I think I would class it as worse than "pick up a rife", as most nut-jobs (at least in the UK) haven't got a rifle to pick up.
But, it is dead easy for a nut-job to get hold of acid.
How often have rifle attacks been on the news in recent years in this country? How often have acid attacks been on the news in recent years in this country?
"“don khaki, pick up a rifle and head for the front lines” " - if you watch the video of that, Farage is probably more embarrassed about namedropping Trump and the Whitehouse! Even the way he said it was such an obvious Dads Army style joke
I enjoyed waching all most all of yesterday's chaos but the Everton 'Pride of Merseyside' banner on the balcony of the Capitol was the kek cherry on the lmao cake.
Fake news sells because it is personalised and more exciting and interesting than real news. People can live years and decades in a fake news bubble and may actually be happier than those of whose who put up with the real thing as the world becomes more orderly and clearer to them. If only their enemies could be defeated we would be living in heaven - it is not that different to fundamentalist religions.
Just like extreme religions, it must be tackled, I don't have the answers but former insiders suggest taxing the data it relies on heavily is part of the solution.
Years of crying wolf don't help.
Crying wolf or telling the truth that there was indeed a winter emergency most years, albeit one that by its very nature was time-limited?
Yeah could be a bit of both really, but when its the same story, we are at breaking point, every year its harder to make the case that this time it's really serious
Beyond breaking point this time, sadly.
Yep that's it. Proving @isam's point - all you can do is ramp up the rhetoric.
I took his point to be that the reason some people are not believing there's a massive NHS crisis due to Covid which could lead to the system collapsing is because in previous years there have been less serious NHS crises not due to Covid which did not lead to the system collapsing.
Not sure my reply proves that point but, yes, I'm sure some people do think that way. Winter. NHS. Same old, same old.
What can you do?
Elect the LibDems who wanted an NHS hypothecated tax.
But as I have said for now this is the third time, the country doesn't want to spend more on the NHS.
We don't need to spend more on the NHS, we need to spend the money better. Running all of these trusts with the expensive management and IT and HR etc etc is wasteful. Paying GPs to run CCGs is wasteful. Cut out all of the "free market" overlays and spend the money on the front line.
This is how the Tories have managed to both rightly claim they are spending record amounts on the NHS whilst presiding over front line cuts to services. All the money in the world just not going where its needed.
Ah yes, the call to remove all management. I have actually been present in an organisation when that was done.....
When we talk about averages, we have mean, median, and mode, of course.
Mean: add them all up and divide by how many "them" there were Median: Order "them" numerically and pick the one in the middle Mode: Most common one of "them."
These each provide a valid perspective on "average" - the expected value, the value where you can expect as many above as below (and where if you shift from it, the other direction is now a majority), and the most common value.
In 2016-2018, the mean age of death for males in the UK was 79.3. The median was 82.5. (primary cause of difference is that it's not symmetrical - someone who dies at 5 is never "balanced out" by someone who dies at 155) The modal age of death was 86.
The last has changed the most. In 1966, and for every single year before that, the modal age of death in males in the UK was 0. Infant mortality claimed so many before their first birthday, that "zero" was the most common age of death.
Bit of an eye-opener, that.
In 1967, it jumped to 67, then 72, then 74, and has climbed ever since.
(Thanks go to William Hartston and his book "Numb and Number")
This kind of analysis misses an important point. Initially the George Floyd protests were handled by the police taking a much lighter approach, they were also overrun by the mob, the police station was torched, and this spiralled into worse and worse violence over many days.
True ... but what was the reaction when Milkshake Guy through his chocolate milkshake over Farage.
"I'm thinking why bother with a milkshake when you could get some battery acid." (Jo Brand).
That was particularly irresponsible as acid attacks are deadly easy to carry out against politicians, who are out and about.
I don’t remember that. But if true, Jo Brand was/is an irresponsible idiot.
She did - it may even have been on the BBC in what passes for comedy there.
Lets not also forget the BBC most recently also thought "kill whitey" was a perfectly acceptable joke.
Perhaps you should fill us in on the joke. A few words out of context are meaningless. If hyperbole is no longer allowed in humour we'd be in a sad place. You seldom get prejudice- if that's what you're suggesting -on the BBC.
I enjoyed waching all most all of yesterday's chaos but the Everton 'Pride of Merseyside' banner on the balcony of the Capitol was the kek cherry on the lmao cake.
That is such a bad take, using a military analogy to describe not giving up is not an incitement to violence - there must be lots of examples of it from politicians. The same people who use this as ammo (not literally!) against Farage were happy to excuse George Osborne for saying he wanted to chop up Theresa May and put her in his freezer!
Getting sick of this deflecting "both sides are the same" hokey. It's airbrushing the many people of integrity on the left - like me - out of existence. I was NOT happy with that comment from Osborne. I found it lurid and creepy. It was the sort of comment you'd expect from somebody who butchered the public realm for partisan political advantage and made the poor pay for the malfunction of a financial system that had nothing to do with them, not from George. He let him himself down with it.
A Cyclefree piece with which to agree wholeheartedly (minus the bathetic barb at the end - the Trump calamity illustrates just how minor the peccadilloes of Priti Patel et al. really are).
The old saw has rarely seemed more apt: that America is the only great power to have gone from rise to decline without an intervening period of civilization...
There's a difference between criticism and incitement to violence, yes.
Your desire Philip Thompson to desperately differentiate hard right politicians in the UK from those in the US is irrational and either fundamentally stupid or disingenuous. Priti Patel uses the same techniques as Trump, but has watered them down a little to suit British hard right taste. Your pretence to dislike Trump certainly doesn't fool me, and I doubt it fools anyone else on here who have read the right wing divisive drivel that you support and write. You are the most Trumpian poster on this site by some margin.
I can think of very little that Philip Thompson has in common with Trump.
I really dont understand Nigels obsession here. People dont post hundreds of anti trump messages if they secretly like him, they say nothing or occasionally say they aren't a fan, though hes got good points etc.
Unless someone literally contradicts themselves it's just rude to claim they dont mean what they say.
There is a certain type of psychology that would, yes. Some of it, I have to confess is a desire to troll Philip which I don't feel toward others on here, well maybe except the nationalists. I hope I am to be forgiven, but in his own way he gives as good as he gets.
If you really want to troll him, and it is not a big or clever thing to do, keep it to Brexit and sovereignty. During BLM of all the posters on this site he put forward one of the best responses, possibly the best, to those who deliberately misunderstood and minimised BLM. He has an unorthodox and sometimes frustrating world view to debate with, but is in no way a MAGA.
True ... but what was the reaction when Milkshake Guy through his chocolate milkshake over Farage.
"I'm thinking why bother with a milkshake when you could get some battery acid." (Jo Brand).
That was particularly irresponsible as acid attacks are deadly easy to carry out against politicians, who are out and about.
I don’t remember that. But if true, Jo Brand was/is an irresponsible idiot.
She did - it may even have been on the BBC in what passes for comedy there.
Lets not also forget the BBC most recently also thought "kill whitey" was a perfectly acceptable joke.
Perhaps you should fill us in on the joke. A few words out of context are meaningless. If hyperbole is no longer allowed in humour we'd be in a sad place. You seldom get prejudice- if that's what you're suggesting -on the BBC.
We all know what your humour is like, hang elected politicians....
I wonder if Trump's sort-of concession statement was forced out by Pence threatening the 25th amendment
I think that might well be the case. There are several reports it has been discussed by the Cabinet, Pence and others bypassed Trump on deploying the National Guard, and then Trump conceded. It does seem a plausible explanation that he was told to "behave or else, we have the numbers".
A Cyclefree piece with which to agree wholeheartedly (minus the bathetic barb at the end - the Trump calamity illustrates just how minor the peccadilloes of Priti Patel et al. really are).
The old saw has rarely seemed more apt: that America is the only great power to have gone from rise to decline without an intervening period of civilization...
There's a difference between criticism and incitement to violence, yes.
Your desire Philip Thompson to desperately differentiate hard right politicians in the UK from those in the US is irrational and either fundamentally stupid or disingenuous. Priti Patel uses the same techniques as Trump, but has watered them down a little to suit British hard right taste. Your pretence to dislike Trump certainly doesn't fool me, and I doubt it fools anyone else on here who have read the right wing divisive drivel that you support and write. You are the most Trumpian poster on this site by some margin.
I can think of very little that Philip Thompson has in common with Trump.
Donald Trump spends less time on Twitter than Philip does on PB is a difference . The main element is that Philip is a populist nationalist. Also, he voted for Nigel Farage. He said he did not care that Putin was pleased with Brexit. He thinks Boris Johnson is a good leader (lol).That is pretty close to the views of Donald Trump at a top line level. Other than his claimed dislike of Trump, I can see very little lack of alignment to his often stated views on most things that he feels keen to share with us all.
Philip despises white nationalism, is sympathetic to BLM, dislikes religion in politics, is a strong proponent of gay rights. Those are not Trumpian views.
If they are his views and not a desperate attempt to seem more balanced then he is to be commended for those, though I haven't seen all his posts obviously - let us face it, who has?
Fundamentally he is a divisive populist nationalist, i.e. very close to Trump. Furthermore, he makes very strong pronouncements on matters he clearly has very little understanding or experience of, much more so than most others on here. I have often responded to these which I must confess maybe a little too mocking, which is why he often attacks me so I respond in kind.
Good of you to defend him though, credit to you.
This is completely ridiculous. Phillip is a atheistic, antiracist, socially liberal economically rightwing libertarian. I strongly agree with him on about half of his views and vehemently disagree with him on the other half.
To deem him a Trumpite Nationalist is however, a vicious, unfounded and deeply inaccurate slur.
I enjoyed waching all most all of yesterday's chaos but the Everton 'Pride of Merseyside' banner on the balcony of the Capitol was the kek cherry on the lmao cake.
All getting a bit mealy-mouthed, isn't it? I can't contemplate the fates of Ceaușescu, Gaddafi or Mussolini without unalloyed satisfaction, and I can't get overexcited about reminders to any other political leader that Sic semper tyrannis.
I enjoyed waching all most all of yesterday's chaos but the Everton 'Pride of Merseyside' banner on the balcony of the Capitol was the kek cherry on the lmao cake.
In all the excitement, did we miss this piece of probable good news?
Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine is likely to offer protection of up to a couple of years, its chief executive has said, even though more data is still needed to make a definitive assessment. ... “The nightmare scenario that was described in the media in the spring with a vaccine only working a month or two is, I think, out of the window,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said. “The antibody decay generated by the vaccine in humans goes down very slowly [...] We believe there will be protection potentially for a couple of years.”
Bancel added his company was about to prove its vaccine would also be effective against variants of the coronavirus seen in Britain and South Africa.
That graph is showing volatility of excess deaths around the 5-year rolling average. Next year, this year's excess deaths will be baked into that average, meaning that next year the graph will likely (hopefully) show a big dip below the line. No doubt some will then claim next year that the government/NHS is performing miracles.
A Cyclefree piece with which to agree wholeheartedly (minus the bathetic barb at the end - the Trump calamity illustrates just how minor the peccadilloes of Priti Patel et al. really are).
The old saw has rarely seemed more apt: that America is the only great power to have gone from rise to decline without an intervening period of civilization...
There's a difference between criticism and incitement to violence, yes.
Your desire Philip Thompson to desperately differentiate hard right politicians in the UK from those in the US is irrational and either fundamentally stupid or disingenuous. Priti Patel uses the same techniques as Trump, but has watered them down a little to suit British hard right taste. Your pretence to dislike Trump certainly doesn't fool me, and I doubt it fools anyone else on here who have read the right wing divisive drivel that you support and write. You are the most Trumpian poster on this site by some margin.
I can think of very little that Philip Thompson has in common with Trump.
Donald Trump spends less time on Twitter than Philip does on PB is a difference . The main element is that Philip is a populist nationalist. Also, he voted for Nigel Farage. He said he did not care that Putin was pleased with Brexit. He thinks Boris Johnson is a good leader (lol).That is pretty close to the views of Donald Trump at a top line level. Other than his claimed dislike of Trump, I can see very little lack of alignment to his often stated views on most things that he feels keen to share with us all.
Philip despises white nationalism, is sympathetic to BLM, dislikes religion in politics, is a strong proponent of gay rights. Those are not Trumpian views.
If they are his views and not a desperate attempt to seem more balanced then he is to be commended for those, though I haven't seen all his posts obviously - let us face it, who has?
Fundamentally he is a divisive populist nationalist, i.e. very close to Trump. Furthermore, he makes very strong pronouncements on matters he clearly has very little understanding or experience of, much more so than most others on here. I have often responded to these which I must confess maybe a little too mocking, which is why he often attacks me so I respond in kind.
Good of you to defend him though, credit to you.
This is completely ridiculous. Phillip is a atheistic, antiracist, socially liberal economically rightwing libertarian. I strongly agree with him on about half of his views and vehemently disagree with him on the other half.
To deem him a Trumpite Nationalist is however, a vicious, unfounded and deeply inaccurate slur.
I don't think there are ANY regular commenters on PB who could be seen as "Trumpite Nationalists". Not one.
A Cyclefree piece with which to agree wholeheartedly (minus the bathetic barb at the end - the Trump calamity illustrates just how minor the peccadilloes of Priti Patel et al. really are).
The old saw has rarely seemed more apt: that America is the only great power to have gone from rise to decline without an intervening period of civilization...
Yes. It would be ridiculous for ministers to censor themselves from expressing legitimate political opinions on the off chance that a single unconnected nutter might commit a crime. Contrast the co-ordinated national campaign run by Trump and his allies that incited an armed insurrection by thousands of his political followers against the national Congress to halt the installation of his elected opponent.
Minor vs. major.
It is not ridiculous to expect Ministers to tell the truth about what lawyers do.
It is not ridiculous to expect Ministers to stop telling lies especially when specifically warned by the secret services about the risks of doing so.
It is not ridiculous to expect the Minister who is specifically entrusted with the maintenance of law and order in this country not to create a climate which leads others to try and kill those scapegoated by said Minister.
OK - are you going to apply this rule evenly to all sides? Will lefty politicians and activists be expressly forbidden from viciously attacking Tories, 'the rich', etc, in case someone who listens to them commits a crime? They called Boris a butcher and a murderer last year - should they face consequences for inciting violence against the Prime Minister?
I'm afraid your myopic special pleading doesn't cut much ice.
It's barely a fortnight since Roger on this very site said that most people thought Johnson should be hanged on Westminster bridge!
He was both wrong and disgraceful, as I think most told him.
He is also a nobody (sorry Roger) on the interweb. If I’m to be generous, his comment fits into a very broad definition of colloquial, rough-and-tumble grassroots political discourse.
A bit like those rather awful people who seemed to welcome the death of Thatcher.
But it’s different if it’s someone in the public eye. Whether that be Trump, Farage, Johnson or Patel. They just be rightly held to a higher standard.
So like a Labour MP subsequently made Shadow Chancellor literally calling for the lynching of a female MP?
A Cyclefree piece with which to agree wholeheartedly (minus the bathetic barb at the end - the Trump calamity illustrates just how minor the peccadilloes of Priti Patel et al. really are).
The old saw has rarely seemed more apt: that America is the only great power to have gone from rise to decline without an intervening period of civilization...
Yes. It would be ridiculous for ministers to censor themselves from expressing legitimate political opinions on the off chance that a single unconnected nutter might commit a crime. Contrast the co-ordinated national campaign run by Trump and his allies that incited an armed insurrection by thousands of his political followers against the national Congress to halt the installation of his elected opponent.
Minor vs. major.
It is not ridiculous to expect Ministers to tell the truth about what lawyers do.
It is not ridiculous to expect Ministers to stop telling lies especially when specifically warned by the secret services about the risks of doing so.
It is not ridiculous to expect the Minister who is specifically entrusted with the maintenance of law and order in this country not to create a climate which leads others to try and kill those scapegoated by said Minister.
OK - are you going to apply this rule evenly to all sides? Will lefty politicians and activists be expressly forbidden from viciously attacking Tories, 'the rich', etc, in case someone who listens to them commits a crime? They called Boris a butcher and a murderer last year - should they face consequences for inciting violence against the Prime Minister?
I'm afraid your myopic special pleading doesn't cut much ice.
It's barely a fortnight since Roger on this very site said that most people thought Johnson should be hanged on Westminster bridge!
He was both wrong and disgraceful, as I think most told him.
He is also a nobody (sorry Roger) on the interweb. If I’m to be generous, his comment fits into a very broad definition of colloquial, rough-and-tumble grassroots political discourse.
A bit like those rather awful people who seemed to welcome the death of Thatcher.
But it’s different if it’s someone in the public eye. Whether that be Trump, Farage, Johnson or Patel. They just be rightly held to a higher standard.
So like a Labour MP subsequently made Shadow Chancellor literally calling for the lynching of a female MP?
In all the excitement, did we miss this piece of probable good news?
Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine is likely to offer protection of up to a couple of years, its chief executive has said, even though more data is still needed to make a definitive assessment. ... “The nightmare scenario that was described in the media in the spring with a vaccine only working a month or two is, I think, out of the window,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said. “The antibody decay generated by the vaccine in humans goes down very slowly [...] We believe there will be protection potentially for a couple of years.”
Bancel added his company was about to prove its vaccine would also be effective against variants of the coronavirus seen in Britain and South Africa.
So we are going to have to do this again every 2-3 years.....
We might well have to have routine booster shots. That really shouldn't be a problem once we've got the system going and can run the vaccinations all through the year.
We do it for flu already! Perhaps we have to vaccinate two or three times as many but once the supply is flowing it wont even be a noticeable part of daily life.
I enjoyed waching all most all of yesterday's chaos but the Everton 'Pride of Merseyside' banner on the balcony of the Capitol was the kek cherry on the lmao cake.
At least he has the shame to delete his bollocks. Other Covid denial accounts still have up all their terrible, false staments about Covid being over in Texas/Georgia/Sweden/the world/mathematically burns out after 90 days etc.
A Cyclefree piece with which to agree wholeheartedly (minus the bathetic barb at the end - the Trump calamity illustrates just how minor the peccadilloes of Priti Patel et al. really are).
The old saw has rarely seemed more apt: that America is the only great power to have gone from rise to decline without an intervening period of civilization...
There's a difference between criticism and incitement to violence, yes.
Your desire Philip Thompson to desperately differentiate hard right politicians in the UK from those in the US is irrational and either fundamentally stupid or disingenuous. Priti Patel uses the same techniques as Trump, but has watered them down a little to suit British hard right taste. Your pretence to dislike Trump certainly doesn't fool me, and I doubt it fools anyone else on here who have read the right wing divisive drivel that you support and write. You are the most Trumpian poster on this site by some margin.
I can think of very little that Philip Thompson has in common with Trump.
I really dont understand Nigels obsession here. People dont post hundreds of anti trump messages if they secretly like him, they say nothing or occasionally say they aren't a fan, though hes got good points etc.
Unless someone literally contradicts themselves it's just rude to claim they dont mean what they say.
Always good to have an example btl of the subject of the header though.
True ... but what was the reaction when Milkshake Guy through his chocolate milkshake over Farage.
"I'm thinking why bother with a milkshake when you could get some battery acid." (Jo Brand).
That was particularly irresponsible as acid attacks are deadly easy to carry out against politicians, who are out and about.
I don’t remember that. But if true, Jo Brand was/is an irresponsible idiot.
She did - it may even have been on the BBC in what passes for comedy there.
Lets not also forget the BBC most recently also thought "kill whitey" was a perfectly acceptable joke.
Perhaps you should fill us in on the joke. A few words out of context are meaningless. If hyperbole is no longer allowed in humour we'd be in a sad place. You seldom get prejudice- if that's what you're suggesting -on the BBC.
The joke started with some pratt on here suggesting people wanted Boris Johnson hanging from Westminster Bridge. Ring any bells?
Surely every major global politician of the last four years will have a smiley photo of him or herself standing alongside Donald the Disgraced. He was the US Prez. They all wanted to be his friend, at least at first.
Fake news sells because it is personalised and more exciting and interesting than real news. People can live years and decades in a fake news bubble and may actually be happier than those of whose who put up with the real thing as the world becomes more orderly and clearer to them. If only their enemies could be defeated we would be living in heaven - it is not that different to fundamentalist religions.
Just like extreme religions, it must be tackled, I don't have the answers but former insiders suggest taxing the data it relies on heavily is part of the solution.
Years of crying wolf don't help.
Um. I may be missing the point, but if a health service that can barely cope with a normal winter runs into a one-in-a-century pandemic reaching a crescendo over winter, surely "No big deal" is a genuinely deluded point of view?
I think @isam is right here. They were crying wolf - we're seeing what a real crisis looks like - I suspect we not hear quite so much about winter health crises in future years.
There have been crises every year, not in every hospital in every year, but certainly they have happened. I work with a number of medics at hospitals in Yorkshire and the issues are real - routine procedures cancelled or put back, shipping patients out to other hospitals long distances away, sending patients home knowing theyll be back shortly afterwards to not run out of beds (the last also costs the hospital money as they then don't get paid for that care if there's an emergency readmission, but is sometimes the only way of keeping afloat).
Of course, it's a fine line - you also don't want, in the real world of other spending priorities, to have a big excess of facilities. The most efficient option is to have just enough to cope with peak demand and if you do that you sometimes won't have quite enough. It's also true that if there are more facilities/money then more things will get treated/get treated sooner to try and not waste those facilities. You'd need a massive funding increase to remove the crises completely. But the issues reported every winter are real.
Do the NHS do seasonal hire? Staff from southern hemisphere countries boosting the numbers during our winter?I guess that wouldn't help with beds/equipment
Yes. It's usually a big tool in the box. Unfortunately the supply of suitable temp resource has dropped off because of ...
BBC staff have been told to wear 'social distancing devices' which will beep if they get too close to another person.
In an email today, workers in 'key BBC locations' were told they will need to wear the technology which will alert them if they are less than two metres apart from someone else.
At least he has the shame to delete his bollocks. Other Covid denial accounts still have up all their terrible, false staments about Covid being over in Texas/Georgia/Sweden/the world/mathematically burns out after 90 days etc.
I'm blocked by Alistair Hames these days, what is he up to these days?
I've noticed he hasn't been shared as much he used to be on PB.
True ... but what was the reaction when Milkshake Guy through his chocolate milkshake over Farage.
"I'm thinking why bother with a milkshake when you could get some battery acid." (Jo Brand).
That was particularly irresponsible as acid attacks are deadly easy to carry out against politicians, who are out and about.
I don’t remember that. But if true, Jo Brand was/is an irresponsible idiot.
She did, in fairness, swiftly apologise.
It was clearly out of order, but I don't think comparing comedy with politics is all that helpful. Laughter is a nervous reaction and a lot of comedy does get close to the line (in that case it was clearly over). Politics doesn't need to get anywhere near - it can afford to be somewhat bland very often, and should do as it matters more than comedy, frankly.
To be fair to Jo Brand (yes, I know) it was a pre-recorded programme, so it was up to the editor which jokes made the cut and which stayed between the live audience and the participants.
Anyone who’s ever attended a recording of HIGNFY or Mock The Week knows that there’s an awful lot of well-over-the-line jokes told in these settings, that no-one expects to actually be aired.
Surely every major global politician of the last four years will have a smiley photo of him or herself standing alongside Donald the Disgraced. He was the US Prez. They all wanted to be his friend, at least at first.
Surely that one with Salmond was before he was President?
That graph is showing volatility of excess deaths around the 5-year rolling average. Next year, this year's excess deaths will be baked into that average, meaning that next year the graph will likely (hopefully) show a big dip below the line. No doubt some will then claim next year that the government/NHS is performing miracles.
One of the more depressing activities in Family History is trailing through death records to find one''s ancestor. The number of children ( >5) who die in any given year before about 1940 is horrific to modern eyes.
At least he has the shame to delete his bollocks. Other Covid denial accounts still have up all their terrible, false staments about Covid being over in Texas/Georgia/Sweden/the world/mathematically burns out after 90 days etc.
I'm blocked by Alistair Hames these days, what is he up to these days?
I've noticed he hasn't been shared as much he used to be on PB.
Surely every major global politician of the last four years will have a smiley photo of him or herself standing alongside Donald the Disgraced. He was the US Prez. They all wanted to be his friend, at least at first.
Surely that one with Salmond was before he was President?
It was, as was the Gove one.
As with the Salmond one, Gove was carrying out a job, in this instance as a writer for The Times.
Sir John Bell, regius professor at Oxford University and an adviser to the UK's Vaccine Taskforce, told The Telegraph he believes the vaccine will 'work well' and become available in time for the mid-February target.
Britain has already struck a deal for 30million doses of the vaccine, with the option of ordering 22million more. It is hoped supplies could arrive in time to help the Government fulfill its ambitious promise of vaccinating 13million Brits by mid-February.
Fake news sells because it is personalised and more exciting and interesting than real news. People can live years and decades in a fake news bubble and may actually be happier than those of whose who put up with the real thing as the world becomes more orderly and clearer to them. If only their enemies could be defeated we would be living in heaven - it is not that different to fundamentalist religions.
Just like extreme religions, it must be tackled, I don't have the answers but former insiders suggest taxing the data it relies on heavily is part of the solution.
Years of crying wolf don't help.
Um. I may be missing the point, but if a health service that can barely cope with a normal winter runs into a one-in-a-century pandemic reaching a crescendo over winter, surely "No big deal" is a genuinely deluded point of view?
I think @isam is right here. They were crying wolf - we're seeing what a real crisis looks like - I suspect we not hear quite so much about winter health crises in future years.
There have been crises every year, not in every hospital in every year, but certainly they have happened. I work with a number of medics at hospitals in Yorkshire and the issues are real - routine procedures cancelled or put back, shipping patients out to other hospitals long distances away, sending patients home knowing theyll be back shortly afterwards to not run out of beds (the last also costs the hospital money as they then don't get paid for that care if there's an emergency readmission, but is sometimes the only way of keeping afloat).
Of course, it's a fine line - you also don't want, in the real world of other spending priorities, to have a big excess of facilities. The most efficient option is to have just enough to cope with peak demand and if you do that you sometimes won't have quite enough. It's also true that if there are more facilities/money then more things will get treated/get treated sooner to try and not waste those facilities. You'd need a massive funding increase to remove the crises completely. But the issues reported every winter are real.
Do the NHS do seasonal hire? Staff from southern hemisphere countries boosting the numbers during our winter?I guess that wouldn't help with beds/equipment
Yes. It's usually a big tool in the box. Unfortunately the supply of suitable temp resource has dropped off because of ...
I'll leave it there since we're "moving on".
From Southern hemisphere countries eh? And pre 2015 too - blimey
At least he has the shame to delete his bollocks. Other Covid denial accounts still have up all their terrible, false staments about Covid being over in Texas/Georgia/Sweden/the world/mathematically burns out after 90 days etc.
I'm blocked by Alistair Hames these days, what is he up to these days?
I've noticed he hasn't been shared as much he used to be on PB.
He blocks everyone who uses the same words too often in a sentence!
I am reminded of the sad and lonely death of Plato, of this parish.
It is always sad when someone passes on, but not being intimately connected with Plato, I don't think we can be so patronisingly confident about the manner of her passing.
At least he has the shame to delete his bollocks. Other Covid denial accounts still have up all their terrible, false staments about Covid being over in Texas/Georgia/Sweden/the world/mathematically burns out after 90 days etc.
I'm blocked by Alistair Hames these days, what is he up to these days?
I've noticed he hasn't been shared as much he used to be on PB.
I have this feeling that with delay of supply and slowness of ramp up in vaccinations, government will again have overpromised and under-delivered and get absolutely smashed from pillar to post come March....then April will we will be swimming in vaccines, from Pfizer, AZN, J&J, Moderna...but a bit like testing, where capacity is now very good, the damage will have been done to the government reputation and all that people will remember is slow roll out (despite doing better than basically every other comparable countries, just like testing)
Surely every major global politician of the last four years will have a smiley photo of him or herself standing alongside Donald the Disgraced. He was the US Prez. They all wanted to be his friend, at least at first.
Surely that one with Salmond was before he was President?
Indeed, which makes it even more mortifying perhaps.
Also rather awkward, for the French President, is this bizarre encounter
"Body politic: Trump puts personal 'touch' on diplomacy with Macron
The public displays of affection between the powerful pair included cheek smooching, hand-holding and even a delicate dandruff dust-off."
At least he has the shame to delete his bollocks. Other Covid denial accounts still have up all their terrible, false staments about Covid being over in Texas/Georgia/Sweden/the world/mathematically burns out after 90 days etc.
I'm blocked by Alistair Hames these days, what is he up to these days?
I've noticed he hasn't been shared as much he used to be on PB.
He blocks everyone who uses the same words too often in a sentence!
Does he also block people who don't know how to use apostrophes correctly?
Surely every major global politician of the last four years will have a smiley photo of him or herself standing alongside Donald the Disgraced. He was the US Prez. They all wanted to be his friend, at least at first.
Surely that one with Salmond was before he was President?
Doubt that Salmond will ever be prez of an Indy Scotland now.
I wholly agree with Cyclefree. The GOP has been complicit in all of this from the get-go. It is why I, a lifelong small government advocate, am pleased beyond description with the result in Georgia. The GOP needs to be razed to the ground to excise the cancer that it has knowingly and cynically let grow within it. They have to prove to me that they are a party that truly believes in and abides by the constitution, and puts this above partisan and personal political gain before I'd ever again consider supporting the party at a federal level.
Fortunately, there are signs amongst courageous state-level Republicans that there are some with the moral fortitude to do this necessary rebuilding. America, like all democracies, needs a strong loyal alternative party capable of government. The GOP currently does not fit that bill, epiphanies from Pence, McConnell and Graham on Epiphany notwithstanding.
When Jenrick’s involved the phrase is usually ‘very good news for his millions’.
Also took the Tories, and Westminster generally, rather too long. The Scots seem to have moved much more quickly once they got their parliament back open (both for leaseholds and for feudal superiorities which had some practical effects in common, including the scope for abuse).
I thought Scotland was totally freehold apart from the land sold by MOD , where they chose to coin it in as they could avoid Scottish Government rules.
Surely every major global politician of the last four years will have a smiley photo of him or herself standing alongside Donald the Disgraced. He was the US Prez. They all wanted to be his friend, at least at first.
Surely that one with Salmond was before he was President?
It was, as was the Gove one.
As with the Salmond one, Gove was carrying out a job, in this instance as a writer for The Times.
I could make such an unkind joke about creepy sex pests who are failed politicians...(and no, that's not a reference to Gove).
At least he has the shame to delete his bollocks. Other Covid denial accounts still have up all their terrible, false staments about Covid being over in Texas/Georgia/Sweden/the world/mathematically burns out after 90 days etc.
I'm blocked by Alistair Hames these days, what is he up to these days?
I've noticed he hasn't been shared as much he used to be on PB.
He blocks everyone who uses the same words too often in a sentence!
Does he also block people who don't know how to use apostrophes correctly?
To find out if he blocks people who dont know how to use apostrophes correctly Ill go on twitter and ask him if he blocks people who dont know how to use apostrophes correctly
Surely every major global politician of the last four years will have a smiley photo of him or herself standing alongside Donald the Disgraced. He was the US Prez. They all wanted to be his friend, at least at first.
Just like all the small kids want to be the schoolyard bully's friend
Surely every major global politician of the last four years will have a smiley photo of him or herself standing alongside Donald the Disgraced. He was the US Prez. They all wanted to be his friend, at least at first.
Surely that one with Salmond was before he was President?
Doubt that Salmond will ever be prez of an Indy Scotland now.
Has Johnson dashed your hopes of a second referendum to that extent?
Sir John Bell, regius professor at Oxford University and an adviser to the UK's Vaccine Taskforce, told The Telegraph he believes the vaccine will 'work well' and become available in time for the mid-February target.
Britain has already struck a deal for 30million doses of the vaccine, with the option of ordering 22million more. It is hoped supplies could arrive in time to help the Government fulfill its ambitious promise of vaccinating 13million Brits by mid-February.
What an awesome performance by the global pharmaceutical industry, there’s at least five vaccines out there around the world now, and a few more such as the J&J working through the approval process.
Sir John Bell, regius professor at Oxford University and an adviser to the UK's Vaccine Taskforce, told The Telegraph he believes the vaccine will 'work well' and become available in time for the mid-February target.
Britain has already struck a deal for 30million doses of the vaccine, with the option of ordering 22million more. It is hoped supplies could arrive in time to help the Government fulfill its ambitious promise of vaccinating 13million Brits by mid-February.
What an awesome performance by the global pharmaceutical industry, there’s at least five vaccines out there around the world now, and a few more such as the J&J working through the approval process.
Jezza disagrees....they are absolute filth. The NHS should have made their own.
BTW France really outdone themselves - up to 3 k vaccinations now........
Is it literally one doctor for the whole of France doing vaccinations?
Nope but there is a rule that a consultation is required to get consent 5 days before the vaccination is given.
This results in a lot of paperwork and delays.
The French demanding lots of paperwork, I'm shocked I tell you. How many extra people are dying because of this nonsense.
While we are having arguments about paperwork imposed on doctors coming back to help out with the big V programme, in Europe they’re arguing about paperwork imposed on the general population who want to be vaccinated!
If, as expected, the U.K. quickly starts rolling out 2m+ vaccines a week, there’s going to be all sorts of questions raised in Europe.
France isn't all of Europe. But sure, if France doesn't want to use its doses they should pass them on to somewhere that does.
Use em or lose em!
Agreed. It’s not just France either. Germany and the U.K. appear to be the only European countries taking the rollout close to seriously.
Pretty nuts that we've now overtaken Russia given all the fuss they made about starting vaccinations early.
Imagine how far in the lead we'd be if we weren't hamstrung by Boris as PM!
Sir John Bell, regius professor at Oxford University and an adviser to the UK's Vaccine Taskforce, told The Telegraph he believes the vaccine will 'work well' and become available in time for the mid-February target.
Britain has already struck a deal for 30million doses of the vaccine, with the option of ordering 22million more. It is hoped supplies could arrive in time to help the Government fulfill its ambitious promise of vaccinating 13million Brits by mid-February.
What an awesome performance by the global pharmaceutical industry, there’s at least five vaccines out there around the world now, and a few more such as the J&J working through the approval process.
If it does work, it makes life dead easy, especially for the far less vulnerable. You just roll through some car park of a sporting venue, and your done.
Sir John Bell, regius professor at Oxford University and an adviser to the UK's Vaccine Taskforce, told The Telegraph he believes the vaccine will 'work well' and become available in time for the mid-February target.
Britain has already struck a deal for 30million doses of the vaccine, with the option of ordering 22million more. It is hoped supplies could arrive in time to help the Government fulfill its ambitious promise of vaccinating 13million Brits by mid-February.
What an awesome performance by the global pharmaceutical industry, there’s at least five vaccines out there around the world now, and a few more such as the J&J working through the approval process.
Jezza disagrees....they are absolute filth. The NHS should have made their own.
Capitalism always wins!
(To be perfectly fair, China and Russia have made good vaccines too).
I have this feeling that with delay of supply and slowness of ramp up in vaccinations, government will again have overpromised and under-delivered and get absolutely smashed from pillar to post come March....then April will we will be swimming in vaccines, from Pfizer, AZN, J&J, Moderna...but a bit like testing, where capacity is now very good, the damage will have been done to the government reputation and all that people will remember is slow roll out (despite doing better than basically every other comparable countries, just like testing)
It is only the media that will mind if the target is missed by a few weeks or a few days. The public really don't care, so long as the job gets done reasonably efficiently. This is why I can't understand why Johnson has to make these bigger, better, hostage to fortune pledges that seldom succeed.
Surely every major global politician of the last four years will have a smiley photo of him or herself standing alongside Donald the Disgraced. He was the US Prez. They all wanted to be his friend, at least at first.
Just like all the small kids want to be the schoolyard bully's friend
No one shared the personal and backroom contacts with him of Boris Johnson's government, not the dictators of Brazil and the Philippines, or anyone else.
That doesn't make them the same government, but if they're reasonable people it should give them pause for thought, about where they go in the future.
Surely every major global politician of the last four years will have a smiley photo of him or herself standing alongside Donald the Disgraced. He was the US Prez. They all wanted to be his friend, at least at first.
Surely that one with Salmond was before he was President?
Doubt that Salmond will ever be prez of an Indy Scotland now.
Has Johnson dashed your hopes of a second referendum to that extent?
Nope, a mild joke on your form of words, plus an accurate measure of how Salmond is currently perceived in Scotland. I know the PB Scotch experts need all the help they can get.
Fake news sells because it is personalised and more exciting and interesting than real news. People can live years and decades in a fake news bubble and may actually be happier than those of whose who put up with the real thing as the world becomes more orderly and clearer to them. If only their enemies could be defeated we would be living in heaven - it is not that different to fundamentalist religions.
Just like extreme religions, it must be tackled, I don't have the answers but former insiders suggest taxing the data it relies on heavily is part of the solution.
Years of crying wolf don't help.
Um. I may be missing the point, but if a health service that can barely cope with a normal winter runs into a one-in-a-century pandemic reaching a crescendo over winter, surely "No big deal" is a genuinely deluded point of view?
I think @isam is right here. They were crying wolf - we're seeing what a real crisis looks like - I suspect we not hear quite so much about winter health crises in future years.
There have been crises every year, not in every hospital in every year, but certainly they have happened. I work with a number of medics at hospitals in Yorkshire and the issues are real - routine procedures cancelled or put back, shipping patients out to other hospitals long distances away, sending patients home knowing theyll be back shortly afterwards to not run out of beds (the last also costs the hospital money as they then don't get paid for that care if there's an emergency readmission, but is sometimes the only way of keeping afloat).
Of course, it's a fine line - you also don't want, in the real world of other spending priorities, to have a big excess of facilities. The most efficient option is to have just enough to cope with peak demand and if you do that you sometimes won't have quite enough. It's also true that if there are more facilities/money then more things will get treated/get treated sooner to try and not waste those facilities. You'd need a massive funding increase to remove the crises completely. But the issues reported every winter are real.
Do the NHS do seasonal hire? Staff from southern hemisphere countries boosting the numbers during our winter?I guess that wouldn't help with beds/equipment
Yes. It's usually a big tool in the box. Unfortunately the supply of suitable temp resource has dropped off because of ...
I'll leave it there since we're "moving on".
From Southern hemisphere countries eh? And pre 2015 too - blimey
Well, no. The resource tended to pop over from Europe rather than long haul from Tierra Del Fuego. Guess this might change going forward but as yet it hasn't. Exciting times.
I have this feeling that with delay of supply and slowness of ramp up in vaccinations, government will again have overpromised and under-delivered and get absolutely smashed from pillar to post come March....then April will we will be swimming in vaccines, from Pfizer, AZN, J&J, Moderna...but a bit like testing, where capacity is now very good, the damage will have been done to the government reputation and all that people will remember is slow roll out (despite doing better than basically every other comparable countries, just like testing)
It is only the media that will mind if the target is missed by a few weeks or a few days. The public really don't care, so long as the job gets done reasonably efficiently. This is why I can't understand why Johnson has to make these bigger, better, hostage to fortune pledges that seldom succeed.
If he had said the target was end of March, rather than middle of Feb, only the really really partisan would have criticised him. And he could have still said with all honesty, this will still be faster than the most of the rest of Europe.
This also wouldn't have stopped the government still pushing the rate as fast as possible to achieve it before then.
Fake news sells because it is personalised and more exciting and interesting than real news. People can live years and decades in a fake news bubble and may actually be happier than those of whose who put up with the real thing as the world becomes more orderly and clearer to them. If only their enemies could be defeated we would be living in heaven - it is not that different to fundamentalist religions.
Just like extreme religions, it must be tackled, I don't have the answers but former insiders suggest taxing the data it relies on heavily is part of the solution.
Years of crying wolf don't help.
Crying wolf or telling the truth that there was indeed a winter emergency most years, albeit one that by its very nature was time-limited?
Yeah could be a bit of both really, but when its the same story, we are at breaking point, every year its harder to make the case that this time it's really serious
Beyond breaking point this time, sadly.
Yep that's it. Proving @isam's point - all you can do is ramp up the rhetoric.
I took his point to be that the reason some people are not believing there's a massive NHS crisis due to Covid which could lead to the system collapsing is because in previous years there have been less serious NHS crises not due to Covid which did not lead to the system collapsing.
Not sure my reply proves that point but, yes, I'm sure some people do think that way. Winter. NHS. Same old, same old.
What can you do?
Elect the LibDems who wanted an NHS hypothecated tax.
But as I have said for now this is the third time, the country doesn't want to spend more on the NHS.
We don't need to spend more on the NHS, we need to spend the money better. Running all of these trusts with the expensive management and IT and HR etc etc is wasteful. Paying GPs to run CCGs is wasteful. Cut out all of the "free market" overlays and spend the money on the front line.
This is how the Tories have managed to both rightly claim they are spending record amounts on the NHS whilst presiding over front line cuts to services. All the money in the world just not going where its needed.
I also bet the trusts are stuffed with their chums etc , sucking up bulk of the cash.
At least he has the shame to delete his bollocks. Other Covid denial accounts still have up all their terrible, false staments about Covid being over in Texas/Georgia/Sweden/the world/mathematically burns out after 90 days etc.
I'm blocked by Alistair Hames these days, what is he up to these days?
I've noticed he hasn't been shared as much he used to be on PB.
He blocks everyone who uses the same words too often in a sentence!
Does he also block people who don't know how to use apostrophes correctly?
To find out if he blocks people who dont know how to use apostrophes correctly Ill go on twitter and ask him if he blocks people who dont know how to use apostrophes correctly
You missed some apostrophe's out it shouldve been To find out if he block's people who dont know how to use apostrophe's correctly Ill go on twitter and ask him if he block's people who dont know how to use apo'strophe's correctly
Sir John Bell, regius professor at Oxford University and an adviser to the UK's Vaccine Taskforce, told The Telegraph he believes the vaccine will 'work well' and become available in time for the mid-February target.
Britain has already struck a deal for 30million doses of the vaccine, with the option of ordering 22million more. It is hoped supplies could arrive in time to help the Government fulfill its ambitious promise of vaccinating 13million Brits by mid-February.
What an awesome performance by the global pharmaceutical industry, there’s at least five vaccines out there around the world now, and a few more such as the J&J working through the approval process.
Are there any serious efforts (other than the Australian one*) that failed/look like they will fail? Remarkable if not.
*Even that worked, IIRC, but was shelved for the unfortunate side effect of making HIV tests return positive. If there hadn't been alternatives I guess we'd be working on a new HIV test or a tweak to that vaccine to avoid that unfortunate side effect.
I have this feeling that with delay of supply and slowness of ramp up in vaccinations, government will again have overpromised and under-delivered and get absolutely smashed from pillar to post come March....then April will we will be swimming in vaccines, from Pfizer, AZN, J&J, Moderna...but a bit like testing, where capacity is now very good, the damage will have been done to the government reputation and all that people will remember is slow roll out (despite doing better than basically every other comparable countries, just like testing)
It is only the media that will mind if the target is missed by a few weeks or a few days. The public really don't care, so long as the job gets done reasonably efficiently. This is why I can't understand why Johnson has to make these bigger, better, hostage to fortune pledges that seldom succeed.
Because he’s more interested in getting the country back to normal, than he is in tomorrow’s headlines of an increasingly distrusted media?
The targets focus the minds of those actually involved. Nothing else matters except getting jabs in arms.
BTW France really outdone themselves - up to 3 k vaccinations now........
Is it literally one doctor for the whole of France doing vaccinations?
Nope but there is a rule that a consultation is required to get consent 5 days before the vaccination is given.
This results in a lot of paperwork and delays.
The French demanding lots of paperwork, I'm shocked I tell you. How many extra people are dying because of this nonsense.
While we are having arguments about paperwork imposed on doctors coming back to help out with the big V programme, in Europe they’re arguing about paperwork imposed on the general population who want to be vaccinated!
If, as expected, the U.K. quickly starts rolling out 2m+ vaccines a week, there’s going to be all sorts of questions raised in Europe.
France isn't all of Europe. But sure, if France doesn't want to use its doses they should pass them on to somewhere that does.
Use em or lose em!
Agreed. It’s not just France either. Germany and the U.K. appear to be the only European countries taking the rollout close to seriously.
Italy seems to be doing as well as they can given supply.
Italy is actually doing better than Germany as %. Denmark also. That particular chart isn't as useful as the % vaccine rate chart as comparing countries of very different sizes.
So surely on those terms Israel is off the scale. It would be very interesting ( @Malmesbury looking at you here) to have daily Israeli case numbers.
Why are they increasing so much yearly from the early 2000s? From 2010 to about 2017 is a similar line to this year
You already posted the reason yourself: the lack of funding to the NHS by Conservative governments resulting in successive winter crises.
Doubt it's that, the increase actually starts at 2004 it seems
You're misunderstanding the graph. Anything negative is indicative of improving outcomes. The rate of improvement may have slowed until about 2012, but it was only after that that outcomes started to deteriorate.
2014-2019?
These years are all above the x-axis, therefore indicative of increasing excess deaths. What you've got to grasp is that because of the moving baseline, the graph is already of a derivative, so things are getting worse all the while the graph is positive. The more positive, the faster the excess deaths are increasing. So excess deaths were still increasing from 2014 to 2019, though not as rapidly by 2019.
Apologies if this point has been made, the Beer Hall Putsch was a semi-comic fiasco with a few deaths. The March on Rome was also less than sweeping and heroic.
I have this feeling that with delay of supply and slowness of ramp up in vaccinations, government will again have overpromised and under-delivered and get absolutely smashed from pillar to post come March....then April will we will be swimming in vaccines, from Pfizer, AZN, J&J, Moderna...but a bit like testing, where capacity is now very good, the damage will have been done to the government reputation and all that people will remember is slow roll out (despite doing better than basically every other comparable countries, just like testing)
Certainly we have started way, way too slowly. And those on PB that seek to absolve the government of any responsibility for a supply-line that it should have been absolutely on top of need to take a long, hard look at themselves.
Surely every major global politician of the last four years will have a smiley photo of him or herself standing alongside Donald the Disgraced. He was the US Prez. They all wanted to be his friend, at least at first.
Just how massive is Salmond's head? Trump is 6' 3" and yet Salmond looks like Hagrid in that image.....
Fake news sells because it is personalised and more exciting and interesting than real news. People can live years and decades in a fake news bubble and may actually be happier than those of whose who put up with the real thing as the world becomes more orderly and clearer to them. If only their enemies could be defeated we would be living in heaven - it is not that different to fundamentalist religions.
Just like extreme religions, it must be tackled, I don't have the answers but former insiders suggest taxing the data it relies on heavily is part of the solution.
Years of crying wolf don't help.
Um. I may be missing the point, but if a health service that can barely cope with a normal winter runs into a one-in-a-century pandemic reaching a crescendo over winter, surely "No big deal" is a genuinely deluded point of view?
I think @isam is right here. They were crying wolf - we're seeing what a real crisis looks like - I suspect we not hear quite so much about winter health crises in future years.
There have been crises every year, not in every hospital in every year, but certainly they have happened. I work with a number of medics at hospitals in Yorkshire and the issues are real - routine procedures cancelled or put back, shipping patients out to other hospitals long distances away, sending patients home knowing theyll be back shortly afterwards to not run out of beds (the last also costs the hospital money as they then don't get paid for that care if there's an emergency readmission, but is sometimes the only way of keeping afloat).
Of course, it's a fine line - you also don't want, in the real world of other spending priorities, to have a big excess of facilities. The most efficient option is to have just enough to cope with peak demand and if you do that you sometimes won't have quite enough. It's also true that if there are more facilities/money then more things will get treated/get treated sooner to try and not waste those facilities. You'd need a massive funding increase to remove the crises completely. But the issues reported every winter are real.
Do the NHS do seasonal hire? Staff from southern hemisphere countries boosting the numbers during our winter?I guess that wouldn't help with beds/equipment
Yes. It's usually a big tool in the box. Unfortunately the supply of suitable temp resource has dropped off because of ...
I'll leave it there since we're "moving on".
From Southern hemisphere countries eh? And pre 2015 too - blimey
Well, no. The resource tended to pop over from Europe rather than long haul from Tierra Del Fuego. Guess this might change going forward but as yet it hasn't. Exciting times.
Should have kept Freedom Of Movement for NHS staff in my opinion
To be fair to Jo Brand (yes, I know) it was a pre-recorded programme, so it was up to the editor which jokes made the cut and which stayed between the live audience and the participants.
Anyone who’s ever attended a recording of HIGNFY or Mock The Week knows that there’s an awful lot of well-over-the-line jokes told in these settings, that no-one expects to actually be aired.
I prefer Jo Brand to the endless minor public school, Oxbridge wankers doing what passes for comedy on R4. And, of course, I don't think Jo was recommending it as a course of action. She was looking for a gag & did not think.
There is a long tradition of throwing flour or eggs or rotting vegetables as political protest.
And, of course, a well-aimed egg can cheer the hearts of millions.
But, even joking about throwing acid takes the cheeriness away.
Surely every major global politician of the last four years will have a smiley photo of him or herself standing alongside Donald the Disgraced. He was the US Prez. They all wanted to be his friend, at least at first.
Surely that one with Salmond was before he was President?
Doubt that Salmond will ever be prez of an Indy Scotland now.
Has Johnson dashed your hopes of a second referendum to that extent?
Nope, a mild joke on your form of words, plus an accurate measure of how Salmond is currently perceived in Scotland. I know the PB Scotch experts need all the help they can get.
I wouldn't necessarily describe myself as an expert, although I can tell a decent single malt from a blended brand.
Surely every major global politician of the last four years will have a smiley photo of him or herself standing alongside Donald the Disgraced. He was the US Prez. They all wanted to be his friend, at least at first.
Just how massive is Salmond's head? Trump is 6' 3" and yet Salmond looks like Hagrid in that image.....
Odd, as it's Trump who was the GlobalScot at the time.
Comments
This kind of analysis misses an important point. Initially the George Floyd protests were handled by the police taking a much lighter approach, they were also overrun by the mob, the police station was torched, and this spiralled into worse and worse violence over many days.
To deem him a Trumpite Nationalist is however, a vicious, unfounded and deeply inaccurate slur.
Armitage Shanks
https://twitter.com/StevePeers/status/1347169680293818369
The denial is careful tightrope walking...
Next year, this year's excess deaths will be baked into that average, meaning that next year the graph will likely (hopefully) show a big dip below the line. No doubt some will then claim next year that the government/NHS is performing miracles.
They barely get reported on.
Like, the Christmas suicide bomber managed to last all of 2 days in the news.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/55575450
https://news.sky.com/story/why-are-white-men-more-likely-to-carry-out-mass-shootings-11252808
Also, although I'm no expert, aren't the vast majority of school shootings done by white men?
https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news/stoke-on-trent-news/bungling-burglars-arrested-after-accidentally-4864326
I'll leave it there since we're "moving on".
I've noticed he hasn't been shared as much he used to be on PB.
Anyone who’s ever attended a recording of HIGNFY or Mock The Week knows that there’s an awful lot of well-over-the-line jokes told in these settings, that no-one expects to actually be aired.
Reminds me of the Thick of It episode when the media gets hold of defence budget overspend....data, charts, confuse them....
Sorry I didn;t get the memo.
As with the Salmond one, Gove was carrying out a job, in this instance as a writer for The Times.
Britain has already struck a deal for 30million doses of the vaccine, with the option of ordering 22million more. It is hoped supplies could arrive in time to help the Government fulfill its ambitious promise of vaccinating 13million Brits by mid-February.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9122173/Single-dose-vaccine-Johnson-Johnson-rolled-Britain-month.html
The graphs, the endless graphs. They just wouldn't stop coming.
Also rather awkward, for the French President, is this bizarre encounter
"Body politic: Trump puts personal 'touch' on diplomacy with Macron
The public displays of affection between the powerful pair included cheek smooching, hand-holding and even a delicate dandruff dust-off."
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/body-politic-trump-puts-personal-touch-diplomacy-macron-n868771
Fortunately, there are signs amongst courageous state-level Republicans that there are some with the moral fortitude to do this necessary rebuilding. America, like all democracies, needs a strong loyal alternative party capable of government. The GOP currently does not fit that bill, epiphanies from Pence, McConnell and Graham on Epiphany notwithstanding.
What an awesome performance by the global pharmaceutical industry, there’s at least five vaccines out there around the world now, and a few more such as the J&J working through the approval process.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/if-he-loses-trump-will-concede-gracefully-11604772109
(To be perfectly fair, China and Russia have made good vaccines too).
That doesn't make them the same government, but if they're reasonable people it should give them pause for thought, about where they go in the future.
https://twitter.com/NickCFarrer/status/1347123294915489792
I see the Great Forgetting has started.
This also wouldn't have stopped the government still pushing the rate as fast as possible to achieve it before then.
The RyanAir of scheduling.
To find out if he block's people who dont know how to use apostrophe's correctly Ill go on twitter and ask him if he block's people who dont know how to use apo'strophe's correctly
*Even that worked, IIRC, but was shelved for the unfortunate side effect of making HIV tests return positive. If there hadn't been alternatives I guess we'd be working on a new HIV test or a tweak to that vaccine to avoid that unfortunate side effect.
The targets focus the minds of those actually involved. Nothing else matters except getting jabs in arms.
https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1151669588808986624
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1347110031234379778?s=20
There is a long tradition of throwing flour or eggs or rotting vegetables as political protest.
And, of course, a well-aimed egg can cheer the hearts of millions.
But, even joking about throwing acid takes the cheeriness away.