Frost has pushed our (Definitely not a pair of aces) hand to the absolute limit with regards to an EU deal. If it pays off, then I'll have to say well done. If we fail to reach a deal then it'll be all for naught.
Fingers crossed.
Bad take, Pulp. The Deal is certain and it will be pretty much as could have been agreed ages ago. The "pay off" for the "to the wire" theatrics and the No Deal hyping will not be the Deal itself, it will be that many people's response will be what you indicate yours will be. A great big "phew" and "well done Boris". That is the game here.
Only an absolute moron would say "well done Boris". The blundering idiot could have capitulated and done the crap deal 6 months ago and allowed for all the preparations.
Pfizer is the toughest vaccine to distribute and we're also doing the hardest brackets (80+ & care homes) first.
So with easier to distribute vaccines and easier age groups and more practice we should see superior rollout numbers over time. The limiting factor will be how much vaccine we actually have in the country not distribution within the country (imo).
Care homes are particularly difficult to vaccinate with the Pfizer jab because you can't take the jab to the home, you need to take the patients to the hospital. Not at all easy logistically. People who can make their own way to where they need to be vaccinated is easier.
If it wasn't for the supercooled logistics it would be easier to take the doses to the home and get it done quickly.
Are you certain about this, PT?
Your post has prompted me to call my mum`s care home and they have (again) said that nurses will be coming to the care home to administer the vaccine to all the residents in one go. They said that care home residents cannot be taken to an external venue to be vaccinated as some cannot be moved due to their condition.
It will happen ultimately and they are planning it, but it is tougher to organise with the Pfizer jab than with other jabs. With a normal vaccine they could have relatively easily done it in the last fortnight - but with this one splitting off from the box of 975 vaccines a limited number to take to the home is a logistical challenge.
My experience is that staff are going to the hospital to get their vaccine already (which will reduce the risk already) prior to the residents themselves getting it. I do not know the timescale of getting it into the home but they are working on it I know but it is logistically complicated.
I believe they are working on plans to get it approved to split off doses so they can take a subset of doses eg to a home but that is where my knowledge is fuzzy and others will know better. I have no idea on the timescale of that. Could be days, could be weeks, I'm not sure but it won't be long as they are the number one priority.
Reviving this from the old thread as I'm interested in where the UK figure was sourced from. The article doesn't quote a UK figure for the Moderna vaccine anywhere.
The UK is paying $37 per dose of the Moderna vaccine. The EU is paying $18 per dose. Both buyers ordered 40m doses. The EU offered the UK to join its buying consortium, but the UK turned them down. This is the team negotiating Brexit terms of trade.
Hi Malcom. Where are you getting the Uk figure from?
I can't find a reliable estimate since the summer (and we hadn't ordered 40m then).
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
You would have thought people on the left could realise that this is not a naturally left wing country, not even centre left. Counting is the first rule of politics and the most forgotten. Especially having lost Scotland, the choice for the left is an updated form of Blairite politics or Tory govts.
For our GE24, probably yes, but longer term I'm optimistic for the Left.
The top 5 global priorities -
Climate change. The emancipation of women. Racial equality. Sustainable growth. Fairer distribution of wealth.
These are all better tackled from a Left perspective imo. Indeed some of them can only be tackled from there.
Sure, they are priorities, and the left have some of the answers, as does the right. But if the left dont learn to count, the only solutions that will be tried here will be those of the right. UK politics is not an even battle of ideas, it is uphill and difficult for the left to win, especially to win and hold on to significant power. It is no surprise only Blair has done this for them.
For me climate change, preserving the earth, sustainable growth and fairer distribution of wealth are, in reality, all just different aspects of the same thing,
Until we stop measuring success of individuals in society and success of nations respectively in terms of the amount of the world's plundered assets they have hoarded in their bank accounts and GDP as currently measured, the whole rewards system that drives behaviour is at odds with the stated objectives. It leads to unfair distribution of wealth (including racial inequality at the wealth level), the ruination of the environment and thus climate change.
We need different metrics for both the value of individuals to society, and for a nation's well-being.
And I say that as a small c conservative, not as a lefty.
Frost has pushed our (Definitely not a pair of aces) hand to the absolute limit with regards to an EU deal. If it pays off, then I'll have to say well done. If we fail to reach a deal then it'll be all for naught.
Fingers crossed.
Bad take, Pulp. The Deal is certain and it will be pretty much as could have been agreed ages ago. The "pay off" for the "to the wire" theatrics and the No Deal hyping will not be the Deal itself, it will be that many people's response will be what you indicate yours will be. A great big "phew" and "well done Boris". That is the game here.
Only an absolute moron would say "well done Boris". The blundering idiot could have capitulated and done the crap deal 6 months ago and allowed for all the preparations.
I'll be saying well done to Frost, not Boris. Boris' unneccesary strategic red lines have pushed us to the brink of disaster due to a totemic insistence on fishing which makes no economic sense. Frost has to negotiate within that envelope, which is not easy I think. I'm not thanking Boris whatsoever, whatever happens.
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
They'd be better off with Burnham or Dan Jarvis, but they've both opted out, due to the binfire of the Corbyn era.
My only hope for SKS is that he is a Neil Kinnock figure i.e. gets rid of the idiots and steers them back to a place of viability in England. They're all over in Scotland, but they haven't faced up to that yet.
Not Jarvis. He's like a dull Starmer.
Re Starmer, I think his mission for now and the foreseeable is simply to establish himself in the public mind as a viable potential PM. Goal being, when people ask themselves, "that Starmer, can I see him in number 10?" they go, "Yeah, I guess."
You have to clear that bar before people will even look at your policies and it's harder for a Labour leader because of the relentless demonization from the tory press. The last 2 did not manage it.
I see their constant insulting of the French is paying dividends big time. This what happens when you shaft people thinking you are a smart arse , when you need a favour you get told where to go.
Yes, I think we're in the final haggle on this. Assuming the corona state aid issue has been solved too, we should get a deal by Christmas Eve.
We're then into the fun realms of ratification - which won't necessarily be a cakewalk either.
I can see the UK and the EU reaching a deal.
And then Macron vetoes it.
Frantic discussions ensue in EU captials about how do they try and hold the line to stop countries doing their own side deals with the UK to implement the terms of that EU deal. Won't that be a shit-fest....where we effectively have a trade deal with the EU sans France.
Frost has pushed our (Definitely not a pair of aces) hand to the absolute limit with regards to an EU deal. If it pays off, then I'll have to say well done. If we fail to reach a deal then it'll be all for naught.
Fingers crossed.
Yes, Frost has caused us all a few sleepless nights but, if it pays off, he's played our cards to the max.
And it's clearly not a bluff either. I fully believe Boris/Frost would have walked out (and almost did so entirely) 10 days ago for No Deal.
Uzbekistan bans entry of British nationals travelling from UK
Damn and here was me thinking I might take a last minute trip there...
Not sure about those making their decisions...
The government's special commission on anti-coronavirus efforts said on December 22 that citizens of Australia, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, South Africa, and the United Kingdom will not be able to enter Central Asia's most populous nation of 32 million until January 10
Australians banned...the place with basically no covid.
Reviving this from the old thread as I'm interested in where the UK figure was sourced from. The article doesn't quote a UK figure for the Moderna vaccine anywhere.
The UK is paying $37 per dose of the Moderna vaccine. The EU is paying $18 per dose. Both buyers ordered 40m doses. The EU offered the UK to join its buying consortium, but the UK turned them down. This is the team negotiating Brexit terms of trade.
Hi Malcom. Where are you getting the Uk figure from?
I can't find a reliable estimate since the summer (and we hadn't ordered 40m then).
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
Blair was to all extents and purposes a Tory by the time he came to power. He occupied the Wet Tory space that Thatcher foolishly abandoned,
After Thatcher and Boris and Cameron, Blair is arguably our most rightwing postwar PM, certainly on economic grounds
Frost has pushed our (Definitely not a pair of aces) hand to the absolute limit with regards to an EU deal. If it pays off, then I'll have to say well done. If we fail to reach a deal then it'll be all for naught.
Fingers crossed.
Yes, Frost has caused us all a few sleepless nights but, if it pays off, he's played our cards to the max.
And it's clearly not a bluff either. I fully believe Boris/Frost would have walked out (and almost did so entirely) 10 days ago for No Deal.
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
Blair was to all extents and purposes a Tory by the time he came to power. He occupied the Wet Tory space that Thatcher foolishly abandoned,
After Thatcher and Boris and Cameron, Blair is arguably our most rightwing postwar PM, certainly on economic grounds
What!? 😲
Preposterous. Absolutely preposterous to suggest that Blair with Brown as Chancellor was more rightwing than Major with Clarke.
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
They'd be better off with Burnham or Dan Jarvis, but they've both opted out, due to the binfire of the Corbyn era.
My only hope for SKS is that he is a Neil Kinnock figure i.e. gets rid of the idiots and steers them back to a place of viability in England. They're all over in Scotland, but they haven't faced up to that yet.
On current polling Starmer would become PM but only with the support of SNP MPs in a hung parliament, if Scotland went the Tories would be re elected with a still reasonably comfortable majority, if a bit smaller than in 2019
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
They'd be better off with Burnham or Dan Jarvis, but they've both opted out, due to the binfire of the Corbyn era.
My only hope for SKS is that he is a Neil Kinnock figure i.e. gets rid of the idiots and steers them back to a place of viability in England. They're all over in Scotland, but they haven't faced up to that yet.
In Johnson the nation has the Prime Minister it desires and deserves.
Johnson is going nowhere. Even after the economic fallout from bad deal Bexit and Covid, the Conservatives will retain handsome majorities for another decade.
I thought they would be out by 2024, but one can feel the love for the man on the pages of PB and also in the council estates of Britain. He can do no wrong for 40% of the population. Equally, the continued disdain for post-Corbyn Labour remains palpable.
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
You would have thought people on the left could realise that this is not a naturally left wing country, not even centre left. Counting is the first rule of politics and the most forgotten. Especially having lost Scotland, the choice for the left is an updated form of Blairite politics or Tory govts.
For our GE24, probably yes, but longer term I'm optimistic for the Left.
The top 5 global priorities -
Climate change. The emancipation of women. Racial equality. Sustainable growth. Fairer distribution of wealth.
These are all better tackled from a Left perspective imo. Indeed some of them can only be tackled from there.
Sure, they are priorities, and the left have some of the answers, as does the right. But if the left dont learn to count, the only solutions that will be tried here will be those of the right. UK politics is not an even battle of ideas, it is uphill and difficult for the left to win, especially to win and hold on to significant power. It is no surprise only Blair has done this for them.
For me climate change, preserving the earth, sustainable growth and fairer distribution of wealth are, in reality, all just different aspects of the same thing,
Until we stop measuring success of individuals in society and success of nations respectively in terms of the amount of the world's plundered assets they have hoarded in their bank accounts and GDP as currently measured, the whole rewards system that drives behaviour is at odds with the stated objectives. It leads to unfair distribution of wealth (including racial inequality at the wealth level), the ruination of the environment and thus climate change.
We need different metrics for both the value of individuals to society, and for a nation's well-being.
And I say that as a small c conservative, not as a lefty.
Fairer distribution of wealth means doing the opposite of whatever we did in 2020. The fabulously wealthy got fabulously wealthier and more powerful. Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg.
Meanwhile many small businesses were utterly destroyed, sometimes by government order.
I see their constant insulting of the French is paying dividends big time. This what happens when you shaft people thinking you are a smart arse , when you need a favour you get told where to go.
Scotland might want to think a little on the moral of that tale.....
Yes, I think we're in the final haggle on this. Assuming the corona state aid issue has been solved too, we should get a deal by Christmas Eve.
We're then into the fun realms of ratification - which won't necessarily be a cakewalk either.
I can see the UK and the EU reaching a deal.
And then Macron vetoes it.
Frantic discussions ensue in EU captials about how do they try and hold the line to stop countries doing their own side deals with the UK to implement the terms of that EU deal. Won't that be a shit-fest....where we effectively have a trade deal with the EU sans France.
That's definitely possible.
No it's not, the trade is an EU competence. If the French veto the deal the there won't be a trade deal for a few years and we'll negotiate up from a baseline of WTO membership rather than down from EU membership.
For the EU that could be a disaster because all of these governance and LPF issues might be acceptable currently but once we have it all back no government is ever going to negotiate that stuff away again.
No deal means tariffs for 3-4 years on EU/UK trade and the UK looks to Asia and Latin America with CPTPP membership and a tariff and NTB elimination deal with Mercosur.
It would be a historic miscalculation for the EU to push the no deal option it means any deal that is done in the future will never be as generous as this for them.
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
Blair was to all extents and purposes a Tory by the time he came to power. He occupied the Wet Tory space that Thatcher foolishly abandoned,
Blair was what we'd today call a liberal-left Remainer.
The reason he won, then, was because there wasn't a values split between the English WWC in 1997 (he even challenged them better than anyone else over Princess Diana's death) and everyone wanted public services investment, but it soured in the early noughties as he pursued asymmetric devolution and let rip with immigration. Labour have struggled ever since.
The current Labour leadership seem to think another 1997 will just happen automatically if the Tories are in power long enough.
It won't. The only question is how long it takes them to understand and engage with this.
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
They'd be better off with Burnham or Dan Jarvis, but they've both opted out, due to the binfire of the Corbyn era.
My only hope for SKS is that he is a Neil Kinnock figure i.e. gets rid of the idiots and steers them back to a place of viability in England. They're all over in Scotland, but they haven't faced up to that yet.
In Johnson the nation has the Prime Minister it desires and deserves.
Johnson is going nowhere. Even after the economic fallout from bad deal Bexit and Covid, the Conservatives will retain handsome majorities for another decade.
I thought they would be out by 2024, but one can feel the love for the man on the pages of PB and also in the council estates of Britain. He can do no wrong for 40% of the population. Equally, the continued disdain for post-Corbyn Labour remains palpable.
Pfizer is the toughest vaccine to distribute and we're also doing the hardest brackets (80+ & care homes) first.
So with easier to distribute vaccines and easier age groups and more practice we should see superior rollout numbers over time. The limiting factor will be how much vaccine we actually have in the country not distribution within the country (imo).
Care homes are particularly difficult to vaccinate with the Pfizer jab because you can't take the jab to the home, you need to take the patients to the hospital. Not at all easy logistically. People who can make their own way to where they need to be vaccinated is easier.
If it wasn't for the supercooled logistics it would be easier to take the doses to the home and get it done quickly.
Are you certain about this, PT?
Your post has prompted me to call my mum`s care home and they have (again) said that nurses will be coming to the care home to administer the vaccine to all the residents in one go. They said that care home residents cannot be taken to an external venue to be vaccinated as some cannot be moved due to their condition.
It will happen ultimately and they are planning it, but it is tougher to organise with the Pfizer jab than with other jabs. With a normal vaccine they could have relatively easily done it in the last fortnight - but with this one splitting off from the box of 975 vaccines a limited number to take to the home is a logistical challenge.
My experience is that staff are going to the hospital to get their vaccine already (which will reduce the risk already) prior to the residents themselves getting it. I do not know the timescale of getting it into the home but they are working on it I know but it is logistically complicated.
I believe they are working on plans to get it approved to split off doses so they can take a subset of doses eg to a home but that is where my knowledge is fuzzy and others will know better. I have no idea on the timescale of that. Could be days, could be weeks, I'm not sure but it won't be long as they are the number one priority.
That all sounds like the plan to vaccinate care home residents first is not proving to be correct.
Out of the 500k+ vaccinated with the first jab already - none of these are care home residents?
I was talking this morning to a chum whose son is high up in public health and sits in the Covid COBRA meetings.
Word from him was that this new mutation is bastard contagious....
That’s why the Times quote about Supercovid’s extra infectiousness leapt out at me. They didn’t cite the 0.4 lower range of R, but the higher one. 0.93. The article (and a similar one on Sky News) was clearly implying that scientists, even at this early stage, are tending to pessimism.
Brrrrr
Discussion here yesterday suggested it may just hang around in the body for longer, which wouldn't be so bad. But other sources (for example the good Dr John Campbell's video on it - his videoblogs are excellent, if you havent caught them) suggest it has other advantages including being better able to fight off the immune system's defences, which isn't so good.
Another suggestion in The Times is that Supercovid may still respond to vaccines, but be more resistant. In other words Pfizer’s 95% may go down to 60% or whatever.
That's an irresponsible suggestion because we don't know that there is any effect on the vaccine yet. Speculation here strikes me as counterproductive.
Then tell that to the Times science writer. I am merely conveying what he says
‘It’s unlikely that the vaccines won’t work but it is possible that they won’t work quite so well‘
To me, this is the only truly crucial question about the variant. Will the vax still work? If that's a "yes" then we're just looking at more difficult last 6 months of this pandemic rather than the start of a new one.
I am refusing to think about your second alternative there. Just too awful to process this side of xmas.
In that unlikely event, it would actually be very simple to change the mRNA vaccines (the original ones were designed in days). If the situation were sufficiently bad, I think it fairly probable we'd move straight to a large scale trial and mass production of the new vaccine.
Yes, I think that's the beauty of the mRNA model, it can be adjusted very quickly and then manufacturing can be switched over. It's a huge shame that the government didn't back the Imperial vaccine and spin it out into an mRNA focused biotech. It is definitely a missed opportunity for UK pharma and we had ample justification to provide state subsidies in this scenario with a golden stake taken in the spin off.
We could still fund the tech for the future on grounds of national security / pandemic response preparedness.
Yes, I guess we could but I don't think anyone in the government really understands the sector enough. Especially now that the vaccine taskforce seems to have been disbanded. There's all this bullshit talk about AI and data science from a bunch of numpties but we have got amazing scientific research in the country we don't properly commercialise.
Funding medical research is one thing we still do quite well. What tends to be lacking is sufficient capital to get it to the next stage.
For example, the world's best selling drug for several years now (Humira), and an entire commercial antibody development technology (phage display) was developed by Cambridge Antibody Technology. It was licensed to a US company for a royalty in low single figures, years before it was approved (and CAT was later bought by AZN).
I am intrigued why Imperial's vaccine candidate got so little funding from the massive pot that the government put forward. They have only received a few million quid in total so far.
Manufacturing. It needed £300-400m in investment to get manufacturing off the ground and I'm guessing the government didn't want to take that risk on a vaccine that wasn't already approved.
Perhaps Imperial forgot to find a mate or relative of the cabinet to act as a middleman for 10%.
On vaccination, I don't wish to be a killjoy, but wouldn't it be best to wait six months (or even a year) before boasting about the UK's performance? By then, we should know whether our rate of vaccination is world-beating, average or poor. In other words, it's too soon to judge right now.
It reminds me of back in May when many people were rushing to judgements about comparative death rates between countries when, as we now know, it was far too early to tell.
I think plenty of concern over delivery...but on procurement, credit where credit is due, the UK government have done well on the vaccine front.
This Country can test 500,000+ per day. The delivery of the vaccine is much simpler, Its just a jab. 2 million a day will not be a problem
I am no expert on logistics but vaccinating 2 million a day would see the whole UK vaccinated in a month
That is not anything near possible
Why not?
My wife is a nurse she can easily inject 500 people a day, just multiply it up, they have already recruited loads of retired nurses to do it, plus the armed forces, plus pharmacists. The Oxford jab is so easy to administer.
For the the flu jab - which is the easiest of jabs to administer and is done every year - the minimum time allotted for each patient at the surgery is 2 minutes. And this is if they are healthy and have no recorded medical issues. This is because the patient has to come in, run through a checklist to ensure they are safe to receive the jab and then get out again before the next person comes in so they don't mix with them.
500 jabs a day at 2 minutes a jab is 16 hours and 40 minutes. Without a break.
And that is for patients who are healthy. If they are not healthy then it takes longer as they have to be observed after the jab.
For the Covid jabs the instructions are that all patients are supposed to be observed for 15 minutes after injection, during which time they have to remain isolated from other patients. And prior to the injection the questionnaire on medical history and current health is much longer. You also have to have somewhere for all these people to sit or stand during this time whilst maintaining social distancing.
The idea that a single surgery can do 500 Covid jabs a day - even before you take into account all the non covid patients - is for the fairies. They have neither the staff nor the room.
My surgery in Barnes, Essex House, is a hub for the area. It did 2,000 vaccinations over three days. My son-in-law's mother was one of them. She is in her eighties.
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
You would have thought people on the left could realise that this is not a naturally left wing country, not even centre left. Counting is the first rule of politics and the most forgotten. Especially having lost Scotland, the choice for the left is an updated form of Blairite politics or Tory govts.
For our GE24, probably yes, but longer term I'm optimistic for the Left.
The top 5 global priorities -
Climate change. The emancipation of women. Racial equality. Sustainable growth. Fairer distribution of wealth.
These are all better tackled from a Left perspective imo. Indeed some of them can only be tackled from there.
Sure, they are priorities, and the left have some of the answers, as does the right. But if the left dont learn to count, the only solutions that will be tried here will be those of the right. UK politics is not an even battle of ideas, it is uphill and difficult for the left to win, especially to win and hold on to significant power. It is no surprise only Blair has done this for them.
For me climate change, preserving the earth, sustainable growth and fairer distribution of wealth are, in reality, all just different aspects of the same thing,
Until we stop measuring success of individuals in society and success of nations respectively in terms of the amount of the world's plundered assets they have hoarded in their bank accounts and GDP as currently measured, the whole rewards system that drives behaviour is at odds with the stated objectives. It leads to unfair distribution of wealth (including racial inequality at the wealth level), the ruination of the environment and thus climate change.
We need different metrics for both the value of individuals to society, and for a nation's well-being.
And I say that as a small c conservative, not as a lefty.
Fairer distribution of wealth means doing the opposite of whatever we did in 2020. The fabulously wealthy got fabulously wealthier and more powerful. Bezos, Gates, Zuckerberg.
Meanwhile many small businesses were utterly destroyed, sometimes by government order.
I think it is a safe bet that govt policies for the next decade, regardless of who is in charge, will indeed be the opposite of 2020!
Pfizer is the toughest vaccine to distribute and we're also doing the hardest brackets (80+ & care homes) first.
So with easier to distribute vaccines and easier age groups and more practice we should see superior rollout numbers over time. The limiting factor will be how much vaccine we actually have in the country not distribution within the country (imo).
Care homes are particularly difficult to vaccinate with the Pfizer jab because you can't take the jab to the home, you need to take the patients to the hospital. Not at all easy logistically. People who can make their own way to where they need to be vaccinated is easier.
If it wasn't for the supercooled logistics it would be easier to take the doses to the home and get it done quickly.
Are you certain about this, PT?
Your post has prompted me to call my mum`s care home and they have (again) said that nurses will be coming to the care home to administer the vaccine to all the residents in one go. They said that care home residents cannot be taken to an external venue to be vaccinated as some cannot be moved due to their condition.
It will happen ultimately and they are planning it, but it is tougher to organise with the Pfizer jab than with other jabs. With a normal vaccine they could have relatively easily done it in the last fortnight - but with this one splitting off from the box of 975 vaccines a limited number to take to the home is a logistical challenge.
My experience is that staff are going to the hospital to get their vaccine already (which will reduce the risk already) prior to the residents themselves getting it. I do not know the timescale of getting it into the home but they are working on it I know but it is logistically complicated.
I believe they are working on plans to get it approved to split off doses so they can take a subset of doses eg to a home but that is where my knowledge is fuzzy and others will know better. I have no idea on the timescale of that. Could be days, could be weeks, I'm not sure but it won't be long as they are the number one priority.
That all sounds like the plan to vaccinate care home residents first is not proving to be correct.
Out of the 500k+ vaccinated with the first jab already - none of these are care home residents?
I wouldn't say none, especially since many care home residents do go back and forth between hospitals regularly. Its a very real challenge, so that is why they are rolling out phase one and phase two simultaneously.
As soon as its possible to get it into the home that will be top priority but simply uplifting care home residents and taking them into hospital en-masse isn't possible for the reasons your mother's home said. The staff can make it there much easier though so your mum's home's staff should already be largely vaccinated which should give an element of protection to your mum already.
On vaccination, I don't wish to be a killjoy, but wouldn't it be best to wait six months (or even a year) before boasting about the UK's performance? By then, we should know whether our rate of vaccination is world-beating, average or poor. In other words, it's too soon to judge right now.
It reminds me of back in May when many people were rushing to judgements about comparative death rates between countries when, as we now know, it was far too early to tell.
I think plenty of concern over delivery...but on procurement, credit where credit is due, the UK government have done well on the vaccine front.
This Country can test 500,000+ per day. The delivery of the vaccine is much simpler, Its just a jab. 2 million a day will not be a problem
I am no expert on logistics but vaccinating 2 million a day would see the whole UK vaccinated in a month
That is not anything near possible
Why not?
My wife is a nurse she can easily inject 500 people a day, just multiply it up, they have already recruited loads of retired nurses to do it, plus the armed forces, plus pharmacists. The Oxford jab is so easy to administer.
For the the flu jab - which is the easiest of jabs to administer and is done every year - the minimum time allotted for each patient at the surgery is 2 minutes. And this is if they are healthy and have no recorded medical issues. This is because the patient has to come in, run through a checklist to ensure they are safe to receive the jab and then get out again before the next person comes in so they don't mix with them.
500 jabs a day at 2 minutes a jab is 16 hours and 40 minutes. Without a break.
And that is for patients who are healthy. If they are not healthy then it takes longer as they have to be observed after the jab.
For the Covid jabs the instructions are that all patients are supposed to be observed for 15 minutes after injection, during which time they have to remain isolated from other patients. And prior to the injection the questionnaire on medical history and current health is much longer. You also have to have somewhere for all these people to sit or stand during this time whilst maintaining social distancing.
The idea that a single surgery can do 500 Covid jabs a day - even before you take into account all the non covid patients - is for the fairies. They have neither the staff nor the room.
My surgery in Barnes, Essex House, is a hub for the area. It did 2,000 vaccinations over three days. My son-in-law's mother was one of them. She is in her eighties.
They have to be able to do 975 in three days to get a box. Sounds like they're able to do 2 boxes which is fantastic!
Uzbekistan bans entry of British nationals travelling from UK
Damn and here was me thinking I might take a last minute trip there...
Not sure about those making their decisions...
The government's special commission on anti-coronavirus efforts said on December 22 that citizens of Australia, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, South Africa, and the United Kingdom will not be able to enter Central Asia's most populous nation of 32 million until January 10
Australians banned...the place with basically no covid.
Shame. Uzbekistan is an undiscovered jewel. I went there three years ago and it was great.
As long as you don't mind eating mutton and rice for three meals a day ...
Interesting tone. This isn't a negotiation where the UK may need to give in to French demands. The French have absolute discretion about who and how they let in people from the UK, when the default is to let in no-one at all. The UK is asking for some slack from the French as a favour, that presumably will be reciprocated at some point.
I know it is a low base but Boris ahead of Macron may surprise some
Don't French presidents always have stunningly low approval ratings ?
Macron will likely be re elected merely because his second round opponent will almost certainly be Le Pen again, if however Les Republicains found a half decent candidate and they managed to get to the second round instead of Le Pen then Macron could lose
On vaccination, I don't wish to be a killjoy, but wouldn't it be best to wait six months (or even a year) before boasting about the UK's performance? By then, we should know whether our rate of vaccination is world-beating, average or poor. In other words, it's too soon to judge right now.
It reminds me of back in May when many people were rushing to judgements about comparative death rates between countries when, as we now know, it was far too early to tell.
I think plenty of concern over delivery...but on procurement, credit where credit is due, the UK government have done well on the vaccine front.
This Country can test 500,000+ per day. The delivery of the vaccine is much simpler, Its just a jab. 2 million a day will not be a problem
I am no expert on logistics but vaccinating 2 million a day would see the whole UK vaccinated in a month
That is not anything near possible
Why not?
My wife is a nurse she can easily inject 500 people a day, just multiply it up, they have already recruited loads of retired nurses to do it, plus the armed forces, plus pharmacists. The Oxford jab is so easy to administer.
For the the flu jab - which is the easiest of jabs to administer and is done every year - the minimum time allotted for each patient at the surgery is 2 minutes. And this is if they are healthy and have no recorded medical issues. This is because the patient has to come in, run through a checklist to ensure they are safe to receive the jab and then get out again before the next person comes in so they don't mix with them.
500 jabs a day at 2 minutes a jab is 16 hours and 40 minutes. Without a break.
And that is for patients who are healthy. If they are not healthy then it takes longer as they have to be observed after the jab.
For the Covid jabs the instructions are that all patients are supposed to be observed for 15 minutes after injection, during which time they have to remain isolated from other patients. And prior to the injection the questionnaire on medical history and current health is much longer. You also have to have somewhere for all these people to sit or stand during this time whilst maintaining social distancing.
The idea that a single surgery can do 500 Covid jabs a day - even before you take into account all the non covid patients - is for the fairies. They have neither the staff nor the room.
My surgery in Barnes, Essex House, is a hub for the area. It did 2,000 vaccinations over three days. My son-in-law's mother was one of them. She is in her eighties.
As I keep saying we can test 500000+ per day. Vaccinating is so much easier.
I know it is a low base but Boris ahead of Macron may surprise some
Don't French presidents always have stunningly low approval ratings ?
It also doesn't matter because Macron wins in the final round vs Le Pen. Maybe a narrower victory than last time but he'll still walk it.
Le Pen has kind of converted the French electoral system into FPTP (minus Le Pen). Whoever wins a plurality the first round (minus Le Pen) gets the job.
On vaccination, I don't wish to be a killjoy, but wouldn't it be best to wait six months (or even a year) before boasting about the UK's performance? By then, we should know whether our rate of vaccination is world-beating, average or poor. In other words, it's too soon to judge right now.
It reminds me of back in May when many people were rushing to judgements about comparative death rates between countries when, as we now know, it was far too early to tell.
I think plenty of concern over delivery...but on procurement, credit where credit is due, the UK government have done well on the vaccine front.
This Country can test 500,000+ per day. The delivery of the vaccine is much simpler, Its just a jab. 2 million a day will not be a problem
I am no expert on logistics but vaccinating 2 million a day would see the whole UK vaccinated in a month
That is not anything near possible
Why not?
My wife is a nurse she can easily inject 500 people a day, just multiply it up, they have already recruited loads of retired nurses to do it, plus the armed forces, plus pharmacists. The Oxford jab is so easy to administer.
For the the flu jab - which is the easiest of jabs to administer and is done every year - the minimum time allotted for each patient at the surgery is 2 minutes. And this is if they are healthy and have no recorded medical issues. This is because the patient has to come in, run through a checklist to ensure they are safe to receive the jab and then get out again before the next person comes in so they don't mix with them.
500 jabs a day at 2 minutes a jab is 16 hours and 40 minutes. Without a break.
And that is for patients who are healthy. If they are not healthy then it takes longer as they have to be observed after the jab.
For the Covid jabs the instructions are that all patients are supposed to be observed for 15 minutes after injection, during which time they have to remain isolated from other patients. And prior to the injection the questionnaire on medical history and current health is much longer. You also have to have somewhere for all these people to sit or stand during this time whilst maintaining social distancing.
The idea that a single surgery can do 500 Covid jabs a day - even before you take into account all the non covid patients - is for the fairies. They have neither the staff nor the room.
Presumably you mean single nurse not single surgery?
For the flu jab, my surgery was running at 200 an hour (sat in the car and counted), using 4 lanes ie 4 nurses.
Since the average GP surgery in the UK has a number of qualified nurses on its staff, those sort of approx numbers are doable for a period even without extra staff being brought in.
Presumably some of the Drs can also do the COVID jabs.
Personally I'm watching for a mass vaccination programme in schools.
On vaccination, I don't wish to be a killjoy, but wouldn't it be best to wait six months (or even a year) before boasting about the UK's performance? By then, we should know whether our rate of vaccination is world-beating, average or poor. In other words, it's too soon to judge right now.
It reminds me of back in May when many people were rushing to judgements about comparative death rates between countries when, as we now know, it was far too early to tell.
I think plenty of concern over delivery...but on procurement, credit where credit is due, the UK government have done well on the vaccine front.
This Country can test 500,000+ per day. The delivery of the vaccine is much simpler, Its just a jab. 2 million a day will not be a problem
I am no expert on logistics but vaccinating 2 million a day would see the whole UK vaccinated in a month
That is not anything near possible
Why not?
My wife is a nurse she can easily inject 500 people a day, just multiply it up, they have already recruited loads of retired nurses to do it, plus the armed forces, plus pharmacists. The Oxford jab is so easy to administer.
For the the flu jab - which is the easiest of jabs to administer and is done every year - the minimum time allotted for each patient at the surgery is 2 minutes. And this is if they are healthy and have no recorded medical issues. This is because the patient has to come in, run through a checklist to ensure they are safe to receive the jab and then get out again before the next person comes in so they don't mix with them.
500 jabs a day at 2 minutes a jab is 16 hours and 40 minutes. Without a break.
And that is for patients who are healthy. If they are not healthy then it takes longer as they have to be observed after the jab.
For the Covid jabs the instructions are that all patients are supposed to be observed for 15 minutes after injection, during which time they have to remain isolated from other patients. And prior to the injection the questionnaire on medical history and current health is much longer. You also have to have somewhere for all these people to sit or stand during this time whilst maintaining social distancing.
The idea that a single surgery can do 500 Covid jabs a day - even before you take into account all the non covid patients - is for the fairies. They have neither the staff nor the room.
My surgery in Barnes, Essex House, is a hub for the area. It did 2,000 vaccinations over three days. My son-in-law's mother was one of them. She is in her eighties.
As I keep saying we can test 500000+ per day. Vaccinating is so much easier.
Somewhat an apples and oranges comparison though. We can post a test to someone's home with an Amazon/Royal Mail driver and get it picked up with them too.
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
They'd be better off with Burnham or Dan Jarvis, but they've both opted out, due to the binfire of the Corbyn era.
My only hope for SKS is that he is a Neil Kinnock figure i.e. gets rid of the idiots and steers them back to a place of viability in England. They're all over in Scotland, but they haven't faced up to that yet.
In Johnson the nation has the Prime Minister it desires and deserves.
Johnson is going nowhere. Even after the economic fallout from bad deal Bexit and Covid, the Conservatives will retain handsome majorities for another decade.
I thought they would be out by 2024, but one can feel the love for the man on the pages of PB and also in the council estates of Britain. He can do no wrong for 40% of the population. Equally, the continued disdain for post-Corbyn Labour remains palpable.
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
Blair was to all extents and purposes a Tory by the time he came to power. He occupied the Wet Tory space that Thatcher foolishly abandoned,
After Thatcher and Boris and Cameron, Blair is arguably our most rightwing postwar PM, certainly on economic grounds
What!? 😲
Preposterous. Absolutely preposterous to suggest that Blair with Brown as Chancellor was more rightwing than Major with Clarke.
From 1997 to 2001 Blair spent less than the final years of the Major government and kept the top income tax rate the same
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
Blair was to all extents and purposes a Tory by the time he came to power. He occupied the Wet Tory space that Thatcher foolishly abandoned,
After Thatcher and Boris and Cameron, Blair is arguably our most rightwing postwar PM, certainly on economic grounds
What!? 😲
Preposterous. Absolutely preposterous to suggest that Blair with Brown as Chancellor was more rightwing than Major with Clarke.
From 1997 to 2001 Blair spent less than the final years of the Major government and kept the top income tax rate the same
Which in part is why I voted for him in 2001.
Blair was not simply in power until 2001 though was he? Why ignore 2001+? 🙄
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
Blair was to all extents and purposes a Tory by the time he came to power. He occupied the Wet Tory space that Thatcher foolishly abandoned,
Blair was what we'd today call a liberal-left Remainer.
The reason he won, then, was because there wasn't a values split between the English WWC in 1997 (he even challenged them better than anyone else over Princess Diana's death) and everyone wanted public services investment, but it soured in the early noughties as he pursued asymmetric devolution and let rip with immigration. Labour have struggled ever since.
The current Labour leadership seem to think another 1997 will just happen automatically if the Tories are in power long enough.
It won't. The only question is how long it takes them to understand and engage with this.
And it might be never.
At the moment Labour don't need another 1997, Starmer will get into No 10 thanks to support from SNP MPs even if the Tories win most seats.
If however Scotland went then Labour would have no choice but to shift back to Blairism and New Labour and go even further than Starmer's Brownite social democracy to have a chance of winning. In 2010 and 2017 for example the Tories won a comfortable majority of seats in England alone despite the hung parliaments in the UK overall
I see their constant insulting of the French is paying dividends big time. This what happens when you shaft people thinking you are a smart arse , when you need a favour you get told where to go.
It’s a damn good job the SNP haven’t been insulting, belittling, lying about and generally behaving like xenophobic lunatics towards the UK government then.
Otherwise, they would be in deep shit if they wanted to go independent and remain in, say, a currency union.
Frost has pushed our (Definitely not a pair of aces) hand to the absolute limit with regards to an EU deal. If it pays off, then I'll have to say well done. If we fail to reach a deal then it'll be all for naught.
Fingers crossed.
Bad take, Pulp. The Deal is certain and it will be pretty much as could have been agreed ages ago. The "pay off" for the "to the wire" theatrics and the No Deal hyping will not be the Deal itself, it will be that many people's response will be what you indicate yours will be. A great big "phew" and "well done Boris". That is the game here.
Several things can be true at once.
1. There will be a deal, because the Johnson and Gove haven't really prepared for No Deal. 2. The big picture of that deal will be one outlined by Barnier back in... 2017? No tarrifs/no quotas/lots of paperwork/some fish/more alignment than Canada. 3. Frostie has probably done as well as can be done. Some of the wins are the striking out of the obviously outrageous things in the initial EU plan. (Everyone who does serious negotiation starts out absurd, don't they? It's part of the game, which is why I try to avoid it.) But there does seem to have been a genuine move, even if the UK has moved more. That's OK. 4. Looking at the gains (real control of immigration, the ability to do trade deals with remote nations, sense of national vim, however much it actually is a week) and losses (border faff hurting trade, a loss of input into EU deliberations), the gains look small but visible, the losses look less visible but potentially larger. That came from BoJo's choice; we can only see what happens. 5. It's quite possible that the cost of all this faffing around over the last six months (because everyone knows that the first few months of our Brave New Future will be a mess, because nobody has been able to plan) will exceed the value of the gains by comparing what we settle for now with what we could have settled for in the summer. 6. The gap between the actual deal done and what some in the media and ERG have been expecting will be interesting to watch over the years to come.
1. I don't think No Deal could have been prepared for. It's a mirage. 2. Yep. We get end of FOM and more Fish. They protect their SM. That's the deal. 3. No complaints from me about Frost. He's done the job he was asked to do. 4. Agreed. The gains look less tangible than the costs. 5. Any marginal gains from going to the wire will not justify the fear and chaos caused. 6, Yes. I'm looking forward to how Johnson sells the deal to Redwood & Co.
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
Blair was to all extents and purposes a Tory by the time he came to power. He occupied the Wet Tory space that Thatcher foolishly abandoned,
After Thatcher and Boris and Cameron, Blair is arguably our most rightwing postwar PM, certainly on economic grounds
What!? 😲
Preposterous. Absolutely preposterous to suggest that Blair with Brown as Chancellor was more rightwing than Major with Clarke.
From 1997 to 2001 Blair spent less than the final years of the Major government and kept the top income tax rate the same
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
They'd be better off with Burnham or Dan Jarvis, but they've both opted out, due to the binfire of the Corbyn era.
My only hope for SKS is that he is a Neil Kinnock figure i.e. gets rid of the idiots and steers them back to a place of viability in England. They're all over in Scotland, but they haven't faced up to that yet.
In Johnson the nation has the Prime Minister it desires and deserves.
To continue quoting from The Dark Knight: ‘but not the one it needs right now.’
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
Blair was to all extents and purposes a Tory by the time he came to power. He occupied the Wet Tory space that Thatcher foolishly abandoned,
After Thatcher and Boris and Cameron, Blair is arguably our most rightwing postwar PM, certainly on economic grounds
What!? 😲
Preposterous. Absolutely preposterous to suggest that Blair with Brown as Chancellor was more rightwing than Major with Clarke.
From 1997 to 2001 Blair spent less than the final years of the Major government and kept the top income tax rate the same
Which in part is why I voted for him in 2001.
Blair was not simply in power until 2001 though was he? Why ignore 2001+? 🙄
Even including the full Blair years from 1997 to 2001 the top rate of income tax under Blair was lower than under any postwar UK PMs bar Thatcher and Major and as I said he also spent less than Major in his early years in power.
Although a social liberal in purely economic terms Blair was arguably our most Thatcherite PM since WW2 after Thatcher herself, Thatcher even famously said 'Tony will not let us down.' He was also closely tied to the US and had a close relationship with a Republican President as she did
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
You would have thought people on the left could realise that this is not a naturally left wing country, not even centre left. Counting is the first rule of politics and the most forgotten. Especially having lost Scotland, the choice for the left is an updated form of Blairite politics or Tory govts.
For our GE24, probably yes, but longer term I'm optimistic for the Left.
The top 5 global priorities -
Climate change. The emancipation of women. Racial equality. Sustainable growth. Fairer distribution of wealth.
These are all better tackled from a Left perspective imo. Indeed some of them can only be tackled from there.
Sure, they are priorities, and the left have some of the answers, as does the right. But if the left dont learn to count, the only solutions that will be tried here will be those of the right. UK politics is not an even battle of ideas, it is uphill and difficult for the left to win, especially to win and hold on to significant power. It is no surprise only Blair has done this for them.
I sort of agree with you but my sense is that Labour can win from the Left given the right leader and messaging and policies. The platform and the person have to be contemporary not a 70s rehash.
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
They'd be better off with Burnham or Dan Jarvis, but they've both opted out, due to the binfire of the Corbyn era.
My only hope for SKS is that he is a Neil Kinnock figure i.e. gets rid of the idiots and steers them back to a place of viability in England. They're all over in Scotland, but they haven't faced up to that yet.
In Johnson the nation has the Prime Minister it desires and deserves.
To continue quoting from The Dark Knight: ‘but not the one it needs right now.’
I am probably on here far too much for my own good. Perhaps I am starting to believe the pro-Johnson hype I read here every day.
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
Blair was to all extents and purposes a Tory by the time he came to power. He occupied the Wet Tory space that Thatcher foolishly abandoned,
Blair was what we'd today call a liberal-left Remainer.
The reason he won, then, was because there wasn't a values split between the English WWC in 1997 (he even challenged them better than anyone else over Princess Diana's death) and everyone wanted public services investment, but it soured in the early noughties as he pursued asymmetric devolution and let rip with immigration. Labour have struggled ever since.
The current Labour leadership seem to think another 1997 will just happen automatically if the Tories are in power long enough.
It won't. The only question is how long it takes them to understand and engage with this.
And it might be never.
I wouldn't have called Blair's Govt liberal, but that might be just me. I find both Labour and the Tories too authoritarian for my liking.
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
Blair was to all extents and purposes a Tory by the time he came to power. He occupied the Wet Tory space that Thatcher foolishly abandoned,
Blair was what we'd today call a liberal-left Remainer.
The reason he won, then, was because there wasn't a values split between the English WWC in 1997 (he even challenged them better than anyone else over Princess Diana's death) and everyone wanted public services investment, but it soured in the early noughties as he pursued asymmetric devolution and let rip with immigration. Labour have struggled ever since.
The current Labour leadership seem to think another 1997 will just happen automatically if the Tories are in power long enough.
It won't. The only question is how long it takes them to understand and engage with this.
And it might be never.
I wouldn't have called Blair's Govt liberal, but that might be just me. I find both Labour and the Tories too authoritarian for my liking.
He had a mix of liberalism and authoritarianism. It depends upon the issue.
On vaccination, I don't wish to be a killjoy, but wouldn't it be best to wait six months (or even a year) before boasting about the UK's performance? By then, we should know whether our rate of vaccination is world-beating, average or poor. In other words, it's too soon to judge right now.
It reminds me of back in May when many people were rushing to judgements about comparative death rates between countries when, as we now know, it was far too early to tell.
I think plenty of concern over delivery...but on procurement, credit where credit is due, the UK government have done well on the vaccine front.
This Country can test 500,000+ per day. The delivery of the vaccine is much simpler, Its just a jab. 2 million a day will not be a problem
I am no expert on logistics but vaccinating 2 million a day would see the whole UK vaccinated in a month
That is not anything near possible
Why not?
My wife is a nurse she can easily inject 500 people a day, just multiply it up, they have already recruited loads of retired nurses to do it, plus the armed forces, plus pharmacists. The Oxford jab is so easy to administer.
For the the flu jab - which is the easiest of jabs to administer and is done every year - the minimum time allotted for each patient at the surgery is 2 minutes. And this is if they are healthy and have no recorded medical issues. This is because the patient has to come in, run through a checklist to ensure they are safe to receive the jab and then get out again before the next person comes in so they don't mix with them.
500 jabs a day at 2 minutes a jab is 16 hours and 40 minutes. Without a break.
And that is for patients who are healthy. If they are not healthy then it takes longer as they have to be observed after the jab.
For the Covid jabs the instructions are that all patients are supposed to be observed for 15 minutes after injection, during which time they have to remain isolated from other patients. And prior to the injection the questionnaire on medical history and current health is much longer. You also have to have somewhere for all these people to sit or stand during this time whilst maintaining social distancing.
The idea that a single surgery can do 500 Covid jabs a day - even before you take into account all the non covid patients - is for the fairies. They have neither the staff nor the room.
My surgery in Barnes, Essex House, is a hub for the area. It did 2,000 vaccinations over three days. My son-in-law's mother was one of them. She is in her eighties.
As I keep saying we can test 500000+ per day. Vaccinating is so much easier.
Somewhat an apples and oranges comparison though. We can post a test to someone's home with an Amazon/Royal Mail driver and get it picked up with them too.
Can't be done with an injection.
My wife is currently doing 200+ Pfizer vaccines a day herself. It really is easy.
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
You would have thought people on the left could realise that this is not a naturally left wing country, not even centre left. Counting is the first rule of politics and the most forgotten. Especially having lost Scotland, the choice for the left is an updated form of Blairite politics or Tory govts.
For our GE24, probably yes, but longer term I'm optimistic for the Left.
The top 5 global priorities -
Climate change. The emancipation of women. Racial equality. Sustainable growth. Fairer distribution of wealth.
These are all better tackled from a Left perspective imo. Indeed some of them can only be tackled from there.
Sure, they are priorities, and the left have some of the answers, as does the right. But if the left dont learn to count, the only solutions that will be tried here will be those of the right. UK politics is not an even battle of ideas, it is uphill and difficult for the left to win, especially to win and hold on to significant power. It is no surprise only Blair has done this for them.
I sort of agree with you but my sense is that Labour can win from the Left given the right leader and messaging and policies. The platform and the person have to be contemporary not a 70s rehash.
Only with Scottish MPs support and certainly for any sustained period
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
You would have thought people on the left could realise that this is not a naturally left wing country, not even centre left. Counting is the first rule of politics and the most forgotten. Especially having lost Scotland, the choice for the left is an updated form of Blairite politics or Tory govts.
For our GE24, probably yes, but longer term I'm optimistic for the Left.
The top 5 global priorities -
Climate change. The emancipation of women. Racial equality. Sustainable growth. Fairer distribution of wealth.
These are all better tackled from a Left perspective imo. Indeed some of them can only be tackled from there.
The problem is people have been saying similar things ever since the time of the French Revolution.
And always they have ultimately been disappointed.
Worse, very often it was their own governments that disappointed them. The Soviet and Chinese governments stand as examples of governments who came to power promising similar things to those on your list - but ultimately ended up achieving more or less the opposite.
And indeed much progress has been made. I'm not envisaging a comeback for totalitarian communism btw, I'm saying that imo the future should and will see the dominant form of government being left of centre (as we now think of it) and both activist and progressive on the issues I listed.
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
Blair was to all extents and purposes a Tory by the time he came to power. He occupied the Wet Tory space that Thatcher foolishly abandoned,
Blair was what we'd today call a liberal-left Remainer.
The reason he won, then, was because there wasn't a values split between the English WWC in 1997 (he even challenged them better than anyone else over Princess Diana's death) and everyone wanted public services investment, but it soured in the early noughties as he pursued asymmetric devolution and let rip with immigration. Labour have struggled ever since.
The current Labour leadership seem to think another 1997 will just happen automatically if the Tories are in power long enough.
It won't. The only question is how long it takes them to understand and engage with this.
And it might be never.
I wouldn't have called Blair's Govt liberal, but that might be just me. I find both Labour and the Tories too authoritarian for my liking.
On vaccination, I don't wish to be a killjoy, but wouldn't it be best to wait six months (or even a year) before boasting about the UK's performance? By then, we should know whether our rate of vaccination is world-beating, average or poor. In other words, it's too soon to judge right now.
It reminds me of back in May when many people were rushing to judgements about comparative death rates between countries when, as we now know, it was far too early to tell.
I think plenty of concern over delivery...but on procurement, credit where credit is due, the UK government have done well on the vaccine front.
This Country can test 500,000+ per day. The delivery of the vaccine is much simpler, Its just a jab. 2 million a day will not be a problem
I am no expert on logistics but vaccinating 2 million a day would see the whole UK vaccinated in a month
That is not anything near possible
Why not?
My wife is a nurse she can easily inject 500 people a day, just multiply it up, they have already recruited loads of retired nurses to do it, plus the armed forces, plus pharmacists. The Oxford jab is so easy to administer.
For the the flu jab - which is the easiest of jabs to administer and is done every year - the minimum time allotted for each patient at the surgery is 2 minutes. And this is if they are healthy and have no recorded medical issues. This is because the patient has to come in, run through a checklist to ensure they are safe to receive the jab and then get out again before the next person comes in so they don't mix with them.
500 jabs a day at 2 minutes a jab is 16 hours and 40 minutes. Without a break.
And that is for patients who are healthy. If they are not healthy then it takes longer as they have to be observed after the jab.
For the Covid jabs the instructions are that all patients are supposed to be observed for 15 minutes after injection, during which time they have to remain isolated from other patients. And prior to the injection the questionnaire on medical history and current health is much longer. You also have to have somewhere for all these people to sit or stand during this time whilst maintaining social distancing.
The idea that a single surgery can do 500 Covid jabs a day - even before you take into account all the non covid patients - is for the fairies. They have neither the staff nor the room.
My surgery in Barnes, Essex House, is a hub for the area. It did 2,000 vaccinations over three days. My son-in-law's mother was one of them. She is in her eighties.
As I keep saying we can test 500000+ per day. Vaccinating is so much easier.
Somewhat an apples and oranges comparison though. We can post a test to someone's home with an Amazon/Royal Mail driver and get it picked up with them too.
Can't be done with an injection.
My wife is currently doing 200+ Pfizer vaccines a day herself. It really is easy.
It is but if you want to compare with testing you really need to compare with administered testing not total testing. Self-administered tests don't really compare.
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
You would have thought people on the left could realise that this is not a naturally left wing country, not even centre left. Counting is the first rule of politics and the most forgotten. Especially having lost Scotland, the choice for the left is an updated form of Blairite politics or Tory govts.
For our GE24, probably yes, but longer term I'm optimistic for the Left.
The top 5 global priorities -
Climate change. The emancipation of women. Racial equality. Sustainable growth. Fairer distribution of wealth.
These are all better tackled from a Left perspective imo. Indeed some of them can only be tackled from there.
The problem is people have been saying similar things ever since the time of the French Revolution.
And always they have ultimately been disappointed.
Worse, very often it was their own governments that disappointed them. The Soviet and Chinese governments stand as examples of governments who came to power promising similar things to those on your list - but ultimately ended up achieving more or less the opposite.
And indeed much progress has been made. I'm not envisaging a comeback for totalitarian communism btw, I'm saying that imo the future should and will see the dominant form of government being left of centre (as we now think of it) and both activist and progressive on the issues I listed.
Every year, humanity takes a step towards Commnusm. Maybe not you, but at all events, your grandson will certainly be a communist.
Who said that and to whom, and why is it very ironic?
Frost has pushed our (Definitely not a pair of aces) hand to the absolute limit with regards to an EU deal. If it pays off, then I'll have to say well done. If we fail to reach a deal then it'll be all for naught.
Fingers crossed.
Bad take, Pulp. The Deal is certain and it will be pretty much as could have been agreed ages ago. The "pay off" for the "to the wire" theatrics and the No Deal hyping will not be the Deal itself, it will be that many people's response will be what you indicate yours will be. A great big "phew" and "well done Boris". That is the game here.
Several things can be true at once.
1. There will be a deal, because the Johnson and Gove haven't really prepared for No Deal. 2. The big picture of that deal will be one outlined by Barnier back in... 2017? No tarrifs/no quotas/lots of paperwork/some fish/more alignment than Canada. 3. Frostie has probably done as well as can be done. Some of the wins are the striking out of the obviously outrageous things in the initial EU plan. (Everyone who does serious negotiation starts out absurd, don't they? It's part of the game, which is why I try to avoid it.) But there does seem to have been a genuine move, even if the UK has moved more. That's OK. 4. Looking at the gains (real control of immigration, the ability to do trade deals with remote nations, sense of national vim, however much it actually is a week) and losses (border faff hurting trade, a loss of input into EU deliberations), the gains look small but visible, the losses look less visible but potentially larger. That came from BoJo's choice; we can only see what happens. 5. It's quite possible that the cost of all this faffing around over the last six months (because everyone knows that the first few months of our Brave New Future will be a mess, because nobody has been able to plan) will exceed the value of the gains by comparing what we settle for now with what we could have settled for in the summer. 6. The gap between the actual deal done and what some in the media and ERG have been expecting will be interesting to watch over the years to come.
1. I don't think No Deal could have been prepared for. It's a mirage. 2. Yep. We get end of FOM and more Fish. They protect their SM. That's the deal. 3. No complaints from me about Frost. He's done the job he was asked to do. 4. Agreed. The gains look less tangible than the costs. 5. Any marginal gains from going to the wire will not justify the fear and chaos caused. 6, Yes. I'm looking forward to how Johnson sells the deal to Redwood & Co.
In the short term, it's pretty clear that the selling approach will be the same one used by Dodgy Timeshare Salesman. Trap them in a room and give them no time to read or think. So the Deal can't be finalised until December 29, and then voted on December 30 and 31. (I seriously wonder if that's what's holding things up now.)
It's a terrible idea by most standards, but it's probably Johnson's best bet. And if Redwood and co don't like it, what are they going to do?
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
You would have thought people on the left could realise that this is not a naturally left wing country, not even centre left. Counting is the first rule of politics and the most forgotten. Especially having lost Scotland, the choice for the left is an updated form of Blairite politics or Tory govts.
For our GE24, probably yes, but longer term I'm optimistic for the Left.
The top 5 global priorities -
Climate change. The emancipation of women. Racial equality. Sustainable growth. Fairer distribution of wealth.
These are all better tackled from a Left perspective imo. Indeed some of them can only be tackled from there.
The problem is people have been saying similar things ever since the time of the French Revolution.
And always they have ultimately been disappointed.
Worse, very often it was their own governments that disappointed them. The Soviet and Chinese governments stand as examples of governments who came to power promising similar things to those on your list - but ultimately ended up achieving more or less the opposite.
And indeed much progress has been made. I'm not envisaging a comeback for totalitarian communism btw, I'm saying that imo the future should and will see the dominant form of government being left of centre (as we now think of it) and both activist and progressive on the issues I listed.
Every year, humanity takes a step towards Commnusm. Maybe not you, but at all events, your grandson will certainly be a communist.
Who said that and to whom, and why is it very ironic?
On vaccination, I don't wish to be a killjoy, but wouldn't it be best to wait six months (or even a year) before boasting about the UK's performance? By then, we should know whether our rate of vaccination is world-beating, average or poor. In other words, it's too soon to judge right now.
It reminds me of back in May when many people were rushing to judgements about comparative death rates between countries when, as we now know, it was far too early to tell.
I think plenty of concern over delivery...but on procurement, credit where credit is due, the UK government have done well on the vaccine front.
This Country can test 500,000+ per day. The delivery of the vaccine is much simpler, Its just a jab. 2 million a day will not be a problem
I am no expert on logistics but vaccinating 2 million a day would see the whole UK vaccinated in a month
That is not anything near possible
Why not?
My wife is a nurse she can easily inject 500 people a day, just multiply it up, they have already recruited loads of retired nurses to do it, plus the armed forces, plus pharmacists. The Oxford jab is so easy to administer.
For the the flu jab - which is the easiest of jabs to administer and is done every year - the minimum time allotted for each patient at the surgery is 2 minutes. And this is if they are healthy and have no recorded medical issues. This is because the patient has to come in, run through a checklist to ensure they are safe to receive the jab and then get out again before the next person comes in so they don't mix with them.
500 jabs a day at 2 minutes a jab is 16 hours and 40 minutes. Without a break.
And that is for patients who are healthy. If they are not healthy then it takes longer as they have to be observed after the jab.
For the Covid jabs the instructions are that all patients are supposed to be observed for 15 minutes after injection, during which time they have to remain isolated from other patients. And prior to the injection the questionnaire on medical history and current health is much longer. You also have to have somewhere for all these people to sit or stand during this time whilst maintaining social distancing.
The idea that a single surgery can do 500 Covid jabs a day - even before you take into account all the non covid patients - is for the fairies. They have neither the staff nor the room.
Presumably you mean single nurse not single surgery?
For the flu jab, my surgery was running at 200 an hour (sat in the car and counted), using 4 lanes ie 4 nurses.
Since the average GP surgery in the UK has a number of qualified nurses on its staff, those sort of approx numbers are doable for a period even without extra staff being brought in.
Presumably some of the Drs can also do the COVID jabs.
Personally I'm watching for a mass vaccination programme in schools.
But again you need the space to have the patient sit there for 15 minutes after the Covid jab has been administered. Which takes a lot of space. Far more than most local surgeries have available.
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
You would have thought people on the left could realise that this is not a naturally left wing country, not even centre left. Counting is the first rule of politics and the most forgotten. Especially having lost Scotland, the choice for the left is an updated form of Blairite politics or Tory govts.
For our GE24, probably yes, but longer term I'm optimistic for the Left.
The top 5 global priorities -
Climate change. The emancipation of women. Racial equality. Sustainable growth. Fairer distribution of wealth.
These are all better tackled from a Left perspective imo. Indeed some of them can only be tackled from there.
The problem is people have been saying similar things ever since the time of the French Revolution.
And always they have ultimately been disappointed.
Worse, very often it was their own governments that disappointed them. The Soviet and Chinese governments stand as examples of governments who came to power promising similar things to those on your list - but ultimately ended up achieving more or less the opposite.
And indeed much progress has been made. I'm not envisaging a comeback for totalitarian communism btw, I'm saying that imo the future should and will see the dominant form of government being left of centre (as we now think of it) and both activist and progressive on the issues I listed.
Every year, humanity takes a step towards Commnusm. Maybe not you, but at all events, your grandson will certainly be a communist.
Who said that and to whom, and why is it very ironic?
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
You would have thought people on the left could realise that this is not a naturally left wing country, not even centre left. Counting is the first rule of politics and the most forgotten. Especially having lost Scotland, the choice for the left is an updated form of Blairite politics or Tory govts.
For our GE24, probably yes, but longer term I'm optimistic for the Left.
The top 5 global priorities -
Climate change. The emancipation of women. Racial equality. Sustainable growth. Fairer distribution of wealth.
These are all better tackled from a Left perspective imo. Indeed some of them can only be tackled from there.
Sure, they are priorities, and the left have some of the answers, as does the right. But if the left dont learn to count, the only solutions that will be tried here will be those of the right. UK politics is not an even battle of ideas, it is uphill and difficult for the left to win, especially to win and hold on to significant power. It is no surprise only Blair has done this for them.
I sort of agree with you but my sense is that Labour can win from the Left given the right leader and messaging and policies. The platform and the person have to be contemporary not a 70s rehash.
SKS is just too boring to win, and that comes from someone who likes boring politicians and used to be in the party. He can make the party electable, but not elected.
I am with @Dura_Ace. Rayner is the one who could win. She has the necessary passion, and can appeal to both the Red Wall and the Corbynites.
On topic, a one in seven chance of Trump still being in the White House after 20 January seems ridiculously high. For that to be true, two things must happen:
1. Trump decides to try to do this 2. Others let him - and by others, I mean everyone who has it within their power to prevent him from such a blatant breach of the constitution.
1 in 7 might be in the ballpark for 1 (although I think even that is a bit high); I don't think it is in the same universe of reality in relation to 2 - unless we're talking about the few minutes after the allotted witching hour of noon that it takes for Biden to call security to have Trump forcibly removed. I'd love to watch that on live TV.
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
Blair was to all extents and purposes a Tory by the time he came to power. He occupied the Wet Tory space that Thatcher foolishly abandoned,
Blair was what we'd today call a liberal-left Remainer.
The reason he won, then, was because there wasn't a values split between the English WWC in 1997 (he even challenged them better than anyone else over Princess Diana's death) and everyone wanted public services investment, but it soured in the early noughties as he pursued asymmetric devolution and let rip with immigration. Labour have struggled ever since.
The current Labour leadership seem to think another 1997 will just happen automatically if the Tories are in power long enough.
It won't. The only question is how long it takes them to understand and engage with this.
And it might be never.
I wouldn't have called Blair's Govt liberal, but that might be just me. I find both Labour and the Tories too authoritarian for my liking.
I think he's using liberal in the US sense. That's probably become the default meaning now.
On vaccination, I don't wish to be a killjoy, but wouldn't it be best to wait six months (or even a year) before boasting about the UK's performance? By then, we should know whether our rate of vaccination is world-beating, average or poor. In other words, it's too soon to judge right now.
It reminds me of back in May when many people were rushing to judgements about comparative death rates between countries when, as we now know, it was far too early to tell.
I think plenty of concern over delivery...but on procurement, credit where credit is due, the UK government have done well on the vaccine front.
This Country can test 500,000+ per day. The delivery of the vaccine is much simpler, Its just a jab. 2 million a day will not be a problem
I am no expert on logistics but vaccinating 2 million a day would see the whole UK vaccinated in a month
That is not anything near possible
Why not?
My wife is a nurse she can easily inject 500 people a day, just multiply it up, they have already recruited loads of retired nurses to do it, plus the armed forces, plus pharmacists. The Oxford jab is so easy to administer.
For the the flu jab - which is the easiest of jabs to administer and is done every year - the minimum time allotted for each patient at the surgery is 2 minutes. And this is if they are healthy and have no recorded medical issues. This is because the patient has to come in, run through a checklist to ensure they are safe to receive the jab and then get out again before the next person comes in so they don't mix with them.
500 jabs a day at 2 minutes a jab is 16 hours and 40 minutes. Without a break.
And that is for patients who are healthy. If they are not healthy then it takes longer as they have to be observed after the jab.
For the Covid jabs the instructions are that all patients are supposed to be observed for 15 minutes after injection, during which time they have to remain isolated from other patients. And prior to the injection the questionnaire on medical history and current health is much longer. You also have to have somewhere for all these people to sit or stand during this time whilst maintaining social distancing.
The idea that a single surgery can do 500 Covid jabs a day - even before you take into account all the non covid patients - is for the fairies. They have neither the staff nor the room.
My surgery in Barnes, Essex House, is a hub for the area. It did 2,000 vaccinations over three days. My son-in-law's mother was one of them. She is in her eighties.
Frost has pushed our (Definitely not a pair of aces) hand to the absolute limit with regards to an EU deal. If it pays off, then I'll have to say well done. If we fail to reach a deal then it'll be all for naught.
Fingers crossed.
Bad take, Pulp. The Deal is certain and it will be pretty much as could have been agreed ages ago. The "pay off" for the "to the wire" theatrics and the No Deal hyping will not be the Deal itself, it will be that many people's response will be what you indicate yours will be. A great big "phew" and "well done Boris". That is the game here.
Several things can be true at once.
1. There will be a deal, because the Johnson and Gove haven't really prepared for No Deal. 2. The big picture of that deal will be one outlined by Barnier back in... 2017? No tarrifs/no quotas/lots of paperwork/some fish/more alignment than Canada. 3. Frostie has probably done as well as can be done. Some of the wins are the striking out of the obviously outrageous things in the initial EU plan. (Everyone who does serious negotiation starts out absurd, don't they? It's part of the game, which is why I try to avoid it.) But there does seem to have been a genuine move, even if the UK has moved more. That's OK. 4. Looking at the gains (real control of immigration, the ability to do trade deals with remote nations, sense of national vim, however much it actually is a week) and losses (border faff hurting trade, a loss of input into EU deliberations), the gains look small but visible, the losses look less visible but potentially larger. That came from BoJo's choice; we can only see what happens. 5. It's quite possible that the cost of all this faffing around over the last six months (because everyone knows that the first few months of our Brave New Future will be a mess, because nobody has been able to plan) will exceed the value of the gains by comparing what we settle for now with what we could have settled for in the summer. 6. The gap between the actual deal done and what some in the media and ERG have been expecting will be interesting to watch over the years to come.
1. I don't think No Deal could have been prepared for. It's a mirage. 2. Yep. We get end of FOM and more Fish. They protect their SM. That's the deal. 3. No complaints from me about Frost. He's done the job he was asked to do. 4. Agreed. The gains look less tangible than the costs. 5. Any marginal gains from going to the wire will not justify the fear and chaos caused. 6, Yes. I'm looking forward to how Johnson sells the deal to Redwood & Co.
In the short term, it's pretty clear that the selling approach will be the same one used by Dodgy Timeshare Salesman. Trap them in a room and give them no time to read or think. So the Deal can't be finalised until December 29, and then voted on December 30 and 31. (I seriously wonder if that's what's holding things up now.)
It's a terrible idea by most standards, but it's probably Johnson's best bet. And if Redwood and co don't like it, what are they going to do?
Unlike Theresa May's awful backstop this deal won't be forever I assume.
Theresa May's awful backstop was a disaster because there was no unilateral exit mechanism under international law. I assume this trade deal will have a unilateral notification clause to terminate the agreement if either party chooses to do so.
That is a major difference. Ratifying this agreement isn't forever, if you're not happy you can give notice down the line and exit it (or renegotiate it during the exit period NAFTA style). That wasn't possible with May's backstop.
If Labour leave SKS in place for the nect election they deserve the loss that is coming their way. He has insufficient hate in his heart for tories. Theyd be better off with Rayner.
Apart possibly from Harold Wilson, every Labour leader who ‘hated the Tories’ have in common that they have never won or come close to winning an election.
Yep - to win elections Labour has to avoid scaring people regardless of what their membership really wants.
That was why Blair was so good for Labour there was nothing there that scared a (Tory) voter.
You would have thought people on the left could realise that this is not a naturally left wing country, not even centre left. Counting is the first rule of politics and the most forgotten. Especially having lost Scotland, the choice for the left is an updated form of Blairite politics or Tory govts.
For our GE24, probably yes, but longer term I'm optimistic for the Left.
The top 5 global priorities -
Climate change. The emancipation of women. Racial equality. Sustainable growth. Fairer distribution of wealth.
These are all better tackled from a Left perspective imo. Indeed some of them can only be tackled from there.
Sure, they are priorities, and the left have some of the answers, as does the right. But if the left dont learn to count, the only solutions that will be tried here will be those of the right. UK politics is not an even battle of ideas, it is uphill and difficult for the left to win, especially to win and hold on to significant power. It is no surprise only Blair has done this for them.
I sort of agree with you but my sense is that Labour can win from the Left given the right leader and messaging and policies. The platform and the person have to be contemporary not a 70s rehash.
SKS is just too boring to win, and that comes from someone who likes boring politicians and used to be in the party. He can make the party electable, but not elected.
I am with @Dura_Ace. Rayner is the one who could win. She has the necessary passion, and can appeal to both the Red Wall and the Corbynites.
Biden showed that boring but pragmatic can win narrowly. Rayner is just a UK AOC.
In any case it does not matter whether SKS or Rayner leads them Labour can only win at the moment with a non Blairite leader with the support of SNP MPs
Comments
My experience is that staff are going to the hospital to get their vaccine already (which will reduce the risk already) prior to the residents themselves getting it. I do not know the timescale of getting it into the home but they are working on it I know but it is logistically complicated.
I believe they are working on plans to get it approved to split off doses so they can take a subset of doses eg to a home but that is where my knowledge is fuzzy and others will know better. I have no idea on the timescale of that. Could be days, could be weeks, I'm not sure but it won't be long as they are the number one priority.
Until we stop measuring success of individuals in society and success of nations respectively in terms of the amount of the world's plundered assets they have hoarded in their bank accounts and GDP as currently measured, the whole rewards system that drives behaviour is at odds with the stated objectives. It leads to unfair distribution of wealth (including racial inequality at the wealth level), the ruination of the environment and thus climate change.
We need different metrics for both the value of individuals to society, and for a nation's well-being.
And I say that as a small c conservative, not as a lefty.
Frost has to negotiate within that envelope, which is not easy I think.
I'm not thanking Boris whatsoever, whatever happens.
Re Starmer, I think his mission for now and the foreseeable is simply to establish himself in the public mind as a viable potential PM. Goal being, when people ask themselves, "that Starmer, can I see him in number 10?" they go, "Yeah, I guess."
You have to clear that bar before people will even look at your policies and it's harder for a Labour leader because of the relentless demonization from the tory press. The last 2 did not manage it.
And it's clearly not a bluff either. I fully believe Boris/Frost would have walked out (and almost did so entirely) 10 days ago for No Deal.
Damn and here was me thinking I might take a last minute trip there...
Not sure about those making their decisions...
The government's special commission on anti-coronavirus efforts said on December 22 that citizens of Australia, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, South Africa, and the United Kingdom will not be able to enter Central Asia's most populous nation of 32 million until January 10
Australians banned...the place with basically no covid.
Preposterous. Absolutely preposterous to suggest that Blair with Brown as Chancellor was more rightwing than Major with Clarke.
Johnson is going nowhere. Even after the economic fallout from bad deal Bexit and Covid, the Conservatives will retain handsome majorities for another decade.
I thought they would be out by 2024, but one can feel the love for the man on the pages of PB and also in the council estates of Britain. He can do no wrong for 40% of the population. Equally, the continued disdain for post-Corbyn Labour remains palpable.
Meanwhile many small businesses were utterly destroyed, sometimes by government order.
Cheers
For the EU that could be a disaster because all of these governance and LPF issues might be acceptable currently but once we have it all back no government is ever going to negotiate that stuff away again.
No deal means tariffs for 3-4 years on EU/UK trade and the UK looks to Asia and Latin America with CPTPP membership and a tariff and NTB elimination deal with Mercosur.
It would be a historic miscalculation for the EU to push the no deal option it means any deal that is done in the future will never be as generous as this for them.
The reason he won, then, was because there wasn't a values split between the English WWC in 1997 (he even challenged them better than anyone else over Princess Diana's death) and everyone wanted public services investment, but it soured in the early noughties as he pursued asymmetric devolution and let rip with immigration. Labour have struggled ever since.
The current Labour leadership seem to think another 1997 will just happen automatically if the Tories are in power long enough.
It won't. The only question is how long it takes them to understand and engage with this.
And it might be never.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c_H45kt1_8
Out of the 500k+ vaccinated with the first jab already - none of these are care home residents?
So I can understand why French might be concerned about using them!
That said - seems obvious this virus strain is already in France right? Given it's all over Kent...
Boris: We're near the end, I've done it my way ... (ok, a bit too contrived even for PB)
My son-in-law's mother was one of them. She is in her eighties.
As soon as its possible to get it into the home that will be top priority but simply uplifting care home residents and taking them into hospital en-masse isn't possible for the reasons your mother's home said. The staff can make it there much easier though so your mum's home's staff should already be largely vaccinated which should give an element of protection to your mum already.
As long as you don't mind eating mutton and rice for three meals a day ...
For the flu jab, my surgery was running at 200 an hour (sat in the car and counted), using 4 lanes ie 4 nurses.
Since the average GP surgery in the UK has a number of qualified nurses on its staff, those sort of approx numbers are doable for a period even without extra staff being brought in.
Presumably some of the Drs can also do the COVID jabs.
Personally I'm watching for a mass vaccination programme in schools.
Can't be done with an injection.
Blair was not simply in power until 2001 though was he? Why ignore 2001+? 🙄
If however Scotland went then Labour would have no choice but to shift back to Blairism and New Labour and go even further than Starmer's Brownite social democracy to have a chance of winning. In 2010 and 2017 for example the Tories won a comfortable majority of seats in England alone despite the hung parliaments in the UK overall
Otherwise, they would be in deep shit if they wanted to go independent and remain in, say, a currency union.
2. Yep. We get end of FOM and more Fish. They protect their SM. That's the deal.
3. No complaints from me about Frost. He's done the job he was asked to do.
4. Agreed. The gains look less tangible than the costs.
5. Any marginal gains from going to the wire will not justify the fear and chaos caused.
6, Yes. I'm looking forward to how Johnson sells the deal to Redwood & Co.
Wonder how many other leaders will do the same? The transmission figures alone indicate it quite probably is not a British problem uniquely.
Although a social liberal in purely economic terms Blair was arguably our most Thatcherite PM since WW2 after Thatcher herself, Thatcher even famously said 'Tony will not let us down.' He was also closely tied to the US and had a close relationship with a Republican President as she did
UK haulier ran Europe-wide drug ring from living room
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55402733
Who said that and to whom, and why is it very ironic?
It's a terrible idea by most standards, but it's probably Johnson's best bet. And if Redwood and co don't like it, what are they going to do?
There's really no good comparison with UK PM ratings.
https://twitter.com/beccidee17/status/1340989343238737920
I am with @Dura_Ace. Rayner is the one who could win. She has the necessary passion, and can appeal to both the Red Wall and the Corbynites.
1. Trump decides to try to do this
2. Others let him - and by others, I mean everyone who has it within their power to prevent him from such a blatant breach of the constitution.
1 in 7 might be in the ballpark for 1 (although I think even that is a bit high); I don't think it is in the same universe of reality in relation to 2 - unless we're talking about the few minutes after the allotted witching hour of noon that it takes for Biden to call security to have Trump forcibly removed. I'd love to watch that on live TV.
Theresa May's awful backstop was a disaster because there was no unilateral exit mechanism under international law. I assume this trade deal will have a unilateral notification clause to terminate the agreement if either party chooses to do so.
That is a major difference. Ratifying this agreement isn't forever, if you're not happy you can give notice down the line and exit it (or renegotiate it during the exit period NAFTA style). That wasn't possible with May's backstop.
In any case it does not matter whether SKS or Rayner leads them Labour can only win at the moment with a non Blairite leader with the support of SNP MPs