https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/isolated-self-absorbed-donald-trump-impeachment-defense-457983 ...Even more than usual, Trump has not been engaged in work of the presidency, leaving much of the official business to others, including Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over a White House coronavirus task force meeting Monday as the pandemic’s toll surges with more than 3,000 deaths a day in the United States.
“Things requiring a presidential signature slowed down for sure, and he was just supremely self-absorbed,” said a former senior administration official. The official said that many conversations with Trump, even those about policy issues, have devolved into the president complaining about an election that he still won’t publicly admit he lost... ...Since Dec. 23, the schedule has included 15 variations of the language: “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.” A former White House official said the language was inserted at Trump’s directive in order to give off the appearance of him being busy.
"He will make many calls and have many meetings" wouldn't fool a child.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/isolated-self-absorbed-donald-trump-impeachment-defense-457983 ...Even more than usual, Trump has not been engaged in work of the presidency, leaving much of the official business to others, including Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over a White House coronavirus task force meeting Monday as the pandemic’s toll surges with more than 3,000 deaths a day in the United States.
“Things requiring a presidential signature slowed down for sure, and he was just supremely self-absorbed,” said a former senior administration official. The official said that many conversations with Trump, even those about policy issues, have devolved into the president complaining about an election that he still won’t publicly admit he lost... ...Since Dec. 23, the schedule has included 15 variations of the language: “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.” A former White House official said the language was inserted at Trump’s directive in order to give off the appearance of him being busy.
How could he possibly be busy when he can't tweet? Its ridiculous.
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
This story about the Chartwell’s free food ‘hamper’, going out to poor kids, could turn me into a communist overnight. Someone, somewhere, thinks this is acceptable. To make a profit. Sweet weeping Jesus.
It also seems to be total and utter fake news, Twitter style.
If you go to Chartswell's own website then at list price (no negotiations) this is what they provide: https://www.chartwellscanhelp.com/
2 Week Food Hamper - costing £23 (not £30)
2 x 200g Block of cheese 14 x Portions of fresh fruit: 6 x apples, 4 x easy peel oranges and 4 x bananas 16 x Portions of vegetables: cucumber, carrots, baking potatoes, sweet potatoes, lettuce, tomato 1kg x Wholemeal penne pasta 4 x Chopped tomato tins 2 x Tuna chunks in brine 1 x Loaf of bread 9 x Healthy snacks
Rather different to the shabby bollocks Twitter image. Someone isn't saying the truth.
No, the food box on the right is definitely real, the £30 has been wasted and Chartwells are profiteering from a government contract.
How do you know it cost £30?
How do you know it came from Chartwells?
Why wasn't the £23 hamper ordered instead?
Too many questions for me. If there's an answer I'd love to know it. Someone looks like they've done something dodgy, I'm just not sure who it is.
I hope you're not putting your loyalty to Johnson above feeding hungry kids.
I'm not. I have said repeatedly my guess (and it is just a guess) is that someone in the school or elsewhere has done this by themselves on the cheap. Bought up a load of stuff, divided it into bags and distributed it. That looks like something an amateur has done.
There hasn't been a single official citation that this did come from a company. The only response quoted is one saying that it is not specification and asking which school it was from so it can be investigated - but no public response to that question.
The person has said she's been repeatedly told that Chartwells provided it.
And she woiuldn't want to publish the school's name. Media scrum and all that.
So because an anonymous person on Twitter said it based on just hearsay, it must be true? 🤔
Chartwells have replied to say that doesn't meet their specification. I see no reason to assume they're lying.
Lol - it not meeting their specification is not saying "so this cannot have come from us" you berk. It can be both.
Not meeting their specification is their way of saying oh fu*k someone (probably at a local or regional level) has screwed up.
However Philip (being a brilliant bellweather for not understanding things) doesn't see a problem that even Chartwell saw after hours yesterday.
I see a problem. This is bad.
What I want to know is who is actually responsible. If Chartwell then they should face severe consequences.
If it isn't Chartwell then they shouldn't be falsely accused.
The person Tweeting regularly shares lies and mistruths though so who knows yet. All I am saying is there should be an investigation and the truth should come out - what is wrong with that?
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
Meanwhile this is what Chartwells was sending out in March of last year. Look at their excuse, then. Look at the *butter*
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/isolated-self-absorbed-donald-trump-impeachment-defense-457983 ...Even more than usual, Trump has not been engaged in work of the presidency, leaving much of the official business to others, including Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over a White House coronavirus task force meeting Monday as the pandemic’s toll surges with more than 3,000 deaths a day in the United States.
“Things requiring a presidential signature slowed down for sure, and he was just supremely self-absorbed,” said a former senior administration official. The official said that many conversations with Trump, even those about policy issues, have devolved into the president complaining about an election that he still won’t publicly admit he lost... ...Since Dec. 23, the schedule has included 15 variations of the language: “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.” A former White House official said the language was inserted at Trump’s directive in order to give off the appearance of him being busy.
“He’s talking to people who are willing to indulge him,” a former senior administration official said.
I suspect this has been the story of his whole presidency.
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
Meanwhile this is what Chartwells was sending out in March of last year. Look at their excuse, then. Look at the *butter*
That looks like catering butter, it is probably what they had at no notice back in March.
Dixiedean's Council solution seems much, much superior to me and is what I would prefer personally. But that confirms this is not centrally organised. Who knows what Council organised this and how, that isn't truthfully shared on Twitter.
This story about the Chartwell’s free food ‘hamper’, going out to poor kids, could turn me into a communist overnight. Someone, somewhere, thinks this is acceptable. To make a profit. Sweet weeping Jesus.
It also seems to be total and utter fake news, Twitter style.
If you go to Chartswell's own website then at list price (no negotiations) this is what they provide: https://www.chartwellscanhelp.com/
2 Week Food Hamper - costing £23 (not £30)
2 x 200g Block of cheese 14 x Portions of fresh fruit: 6 x apples, 4 x easy peel oranges and 4 x bananas 16 x Portions of vegetables: cucumber, carrots, baking potatoes, sweet potatoes, lettuce, tomato 1kg x Wholemeal penne pasta 4 x Chopped tomato tins 2 x Tuna chunks in brine 1 x Loaf of bread 9 x Healthy snacks
Rather different to the shabby bollocks Twitter image. Someone isn't saying the truth.
No, the food box on the right is definitely real, the £30 has been wasted and Chartwells are profiteering from a government contract.
How do you know it cost £30?
How do you know it came from Chartwells?
Why wasn't the £23 hamper ordered instead?
Too many questions for me. If there's an answer I'd love to know it. Someone looks like they've done something dodgy, I'm just not sure who it is.
I hope you're not putting your loyalty to Johnson above feeding hungry kids.
I'm not. I have said repeatedly my guess (and it is just a guess) is that someone in the school or elsewhere has done this by themselves on the cheap. Bought up a load of stuff, divided it into bags and distributed it. That looks like something an amateur has done.
There hasn't been a single official citation that this did come from a company. The only response quoted is one saying that it is not specification and asking which school it was from so it can be investigated - but no public response to that question.
Ok. We'll see what transpires. Sounds like some incompetence. As a general point I'd have thought food vouchers for the parents to spend at their usual shop would be better than this 'hamper via a middleman' approach but no doubt there are pros & cons.
Just so long as this is incompetence and not money being creamed off by people with the government's ear. Incompetence happens. It's absolutely fine. But if it's grift and corruption again, this time at the direct expense of struggling families, I don't think I could bear that.
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
Meanwhile this is what Chartwells was sending out in March of last year. Look at their excuse, then. Look at the *butter*
Apart from the complete lack of nutrition and not being enough, why are they buying nearly all branded stuff? It costs way more (double on average?), surely they could increase quantity, nutrition and maintain a decent profit margin by better sourcing?
This story about the Chartwell’s free food ‘hamper’, going out to poor kids, could turn me into a communist overnight. Someone, somewhere, thinks this is acceptable. To make a profit. Sweet weeping Jesus.
It also seems to be total and utter fake news, Twitter style.
If you go to Chartswell's own website then at list price (no negotiations) this is what they provide: https://www.chartwellscanhelp.com/
2 Week Food Hamper - costing £23 (not £30)
2 x 200g Block of cheese 14 x Portions of fresh fruit: 6 x apples, 4 x easy peel oranges and 4 x bananas 16 x Portions of vegetables: cucumber, carrots, baking potatoes, sweet potatoes, lettuce, tomato 1kg x Wholemeal penne pasta 4 x Chopped tomato tins 2 x Tuna chunks in brine 1 x Loaf of bread 9 x Healthy snacks
Rather different to the shabby bollocks Twitter image. Someone isn't saying the truth.
No, the food box on the right is definitely real, the £30 has been wasted and Chartwells are profiteering from a government contract.
How do you know it cost £30?
How do you know it came from Chartwells?
Why wasn't the £23 hamper ordered instead?
Too many questions for me. If there's an answer I'd love to know it. Someone looks like they've done something dodgy, I'm just not sure who it is.
I hope you're not putting your loyalty to Johnson above feeding hungry kids.
I'm not. I have said repeatedly my guess (and it is just a guess) is that someone in the school or elsewhere has done this by themselves on the cheap. Bought up a load of stuff, divided it into bags and distributed it. That looks like something an amateur has done.
There hasn't been a single official citation that this did come from a company. The only response quoted is one saying that it is not specification and asking which school it was from so it can be investigated - but no public response to that question.
Ok. We'll see what transpires. As a general point I'd have thought food vouchers for the parents to spend at their usual shop would be better than this 'hamper via a middleman' approach but no doubt there are pros & cons.
Just so long as this is incompetence and not money being creamed off by people with the government's ear. Incompetence happens. It's absolutely fine. But if it's grift and corruption again, this time at the direct expense of struggling families, I don't think I could bear that.
Incompetence isn`t fine. If this story is true taxpayer money has and is being wasted.
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
Much better solution. Let the market provide.
That was how it was working but the likes of Simon Clarke and Ben Bradley thought it was spent on crack, prostitutes and unhealthy food, so kids get this instead now.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/isolated-self-absorbed-donald-trump-impeachment-defense-457983 ...Even more than usual, Trump has not been engaged in work of the presidency, leaving much of the official business to others, including Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over a White House coronavirus task force meeting Monday as the pandemic’s toll surges with more than 3,000 deaths a day in the United States.
“Things requiring a presidential signature slowed down for sure, and he was just supremely self-absorbed,” said a former senior administration official. The official said that many conversations with Trump, even those about policy issues, have devolved into the president complaining about an election that he still won’t publicly admit he lost... ...Since Dec. 23, the schedule has included 15 variations of the language: “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.” A former White House official said the language was inserted at Trump’s directive in order to give off the appearance of him being busy.
FFS what a crock. What a total bunch of po-faced bullshLt.
Bill Clinton used his time in the Whitehouse to wave his tiny d8ck at impressionable interns. Jack Kennedy was a serial adulterer. George Ford fell down a lot of plane steps. Reagan reminisced about his old movies while his despairing aides tried to get him to focus on policy. Spitting Image used to satirize him by getting him to use a monkey to negotiate with the Russians. Bush fell for the dodgy dossier. Obama was a windbag. Nixon? I rest my case.
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
Much better solution. Let the market provide.
That was how it was working but the likes of Simon Clarke and Ben Bradley thought it was spent on crack, prostitutes and unhealthy food, so kids get this instead now.
Are Simon Clarke and Ben Bradley in charge of all the Council's except for Dixiedean's?
Great news on the vaccines, maybe this is what everyone should be talking about.
4th in the world on vaccines per capita, behind two small nations and one tiny one, and well ahead of all the G20 and EU27 nations.
Sadly, good news doesn’t generate clicks or sell papers.
The cycle-wank is BECAUSE of this good news on vaccines. There are some whose minds are so swimming in hatred, they just cannot bear the idea of our PM being seen to do a great job on something, for once. Especially when that something is the biggest challenge facing our nation.
So there must be chaff thrown out, to hide the positive. Even at the cost of being made to look total pillocks. Retaining ther reputation doesn't matter. Trashing the PM's does.
They are going to totally lose their shit when the voters mark his Covid scorecard: "Good start, lousy middle, strong finish."
I think that you will find that voters are infamously ungrateful.
The UK is doing well on vaccines because we do have an NHS that is specifically designed for such purposes.
Government vaccine policy has been far from perfect though, and in particular the single dose gambit could come very unstuck if it fails to suppress the disease.
It's mad that we are not doing a trial comparing the single and double dose approach. Genuinely a decision that could save hundreds of thousands of lives.
We basically are, so long as we're collecting sufficient data.
Again, the issue was raised on the last How to Vaccinate the World podcast.
We are not. No one is. We should be.
They will have the data for an open label study.
I wonder... Records of who was vaccinated - yes (at least, I certainly hope so). Records of positive Covid tests - are these kept centrally with IDs? I'm not aware that they are, but may be wrong - interested to know, if so. It would a lot of sense epidemiologically. You'd be able to get records of COVID diagnoses from primary care (is Covid in Read* now?) and hospital (is Covid in ICD-10 yet? If so, is it applied by NHS?) and of course on death certificates, but all that misses the many people getting Covid who won't require any medical intervention.
* I assume it is - I once discovered, looking up Batten's disease, that Battenburg cake (choking on) is in Read!
Yes - I wonder whether all the data is joined up. I suspect not.
Plus - it looks like those who get 2 doses will be a different age profile/level of vulnerability to those with 1 dose? I really think it would be a very small investment to test this approach properly.
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
Meanwhile this is what Chartwells was sending out in March of last year. Look at their excuse, then. Look at the *butter*
That looks like catering butter, it is probably what they had at no notice back in March.
Dixiedean's Council solution seems much, much superior to me and is what I would prefer personally. But that confirms this is not centrally organised. Who knows what Council organised this and how, that isn't truthfully shared on Twitter.
It seems like the same company, Chartwells, has also suffered huge fines for doing the very same thing... in America
Now, why on earth would the government go back and give ANOTHER huge contract to a company with a record of screwing this up, and actual fraudulence, a company ultimately run by a Tory donor and close friend of David Cameron?
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/isolated-self-absorbed-donald-trump-impeachment-defense-457983 ...Even more than usual, Trump has not been engaged in work of the presidency, leaving much of the official business to others, including Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over a White House coronavirus task force meeting Monday as the pandemic’s toll surges with more than 3,000 deaths a day in the United States.
“Things requiring a presidential signature slowed down for sure, and he was just supremely self-absorbed,” said a former senior administration official. The official said that many conversations with Trump, even those about policy issues, have devolved into the president complaining about an election that he still won’t publicly admit he lost... ...Since Dec. 23, the schedule has included 15 variations of the language: “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.” A former White House official said the language was inserted at Trump’s directive in order to give off the appearance of him being busy.
“He’s talking to people who are willing to indulge him,” a former senior administration official said.
I suspect this has been the story of his whole presidency.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/isolated-self-absorbed-donald-trump-impeachment-defense-457983 ...Even more than usual, Trump has not been engaged in work of the presidency, leaving much of the official business to others, including Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over a White House coronavirus task force meeting Monday as the pandemic’s toll surges with more than 3,000 deaths a day in the United States.
“Things requiring a presidential signature slowed down for sure, and he was just supremely self-absorbed,” said a former senior administration official. The official said that many conversations with Trump, even those about policy issues, have devolved into the president complaining about an election that he still won’t publicly admit he lost... ...Since Dec. 23, the schedule has included 15 variations of the language: “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.” A former White House official said the language was inserted at Trump’s directive in order to give off the appearance of him being busy.
"He will make many calls and have many meetings" wouldn't fool a child.
Commandant Lassard is now in charge at the White House.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/isolated-self-absorbed-donald-trump-impeachment-defense-457983 ...Even more than usual, Trump has not been engaged in work of the presidency, leaving much of the official business to others, including Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over a White House coronavirus task force meeting Monday as the pandemic’s toll surges with more than 3,000 deaths a day in the United States.
“Things requiring a presidential signature slowed down for sure, and he was just supremely self-absorbed,” said a former senior administration official. The official said that many conversations with Trump, even those about policy issues, have devolved into the president complaining about an election that he still won’t publicly admit he lost... ...Since Dec. 23, the schedule has included 15 variations of the language: “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.” A former White House official said the language was inserted at Trump’s directive in order to give off the appearance of him being busy.
FFS what a crock. What a total bunch of po-faced bullshLt.
Bill Clinton used his time in the Whitehouse to wave his tiny d8ck at impressionable interns. Jack Kennedy was a serial adulterer. George Ford fell down a lot of plane steps. Reagan reminisced about his old movies while his despairing aides tried to get him to focus on policy. Spitting Image used to satirize him by getting him to use a monkey to negotiate with the Russians. Bush fell for the dodgy dossier. Obama was a windbag. Nixon? I rest my case.
Yes, US Presidents can be a rum lot. But how many of them refused to accept that they had lost an election, and how many incited their followers to assault the US Capitol?
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/isolated-self-absorbed-donald-trump-impeachment-defense-457983 ...Even more than usual, Trump has not been engaged in work of the presidency, leaving much of the official business to others, including Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over a White House coronavirus task force meeting Monday as the pandemic’s toll surges with more than 3,000 deaths a day in the United States.
“Things requiring a presidential signature slowed down for sure, and he was just supremely self-absorbed,” said a former senior administration official. The official said that many conversations with Trump, even those about policy issues, have devolved into the president complaining about an election that he still won’t publicly admit he lost... ...Since Dec. 23, the schedule has included 15 variations of the language: “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.” A former White House official said the language was inserted at Trump’s directive in order to give off the appearance of him being busy.
FFS what a crock. What a total bunch of po-faced bullshLt.
Bill Clinton used his time in the Whitehouse to wave his tiny d8ck at impressionable interns. Jack Kennedy was a serial adulterer. George Ford fell down a lot of plane steps. Reagan reminisced about his old movies while his despairing aides tried to get him to focus on policy. Spitting Image used to satirize him by getting him to use a monkey to negotiate with the Russians. Bush fell for the dodgy dossier. Obama was a windbag. Nixon? I rest my case.
"Senior administration official" probably means the cleaner.
Authorities in China introduced new Covid-19 curbs in areas surrounding Beijing on Tuesday, putting 4.9 million residents under lockdown as new infections raised worries about a second wave in a nation that has mostly contained the disease, Reuters reports.
The city of Langfang in Hebei on Tuesday said residents will be put under home quarantine for seven days and be subject to mass Covid-10 testing in the latest attempt to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Gaocheng district in Shijiazhuang, Hebei’s capital which has been hardest-hit in the latest surge in infections, is gathering more than 20,000 people living in 12 remote villages into centralised quarantine as part of the city’s Covid-19 control, state media China News Service reported late Monday.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/isolated-self-absorbed-donald-trump-impeachment-defense-457983 ...Even more than usual, Trump has not been engaged in work of the presidency, leaving much of the official business to others, including Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over a White House coronavirus task force meeting Monday as the pandemic’s toll surges with more than 3,000 deaths a day in the United States.
“Things requiring a presidential signature slowed down for sure, and he was just supremely self-absorbed,” said a former senior administration official. The official said that many conversations with Trump, even those about policy issues, have devolved into the president complaining about an election that he still won’t publicly admit he lost... ...Since Dec. 23, the schedule has included 15 variations of the language: “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.” A former White House official said the language was inserted at Trump’s directive in order to give off the appearance of him being busy.
“He’s talking to people who are willing to indulge him,” a former senior administration official said.
I suspect this has been the story of his whole presidency.
FFS Stocky its the story of every presidency.
Nah - Trump`s a psychopath. Self-absorption is their thing.
See link below. Trump clearly exhibits all 7 on the list.
Interesting that Philip's devotional defence of Boris and all he does leads him to defend a £23 food package that looks to have about £15-worth of food in it.
Their boss supporting the Tories does wonders for basic ethics with this openly corrupt government.
£15??? Where do you shop, Selfridges food hall?
Someone has costed the ‘hamper’, it’s about £5 in value. So £25 of taxpayer’s money has disappeared *somewhere*
That was for something different. Chartwells offer 2 weeks of food for £23.
Pricing it up with Tesco its £14.75: 2 x 200g cheese blocks - £3.10 Apples £1.60 Oranges 69p Bananas 69p Baking Potatoes 41p Cucumber 41p Carrots 41p Sweet Potato 39p Lettuce 43p Tomatoes 75p Pasta £1.06 Chopped Tomatoes £1.06 Tuna £1.18 Bread 59p Snacks £1.98
So Chartwells - who will be splitting cheaper bulk packs - are making a comfortable 36-40% markup on top of the profit they make on the items included in the pack.
Nice work if you can get it.
If you price it up at Lidl it costs 47p + a free owl and a performing bear. BTW do we want to live in a country where millions rely more or less permanently on free food?
This is the real question, and I'd like to know why people aren't able to make ends meet enough to feed their children, or indeed if that is really the case at all.
I can understand short term problems (hence food banks) but these problems seem to be longer term than that.
Meanwhile, in 2 polls conducted entirely since January 6th, Trump's net approval rating is sharply down: Morning Consult -29 or -24 Quinnipiac University -27 https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/
In a rather happier O/T my son has got an offer to study PPE at St Anne's next year. I am chuffed to bits for him.
Congratulations, David, or to Jnr rather, but PPE at Oxford carries the very grave risk of ending up in the cabinet. So you do need to keep an eye on him.
Following the discussion last night on "why can't we let down all restrictions after the under-70s/under-60s/under-50s/under-40s are vaccinated?"
I took a look at that ONS page with the terrible data visualisation between infections, hospitalisations, and deaths, and translated the hospitalisations into raw numbers.
(Warning: up to date info on the age category numbers was only available for the UK as a whole and the data was for hospitalisations in England; I used it as an approximation as England's population is such a big proportion of the whole (82%) and it is likely that the age breakdown of hospitalisations won't be hugely different over the whole UK).
Conclusion: between the last week in November and the start of January:
The number of under-44 year olds hospitalised in w/e 3rd January was greater than the number of 85+ year olds hospitalised in w/e 29 November
The number of 45-64 year olds hospitalised in w/e 3rd January was larger than the number of 85+ year olds and 75-84-year-olds hospitalised in w/e 29 November put together.
This. Completely uncontrolled, COVID would overwhelm hospitals, even for "lower risk" groups.
I find people dying in the street untidy. Especially if it is me.
You might need to show your working. Remember that thousands of younger people will be vaccinated as part of the priority groups, as part of Group 6. By the time run through the priority vaccinations, the only people who remain are under 50s with no comorbidities – a group for whom the risk from Covid is very low indeed.
What's the IFR for those groups without hospital assistance (the "natural" IFR)? I mean, they're not in hospital for fun.
I make it that the approximate risk of hospitalisation for a 47-year-old (which I do look at, because I'm 47) is around 2.0%, compared to a death rate of under 0.2%. Assuming that hospitalisation occurs because it is needed to protect life (otherwise, why hospitalise them?), the natural IFR for someone in their late forties would be considerably closer to 2% than 0.2%.
We often quote the "about 1%" IFR for the virus as a whole and then say "but that's heavily skewed by the elderly" The hospitalisation rate looks to go past 1% at around age 37. Hospitalisation rates are a lot less subject to co-morbidities. They seem to be more likely to what will push you over the edge into death even when hospitalised.
If hospitals get overwhelmed, we will find out first hand what the natural IFR (without medical intervention) actually is. And it is nowhere near as low as it is with medical intervention, and the difference is overwhelmingly likely to be greatest for the young and those without co-morbidities (age and co-morbidities are what makes medical intervention less likely to help).
Here's a graphic to show the difference in hospitalisation by age and how it changed between the end of November and the start of January.
Your graph isn't a great deal of use for this discussion, because yet again it captures everyone in those age groups, rather than just those without underlying health conditions.
How many people under 40/under 50, nationwide, without comorbidities, have
a) died and b) been hospitalised
by Covid 19?
I have a good idea on a), as the NHS publishes this data (it's a remarkably low number). But we need to know b) – and I'm not sure there is an official source for it?
47% of those in hospital had no comorbidities. Not stratified by age, but of course elderly people are *unlikely* to have no comorbidities at all, so I suspect that a majority of young patients in hospital have none.
I think you are mistaken in believing that patients under 50, and even under 40, with no comorbidities are rarely in hospital. They rarely die, if they receive good treatment, but they need that treatment.
--AS
Supposition.
You might be right, you might well be wrong.
You certainly don't know.
The key question is: What percentage of Under 40s/Under 50s without comorbidities who contract covid end up requiring hospital treatment?
You don't know the answer to that and your statistics don't tell you, because, as you yourself say, they capture ALL people in those age groups.
So largely meaningless for this discussion.
My reference debunks your claim that under 40s/50s without comorbidities are at very low risk of hospitalization, up to the small uncertainty of the age stratification of comorbidities in hospital. You can do the Bayes calculation yourself if you want to know rates, but for public policy the important part is this: vaccinating all those with comorbidities (including children) would reduce hospitalization by at most 53% and likely by considerably less in younger patients. In other words, it buys less than one doubling period of a spreading disease.
I know you don't like it because it contradicts your tediously-repeated position that all restrictions must end immediately when the most at-risk have been vaccinated. However, I have now given some evidence in favour of my position. You have given none. If you want to argue otherwise then do your own research and show the evidence.
--AS
You simply don't have the data – not your fault, none of us do – but please don't pretend you do.
Looking at the outcomes to date, the gradient of relative risk by age for both death and hospitalisation looks to be something similar to this:
We keep looking at the black line and saying that when we get low enough on the axis (going from right to left in vaccinations), we can declare victory. But the rec line is closer to where the covid death risk would naturally be - because that's where you get so seriously ill as to need hospital, and dexamethasone, or tocilizumab, or sarilumab, or hooked up to a CPAP machine, or to be regularly proned, or even attached to a ventilator.
And all of that effort pushes that red line all the way down to the black line, where with all the effort we can give, we can't push it further down.
It's an important note that co-morbidities have far less effect on hospitalisation risk than death risk. Quite possibly because they could get in the way of treatment, I guess.
The debate is at what point we can let the black line spring up towards the red one - because that's what happens when the hospitals are overwhelmed and can't do their thing of pushing the red line down to the black one.
What is their effect on hospitalisations? I can't find an official source for that.
ICNARC has sources on the rate for severe comorbidities for admissions to ICU:
The analysis of children in hospital with covid noted that those with comorbidities (including far lesser ones) were noticeably more likely to need ICU treatment (although the majority in ICU had none of even those far less comorbidities)
There is also a simple question to put against the null hypothesis that "maybe comorbidities have zero or negligible effect on hospitalisation rates":
- Do comorbidities appreciably worsen the patient's chances of survival in hospital when they are hospitalised?
If the answer is "no", then the rate of hospitalisations would indeed be similar to the rate of deaths across those with no comorbidities.
If it is "yes," then the only question is the degree at which those with no co-morbidities are at increased relative risk for hospitalisation against that of death.
Sure, as I say, we need some hard data on the rate of hospitalisation for non-comorbid U40s/U50s.
We don't have it, at least I haven't been able to find it.
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
Much better solution. Let the market provide.
That was how it was working but the likes of Simon Clarke and Ben Bradley thought it was spent on crack, prostitutes and unhealthy food, so kids get this instead now.
Are Simon Clarke and Ben Bradley in charge of all the Council's except for Dixiedean's?
How does that work? 😕
There is a lovely point where the Department for Education acts as a bridge between councils and academies. Which allows busy body MPs to get involved.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/isolated-self-absorbed-donald-trump-impeachment-defense-457983 ...Even more than usual, Trump has not been engaged in work of the presidency, leaving much of the official business to others, including Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over a White House coronavirus task force meeting Monday as the pandemic’s toll surges with more than 3,000 deaths a day in the United States.
“Things requiring a presidential signature slowed down for sure, and he was just supremely self-absorbed,” said a former senior administration official. The official said that many conversations with Trump, even those about policy issues, have devolved into the president complaining about an election that he still won’t publicly admit he lost... ...Since Dec. 23, the schedule has included 15 variations of the language: “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.” A former White House official said the language was inserted at Trump’s directive in order to give off the appearance of him being busy.
FFS what a crock. What a total bunch of po-faced bullshLt.
Bill Clinton used his time in the Whitehouse to wave his tiny d8ck at impressionable interns. Jack Kennedy was a serial adulterer. George Ford fell down a lot of plane steps. Reagan reminisced about his old movies while his despairing aides tried to get him to focus on policy. Spitting Image used to satirize him by getting him to use a monkey to negotiate with the Russians. Bush fell for the dodgy dossier. Obama was a windbag. Nixon? I rest my case.
"Senior administration official" probably means the cleaner.
Meanwhile, in 2 polls conducted entirely since January 6th, Trump's net approval rating is sharply down: Morning Consult -29 or -24 Quinnipiac University -27 https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/
To be fair, those are not the most Trump-friendly outfits. Rasmussen has -3, but then they didn't do terribly well with their predictions for Nov 3rd.
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
Much better solution. Let the market provide.
That was how it was working but the likes of Simon Clarke and Ben Bradley thought it was spent on crack, prostitutes and unhealthy food, so kids get this instead now.
Are Simon Clarke and Ben Bradley in charge of all the Council's except for Dixiedean's?
How does that work? 😕
There is a lovely point where the Department for Education acts as a bridge between councils and academies. Which allows busy body MPs to get involved.
But the outcome seems to be completely different across the nation. Some people are reporting crappy amateur boxes, some people are reporting they got a lot of food (does not get attention) and some people are reporting vouchers.
A bit of a postcode lottery. Almost as if decisions vary depending upon the school, LEA or Council ...
Now they'll impose exercise restrictions and the media will go mental over the bikeride being done just before it. It's all so predictable.
Has Johnson mentioned 'saving Easter' yet? Sure to be along soon.
He will soon be talking about being able to hear the whack of leather on willow, the sound of champagne corks popping at Wimbledon....all the sounds we associate with the Great British summer.
Interesting that Philip's devotional defence of Boris and all he does leads him to defend a £23 food package that looks to have about £15-worth of food in it.
Their boss supporting the Tories does wonders for basic ethics with this openly corrupt government.
£15??? Where do you shop, Selfridges food hall?
Someone has costed the ‘hamper’, it’s about £5 in value. So £25 of taxpayer’s money has disappeared *somewhere*
That was for something different. Chartwells offer 2 weeks of food for £23.
Pricing it up with Tesco its £14.75: 2 x 200g cheese blocks - £3.10 Apples £1.60 Oranges 69p Bananas 69p Baking Potatoes 41p Cucumber 41p Carrots 41p Sweet Potato 39p Lettuce 43p Tomatoes 75p Pasta £1.06 Chopped Tomatoes £1.06 Tuna £1.18 Bread 59p Snacks £1.98
So Chartwells - who will be splitting cheaper bulk packs - are making a comfortable 36-40% markup on top of the profit they make on the items included in the pack.
Nice work if you can get it.
If you price it up at Lidl it costs 47p + a free owl and a performing bear. BTW do we want to live in a country where millions rely more or less permanently on free food?
This is the real question, and I'd like to know why people aren't able to make ends meet enough to feed their children, or indeed if that is really the case at all.
I can understand short term problems (hence food banks) but these problems seem to be longer term than that.
The contents of food boxes is a side issue.
The "real question" as you put it is peripheral at best. This is a dire tale of trying to silence a celeb who was causing trouble. What a weak government we have! And they honoured him to boot, thus making it even easier for him to affect policy in the future.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/isolated-self-absorbed-donald-trump-impeachment-defense-457983 ...Even more than usual, Trump has not been engaged in work of the presidency, leaving much of the official business to others, including Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over a White House coronavirus task force meeting Monday as the pandemic’s toll surges with more than 3,000 deaths a day in the United States.
“Things requiring a presidential signature slowed down for sure, and he was just supremely self-absorbed,” said a former senior administration official. The official said that many conversations with Trump, even those about policy issues, have devolved into the president complaining about an election that he still won’t publicly admit he lost... ...Since Dec. 23, the schedule has included 15 variations of the language: “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.” A former White House official said the language was inserted at Trump’s directive in order to give off the appearance of him being busy.
FFS what a crock. What a total bunch of po-faced bullshLt.
Bill Clinton used his time in the Whitehouse to wave his tiny d8ck at impressionable interns. Jack Kennedy was a serial adulterer. George Ford fell down a lot of plane steps. Reagan reminisced about his old movies while his despairing aides tried to get him to focus on policy. Spitting Image used to satirize him by getting him to use a monkey to negotiate with the Russians. Bush fell for the dodgy dossier. Obama was a windbag. Nixon? I rest my case.
You need to know you are not alone. We are here for you at this difficult time.
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
Much better solution. Let the market provide.
That was how it was working but the likes of Simon Clarke and Ben Bradley thought it was spent on crack, prostitutes and unhealthy food, so kids get this instead now.
Are Simon Clarke and Ben Bradley in charge of all the Council's except for Dixiedean's?
How does that work? 😕
Your specialist field, parliamentary sovereignty. There was a national voucher scheme in operation last year, Labour wanted to extend it and it was voted down.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/isolated-self-absorbed-donald-trump-impeachment-defense-457983 ...Even more than usual, Trump has not been engaged in work of the presidency, leaving much of the official business to others, including Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over a White House coronavirus task force meeting Monday as the pandemic’s toll surges with more than 3,000 deaths a day in the United States.
“Things requiring a presidential signature slowed down for sure, and he was just supremely self-absorbed,” said a former senior administration official. The official said that many conversations with Trump, even those about policy issues, have devolved into the president complaining about an election that he still won’t publicly admit he lost... ...Since Dec. 23, the schedule has included 15 variations of the language: “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.” A former White House official said the language was inserted at Trump’s directive in order to give off the appearance of him being busy.
FFS what a crock. What a total bunch of po-faced bullshLt.
Bill Clinton used his time in the Whitehouse to wave his tiny d8ck at impressionable interns. Jack Kennedy was a serial adulterer. George Ford fell down a lot of plane steps. Reagan reminisced about his old movies while his despairing aides tried to get him to focus on policy. Spitting Image used to satirize him by getting him to use a monkey to negotiate with the Russians. Bush fell for the dodgy dossier. Obama was a windbag. Nixon? I rest my case.
Did not have you down as a big Jimmy Carter fan. Glad you can surprise occasionally.
Of more concern to me is why the government is not insisting on a negative Covid test for travellers from Ireland, given the very high rates of infection there.
Also why are the courts still insisting that lawyers have to attend courts for hearings which are perfectly doable remotely? There have been a number of cases of people catching Covid as a result.
I don't trust the police to understand or enforce the rules fairly. But some people are certainly taking the piss. Common-sense is what is needed. I could easily walk for 3 hours outside my front door well beyond 7 miles without seeing a living soul. In London it is that much harder to go for exercise without being close to people.
The key message must surely be this: when you absolutely have to go out wear a mask and try and stay as far away as possible from other people.
Cycling 7 miles in London is nothing. That was my daily one way commute when I cycled to work regularly. But driving somewhere to cycle seems a bit off when there are plenty of parks nearby where the PM could run, walk or cycle (though some of the Royal Parks can be a bit sniffy about cyclists so that might explain it).
Anyway it is a gorgeous day here so I am off to the hills.
There was a time (no idea if that's still the case) where you could theoretically get fined for biking in the Royal Parks. Of course, most cyclists completely ignore that moronic rule and nothing bad happens to them. However, a mate once somehow manage to get fined – he remains to this day the only person I have ever known to actually be fined. He is the sort of bloke that is forever an outlier!
Has any cyclist ever been fined for breaking the speed limit? It's 20mph in most London Boroughs. Cyclists regularly exceed this but never seen one done for it.
My dad was once arrested for breaking the speed limit on Piccadilly while on a pedal bike
That would be a cockup - speed limits do not apply to pushbikes.
Unless there is something local in force eg Royal Parks, or it was another offence - probably "Furious Riding" at that time.
Holy cow, 38mph? My bike computer informs me I once hit 51kph. I remember it too, screaming down hill in a 30 zone towards a roundabout. Some tosser still overtook me, despite me being over the speed limit and running out of road before the roundabout. 31mph on a bike is not fun. When you're pushed into the gutter by an idiot trying to squeeze between you and the bollards in the middle of the road, it's downright terrifying. I think I did a Dura Ace and peed myself a little.
When I was a teenager I had a Puch step-through 49cc moped. I could maybe hit 30mph downhill with a following wind.
Of more concern to me is why the government is not insisting on a negative Covid test for travellers from Ireland, given the very high rates of infection there.
Also why are the courts still insisting that lawyers have to attend courts for hearings which are perfectly doable remotely? There have been a number of cases of people catching Covid as a result.
I don't trust the police to understand or enforce the rules fairly. But some people are certainly taking the piss. Common-sense is what is needed. I could easily walk for 3 hours outside my front door well beyond 7 miles without seeing a living soul. In London it is that much harder to go for exercise without being close to people.
The key message must surely be this: when you absolutely have to go out wear a mask and try and stay as far away as possible from other people.
Cycling 7 miles in London is nothing. That was my daily one way commute when I cycled to work regularly. But driving somewhere to cycle seems a bit off when there are plenty of parks nearby where the PM could run, walk or cycle (though some of the Royal Parks can be a bit sniffy about cyclists so that might explain it).
Anyway it is a gorgeous day here so I am off to the hills.
There was a time (no idea if that's still the case) where you could theoretically get fined for biking in the Royal Parks. Of course, most cyclists completely ignore that moronic rule and nothing bad happens to them. However, a mate once somehow manage to get fined – he remains to this day the only person I have ever known to actually be fined. He is the sort of bloke that is forever an outlier!
Has any cyclist ever been fined for breaking the speed limit? It's 20mph in most London Boroughs. Cyclists regularly exceed this but never seen one done for it.
My dad was once arrested for breaking the speed limit on Piccadilly while on a pedal bike
That would be a cockup - speed limits do not apply to pushbikes.
Unless there is something local in force eg Royal Parks, or it was another offence - probably "Furious Riding" at that time.
Holy cow, 38mph? My bike computer informs me I once hit 51kph. I remember it too, screaming down hill in a 30 zone towards a roundabout. Some tosser still overtook me, despite me being over the speed limit and running out of road before the roundabout. 31mph on a bike is not fun. When you're pushed into the gutter by an idiot trying to squeeze between you and the bollards in the middle of the road, it's downright terrifying. I think I did a Dura Ace and peed myself a little.
When I was a teenager I had a Puch step-through 49cc moped. I could maybe hit 30mph downhill with a following wind.
king of the road!
Born To Be Mild
Wasn't that the theme tune for the film Queasy Rider?
Meanwhile, in 2 polls conducted entirely since January 6th, Trump's net approval rating is sharply down: Morning Consult -29 or -24 Quinnipiac University -27 https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/
To be fair, those are not the most Trump-friendly outfits. Rasmussen has -3, but then they didn't do terribly well with their predictions for Nov 3rd.
I meant sharply down compared with previous polls by the same outfit
Now they'll impose exercise restrictions and the media will go mental over the bikeride being done just before it. It's all so predictable.
Has Johnson mentioned 'saving Easter' yet? Sure to be along soon.
He will soon be talking about being able to hear the whack of leather on willow, the sound of champagne corks popping at Wimbledon....all the sounds we associate with the Great British summer.
Interesting that Philip's devotional defence of Boris and all he does leads him to defend a £23 food package that looks to have about £15-worth of food in it.
Their boss supporting the Tories does wonders for basic ethics with this openly corrupt government.
£15??? Where do you shop, Selfridges food hall?
Someone has costed the ‘hamper’, it’s about £5 in value. So £25 of taxpayer’s money has disappeared *somewhere*
That was for something different. Chartwells offer 2 weeks of food for £23.
Pricing it up with Tesco its £14.75: 2 x 200g cheese blocks - £3.10 Apples £1.60 Oranges 69p Bananas 69p Baking Potatoes 41p Cucumber 41p Carrots 41p Sweet Potato 39p Lettuce 43p Tomatoes 75p Pasta £1.06 Chopped Tomatoes £1.06 Tuna £1.18 Bread 59p Snacks £1.98
So Chartwells - who will be splitting cheaper bulk packs - are making a comfortable 36-40% markup on top of the profit they make on the items included in the pack.
Nice work if you can get it.
If you price it up at Lidl it costs 47p + a free owl and a performing bear. BTW do we want to live in a country where millions rely more or less permanently on free food?
This is the real question, and I'd like to know why people aren't able to make ends meet enough to feed their children, or indeed if that is really the case at all.
I can understand short term problems (hence food banks) but these problems seem to be longer term than that.
The contents of food boxes is a side issue.
The "real question" as you put it is peripheral at best. This is a dire tale of trying to silence a celeb who was causing trouble. What a weak government we have! And they honoured him to boot, thus making it even easier for him to affect policy in the future.
Rashford has a kind face and clearly is a decent man but there is nothing specially honour worthy or spectacular about campaigning to spend even more from the taxes of other people nearly all much poorer than yourself when we already redistribute hundreds of billions.
To add to my earlier post, this is how the system is still working. Here at least. Should also add that the company sent reminder e-mails when vouchers were about to expire, both to parents and the schools.
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
Much better solution. Let the market provide.
That was how it was working but the likes of Simon Clarke and Ben Bradley thought it was spent on crack, prostitutes and unhealthy food, so kids get this instead now.
Are Simon Clarke and Ben Bradley in charge of all the Council's except for Dixiedean's?
How does that work? 😕
Your specialist field, parliamentary sovereignty. There was a national voucher scheme in operation last year, Labour wanted to extend it and it was voted down.
Yes so now the scheme isn't national it is local. So some Councils have continued with the old scheme, other Councils are doing other schemes.
Why is Ben Bradley responsible for what local Councils are choosing to do? Surely local Councils should be held to account for their provision?
To add to my earlier post, this is how the system is still working. Here at least. Should also add that the company sent reminder e-mails when vouchers were about to expire, both to parents and the schools.
Sounds like a good scheme. Hopefully more Councils choose to go down that path too.
Very damning piece in the Times today about Australian cheating and now appalling behaviour in the Test against India. Sadly you can't read it unless you are a subscriber.
You can read a limited number of articles by registering without subscribing.
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
Much better solution. Let the market provide.
This was the universal solution until Tory MPs decreed that parents would be spending the money on crack and whores.
This story about the Chartwell’s free food ‘hamper’, going out to poor kids, could turn me into a communist overnight. Someone, somewhere, thinks this is acceptable. To make a profit. Sweet weeping Jesus.
It also seems to be total and utter fake news, Twitter style.
If you go to Chartswell's own website then at list price (no negotiations) this is what they provide: https://www.chartwellscanhelp.com/
2 Week Food Hamper - costing £23 (not £30)
2 x 200g Block of cheese 14 x Portions of fresh fruit: 6 x apples, 4 x easy peel oranges and 4 x bananas 16 x Portions of vegetables: cucumber, carrots, baking potatoes, sweet potatoes, lettuce, tomato 1kg x Wholemeal penne pasta 4 x Chopped tomato tins 2 x Tuna chunks in brine 1 x Loaf of bread 9 x Healthy snacks
Rather different to the shabby bollocks Twitter image. Someone isn't saying the truth.
No, the food box on the right is definitely real, the £30 has been wasted and Chartwells are profiteering from a government contract.
How do you know it cost £30?
How do you know it came from Chartwells?
Why wasn't the £23 hamper ordered instead?
Too many questions for me. If there's an answer I'd love to know it. Someone looks like they've done something dodgy, I'm just not sure who it is.
I hope you're not putting your loyalty to Johnson above feeding hungry kids.
I'm not. I have said repeatedly my guess (and it is just a guess) is that someone in the school or elsewhere has done this by themselves on the cheap. Bought up a load of stuff, divided it into bags and distributed it. That looks like something an amateur has done.
There hasn't been a single official citation that this did come from a company. The only response quoted is one saying that it is not specification and asking which school it was from so it can be investigated - but no public response to that question.
Ok. We'll see what transpires. As a general point I'd have thought food vouchers for the parents to spend at their usual shop would be better than this 'hamper via a middleman' approach but no doubt there are pros & cons.
Just so long as this is incompetence and not money being creamed off by people with the government's ear. Incompetence happens. It's absolutely fine. But if it's grift and corruption again, this time at the direct expense of struggling families, I don't think I could bear that.
Incompetence isn`t fine. If this story is true taxpayer money has and is being wasted.
Yes, but you know what I mean. A bit of honest-to-goodness incompetence here and there, in all walks of life, is to be expected. I never get angry about incompetence unless it's on a large scale or is of the negligent "couldn't give a monkey's" kind. Grift is much worse for me. Hate hearing about that sort of thing. That does get me het up.
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
Much better solution. Let the market provide.
That was how it was working but the likes of Simon Clarke and Ben Bradley thought it was spent on crack, prostitutes and unhealthy food, so kids get this instead now.
Are Simon Clarke and Ben Bradley in charge of all the Council's except for Dixiedean's?
How does that work? 😕
There is a lovely point where the Department for Education acts as a bridge between councils and academies. Which allows busy body MPs to get involved.
But the outcome seems to be completely different across the nation. Some people are reporting crappy amateur boxes, some people are reporting they got a lot of food (does not get attention) and some people are reporting vouchers.
A bit of a postcode lottery. Almost as if decisions vary depending upon the school, LEA or Council ...
Of course. As I pointed out earlier it depends on what contract has been entered into by the LEA/academy trust
There are going to be lots of stories like this. We know, even with 2 doses, Pfizer vaccine is ~90% against old style COVID. So that means 1 in 10 will still get it, it could well be Cockney / SA COVID, even more and he is a nurse, so maximally exposed day in day out and COVID is rampant.
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
Much better solution. Let the market provide.
This was the universal solution until Tory MPs decreed that parents would be spending the money on crack and whores.
As I stated yesterday, as a jape, one could still get 20 Sovereign and 2 bottles of White Lightening AND a considerably better free school meal package for £30. Sadly there is however a reality behind the comment.
Must be. The ankle-biters bit is certainly not concordant with Matthew 19:14: But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
Much better solution. Let the market provide.
That was how it was working but the likes of Simon Clarke and Ben Bradley thought it was spent on crack, prostitutes and unhealthy food, so kids get this instead now.
Are Simon Clarke and Ben Bradley in charge of all the Council's except for Dixiedean's?
How does that work? 😕
Your specialist field, parliamentary sovereignty. There was a national voucher scheme in operation last year, Labour wanted to extend it and it was voted down.
Yes so now the scheme isn't national it is local. So some Councils have continued with the old scheme, other Councils are doing other schemes.
Why is Ben Bradley responsible for what local Councils are choosing to do? Surely local Councils should be held to account for their provision?
Actually, the big question is - given Chartwells track record of failure and outright fraudulence - why are they still getting contracts at all?
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
Much better solution. Let the market provide.
This was the universal solution until Tory MPs decreed that parents would be spending the money on crack and whores.
As I stated yesterday, as a jape, one could still get 20 Sovereign and 2 bottles of White Lightening AND a considerably better free school meal package for £30. Sadly there is however a reality behind the comment.
You mean, the MPs are jealous/projecting their own inner desires on the other/enemy?
Government contractors appear to have failed to supply food at an agreed price, shock. This issue might say something about auditing outsourced contracts.
Wasn't impressed by quality of BBC News coverage of this issue a few moments ago. It looked like a rushed job to be topical. It is possible that there is more to come.
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
Much better solution. Let the market provide.
That was how it was working but the likes of Simon Clarke and Ben Bradley thought it was spent on crack, prostitutes and unhealthy food, so kids get this instead now.
Are Simon Clarke and Ben Bradley in charge of all the Council's except for Dixiedean's?
How does that work? 😕
There is a lovely point where the Department for Education acts as a bridge between councils and academies. Which allows busy body MPs to get involved.
But the outcome seems to be completely different across the nation. Some people are reporting crappy amateur boxes, some people are reporting they got a lot of food (does not get attention) and some people are reporting vouchers.
A bit of a postcode lottery. Almost as if decisions vary depending upon the school, LEA or Council ...
Of course. As I pointed out earlier it depends on what contract has been entered into by the LEA/academy trust
Indeed which is exactly what I was saying too. We are agreed on that.
Everyone seems to be jumping on a bandwagon that this was definitely Chartwell and it was definitely because of Tory donors - without any evidence except someone on Twitter who is a leftwing campaigner that shares fake news and lies regularly.
Personally I would like to know what the truth is. The truth matters. Without knowing which school, which LEA, which academy trust etc it is there is no way of knowing yet as far as I know.
There are going to be lots of stories like this. We know, even with 2 doses, Pfizer vaccine is ~90% against old style COVID. So that means 1 in 10 will still get it, it could well be Cockney / SA COVID, even more and he is a nurse, so maximally exposed day in day out and COVID is rampant.
Let's hope that those stories prompt people to still adhere to the rules after they're vaccinated, rather than to prompt more people to refuse the vaccines.
Great news on the vaccines, maybe this is what everyone should be talking about.
4th in the world on vaccines per capita, behind two small nations and one tiny one, and well ahead of all the G20 and EU27 nations.
Sadly, good news doesn’t generate clicks or sell papers.
I'm sure the NY Times is writing an article on Britain's "sputtering" vaccine roll-out as we speak.
I think, based on their coverage of the UK, the NYT, Bloomberg News and Business Insider recruit their journalists solely from the ranks of the Grauniad.
There are going to be lots of stories like this. We know, even with 2 doses, Pfizer vaccine is ~90% against old style COVID. So that means 1 in 10 will still get it, it could well be Cockney / SA COVID, even more and he is a nurse, so maximally exposed day in day out and COVID is rampant.
Yes, but prepare for senationalisation like crazy.
The best results for the vaccine are 95% - 2 doses. So, if you have thousands of staff vaccinated, and a high prevalence - Foxy was talking about 20-30% infection rates...
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
Much better solution. Let the market provide.
This was the universal solution until Tory MPs decreed that parents would be spending the money on crack and whores.
As I stated yesterday, as a jape, one could still get 20 Sovereign and 2 bottles of White Lightening AND a considerably better free school meal package for £30. Sadly there is however a reality behind the comment.
You mean, the MPs are jealous/projecting their own inner desires on the other/enemy?
It's that age-old chestnut about the undeserving poor.
The best results for the vaccine are 95% - 2 doses. So, if you have thousands of staff vaccinated, and a high prevalence - Foxy was talking about 20-30% infection rates...
This would be inevitable.
Media and maths....especially probability...that's no going to work out very well. I don't think we should even start talking about probability distributions, putting priors over them dependent on known conditioning......and how that means it is totally expected that people will still get COVID.
This is like one of those images that goes viral on Facebook except without religion and saying how many ticks can you get.
As an atheist I'm fully reconciled with taking my chances on eternal damnation so pleased to have got a few more ticks on that list. Pretty boring though so I imagine others have more.
Interesting that Philip's devotional defence of Boris and all he does leads him to defend a £23 food package that looks to have about £15-worth of food in it.
Their boss supporting the Tories does wonders for basic ethics with this openly corrupt government.
£15??? Where do you shop, Selfridges food hall?
Someone has costed the ‘hamper’, it’s about £5 in value. So £25 of taxpayer’s money has disappeared *somewhere*
That was for something different. Chartwells offer 2 weeks of food for £23.
Pricing it up with Tesco its £14.75: 2 x 200g cheese blocks - £3.10 Apples £1.60 Oranges 69p Bananas 69p Baking Potatoes 41p Cucumber 41p Carrots 41p Sweet Potato 39p Lettuce 43p Tomatoes 75p Pasta £1.06 Chopped Tomatoes £1.06 Tuna £1.18 Bread 59p Snacks £1.98
So Chartwells - who will be splitting cheaper bulk packs - are making a comfortable 36-40% markup on top of the profit they make on the items included in the pack.
Nice work if you can get it.
If you price it up at Lidl it costs 47p + a free owl and a performing bear. BTW do we want to live in a country where millions rely more or less permanently on free food?
Well done for cutting through to the big question. The answer is surely no.
Which is the easy bit, because in truth that is not the big question. The actual question is - do we have the appetite (pun intended) to implement the sort of re-distributive policies which have at least a chance of eradicating food poverty in our country?
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
Much better solution. Let the market provide.
This was the universal solution until Tory MPs decreed that parents would be spending the money on crack and whores.
And a wiser government, even if they had let Ben Bradley etc anywhere near a winnable seat, would have taken him to an unlabelled office (not on any map) somewhere in the dungeons below the Palace of Westminster, and given him a copy to "Free to Choose" to read while the electrodes were attached.
Because the most efficient way of dealing with this problem was the one used at the beginning. Give schools an emergency dollop of cash to distribute to parents in the form of vouchers valid at the local supermarket. Or better still, press a few buttons on the benefits computer to give the people who needed it the cash directly. Everything else (the national voucher scheme, the food boxes) is less efficient and less dignifying.
The government didn't do that because they are cowards, which means that they would rather waste money than face down the reactionary populist slice of their support base.
There are going to be lots of stories like this. We know, even with 2 doses, Pfizer vaccine is ~90% against old style COVID. So that means 1 in 10 will still get it, it could well be Cockney / SA COVID, even more and he is a nurse, so maximally exposed day in day out and COVID is rampant.
Yes, exactly. After all these years I'm amazed that the PB Hysterions still don't grasp the difference between global results and isolated anecdote.
Almost 2 million people have had a first vaccination, and almost 375,000 also the second vaccination. So that leaves over 1 and half million people having just had one vaccination. How many of these would have had a second dose if they had stuck to 3 weeks? No idea, but probably similar to the number who wouldn't even have had a first dose yet. Of course there are going to be a lot more people between first and second doses if you delay the second dose, some of them are going to get infected.
Whether it is a good idea to delay the second dose depends on what difference delaying the second dose makes to the final protection, as well as how much protection a single dose gives - and I don't think we know either of those things.
Maybe there is an argument for giving the second dose quickly to those who cannot really avoid risk of exposure because, for example, they are A&E nurses. Even if the second dose for others is delayed.
The best results for the vaccine are 95% - 2 doses. So, if you have thousands of staff vaccinated, and a high prevalence - Foxy was talking about 20-30% infection rates...
This would be inevitable.
Media and maths....especially probability...that's no going to work out very well. I don't think we should even start talking about probability distributions, putting priors over them dependent on known conditioning......and how that means it is totally expected that people will still get COVID.
Given the repeated testing for NHS staff, this is
- inevitable. In effect you are re-running the vaccine study at scale. - the testing will provide invaluable information of the overall effectiveness of the vaccinations.
How my council FSM works. Tory Council. I am not a Tory. Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin. Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work. £15 is taken off the bill. Advantages. 1 Simple. 2 Can buy at your convenience. 3 Gives agency to get what you want. 4 No one knows you are on FSM. 5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers. 6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up. After some teething problems works very well.
Much better solution. Let the market provide.
That was how it was working but the likes of Simon Clarke and Ben Bradley thought it was spent on crack, prostitutes and unhealthy food, so kids get this instead now.
Are Simon Clarke and Ben Bradley in charge of all the Council's except for Dixiedean's?
How does that work? 😕
Your specialist field, parliamentary sovereignty. There was a national voucher scheme in operation last year, Labour wanted to extend it and it was voted down.
Yes so now the scheme isn't national it is local. So some Councils have continued with the old scheme, other Councils are doing other schemes.
Why is Ben Bradley responsible for what local Councils are choosing to do? Surely local Councils should be held to account for their provision?
Presumably as a small govt libertarian you are in favour of reducing bureaucracy, unnecessary govt costs and red tape?
Why on earth replace a national voucher scheme that can be offered with very little admin and managed by a small group of civil servants, with a scheme that is run by councils who have to multiply that admin across dozens of councils, who are already over stretched and allow unnecessary middle men in to take a cut?
I can only think of two reasons:
The Bradley/Clarke feckless parents cant be trusted with a voucher angle Kleptocracy
Neither are any good for the government, although more people than will admit it do sympathise with the feckless parents view.
Local councils are struggling to do a job that Bradley and co have given them completely unnecessarily, the national voucher scheme we used last year was always going to deliver better outcomes.
I've just been taking a look at vaccine data across Europe. It's all pretty awful except Denmark and Italy. Denmark has the small country and dense population advantage of Israel so I half expected the smaller EU countries to not be doing so terribly on this measure. Italy, otoh, doesn't and it is racing ahead with it's programme, on a like for like basis they are doing better than we are, though I don't think they will keep up with the UK's programme now that we are using the AZ vaccine as well as Pfizer. Germany, in comparison, is doing pretty badly and special mentions for the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, all of whom should benefit from being small densely populated countries same as Israel but all are having an absolute shocker.
I'm honestly starting to believe that both France and Belgium are using delaying tactics to ensure that Sanofi have got major European markets to sell into if their vaccine gets approved at the end of this year.
If he got seriously ill then that might be more of a problem.
If he tests positive, but does not get seriously ill, then all good. We only need the vaccine(s) to stop hospitalisation and death. They don't need to prevent mild illness.
Must be. The ankle-biters bit is certainly not concordant with Matthew 19:14: But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
'Brats' is different, mind.
Are you sure that Ankle-Biters does not mean Dachshunds?
If he got seriously ill then that might be more of a problem.
Indeed. These anecdotes are a) inevitable and b) about as useful as me telling you that the father of my son's best mate has just had covid, and had no symptoms whatsoever. He is in his mid-40s and would have gone to work none the wiser had he not been tested.
If he got seriously ill then that might be more of a problem.
If he tests positive, but does not get seriously ill, then all good. We only need the vaccine(s) to stop hospitalisation and death. They don't need to prevent mild illness.
And this is a huge thing that doesn't seem to have been well communicated about Oxford vaccine. In their trial, basically nobody got seriously ill. That's a huge win.
Certainly something to be investigated. But 1. what has he tested positive for? If it's antibodies or spike protein, that is to be expected. So does he have viable visions, is he shedding? If so at what level? 2. why was he tested? Routine or symptoms? If he has symptoms, will he progress to a serious form of the disease?
If the first jab protects against serious symptoms, then this story does nothing to invalidate the overall approach. But is certainly something to watch - indeed, an opportunity to learn a lot more valuable information.
Cycling is allowed, so how far do the Boris/Brexit Derangement sufferers think cyclist should be allowed to cycle? End of the street and back for an hour?
Comments
Parent selects supermarket. An e-mail is sent each week with a code, to the value of £15. Valid for 3 months. Click on it, enter password, and you get a 4 digit pin.
Order shopping Online as normal. In store is more complex, but we are supposed to be discouraging that anyway. Click on redeem gift card. Enter info. If there is alcohol, it won't work.
£15 is taken off the bill.
Advantages.
1 Simple.
2 Can buy at your convenience.
3 Gives agency to get what you want.
4 No one knows you are on FSM.
5 Can take advantage of BOGOF and other offers.
6 No new delivery infrastructure needs to be set up.
After some teething problems works very well.
What I want to know is who is actually responsible. If Chartwell then they should face severe consequences.
If it isn't Chartwell then they shouldn't be falsely accused.
The person Tweeting regularly shares lies and mistruths though so who knows yet. All I am saying is there should be an investigation and the truth should come out - what is wrong with that?
https://twitter.com/maariaris/status/1348970929376923648?s=21
I suspect this has been the story of his whole presidency.
Dixiedean's Council solution seems much, much superior to me and is what I would prefer personally. But that confirms this is not centrally organised. Who knows what Council organised this and how, that isn't truthfully shared on Twitter.
Just so long as this is incompetence and not money being creamed off by people with the government's ear. Incompetence happens. It's absolutely fine. But if it's grift and corruption again, this time at the direct expense of struggling families, I don't think I could bear that.
Bill Clinton used his time in the Whitehouse to wave his tiny d8ck at impressionable interns. Jack Kennedy was a serial adulterer. George Ford fell down a lot of plane steps. Reagan reminisced about his old movies while his despairing aides tried to get him to focus on policy. Spitting Image used to satirize him by getting him to use a monkey to negotiate with the Russians. Bush fell for the dodgy dossier. Obama was a windbag. Nixon? I rest my case.
How does that work? 😕
Plus - it looks like those who get 2 doses will be a different age profile/level of vulnerability to those with 1 dose?
I really think it would be a very small investment to test this approach properly.
https://twitter.com/jeanettekirk1/status/1348972785897504770?s=21
Now, why on earth would the government go back and give ANOTHER huge contract to a company with a record of screwing this up, and actual fraudulence, a company ultimately run by a Tory donor and close friend of David Cameron?
*scratches head*
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9137859/Boris-Johnson-gathers-Cabinet-amid-fears-lockdown-tighter.html
That list's quite a bit shorter, isn't it?
The city of Langfang in Hebei on Tuesday said residents will be put under home quarantine for seven days and be subject to mass Covid-10 testing in the latest attempt to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Gaocheng district in Shijiazhuang, Hebei’s capital which has been hardest-hit in the latest surge in infections, is gathering more than 20,000 people living in 12 remote villages into centralised quarantine as part of the city’s Covid-19 control, state media China News Service reported late Monday.
See link below. Trump clearly exhibits all 7 on the list.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/communication-success/201810/7-characteristics-the-modern-psychopath
I can understand short term problems (hence food banks) but these problems seem to be longer term than that.
The contents of food boxes is a side issue.
WHO experts: Covid mission is not about finger pointing at China
Morning Consult -29 or -24
Quinnipiac University -27
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/
Sure, as I say, we need some hard data on the rate of hospitalisation for non-comorbid U40s/U50s.
We don't have it, at least I haven't been able to find it.
A bit of a postcode lottery. Almost as if decisions vary depending upon the school, LEA or Council ...
Steve Smith did not deliberately scuff up the crease during the final day of the third Test against India on Monday, says Australia captain Tim Paine.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/cricket/55629954
think again.
Here at least.
Should also add that the company sent reminder e-mails when vouchers were about to expire, both to parents and the schools.
Why is Ben Bradley responsible for what local Councils are choosing to do? Surely local Councils should be held to account for their provision?
https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1348968969546457088
https://twitter.com/radishroot2002/status/1348769464561639425?s=21
'Brats' is different, mind.
https://twitter.com/bumbleecurls/status/1348976771153227777?s=21
My god, I’m turning into a Marxist. Time to have a nice nutritious lunch of half a pepper and one fifth of a carrot. Later.
Wasn't impressed by quality of BBC News coverage of this issue a few moments ago. It looked like a rushed job to be topical. It is possible that there is more to come.
Everyone seems to be jumping on a bandwagon that this was definitely Chartwell and it was definitely because of Tory donors - without any evidence except someone on Twitter who is a leftwing campaigner that shares fake news and lies regularly.
Personally I would like to know what the truth is. The truth matters. Without knowing which school, which LEA, which academy trust etc it is there is no way of knowing yet as far as I know.
If he got seriously ill then that might be more of a problem.
The best results for the vaccine are 95% - 2 doses. So, if you have thousands of staff vaccinated, and a high prevalence - Foxy was talking about 20-30% infection rates...
This would be inevitable.
And really, order it by seriousness please - are Mama's Boys really right up there with baby killers?
As an atheist I'm fully reconciled with taking my chances on eternal damnation so pleased to have got a few more ticks on that list. Pretty boring though so I imagine others have more.
Which is the easy bit, because in truth that is not the big question. The actual question is - do we have the appetite (pun intended) to implement the sort of re-distributive policies which have at least a chance of eradicating food poverty in our country?
Because the most efficient way of dealing with this problem was the one used at the beginning. Give schools an emergency dollop of cash to distribute to parents in the form of vouchers valid at the local supermarket. Or better still, press a few buttons on the benefits computer to give the people who needed it the cash directly. Everything else (the national voucher scheme, the food boxes) is less efficient and less dignifying.
The government didn't do that because they are cowards, which means that they would rather waste money than face down the reactionary populist slice of their support base.
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-vaccinations/
Almost 2 million people have had a first vaccination, and almost 375,000 also the second vaccination. So that leaves over 1 and half million people having just had one vaccination.
How many of these would have had a second dose if they had stuck to 3 weeks? No idea, but probably similar to the number who wouldn't even have had a first dose yet.
Of course there are going to be a lot more people between first and second doses if you delay the second dose, some of them are going to get infected.
Whether it is a good idea to delay the second dose depends on what difference delaying the second dose makes to the final protection, as well as how much protection a single dose gives - and I don't think we know either of those things.
Maybe there is an argument for giving the second dose quickly to those who cannot really avoid risk of exposure because, for example, they are A&E nurses. Even if the second dose for others is delayed.
- inevitable. In effect you are re-running the vaccine study at scale.
- the testing will provide invaluable information of the overall effectiveness of the vaccinations.
Why on earth replace a national voucher scheme that can be offered with very little admin and managed by a small group of civil servants, with a scheme that is run by councils who have to multiply that admin across dozens of councils, who are already over stretched and allow unnecessary middle men in to take a cut?
I can only think of two reasons:
The Bradley/Clarke feckless parents cant be trusted with a voucher angle
Kleptocracy
Neither are any good for the government, although more people than will admit it do sympathise with the feckless parents view.
Local councils are struggling to do a job that Bradley and co have given them completely unnecessarily, the national voucher scheme we used last year was always going to deliver better outcomes.
I'm honestly starting to believe that both France and Belgium are using delaying tactics to ensure that Sanofi have got major European markets to sell into if their vaccine gets approved at the end of this year.
How many people reading that list, cut in their minds to the scene from Blazing Saddles?
(i.e. not useful at all)
Certainly something to be investigated. But
1. what has he tested positive for? If it's antibodies or spike protein, that is to be expected. So does he have viable visions, is he shedding? If so at what level?
2. why was he tested? Routine or symptoms? If he has symptoms, will he progress to a serious form of the disease?
If the first jab protects against serious symptoms, then this story does nothing to invalidate the overall approach. But is certainly something to watch - indeed, an opportunity to learn a lot more valuable information.