Was the target for a specific number of vaccinations today? Otherwise how can it be described as failed. Why am I not surprised the UK's relative success isn't being highlighted in the media.
Forget it, total disaster, we should just give up...the reality is as the Telegraph story explains supply is still the constraining factor. AZN partners need to those 14 million doses out the vat and into the bottles on the double.
Fewer immigrants from the EU on minimum wage doing care work etc while getting paid housing allownace and universal credit by the government.
More skilled immigrants from the rest of the world not claiming welfare and paying taxes instead.
The money saved on not paying universal credit, and received in taxes, goes on funding a pay rise for care workers so they're not on minimum wage.
No change in net immigration, no change in the Exchequer either, but we have more skills and our care staff are better paid.
Win, win?
Most EU migrants were not doing minimum wage jobs and getting benefits in the first place. Off memory thats about 6% of them, so that assumption is misleading. And not sure the only reason we need migration for care jobs is wages, although it is clearly part of it.
But would I broadly be happy with what you suggest? Sure
Do I think a large chunk of leave voters will feel betrayed by your solution? Yes and I expect that will become a big problem
I believe we are on the right side of this particular issue. I really don't understand what the EU think they are doing as far as China is concerned.
Doing business.
The hard nosed, unsentimental side of the EU was occasionally advanced by, I think, williamglenn, as reason for its inevitability.
Not that we've previously had much to be proud about in that respect.
But this is, not to put too fine a point on it, about self preservation. It is not just about the EU ignoring what the Chinese are doing on the other side of the world. It is about the EU ignoring the direct threat that China poses to them - and us.
Done. The new policy may be arbitrary and counterproductive, but a full 10/10 is merited on this commitment."
The only one that mattered, as it was the reason there was a referendum, and the reason Leave won.
Does the scoring change if we dont reduce migration over the next decade or two? (which we wont!)
Or did we just want the theoretical power to control it?
For me, no, absolutely not.
Besides numbers are relatively meaningless. The government have actually created what you might call a "level playing field" on immigration - making it harder for unskilled minimum wage Europeans to come here yes, but easier for skilled rest of the world nurses and others to come here instead.
If we end up with fewer unskilled immigrants from Europe on Universal Credit income support and housing allowance, but more skilled nurses and others, then is that a bad thing?
One of the biggest shortages we have is care workers. We seem only willing to pay minimum wage, or very close to it for that.
I would have absolutely no problem in seeing care workers wages going up, as an alternative to importing more people to do the job at minimum wage.
Care workers may not have the qualifications of nurses but they do a damned important job in difficult circumstances. If we can't fill the vacancies without increasing wages then that is supply and demand, market economics. I am OK with that. With the greatest of respect to other minimum wage jobs, I don't see why someone working 12 hour shifts in a care home looking after the vulnerable and the elderly, wiping people's bums and providing personal care and attention should only be worth the minimum wage.
Should a care worker be on the same wage as a waitress who is earning tips from her tables? I don't think so.
Would you welcome council tax rises to pay for the increase in care home workers wages?
Brexit? Can't score it yet. We left nearly a year ago. We've had a "deal" for almost a fortnight, and the impacts are only just starting to kick in.
Fun times ahead
I think undeniably Brexit has been delivered, a bit late and shop soiled, but delivered.
The real question is whether the issues that drove it are addressed, and for that it is too early to say.
This map of social disintegration of community is not completely identical to the map of Leaverstan, but there is a strong family resemblance. We now get to see how Brexit solves those issues. My hunch is that it will accelerate the social discontent.
Ironically, perhaps, one of the most prominent to realise this was Dominic Cummings, hence the "levelling up" agenda; even in the campaigning, it was the NHS on the side of the bus, not ECJ, FOM or EFTA.
Though of course regional redistribution was within our Parliament's power...
Not really. The zones that received ERDF funding were decided by the EU not the UK. And the UK had to provide matched funding so it warped whatever policies our own Government might have been pursuing - whether Labour or Conservative.
There were many ways of redistributing monies, from infrastructure, social security etc, but actually these were the areas hardest hit by post 2010 austerity. So we did the opposite.
Done. The new policy may be arbitrary and counterproductive, but a full 10/10 is merited on this commitment."
The only one that mattered, as it was the reason there was a referendum, and the reason Leave won.
Does the scoring change if we dont reduce migration over the next decade or two? (which we wont!)
Or did we just want the theoretical power to control it?
I would have been happy with the theoretical power to control it and staying in the EU if that were possible, but if Leaving doesn't reduce immigration over the next decade or two I would think the score would change, because most people probably voted Leave to see the numbers come down
I wonder how many realise 5.4m Hong Kongers have the right to UK citizenship now, that's about 50 years worth of EU migration.
I think any Hong Kongers who come here are most likely to be a fantastic and welcome addition to the country.
But the idea all 5.4 million will come here is preposterous. Until recently 446 million people had the free movement right to move to the UK, doesn't mean they all would either. So considering Hong Kongers and the fact the Irish have the right to do so too the numbers with the right to do so now are down by about 98%.
It matters because millions of people think they have been promised something different by Brexit, and when migration doesnt reduce, and might even grow they will lose further trust in politics and be open for more radicalisation as we see in the US.
It would be far better if our politicians were willing to be honest about migration, but they wont, and Brexit would not have happened if they had done so.
Well, yes but the original sin, the dishonesty, was Tony Blair's, or his governments - They must have known allowing A8 accession would rip the manual labour and trades markets apart, but pretended barely any immigrants would bother coming to work here for 8 times their salary. Really that would have been the best time for a referendum, not on EU membership, but the scale of economic migration allowed from the former communist countries, whose economies were nothing like those of the previous EU countries. That is where it all started - before that, bendy bananas, cms or inches - no one cared except some lofty fringe of the Conservative Party, Nigel Farage and James Goldsmith
They didn't know. They commissioned research which suggested few would come and transitional controls were unnecessary. That research turned out to be wrong but it wasn't a conspiracy. This is all fairly well known.
The problem with the research was that it assumed other countries also wouldn't apply transition controls. If none had then it might even have been correct.
Personally, I find that those arrivals from 15 years ago have integrated well, learnt English and filled essential gaps in our workforce. It was a good decision.
Glad to see she has moderated her view in the past week, it would have been one hell of a climb down. Hopefully others are emboldened by Trump's presenting himself as the victim in all this.
Think it’s actually going to happen this time round. Mitch now reported to be in favour - that would swing it, I’d say.
Done. The new policy may be arbitrary and counterproductive, but a full 10/10 is merited on this commitment."
The only one that mattered, as it was the reason there was a referendum, and the reason Leave won.
Does the scoring change if we dont reduce migration over the next decade or two? (which we wont!)
Or did we just want the theoretical power to control it?
I would have been happy with the theoretical power to control it and staying in the EU if that were possible, but if Leaving doesn't reduce immigration over the next decade or two I would think the score would change, because most people probably voted Leave to see the numbers come down
I wonder how many realise 5.4m Hong Kongers have the right to UK citizenship now, that's about 50 years worth of EU migration.
I think any Hong Kongers who come here are most likely to be a fantastic and welcome addition to the country.
But the idea all 5.4 million will come here is preposterous. Until recently 446 million people had the free movement right to move to the UK, doesn't mean they all would either. So considering Hong Kongers and the fact the Irish have the right to do so too the numbers with the right to do so now are down by about 98%.
It matters because millions of people think they have been promised something different by Brexit, and when migration doesnt reduce, and might even grow they will lose further trust in politics and be open for more radicalisation as we see in the US.
It would be far better if our politicians were willing to be honest about migration, but they wont, and Brexit would not have happened if they had done so.
Well, yes but the original sin, the dishonesty, was Tony Blair's, or his governments - They must have known allowing A8 accession would rip the manual labour and trades markets apart, but pretended barely any immigrants would bother coming to work here for 8 times their salary. Really that would have been the best time for a referendum, not on EU membership, but the scale of economic migration allowed from the former communist countries, whose economies were nothing like those of the previous EU countries. That is where it all started - before that, bendy bananas, cms or inches - no one cared except some lofty fringe of the Conservative Party, Nigel Farage and James Goldsmith
They didn't know. They commissioned research which suggested few would come and transitional controls were unnecessary. That research turned out to be wrong but it wasn't a conspiracy. This is all fairly well known.
Who did that research? They must have been grossly incompetent.
I don't recall who did it but I remember reading about it, it is all in the public domain. Incompetent? Can't say for sure. Forecasting is hard, especially about the future. But the Blair government did the "right" thing - they commissioned research and then based policy on the available evidence. Plus the UK had been staunch supporters of EU accession for Eastern European countries, in the face of opposition led by France - the Tories not just Labour. Free movement was seen as the right thing to do, a reward for the countries that had thrown off communism.
Done. The new policy may be arbitrary and counterproductive, but a full 10/10 is merited on this commitment."
The only one that mattered, as it was the reason there was a referendum, and the reason Leave won.
Does the scoring change if we dont reduce migration over the next decade or two? (which we wont!)
Or did we just want the theoretical power to control it?
I would have been happy with the theoretical power to control it and staying in the EU if that were possible, but if Leaving doesn't reduce immigration over the next decade or two I would think the score would change, because most people probably voted Leave to see the numbers come down
I wonder how many realise 5.4m Hong Kongers have the right to UK citizenship now, that's about 50 years worth of EU migration.
I think any Hong Kongers who come here are most likely to be a fantastic and welcome addition to the country.
But the idea all 5.4 million will come here is preposterous. Until recently 446 million people had the free movement right to move to the UK, doesn't mean they all would either. So considering Hong Kongers and the fact the Irish have the right to do so too the numbers with the right to do so now are down by about 98%.
It matters because millions of people think they have been promised something different by Brexit, and when migration doesnt reduce, and might even grow they will lose further trust in politics and be open for more radicalisation as we see in the US.
It would be far better if our politicians were willing to be honest about migration, but they wont, and Brexit would not have happened if they had done so.
Well, yes but the original sin, the dishonesty, was Tony Blair's, or his governments - They must have known allowing A8 accession would rip the manual labour and trades markets apart, but pretended barely any immigrants would bother coming to work here for 8 times their salary. Really that would have been the best time for a referendum, not on EU membership, but the scale of economic migration allowed from the former communist countries, whose economies were nothing like those of the previous EU countries. That is where it all started - before that, bendy bananas, cms or inches - no one cared except some lofty fringe of the Conservative Party, Nigel Farage and James Goldsmith
They didn't know. They commissioned research which suggested few would come and transitional controls were unnecessary. That research turned out to be wrong but it wasn't a conspiracy. This is all fairly well known.
Who did that research? They must have been grossly incompetent.
I don't recall who did it but I remember reading about it, it is all in the public domain. Incompetent? Can't say for sure. Forecasting is hard, especially about the future. But the Blair government did the "right" thing - they commissioned research and then based policy on the available evidence. Plus the UK had been staunch supporters of EU accession for Eastern European countries, in the face of opposition led by France - the Tories not just Labour. Free movement was seen as the right thing to do, a reward for the countries that had thrown off communism.
Free movement between countries with almost a factor of ten difference in wages/GDP, and they thought no one would be interested in migrating? I'd call that incompetent.
Done. The new policy may be arbitrary and counterproductive, but a full 10/10 is merited on this commitment."
The only one that mattered, as it was the reason there was a referendum, and the reason Leave won.
Does the scoring change if we dont reduce migration over the next decade or two? (which we wont!)
Or did we just want the theoretical power to control it?
I would have been happy with the theoretical power to control it and staying in the EU if that were possible, but if Leaving doesn't reduce immigration over the next decade or two I would think the score would change, because most people probably voted Leave to see the numbers come down
I wonder how many realise 5.4m Hong Kongers have the right to UK citizenship now, that's about 50 years worth of EU migration.
I think any Hong Kongers who come here are most likely to be a fantastic and welcome addition to the country.
But the idea all 5.4 million will come here is preposterous. Until recently 446 million people had the free movement right to move to the UK, doesn't mean they all would either. So considering Hong Kongers and the fact the Irish have the right to do so too the numbers with the right to do so now are down by about 98%.
It matters because millions of people think they have been promised something different by Brexit, and when migration doesnt reduce, and might even grow they will lose further trust in politics and be open for more radicalisation as we see in the US.
It would be far better if our politicians were willing to be honest about migration, but they wont, and Brexit would not have happened if they had done so.
Well, yes but the original sin, the dishonesty, was Tony Blair's, or his governments - They must have known allowing A8 accession would rip the manual labour and trades markets apart, but pretended barely any immigrants would bother coming to work here for 8 times their salary. Really that would have been the best time for a referendum, not on EU membership, but the scale of economic migration allowed from the former communist countries, whose economies were nothing like those of the previous EU countries. That is where it all started - before that, bendy bananas, cms or inches - no one cared except some lofty fringe of the Conservative Party, Nigel Farage and James Goldsmith
They didn't know. They commissioned research which suggested few would come and transitional controls were unnecessary. That research turned out to be wrong but it wasn't a conspiracy. This is all fairly well known.
Well if the people running the country didn’t anticipate that free movement of Labour between countries with differences in wages as huge as the UKs and Eastern Europe was going to result in a one way street causing huge anxiety for the British working class, they were more stupid than I believed possible. And they can’t have been, it must have been deliberate. Anyone working on a building site would have been able to tell them without the need to pay researchers. It’s called supply and demand.
Fewer immigrants from the EU on minimum wage doing care work etc while getting paid housing allownace and universal credit by the government.
More skilled immigrants from the rest of the world not claiming welfare and paying taxes instead.
The money saved on not paying universal credit, and received in taxes, goes on funding a pay rise for care workers so they're not on minimum wage.
No change in net immigration, no change in the Exchequer either, but we have more skills and our care staff are better paid.
Win, win?
Most EU migrants were not doing minimum wage jobs and getting benefits in the first place. Off memory thats about 6% of them, so that assumption is misleading. And not sure the only reason we need migration for care jobs is wages, although it is clearly part of it.
But would I broadly be happy with what you suggest? Sure
Do I think a large chunk of leave voters will feel betrayed by your solution? Yes and I expect that will become a big problem
I would like to see some evidence that only 6% of EU migrants were receiving universal credit. I find that hard to believe.
According to the ONS in September last year 1 million* working age EU nationality people were receiving working age benefits, most commonly Universal Credit. There are not 16 million EU migrants in the UK, so your claim is incorrect. There are 2.34 million EU migrants working in the UK**, so the benefits ratio is actually 43% not 6%
If you're broadly happy and I'm broadly happy then that's good enough for me. If some extremists feel betrayed that's on them.
In an article published today on the Guardian website, the academics and lawyers say Boris Johnson’s determination to “go it alone”, free of EU regulation, after Brexit means the UK will probably have to join other non-EU countries in a queue to acquire the vaccine after EU member states have had it, and on less-favourable terms.
Was the target for a specific number of vaccinations today? Otherwise how can it be described as failed. Why am I not surprised the UK's relative success isn't being highlighted in the media.
The media are having a worse crisis than HMG
There should be a public enquiry into the media 's role in this crisis
In an article published today on the Guardian website, the academics and lawyers say Boris Johnson’s determination to “go it alone”, free of EU regulation, after Brexit means the UK will probably have to join other non-EU countries in a queue to acquire the vaccine after EU member states have had it, and on less-favourable terms.
Bloody experts.
Well, as a long-time Guardian reader and subscriber I fully acknowledge they got that wrong.
The Government have done really well to date on vaccines, I expect that to continue too. Good job.
To be fair the successful impeachment of Trump is more in the Republicans’ long-term interests than it is in the Democrats’.
Surely depends if you are a fascist MAGA Republican or an old school Republican?
I was thinking Republicans who would like to win an election at some point in the future. They will have to persuade the majority of voters that they actually still believe in democracy, and that they support law and order.
To be fair the successful impeachment of Trump is more in the Republicans’ long-term interests than it is in the Democrats’.
Surely depends if you are a fascist MAGA Republican or an old school Republican?
Big win for GOP if they can ensure that Trump can never stand for POTUS again, either as a Republican or independent, because in either case they would surely lose.
This impeachment set of votes may be rather more interesting than I thought. There appear to be the possibility that more GOP senators than I'd have guessed will buy in, though still a way to go. According to the NY Times, apparently Mitch McConnell wouldn't mind it at all if impeachment went through.
Fewer immigrants from the EU on minimum wage doing care work etc while getting paid housing allownace and universal credit by the government.
More skilled immigrants from the rest of the world not claiming welfare and paying taxes instead.
The money saved on not paying universal credit, and received in taxes, goes on funding a pay rise for care workers so they're not on minimum wage.
No change in net immigration, no change in the Exchequer either, but we have more skills and our care staff are better paid.
Win, win?
Most EU migrants were not doing minimum wage jobs and getting benefits in the first place. Off memory thats about 6% of them, so that assumption is misleading. And not sure the only reason we need migration for care jobs is wages, although it is clearly part of it.
But would I broadly be happy with what you suggest? Sure
Do I think a large chunk of leave voters will feel betrayed by your solution? Yes and I expect that will become a big problem
I would like to see some evidence that only 6% of EU migrants were receiving universal credit. I find that hard to believe.
According to the ONS in September last year 1 million* working age EU nationality people were receiving working age benefits, most commonly Universal Credit. There are not 16 million EU migrants in the UK, so your claim is incorrect. There are 2.34 million EU migrants working in the UK**, so the benefits ratio is actually 43% not 6%
If you're broadly happy and I'm broadly happy then that's good enough for me. If some extremists feel betrayed that's on them.
Although frustrating, it does seem fair to ensure each region is given equitable access.
It's a difficult balance - no easy answers.
Come April / May, we should have more vaccine than we know what to do with. Be doing BOGOF in Tescos.
I thought they were supposed to be targeting 2M a week?
At the moment supply is the constraint. Come April, we will have 3 (and possibly 4) different vaccines. If we can't do 3 million a week then, well the government will have some questions to answer.
In an article published today on the Guardian website, the academics and lawyers say Boris Johnson’s determination to “go it alone”, free of EU regulation, after Brexit means the UK will probably have to join other non-EU countries in a queue to acquire the vaccine after EU member states have had it, and on less-favourable terms.
Was the target for a specific number of vaccinations today? Otherwise how can it be described as failed. Why am I not surprised the UK's relative success isn't being highlighted in the media.
The media are having a worse crisis than HMG
There should be a public enquiry into the media 's role in this crisis
This impeachment set of votes may be rather more interesting than I thought. There appear to be the possibility that more GOP senators than I'd have guessed will buy in, though still a way to go. According to the NY Times, apparently Mitch McConnell wouldn't mind it at all if impeachment went through.
If Mitch moves I think he gets impeached.
50 Democrats - will unanimously vote to impeach. Romney - Hates Trump. Voted to impeach last time. Guaranteed. Murkowski - Called for him to resign already. Indicated she will vote to impeach.
That takes a starting point to 52. Without Mitch probably another couple who might move like Sasse. 67 needed total, so if Mitch moves he needs to take a dozen Senators with him. I think he could definitely do that.
Fewer immigrants from the EU on minimum wage doing care work etc while getting paid housing allownace and universal credit by the government.
More skilled immigrants from the rest of the world not claiming welfare and paying taxes instead.
The money saved on not paying universal credit, and received in taxes, goes on funding a pay rise for care workers so they're not on minimum wage.
No change in net immigration, no change in the Exchequer either, but we have more skills and our care staff are better paid.
Win, win?
Most EU migrants were not doing minimum wage jobs and getting benefits in the first place. Off memory thats about 6% of them, so that assumption is misleading. And not sure the only reason we need migration for care jobs is wages, although it is clearly part of it.
But would I broadly be happy with what you suggest? Sure
Do I think a large chunk of leave voters will feel betrayed by your solution? Yes and I expect that will become a big problem
I would like to see some evidence that only 6% of EU migrants were receiving universal credit. I find that hard to believe.
According to the ONS in September last year 1 million* working age EU nationality people were receiving working age benefits, most commonly Universal Credit. There are not 16 million EU migrants in the UK, so your claim is incorrect. There are 2.34 million EU migrants working in the UK**, so the benefits ratio is actually 43% not 6%
If you're broadly happy and I'm broadly happy then that's good enough for me. If some extremists feel betrayed that's on them.
We could end up very lucky that the government committed to such large consignments of the Astra Zeneca vaccine given that at the point of commit I believe the two dose idea wasn't part of the Astra Zeneca plan. May be wrong.
Still though, what is it with the European Medicines Agency and indeed others over the Astra Zeneca product? They seem to be weeks away from approval. It appears to not be safety related but efficacy.
Was the target for a specific number of vaccinations today? Otherwise how can it be described as failed. Why am I not surprised the UK's relative success isn't being highlighted in the media.
The media are having a worse crisis than HMG
There should be a public enquiry into the media 's role in this crisis
Lock them up! Regulate them! Fine them! etc
Not at all
Just they have had a poor crisis and should be held to account by an independent enquiry as should HMG
To be fair the successful impeachment of Trump is more in the Republicans’ long-term interests than it is in the Democrats’.
Surely depends if you are a fascist MAGA Republican or an old school Republican?
I suspect about 80% of Republicans voted Trump because "we are Republicans". 20% voted Trump "because we love him". But 95% of the noise is from Trumpers.
The Republican Party is disastrously split. But their long term future must surely be with Republicans rather than Trumpers. The sooner they dispose of Trump and his legacy the better it is for them.
This impeachment set of votes may be rather more interesting than I thought. There appear to be the possibility that more GOP senators than I'd have guessed will buy in, though still a way to go. According to the NY Times, apparently Mitch McConnell wouldn't mind it at all if impeachment went through.
If Mitch moves I think he gets impeached.
50 Democrats - will unanimously vote to impeach. Romney - Hates Trump. Voted to impeach last time. Guaranteed. Murkowski - Called for him to resign already. Indicated she will vote to impeach.
That takes a starting point to 52. Without Mitch probably another couple who might move like Sasse. 67 needed total, so if Mitch moves he needs to take a dozen Senators with him. I think he could definitely do that.
Abstentions might figure and do not help Trump.
""Article I, Section 3, Clauses 6 and 7 provide:
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present."
Done. The new policy may be arbitrary and counterproductive, but a full 10/10 is merited on this commitment."
The only one that mattered, as it was the reason there was a referendum, and the reason Leave won.
Does the scoring change if we dont reduce migration over the next decade or two? (which we wont!)
Or did we just want the theoretical power to control it?
I would have been happy with the theoretical power to control it and staying in the EU if that were possible, but if Leaving doesn't reduce immigration over the next decade or two I would think the score would change, because most people probably voted Leave to see the numbers come down
I wonder how many realise 5.4m Hong Kongers have the right to UK citizenship now, that's about 50 years worth of EU migration.
I think any Hong Kongers who come here are most likely to be a fantastic and welcome addition to the country.
But the idea all 5.4 million will come here is preposterous. Until recently 446 million people had the free movement right to move to the UK, doesn't mean they all would either. So considering Hong Kongers and the fact the Irish have the right to do so too the numbers with the right to do so now are down by about 98%.
It matters because millions of people think they have been promised something different by Brexit, and when migration doesnt reduce, and might even grow they will lose further trust in politics and be open for more radicalisation as we see in the US.
It would be far better if our politicians were willing to be honest about migration, but they wont, and Brexit would not have happened if they had done so.
Well, yes but the original sin, the dishonesty, was Tony Blair's, or his governments - They must have known allowing A8 accession would rip the manual labour and trades markets apart, but pretended barely any immigrants would bother coming to work here for 8 times their salary. Really that would have been the best time for a referendum, not on EU membership, but the scale of economic migration allowed from the former communist countries, whose economies were nothing like those of the previous EU countries. That is where it all started - before that, bendy bananas, cms or inches - no one cared except some lofty fringe of the Conservative Party, Nigel Farage and James Goldsmith
They didn't know. They commissioned research which suggested few would come and transitional controls were unnecessary. That research turned out to be wrong but it wasn't a conspiracy. This is all fairly well known.
Well if the people running the country didn’t anticipate that free movement of Labour between countries with differences in wages as huge as the UKs and Eastern Europe was going to result in a one way street causing huge anxiety for the British working class, they were more stupid than I believed possible. And they can’t have been, it must have been deliberate. Anyone working on a building site would have been able to tell them without the need to pay researchers. It’s called supply and demand.
Building sites have always employed a lot of immigrants, though. It's not like EU enlargement created a new situation. There is actually very little evidence that immigration lowers wages, whatever popular opinion has to say on the matter. The industry I work in, finance, is heavily reliant on immigrants, especially from the EU, and isn't renowned for low pay.
Although frustrating, it does seem fair to ensure each region is given equitable access.
It's a difficult balance - no easy answers.
Come April / May, we should have more vaccine than we know what to do with. Be doing BOGOF in Tescos.
I thought they were supposed to be targeting 2M a week?
At the moment supply is the constraint. Come April, we will have 3 (and possibly 4) different vaccines. If we can't do 3 million a week then, well the government will have some questions to answer.
Yes, but the first target the government is definitely committed to is in mid-Feb, so the 2m a week thing needs to kick in PDQ to do that. Not that it can't be done, but it's gonna need some serious ramp up.
A bit late for a statement of the bleeding obvious. Now, if the Joint Chiefs swore continued alliegance to Trump, that would be an intervention.
The US military has a significant problem with far-right infiltration. This statement is unfortunately VERY necessary.
I always find the language interesting in these instances.
I don't actually disagree with you (and I assume you know far more than I since you re actually there) that there is far-right influence and it is a significant problem. But is it 'infiltration' or is it something that has always been there and is just now allowed to express itself because of Trump?
It’s both a long-standing, and recently growing problem.
This impeachment set of votes may be rather more interesting than I thought. There appear to be the possibility that more GOP senators than I'd have guessed will buy in, though still a way to go. According to the NY Times, apparently Mitch McConnell wouldn't mind it at all if impeachment went through.
If Mitch moves I think he gets impeached.
50 Democrats - will unanimously vote to impeach. Romney - Hates Trump. Voted to impeach last time. Guaranteed. Murkowski - Called for him to resign already. Indicated she will vote to impeach.
That takes a starting point to 52. Without Mitch probably another couple who might move like Sasse. 67 needed total, so if Mitch moves he needs to take a dozen Senators with him. I think he could definitely do that.
Abstentions might figure and do not help Trump.
""Article I, Section 3, Clauses 6 and 7 provide:
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present."
Is Skyr a Senator?
Hard to imagine a Senator abstaining on a vote of this importance.
Fewer immigrants from the EU on minimum wage doing care work etc while getting paid housing allownace and universal credit by the government.
More skilled immigrants from the rest of the world not claiming welfare and paying taxes instead.
The money saved on not paying universal credit, and received in taxes, goes on funding a pay rise for care workers so they're not on minimum wage.
No change in net immigration, no change in the Exchequer either, but we have more skills and our care staff are better paid.
Win, win?
Most EU migrants were not doing minimum wage jobs and getting benefits in the first place. Off memory thats about 6% of them, so that assumption is misleading. And not sure the only reason we need migration for care jobs is wages, although it is clearly part of it.
But would I broadly be happy with what you suggest? Sure
Do I think a large chunk of leave voters will feel betrayed by your solution? Yes and I expect that will become a big problem
I would like to see some evidence that only 6% of EU migrants were receiving universal credit. I find that hard to believe.
According to the ONS in September last year 1 million* working age EU nationality people were receiving working age benefits, most commonly Universal Credit. There are not 16 million EU migrants in the UK, so your claim is incorrect. There are 2.34 million EU migrants working in the UK**, so the benefits ratio is actually 43% not 6%
If you're broadly happy and I'm broadly happy then that's good enough for me. If some extremists feel betrayed that's on them.
Done. The new policy may be arbitrary and counterproductive, but a full 10/10 is merited on this commitment."
The only one that mattered, as it was the reason there was a referendum, and the reason Leave won.
Does the scoring change if we dont reduce migration over the next decade or two? (which we wont!)
Or did we just want the theoretical power to control it?
I would have been happy with the theoretical power to control it and staying in the EU if that were possible, but if Leaving doesn't reduce immigration over the next decade or two I would think the score would change, because most people probably voted Leave to see the numbers come down
I wonder how many realise 5.4m Hong Kongers have the right to UK citizenship now, that's about 50 years worth of EU migration.
I think any Hong Kongers who come here are most likely to be a fantastic and welcome addition to the country.
But the idea all 5.4 million will come here is preposterous. Until recently 446 million people had the free movement right to move to the UK, doesn't mean they all would either. So considering Hong Kongers and the fact the Irish have the right to do so too the numbers with the right to do so now are down by about 98%.
It matters because millions of people think they have been promised something different by Brexit, and when migration doesnt reduce, and might even grow they will lose further trust in politics and be open for more radicalisation as we see in the US.
It would be far better if our politicians were willing to be honest about migration, but they wont, and Brexit would not have happened if they had done so.
Well, yes but the original sin, the dishonesty, was Tony Blair's, or his governments - They must have known allowing A8 accession would rip the manual labour and trades markets apart, but pretended barely any immigrants would bother coming to work here for 8 times their salary. Really that would have been the best time for a referendum, not on EU membership, but the scale of economic migration allowed from the former communist countries, whose economies were nothing like those of the previous EU countries. That is where it all started - before that, bendy bananas, cms or inches - no one cared except some lofty fringe of the Conservative Party, Nigel Farage and James Goldsmith
They didn't know. They commissioned research which suggested few would come and transitional controls were unnecessary. That research turned out to be wrong but it wasn't a conspiracy. This is all fairly well known.
Well if the people running the country didn’t anticipate that free movement of Labour between countries with differences in wages as huge as the UKs and Eastern Europe was going to result in a one way street causing huge anxiety for the British working class, they were more stupid than I believed possible. And they can’t have been, it must have been deliberate. Anyone working on a building site would have been able to tell them without the need to pay researchers. It’s called supply and demand.
Building sites have always employed a lot of immigrants, though. It's not like EU enlargement created a new situation. There is actually very little evidence that immigration lowers wages, whatever popular opinion has to say on the matter. The industry I work in, finance, is heavily reliant on immigrants, especially from the EU, and isn't renowned for low pay.
Yes building sites have, and when there are millions more immigrants available at lower rates of pay than previously imaginable, they employ even more! That’s why we left the EU
Done. The new policy may be arbitrary and counterproductive, but a full 10/10 is merited on this commitment."
The only one that mattered, as it was the reason there was a referendum, and the reason Leave won.
Does the scoring change if we dont reduce migration over the next decade or two? (which we wont!)
Or did we just want the theoretical power to control it?
I would have been happy with the theoretical power to control it and staying in the EU if that were possible, but if Leaving doesn't reduce immigration over the next decade or two I would think the score would change, because most people probably voted Leave to see the numbers come down
I wonder how many realise 5.4m Hong Kongers have the right to UK citizenship now, that's about 50 years worth of EU migration.
I think any Hong Kongers who come here are most likely to be a fantastic and welcome addition to the country.
But the idea all 5.4 million will come here is preposterous. Until recently 446 million people had the free movement right to move to the UK, doesn't mean they all would either. So considering Hong Kongers and the fact the Irish have the right to do so too the numbers with the right to do so now are down by about 98%.
It matters because millions of people think they have been promised something different by Brexit, and when migration doesnt reduce, and might even grow they will lose further trust in politics and be open for more radicalisation as we see in the US.
It would be far better if our politicians were willing to be honest about migration, but they wont, and Brexit would not have happened if they had done so.
Well, yes but the original sin, the dishonesty, was Tony Blair's, or his governments - They must have known allowing A8 accession would rip the manual labour and trades markets apart, but pretended barely any immigrants would bother coming to work here for 8 times their salary. Really that would have been the best time for a referendum, not on EU membership, but the scale of economic migration allowed from the former communist countries, whose economies were nothing like those of the previous EU countries. That is where it all started - before that, bendy bananas, cms or inches - no one cared except some lofty fringe of the Conservative Party, Nigel Farage and James Goldsmith
They didn't know. They commissioned research which suggested few would come and transitional controls were unnecessary. That research turned out to be wrong but it wasn't a conspiracy. This is all fairly well known.
Who did that research? They must have been grossly incompetent.
I don't recall who did it but I remember reading about it, it is all in the public domain. Incompetent? Can't say for sure. Forecasting is hard, especially about the future. But the Blair government did the "right" thing - they commissioned research and then based policy on the available evidence. Plus the UK had been staunch supporters of EU accession for Eastern European countries, in the face of opposition led by France - the Tories not just Labour. Free movement was seen as the right thing to do, a reward for the countries that had thrown off communism.
Free movement between countries with almost a factor of ten difference in wages/GDP, and they thought no one would be interested in migrating? I'd call that incompetent.
Why isn't London full of people from the Welsh valleys, then? The per capita income differential isn't that different and the cultural barriers to migration are arguably far lower than for a Lithuanian. Predicting who will migrate and in what numbers isn't as simple as armchair economists might think.
Although frustrating, it does seem fair to ensure each region is given equitable access.
It's a difficult balance - no easy answers.
Come April / May, we should have more vaccine than we know what to do with. Be doing BOGOF in Tescos.
I thought they were supposed to be targeting 2M a week?
At the moment supply is the constraint. Come April, we will have 3 (and possibly 4) different vaccines. If we can't do 3 million a week then, well the government will have some questions to answer.
Yes, but the first target the government is definitely committed to is in mid-Feb, so the 2m a week thing needs to kick in PDQ to do that. Not that it can't be done, but it's gonna need some serious ramp up.
If the government really do manage to open 50 of these large sites working longer hours if required and that should be possible, provided the supply is there. There are 14 million doses made, but they aren't bottled, and that is what is causing friction at the moment.
This impeachment set of votes may be rather more interesting than I thought. There appear to be the possibility that more GOP senators than I'd have guessed will buy in, though still a way to go. According to the NY Times, apparently Mitch McConnell wouldn't mind it at all if impeachment went through.
If Mitch moves I think he gets impeached.
50 Democrats - will unanimously vote to impeach. Romney - Hates Trump. Voted to impeach last time. Guaranteed. Murkowski - Called for him to resign already. Indicated she will vote to impeach.
That takes a starting point to 52. Without Mitch probably another couple who might move like Sasse. 67 needed total, so if Mitch moves he needs to take a dozen Senators with him. I think he could definitely do that.
Abstentions might figure and do not help Trump.
""Article I, Section 3, Clauses 6 and 7 provide:
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present."
Its a tough ask right now though its a potential house of cards moment where you get 5 or 6, you will get 10 or 15. McConnell's view if as reported by NYT is clearly smoke signals to others but this will be a look to your constituents moment for GOP Senators. Admittedly McConnell hasn't liked Trump for some time.
This impeachment set of votes may be rather more interesting than I thought. There appear to be the possibility that more GOP senators than I'd have guessed will buy in, though still a way to go. According to the NY Times, apparently Mitch McConnell wouldn't mind it at all if impeachment went through.
If Mitch moves I think he gets impeached.
50 Democrats - will unanimously vote to impeach. Romney - Hates Trump. Voted to impeach last time. Guaranteed. Murkowski - Called for him to resign already. Indicated she will vote to impeach.
That takes a starting point to 52. Without Mitch probably another couple who might move like Sasse. 67 needed total, so if Mitch moves he needs to take a dozen Senators with him. I think he could definitely do that.
Abstentions might figure and do not help Trump.
""Article I, Section 3, Clauses 6 and 7 provide:
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present."
Would they actually need to be absent so as not to be counted as present for the purposes of a vote? I vaguely recall some situation where people would simply not respond to a roll call in order to not be quorate, until a Speaker counted them as present even if they did not answer, so long as they were indeed physically present.
On the Johnson & Johnson jab, their CEO said yesterday at a conference that they were in the final stages of analysing the data and would be releasing results shortly. He also indicated they would be applying for Emergency Use authorisation.
This sounds to me like (a) it will be reasonably good news and (b) it will be released this week or next.
As a reminder, the UK ordered 30 million doses back in August, and was the first to confirm their order. So, that could be extremely good news.
Unusually, the EU didn't fuck up with J&J and has 200 million doses ordered as of early September, with an option for another 200 million (presumably in case that a two dose regime in necessary).
The US has a 100 million dose order, but only confirmed it in October.
Now, that doesn't guarantee that doses will be delivered in the order they were received (indeed, you'd expect them to start shipping to all the major buyers as soon as approval is granted), but it does suggest the Western world may soon be in a much, much better place as far as vaccine supply goes.
Fewer immigrants from the EU on minimum wage doing care work etc while getting paid housing allownace and universal credit by the government.
More skilled immigrants from the rest of the world not claiming welfare and paying taxes instead.
The money saved on not paying universal credit, and received in taxes, goes on funding a pay rise for care workers so they're not on minimum wage.
No change in net immigration, no change in the Exchequer either, but we have more skills and our care staff are better paid.
Win, win?
Most EU migrants were not doing minimum wage jobs and getting benefits in the first place. Off memory thats about 6% of them, so that assumption is misleading. And not sure the only reason we need migration for care jobs is wages, although it is clearly part of it.
But would I broadly be happy with what you suggest? Sure
Do I think a large chunk of leave voters will feel betrayed by your solution? Yes and I expect that will become a big problem
I would like to see some evidence that only 6% of EU migrants were receiving universal credit. I find that hard to believe.
According to the ONS in September last year 1 million* working age EU nationality people were receiving working age benefits, most commonly Universal Credit. There are not 16 million EU migrants in the UK, so your claim is incorrect. There are 2.34 million EU migrants working in the UK**, so the benefits ratio is actually 43% not 6%
If you're broadly happy and I'm broadly happy then that's good enough for me. If some extremists feel betrayed that's on them.
" EU nationals claiming WA benefits increased by 12% to 380,000"
You're right. Thank you.
So that takes the total to 16% then. One in six, still well over six percent.
EU migrants includes all people, not just working age, which moves it to about 10%, much closer to my recalled 6% than your calculated 43%.
We were talking about working age. Your sentence was "Most EU migrants were not doing minimum wage jobs and getting benefits in the first place" - your clear implication being that they were working and paying taxes; it only makes sense to calculate the working age benefit claimants as a fraction of working age people.
There is no reason to deflate it by including children who are being paid by the state to by educated. I don't see how someone who is getting paid benefits is drawing less because they also have a child in a state school? If you want to include children in the denominator of how many migrants there are then it would only be right to include them in the nominator as to how many are getting benefits (free education is afterall a benefit and a cost).
Done. The new policy may be arbitrary and counterproductive, but a full 10/10 is merited on this commitment."
The only one that mattered, as it was the reason there was a referendum, and the reason Leave won.
Does the scoring change if we dont reduce migration over the next decade or two? (which we wont!)
Or did we just want the theoretical power to control it?
I would have been happy with the theoretical power to control it and staying in the EU if that were possible, but if Leaving doesn't reduce immigration over the next decade or two I would think the score would change, because most people probably voted Leave to see the numbers come down
I wonder how many realise 5.4m Hong Kongers have the right to UK citizenship now, that's about 50 years worth of EU migration.
I think any Hong Kongers who come here are most likely to be a fantastic and welcome addition to the country.
But the idea all 5.4 million will come here is preposterous. Until recently 446 million people had the free movement right to move to the UK, doesn't mean they all would either. So considering Hong Kongers and the fact the Irish have the right to do so too the numbers with the right to do so now are down by about 98%.
It matters because millions of people think they have been promised something different by Brexit, and when migration doesnt reduce, and might even grow they will lose further trust in politics and be open for more radicalisation as we see in the US.
It would be far better if our politicians were willing to be honest about migration, but they wont, and Brexit would not have happened if they had done so.
Well, yes but the original sin, the dishonesty, was Tony Blair's, or his governments - They must have known allowing A8 accession would rip the manual labour and trades markets apart, but pretended barely any immigrants would bother coming to work here for 8 times their salary. Really that would have been the best time for a referendum, not on EU membership, but the scale of economic migration allowed from the former communist countries, whose economies were nothing like those of the previous EU countries. That is where it all started - before that, bendy bananas, cms or inches - no one cared except some lofty fringe of the Conservative Party, Nigel Farage and James Goldsmith
They didn't know. They commissioned research which suggested few would come and transitional controls were unnecessary. That research turned out to be wrong but it wasn't a conspiracy. This is all fairly well known.
Well if the people running the country didn’t anticipate that free movement of Labour between countries with differences in wages as huge as the UKs and Eastern Europe was going to result in a one way street causing huge anxiety for the British working class, they were more stupid than I believed possible. And they can’t have been, it must have been deliberate. Anyone working on a building site would have been able to tell them without the need to pay researchers. It’s called supply and demand.
Building sites have always employed a lot of immigrants, though. It's not like EU enlargement created a new situation. There is actually very little evidence that immigration lowers wages, whatever popular opinion has to say on the matter. The industry I work in, finance, is heavily reliant on immigrants, especially from the EU, and isn't renowned for low pay.
Yes building sites have, and when there are millions more immigrants available at lower rates of pay than previously imaginable, they employ even more! That’s why we left the EU
I will need to dig out the data on wages in the construction sector in the morning, but I don't think there has been an appreciable impact. I would guess that things like trade union blacklisting had a bigger impact on pay and conditions in the sector, but it's not hard to see why the Tory party (bankrolled by big construction firms) might want to find someone else to blame.
On the Johnson & Johnson jab, their CEO said yesterday at a conference that they were in the final stages of analysing the data and would be releasing results shortly. He also indicated they would be applying for Emergency Use authorisation.
This sounds to me like (a) it will be reasonably good news and (b) it will be released this week or next.
As a reminder, the UK ordered 30 million doses back in August, and was the first to confirm their order. So, that could be extremely good news.
Unusually, the EU didn't fuck up with J&J and has 200 million doses ordered as of early September, with an option for another 200 million (presumably in case that a two dose regime in necessary).
The US has a 100 million dose order, but only confirmed it in October.
Now, that doesn't guarantee that doses will be delivered in the order they were received (indeed, you'd expect them to start shipping to all the major buyers as soon as approval is granted), but it does suggest the Western world may soon be in a much, much better place as far as vaccine supply goes.
One shot, no minus a billion degrees....if its works, it will be huge news.
We could end up very lucky that the government committed to such large consignments of the Astra Zeneca vaccine given that at the point of commit I believe the two dose idea wasn't part of the Astra Zeneca plan. May be wrong.
Still though, what is it with the European Medicines Agency and indeed others over the Astra Zeneca product? They seem to be weeks away from approval. It appears to not be safety related but efficacy.
The AZN studies are a mess. The dosage regimes were different in different arms, the patient recruitment (which was heavily weighted to the young), the different placebos used even before we get to the well documented dosage error.
I don't think it would have been approved on that evidence if it was not an emergency.
I have my doubts about a single dose in the elderly age group, who are well known to have a much more sluggish immune response generally to vaccines. The AZN data is very poor for this group, yet that is precisely the group that it is being primarily used on.
If there is a problem with those patients being unprotected, when they thought they were going to be safe, it will be March before we know.
If it works we can sigh with relief. If it doesn't we cannot say that we were following the science.
Although frustrating, it does seem fair to ensure each region is given equitable access.
It's a difficult balance - no easy answers.
Come April / May, we should have more vaccine than we know what to do with. Be doing BOGOF in Tescos.
I thought they were supposed to be targeting 2M a week?
At the moment supply is the constraint. Come April, we will have 3 (and possibly 4) different vaccines. If we can't do 3 million a week then, well the government will have some questions to answer.
Yes, but the first target the government is definitely committed to is in mid-Feb, so the 2m a week thing needs to kick in PDQ to do that. Not that it can't be done, but it's gonna need some serious ramp up.
If the government really do manage to open 50 of these large sites working longer hours if required and that should be possible, provided the supply is there. There are 14 million doses made, but they aren't bottled, and that is what is causing friction at the moment.
Yes, and the vials are of a particular medical grade glass, apparently imported from China, and perhaps unsurprisingly in very high demand around the world.
Surely we should prioritise sport to keep it going, given the alarming propogation of Covid through football. Football clubs have their own medical staff, and regularly meet for training as well as matches. How hard can it be to stick a few needles in arms?
More subtly, there might be a problem for horseracing with Cheltenham (mid-March) as Irish horses will need to be accompanied by Irish stable staff, and Ireland's infection rate rocketed after Christmas. Racing's record on Covid has been good up to now, but you'd hope negotiations are going on around jabs for Irish staff and maybe making the racecourse and its accommodation a quarantine zone.
Much as I love racing I really think that Cheltenham has to be cancelled given the state of Covid in Ireland. There is little point vaccinating and imposing restrictions if we allow the virus to re-enter.
We could end up very lucky that the government committed to such large consignments of the Astra Zeneca vaccine given that at the point of commit I believe the two dose idea wasn't part of the Astra Zeneca plan. May be wrong.
Still though, what is it with the European Medicines Agency and indeed others over the Astra Zeneca product? They seem to be weeks away from approval. It appears to not be safety related but efficacy.
The AZN studies are a mess. The dosage regimes were different in different arms, the patient recruitment (which was heavily weighted to the young), the different placebos used even before we get to the well documented dosage error.
I don't think it would have been approved on that evidence if it was not an emergency.
I have my doubts about a single dose in the elderly age group, who are well known to have a much more sluggish immune response generally to vaccines. The AZN data is very poor for this group, yet that is precisely the group that it is being primarily used on.
If there is a problem with those patients being unprotected, when they thought they were going to be safe, it will be March before we know.
If it works we can sigh with relief. If it doesn't we cannot say that we were following the science.
Logic would suggest then you use Pfizer on the older population.
Fewer immigrants from the EU on minimum wage doing care work etc while getting paid housing allownace and universal credit by the government.
More skilled immigrants from the rest of the world not claiming welfare and paying taxes instead.
The money saved on not paying universal credit, and received in taxes, goes on funding a pay rise for care workers so they're not on minimum wage.
No change in net immigration, no change in the Exchequer either, but we have more skills and our care staff are better paid.
Win, win?
Most EU migrants were not doing minimum wage jobs and getting benefits in the first place. Off memory thats about 6% of them, so that assumption is misleading. And not sure the only reason we need migration for care jobs is wages, although it is clearly part of it.
But would I broadly be happy with what you suggest? Sure
Do I think a large chunk of leave voters will feel betrayed by your solution? Yes and I expect that will become a big problem
I would like to see some evidence that only 6% of EU migrants were receiving universal credit. I find that hard to believe.
According to the ONS in September last year 1 million* working age EU nationality people were receiving working age benefits, most commonly Universal Credit. There are not 16 million EU migrants in the UK, so your claim is incorrect. There are 2.34 million EU migrants working in the UK**, so the benefits ratio is actually 43% not 6%
If you're broadly happy and I'm broadly happy then that's good enough for me. If some extremists feel betrayed that's on them.
The 380,000 was following a 12% rise, prior to which about 10% of EU migrants would have been claiming benefits, not all of which were UC - some will have been for example NI contribution-based JSA or ESA claims.
So I think the figure 6% of EU migrants receiving UC may well be right but I can't prove it.
This impeachment set of votes may be rather more interesting than I thought. There appear to be the possibility that more GOP senators than I'd have guessed will buy in, though still a way to go. According to the NY Times, apparently Mitch McConnell wouldn't mind it at all if impeachment went through.
If Mitch moves I think he gets impeached.
50 Democrats - will unanimously vote to impeach. Romney - Hates Trump. Voted to impeach last time. Guaranteed. Murkowski - Called for him to resign already. Indicated she will vote to impeach.
That takes a starting point to 52. Without Mitch probably another couple who might move like Sasse. 67 needed total, so if Mitch moves he needs to take a dozen Senators with him. I think he could definitely do that.
Abstentions might figure and do not help Trump.
""Article I, Section 3, Clauses 6 and 7 provide:
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present."
Is Skyr a Senator?
Hard to imagine a Senator abstaining on a vote of this importance.
On the Johnson & Johnson jab, their CEO said yesterday at a conference that they were in the final stages of analysing the data and would be releasing results shortly. He also indicated they would be applying for Emergency Use authorisation.
This sounds to me like (a) it will be reasonably good news and (b) it will be released this week or next.
As a reminder, the UK ordered 30 million doses back in August, and was the first to confirm their order. So, that could be extremely good news.
Unusually, the EU didn't fuck up with J&J and has 200 million doses ordered as of early September, with an option for another 200 million (presumably in case that a two dose regime in necessary).
The US has a 100 million dose order, but only confirmed it in October.
Now, that doesn't guarantee that doses will be delivered in the order they were received (indeed, you'd expect them to start shipping to all the major buyers as soon as approval is granted), but it does suggest the Western world may soon be in a much, much better place as far as vaccine supply goes.
That sounds positive.
In a related question I wonder if there will come a point when there will actually be too many (purely in different manufacturer) vaccines approved for use in the UK. Is it a logistic consideration to have them all on the go to different folk, if and when that is the case?
I assume at some point the UK strategy will be to focus on AZN & J&J, and ramp down the Pfizer element? Or is it not really that big an issue to use as many different types as you have supply for.
We could end up very lucky that the government committed to such large consignments of the Astra Zeneca vaccine given that at the point of commit I believe the two dose idea wasn't part of the Astra Zeneca plan. May be wrong.
Still though, what is it with the European Medicines Agency and indeed others over the Astra Zeneca product? They seem to be weeks away from approval. It appears to not be safety related but efficacy.
The AZN studies are a mess. The dosage regimes were different in different arms, the patient recruitment (which was heavily weighted to the young), the different placebos used even before we get to the well documented dosage error.
I don't think it would have been approved on that evidence if it was not an emergency.
I have my doubts about a single dose in the elderly age group, who are well known to have a much more sluggish immune response generally to vaccines. The AZN data is very poor for this group, yet that is precisely the group that it is being primarily used on.
If there is a problem with those patients being unprotected, when they thought they were going to be safe, it will be March before we know.
If it works we can sigh with relief. If it doesn't we cannot say that we were following the science.
Logic would suggest then you use Pfizer on the older population.
Although frustrating, it does seem fair to ensure each region is given equitable access.
It's a difficult balance - no easy answers.
Come April / May, we should have more vaccine than we know what to do with. Be doing BOGOF in Tescos.
I thought they were supposed to be targeting 2M a week?
At the moment supply is the constraint. Come April, we will have 3 (and possibly 4) different vaccines. If we can't do 3 million a week then, well the government will have some questions to answer.
Yes, but the first target the government is definitely committed to is in mid-Feb, so the 2m a week thing needs to kick in PDQ to do that. Not that it can't be done, but it's gonna need some serious ramp up.
If the government really do manage to open 50 of these large sites working longer hours if required and that should be possible, provided the supply is there. There are 14 million doses made, but they aren't bottled, and that is what is causing friction at the moment.
Yes, and the vials are of a particular medical grade glass, apparently imported from China, and perhaps unsurprisingly in very high demand around the world.
It’s nonetheless something of a surprise that, around nine months after governments committed billions to a crash program of vaccine development, manufacturers haven’t in that time built large stockpiles.
This impeachment set of votes may be rather more interesting than I thought. There appear to be the possibility that more GOP senators than I'd have guessed will buy in, though still a way to go. According to the NY Times, apparently Mitch McConnell wouldn't mind it at all if impeachment went through.
If Mitch moves I think he gets impeached.
50 Democrats - will unanimously vote to impeach. Romney - Hates Trump. Voted to impeach last time. Guaranteed. Murkowski - Called for him to resign already. Indicated she will vote to impeach.
That takes a starting point to 52. Without Mitch probably another couple who might move like Sasse. 67 needed total, so if Mitch moves he needs to take a dozen Senators with him. I think he could definitely do that.
I think the Coup Caucus is smaller in the Senate than the House. I think it was only 7 Senators who voted to object to the certification, compared to about two-thirds of Republican Representatives.
So 24 Republicans in the House voting for impeachment begins to feel quite significant - even if I'd want to see all of those who voted to certify the election voting to impeach.
Although frustrating, it does seem fair to ensure each region is given equitable access.
It's a difficult balance - no easy answers.
Come April / May, we should have more vaccine than we know what to do with. Be doing BOGOF in Tescos.
I thought they were supposed to be targeting 2M a week?
At the moment supply is the constraint. Come April, we will have 3 (and possibly 4) different vaccines. If we can't do 3 million a week then, well the government will have some questions to answer.
Yes, but the first target the government is definitely committed to is in mid-Feb, so the 2m a week thing needs to kick in PDQ to do that. Not that it can't be done, but it's gonna need some serious ramp up.
If the government really do manage to open 50 of these large sites working longer hours if required and that should be possible, provided the supply is there. There are 14 million doses made, but they aren't bottled, and that is what is causing friction at the moment.
Yes, and the vials are of a particular medical grade glass, apparently imported from China, and perhaps unsurprisingly in very high demand around the world.
It’s nonetheless something of a surprise that, around nine months after governments committed billions to a crash program of vaccine development, manufacturers haven’t in that time built large stockpiles.
Especially AZN partners, who were supposed to have bottled 30 million units by last September. If that was the case, you would have hoped they might have bought a decent supply of little bottles already....
We could end up very lucky that the government committed to such large consignments of the Astra Zeneca vaccine given that at the point of commit I believe the two dose idea wasn't part of the Astra Zeneca plan. May be wrong.
Still though, what is it with the European Medicines Agency and indeed others over the Astra Zeneca product? They seem to be weeks away from approval. It appears to not be safety related but efficacy.
The AZN studies are a mess. The dosage regimes were different in different arms, the patient recruitment (which was heavily weighted to the young), the different placebos used even before we get to the well documented dosage error.
I don't think it would have been approved on that evidence if it was not an emergency.
I have my doubts about a single dose in the elderly age group, who are well known to have a much more sluggish immune response generally to vaccines. The AZN data is very poor for this group, yet that is precisely the group that it is being primarily used on.
If there is a problem with those patients being unprotected, when they thought they were going to be safe, it will be March before we know.
If it works we can sigh with relief. If it doesn't we cannot say that we were following the science.
Logic would suggest then you use Pfizer on the older population.
Agreed. I'm certainly hoping to get that myself, though neither I nor anyone else will get a choice. Worst case is that there will be a political "let's get it done" decision encouraged by Oxford cheerleaders ending up giving loads of people a single AZN dose onlyu, followed by an anti-vaccine backlash.
I don't think there's a safety problem with it, though - the issue is entirely about efficacy, and I don't blame the US and EU for taking time to decide.
This impeachment set of votes may be rather more interesting than I thought. There appear to be the possibility that more GOP senators than I'd have guessed will buy in, though still a way to go. According to the NY Times, apparently Mitch McConnell wouldn't mind it at all if impeachment went through.
If Mitch moves I think he gets impeached.
50 Democrats - will unanimously vote to impeach. Romney - Hates Trump. Voted to impeach last time. Guaranteed. Murkowski - Called for him to resign already. Indicated she will vote to impeach.
That takes a starting point to 52. Without Mitch probably another couple who might move like Sasse. 67 needed total, so if Mitch moves he needs to take a dozen Senators with him. I think he could definitely do that.
Abstentions might figure and do not help Trump.
""Article I, Section 3, Clauses 6 and 7 provide:
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present."
Would they actually need to be absent so as not to be counted as present for the purposes of a vote? I vaguely recall some situation where people would simply not respond to a roll call in order to not be quorate, until a Speaker counted them as present even if they did not answer, so long as they were indeed physically present.
Done. The new policy may be arbitrary and counterproductive, but a full 10/10 is merited on this commitment."
The only one that mattered, as it was the reason there was a referendum, and the reason Leave won.
Does the scoring change if we dont reduce migration over the next decade or two? (which we wont!)
Or did we just want the theoretical power to control it?
I would have been happy with the theoretical power to control it and staying in the EU if that were possible, but if Leaving doesn't reduce immigration over the next decade or two I would think the score would change, because most people probably voted Leave to see the numbers come down
I wonder how many realise 5.4m Hong Kongers have the right to UK citizenship now, that's about 50 years worth of EU migration.
I think any Hong Kongers who come here are most likely to be a fantastic and welcome addition to the country.
But the idea all 5.4 million will come here is preposterous. Until recently 446 million people had the free movement right to move to the UK, doesn't mean they all would either. So considering Hong Kongers and the fact the Irish have the right to do so too the numbers with the right to do so now are down by about 98%.
It matters because millions of people think they have been promised something different by Brexit, and when migration doesnt reduce, and might even grow they will lose further trust in politics and be open for more radicalisation as we see in the US.
It would be far better if our politicians were willing to be honest about migration, but they wont, and Brexit would not have happened if they had done so.
Well, yes but the original sin, the dishonesty, was Tony Blair's, or his governments - They must have known allowing A8 accession would rip the manual labour and trades markets apart, but pretended barely any immigrants would bother coming to work here for 8 times their salary. Really that would have been the best time for a referendum, not on EU membership, but the scale of economic migration allowed from the former communist countries, whose economies were nothing like those of the previous EU countries. That is where it all started - before that, bendy bananas, cms or inches - no one cared except some lofty fringe of the Conservative Party, Nigel Farage and James Goldsmith
They didn't know. They commissioned research which suggested few would come and transitional controls were unnecessary. That research turned out to be wrong but it wasn't a conspiracy. This is all fairly well known.
Well if the people running the country didn’t anticipate that free movement of Labour between countries with differences in wages as huge as the UKs and Eastern Europe was going to result in a one way street causing huge anxiety for the British working class, they were more stupid than I believed possible. And they can’t have been, it must have been deliberate. Anyone working on a building site would have been able to tell them without the need to pay researchers. It’s called supply and demand.
Building sites have always employed a lot of immigrants, though. It's not like EU enlargement created a new situation. There is actually very little evidence that immigration lowers wages, whatever popular opinion has to say on the matter. The industry I work in, finance, is heavily reliant on immigrants, especially from the EU, and isn't renowned for low pay.
Yes building sites have, and when there are millions more immigrants available at lower rates of pay than previously imaginable, they employ even more! That’s why we left the EU
I will need to dig out the data on wages in the construction sector in the morning, but I don't think there has been an appreciable impact. I would guess that things like trade union blacklisting had a bigger impact on pay and conditions in the sector, but it's not hard to see why the Tory party (bankrolled by big construction firms) might want to find someone else to blame.
Don’t bother. Most of my friends work on building sites, and I trust what they say unprompted combined with my own common sense over macro data. In your opening response you outlined how wrong that can be
Fewer immigrants from the EU on minimum wage doing care work etc while getting paid housing allownace and universal credit by the government.
More skilled immigrants from the rest of the world not claiming welfare and paying taxes instead.
The money saved on not paying universal credit, and received in taxes, goes on funding a pay rise for care workers so they're not on minimum wage.
No change in net immigration, no change in the Exchequer either, but we have more skills and our care staff are better paid.
Win, win?
Most EU migrants were not doing minimum wage jobs and getting benefits in the first place. Off memory thats about 6% of them, so that assumption is misleading. And not sure the only reason we need migration for care jobs is wages, although it is clearly part of it.
But would I broadly be happy with what you suggest? Sure
Do I think a large chunk of leave voters will feel betrayed by your solution? Yes and I expect that will become a big problem
I would like to see some evidence that only 6% of EU migrants were receiving universal credit. I find that hard to believe.
According to the ONS in September last year 1 million* working age EU nationality people were receiving working age benefits, most commonly Universal Credit. There are not 16 million EU migrants in the UK, so your claim is incorrect. There are 2.34 million EU migrants working in the UK**, so the benefits ratio is actually 43% not 6%
If you're broadly happy and I'm broadly happy then that's good enough for me. If some extremists feel betrayed that's on them.
" EU nationals claiming WA benefits increased by 12% to 380,000"
You're right. Thank you.
So that takes the total to 16% then. One in six, still well over six percent.
EU migrants includes all people, not just working age, which moves it to about 10%, much closer to my recalled 6% than your calculated 43%.
We were talking about working age. Your sentence was "Most EU migrants were not doing minimum wage jobs and getting benefits in the first place" - your clear implication being that they were working and paying taxes; it only makes sense to calculate the working age benefit claimants as a fraction of working age people.
There is no reason to deflate it by including children who are being paid by the state to by educated. I don't see how someone who is getting paid benefits is drawing less because they also have a child in a state school? If you want to include children in the denominator of how many migrants there are then it would only be right to include them in the nominator as to how many are getting benefits (free education is afterall a benefit and a cost).
Very surprised by the complacency on here regarding vaccination rates. The Independent is absolutely right to splash on the story. Keeping the focus on the programme, and the pressure on the government, is precisely what the press should be doing.
Makes a worthy change from inane yarns about bike rides and blonde Derbyshire tea-drinkers.
A bit late for a statement of the bleeding obvious. Now, if the Joint Chiefs swore continued alliegance to Trump, that would be an intervention.
The US military has a significant problem with far-right infiltration. This statement is unfortunately VERY necessary.
I always find the language interesting in these instances.
I don't actually disagree with you (and I assume you know far more than I since you re actually there) that there is far-right influence and it is a significant problem. But is it 'infiltration' or is it something that has always been there and is just now allowed to express itself because of Trump?
It’s both a long-standing, and recently growing problem.
Actually the US military does not have a significant problem. It occurs but it is not significant to cause a potential breakdown to any degree.
Whilst extremist courting of military personnel has been going on since the returnees from Vietnam in the late 60s, the problem is greater with those who have left the military than those in it and there is little evidence of an extensive & active network within the US military, who have long been observant over this issue.
The bigger issue is extremist rights working of the co-existence concept with local police around the country. The extremist right has often been working a kind of 'we are on your side' approach towards local police forces. At its most notable, you only have to look at the geezers who do the border stuff. They have no legal status but act like it working with law enforcement who have mixed views on their presence.
Although frustrating, it does seem fair to ensure each region is given equitable access.
It's a difficult balance - no easy answers.
Come April / May, we should have more vaccine than we know what to do with. Be doing BOGOF in Tescos.
I thought they were supposed to be targeting 2M a week?
At the moment supply is the constraint. Come April, we will have 3 (and possibly 4) different vaccines. If we can't do 3 million a week then, well the government will have some questions to answer.
Yes, but the first target the government is definitely committed to is in mid-Feb, so the 2m a week thing needs to kick in PDQ to do that. Not that it can't be done, but it's gonna need some serious ramp up.
If the government really do manage to open 50 of these large sites working longer hours if required and that should be possible, provided the supply is there. There are 14 million doses made, but they aren't bottled, and that is what is causing friction at the moment.
Yes, and the vials are of a particular medical grade glass, apparently imported from China, and perhaps unsurprisingly in very high demand around the world.
It’s nonetheless something of a surprise that, around nine months after governments committed billions to a crash program of vaccine development, manufacturers haven’t in that time built large stockpiles.
Especially AZN partners, who were supposed to have bottled 30 million units by last September. If that was the case, you would have hoped they might have bought a decent supply of little bottles already....
For those interested, this is quite a good podcast on vaccine promises:
Surely we should prioritise sport to keep it going, given the alarming propogation of Covid through football. Football clubs have their own medical staff, and regularly meet for training as well as matches. How hard can it be to stick a few needles in arms?
More subtly, there might be a problem for horseracing with Cheltenham (mid-March) as Irish horses will need to be accompanied by Irish stable staff, and Ireland's infection rate rocketed after Christmas. Racing's record on Covid has been good up to now, but you'd hope negotiations are going on around jabs for Irish staff and maybe making the racecourse and its accommodation a quarantine zone.
Much as I love racing I really think that Cheltenham has to be cancelled given the state of Covid in Ireland. There is little point vaccinating and imposing restrictions if we allow the virus to re-enter.
Cheltenham is nine weeks away. There is still time to vaccinate Irish grooms but there might be political problems with this in Ireland. There will be no crowds admitted to the racecourse so declaring it a quarantine zone is also possible.
But if freeing up the wider economy is to be delayed, and Boris's talk of Easter is starting to look optimistic, the more important sport becomes. Football is seeing a lot of players go down, and while we can look askance at dressing room celebrations and Christmas parties, it would be more productive simply to vaccinate the lot of them.
On the wider point, given the porous state of the Irish border, Stormont may need to work with Dublin to get the whole island vaccinated and disease-free as quickly as possible, otherwise one state will reinfect the other.
Fewer immigrants from the EU on minimum wage doing care work etc while getting paid housing allownace and universal credit by the government.
More skilled immigrants from the rest of the world not claiming welfare and paying taxes instead.
The money saved on not paying universal credit, and received in taxes, goes on funding a pay rise for care workers so they're not on minimum wage.
No change in net immigration, no change in the Exchequer either, but we have more skills and our care staff are better paid.
Win, win?
Most EU migrants were not doing minimum wage jobs and getting benefits in the first place. Off memory thats about 6% of them, so that assumption is misleading. And not sure the only reason we need migration for care jobs is wages, although it is clearly part of it.
But would I broadly be happy with what you suggest? Sure
Do I think a large chunk of leave voters will feel betrayed by your solution? Yes and I expect that will become a big problem
I would like to see some evidence that only 6% of EU migrants were receiving universal credit. I find that hard to believe.
According to the ONS in September last year 1 million* working age EU nationality people were receiving working age benefits, most commonly Universal Credit. There are not 16 million EU migrants in the UK, so your claim is incorrect. There are 2.34 million EU migrants working in the UK**, so the benefits ratio is actually 43% not 6%
If you're broadly happy and I'm broadly happy then that's good enough for me. If some extremists feel betrayed that's on them.
The 380,000 was following a 12% rise, prior to which about 10% of EU migrants would have been claiming benefits, not all of which were UC - some will have been for example NI contribution-based JSA or ESA claims.
So I think the figure 6% of EU migrants receiving UC may well be right but I can't prove it.
The proportion of working age adults receiving working age benefits should surely use a nominator of working age adults receiving benefits and a denominator of working age adults total. That is the percentage of working age adults getting benefits.
Dividing by including children does nothing. Reductio ad absurdum if 100% of households had 2 adults claiming benefits and 2 children at school then would the proportion of migrant working age adults getting benefits be 100% or 50%?
On the Johnson & Johnson jab, their CEO said yesterday at a conference that they were in the final stages of analysing the data and would be releasing results shortly. He also indicated they would be applying for Emergency Use authorisation.
This sounds to me like (a) it will be reasonably good news and (b) it will be released this week or next.
As a reminder, the UK ordered 30 million doses back in August, and was the first to confirm their order. So, that could be extremely good news.
Unusually, the EU didn't fuck up with J&J and has 200 million doses ordered as of early September, with an option for another 200 million (presumably in case that a two dose regime in necessary).
The US has a 100 million dose order, but only confirmed it in October.
Now, that doesn't guarantee that doses will be delivered in the order they were received (indeed, you'd expect them to start shipping to all the major buyers as soon as approval is granted), but it does suggest the Western world may soon be in a much, much better place as far as vaccine supply goes.
That sounds positive.
In a related question I wonder if there will come a point when there will actually be too many (purely in different manufacturer) vaccines approved for use in the UK. Is it a logistic consideration to have them all on the go to different folk, if and when that is the case?
I assume at some point the UK strategy will be to focus on AZN & J&J, and ramp down the Pfizer element? Or is it not really that big an issue to use as many different types as you have supply for.
I think they will concentrate Pfizer out of hospitals and ramp up the supply chain for the easier vaccines through GPs, pharmacies and the new large centres without super cold supply chain logistics (the timing of their opening was very obviously coincided with the AZ vaccine). 30m J&J doses could be a really big step change, if it has 80%+ efficacy we could burn through those very fast on 50-70 year olds and then not have to worry about second jabs for any of them until next year at some point or even look at the two jab response with a large gap and order an additional 8m on top of the 22m we have in the second tranche.
Although frustrating, it does seem fair to ensure each region is given equitable access.
It's a difficult balance - no easy answers.
Come April / May, we should have more vaccine than we know what to do with. Be doing BOGOF in Tescos.
I thought they were supposed to be targeting 2M a week?
At the moment supply is the constraint. Come April, we will have 3 (and possibly 4) different vaccines. If we can't do 3 million a week then, well the government will have some questions to answer.
Yes, but the first target the government is definitely committed to is in mid-Feb, so the 2m a week thing needs to kick in PDQ to do that. Not that it can't be done, but it's gonna need some serious ramp up.
If the government really do manage to open 50 of these large sites working longer hours if required and that should be possible, provided the supply is there. There are 14 million doses made, but they aren't bottled, and that is what is causing friction at the moment.
Yes, and the vials are of a particular medical grade glass, apparently imported from China, and perhaps unsurprisingly in very high demand around the world.
It’s nonetheless something of a surprise that, around nine months after governments committed billions to a crash program of vaccine development, manufacturers haven’t in that time built large stockpiles.
And that the government has abjectly failed to monitor and manage its supply line. As recently as three weeks ago, it was bragging about stockpiling 100m doses.
Very surprised by the complacency on here regarding vaccination rates. The Independent is absolutely right to splash on the story. Keeping the focus on the programme, and the pressure on the government, is precisely what the press should be doing.
Makes a worthy change from inane yarns about bike rides and blonde Derbyshire tea-drinkers.
Its one days numbers. If it was still averaging 150k / day next Tuesday, then I think it is valid to say, what's going on, the programme isn't accelerating fast enough. If we hear they did 300k today (in tomorrow's numbers), I doubt the Indy will run a new piece saying, on target.
Its the equivalent of the Mail hysterical lurching from 1000 deaths, its end of the world, to 500 deaths the next day, its all over, thank the lord, rather than looking at a weeks worth of data.
Fewer immigrants from the EU on minimum wage doing care work etc while getting paid housing allownace and universal credit by the government.
More skilled immigrants from the rest of the world not claiming welfare and paying taxes instead.
The money saved on not paying universal credit, and received in taxes, goes on funding a pay rise for care workers so they're not on minimum wage.
No change in net immigration, no change in the Exchequer either, but we have more skills and our care staff are better paid.
Win, win?
Most EU migrants were not doing minimum wage jobs and getting benefits in the first place. Off memory thats about 6% of them, so that assumption is misleading. And not sure the only reason we need migration for care jobs is wages, although it is clearly part of it.
But would I broadly be happy with what you suggest? Sure
Do I think a large chunk of leave voters will feel betrayed by your solution? Yes and I expect that will become a big problem
I would like to see some evidence that only 6% of EU migrants were receiving universal credit. I find that hard to believe.
According to the ONS in September last year 1 million* working age EU nationality people were receiving working age benefits, most commonly Universal Credit. There are not 16 million EU migrants in the UK, so your claim is incorrect. There are 2.34 million EU migrants working in the UK**, so the benefits ratio is actually 43% not 6%
If you're broadly happy and I'm broadly happy then that's good enough for me. If some extremists feel betrayed that's on them.
" EU nationals claiming WA benefits increased by 12% to 380,000"
You're right. Thank you.
So that takes the total to 16% then. One in six, still well over six percent.
EU migrants includes all people, not just working age, which moves it to about 10%, much closer to my recalled 6% than your calculated 43%.
We were talking about working age. Your sentence was "Most EU migrants were not doing minimum wage jobs and getting benefits in the first place" - your clear implication being that they were working and paying taxes; it only makes sense to calculate the working age benefit claimants as a fraction of working age people.
There is no reason to deflate it by including children who are being paid by the state to by educated. I don't see how someone who is getting paid benefits is drawing less because they also have a child in a state school? If you want to include children in the denominator of how many migrants there are then it would only be right to include them in the nominator as to how many are getting benefits (free education is afterall a benefit and a cost).
Although frustrating, it does seem fair to ensure each region is given equitable access.
It's a difficult balance - no easy answers.
Come April / May, we should have more vaccine than we know what to do with. Be doing BOGOF in Tescos.
I thought they were supposed to be targeting 2M a week?
At the moment supply is the constraint. Come April, we will have 3 (and possibly 4) different vaccines. If we can't do 3 million a week then, well the government will have some questions to answer.
Yes, but the first target the government is definitely committed to is in mid-Feb, so the 2m a week thing needs to kick in PDQ to do that. Not that it can't be done, but it's gonna need some serious ramp up.
If the government really do manage to open 50 of these large sites working longer hours if required and that should be possible, provided the supply is there. There are 14 million doses made, but they aren't bottled, and that is what is causing friction at the moment.
Yes, and the vials are of a particular medical grade glass, apparently imported from China, and perhaps unsurprisingly in very high demand around the world.
It’s nonetheless something of a surprise that, around nine months after governments committed billions to a crash program of vaccine development, manufacturers haven’t in that time built large stockpiles.
And that the government has abjectly failed to monitor and manage its supply line. As recently as three weeks ago, it was bragging about stockpiling 100m doses.
Fewer immigrants from the EU on minimum wage doing care work etc while getting paid housing allownace and universal credit by the government.
More skilled immigrants from the rest of the world not claiming welfare and paying taxes instead.
The money saved on not paying universal credit, and received in taxes, goes on funding a pay rise for care workers so they're not on minimum wage.
No change in net immigration, no change in the Exchequer either, but we have more skills and our care staff are better paid.
Win, win?
Most EU migrants were not doing minimum wage jobs and getting benefits in the first place. Off memory thats about 6% of them, so that assumption is misleading. And not sure the only reason we need migration for care jobs is wages, although it is clearly part of it.
But would I broadly be happy with what you suggest? Sure
Do I think a large chunk of leave voters will feel betrayed by your solution? Yes and I expect that will become a big problem
I would like to see some evidence that only 6% of EU migrants were receiving universal credit. I find that hard to believe.
According to the ONS in September last year 1 million* working age EU nationality people were receiving working age benefits, most commonly Universal Credit. There are not 16 million EU migrants in the UK, so your claim is incorrect. There are 2.34 million EU migrants working in the UK**, so the benefits ratio is actually 43% not 6%
If you're broadly happy and I'm broadly happy then that's good enough for me. If some extremists feel betrayed that's on them.
The 380,000 was following a 12% rise, prior to which about 10% of EU migrants would have been claiming benefits, not all of which were UC - some will have been for example NI contribution-based JSA or ESA claims.
So I think the figure 6% of EU migrants receiving UC may well be right but I can't prove it.
The proportion of working age adults receiving working age benefits should surely use a nominator of working age adults receiving benefits and a denominator of working age adults total. That is the percentage of working age adults getting benefits.
Dividing by including children does nothing. Reductio ad absurdum if 100% of households had 2 adults claiming benefits and 2 children at school then would the proportion of migrant working age adults getting benefits be 100% or 50%?
I take your point but the 2.34m was EU residents 'working in the UK'. Some of the UC claimants are presumably 'not in work'. Not all the rest were children either, quite a few are retired, some were spouses/partners not working and not claiming, some will be students...
Surely we should prioritise sport to keep it going, given the alarming propogation of Covid through football. Football clubs have their own medical staff, and regularly meet for training as well as matches. How hard can it be to stick a few needles in arms?
More subtly, there might be a problem for horseracing with Cheltenham (mid-March) as Irish horses will need to be accompanied by Irish stable staff, and Ireland's infection rate rocketed after Christmas. Racing's record on Covid has been good up to now, but you'd hope negotiations are going on around jabs for Irish staff and maybe making the racecourse and its accommodation a quarantine zone.
Much as I love racing I really think that Cheltenham has to be cancelled given the state of Covid in Ireland. There is little point vaccinating and imposing restrictions if we allow the virus to re-enter.
Cheltenham is nine weeks away. There is still time to vaccinate Irish grooms but there might be political problems with this in Ireland. There will be no crowds admitted to the racecourse so declaring it a quarantine zone is also possible.
But if freeing up the wider economy is to be delayed, and Boris's talk of Easter is starting to look optimistic, the more important sport becomes. Football is seeing a lot of players go down, and while we can look askance at dressing room celebrations and Christmas parties, it would be more productive simply to vaccinate the lot of them.
On the wider point, given the porous state of the Irish border, Stormont may need to work with Dublin to get the whole island vaccinated and disease-free as quickly as possible, otherwise one state will reinfect the other.
Surely if one state is vaccinated and the other isn't, one state cannot infect the other?
Very surprised by the complacency on here regarding vaccination rates. The Independent is absolutely right to splash on the story. Keeping the focus on the programme, and the pressure on the government, is precisely what the press should be doing.
Makes a worthy change from inane yarns about bike rides and blonde Derbyshire tea-drinkers.
Its one days numbers. If it was still averaging 150k / day next Tuesday, then I think it is valid to say, what's going on, the programme isn't accelerating fast enough. If we hear they did 300k today (in tomorrow's numbers), I doubt the Indy will run a new piece saying, on target.
Its the equivalent of the Mail hysterical lurching from 1000 deaths, its end of the world, to 500 deaths the next day, its all over, thank the lord, rather than looking at a weeks worth of data.
It’s so far off where we need to be, it’s valid running a story on it. Where I do agree with you is that we need positive stories too - assuming the government can crank up rates to the required level.
Brexit? Can't score it yet. We left nearly a year ago. We've had a "deal" for almost a fortnight, and the impacts are only just starting to kick in.
Fun times ahead
I think undeniably Brexit has been delivered, a bit late and shop soiled, but delivered.
The real question is whether the issues that drove it are addressed, and for that it is too early to say.
This map of social disintegration of community is not completely identical to the map of Leaverstan, but there is a strong family resemblance. We now get to see how Brexit solves those issues. My hunch is that it will accelerate the social discontent.
Ironically, perhaps, one of the most prominent to realise this was Dominic Cummings, hence the "levelling up" agenda; even in the campaigning, it was the NHS on the side of the bus, not ECJ, FOM or EFTA.
Though of course regional redistribution was within our Parliament's power...
Not really. The zones that received ERDF funding were decided by the EU not the UK. And the UK had to provide matched funding so it warped whatever policies our own Government might have been pursuing - whether Labour or Conservative.
There were many ways of redistributing monies, from infrastructure, social security etc, but actually these were the areas hardest hit by post 2010 austerity. So we did the opposite.
Done. The new policy may be arbitrary and counterproductive, but a full 10/10 is merited on this commitment."
The only one that mattered, as it was the reason there was a referendum, and the reason Leave won.
Does the scoring change if we dont reduce migration over the next decade or two? (which we wont!)
Or did we just want the theoretical power to control it?
I would have been happy with the theoretical power to control it and staying in the EU if that were possible, but if Leaving doesn't reduce immigration over the next decade or two I would think the score would change, because most people probably voted Leave to see the numbers come down
I wonder how many realise 5.4m Hong Kongers have the right to UK citizenship now, that's about 50 years worth of EU migration.
I think any Hong Kongers who come here are most likely to be a fantastic and welcome addition to the country.
But the idea all 5.4 million will come here is preposterous. Until recently 446 million people had the free movement right to move to the UK, doesn't mean they all would either. So considering Hong Kongers and the fact the Irish have the right to do so too the numbers with the right to do so now are down by about 98%.
It matters because millions of people think they have been promised something different by Brexit, and when migration doesnt reduce, and might even grow they will lose further trust in politics and be open for more radicalisation as we see in the US.
It would be far better if our politicians were willing to be honest about migration, but they wont, and Brexit would not have happened if they had done so.
Well, yes but the original sin, the dishonesty, was Tony Blair's, or his governments - They must have known allowing A8 accession would rip the manual labour and trades markets apart, but pretended barely any immigrants would bother coming to work here for 8 times their salary. Really that would have been the best time for a referendum, not on EU membership, but the scale of economic migration allowed from the former communist countries, whose economies were nothing like those of the previous EU countries. That is where it all started - before that, bendy bananas, cms or inches - no one cared except some lofty fringe of the Conservative Party, Nigel Farage and James Goldsmith
They didn't know. They commissioned research which suggested few would come and transitional controls were unnecessary. That research turned out to be wrong but it wasn't a conspiracy. This is all fairly well known.
The problem with the research was that it assumed other countries also wouldn't apply transition controls. If none had then it might even have been correct.
Personally, I find that those arrivals from 15 years ago have integrated well, learnt English and filled essential gaps in our workforce. It was a good decision.
Those from the succession countries work, they pay taxes and their children speak with local accents and dialects. Working, as I do in the recycling sector these people, who are well educated by UK standards, started by doing dirty jobs that domestic labour wouldn't, and won't do. Many have worked themselves up to middle management roles. But hey, when there are votes in complaining that they are a drag on the education and health system, why not?
Although frustrating, it does seem fair to ensure each region is given equitable access.
It's a difficult balance - no easy answers.
Come April / May, we should have more vaccine than we know what to do with. Be doing BOGOF in Tescos.
I thought they were supposed to be targeting 2M a week?
At the moment supply is the constraint. Come April, we will have 3 (and possibly 4) different vaccines. If we can't do 3 million a week then, well the government will have some questions to answer.
Yes, but the first target the government is definitely committed to is in mid-Feb, so the 2m a week thing needs to kick in PDQ to do that. Not that it can't be done, but it's gonna need some serious ramp up.
If the government really do manage to open 50 of these large sites working longer hours if required and that should be possible, provided the supply is there. There are 14 million doses made, but they aren't bottled, and that is what is causing friction at the moment.
Yes, and the vials are of a particular medical grade glass, apparently imported from China, and perhaps unsurprisingly in very high demand around the world.
It’s nonetheless something of a surprise that, around nine months after governments committed billions to a crash program of vaccine development, manufacturers haven’t in that time built large stockpiles.
Especially AZN partners, who were supposed to have bottled 30 million units by last September. If that was the case, you would have hoped they might have bought a decent supply of little bottles already....
For those interested, this is quite a good podcast on vaccine promises:
That's an interesting transcript, still some major potential pitfalls, and of course some of the twists and turns of the development and production, though as is often the case I get puzzled why exceptionalism is the go descriptor, positively and negatively. Certainly it doesn't come up much directly in the transcript itself.
Very surprised by the complacency on here regarding vaccination rates. The Independent is absolutely right to splash on the story. Keeping the focus on the programme, and the pressure on the government, is precisely what the press should be doing.
Makes a worthy change from inane yarns about bike rides and blonde Derbyshire tea-drinkers.
Its one days numbers. If it was still averaging 150k / day next Tuesday, then I think it is valid to say, what's going on, the programme isn't accelerating fast enough. If we hear they did 300k today (in tomorrow's numbers), I doubt the Indy will run a new piece saying, on target.
Its the equivalent of the Mail hysterical lurching from 1000 deaths, its end of the world, to 500 deaths the next day, its all over, thank the lord, rather than looking at a weeks worth of data.
It’s so far off where we need to be, it’s valid running a story on it. Where I do agree with you is that we need positive stories too - assuming the government can crank up rates to the required level.
The daily rate isn't there, but the ramp over the past week has been significant. It needs to continue accelerating, but as I said down thread its a bit like chasing 150 in a T20 and saying game over because you only get 4 off the first over.
Lets see where we are come next Monday / Tuesday. If still stuck at 200k / day, then Houston we might have a problem.
On the Johnson & Johnson jab, their CEO said yesterday at a conference that they were in the final stages of analysing the data and would be releasing results shortly. He also indicated they would be applying for Emergency Use authorisation.
This sounds to me like (a) it will be reasonably good news and (b) it will be released this week or next.
As a reminder, the UK ordered 30 million doses back in August, and was the first to confirm their order. So, that could be extremely good news.
Unusually, the EU didn't fuck up with J&J and has 200 million doses ordered as of early September, with an option for another 200 million (presumably in case that a two dose regime in necessary).
The US has a 100 million dose order, but only confirmed it in October.
Now, that doesn't guarantee that doses will be delivered in the order they were received (indeed, you'd expect them to start shipping to all the major buyers as soon as approval is granted), but it does suggest the Western world may soon be in a much, much better place as far as vaccine supply goes.
One shot, no minus a billion degrees....if its works, it will be huge news.
Like AZN, it's based around an adenovirus, so it's tried-and-tested technology. Hopefully, they didn't mess up their testing protocols and we'll get some good clean data out... potentially as soon as the end of this week or next week.
Very surprised by the complacency on here regarding vaccination rates. The Independent is absolutely right to splash on the story. Keeping the focus on the programme, and the pressure on the government, is precisely what the press should be doing.
Makes a worthy change from inane yarns about bike rides and blonde Derbyshire tea-drinkers.
Its one days numbers. If it was still averaging 150k / day next Tuesday, then I think it is valid to say, what's going on, the programme isn't accelerating fast enough. If we hear they did 300k today (in tomorrow's numbers), I doubt the Indy will run a new piece saying, on target.
Its the equivalent of the Mail hysterical lurching from 1000 deaths, its end of the world, to 500 deaths the next day, its all over, thank the lord, rather than looking at a weeks worth of data.
It’s so far off where we need to be, it’s valid running a story on it. Where I do agree with you is that we need positive stories too - assuming the government can crank up rates to the required level.
The daily rate isn't there, but the ramp over the past week has been significant. It needs to continue accelerating, but as I said down thread its a bit like chasing 150 in a T20 and saying game over because you only get 4 off the first over.
Which may be true of some other places too of course, though they may well be a few more overs in than the first.
More underwhelming that the daily vaccine amount, the new Intel and Nvidia offerings announced CES.....just one new CPU and one new GPU, and no pricing or release dates.
Well now that will put a cat amongst the pigeons, but its all interpretation about what this means
One of the reported organisers of the Capitol protests, a guy called Ali Alexander, claims he had assistance from three members of Congress. That could mean A LOT of things, not related to the Capitol attack at all through to something rather more serious. It could also be total balls from a guy spreading such stuff to sow confusion and garner publicity.
Given the atmosphere, however, any suggestion of association is going to be considered a sensation.
Comments
But would I broadly be happy with what you suggest? Sure
Do I think a large chunk of leave voters will feel betrayed by your solution? Yes and I expect that will become a big problem
https://twitter.com/macaesbruno/status/1349103017971298311?s=21
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/10/uk-poised-to-shun-eu-coronavirus-vaccine-scheme
Although frustrating, it does seem fair to ensure each region is given equitable access.
The problem with the research was that it assumed other countries also wouldn't apply transition controls. If none had then it might even have been correct.
Personally, I find that those arrivals from 15 years ago have integrated well, learnt English and filled essential gaps in our workforce. It was a good decision.
https://twitter.com/Pousspouss/status/1349120055930482692?s=20
According to the ONS in September last year 1 million* working age EU nationality people were receiving working age benefits, most commonly Universal Credit. There are not 16 million EU migrants in the UK, so your claim is incorrect. There are 2.34 million EU migrants working in the UK**, so the benefits ratio is actually 43% not 6%
If you're broadly happy and I'm broadly happy then that's good enough for me. If some extremists feel betrayed that's on them.
* https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nationality-at-point-of-national-insurance-number-registration-of-dwp-working-age-benefit-recipients-data-to-november-2019/nationality-at-point-of-national-insurance-number-registration-of-dwp-working-age-benefit-recipients-data-to-november-2019
** https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/may2020
Bloody experts.
There should be a public enquiry into the media 's role in this crisis
The Government have done really well to date on vaccines, I expect that to continue too. Good job.
It will be interesting to see how well they manage to accelerate, hopefully they are well set up once they haev the supplies.
Big win for GOP if they can ensure that Trump can never stand for POTUS again, either as a Republican or independent, because in either case they would surely lose.
" EU nationals claiming WA benefits increased by 12% to 380,000"
etc
50 Democrats - will unanimously vote to impeach.
Romney - Hates Trump. Voted to impeach last time. Guaranteed.
Murkowski - Called for him to resign already. Indicated she will vote to impeach.
That takes a starting point to 52. Without Mitch probably another couple who might move like Sasse. 67 needed total, so if Mitch moves he needs to take a dozen Senators with him. I think he could definitely do that.
So that takes the total to 16% then. One in six, still well over six percent.
Still though, what is it with the European Medicines Agency and indeed others over the Astra Zeneca product? They seem to be weeks away from approval. It appears to not be safety related but efficacy.
Just they have had a poor crisis and should be held to account by an independent enquiry as should HMG
The Republican Party is disastrously split. But their long term future must surely be with Republicans rather than Trumpers. The sooner they dispose of Trump and his legacy the better it is for them.
""Article I, Section 3, Clauses 6 and 7 provide:
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present."
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/11/military-right-wing-extremism-457861
Hard to imagine a Senator abstaining on a vote of this importance.
This sounds to me like (a) it will be reasonably good news and (b) it will be released this week or next.
As a reminder, the UK ordered 30 million doses back in August, and was the first to confirm their order. So, that could be extremely good news.
Unusually, the EU didn't fuck up with J&J and has 200 million doses ordered as of early September, with an option for another 200 million (presumably in case that a two dose regime in necessary).
The US has a 100 million dose order, but only confirmed it in October.
Now, that doesn't guarantee that doses will be delivered in the order they were received (indeed, you'd expect them to start shipping to all the major buyers as soon as approval is granted), but it does suggest the Western world may soon be in a much, much better place as far as vaccine supply goes.
There is no reason to deflate it by including children who are being paid by the state to by educated. I don't see how someone who is getting paid benefits is drawing less because they also have a child in a state school? If you want to include children in the denominator of how many migrants there are then it would only be right to include them in the nominator as to how many are getting benefits (free education is afterall a benefit and a cost).
I don't think it would have been approved on that evidence if it was not an emergency.
I have my doubts about a single dose in the elderly age group, who are well known to have a much more sluggish immune response generally to vaccines. The AZN data is very poor for this group, yet that is precisely the group that it is being primarily used on.
If there is a problem with those patients being unprotected, when they thought they were going to be safe, it will be March before we know.
If it works we can sigh with relief. If it doesn't we cannot say that we were following the science.
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/the-facts/how-many-eu-citizens-live-in-the-uk/
The 380,000 was following a 12% rise, prior to which about 10% of EU migrants would have been claiming benefits, not all of which were UC - some will have been for example NI contribution-based JSA or ESA claims.
So I think the figure 6% of EU migrants receiving UC may well be right but I can't prove it.
In a related question I wonder if there will come a point when there will actually be too many (purely in different manufacturer) vaccines approved for use in the UK. Is it a logistic consideration to have them all on the go to different folk, if and when that is the case?
I assume at some point the UK strategy will be to focus on AZN & J&J, and ramp down the Pfizer element? Or is it not really that big an issue to use as many different types as you have supply for.
So 24 Republicans in the House voting for impeachment begins to feel quite significant - even if I'd want to see all of those who voted to certify the election voting to impeach.
I don't think there's a safety problem with it, though - the issue is entirely about efficacy, and I don't blame the US and EU for taking time to decide.
Makes a worthy change from inane yarns about bike rides and blonde Derbyshire tea-drinkers.
Whilst extremist courting of military personnel has been going on since the returnees from Vietnam in the late 60s, the problem is greater with those who have left the military than those in it and there is little evidence of an extensive & active network within the US military, who have long been observant over this issue.
The bigger issue is extremist rights working of the co-existence concept with local police around the country. The extremist right has often been working a kind of 'we are on your side' approach towards local police forces. At its most notable, you only have to look at the geezers who do the border stuff. They have no legal status but act like it working with law enforcement who have mixed views on their presence.
I think Yahoo Finance has just given him some competition. 'Brexit. All Pain No Gain'
https://twitter.com/tortoise/status/1348525074735882240?s=19
But if freeing up the wider economy is to be delayed, and Boris's talk of Easter is starting to look optimistic, the more important sport becomes. Football is seeing a lot of players go down, and while we can look askance at dressing room celebrations and Christmas parties, it would be more productive simply to vaccinate the lot of them.
On the wider point, given the porous state of the Irish border, Stormont may need to work with Dublin to get the whole island vaccinated and disease-free as quickly as possible, otherwise one state will reinfect the other.
Dividing by including children does nothing. Reductio ad absurdum if 100% of households had 2 adults claiming benefits and 2 children at school then would the proportion of migrant working age adults getting benefits be 100% or 50%?
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a Cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday...
Mr Trudeau could face an election this spring over a budget row, analysts say.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55636326
Sure, we are getting an Israeli election, but they happen most years thesedays (or multiple times a year).
Its the equivalent of the Mail hysterical lurching from 1000 deaths, its end of the world, to 500 deaths the next day, its all over, thank the lord, rather than looking at a weeks worth of data.
But honestly, why bother? You won.
Lets see where we are come next Monday / Tuesday. If still stuck at 200k / day, then Houston we might have a problem.
One of the reported organisers of the Capitol protests, a guy called Ali Alexander, claims he had assistance from three members of Congress. That could mean A LOT of things, not related to the Capitol attack at all through to something rather more serious. It could also be total balls from a guy spreading such stuff to sow confusion and garner publicity.
Given the atmosphere, however, any suggestion of association is going to be considered a sensation.