the deal allow EU to sell us the fish we need we can’t get from our waters, like cod? Will it allow our fishing industry to easily sell the fish they catch to EU country’s.
And a follow up if I may. Was the use of EU fishing boats in our waters imposed on us by EU, or something UK asked for, on basis smaller fish on the way to our waters were getting fished before they got here and UK created this policy on basis why not let them grow big and share the big ones, because without agreement we don’t have fish in our waters they fished before they get here?
On the last one, fishery was declared a common resource for EU countries in 1970 just before the four countries (UK, RI, Denmark and Norway) with significant fishing resources in handed in their applications to join. I term that a simple mugging.
"The first rules were created in 1970. The original six Common Market members realised that four countries applying to join the Common Market at that time (Britain, Ireland, Denmark including Greenland, and Norway) would control the richest fishing grounds in the world. The original six therefore drew up Council Regulation 2141/70 giving all Members equal access to all fishing waters, even though the Treaty of Rome did not explicitly include fisheries in its agriculture chapter. This was adopted on the morning of 30 June 1970, a few hours before the applications to join were officially received. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Fisheries_Policy
Norway chose to walk away at that point.
Norway didn't walk away at that point. The only reason they didn't join is that the referendum went narrowly against it in 1972.
Fair comment. There's also stuff about Norway's application technically being "frozen" not "withdrawn", but life's too short for all of it.
Spent an hour looking over European case data by region, I think this new more virulent mutation is basically in every country. There are odd spikes in case numbers in at least one major area in all European countries similar to how this started off in Kent a month ago.
The next three months are going to be absolutely terrible. The continent is on fire and right now we have one line fireman in one part of it aiming one small hose at it. I also think European people can wave goodbye to global travel without vaccination, there's no way Asian countries are going to let any of us in without proof of vaccination. The threat that this new strain poses to densely populated city based economies is absolutely deadly.
Whatever resources we can shovel to pharma to ramp up vaccine production should now be unlocked. European countries are among the richest in the world, it's time to stop haggling over pennies per dose and subsidise manufacturing capacity in the short term, even if we never need it again and those sites are mothballed after a year.
Are we still the only European country with an approved vaccine? How long are the EU going to wait for the EMA? The Germans are apparently seriously unhappy and rightly so.
I read a report this morning that 15,000 avoudable deaths within the EU will come about as a result of the delay in the vaccine
In hindsight UK government looks good to have bitten the bullet with fast tracking . Or is it related though to throwing cash at stocks? How much has it cost economy to throw so much money at vaccine buying?
I do not know but it must a lot
I agree with you Big G. I’m still not saying our government done the wrong thing, but eye watering sums of money to middlemen to jump a q may look bad in several ways, once the satisfaction of getting vaccinated before EU wears off, the eye watering sums just to shady middlemen will be compared to the cost of free school meals for example and give impression of not good use of tax payers money?
Personally I don’t think UK government have boosted the anti vaccine contingent by cutting corners, so its EU who have made the mistake, but all the wealthy countries of the world use their wealth to leave the 2nd, 3rd and 4th worlds behind in getting hands on vaccine might not show up well in the long run? Suppose that is wether our mind set is in “look after your own” or “lend a hand to everyone” and Brexit Global Britain is definitely the former and we will all have to get used to this mindset?
We can and will lend a hand to everyone but in case of emergency always put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others.
It seems only Merkel has made a point about helping third world with vaccine, not our government. Our government instead slashed foreign aid as point of Global Britain’s new priorities. It chucked obscene amounts of money to get hands on vaccine first.
And we know why don’t we Phillip. Merkels Party, though right of centre, has the world Christian in its name. Meanwhile in UK there is no party influenced by Christian values.
Sounds like a good holiday season header imo, to ask what it means for future policy now no UK party is influenced by Christian values.
Cut the religious claptrap. Keep your religion in your Church thank you very much.
As for vaccines our government has indeed made making vaccinations for the third world a priority. Including investing heavily in supporting the Oxford vaccine that will be able to more easily be distributed in the third world supply chains - and can be distributed at cost to the third world.
As for third world aid our government is giving more as a percentage of GDP than almost any other nation. Including giving more than the EU and it's nations.
The coronavirus crisis could not have been more cunningly engineered to expose Mr Johnson’s flaws. He was made prime minister not because anyone thought that he was a cool and decisive head with the leadership skills and moral seriousness required to handle the gravest public health emergency in a century.
Few of his strengths as a politician have been of much utility in this emergency. All of his weaknesses have been searingly exposed. A man who spent his career ducking responsibility was suddenly confronted with a challenge that could not be run from, though that didn’t stop him vanishing at the outset when he went missing from critical meetings.
The wrong criticism is to say that he has made mistakes. Confronted with a novel disease for which the country was unprepared, any prime minister would have made errors. The correct criticism is that he has failed to learn from his mistakes and egregiously repeated them.
Even Tories concede that their government’s record is at the bottom end of the international league table. Britain has suffered the double-whammy of having one of the highest death levels per million of population while enduring the most severe hit to the economy among the G7 club of prosperous states.
In the summer, Mr Johnson foolishly tied himself to a guarantee that Britain would enjoy a “significant return to normality” by Christmas, a promise that his scientific advisers conspicuously declined to endorse at the time and which was dramatically proved completely false last night. That misjudgment, like all the other ones, flows from his personality. Just below the surface of his performative face lurks an insecure character who trusts no one and yearns to be loved by everyone. He hates being the bearer of bad news and tough choices. One of the many women in his life, Petronella Wyatt, once excused his mendacity on the grounds that “he will do anything to avoid an argument, which leads to a degree of duplicity”.
“In the new year,” says one senior Tory, “we will need bouncy old Boris back to cheer us up that there is light at the end of the tunnel.” The light will have to be exceedingly bright to wipe away all the memories of how long and dark, stumbling and flailing has been the nation’s journey through the tunnel.
I was waiting for you to post the Sunday Rawnsley 😁
Dunno. Seems a ton of Londoners reacted to the new strain last night.
By rushing to the railway stations heading North.
Cummings behaviour means that it is fair game for everyone else.
Cummings was in a private environment in his own car.
He was not breathing over and risking infecting several dozen other people in his selfishness.
So the people fleeing London in their car last night are okay?
They are people who wanted to enjoy Xmas with their family, by and large.
No worse & no better than the skiers who must have their holiday ... or those who had to go to Spain for their Summer holiday.
Now about that skiing holiday of yours ... or I remember, it doesn't count.
As I said before I left the UK on 31 January 2020, the day first case of Covid was reported here. I didn't hear about it until I got to my destination, and I returned from Switzerland before a single case was reported there. The differences between that and the current situation are clear. If I had been a spreader (I wasn't) it would have been from a position of complete ignorance.
I think the new virus strain is somewhat a pretext. Obviously greater transmissibility is a concern, but the big increase in cases in parts of the UK isn't wholly or probably even mainly down to the new strain. It's easier for governments to say, Because of the new deadly virus strain, than to say, We mucked up.
And with respect you possess scientific qualifications for that statement
No BigG. You can't allow Drakeford off the hook that easily.
I would not let Drakeford off the hook for any reason
He has been a disaster for Wales and not just on covid, but the failed NHS which has had negative effects on my own family
If you can't (justifiably) let Drakeford of the hook, neither can you Johnson.
Boris is not a covid PM but the present controversy over Christmas has become more apparent on the media this am with the scientific advice only being given to the government on Friday and Boris reacting yesterday, followed by Sturgeon and Drakeford
I would say that he cannot be enjoying any of this as it is so much against his freedom optimistic nature
However, we are where we are and I have no confidence Starmer and his front bench would be any better
Indeed I believe even Merkel is becoming unpopular day by day
Here is the problem. The advice WASN'T on Friday. The scientists have known about this for some time. The government have been talking about it since at least Monday*. It didn't suddenly arrive out of nowhere on Friday.
For at least the past week the government have known this was about - if not exactly how bad it was, they at least knew it was bad. We know this based on what they were saying on Monday. What then did the government choose to do whilst in possession of this knowledge?
Thats right, it stepped up its plans to have a Big Christmas blowout. More publicity about extra travel opportunities. Threatening to sue LEAs for not keeping their schools open. Feeding more pro-Boris saves Christmas stories to the press. That astonishing display at PMQs.
They are brilliant at immediate-win tactics but utterly blind to anything longer. Which is why Ridge was able to throw the "inhuman" comment straight back at ManCock this morning. If you've been told there is a new super-pox and you've chosen to ignore the scientists again wouldn't it least be sensible to back off on the political rhetoric?
*There is evidence that it has been known for longer. Whitty yesterday suggested fairly strongly that the government acting now was not at the first time of asking. You remember the photo a month or so back of Whitty looking very agitated in a meeting..?
But NHS England on Marr confirmed the advice changed on Friday and hence yesterday's announcement
Furthermore, why did it take yesterday's announcement for Sturgeon and Drakeford to immediately act as well on the same advice and with virtually identical measures
Boris can be attacked for many things but why did neither Sturgeon or Drakeford act before yesterday
Wowsers. You really will defend anything. We know for a fact that they knew this was out there and that it was bad. The only question was how much worse than standard Covid. So obviously attacking schools and calling what they are now themselves doing was obviously the smart political strategy.
Why not answer the question
Why did Boris, Sturgeon and Drakeford only act immediately after the advice on Friday if they had known before
I don't know about the others. But if the PM and cabinet didn't know about it until Friday then why were they warning us about it 4 days earlier on Monday?
Because the advice doesn't go from zero to full overnight.
On Monday they knew there was a new strain that appeared to be increasing transmission but how much was unknown. So the advice changed and the relevant region was moved into Tier 3.
On Thursday NERVTAG reported the new strain was even worse than was previously envisioned. Hence the emergency recall of the Covid O Committee that had already met earlier that day and the emergency statements by Johnson, Sturgeon and Drakeford the following day.
Indeed. My point is that having known their were awaiting news about how much worse this new strain was the government chose to attack schools and claim the opposition wanted to cancel Christmas. The politically smart option would have been to soften people up for what was likely to come. As Whitty has strongly inferred he was advising
I called Williamson a damn fool at the time for the schools thing.
Even without the NERVTAG report threatening to sue to keep schools open for three whole days (not weeks or months) was absolutely futile.
Williamson is an idiot. Doesn't know how to pick his battles. There was nothing to be won from that one. For the sake of three whole days just let it slide. Idiot.
Not disagreeing with the idiocy of Williamson.
But I wonder if Greenwich council went with the proper procedures and negotiations before making the announcement.
It was an advisory letter, which in law was their decision to issue. I'm not quite sure what 'processes' you think need to be gone through before a council advises its schools.
The point being, schools have the ability to set their own holiday period as long as children are able to attend for 190 days a year. But if that 190 day period isn't met, it is the responsibility of the local authority to take enforcement action.
Effectively, what Greenwich did was say that they wouldn't take such action and would advise early closure.
Williamson and Gibb didn't understand this nuance but that's because they're thick as pigshit.
Since the government was seemingly willing to allow C-19 to remain in the English population at a much higher level than many other parts of the world, so long as the NHS was not overwhelmed, was it not therefore more likely that more mutations would likely be occurring here in England that other places which tried to keep the infection rates far lower?
Since the premise of your comment is completely wrong then the subsequent question is pointless.
We have had fewer restrictions, government policy, than many other countries and have amongst the highest death rates as a consequence does not equate to government policy leading to higher infection rates?
But, it is a difficult argument to make.
In general, mutations are good, as the virus mutates to a less deadly version (it is not in the virus' interests to kill the host).
There are have already been 20,000 mutations recorded.
So, you could argue that allowing plenty of opportunity to mutate is a good thing.
It is always easier to break something to fix it -- and that goes for viruses too. The more it is allowed to mutate, probably the better.
Not true. Viruses mutate randomly, and there is no reason to think less lethal mutations are more frequent. It's about which mutations get selected for. Killing vs not killing the host is not selective when you have a virtually infinite supply of infectable new hosts. So your claim applies to snow leopard viruses but not really to human ones.
Boris it turns out is quite shit at politics when he doesn’t have Dommo there. ....................................................... Philip is dead wrong. This is without doubt now the worst government of his lifetime by just about any metric I would care to mention. I wish I’d voted for Corbyn. At least then conservative principles would have lived to fight another day.
I have to say that I think it's the worst Government of my lifetime. Worse than the last stages of the Heath Govt in 1973/4
Depends. Boris is grappling with something beyond him (& almost all other leaders of Western democracies).
By contrast, Blair inherited benign economic conditions, had massive majorities & immense political capital.
To those who are given, much more is expected. 😀
'Worst Government' is a high bar, and you certainly have to make allowances for those that cocked up in favorable circumstances as well as those that managed difficult circumstances pretty well.
Boris's bunch must be contenders but it's a crowded field and they have time to surprise us yet.
Sterile debate today, defenders defending, attackers trying to pin blame, no suggestions as to a better way forward just who may have said what, when.
What’s needed is to police the restrictions seriously, none of this prosecution is a last resort Ensure the rollout of the vaccine is in the hands of logistics experts
Start investigating the claims of fraud from all sides, government, claimants etc
The UK government looks like a soft pushover waiting to be taken advantage of by its own citizens.
How on earth do you police this though. That is the problem with trying to make this law. Everyone knows it is unenforceable.
A story to illustrate.
Just over a year ago on November 6th 2019 a good friend of mine died. He had been suffering from lung cancer but his death was sudden due to a pulmonary haemorrhage whilst he was at home alone. A mutual friend had turned up but could not get in so called myself and also the police. After identifying my friend I spent a couple of hours with the policeman helping him with details and waiting for the undertakers to arrive. In that time it turned out that the total police force present in Newark that Tuesday evening was the copper I was talking to, one other who was investigating an assault in one of the villages and a desk sergeant. When I expressed surprise at how few police were on duty he said that this was pretty good for the town and that Nottingham that evening had 15 officers on duty - for a city of some 330,000 people.
Policing in this country is by consent. It has to be because there simply isn't the power to do it any other way on a day to day basis. The idea we can police covid restrictions in any meaningful manner when so many do not believe in them is completely unrealistic.
Indeed. The Tories have absolutely gutted the police of resources. The same MPs who voted again and again and again to cut funding and thus officer numbers then whine about the lack of officers.
In Scotland the Tories claimed they made the SNP recruit extra officers (which migjt well be true).
So much for the Union.
Most definitely NOT true you mean.
Actually it is - in the budget negotiations some years back. They crowed about it in their through-the-door bumf for some time.
Only after the Scottish Government cut numbers due to lack of funding.
Fair enough at the time, but the divergence is now massive - much more than any procedural difference can explain, surely - and every time the Scottish figure creeps down the ScoTories set up a howl.
Just out of interest how many years of lockdown do you think we need to endure before politicians aren't telling journalists asking questions that they are still on mute?
In fairness it has become a routine part of any multi-party meeting that I have been a part of since lockdown started. You can see that people are clearly talking but can't hear them. I think the default encouragement of mute because of feedback issues makes this inevitable.
I've found it's far better to work on headphones.Doing so effectively mutes extraneous noise.
I bought a really nice pair of noise-cancelling headphones in January, expecting to spend a lot of time on planes this year. That obviously didn’t happen, but the headphones have been brilliant for conference calls.
I think the new virus strain is somewhat a pretext. Obviously greater transmissibility is a concern, but the big increase in cases in parts of the UK isn't wholly or probably even mainly down to the new strain. It's easier for governments to say, Because of the new deadly virus strain, than to say, We mucked up.
And with respect you possess scientific qualifications for that statement
No BigG. You can't allow Drakeford off the hook that easily.
I would not let Drakeford off the hook for any reason
He has been a disaster for Wales and not just on covid, but the failed NHS which has had negative effects on my own family
If you can't (justifiably) let Drakeford of the hook, neither can you Johnson.
Boris is not a covid PM but the present controversy over Christmas has become more apparent on the media this am with the scientific advice only being given to the government on Friday and Boris reacting yesterday, followed by Sturgeon and Drakeford
I would say that he cannot be enjoying any of this as it is so much against his freedom optimistic nature
However, we are where we are and I have no confidence Starmer and his front bench would be any better
Indeed I believe even Merkel is becoming unpopular day by day
Here is the problem. The advice WASN'T on Friday. The scientists have known about this for some time. The government have been talking about it since at least Monday*. It didn't suddenly arrive out of nowhere on Friday.
For at least the past week the government have known this was about - if not exactly how bad it was, they at least knew it was bad. We know this based on what they were saying on Monday. What then did the government choose to do whilst in possession of this knowledge?
Thats right, it stepped up its plans to have a Big Christmas blowout. More publicity about extra travel opportunities. Threatening to sue LEAs for not keeping their schools open. Feeding more pro-Boris saves Christmas stories to the press. That astonishing display at PMQs.
They are brilliant at immediate-win tactics but utterly blind to anything longer. Which is why Ridge was able to throw the "inhuman" comment straight back at ManCock this morning. If you've been told there is a new super-pox and you've chosen to ignore the scientists again wouldn't it least be sensible to back off on the political rhetoric?
*There is evidence that it has been known for longer. Whitty yesterday suggested fairly strongly that the government acting now was not at the first time of asking. You remember the photo a month or so back of Whitty looking very agitated in a meeting..?
But NHS England on Marr confirmed the advice changed on Friday and hence yesterday's announcement
Furthermore, why did it take yesterday's announcement for Sturgeon and Drakeford to immediately act as well on the same advice and with virtually identical measures
Boris can be attacked for many things but why did neither Sturgeon or Drakeford act before yesterday
Wowsers. You really will defend anything. We know for a fact that they knew this was out there and that it was bad. The only question was how much worse than standard Covid. So obviously attacking schools and calling what they are now themselves doing was obviously the smart political strategy.
Why not answer the question
Why did Boris, Sturgeon and Drakeford only act immediately after the advice on Friday if they had known before
I don't know about the others. But if the PM and cabinet didn't know about it until Friday then why were they warning us about it 4 days earlier on Monday?
Because the advice doesn't go from zero to full overnight.
On Monday they knew there was a new strain that appeared to be increasing transmission but how much was unknown. So the advice changed and the relevant region was moved into Tier 3.
On Thursday NERVTAG reported the new strain was even worse than was previously envisioned. Hence the emergency recall of the Covid O Committee that had already met earlier that day and the emergency statements by Johnson, Sturgeon and Drakeford the following day.
Indeed. My point is that having known their were awaiting news about how much worse this new strain was the government chose to attack schools and claim the opposition wanted to cancel Christmas. The politically smart option would have been to soften people up for what was likely to come. As Whitty has strongly inferred he was advising
I called Williamson a damn fool at the time for the schools thing.
Even without the NERVTAG report threatening to sue to keep schools open for three whole days (not weeks or months) was absolutely futile.
Williamson is an idiot. Doesn't know how to pick his battles. There was nothing to be won from that one. For the sake of three whole days just let it slide. Idiot.
Not disagreeing with the idiocy of Williamson.
But I wonder if Greenwich council went with the proper procedures and negotiations before making the announcement.
It was an advisory letter, which in law was their decision to issue. I'm not quite sure what 'processes' you think need to be gone through before a council advises its schools.
The point being, schools have the ability to set their own holiday period as long as children are able to attend for 190 days a year. But if that 190 day period isn't met, it is the responsibility of the local authority to take enforcement action.
Effectively, what Greenwich did was say that they wouldn't take such action and would advise early closure.
Williamson and Gibb didn't understand this nuance but that's because they're thick as pigshit.
I would have thought that if a council decided to shut its schools it would have the obligation / courtesy / good sense to notify the DfE.
Now maybe they don't have to and maybe they did in any case.
Willamson's response was petulant but than could have been expected so its wise not to give such a person an excuse for their behaviour.
Dunno. Seems a ton of Londoners reacted to the new strain last night.
By rushing to the railway stations heading North.
Cummings behaviour means that it is fair game for everyone else.
Cummings was in a private environment in his own car.
He was not breathing over and risking infecting several dozen other people in his selfishness.
So the people fleeing London in their car last night are okay?
They are people who wanted to enjoy Xmas with their family, by and large.
No worse & no better than the skiers who must have their holiday ... or those who had to go to Spain for their Summer holiday.
Now about that skiing holiday of yours ... or I remember, it doesn't count.
As I said before I left the UK on 31 January 2020, the day first case of Covid was reported here. I didn't hear about it until I got to my destination, and I returned from Switzerland before a single case was reported there. The differences between that and the current situation are clear. If I had been a spreader (I wasn't) it would have been from a position of complete ignorance.
There was clear and present danger by late January.
"On 27 January 2020, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the WHO Regional Office for Europe asked countries to complete a WHO standard COVID-19 case report form for all confirmed and probable cases according to WHO criteria ...."
"The first three cases detected were reported in France on 24 January 2020 and had onset of symptoms on 17, 19 and 23 January respectively [10]. The first death was reported on 15 February in France...."
True, there were no deaths in Europe by 31 January, but there were already reported COVID cases in Europe and there was the example of Wuhan to tell us what would happen.
I won't repeat Thomas Love Peacock, but it applies.
Back in London, Mrs Stodge and I emerged from our residence, fought off the usual pack of plague-ridden zombies, stepped over the bloated corpses of our neighbours and went off to do the Christmas shopping.
Canary Wharf - no issues with parking, 15 minute queue to enter the shop but round, out and back home in less than two hours. Mask observance at Canary Wharf very good, many also wearing gloves. A few people out and about enjoying a glorious afternoon to take a walk.
Couldn't help but notice a few empty units at Jubilee Place but not many.
Some people clearly have plenty of money still to spend and I suspect once the vaccine gets more widely distributed and life moves to the new normal (not the pre-Covid normal and not what we have now but something else), I suspect there will be a big spending splurge.
Since the government was seemingly willing to allow C-19 to remain in the English population at a much higher level than many other parts of the world, so long as the NHS was not overwhelmed, was it not therefore more likely that more mutations would likely be occurring here in England that other places which tried to keep the infection rates far lower?
Since the premise of your comment is completely wrong then the subsequent question is pointless.
We have had fewer restrictions, government policy, than many other countries and have amongst the highest death rates as a consequence does not equate to government policy leading to higher infection rates?
But, it is a difficult argument to make.
In general, mutations are good, as the virus mutates to a less deadly version (it is not in the virus' interests to kill the host).
There are have already been 20,000 mutations recorded.
So, you could argue that allowing plenty of opportunity to mutate is a good thing.
It is always easier to break something to fix it -- and that goes for viruses too. The more it is allowed to mutate, probably the better.
Not true. Viruses mutate randomly, and there is no reason to think less lethal mutations are more frequent. It's about which mutations get selected for. Killing vs not killing the host is not selective when you have a virtually infinite supply of infectable new hosts. So your claim applies to snow leopard viruses but not really to human ones.
So are you seriously saying that NERVTAG, Sage scientists, the SNP's Sturgeon, Labour's Drakeford and many more are all engaged in a conspiracy to hide when this new information came to light?
All so that Boris could attack Drakeford's colleague?
The coronavirus crisis could not have been more cunningly engineered to expose Mr Johnson’s flaws. He was made prime minister not because anyone thought that he was a cool and decisive head with the leadership skills and moral seriousness required to handle the gravest public health emergency in a century.
Few of his strengths as a politician have been of much utility in this emergency. All of his weaknesses have been searingly exposed. A man who spent his career ducking responsibility was suddenly confronted with a challenge that could not be run from, though that didn’t stop him vanishing at the outset when he went missing from critical meetings.
The wrong criticism is to say that he has made mistakes. Confronted with a novel disease for which the country was unprepared, any prime minister would have made errors. The correct criticism is that he has failed to learn from his mistakes and egregiously repeated them.
Even Tories concede that their government’s record is at the bottom end of the international league table. Britain has suffered the double-whammy of having one of the highest death levels per million of population while enduring the most severe hit to the economy among the G7 club of prosperous states.
In the summer, Mr Johnson foolishly tied himself to a guarantee that Britain would enjoy a “significant return to normality” by Christmas, a promise that his scientific advisers conspicuously declined to endorse at the time and which was dramatically proved completely false last night. That misjudgment, like all the other ones, flows from his personality. Just below the surface of his performative face lurks an insecure character who trusts no one and yearns to be loved by everyone. He hates being the bearer of bad news and tough choices. One of the many women in his life, Petronella Wyatt, once excused his mendacity on the grounds that “he will do anything to avoid an argument, which leads to a degree of duplicity”.
“In the new year,” says one senior Tory, “we will need bouncy old Boris back to cheer us up that there is light at the end of the tunnel.” The light will have to be exceedingly bright to wipe away all the memories of how long and dark, stumbling and flailing has been the nation’s journey through the tunnel.
I was waiting for you to post the Sunday Rawnsley 😁
I had to go out with the dog, so he could earn his Level Two Agility qualification (at our fourth attempt), otherwise it would have been more punctual. Sorry.
I think the new virus strain is somewhat a pretext. Obviously greater transmissibility is a concern, but the big increase in cases in parts of the UK isn't wholly or probably even mainly down to the new strain. It's easier for governments to say, Because of the new deadly virus strain, than to say, We mucked up.
And with respect you possess scientific qualifications for that statement
No BigG. You can't allow Drakeford off the hook that easily.
I would not let Drakeford off the hook for any reason
He has been a disaster for Wales and not just on covid, but the failed NHS which has had negative effects on my own family
If you can't (justifiably) let Drakeford of the hook, neither can you Johnson.
Boris is not a covid PM but the present controversy over Christmas has become more apparent on the media this am with the scientific advice only being given to the government on Friday and Boris reacting yesterday, followed by Sturgeon and Drakeford
I would say that he cannot be enjoying any of this as it is so much against his freedom optimistic nature
However, we are where we are and I have no confidence Starmer and his front bench would be any better
Indeed I believe even Merkel is becoming unpopular day by day
Here is the problem. The advice WASN'T on Friday. The scientists have known about this for some time. The government have been talking about it since at least Monday*. It didn't suddenly arrive out of nowhere on Friday.
For at least the past week the government have known this was about - if not exactly how bad it was, they at least knew it was bad. We know this based on what they were saying on Monday. What then did the government choose to do whilst in possession of this knowledge?
Thats right, it stepped up its plans to have a Big Christmas blowout. More publicity about extra travel opportunities. Threatening to sue LEAs for not keeping their schools open. Feeding more pro-Boris saves Christmas stories to the press. That astonishing display at PMQs.
They are brilliant at immediate-win tactics but utterly blind to anything longer. Which is why Ridge was able to throw the "inhuman" comment straight back at ManCock this morning. If you've been told there is a new super-pox and you've chosen to ignore the scientists again wouldn't it least be sensible to back off on the political rhetoric?
*There is evidence that it has been known for longer. Whitty yesterday suggested fairly strongly that the government acting now was not at the first time of asking. You remember the photo a month or so back of Whitty looking very agitated in a meeting..?
But NHS England on Marr confirmed the advice changed on Friday and hence yesterday's announcement
Furthermore, why did it take yesterday's announcement for Sturgeon and Drakeford to immediately act as well on the same advice and with virtually identical measures
Boris can be attacked for many things but why did neither Sturgeon or Drakeford act before yesterday
Wowsers. You really will defend anything. We know for a fact that they knew this was out there and that it was bad. The only question was how much worse than standard Covid. So obviously attacking schools and calling what they are now themselves doing was obviously the smart political strategy.
Why not answer the question
Why did Boris, Sturgeon and Drakeford only act immediately after the advice on Friday if they had known before
I don't know about the others. But if the PM and cabinet didn't know about it until Friday then why were they warning us about it 4 days earlier on Monday?
Because the advice doesn't go from zero to full overnight.
On Monday they knew there was a new strain that appeared to be increasing transmission but how much was unknown. So the advice changed and the relevant region was moved into Tier 3.
On Thursday NERVTAG reported the new strain was even worse than was previously envisioned. Hence the emergency recall of the Covid O Committee that had already met earlier that day and the emergency statements by Johnson, Sturgeon and Drakeford the following day.
Indeed. My point is that having known their were awaiting news about how much worse this new strain was the government chose to attack schools and claim the opposition wanted to cancel Christmas. The politically smart option would have been to soften people up for what was likely to come. As Whitty has strongly inferred he was advising
I called Williamson a damn fool at the time for the schools thing.
Even without the NERVTAG report threatening to sue to keep schools open for three whole days (not weeks or months) was absolutely futile.
Williamson is an idiot. Doesn't know how to pick his battles. There was nothing to be won from that one. For the sake of three whole days just let it slide. Idiot.
Not disagreeing with the idiocy of Williamson.
But I wonder if Greenwich council went with the proper procedures and negotiations before making the announcement.
It was an advisory letter, which in law was their decision to issue. I'm not quite sure what 'processes' you think need to be gone through before a council advises its schools.
The point being, schools have the ability to set their own holiday period as long as children are able to attend for 190 days a year. But if that 190 day period isn't met, it is the responsibility of the local authority to take enforcement action.
Effectively, what Greenwich did was say that they wouldn't take such action and would advise early closure.
Williamson and Gibb didn't understand this nuance but that's because they're thick as pigshit.
I would have thought that if a council decided to shut its schools it would have the obligation / courtesy / good sense to notify the DfE.
Now maybe they don't have to and maybe they did in any case.
Willamson's response was petulant but than could have been expected so its wise not to give such a person an excuse for their behaviour.
They do not have such an obligation, no. It is purely a local authority matter. The DfE has very little direct control over local schooling, although it has more since academy chains were brought in.
It has been suggested that therefore Williamson and Gibb's was therefore ultra vires, particularly since the legislation they quoted was designed primarily to enable the closure of schools if necessary. If that is so, and somebody who contracted Covid at school in the last week decides to sue, they are in massive trouble.
The coronavirus crisis could not have been more cunningly engineered to expose Mr Johnson’s flaws. He was made prime minister not because anyone thought that he was a cool and decisive head with the leadership skills and moral seriousness required to handle the gravest public health emergency in a century.
Few of his strengths as a politician have been of much utility in this emergency. All of his weaknesses have been searingly exposed. A man who spent his career ducking responsibility was suddenly confronted with a challenge that could not be run from, though that didn’t stop him vanishing at the outset when he went missing from critical meetings.
The wrong criticism is to say that he has made mistakes. Confronted with a novel disease for which the country was unprepared, any prime minister would have made errors. The correct criticism is that he has failed to learn from his mistakes and egregiously repeated them.
Even Tories concede that their government’s record is at the bottom end of the international league table. Britain has suffered the double-whammy of having one of the highest death levels per million of population while enduring the most severe hit to the economy among the G7 club of prosperous states.
In the summer, Mr Johnson foolishly tied himself to a guarantee that Britain would enjoy a “significant return to normality” by Christmas, a promise that his scientific advisers conspicuously declined to endorse at the time and which was dramatically proved completely false last night. That misjudgment, like all the other ones, flows from his personality. Just below the surface of his performative face lurks an insecure character who trusts no one and yearns to be loved by everyone. He hates being the bearer of bad news and tough choices. One of the many women in his life, Petronella Wyatt, once excused his mendacity on the grounds that “he will do anything to avoid an argument, which leads to a degree of duplicity”.
“In the new year,” says one senior Tory, “we will need bouncy old Boris back to cheer us up that there is light at the end of the tunnel.” The light will have to be exceedingly bright to wipe away all the memories of how long and dark, stumbling and flailing has been the nation’s journey through the tunnel.
I was waiting for you to post the Sunday Rawnsley 😁
I had to go out with the dog, so he could earn his Level Two Agility qualification (at our fourth attempt), otherwise it would have been more punctual. Sorry.
Since the government was seemingly willing to allow C-19 to remain in the English population at a much higher level than many other parts of the world, so long as the NHS was not overwhelmed, was it not therefore more likely that more mutations would likely be occurring here in England that other places which tried to keep the infection rates far lower?
Since the premise of your comment is completely wrong then the subsequent question is pointless.
We have had fewer restrictions, government policy, than many other countries and have amongst the highest death rates as a consequence does not equate to government policy leading to higher infection rates?
But, it is a difficult argument to make.
In general, mutations are good, as the virus mutates to a less deadly version (it is not in the virus' interests to kill the host).
There are have already been 20,000 mutations recorded.
So, you could argue that allowing plenty of opportunity to mutate is a good thing.
It is always easier to break something to fix it -- and that goes for viruses too. The more it is allowed to mutate, probably the better.
Not true. Viruses mutate randomly, and there is no reason to think less lethal mutations are more frequent. It's about which mutations get selected for. Killing vs not killing the host is not selective when you have a virtually infinite supply of infectable new hosts. So your claim applies to snow leopard viruses but not really to human ones.
Actually it is kind of true because humanity reacts to try to prevent the spread of more lethal viruses while allowing less lethal ones (like the common cold) to spread.
Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
So far better out than in, AR.
Believe me I will be only too pleased to acknowledge this if and when evidence surfaces. I'd like to see us make a decent effort of capitalising on our sovereignity though if only so that we will know unambigously before long just how successful the enterprise has been, or not, as the case may be.
It will be interesting to see.
On a theoretical/academic view the implementation of an independent trade policy can be judged fairly now that the incompetent Fox has been removed.
Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
So far better out than in, AR.
Believe me I will be only too pleased to acknowledge this if and when evidence surfaces. I'd like to see us make a decent effort of capitalising on our sovereignity though if only so that we will know unambigously before long just how successful the enterprise has been, or not, as the case may be.
It will be interesting to see.
On a theoretical/academic view the implementation of an independent trade policy can be judged fairly now that the incompetent Fox has been removed.
To be honest I'd be happy enough to see the £/Euro exchange rates and our international credit rating return to pre-referendum levels, but I don't think either is very likely for some considerable while.
Why?
Given our endemic trade deficit the £/€ exchange rate was surely overvalued.
If the £/€ exchange rate goes south but the trade deficit closes then might that not be a good thing?
Just suggesting them as benchmarks, Philip. I recall the exchange rate dropped sharply after the referendum and the drop in credit-rating followed soon after.
I'm not saying these are definitive or that other circustances need not be considered, but they're not bad broad-brush indicators. I mean, if Brexit was such a great idea, why didn't they both move up?
The drop in credit rating was political. The actual yields have barely moved.
So are you seriously saying that NERVTAG, Sage scientists, the SNP's Sturgeon, Labour's Drakeford and many more are all engaged in a conspiracy to hide when this new information came to light?
All so that Boris could attack Drakeford's colleague?
Its a theory.....like Piers Corbyn has a theory or two....
Since the government was seemingly willing to allow C-19 to remain in the English population at a much higher level than many other parts of the world, so long as the NHS was not overwhelmed, was it not therefore more likely that more mutations would likely be occurring here in England that other places which tried to keep the infection rates far lower?
Since the premise of your comment is completely wrong then the subsequent question is pointless.
We have had fewer restrictions, government policy, than many other countries and have amongst the highest death rates as a consequence does not equate to government policy leading to higher infection rates?
But, it is a difficult argument to make.
In general, mutations are good, as the virus mutates to a less deadly version (it is not in the virus' interests to kill the host).
There are have already been 20,000 mutations recorded.
So, you could argue that allowing plenty of opportunity to mutate is a good thing.
It is always easier to break something to fix it -- and that goes for viruses too. The more it is allowed to mutate, probably the better.
Not true. Viruses mutate randomly, and there is no reason to think less lethal mutations are more frequent. It's about which mutations get selected for. Killing vs not killing the host is not selective when you have a virtually infinite supply of infectable new hosts. So your claim applies to snow leopard viruses but not really to human ones.
Agree. The virus has no ability to mutate as more or less deadly. It is entirely random. It is simply a case of how easy it is to survive and multiply. A virus that kills instantly upon infection will not be successful as it won't get a chance to spread, but if a virus was easily transmittable and took time to make the host ill so that it could spread easily and yet be 100% fatal it would be a viable mutation.
Dunno. Seems a ton of Londoners reacted to the new strain last night.
By rushing to the railway stations heading North.
Cummings behaviour means that it is fair game for everyone else.
Cummings was in a private environment in his own car.
He was not breathing over and risking infecting several dozen other people in his selfishness.
So the people fleeing London in their car last night are okay?
They are people who wanted to enjoy Xmas with their family, by and large.
No worse & no better than the skiers who must have their holiday ... or those who had to go to Spain for their Summer holiday.
Now about that skiing holiday of yours ... or I remember, it doesn't count.
As I said before I left the UK on 31 January 2020, the day first case of Covid was reported here. I didn't hear about it until I got to my destination, and I returned from Switzerland before a single case was reported there. The differences between that and the current situation are clear. If I had been a spreader (I wasn't) it would have been from a position of complete ignorance.
There was clear and present danger by late January.
"On 27 January 2020, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the WHO Regional Office for Europe asked countries to complete a WHO standard COVID-19 case report form for all confirmed and probable cases according to WHO criteria ...."
"The first three cases detected were reported in France on 24 January 2020 and had onset of symptoms on 17, 19 and 23 January respectively [10]. The first death was reported on 15 February in France...."
True, there were no deaths in Europe by 31 January, but there were already reported COVID cases in Europe and there was the example of Wuhan to tell us what would happen.
I won't repeat Thomas Love Peacock, but it applies.
"I almost think it is the ultimate destiny of science to exterminate the human race."? A bit harsh.
The coronavirus crisis could not have been more cunningly engineered to expose Mr Johnson’s flaws. He was made prime minister not because anyone thought that he was a cool and decisive head with the leadership skills and moral seriousness required to handle the gravest public health emergency in a century.
Few of his strengths as a politician have been of much utility in this emergency. All of his weaknesses have been searingly exposed. A man who spent his career ducking responsibility was suddenly confronted with a challenge that could not be run from, though that didn’t stop him vanishing at the outset when he went missing from critical meetings.
The wrong criticism is to say that he has made mistakes. Confronted with a novel disease for which the country was unprepared, any prime minister would have made errors. The correct criticism is that he has failed to learn from his mistakes and egregiously repeated them.
Even Tories concede that their government’s record is at the bottom end of the international league table. Britain has suffered the double-whammy of having one of the highest death levels per million of population while enduring the most severe hit to the economy among the G7 club of prosperous states.
In the summer, Mr Johnson foolishly tied himself to a guarantee that Britain would enjoy a “significant return to normality” by Christmas, a promise that his scientific advisers conspicuously declined to endorse at the time and which was dramatically proved completely false last night. That misjudgment, like all the other ones, flows from his personality. Just below the surface of his performative face lurks an insecure character who trusts no one and yearns to be loved by everyone. He hates being the bearer of bad news and tough choices. One of the many women in his life, Petronella Wyatt, once excused his mendacity on the grounds that “he will do anything to avoid an argument, which leads to a degree of duplicity”.
“In the new year,” says one senior Tory, “we will need bouncy old Boris back to cheer us up that there is light at the end of the tunnel.” The light will have to be exceedingly bright to wipe away all the memories of how long and dark, stumbling and flailing has been the nation’s journey through the tunnel.
I was waiting for you to post the Sunday Rawnsley 😁
I had to go out with the dog, so he could earn his Level Two Agility qualification (at our fourth attempt), otherwise it would have been more punctual. Sorry.
A border collie, Ian, by any chance?
No, he’s a hungarian pumi. He put his smug picture wearing his new rosette up on Instagram at @pumiunderthetable if you are interested.
There will be no post-Brexit trade deal between the UK and EU unless there is a "substantial shift" from Brussels in the coming days, a government source has told the BBC.
Since the government was seemingly willing to allow C-19 to remain in the English population at a much higher level than many other parts of the world, so long as the NHS was not overwhelmed, was it not therefore more likely that more mutations would likely be occurring here in England that other places which tried to keep the infection rates far lower?
Since the premise of your comment is completely wrong then the subsequent question is pointless.
We have had fewer restrictions, government policy, than many other countries and have amongst the highest death rates as a consequence does not equate to government policy leading to higher infection rates?
But, it is a difficult argument to make.
In general, mutations are good, as the virus mutates to a less deadly version (it is not in the virus' interests to kill the host).
There are have already been 20,000 mutations recorded.
So, you could argue that allowing plenty of opportunity to mutate is a good thing.
It is always easier to break something to fix it -- and that goes for viruses too. The more it is allowed to mutate, probably the better.
Not true. Viruses mutate randomly, and there is no reason to think less lethal mutations are more frequent. It's about which mutations get selected for. Killing vs not killing the host is not selective when you have a virtually infinite supply of infectable new hosts. So your claim applies to snow leopard viruses but not really to human ones.
But that article makes precisely and exactly the point I was making!
'At a time when nearly everyone on the planet is susceptible, there is likely to be little evolutionary pressure on the virus to spread better, so even potentially beneficial mutations might not flourish. “As far as the virus is concerned, every single person that it comes to is a good piece of meat,” says William Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. “There’s no selection to be doing it any better.”'
Since the government was seemingly willing to allow C-19 to remain in the English population at a much higher level than many other parts of the world, so long as the NHS was not overwhelmed, was it not therefore more likely that more mutations would likely be occurring here in England that other places which tried to keep the infection rates far lower?
Since the premise of your comment is completely wrong then the subsequent question is pointless.
We have had fewer restrictions, government policy, than many other countries and have amongst the highest death rates as a consequence does not equate to government policy leading to higher infection rates?
But, it is a difficult argument to make.
In general, mutations are good, as the virus mutates to a less deadly version (it is not in the virus' interests to kill the host).
There are have already been 20,000 mutations recorded.
So, you could argue that allowing plenty of opportunity to mutate is a good thing.
It is always easier to break something to fix it -- and that goes for viruses too. The more it is allowed to mutate, probably the better.
Not true. Viruses mutate randomly, and there is no reason to think less lethal mutations are more frequent. It's about which mutations get selected for. Killing vs not killing the host is not selective when you have a virtually infinite supply of infectable new hosts. So your claim applies to snow leopard viruses but not really to human ones.
Actually it is kind of true because humanity reacts to try to prevent the spread of more lethal viruses while allowing less lethal ones (like the common cold) to spread.
Since the government was seemingly willing to allow C-19 to remain in the English population at a much higher level than many other parts of the world, so long as the NHS was not overwhelmed, was it not therefore more likely that more mutations would likely be occurring here in England that other places which tried to keep the infection rates far lower?
Since the premise of your comment is completely wrong then the subsequent question is pointless.
We have had fewer restrictions, government policy, than many other countries and have amongst the highest death rates as a consequence does not equate to government policy leading to higher infection rates?
But, it is a difficult argument to make.
In general, mutations are good, as the virus mutates to a less deadly version (it is not in the virus' interests to kill the host).
There are have already been 20,000 mutations recorded.
So, you could argue that allowing plenty of opportunity to mutate is a good thing.
It is always easier to break something to fix it -- and that goes for viruses too. The more it is allowed to mutate, probably the better.
Not true. Viruses mutate randomly, and there is no reason to think less lethal mutations are more frequent. It's about which mutations get selected for. Killing vs not killing the host is not selective when you have a virtually infinite supply of infectable new hosts. So your claim applies to snow leopard viruses but not really to human ones.
Agree. The virus has no ability to mutate as more or less deadly. It is entirely random. It is simply a case of how easy it is to survive and multiply. A virus that kills instantly upon infection will not be successful as it won't get a chance to spread, but if a virus was easily transmittable and took time to make the host ill so that it could spread easily and yet be 100% fatal it would be a viable mutation.
The mutations are random, but the tendency is for viruses to become less deadly (for which there is plenty of empirical evidence).
Your argument assumes no correlation between transmissibility and onset of the disease.
Can you provide an example of a virus that has mutated to become more infectious AND with a longer onset time?
Dunno. Seems a ton of Londoners reacted to the new strain last night.
By rushing to the railway stations heading North.
Cummings behaviour means that it is fair game for everyone else.
Cummings was in a private environment in his own car.
He was not breathing over and risking infecting several dozen other people in his selfishness.
Well we don't know exactly what he did. But the point with him is that as a key member of the team that had just wrote and publicized the Rules he had a greater duty than a random member of the public not to flout them.
I'm still struggling with vaccine logistics and some of the ambitious pronouncements from, primarily but not exclusively, those supportive of the Government.
To go back to numbers - 12 million people over 65, 25 million over 50 so to inoculate all means 24 million and 50 million injections respectively (subject to a single shot vaccine becoming available at some point).
So, if we assume 80% take up among the over 65s, that's 20 million vaccinations supposedly by the end of March which is 90 days from January 1st. That's more than 200,000 jabs every day - 9,000 per hour, 154 per minute every minute, day and night.
This has to be done, and Churchillian rhetoric notwithstanding, it's a formidable task. The point is expectation management, at which this Government struggles as it tries to balance reality and the promise of hope.
As for the latter, @Cyclefree's comments this morning have made me think. This isn't just going to be a national vaccination challenge but a national mental health challenge and we need to see the same kind of commitment and resource put in to helping those who don't need the vaccine but need other forms of help.
The fixation on needles and arms masks the equally urgent requirement for listening and minds. I've not appreciated that because I'm very fortunate but I do appreciate there is and continues to be a huge amount of suffering for many whether it be mental health or, worse, mental and physical abuse.
It may be our greatest shame may not be how we dealt with care homes but how we failed those facing mental and physical abuse about which there is much still to be revealed, I fear,
There will be no post-Brexit trade deal between the UK and EU unless there is a "substantial shift" from Brussels in the coming days, a government source has told the BBC.
Sorry - another question posed by Mrs Stodge for the epidemiologists, virologists or right know-alls on here - if you have the vaccine, you achieve 100% immunity a week after the injection, I'm told.
Does that mean you can contract the virus and still transmit it to others even though you won't suffer any symptoms? In other words, does the vaccine make you asymptomatic or does it prevent you contracting the virus and being a carrier?
Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
So far better out than in, AR.
Believe me I will be only too pleased to acknowledge this if and when evidence surfaces. I'd like to see us make a decent effort of capitalising on our sovereignity though if only so that we will know unambigously before long just how successful the enterprise has been, or not, as the case may be.
It will be interesting to see.
On a theoretical/academic view the implementation of an independent trade policy can be judged fairly now that the incompetent Fox has been removed.
Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
Well, if the EU insists on being twattish......what can we do?
Not a lot, mate, but then a nation that votes itself out of the world's largest and most successful free trade association isn't in much of a position to lecture others about twattishness.
Given that the UK has been a net financial contributor and has had a large and continuous trade deficit with EU countries I'm not sure that it has been successful for the UK.
And that's likely more the fault of the UK than anyone else.
So far better out than in, AR.
Believe me I will be only too pleased to acknowledge this if and when evidence surfaces. I'd like to see us make a decent effort of capitalising on our sovereignity though if only so that we will know unambigously before long just how successful the enterprise has been, or not, as the case may be.
It will be interesting to see.
On a theoretical/academic view the implementation of an independent trade policy can be judged fairly now that the incompetent Fox has been removed.
To be honest I'd be happy enough to see the £/Euro exchange rates and our international credit rating return to pre-referendum levels, but I don't think either is very likely for some considerable while.
Why?
Given our endemic trade deficit the £/€ exchange rate was surely overvalued.
If the £/€ exchange rate goes south but the trade deficit closes then might that not be a good thing?
Just suggesting them as benchmarks, Philip. I recall the exchange rate dropped sharply after the referendum and the drop in credit-rating followed soon after.
I'm not saying these are definitive or that other circustances need not be considered, but they're not bad broad-brush indicators. I mean, if Brexit was such a great idea, why didn't they both move up?
Because moving up isn't necessarily a good thing was my point.
Yes, I can see there are circumstances where it might be smart to let an exchange rate drift down. I'm less sure about the credit rating, but you can correct me if you like.
I didn't however get the impression that either movement was an indication of clever economic forethought, but rather a sharp intake of breath from the international business community.
Well indeed in the short term there'll be more disruption, I don't think anyone reasonable disputes this.
In the medium to long term though it's a different matter.
One remarkable statistic is that despite all the protestations of doom about if the UK chose not to join the Euro, or chose to hold an EU referendum, or voted to Leave . . . Is that in both the 2000-2009 and 2010-2019 decades the UK grew faster than the Eurozone per capita.
An interest judgement as to how Brexit goes over the next decade will be to make the same comparison in a decades time. It wouldn't surprise me if the UK over the next decade grows faster again per capita than the Eurozone. If so then I think that it is safe to say the UK has done OK in Brexiting, what do you think?
Lol! In the long term, we are all dead, Philip, but I will rest easier in my grave knowing that my countrymen are enjoying the sunlit uplands which were promised them before the referendum.
There will be no post-Brexit trade deal between the UK and EU unless there is a "substantial shift" from Brussels in the coming days, a government source has told the BBC.
Sorry - another question posed by Mrs Stodge for the epidemiologists, virologists or right know-alls on here - if you have the vaccine, you achieve 100% immunity a week after the injection, I'm told.
Does that mean you can contract the virus and still transmit it to others even though you won't suffer any symptoms? In other words, does the vaccine make you asymptomatic or does it prevent you contracting the virus and being a carrier?
I think the answer at the moment is we don't know. There are hints and hopes that the vaccines prevent transmission but it's not proven.
Sorry - another question posed by Mrs Stodge for the epidemiologists, virologists or right know-alls on here - if you have the vaccine, you achieve 100% immunity a week after the injection, I'm told.
Does that mean you can contract the virus and still transmit it to others even though you won't suffer any symptoms? In other words, does the vaccine make you asymptomatic or does it prevent you contracting the virus and being a carrier?
The answer tends to be "we don't know yet".
I'll have a guess at it reduces the risk of acting as a carrier but not to zero.
Since the government was seemingly willing to allow C-19 to remain in the English population at a much higher level than many other parts of the world, so long as the NHS was not overwhelmed, was it not therefore more likely that more mutations would likely be occurring here in England that other places which tried to keep the infection rates far lower?
Since the premise of your comment is completely wrong then the subsequent question is pointless.
We have had fewer restrictions, government policy, than many other countries and have amongst the highest death rates as a consequence does not equate to government policy leading to higher infection rates?
But, it is a difficult argument to make.
In general, mutations are good, as the virus mutates to a less deadly version (it is not in the virus' interests to kill the host).
There are have already been 20,000 mutations recorded.
So, you could argue that allowing plenty of opportunity to mutate is a good thing.
It is always easier to break something to fix it -- and that goes for viruses too. The more it is allowed to mutate, probably the better.
Not true. Viruses mutate randomly, and there is no reason to think less lethal mutations are more frequent. It's about which mutations get selected for. Killing vs not killing the host is not selective when you have a virtually infinite supply of infectable new hosts. So your claim applies to snow leopard viruses but not really to human ones.
Agree. The virus has no ability to mutate as more or less deadly. It is entirely random. It is simply a case of how easy it is to survive and multiply. A virus that kills instantly upon infection will not be successful as it won't get a chance to spread, but if a virus was easily transmittable and took time to make the host ill so that it could spread easily and yet be 100% fatal it would be a viable mutation.
The mutations are random, but the tendency is for viruses to become less deadly (for which there is plenty of empirical evidence).
Your argument assumes no correlation between transmissibility and onset of the disease.
Can you provide an example of a virus that has mutated to become more infectious AND with a longer onset time?
Actually, the strong correlation in respiratory diseases is an inverse one between transmissibility and morbidity/mortality and there is a well-understood mechanism for this. Sneezing assists in transmissibility of respiratory diseases, and sneezes are induced more in infections of the upper respiratory tract which tend to have lower morbidity/mortality levels than diseases of the lower respiratory tract (i.e. those that bind in the nose and throat, rather than in the bronchi and lungs).
That is part of what makes COVID so unusual and deadly - SARS-CoV-2 binds with just about every tissue in the human body (as every tissue has the ACE-2 receptor to which the spike protein binds, and every tissue has one of the protease surface enzymes that activate the spike protein (i.e. cleave one of the sub-units so that it opens up that part of the protein thereby allowing the virus to enter the cell and infect it)) thus it is binding in both upper and lower respiratory tracts causing both high transmissibility and high morbidity/mortality.
AND about half of all transmission happens before onset of symptoms.
Since the government was seemingly willing to allow C-19 to remain in the English population at a much higher level than many other parts of the world, so long as the NHS was not overwhelmed, was it not therefore more likely that more mutations would likely be occurring here in England that other places which tried to keep the infection rates far lower?
Since the premise of your comment is completely wrong then the subsequent question is pointless.
We have had fewer restrictions, government policy, than many other countries and have amongst the highest death rates as a consequence does not equate to government policy leading to higher infection rates?
But, it is a difficult argument to make.
In general, mutations are good, as the virus mutates to a less deadly version (it is not in the virus' interests to kill the host).
There are have already been 20,000 mutations recorded.
So, you could argue that allowing plenty of opportunity to mutate is a good thing.
It is always easier to break something to fix it -- and that goes for viruses too. The more it is allowed to mutate, probably the better.
Not true. Viruses mutate randomly, and there is no reason to think less lethal mutations are more frequent. It's about which mutations get selected for. Killing vs not killing the host is not selective when you have a virtually infinite supply of infectable new hosts. So your claim applies to snow leopard viruses but not really to human ones.
Yes, the pressure for evolutionary selection is pretty marginal if 99.5% of hosts survive compared to 98% for example. Making a host sick enough that they don't socialise while infective probably is a bigger factor. One reason why Covid-19 has been so hard to control is because of so much asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic spread. Whether the host dies or not after the active viral phase makes little evolutionary difference.
Sterile debate today, defenders defending, attackers trying to pin blame, no suggestions as to a better way forward just who may have said what, when.
What’s needed is to police the restrictions seriously, none of this prosecution is a last resort Ensure the rollout of the vaccine is in the hands of logistics experts
Start investigating the claims of fraud from all sides, government, claimants etc
The UK government looks like a soft pushover waiting to be taken advantage of by its own citizens.
How on earth do you police this though. That is the problem with trying to make this law. Everyone knows it is unenforceable.
A story to illustrate.
Just over a year ago on November 6th 2019 a good friend of mine died. He had been suffering from lung cancer but his death was sudden due to a pulmonary haemorrhage whilst he was at home alone. A mutual friend had turned up but could not get in so called myself and also the police. After identifying my friend I spent a couple of hours with the policeman helping him with details and waiting for the undertakers to arrive. In that time it turned out that the total police force present in Newark that Tuesday evening was the copper I was talking to, one other who was investigating an assault in one of the villages and a desk sergeant. When I expressed surprise at how few police were on duty he said that this was pretty good for the town and that Nottingham that evening had 15 officers on duty - for a city of some 330,000 people.
Policing in this country is by consent. It has to be because there simply isn't the power to do it any other way on a day to day basis. The idea we can police covid restrictions in any meaningful manner when so many do not believe in them is completely unrealistic.
Indeed. The Tories have absolutely gutted the police of resources. The same MPs who voted again and again and again to cut funding and thus officer numbers then whine about the lack of officers.
Isn't all this pointless? Didn't they say the new strain had been around since September. Bozo's trip to the EU a few weeks ago has already spread this around.....
Comments
I had a bet on him staying in power and I’m not a trumpeter. The bet was not support for trump, but a punt he could pull it off.
He might yet still remain president I think, so it’s still worth betting on, has a secret pact with the extra terrestrials that are here as reported in a paper. Remember how that played out in the Transformers movie.
arklebar@gmail.com
Thanks
He was not breathing over and risking infecting several dozen other people in his selfishness.
They are Unionists. Yet they think More Polis in Scotland Is Good. I do too. But More Police in England is Bad. I disagree. What's a person to think?
Do you know differently?
And I see I failed to read your final para, which explained it. Doh.
I didn't however get the impression that either movement was an indication of clever economic forethought, but rather a sharp intake of breath from the international business community.
In general, mutations are good, as the virus mutates to a less deadly version (it is not in the virus' interests to kill the host).
There are have already been 20,000 mutations recorded.
So, you could argue that allowing plenty of opportunity to mutate is a good thing.
It is always easier to break something to fix it -- and that goes for viruses too. The more it is allowed to mutate, probably the better.
Case numbers are far higher in recent months in France, Spain and other countries than the UK.
In the face of ghostly warning
He is caught in the fact
Of an overt act—
Buying greens on a Sunday morning.
The rich man’s sins are hidden
In the pomp of wealth and station;
And escape the sight
Of the children of light,
Who are wise in their generation.
The rich man has a kitchen,
And cooks to dress his dinner;
The poor who would roast
To the baker’s must post,
And thus becomes a sinner.
The rich man has a cellar,
And a ready butler by him;
The poor man must steer
For his pint of beer
Where the saint can’t choose but to spy him.
The rich man’s painted windows
Hide the concerts of the quality;
The poor can but share
A crack’d fiddle in the air,
Which offends all sound morality.
The rich man is invisible
In the crowd of his gay society;
But the poor man’s delight
Is a sore in the sight,
And a stench in the nose of piety.
In the medium to long term though it's a different matter.
One remarkable statistic is that despite all the protestations of doom about if the UK chose not to join the Euro, or chose to hold an EU referendum, or voted to Leave . . . Is that in both the 2000-2009 and 2010-2019 decades the UK grew faster than the Eurozone per capita.
An interest judgement as to how Brexit goes over the next decade will be to make the same comparison in a decades time. It wouldn't surprise me if the UK over the next decade grows faster again per capita than the Eurozone. If so then I think that it is safe to say the UK has done OK in Brexiting, what do you think?
And we know why don’t we Phillip. Merkels Party, though right of centre, has the world Christian in its name. Meanwhile in UK there is no party influenced by Christian values.
Sounds like a good holiday season header imo, to ask what it means for future policy now no UK party is influenced by Christian values.
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1340652494817554433
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1340656613397590016
Sorry to be provocative. This argument doesn’t understand how betting works I’m afraid to say.
If I think Trumps deal with the decepticons decides who is sworn as president, I should be allowed to bet on that.
I know what you will respond with: “But the decipticons don’t exist!”
Oh but they do exist, as a metaphor in a when should a market be declared as certain result, closed and paid out discussion. The system of US politics of “called” by media, concession speeches, unfaithful electors, courts making decisions on who won and lost etc is at root of blame on betting companies, and so that blame on betting firms has to be seen as wrong to some degree.
No worse & no better than the skiers who must have their holiday ... or those who had to go to Spain for their Summer holiday.
Now about that skiing holiday of yours ... or I remember, it doesn't count.
https://twitter.com/PaulBrandITV/status/1340657979511717891
The coronavirus crisis could not have been more cunningly engineered to expose Mr Johnson’s flaws. He was made prime minister not because anyone thought that he was a cool and decisive head with the leadership skills and moral seriousness required to handle the gravest public health emergency in a century.
Few of his strengths as a politician have been of much utility in this emergency. All of his weaknesses have been searingly exposed. A man who spent his career ducking responsibility was suddenly confronted with a challenge that could not be run from, though that didn’t stop him vanishing at the outset when he went missing from critical meetings.
The wrong criticism is to say that he has made mistakes. Confronted with a novel disease for which the country was unprepared, any prime minister would have made errors. The correct criticism is that he has failed to learn from his mistakes and egregiously repeated them.
Even Tories concede that their government’s record is at the bottom end of the international league table. Britain has suffered the double-whammy of having one of the highest death levels per million of population while enduring the most severe hit to the economy among the G7 club of prosperous states.
In the summer, Mr Johnson foolishly tied himself to a guarantee that Britain would enjoy a “significant return to normality” by Christmas, a promise that his scientific advisers conspicuously declined to endorse at the time and which was dramatically proved completely false last night. That misjudgment, like all the other ones, flows from his personality. Just below the surface of his performative face lurks an insecure character who trusts no one and yearns to be loved by everyone. He hates being the bearer of bad news and tough choices. One of the many women in his life, Petronella Wyatt, once excused his mendacity on the grounds that “he will do anything to avoid an argument, which leads to a degree of duplicity”.
“In the new year,” says one senior Tory, “we will need bouncy old Boris back to cheer us up that there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
The light will have to be exceedingly bright to wipe away all the memories of how long and dark, stumbling and flailing has been the nation’s journey through the tunnel.
As for vaccines our government has indeed made making vaccinations for the third world a priority. Including investing heavily in supporting the Oxford vaccine that will be able to more easily be distributed in the third world supply chains - and can be distributed at cost to the third world.
As for third world aid our government is giving more as a percentage of GDP than almost any other nation. Including giving more than the EU and it's nations.
The point being, schools have the ability to set their own holiday period as long as children are able to attend for 190 days a year. But if that 190 day period isn't met, it is the responsibility of the local authority to take enforcement action.
Effectively, what Greenwich did was say that they wouldn't take such action and would advise early closure.
Williamson and Gibb didn't understand this nuance but that's because they're thick as pigshit.
That's inhuman...
It's about which mutations get selected for. Killing vs not killing the host is not selective when you have a virtually infinite supply of infectable new hosts. So your claim applies to snow leopard viruses but not really to human ones.
I don't think anyone would expect him to be anything else now. There's a good reason he's a backbencher.
No. Shit. Sherlock.
Now maybe they don't have to and maybe they did in any case.
Willamson's response was petulant but than could have been expected so its wise not to give such a person an excuse for their behaviour.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-hungarian-immigrant-behind-messenger-rna-key-to-covid-19-vaccines/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7068164/
"On 27 January 2020, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the WHO Regional Office for Europe asked countries to complete a WHO standard COVID-19 case report form for all confirmed and probable cases according to WHO criteria ...."
"The first three cases detected were reported in France on 24 January 2020 and had onset of symptoms on 17, 19 and 23 January respectively [10]. The first death was reported on 15 February in France...."
True, there were no deaths in Europe by 31 January, but there were already reported COVID cases in Europe and there was the example of Wuhan to tell us what would happen.
I won't repeat Thomas Love Peacock, but it applies.
Back in London, Mrs Stodge and I emerged from our residence, fought off the usual pack of plague-ridden zombies, stepped over the bloated corpses of our neighbours and went off to do the Christmas shopping.
Canary Wharf - no issues with parking, 15 minute queue to enter the shop but round, out and back home in less than two hours. Mask observance at Canary Wharf very good, many also wearing gloves. A few people out and about enjoying a glorious afternoon to take a walk.
Couldn't help but notice a few empty units at Jubilee Place but not many.
Some people clearly have plenty of money still to spend and I suspect once the vaccine gets more widely distributed and life moves to the new normal (not the pre-Covid normal and not what we have now but something else), I suspect there will be a big spending splurge.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02544-6
Don't bother apologising for your ignorance.
All so that Boris could attack Drakeford's colleague?
It has been suggested that therefore Williamson and Gibb's was therefore ultra vires, particularly since the legislation they quoted was designed primarily to enable the closure of schools if necessary. If that is so, and somebody who contracted Covid at school in the last week decides to sue, they are in massive trouble.
Infinite LOLs.
BBC News - Covid: New coronavirus variant 'in every part of Wales'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55384502
BBC News - Brexit: No trade deal unless 'substantial shift' from EU, UK says
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55381322
'At a time when nearly everyone on the planet is susceptible, there is likely to be little evolutionary pressure on the virus to spread better, so even potentially beneficial mutations might not flourish. “As far as the virus is concerned, every single person that it comes to is a good piece of meat,” says William Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. “There’s no selection to be doing it any better.”'
Are you the bloke who thinks Boadicea was Welsh?
He didn't spend every single day for 9 months amazed that the crisis was still a crisis and he still needed to act...
https://twitter.com/DaveHartwell1/status/1340650068895031300
Your argument assumes no correlation between transmissibility and onset of the disease.
Can you provide an example of a virus that has mutated to become more infectious AND with a longer onset time?
To go back to numbers - 12 million people over 65, 25 million over 50 so to inoculate all means 24 million and 50 million injections respectively (subject to a single shot vaccine becoming available at some point).
So, if we assume 80% take up among the over 65s, that's 20 million vaccinations supposedly by the end of March which is 90 days from January 1st. That's more than 200,000 jabs every day - 9,000 per hour, 154 per minute every minute, day and night.
This has to be done, and Churchillian rhetoric notwithstanding, it's a formidable task. The point is expectation management, at which this Government struggles as it tries to balance reality and the promise of hope.
As for the latter, @Cyclefree's comments this morning have made me think. This isn't just going to be a national vaccination challenge but a national mental health challenge and we need to see the same kind of commitment and resource put in to helping those who don't need the vaccine but need other forms of help.
The fixation on needles and arms masks the equally urgent requirement for listening and minds. I've not appreciated that because I'm very fortunate but I do appreciate there is and continues to be a huge amount of suffering for many whether it be mental health or, worse, mental and physical abuse.
It may be our greatest shame may not be how we dealt with care homes but how we failed those facing mental and physical abuse about which there is much still to be revealed, I fear,
Does that mean you can contract the virus and still transmit it to others even though you won't suffer any symptoms? In other words, does the vaccine make you asymptomatic or does it prevent you contracting the virus and being a carrier?
I'll have a guess at it reduces the risk of acting as a carrier but not to zero.
That is part of what makes COVID so unusual and deadly - SARS-CoV-2 binds with just about every tissue in the human body (as every tissue has the ACE-2 receptor to which the spike protein binds, and every tissue has one of the protease surface enzymes that activate the spike protein (i.e. cleave one of the sub-units so that it opens up that part of the protein thereby allowing the virus to enter the cell and infect it)) thus it is binding in both upper and lower respiratory tracts causing both high transmissibility and high morbidity/mortality.
AND about half of all transmission happens before onset of symptoms.
Number of officers in England and Wales increased by 20k from June 19 to June 20.