WTF is with the bottled water???? What a waste of money, and plastic.
The quoted woman is correct. Imagine receiving this crap. Like it is designed to humiliate. The tuna dumped in a Starbucks coffee cup. Half a pepper wrapped in clingfilm. Two inches of carrot.
And all this during a plague.
As someone said on Twitter, even Dickens would have hesitated to describe someone doing this, for profit, to poor families, during a pandemic, as it would be regarded as unbelievable
I suspect the photo is not a genuine picture of the contents, but is some kind of stock photo. There's no mention of bottled water in the article, and why on earth would a supplier waste money on it? It's not exactly cheap, in this context.
Bottled water is common in hospitality generally. A lot of the stock for these sorts of things (and the food my daughter received when she was in isolation at university) appears to be hospitality stock repurposed.
Things like the individual packs of digestives, for example. So they will include it because they already have it and can't otherwise get rid of it. Now they get to bill HMG for it.
WTF is with the bottled water???? What a waste of money, and plastic.
The quoted woman is correct. Imagine receiving this crap. Like it is designed to humiliate. The tuna dumped in a Starbucks coffee cup. Half a pepper wrapped in clingfilm. Two inches of carrot.
And all this during a plague.
As someone said on Twitter, even Dickens would have hesitated to describe someone doing this, for profit, to poor families, during a pandemic, as it would be regarded as unbelievable
Can you imagine being one of the idiots trying to defend this nonsense in the morning?
I'm no fan of Johnson, but I am at least thankful that we escaped PM Osborne. Okay, he's no Trump, but he always struck me as the most infantile and ideologically dangerous member of Cameron's cabinet.
Yes, Pence and McConnell deserve some credit for finally doing the right thing. They are not enemies of democracy, merely opponents of good governance.
No, the failure (so far) of the insurrection is not strong evidence that the constitution did it's job. A handful of people behaving differently would have tipped the balance. And with four more years, which would probably have happened without COVID, Trump would have been in a position to tip that balance.
This has been a lucky escape for democracy, not a show of its strength.
And the absurdity of the last sentence. Any sane person of left or right, however much they dislike Corbyn, can only roll their eyes in disgust at that.
Osborne revealed his true colours with his line about "sleeping off a life on benefits." A nasty, cheap and dishonest line demonising the poor from a man born into a life of extraordinary privilege.
What utter nonsense. What he said was:
Yes, we inherited a tax system where some in the City were paying lower tax rates than their cleaners. That was wrong and we were right to change it.
But in the same way, it is wrong that it's possible for someone to be better off on benefits than they would be in work.
We're right to change that too.
That's why I insisted on a cap on benefits, so no family can earn more out of work than the average family earns in work.
And can you believe it?
Labour voted against that.
All that talk about 'something for something', and they have learnt nothing about anything.
Where is the fairness, we ask, for the shift-worker, leaving home in the dark hours of the early morning, who looks up at the closed blinds of their next door neighbour sleeping off a life on benefits?
When we say we're all in this together, we speak for that worker.
Perfectly reasonable, for anyone not prejudiced against him. Or are you seriously suggesting that people should be better off on benefits than their neighbours who are in work?
Thank goodness we did have a Chancellor who addressed that manifest injustice.
WTF is with the bottled water???? What a waste of money, and plastic.
The quoted woman is correct. Imagine receiving this crap. Like it is designed to humiliate. The tuna dumped in a Starbucks coffee cup. Half a pepper wrapped in clingfilm. Two inches of carrot.
And all this during a plague.
As someone said on Twitter, even Dickens would have hesitated to describe someone doing this, for profit, to poor families, during a pandemic, as it would be regarded as unbelievable
It IS designed to humiliate. Crucial to Tory thinking. Question is whether this is as great a factor as price-gouging, best mates, and simple lack of human respect and consideration for practical issues such as, y'know, basic nutrition.
Like that ham in clingfilm in another photo - the tuna must be a massive food poisoning risk.
It is really strange if you actually do think that the idea behind finding this extra £30 a week to feed these people was to humiliate them. I think the food packages I've seen are terrible, but I don't actually think the scheme was conceived with wickedness in mind - that is Grade A paranoia. I think we should also remember that the party you support favours giving people cardboard boxes to put their baby into. What's that if it isn't humiliating?
To discourage them from ever having the daring to claim benefits, that is why. There is a fine line between calreless negligence and a kind of negligence which is complicit in effectively accepting the side effect of humiliation. I didn't say humiliation was th eprime aim - and made it quite clear that there are other aims in all this - but if it is an inevitable effect, then it has to be reckoned in.
Those boxes show no respect at all for the childrens' needs - or for the parents' desperate anxiety to look after the children (which is supposed to be a very Tory thing, as if it couldn't be true of Labour supporters e.g.)
You need to read up about the SG baby boxes. They have rather more useful contents - and the bit about putting the baby in is optional (but surprisingly popular, and sensible as the box is recyclable and not many families have that many, so it saves spending on a crib without feeling too singled out ...).
My father (94) finally got his vaccination today. Very efficiently done apparently. Surprised it was the Pfizer one.
On another note, particularly if @Foxy is here, I would be interested in any feedback on something else. I became very hoarse just before Christmas, without any other symptoms. My wife (a Doctor, but a pathologist and now working in drug safety so not her expertise) suggested leaving for a couple of weeks to see if it cleared up. It didn't. I saw the GP Friday evening who arranged a hospital appointment. On Monday I got a telephone appointment for today which was pretty impressive. I spoke to an ENT surgeon an hour ago who is going to organise an urgent hospital visit for me. His first reaction from my description and my voice was vocal cord paralysis. Not something my wife thought of. Don't like what I read about it, although he seemed pretty chipper about it. Obviously I am worried.
I don't think it's a particularly rare condition. It's easy to diagnose with a camera.
Someone in my choir had it. It was temporary and they were able to resume singing. I'm not sure if that was because of treatment or because it resolved spontaneously. I hope that's at least one positive data point for you!
--AS
You're in a choir?
It would be slightly antisocial if I was AlwaysSinging throughout everyday life... unless I lived in a musical, I suppose ; )
WTF is with the bottled water???? What a waste of money, and plastic.
The quoted woman is correct. Imagine receiving this crap. Like it is designed to humiliate. The tuna dumped in a Starbucks coffee cup. Half a pepper wrapped in clingfilm. Two inches of carrot.
And all this during a plague.
As someone said on Twitter, even Dickens would have hesitated to describe someone doing this, for profit, to poor families, during a pandemic, as it would be regarded as unbelievable
It IS designed to humiliate. Crucial to Tory thinking. Question is whether this is as great a factor as price-gouging, best mates, and simple lack of human respect and consideration for practical issues such as, y'know, basic nutrition.
Like that ham in clingfilm in another photo - the tuna must be a massive food poisoning risk.
It is really strange if you actually do think that the idea behind finding this extra £30 a week to feed these people was to humiliate them. I think the food packages I've seen are terrible, but I don't actually think the scheme was conceived with wickedness in mind - that is Grade A paranoia. I think we should also remember that the party you support favours giving people cardboard boxes to put their baby into. What's that if it isn't humiliating?
Yes, I don't believe it is ACTUALLY designed to humiliate, but is shows a level of brutal indifference which is nearly as bad
Look at this. Food in a coin bag (it's actually tomato soup mix, not tuna flakes, according to the mother that got it)
My father (94) finally got his vaccination today. Very efficiently done apparently. Surprised it was the Pfizer one.
On another note, particularly if @Foxy is here, I would be interested in any feedback on something else. I became very hoarse just before Christmas, without any other symptoms. My wife (a Doctor, but a pathologist and now working in drug safety so not her expertise) suggested leaving for a couple of weeks to see if it cleared up. It didn't. I saw the GP Friday evening who arranged a hospital appointment. On Monday I got a telephone appointment for today which was pretty impressive. I spoke to an ENT surgeon an hour ago who is going to organise an urgent hospital visit for me. His first reaction from my description and my voice was vocal cord paralysis. Not something my wife thought of. Don't like what I read about it, although he seemed pretty chipper about it. Obviously I am worried.
And good to hear about your father.
I called up her local hospital to organise my mother's second jab and was given an appointment nine weeks after her first.
The hospital rang me up again today to organise her second jab and was surprised to hear that it was already scheduled.
Good old NHS! Still, better twice than not at all.
My parents (80+) had heard nothing so they called up. Were promptly given a slot for this Thursday. Great, but you obviously wonder what would have happened, or NOT happened, if they had not chased.
One day in the Flask, when such things are allowed again, I will tell you about the sharpness required of elbows to get things done in the NHS. I have a list as long as my arm (including in the middle of the ward and Consultant's round threatening, loudly, to call the police unless someone took action).
Sure clap for the individuals, but institutionally the NHS is a basket case.
Is bottled water really essential? Is tap water that unhealthy?
Surely there's something more useful for the money.
Why would anyone drink tap water? I mean fish fornicate in it.
Ours comes from a borehole, just like Harrogate. Though it has more nitrates to be fair.
It is probably best not to ask what trace substances are in everyday food.
The everyday foodstuffs with the highest phytosanitary measures available in the UK are fruit from tropical sources, especially those with high acidity.
If you're making yourself a meal with, say, bread, tomatoes, cheese and perhaps some strips of ham if you eat meat, you could do a lot worse than top it off with some pineapple.
Would that still apply if I wanted to eat those foodstuffs hot? On say, a form of flatbread?
Thousands of Britons who have received their coronavirus vaccine are set to be offered a health passport as part of a government-funded trial taking place this month.
The passport, created by biometrics firm iProov and cybersecurity firm Mvine , will be issued in the form of a free app allowing users to digitally prove if they have received the vaccine.
Yes, there are questions about why so many Republicans, like Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell, tolerated Trump’s behaviour for so long – and served alongside him. But perhaps we in Britain should be a little more understanding. After all, it was only a year ago that many sensible Labour politicians were campaigning to make Jeremy Corbyn our Prime Minister, sitting alongside him in his Shadow Cabinet.
My father (94) finally got his vaccination today. Very efficiently done apparently. Surprised it was the Pfizer one.
On another note, particularly if @Foxy is here, I would be interested in any feedback on something else. I became very hoarse just before Christmas, without any other symptoms. My wife (a Doctor, but a pathologist and now working in drug safety so not her expertise) suggested leaving for a couple of weeks to see if it cleared up. It didn't. I saw the GP Friday evening who arranged a hospital appointment. On Monday I got a telephone appointment for today which was pretty impressive. I spoke to an ENT surgeon an hour ago who is going to organise an urgent hospital visit for me. His first reaction from my description and my voice was vocal cord paralysis. Not something my wife thought of. Don't like what I read about it, although he seemed pretty chipper about it. Obviously I am worried.
And good to hear about your father.
I called up her local hospital to organise my mother's second jab and was given an appointment nine weeks after her first.
The hospital rang me up again today to organise her second jab and was surprised to hear that it was already scheduled.
Good old NHS! Still, better twice than not at all.
My parents (80+) had heard nothing so they called up. Were promptly given a slot for this Thursday. Great, but you obviously wonder what would have happened, or NOT happened, if they had not chased.
One day in the Flask, when such things are allowed again, I will tell you about the sharpness required of elbows to get things done in the NHS. I have a list as long as my arm (including in the middle of the ward and Consultant's round threatening, loudly, to call the police unless someone took action).
Sure clap for the individuals, but institutionally the NHS is a basket case.
My experience is that the people are generally good, but the system appears to have been designed to prevent healthcare being given to people.
When you see people fighting the system to do their jobs.......
WTF is with the bottled water???? What a waste of money, and plastic.
The quoted woman is correct. Imagine receiving this crap. Like it is designed to humiliate. The tuna dumped in a Starbucks coffee cup. Half a pepper wrapped in clingfilm. Two inches of carrot.
And all this during a plague.
As someone said on Twitter, even Dickens would have hesitated to describe someone doing this, for profit, to poor families, during a pandemic, as it would be regarded as unbelievable
I suspect the photo is not a genuine picture of the contents, but is some kind of stock photo. There's no mention of bottled water in the article, and why on earth would a supplier waste money on it? It's not exactly cheap, in this context.
I would agree with you, except there are other photos doing the rounds, showing other free meals with bottled water. I'll try and find one....
An update, via my wife (coroner's officer) from our local hospital: mortuary is full; some bodies could be released to undertakers but there are no undertakers with any space in _their_ facilities at the moment. Yesterday, the entire hospital portering team was off with covid. By asking people on leave to come in, the hospital today had two porters.
Amusing too that it isn't the company that people were jumping on afterall, at least in this instance. Seems like my suggestion that we look for actual facts and investigations was an appropriate one.
I wonder how much this company was charging for the package? It isn't quoted in the article.
Cornwall Council and local health officials are urging residents in the Newquay area to take extra care - saying the number of people testing positive has "skyrocketed".
They say Covid-19 case numbers in one part of the town are comparable with some areas of London.
Our figures on the island are equally bad - worse than much of London, now - yet it isn’t that long since we were happily tier one. People here are stilll blaming visitors from the mainland, but there must be more to it than that.
C'mon, there is no way that photo is a genuine picture of food sent out by Compass or one of the other big providers. One thing you can absolutely guarantee is that they won't be using illegal packaging.
On my bike ride earlier I had a, possibly Polly Toynbee-esque lot of nothingness thought. I had reckoned that a post Covid world would be more socially democratic, a la the end of WW2. Now I think the opposite - people will want to be able to do what they want after being trapped so long, and the economic crisis will make society even more chien-manger-chien than before.
So probably somewhere between the two, but people will see it through their bias and both will claim victory, you're welcome.
There was article along those lines in Unherd recently. Inequalities have worsened due to the pandemic and this will become obvious when restrictions are lifted.
On my bike ride earlier I had a, possibly Polly Toynbee-esque lot of nothingness thought. I had reckoned that a post Covid world would be more socially democratic, a la the end of WW2. Now I think the opposite - people will want to be able to do what they want after being trapped so long, and the economic crisis will make society even more chien-manger-chien than before.
So probably somewhere between the two, but people will see it through their bias and both will claim victory, you're welcome.
We will see.
Before that, though, West Ham and a possible cup run?
I think they picked the wrong day to send her out. She is going to get questions on Boris biking, the terrorist asylum seeker who got released and immediately killed the guys in the park, and the food boxes....
Do you mean questions about Boris bikin' and the stabbin' in Readin'?
Something that Priti Patel, Sadiq Khan and Beth Rigby have in common.
Good. The more people who talk like normal people in public life the better. Maybe one day people will realise how odd it is that so many of those in public life come from the same narrow segment of society and all sound the same, when our country has such a wide breadth of talent and so much diversity in how we speak.
No-one talks like that in the Midlands where I live. In fact a feature of the local accent here is to pronounce the "g" at the end of "ing" words in a particularly emphatic way.
Having grown up 8 miles South of Birmingham, in all fairness, I would rather sound like Priti, Khan or Rigby, than the low- rent Jasper Carrot tones the experience left me with.
I grew up 10 miles South-East of Birmingham and sound nothing like Jasper Carrot.
Snap. Be thankful you didn't grow up 10 miles North-West of Birmingham !
I grew up in SW Birmingham.
Is something going on with this site? Lot of ex-Brummies on here today
WTF is with the bottled water???? What a waste of money, and plastic.
The quoted woman is correct. Imagine receiving this crap. Like it is designed to humiliate. The tuna dumped in a Starbucks coffee cup. Half a pepper wrapped in clingfilm. Two inches of carrot.
And all this during a plague.
As someone said on Twitter, even Dickens would have hesitated to describe someone doing this, for profit, to poor families, during a pandemic, as it would be regarded as unbelievable
I suspect the photo is not a genuine picture of the contents, but is some kind of stock photo. There's no mention of bottled water in the article, and why on earth would a supplier waste money on it? It's not exactly cheap, in this context.
Bottled water is common in hospitality generally. A lot of the stock for these sorts of things (and the food my daughter received when she was in isolation at university) appears to be hospitality stock repurposed.
Things like the individual packs of digestives, for example. So they will include it because they already have it and can't otherwise get rid of it. Now they get to bill HMG for it.
That sounds highly plausible. And makes it worse. Clear profiteering: just get rid of the cheapest shit they can find, or have lying around in a warehouse; if there is too much divide it up and put it a f*cking coin bag, then ship it out, and charge the government £400 million.
I don't disagree with Osborne's comments there, but would have added a further sentence. 'And for 18 months we have had to endure the spectacle of senior Conservatives being prepared to sit along side Boris Johnson in Cabinet despite the many shotcomings which make him - and many of them - so illsuited to such responsibilities'.
On my bike ride earlier I had a, possibly Polly Toynbee-esque lot of nothingness thought. I had reckoned that a post Covid world would be more socially democratic, a la the end of WW2. Now I think the opposite - people will want to be able to do what they want after being trapped so long, and the economic crisis will make society even more chien-manger-chien than before.
So probably somewhere between the two, but people will see it through their bias and both will claim victory, you're welcome.
There was article along those lines in Unherd recently. Inequalities have worsened due to the pandemic and this will become obvious when restrictions are lifted.
Those with financial and other assets have benefited hugely. Those forced to continue driving buses or delivering parcels less so. Although I heard (radio?) that Amazon drivers can make £1,000/week which is not dreadful and nearly as much as a tube driver.
C'mon, there is no way that photo is a genuine picture of food sent out by Compass or one of the other big providers. One thing you can absolutely guarantee is that they won't be using illegal packaging.
Precisely what I was trying to say this morning.
People act as if anything some random person puts on Twitter is the truth, the whole truth, the unvarnished truth and nothing but the truth.
Come on its 2021, don't be so naive. Get some actual facts before jumping on the outrage train.
Yeah, lockdown ain't ending until Easter at the earliest.
Pressure on the NHS is unlikely to peak until next month as cases surge far beyond London, a health service chief has claimed.
The comments by Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, came as Times analysis showed that 80 per cent of local authorities in England had recorded their highest day of Covid-19 cases since the beginning of January.
Mr Hopson told MPs on the health and social care select committee that the situation was incredibly serious, with infection rates rising really very rapidly in areas including the Midlands, northwest and southwest England as well as London, the southeast and east of England.
He said: “That’s a particular worry because trusts in the Midlands and the north have got significant numbers of patients still in hospital from the second surge and in the southwest, because of its smaller bed base, we know it’s less able to absorb pressure than the other regions.”
WTF is with the bottled water???? What a waste of money, and plastic.
The quoted woman is correct. Imagine receiving this crap. Like it is designed to humiliate. The tuna dumped in a Starbucks coffee cup. Half a pepper wrapped in clingfilm. Two inches of carrot.
And all this during a plague.
As someone said on Twitter, even Dickens would have hesitated to describe someone doing this, for profit, to poor families, during a pandemic, as it would be regarded as unbelievable
It IS designed to humiliate. Crucial to Tory thinking. Question is whether this is as great a factor as price-gouging, best mates, and simple lack of human respect and consideration for practical issues such as, y'know, basic nutrition.
Like that ham in clingfilm in another photo - the tuna must be a massive food poisoning risk.
It is really strange if you actually do think that the idea behind finding this extra £30 a week to feed these people was to humiliate them. I think the food packages I've seen are terrible, but I don't actually think the scheme was conceived with wickedness in mind - that is Grade A paranoia. I think we should also remember that the party you support favours giving people cardboard boxes to put their baby into. What's that if it isn't humiliating?
To discourage them from ever having the daring to claim benefits, that is why. There is a fine line between calreless negligence and a kind of negligence which is complicit in effectively accepting the side effect of humiliation. I didn't say humiliation was th eprime aim - and made it quite clear that there are other aims in all this - but if it is an inevitable effect, then it has to be reckoned in.
Those boxes show no respect at all for the childrens' needs - or for the parents' desperate anxiety to look after the children (which is supposed to be a very Tory thing, as if it couldn't be true of Labour supporters e.g.)
You need to read up about the SG baby boxes. They have rather more useful contents - and the bit about putting the baby in is optional (but surprisingly popular, and sensible as the box is recyclable and not many families have that many, so it saves spending on a crib without feeling too singled out ...).
But are you suggesting that the idea of food boxes per se is an act of attempted humiliation, or that the Government has actively contrived to ensure crap food boxes that don't represent value to the taxpayer? The latter seems incredibly unlikely, if only because they introduced the policy in the first place to avoid the impression of being miserly and cruel. There has been (perhaps) a lack of rigour, not active malevolence.
If it's the first, that the idea of food boxes (as opposed to money to spend) is offensive, then it is utter hypocrisy to defend the SNP giving new families the gift of a cardboard box into which to place their baby (ffs!), rather than a cash benefit - presumably because otherwise the feckless individuals concerned would spend it on fags and store their baby in the microwaive or a flowerpot.
Yes, there are questions about why so many Republicans, like Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell, tolerated Trump’s behaviour for so long – and served alongside him. But perhaps we in Britain should be a little more understanding. After all, it was only a year ago that many sensible Labour politicians were campaigning to make Jeremy Corbyn our Prime Minister, sitting alongside him in his Shadow Cabinet.
WTF is with the bottled water???? What a waste of money, and plastic.
The quoted woman is correct. Imagine receiving this crap. Like it is designed to humiliate. The tuna dumped in a Starbucks coffee cup. Half a pepper wrapped in clingfilm. Two inches of carrot.
And all this during a plague.
As someone said on Twitter, even Dickens would have hesitated to describe someone doing this, for profit, to poor families, during a pandemic, as it would be regarded as unbelievable
It IS designed to humiliate. Crucial to Tory thinking. Question is whether this is as great a factor as price-gouging, best mates, and simple lack of human respect and consideration for practical issues such as, y'know, basic nutrition.
Like that ham in clingfilm in another photo - the tuna must be a massive food poisoning risk.
It is really strange if you actually do think that the idea behind finding this extra £30 a week to feed these people was to humiliate them. I think the food packages I've seen are terrible, but I don't actually think the scheme was conceived with wickedness in mind - that is Grade A paranoia. I think we should also remember that the party you support favours giving people cardboard boxes to put their baby into. What's that if it isn't humiliating?
To discourage them from ever having the daring to claim benefits, that is why. There is a fine line between calreless negligence and a kind of negligence which is complicit in effectively accepting the side effect of humiliation. I didn't say humiliation was th eprime aim - and made it quite clear that there are other aims in all this - but if it is an inevitable effect, then it has to be reckoned in.
Those boxes show no respect at all for the childrens' needs - or for the parents' desperate anxiety to look after the children (which is supposed to be a very Tory thing, as if it couldn't be true of Labour supporters e.g.)
You need to read up about the SG baby boxes. They have rather more useful contents - and the bit about putting the baby in is optional (but surprisingly popular, and sensible as the box is recyclable and not many families have that many, so it saves spending on a crib without feeling too singled out ...).
But are you suggesting that the idea of food boxes per se is an act of attempted humiliation, or that the Government has actively contrived to ensure crap food boxes that don't represent value to the taxpayer? The latter seems incredibly unlikely, if only because they introduced the policy in the first place to avoid the impression of being miserly and cruel. There has been (perhaps) a lack of rigour, not active malevolence.
If it's the first, that the idea of food boxes (as opposed to money to spend) is offensive, then it is utter hypocrisy to defend the SNP giving new families the gift of a cardboard box into which to place their baby (ffs!), rather than a cash benefit - presumably because otherwise the feckless individuals concerned would spend it on fags and store their baby in the microwaive or a flowerpot.
As with most things it's far more likely to be cock up rather than conspiracy.
WTF is with the bottled water???? What a waste of money, and plastic.
The quoted woman is correct. Imagine receiving this crap. Like it is designed to humiliate. The tuna dumped in a Starbucks coffee cup. Half a pepper wrapped in clingfilm. Two inches of carrot.
And all this during a plague.
As someone said on Twitter, even Dickens would have hesitated to describe someone doing this, for profit, to poor families, during a pandemic, as it would be regarded as unbelievable
I suspect the photo is not a genuine picture of the contents, but is some kind of stock photo. There's no mention of bottled water in the article, and why on earth would a supplier waste money on it? It's not exactly cheap, in this context.
Here you go. Another one with bottled water. Seems legit. I reckon LostPassword is right.
Lateral flow Covid tests picked up just three per cent of positive cases in Birmingham students before they returned home for the Christmas holidays, scientists warned as they called for an immediate pause to the rollout.
Telegraph
Cummings mad moonshot has not even left the lift off area.
Cornwall Council and local health officials are urging residents in the Newquay area to take extra care - saying the number of people testing positive has "skyrocketed".
They say Covid-19 case numbers in one part of the town are comparable with some areas of London.
Our figures on the island are equally bad - worse than much of London, now - yet it isn’t that long since we were happily tier one. People here are stilll blaming visitors from the mainland, but there must be more to it than that.
Visitors to seed it. Everyone going to the pubs and restaurants to spread it around.
Seems to be a similar story in many tier 1 and 2 areas, both in England and Scotland.
On my bike ride earlier I had a, possibly Polly Toynbee-esque lot of nothingness thought. I had reckoned that a post Covid world would be more socially democratic, a la the end of WW2. Now I think the opposite - people will want to be able to do what they want after being trapped so long, and the economic crisis will make society even more chien-manger-chien than before.
So probably somewhere between the two, but people will see it through their bias and both will claim victory, you're welcome.
There was article along those lines in Unherd recently. Inequalities have worsened due to the pandemic and this will become obvious when restrictions are lifted.
Those with financial and other assets have benefited hugely. Those forced to continue driving buses or delivering parcels less so. Although I heard (radio?) that Amazon drivers can make £1,000/week which is not dreadful and nearly as much as a tube driver.
I believe they count as self employed and have to provide their own vehicle, insurance, fuel etc.? In which case that figure would be gross.
Is bottled water really essential? Is tap water that unhealthy?
Surely there's something more useful for the money.
Why would anyone drink tap water? I mean fish fornicate in it.
Ours comes from a borehole, just like Harrogate. Though it has more nitrates to be fair.
It is probably best not to ask what trace substances are in everyday food.
The everyday foodstuffs with the highest phytosanitary measures available in the UK are fruit from tropical sources, especially those with high acidity.
If you're making yourself a meal with, say, bread, tomatoes, cheese and perhaps some strips of ham if you eat meat, you could do a lot worse than top it off with some pineapple.
Would that still apply if I wanted to eat those foodstuffs hot? On say, a form of flatbread?
Cornwall Council and local health officials are urging residents in the Newquay area to take extra care - saying the number of people testing positive has "skyrocketed".
They say Covid-19 case numbers in one part of the town are comparable with some areas of London.
Is that because half the people there, just arrived from London?
An update, via my wife (coroner's officer) from our local hospital: mortuary is full; some bodies could be released to undertakers but there are no undertakers with any space in _their_ facilities at the moment. Yesterday, the entire hospital portering team was off with covid. By asking people on leave to come in, the hospital today had two porters.
That's really sobering. Do you mind me asking roughly where?
Thousands of Britons who have received their coronavirus vaccine are set to be offered a health passport as part of a government-funded trial taking place this month.
The passport, created by biometrics firm iProov and cybersecurity firm Mvine , will be issued in the form of a free app allowing users to digitally prove if they have received the vaccine.
WTF is with the bottled water???? What a waste of money, and plastic.
The quoted woman is correct. Imagine receiving this crap. Like it is designed to humiliate. The tuna dumped in a Starbucks coffee cup. Half a pepper wrapped in clingfilm. Two inches of carrot.
And all this during a plague.
As someone said on Twitter, even Dickens would have hesitated to describe someone doing this, for profit, to poor families, during a pandemic, as it would be regarded as unbelievable
It IS designed to humiliate. Crucial to Tory thinking. Question is whether this is as great a factor as price-gouging, best mates, and simple lack of human respect and consideration for practical issues such as, y'know, basic nutrition.
Like that ham in clingfilm in another photo - the tuna must be a massive food poisoning risk.
It is really strange if you actually do think that the idea behind finding this extra £30 a week to feed these people was to humiliate them. I think the food packages I've seen are terrible, but I don't actually think the scheme was conceived with wickedness in mind - that is Grade A paranoia. I think we should also remember that the party you support favours giving people cardboard boxes to put their baby into. What's that if it isn't humiliating?
To discourage them from ever having the daring to claim benefits, that is why. There is a fine line between calreless negligence and a kind of negligence which is complicit in effectively accepting the side effect of humiliation. I didn't say humiliation was th eprime aim - and made it quite clear that there are other aims in all this - but if it is an inevitable effect, then it has to be reckoned in.
Those boxes show no respect at all for the childrens' needs - or for the parents' desperate anxiety to look after the children (which is supposed to be a very Tory thing, as if it couldn't be true of Labour supporters e.g.)
You need to read up about the SG baby boxes. They have rather more useful contents - and the bit about putting the baby in is optional (but surprisingly popular, and sensible as the box is recyclable and not many families have that many, so it saves spending on a crib without feeling too singled out ...).
But are you suggesting that the idea of food boxes per se is an act of attempted humiliation, or that the Government has actively contrived to ensure crap food boxes that don't represent value to the taxpayer? The latter seems incredibly unlikely, if only because they introduced the policy in the first place to avoid the impression of being miserly and cruel. There has been (perhaps) a lack of rigour, not active malevolence.
If it's the first, that the idea of food boxes (as opposed to money to spend) is offensive, then it is utter hypocrisy to defend the SNP giving new families the gift of a cardboard box into which to place their baby (ffs!), rather than a cash benefit - presumably because otherwise the feckless individuals concerned would spend it on fags and store their baby in the microwaive or a flowerpot.
I don't think a decent box is offensive per se (and may be more useful for some parents than having to go to the shop so often) - it is the only option given the reaction of the Tories themselves to allowing people to have the money as dfiscussed on PB today. It's the way in which it is done.
WTF is with the bottled water???? What a waste of money, and plastic.
The quoted woman is correct. Imagine receiving this crap. Like it is designed to humiliate. The tuna dumped in a Starbucks coffee cup. Half a pepper wrapped in clingfilm. Two inches of carrot.
And all this during a plague.
As someone said on Twitter, even Dickens would have hesitated to describe someone doing this, for profit, to poor families, during a pandemic, as it would be regarded as unbelievable
I suspect the photo is not a genuine picture of the contents, but is some kind of stock photo. There's no mention of bottled water in the article, and why on earth would a supplier waste money on it? It's not exactly cheap, in this context.
Here you go. Another one with bottled water. Seems legit. I reckon LostPassword is right.
if real, the the time spent splitting up packs of supermarket ham and then wrapping them in smaller portions in cling film would cost more than the original larger pack I reckon.
My father (94) finally got his vaccination today. Very efficiently done apparently. Surprised it was the Pfizer one.
On another note, particularly if @Foxy is here, I would be interested in any feedback on something else. I became very hoarse just before Christmas, without any other symptoms. My wife (a Doctor, but a pathologist and now working in drug safety so not her expertise) suggested leaving for a couple of weeks to see if it cleared up. It didn't. I saw the GP Friday evening who arranged a hospital appointment. On Monday I got a telephone appointment for today which was pretty impressive. I spoke to an ENT surgeon an hour ago who is going to organise an urgent hospital visit for me. His first reaction from my description and my voice was vocal cord paralysis. Not something my wife thought of. Don't like what I read about it, although he seemed pretty chipper about it. Obviously I am worried.
And good to hear about your father.
I called up her local hospital to organise my mother's second jab and was given an appointment nine weeks after her first.
The hospital rang me up again today to organise her second jab and was surprised to hear that it was already scheduled.
Good old NHS! Still, better twice than not at all.
My parents (80+) had heard nothing so they called up. Were promptly given a slot for this Thursday. Great, but you obviously wonder what would have happened, or NOT happened, if they had not chased.
One day in the Flask, when such things are allowed again, I will tell you about the sharpness required of elbows to get things done in the NHS. I have a list as long as my arm (including in the middle of the ward and Consultant's round threatening, loudly, to call the police unless someone took action).
Sure clap for the individuals, but institutionally the NHS is a basket case.
Recalling the months my father sent in hospital a decade back, when amongst other things he would likely have died from malnutrition without daily family visits, I would entirely agree with that. The NHS is both a splendid institution, and a dysfunctional one at the same time.
WTF is with the bottled water???? What a waste of money, and plastic.
The quoted woman is correct. Imagine receiving this crap. Like it is designed to humiliate. The tuna dumped in a Starbucks coffee cup. Half a pepper wrapped in clingfilm. Two inches of carrot.
And all this during a plague.
As someone said on Twitter, even Dickens would have hesitated to describe someone doing this, for profit, to poor families, during a pandemic, as it would be regarded as unbelievable
I suspect the photo is not a genuine picture of the contents, but is some kind of stock photo. There's no mention of bottled water in the article, and why on earth would a supplier waste money on it? It's not exactly cheap, in this context.
Here you go. Another one with bottled water. Seems legit. I reckon LostPassword is right.
if real, the the time spent splitting up packs of supermarket ham and then wrapping them in smaller portions in cling film would cost more than the original larger pack I reckon.
Agreed.
I want to know who is actually doing this. These photos look like some amateur individual trying to do it themselves on the cheap, going to the supermarket buying stuff then splitting it up and sending it off.
Absolutely bonkers way to do it. No way on earth is that done by someone 'corporate'. Nobody professional at least.
I'm no fan of Johnson, but I am at least thankful that we escaped PM Osborne. Okay, he's no Trump, but he always struck me as the most infantile and ideologically dangerous member of Cameron's cabinet.
Yes, Pence and McConnell deserve some credit for finally doing the right thing. They are not enemies of democracy, merely opponents of good governance.
No, the failure (so far) of the insurrection is not strong evidence that the constitution did it's job. A handful of people behaving differently would have tipped the balance. And with four more years, which would probably have happened without COVID, Trump would have been in a position to tip that balance.
This has been a lucky escape for democracy, not a show of its strength.
And the absurdity of the last sentence. Any sane person of left or right, however much they dislike Corbyn, can only roll their eyes in disgust at that.
Osborne revealed his true colours with his line about "sleeping off a life on benefits." A nasty, cheap and dishonest line demonising the poor from a man born into a life of extraordinary privilege.
What utter nonsense. What he said was:
Yes, we inherited a tax system where some in the City were paying lower tax rates than their cleaners. That was wrong and we were right to change it.
But in the same way, it is wrong that it's possible for someone to be better off on benefits than they would be in work.
We're right to change that too.
That's why I insisted on a cap on benefits, so no family can earn more out of work than the average family earns in work.
And can you believe it?
Labour voted against that.
All that talk about 'something for something', and they have learnt nothing about anything.
Where is the fairness, we ask, for the shift-worker, leaving home in the dark hours of the early morning, who looks up at the closed blinds of their next door neighbour sleeping off a life on benefits?
When we say we're all in this together, we speak for that worker.
Perfectly reasonable, for anyone not prejudiced against him. Or are you seriously suggesting that people should be better off on benefits than their neighbours who are in work?
Thank goodness we did have a Chancellor who addressed that manifest injustice.
Most working age people who receive benefits are in work. Many more are disabled. To slander them as workshy layabouts is disgusting.
Cornwall Council and local health officials are urging residents in the Newquay area to take extra care - saying the number of people testing positive has "skyrocketed".
They say Covid-19 case numbers in one part of the town are comparable with some areas of London.
Our figures on the island are equally bad - worse than much of London, now - yet it isn’t that long since we were happily tier one. People here are stilll blaming visitors from the mainland, but there must be more to it than that.
WTF is with the bottled water???? What a waste of money, and plastic.
The quoted woman is correct. Imagine receiving this crap. Like it is designed to humiliate. The tuna dumped in a Starbucks coffee cup. Half a pepper wrapped in clingfilm. Two inches of carrot.
And all this during a plague.
As someone said on Twitter, even Dickens would have hesitated to describe someone doing this, for profit, to poor families, during a pandemic, as it would be regarded as unbelievable
I suspect the photo is not a genuine picture of the contents, but is some kind of stock photo. There's no mention of bottled water in the article, and why on earth would a supplier waste money on it? It's not exactly cheap, in this context.
Here you go. Another one with bottled water. Seems legit. I reckon LostPassword is right.
On my bike ride earlier I had a, possibly Polly Toynbee-esque lot of nothingness thought. I had reckoned that a post Covid world would be more socially democratic, a la the end of WW2. Now I think the opposite - people will want to be able to do what they want after being trapped so long, and the economic crisis will make society even more chien-manger-chien than before.
So probably somewhere between the two, but people will see it through their bias and both will claim victory, you're welcome.
You weren't passing a red light at the time were you?
Even worse, he was 2.1 miles away from his front door. Selfish bastard!
C'mon, there is no way that photo is a genuine picture of food sent out by Compass or one of the other big providers. One thing you can absolutely guarantee is that they won't be using illegal packaging.
Precisely what I was trying to say this morning.
People act as if anything some random person puts on Twitter is the truth, the whole truth, the unvarnished truth and nothing but the truth.
Come on its 2021, don't be so naive. Get some actual facts before jumping on the outrage train.
Although, to be fair, Twitter in 2021 may well have a greater level of truth than in 2020 given the banning of Trump and exodus of his followers. A low bar, I'll accept...
WTF is with the bottled water???? What a waste of money, and plastic.
The quoted woman is correct. Imagine receiving this crap. Like it is designed to humiliate. The tuna dumped in a Starbucks coffee cup. Half a pepper wrapped in clingfilm. Two inches of carrot.
And all this during a plague.
As someone said on Twitter, even Dickens would have hesitated to describe someone doing this, for profit, to poor families, during a pandemic, as it would be regarded as unbelievable
It IS designed to humiliate. Crucial to Tory thinking. Question is whether this is as great a factor as price-gouging, best mates, and simple lack of human respect and consideration for practical issues such as, y'know, basic nutrition.
Like that ham in clingfilm in another photo - the tuna must be a massive food poisoning risk.
It is really strange if you actually do think that the idea behind finding this extra £30 a week to feed these people was to humiliate them. I think the food packages I've seen are terrible, but I don't actually think the scheme was conceived with wickedness in mind - that is Grade A paranoia. I think we should also remember that the party you support favours giving people cardboard boxes to put their baby into. What's that if it isn't humiliating?
To discourage them from ever having the daring to claim benefits, that is why. There is a fine line between calreless negligence and a kind of negligence which is complicit in effectively accepting the side effect of humiliation. I didn't say humiliation was th eprime aim - and made it quite clear that there are other aims in all this - but if it is an inevitable effect, then it has to be reckoned in.
Those boxes show no respect at all for the childrens' needs - or for the parents' desperate anxiety to look after the children (which is supposed to be a very Tory thing, as if it couldn't be true of Labour supporters e.g.)
You need to read up about the SG baby boxes. They have rather more useful contents - and the bit about putting the baby in is optional (but surprisingly popular, and sensible as the box is recyclable and not many families have that many, so it saves spending on a crib without feeling too singled out ...).
But are you suggesting that the idea of food boxes per se is an act of attempted humiliation, or that the Government has actively contrived to ensure crap food boxes that don't represent value to the taxpayer? The latter seems incredibly unlikely, if only because they introduced the policy in the first place to avoid the impression of being miserly and cruel. There has been (perhaps) a lack of rigour, not active malevolence.
If it's the first, that the idea of food boxes (as opposed to money to spend) is offensive, then it is utter hypocrisy to defend the SNP giving new families the gift of a cardboard box into which to place their baby (ffs!), rather than a cash benefit - presumably because otherwise the feckless individuals concerned would spend it on fags and store their baby in the microwaive or a flowerpot.
I don't think a decent box is offensive per se (and may be more useful for some parents than having to go to the shop so often) - it is the only option given the reaction of the Tories themselves to allowing people to have the money as dfiscussed on PB today. It's the way in which it is done.
Good - I completely agree. And a nice food box is a nice thing to receive.
Now the problem has been highlighted, regardless of cause, let's hope to see extremely well-done food boxes with excellent items in them.
WTF is with the bottled water???? What a waste of money, and plastic.
The quoted woman is correct. Imagine receiving this crap. Like it is designed to humiliate. The tuna dumped in a Starbucks coffee cup. Half a pepper wrapped in clingfilm. Two inches of carrot.
And all this during a plague.
As someone said on Twitter, even Dickens would have hesitated to describe someone doing this, for profit, to poor families, during a pandemic, as it would be regarded as unbelievable
I suspect the photo is not a genuine picture of the contents, but is some kind of stock photo. There's no mention of bottled water in the article, and why on earth would a supplier waste money on it? It's not exactly cheap, in this context.
Here you go. Another one with bottled water. Seems legit. I reckon LostPassword is right.
Yeah, lockdown ain't ending until Easter at the earliest.
Pressure on the NHS is unlikely to peak until next month as cases surge far beyond London, a health service chief has claimed.
The comments by Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, came as Times analysis showed that 80 per cent of local authorities in England had recorded their highest day of Covid-19 cases since the beginning of January.
Mr Hopson told MPs on the health and social care select committee that the situation was incredibly serious, with infection rates rising really very rapidly in areas including the Midlands, northwest and southwest England as well as London, the southeast and east of England.
He said: “That’s a particular worry because trusts in the Midlands and the north have got significant numbers of patients still in hospital from the second surge and in the southwest, because of its smaller bed base, we know it’s less able to absorb pressure than the other regions.”
I'm no fan of Johnson, but I am at least thankful that we escaped PM Osborne. Okay, he's no Trump, but he always struck me as the most infantile and ideologically dangerous member of Cameron's cabinet.
Yes, Pence and McConnell deserve some credit for finally doing the right thing. They are not enemies of democracy, merely opponents of good governance.
No, the failure (so far) of the insurrection is not strong evidence that the constitution did it's job. A handful of people behaving differently would have tipped the balance. And with four more years, which would probably have happened without COVID, Trump would have been in a position to tip that balance.
This has been a lucky escape for democracy, not a show of its strength.
And the absurdity of the last sentence. Any sane person of left or right, however much they dislike Corbyn, can only roll their eyes in disgust at that.
Osborne revealed his true colours with his line about "sleeping off a life on benefits." A nasty, cheap and dishonest line demonising the poor from a man born into a life of extraordinary privilege.
Wasn't massively keen on "chopped up in my fridge" either.
That was just weird though (I mean, do you know anybody who would say something like that?), rather than being deliberately nasty for political purposes.
On my bike ride earlier I had a, possibly Polly Toynbee-esque lot of nothingness thought. I had reckoned that a post Covid world would be more socially democratic, a la the end of WW2. Now I think the opposite - people will want to be able to do what they want after being trapped so long, and the economic crisis will make society even more chien-manger-chien than before.
So probably somewhere between the two, but people will see it through their bias and both will claim victory, you're welcome.
There was article along those lines in Unherd recently. Inequalities have worsened due to the pandemic and this will become obvious when restrictions are lifted.
Those with financial and other assets have benefited hugely. Those forced to continue driving buses or delivering parcels less so. Although I heard (radio?) that Amazon drivers can make £1,000/week which is not dreadful and nearly as much as a tube driver.
They may turn over that, yes. They have to use their own car, commercially insured, fill it with their own petrol, and pay their own parking charges.
WTF is with the bottled water???? What a waste of money, and plastic.
The quoted woman is correct. Imagine receiving this crap. Like it is designed to humiliate. The tuna dumped in a Starbucks coffee cup. Half a pepper wrapped in clingfilm. Two inches of carrot.
And all this during a plague.
As someone said on Twitter, even Dickens would have hesitated to describe someone doing this, for profit, to poor families, during a pandemic, as it would be regarded as unbelievable
I suspect the photo is not a genuine picture of the contents, but is some kind of stock photo. There's no mention of bottled water in the article, and why on earth would a supplier waste money on it? It's not exactly cheap, in this context.
Here you go. Another one with bottled water. Seems legit. I reckon LostPassword is right.
That would surely depend upon what their contract required them to deliver but if there are specified quantities and food groups and these are knowingly not being met by direction and payment is sought then yes, it is.
Lateral flow Covid tests picked up just three per cent of positive cases in Birmingham students before they returned home for the Christmas holidays, scientists warned as they called for an immediate pause to the rollout.
Telegraph
Cummings mad moonshot has not even left the lift off area.
I'd be interested to see the details - 3% of those positive at the time of test (did they also have swabs sent off for PCR testing at the same time?) or 3% of those who were later found to be infected at some point?
If the former, then it's way off from other assessments I've seen. If the latter then importance depends on whether they were infected when tested or got infected later.
45533 cases Its rare for a Tuesday to be less than a Monday
Unless yesterday, testers were switched to setting up the seven mega-vaccination centres? I don't WANT to be Donny Downer - but that might conceivably be a reason. Fingers crossed for tomorrow, eh?
WTF is with the bottled water???? What a waste of money, and plastic.
The quoted woman is correct. Imagine receiving this crap. Like it is designed to humiliate. The tuna dumped in a Starbucks coffee cup. Half a pepper wrapped in clingfilm. Two inches of carrot.
And all this during a plague.
As someone said on Twitter, even Dickens would have hesitated to describe someone doing this, for profit, to poor families, during a pandemic, as it would be regarded as unbelievable
I suspect the photo is not a genuine picture of the contents, but is some kind of stock photo. There's no mention of bottled water in the article, and why on earth would a supplier waste money on it? It's not exactly cheap, in this context.
Here you go. Another one with bottled water. Seems legit. I reckon LostPassword is right.
if real, the the time spent splitting up packs of supermarket ham and then wrapping them in smaller portions in cling film would cost more than the original larger pack I reckon.
Agreed.
I want to know who is actually doing this. These photos look like some amateur individual trying to do it themselves on the cheap, going to the supermarket buying stuff then splitting it up and sending it off.
Absolutely bonkers way to do it. No way on earth is that done by someone 'corporate'. Nobody professional at least.
Does all seem very odd. Hopefully some jouno will get to the bottom of the story.
WTF is with the bottled water???? What a waste of money, and plastic.
The quoted woman is correct. Imagine receiving this crap. Like it is designed to humiliate. The tuna dumped in a Starbucks coffee cup. Half a pepper wrapped in clingfilm. Two inches of carrot.
And all this during a plague.
As someone said on Twitter, even Dickens would have hesitated to describe someone doing this, for profit, to poor families, during a pandemic, as it would be regarded as unbelievable
I suspect the photo is not a genuine picture of the contents, but is some kind of stock photo. There's no mention of bottled water in the article, and why on earth would a supplier waste money on it? It's not exactly cheap, in this context.
Here you go. Another one with bottled water. Seems legit. I reckon LostPassword is right.
I'm no fan of Johnson, but I am at least thankful that we escaped PM Osborne. Okay, he's no Trump, but he always struck me as the most infantile and ideologically dangerous member of Cameron's cabinet.
Yes, Pence and McConnell deserve some credit for finally doing the right thing. They are not enemies of democracy, merely opponents of good governance.
No, the failure (so far) of the insurrection is not strong evidence that the constitution did it's job. A handful of people behaving differently would have tipped the balance. And with four more years, which would probably have happened without COVID, Trump would have been in a position to tip that balance.
This has been a lucky escape for democracy, not a show of its strength.
And the absurdity of the last sentence. Any sane person of left or right, however much they dislike Corbyn, can only roll their eyes in disgust at that.
Osborne revealed his true colours with his line about "sleeping off a life on benefits." A nasty, cheap and dishonest line demonising the poor from a man born into a life of extraordinary privilege.
What utter nonsense. What he said was:
Yes, we inherited a tax system where some in the City were paying lower tax rates than their cleaners. That was wrong and we were right to change it.
But in the same way, it is wrong that it's possible for someone to be better off on benefits than they would be in work.
We're right to change that too.
That's why I insisted on a cap on benefits, so no family can earn more out of work than the average family earns in work.
And can you believe it?
Labour voted against that.
All that talk about 'something for something', and they have learnt nothing about anything.
Where is the fairness, we ask, for the shift-worker, leaving home in the dark hours of the early morning, who looks up at the closed blinds of their next door neighbour sleeping off a life on benefits?
When we say we're all in this together, we speak for that worker.
Perfectly reasonable, for anyone not prejudiced against him. Or are you seriously suggesting that people should be better off on benefits than their neighbours who are in work?
Thank goodness we did have a Chancellor who addressed that manifest injustice.
Most working age people who receive benefits are in work. Many more are disabled. To slander them as workshy layabouts is disgusting.
Classic divide and rule. From the experts. Just like Diane Abbott said.
Cue the usual, I suppose, whenever I namecheck with approval the veteran MP for Hackney North & Stoke Newington.
Don't care because it's Murakami, Chilean Red hour. You'll have to deal with it.
45533 cases Its rare for a Tuesday to be less than a Monday
Unless yesterday, testers were switched to setting up the seven mega-vaccination centres? I don't WANT to be Donny Downer - but that might conceivably be a reason. Fingers crossed for tomorrow, eh?
Test numbers are higher than same days last week, so I think we're fine on that.
WTF is with the bottled water???? What a waste of money, and plastic.
The quoted woman is correct. Imagine receiving this crap. Like it is designed to humiliate. The tuna dumped in a Starbucks coffee cup. Half a pepper wrapped in clingfilm. Two inches of carrot.
And all this during a plague.
As someone said on Twitter, even Dickens would have hesitated to describe someone doing this, for profit, to poor families, during a pandemic, as it would be regarded as unbelievable
I suspect the photo is not a genuine picture of the contents, but is some kind of stock photo. There's no mention of bottled water in the article, and why on earth would a supplier waste money on it? It's not exactly cheap, in this context.
Here you go. Another one with bottled water. Seems legit. I reckon LostPassword is right.
if real, the the time spent splitting up packs of supermarket ham and then wrapping them in smaller portions in cling film would cost more than the original larger pack I reckon.
But beans aside, this does look like hospitality stock, not supermarket stock - no branding on the bread for example.
I am not outraged by *some* of this profiteering. Stuff like individual packs of biscuits as seen in hotels - that sort of works for a kid's lunch, if the biscuits are nice ones.
Using bottled water on the other hand, is pretty horrendous - even nice mineral water has a nutritional value of pretty much zero. Put it in as an extra, but 'charging' for it? Can't think how they thought they'd get away with it.
George Osborne's comments clearly haven't dated very well. America has a leader who attempted a coup one week ago which killed five people, still strutting around and menacing more danger, essentially because both his party and the Democrats are frightened of civil war. Not only has it been founding wanting so far, but America's democracy hasn't been in this much danger for 150 years.
People are getting a little testy about the Corbyn comparison, not unreasonably to some extent - Trump does operate on a level not generally seen over here. And yet, and yet ... if you gave Corbyn the kind of political power and media reach Trump had, is it really that hard to imagine him imposing his loony left agenda on the country with an army of hundreds of thousands of, er, 'passionate' Momentumites cheering his every word at boisterous rallies? He's easy to laugh at now that Boris has annihilated him, but his defeat in the UK was just as essential as Trump's in the US.
The moral courage shown by Shadow Cabinet members like Starmer who supported him uncritically for years is unimpressive, to say the least.
Yeah, lockdown ain't ending until Easter at the earliest.
Pressure on the NHS is unlikely to peak until next month as cases surge far beyond London, a health service chief has claimed.
The comments by Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, came as Times analysis showed that 80 per cent of local authorities in England had recorded their highest day of Covid-19 cases since the beginning of January.
Mr Hopson told MPs on the health and social care select committee that the situation was incredibly serious, with infection rates rising really very rapidly in areas including the Midlands, northwest and southwest England as well as London, the southeast and east of England.
He said: “That’s a particular worry because trusts in the Midlands and the north have got significant numbers of patients still in hospital from the second surge and in the southwest, because of its smaller bed base, we know it’s less able to absorb pressure than the other regions.”
I'm no fan of Johnson, but I am at least thankful that we escaped PM Osborne. Okay, he's no Trump, but he always struck me as the most infantile and ideologically dangerous member of Cameron's cabinet.
Yes, Pence and McConnell deserve some credit for finally doing the right thing. They are not enemies of democracy, merely opponents of good governance.
No, the failure (so far) of the insurrection is not strong evidence that the constitution did it's job. A handful of people behaving differently would have tipped the balance. And with four more years, which would probably have happened without COVID, Trump would have been in a position to tip that balance.
This has been a lucky escape for democracy, not a show of its strength.
And the absurdity of the last sentence. Any sane person of left or right, however much they dislike Corbyn, can only roll their eyes in disgust at that.
Osborne revealed his true colours with his line about "sleeping off a life on benefits." A nasty, cheap and dishonest line demonising the poor from a man born into a life of extraordinary privilege.
Wasn't massively keen on "chopped up in my fridge" either.
That was just weird though (I mean, do you know anybody who would say something like that?), rather than being deliberately nasty for political purposes.
It was an extremely odd choice of words - I can't imagine how it could be used appropriately. Even if it were about someone who had murdered a member of ones family it would seem a deranged thing to say
Comments
Things like the individual packs of digestives, for example. So they will include it because they already have it and can't otherwise get rid of it. Now they get to bill HMG for it.
Fiver to you.
Yes, we inherited a tax system where some in the City were paying lower tax rates than their cleaners. That was wrong and we were right to change it.
But in the same way, it is wrong that it's possible for someone to be better off on benefits than they would be in work.
We're right to change that too.
That's why I insisted on a cap on benefits, so no family can earn more out of work than the average family earns in work.
And can you believe it?
Labour voted against that.
All that talk about 'something for something', and they have learnt nothing about anything.
Where is the fairness, we ask, for the shift-worker, leaving home in the dark hours of the early morning, who looks up at the closed blinds of their next door neighbour sleeping off a life on benefits?
When we say we're all in this together, we speak for that worker.
Perfectly reasonable, for anyone not prejudiced against him. Or are you seriously suggesting that people should be better off on benefits than their neighbours who are in work?
Thank goodness we did have a Chancellor who addressed that manifest injustice.
Those boxes show no respect at all for the childrens' needs - or for the parents' desperate anxiety to look after the children (which is supposed to be a very Tory thing, as if it couldn't be true of Labour supporters e.g.)
You need to read up about the SG baby boxes. They have rather more useful contents - and the bit about putting the baby in is optional (but surprisingly popular, and sensible as the box is recyclable and not many families have that many, so it saves spending on a crib without feeling too singled out ...).
Did hear that I right.
Look at this. Food in a coin bag (it's actually tomato soup mix, not tuna flakes, according to the mother that got it)
https://twitter.com/SadiqDorasat/status/1348941534713028608?s=20
Sure clap for the individuals, but institutionally the NHS is a basket case.
https://twitter.com/AsteadWesley/status/1348988647358537729
smirk
https://twitter.com/tomgara/status/1348851565982048256?s=19
When you see people fighting the system to do their jobs.......
Amusing too that it isn't the company that people were jumping on afterall, at least in this instance. Seems like my suggestion that we look for actual facts and investigations was an appropriate one.
I wonder how much this company was charging for the package? It isn't quoted in the article.
https://twitter.com/chinarhyming/status/1349032085693075456
Before that, though, West Ham and a possible cup run?
Is something going on with this site? Lot of ex-Brummies on here today
Blood boiling.
'And for 18 months we have had to endure the spectacle of senior Conservatives being prepared to sit along side Boris Johnson in Cabinet despite the many shotcomings which make him - and many of them - so illsuited to such responsibilities'.
Its rare for a Tuesday to be less than a Monday
People act as if anything some random person puts on Twitter is the truth, the whole truth, the unvarnished truth and nothing but the truth.
Come on its 2021, don't be so naive. Get some actual facts before jumping on the outrage train.
Pressure on the NHS is unlikely to peak until next month as cases surge far beyond London, a health service chief has claimed.
The comments by Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, came as Times analysis showed that 80 per cent of local authorities in England had recorded their highest day of Covid-19 cases since the beginning of January.
Mr Hopson told MPs on the health and social care select committee that the situation was incredibly serious, with infection rates rising really very rapidly in areas including the Midlands, northwest and southwest England as well as London, the southeast and east of England.
He said: “That’s a particular worry because trusts in the Midlands and the north have got significant numbers of patients still in hospital from the second surge and in the southwest, because of its smaller bed base, we know it’s less able to absorb pressure than the other regions.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/covid-19-cases-unlikely-to-peak-for-weeks-jcxgttsws
If it's the first, that the idea of food boxes (as opposed to money to spend) is offensive, then it is utter hypocrisy to defend the SNP giving new families the gift of a cardboard box into which to place their baby (ffs!), rather than a cash benefit - presumably because otherwise the feckless individuals concerned would spend it on fags and store their baby in the microwaive or a flowerpot.
https://twitter.com/BootstrapCook/status/1348944413620363265?s=20
Telegraph
Cummings mad moonshot has not even left the lift off area.
Seems to be a similar story in many tier 1 and 2 areas, both in England and Scotland.
Get yourself a Covid test as losing a sense of taste is a symptom.
The NHS is both a splendid institution, and a dysfunctional one at the same time.
I want to know who is actually doing this. These photos look like some amateur individual trying to do it themselves on the cheap, going to the supermarket buying stuff then splitting it up and sending it off.
Absolutely bonkers way to do it. No way on earth is that done by someone 'corporate'. Nobody professional at least.
Their fixation on a bit of grass seems obsessive though.
The updated numbers for vaccinations are under the 11th, today (12th) is all 0
Which suggests that we are seeing an effect from starting the daily updates.
Now the problem has been highlighted, regardless of cause, let's hope to see extremely well-done food boxes with excellent items in them.
If the former, then it's way off from other assessments I've seen. If the latter then importance depends on whether they were infected when tested or got infected later.
https://twitter.com/jeanettekirk1/status/1348972785897504770?s=20
Cue the usual, I suppose, whenever I namecheck with approval the veteran MP for Hackney North & Stoke Newington.
Don't care because it's Murakami, Chilean Red hour. You'll have to deal with it.
I am not outraged by *some* of this profiteering. Stuff like individual packs of biscuits as seen in hotels - that sort of works for a kid's lunch, if the biscuits are nice ones.
Using bottled water on the other hand, is pretty horrendous - even nice mineral water has a nutritional value of pretty much zero. Put it in as an extra, but 'charging' for it? Can't think how they thought they'd get away with it.
The moral courage shown by Shadow Cabinet members like Starmer who supported him uncritically for years is unimpressive, to say the least.
For the record, you are saying lockdown will continue until 4 April.
https://twitter.com/LisPower1/status/1348988164216643586