Nothing wrong with houses being built there - it's the refusal to dredge the rivers based on EU regulations and enforced by the environment agency that is the issue. Now we've left the EU, a this is something that can be re-assessed.
Dredging rivers won't make up for the propensity to develop willy nilly on flood plains and increased flooding from increased climate energy.
Dredging rivers is mostly waste of time.
There were people jumping up and down saying that the flooding in Fishlake last year was caused by lack of dredging.
Except...the river is tidal. Dredging below sea level doesn't do much.
Slowing down the floods is what is needed. Better management of uplands, and less run off from tarmac.
Building houses in a place that floods does two things - it adds another asset that has to be defended (inevitably not against every conceivable flood) and adds risk to everyone downstream.
Stupid idea.
Building houses on a flood plain isn't a great idea, that much is true of course. But that doesn't mean that rivers shouldn't be dredged regularly to prevent the river bed rising over time. Even with tidal rivers, it still increases the capacity of the river to accommodate rainfall - the people objecting to a lack of dredging still had a valid argument.
There might be individual instances where dredging works, but there aren't many. Problems occur with channel debris upstream of bridges but removing that isn't really dredging.
One thing you have to be careful of is that dredging embanked rivers too frequently eventually causes damage to the embankment, even with the normal stepped profile. It also increases erosion, adding yet more sediment. In a typical river the flood plain has a very much larger capacity than the normal channel anyway. This is even true of stepped embankments where the 'flood plain' is the normally dry area.
The best idea is to stop the silt getting into the system by managing the land better. In the case of the Irwell, that means the moors above Rossendale.
Nobody is arguing for dredging 'too frequently', they're saying that it is a necessary part of river maintenance, to ensure that the river bed does not rise year on year, reducing the capacity of the river.
This is about maintenance - prevention not cure. A river that has more capacity, can take a greater degree of rainfall. That doesn't mean that there are not other beneficial activities, or that we should dredge the rivers all the time, or that we should build on flood plains. These arguments however, are still tangential to the main point.
The problem I have is that every time there is a flood, someone blames it on a lack of dredging. 99% of the time, that's got nothing to do with the problem. It diverts attention from the real problems. Building in the wrong place, and land management.
There may well be specific cases where dredging would help but they are few and far between.
The catchments need fixing. Fortunately, there are several groups working on this, funded to a large degree by the water companies (who don't want silted up reservoirs or rivers either). Don't drain the swamp!
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
Who is the 'our' you refer to?
The history of the United Kingdom.
Is that the land mass, the constitutional entity or the people who have resided in said Kingdom over the years?
All different, and in the latter case, millions of different versions.
For example, do you celebrate the struggle for an independent Ireland that occurred within the Kingdom? While at the same time celebrating its suppression?
Which side in the Civil War do you celebrate? The execution of Charles and the restoration?
He said he loved 'the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all', why would he need to take a side in the Civil War to do that?
Lots of people in most countries of the globe have probably said the love their country and its history at some point, it doesn't mean they must celebrate particular elements, though there may be parts they choose to. It doesn't seem like love of a country or history need be taken quite so literally or exhaustively.
As it happens I probably would celebrate the execution of Charles and the restoration. In the long run it led to a pretty decent constitutional settlement. And it is very interesting.
I love the stories that are told within and around these isles. No it is not particularly rational to be more interested in them than ones in other places when so long ago some of it was not really 'this' country, but rationality doesn't always matter.
In better news, we've now covered 9.2% of the eligible population with at least one dose of the vaccine. Should hit 10% tomorrow. Barring supply issues we now have a large enough distribution network in place or coming into place to do 4m jabs every week IMO so everything is now down to supply, supply, supply. Whatever AZ needs the government should be facilitating to get doses delivered even if it means spending 10x as we would normally need to spend on it. The opportunity cost of counting coppers on the vaccine is absolutely massive.
The thing is, the length of the lockdown is no longer dependent on vaccination numbers. Read the press. Ministers are now spinning for the summer. SAGE are setting out their stall for post vaccination lockdown.
There's going to be an almightly clash between the party and the cabinet in February/March, and the party is going to lose.
And we are going to be in lockdown, for better or worse, until the summer. Possibly. Or longer. They do not know. They are promising nothing.
It was never going to be based on vaccination numbers. It was always going to be based on hospitalisation numbers, indirectly that is based on the number of people with partial or full immunity in key age demographics as they are less likely to end up in hospital. By the time we get to May/June the case for any kind of major lockdown is going to be almost non-existent unless there is a vaccine evading mutation in circulation. By the beginning of June we should be close to herd immunity through vaccination and prior infections, the number of symptomatic cases will be very tiny and the number of people being hospitalised everyday from this will be vanishingly small. If the scientists are asking for continued lockdown measures at that point the government will rightly tell them to do one, the people will simply ignore the rules.
I fear you underestimate how obsessed Johnson and Co are.
Read the press. Read his comments. He and his cabinet are completely at sea mentally. He cannot and will not make a decision until the scientists have given him the go ahead. They won't. Ever. Indeed they are shaking him with new bits of alarm. And so he will not make a decision.
Look at the press today. All commitments to everything have been removed, and more draconian measures are being imposed. Its completely open ended. There is no timetable, there is no plan, there is nothing.
Well let's see who is right. I think by June we'll be out of anything representing lockdown, and most of what represented tiers.
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
But @Casino_Royale you appear to get enraged about the removal of *any* statue.
I wouldn't be happy if statues of actual British heroes, people who are actually part of our national myth, were taken down. The likes of Churchill, Boudica, Darwin, Kings and Queens, etc.
But why do you care if a statue of some random slaver is taken down? Nobody cares about them. They have no historical or emotional value. Why?
Or is it simply to fight back at your enemy, the woke?
That's not true. I would object to statues or monuments that are prima face offensive. I disagreed with a plaque in a church in Dorchester that celebrated the suppression of a slave rebellion, and used the n-word too. Nor do I feel comfortable with those that show someone of a certain race in public in a subservient position - and there is one on the frieze of the Royal Exchange, for instance.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there. The change should be minimal and it should be absolutely proportionate to the architecture, history and heritage, which should otherwise be conserved.
When I put up a strong defence it's because I think the "problem" they are argued to cause is non-existent (and therefore it's a strawman) or because I think someone is simply looking for villiany (and advancing tenuous arguments to do so) because they want the notoriety for themselves, which I see as narcissistic and selfish.
This isn't a fantasy either. We've seen buildings named after William Gladstone (one of our greatest prime ministers), David Hume (a pillar of the Scottish enlightenment) and Baden Powell (founder of the scout movement that gives pleasures to millions of children) all come under attack in recent months, as well as generals involved in Victorian Wars, just because offence archeologists have found attitudes or statements they made during their lives that are non-U by modern standards somewhere in their past.
Well, balls to that. They don't get to make unilateral (and irrevocable) decisions like that just to satisfy some inner need they have for achievement and attention off the back of a trendy movement.
Not on my watch.
"Not on my watch" Lol!
Like you can actually do anything about it other than harrumph loudly.
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
Who is the 'our' you refer to?
The history of the United Kingdom.
Is that the land mass, the constitutional entity or the people who have resided in said Kingdom over the years?
All different, and in the latter case, millions of different versions.
For example, do you celebrate the struggle for an independent Ireland that occurred within the Kingdom? While at the same time celebrating its suppression?
Which side in the Civil War do you celebrate? The execution of Charles and the restoration?
I think Cromwell was a piece of work but I probably would have supported him at the time. When I realised what he was like I probably would have then turned restorationist.
The common thread being moving from autocratic monarchy to constitutional monarchy.
It's a fascinating story and I have no problems with statues of both.
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
But @Casino_Royale you appear to get enraged about the removal of *any* statue.
I wouldn't be happy if statues of actual British heroes, people who are actually part of our national myth, were taken down. The likes of Churchill, Boudica, Darwin, Kings and Queens, etc.
But why do you care if a statue of some random slaver is taken down? Nobody cares about them. They have no historical or emotional value. Why?
Or is it simply to fight back at your enemy, the woke?
That's not true. I would object to statues or monuments that are prima face offensive. I disagreed with a plaque in a church in Dorchester that celebrated the suppression of a slave rebellion, and used the n-word too. Nor do I feel comfortable with those that show someone of a certain race in public in a subservient position - and there is one on the frieze of the Royal Exchange, for instance.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there. The change should be minimal and it should be absolutely proportionate to the architecture, history and heritage, which should otherwise be conserved.
When I put up a strong defence it's because I think the "problem" they are argued to cause is non-existent (and therefore it's a strawman) or because I think someone is simply looking for villiany (and advancing tenuous arguments to do so) because they want the notoriety for themselves, which I see as narcissistic and selfish.
This isn't a fantasy either. We've seen buildings named after William Gladstone (one of our greatest prime ministers), David Hume (a pillar of the Scottish enlightenment) and Baden Powell (founder of the scout movement that gives pleasures to millions of children) all come under attack in recent months, as well as generals involved in Victorian Wars, just because offence archeologists have found attitudes or statements they made during their lives that are non-U by modern standards somewhere in their past.
Well, balls to that. They don't get to make unilateral (and irrevocable) decisions like that just to satisfy some inner need they have for achievement and attention off the back of a trendy movement.
Not on my watch.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there.
Pyramids, the biggest monuments to slavers on earth, will be safe.
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
But @Casino_Royale you appear to get enraged about the removal of *any* statue.
I wouldn't be happy if statues of actual British heroes, people who are actually part of our national myth, were taken down. The likes of Churchill, Boudica, Darwin, Kings and Queens, etc.
But why do you care if a statue of some random slaver is taken down? Nobody cares about them. They have no historical or emotional value. Why?
Or is it simply to fight back at your enemy, the woke?
That's not true. I would object to statues or monuments that are prima face offensive. I disagreed with a plaque in a church in Dorchester that celebrated the suppression of a slave rebellion, and used the n-word too. Nor do I feel comfortable with those that show someone of a certain race in public in a subservient position - and there is one on the frieze of the Royal Exchange, for instance.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there. The change should be minimal and it should be absolutely proportionate to the architecture, history and heritage, which should otherwise be conserved.
When I put up a strong defence it's because I think the "problem" they are argued to cause is non-existent (and therefore it's a strawman) or because I think someone is simply looking for villiany (and advancing tenuous arguments to do so) because they want the notoriety for themselves, which I see as narcissistic and selfish.
This isn't a fantasy either. We've seen buildings named after William Gladstone (one of our greatest prime ministers), David Hume (a pillar of the Scottish enlightenment) and Baden Powell (founder of the scout movement that gives pleasures to millions of children) all come under attack in recent months, as well as generals involved in Victorian Wars, just because offence archeologists have found attitudes or statements they made during their lives that are non-U by modern standards somewhere in their past.
Well, balls to that. They don't get to make unilateral (and irrevocable) decisions like that just to satisfy some inner need they have for achievement and attention off the back of a trendy movement.
Not on my watch.
Any such changes should not be done flippantly. Consideration and process, and proportionate response, are key.
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
Who is the 'our' you refer to?
The history of the United Kingdom.
Which started in 1801.
If this is the level of pedantry we are going to then I really can't be arsed mate.
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
In better news, we've now covered 9.2% of the eligible population with at least one dose of the vaccine. Should hit 10% tomorrow. Barring supply issues we now have a large enough distribution network in place or coming into place to do 4m jabs every week IMO so everything is now down to supply, supply, supply. Whatever AZ needs the government should be facilitating to get doses delivered even if it means spending 10x as we would normally need to spend on it. The opportunity cost of counting coppers on the vaccine is absolutely massive.
The thing is, the length of the lockdown is no longer dependent on vaccination numbers. Read the press. Ministers are now spinning for the summer. SAGE are setting out their stall for post vaccination lockdown.
There's going to be an almightly clash between the party and the cabinet in February/March, and the party is going to lose.
And we are going to be in lockdown, for better or worse, until the summer. Possibly. Or longer. They do not know. They are promising nothing.
I think they'll keep us all locked up at least until the entirety of phase one of the JCVI plan has been completed. The argument against easing restrictions will then switch to keeping the young out of hospitals (there are less of them, but the new excuses will be that the staff are spent and need time to recover, to say nothing of starting work on the treatment backlogs,) and the threat of Long Covid. There probably won't be substantial easing until the entire adult population has been lanced, which could take until anywhere between the end of June and the end of September, and as per earlier discussions we'll probably be stuck with masks until at least Spring 2022 and quite possibly forever. Even if Covid can be forced down to manageable levels, both it and flu will get worse come next Autumn, which is all the excuse that will be needed to punish us all for breathing all over again.
The only other thing that could stop this is some sort of financial collapse or break down in order. Which may come.
In the end, the only thing that will stop it is the voters deciding when they have had enough. Or the conservative MPs. And the latter just won't.
As I've said, I don't favour confrontation with China in general, but I think what they're doing with the Uighurs is intolerable. Glad to see Owen Jones saying the same:
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
Who is the 'our' you refer to?
The history of the United Kingdom.
Which started in 1801.
If this is the level of pedantry we are going to then I really can't be arsed mate.
It was a particularly strange comment. The history of the UK is built on the history of what came before it. It didn't appear out of thin air.
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
But @Casino_Royale you appear to get enraged about the removal of *any* statue.
I wouldn't be happy if statues of actual British heroes, people who are actually part of our national myth, were taken down. The likes of Churchill, Boudica, Darwin, Kings and Queens, etc.
But why do you care if a statue of some random slaver is taken down? Nobody cares about them. They have no historical or emotional value. Why?
Or is it simply to fight back at your enemy, the woke?
That's not true. I would object to statues or monuments that are prima face offensive. I disagreed with a plaque in a church in Dorchester that celebrated the suppression of a slave rebellion, and used the n-word too. Nor do I feel comfortable with those that show someone of a certain race in public in a subservient position - and there is one on the frieze of the Royal Exchange, for instance.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there. The change should be minimal and it should be absolutely proportionate to the architecture, history and heritage, which should otherwise be conserved.
When I put up a strong defence it's because I think the "problem" they are argued to cause is non-existent (and therefore it's a strawman) or because I think someone is simply looking for villiany (and advancing tenuous arguments to do so) because they want the notoriety for themselves, which I see as narcissistic and selfish.
This isn't a fantasy either. We've seen buildings named after William Gladstone (one of our greatest prime ministers), David Hume (a pillar of the Scottish enlightenment) and Baden Powell (founder of the scout movement that gives pleasures to millions of children) all come under attack in recent months, as well as generals involved in Victorian Wars, just because offence archeologists have found attitudes or statements they made during their lives that are non-U by modern standards somewhere in their past.
Well, balls to that. They don't get to make unilateral (and irrevocable) decisions like that just to satisfy some inner need they have for achievement and attention off the back of a trendy movement.
Not on my watch.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there.
Pyramids, the biggest monuments to slavers on earth, will be safe.
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
But @Casino_Royale you appear to get enraged about the removal of *any* statue.
I wouldn't be happy if statues of actual British heroes, people who are actually part of our national myth, were taken down. The likes of Churchill, Boudica, Darwin, Kings and Queens, etc.
But why do you care if a statue of some random slaver is taken down? Nobody cares about them. They have no historical or emotional value. Why?
Or is it simply to fight back at your enemy, the woke?
That's not true. I would object to statues or monuments that are prima face offensive. I disagreed with a plaque in a church in Dorchester that celebrated the suppression of a slave rebellion, and used the n-word too. Nor do I feel comfortable with those that show someone of a certain race in public in a subservient position - and there is one on the frieze of the Royal Exchange, for instance.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there. The change should be minimal and it should be absolutely proportionate to the architecture, history and heritage, which should otherwise be conserved.
When I put up a strong defence it's because I think the "problem" they are argued to cause is non-existent (and therefore it's a strawman) or because I think someone is simply looking for villiany (and advancing tenuous arguments to do so) because they want the notoriety for themselves, which I see as narcissistic and selfish.
This isn't a fantasy either. We've seen buildings named after William Gladstone (one of our greatest prime ministers), David Hume (a pillar of the Scottish enlightenment) and Baden Powell (founder of the scout movement that gives pleasures to millions of children) all come under attack in recent months, as well as generals involved in Victorian Wars, just because offence archeologists have found attitudes or statements they made during their lives that are non-U by modern standards somewhere in their past.
Well, balls to that. They don't get to make unilateral (and irrevocable) decisions like that just to satisfy some inner need they have for achievement and attention off the back of a trendy movement.
Not on my watch.
"Not on my watch" Lol!
Like you can actually do anything about it other than harrumph loudly.
How is harrumphing against anything different to harrumphing for something? Enough people harrumph together and things happen or are prevented from happening.
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
But @Casino_Royale you appear to get enraged about the removal of *any* statue.
I wouldn't be happy if statues of actual British heroes, people who are actually part of our national myth, were taken down. The likes of Churchill, Boudica, Darwin, Kings and Queens, etc.
But why do you care if a statue of some random slaver is taken down? Nobody cares about them. They have no historical or emotional value. Why?
Or is it simply to fight back at your enemy, the woke?
That's not true. I would object to statues or monuments that are prima face offensive. I disagreed with a plaque in a church in Dorchester that celebrated the suppression of a slave rebellion, and used the n-word too. Nor do I feel comfortable with those that show someone of a certain race in public in a subservient position - and there is one on the frieze of the Royal Exchange, for instance.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there. The change should be minimal and it should be absolutely proportionate to the architecture, history and heritage, which should otherwise be conserved.
When I put up a strong defence it's because I think the "problem" they are argued to cause is non-existent (and therefore it's a strawman) or because I think someone is simply looking for villiany (and advancing tenuous arguments to do so) because they want the notoriety for themselves, which I see as narcissistic and selfish.
This isn't a fantasy either. We've seen buildings named after William Gladstone (one of our greatest prime ministers), David Hume (a pillar of the Scottish enlightenment) and Baden Powell (founder of the scout movement that gives pleasures to millions of children) all come under attack in recent months, as well as generals involved in Victorian Wars, just because offence archeologists have found attitudes or statements they made during their lives that are non-U by modern standards somewhere in their past.
Well, balls to that. They don't get to make unilateral (and irrevocable) decisions like that just to satisfy some inner need they have for achievement and attention off the back of a trendy movement.
Not on my watch.
"Not on my watch" Lol!
Like you can actually do anything about it other than harrumph loudly.
I donate monthly to Save our Statues. I have written to the Rhodes Commission, City of London taskforce and Exeter Council. I have lobbied my MP. I have contacted, privately, a couple of my friends in parliament on the matter. I make the argument to friends and colleagues.
So, yeah, it might be harrumphing loudly. But I bet it's a lot more than you do.
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
But @Casino_Royale you appear to get enraged about the removal of *any* statue.
I wouldn't be happy if statues of actual British heroes, people who are actually part of our national myth, were taken down. The likes of Churchill, Boudica, Darwin, Kings and Queens, etc.
But why do you care if a statue of some random slaver is taken down? Nobody cares about them. They have no historical or emotional value. Why?
Or is it simply to fight back at your enemy, the woke?
That's not true. I would object to statues or monuments that are prima face offensive. I disagreed with a plaque in a church in Dorchester that celebrated the suppression of a slave rebellion, and used the n-word too. Nor do I feel comfortable with those that show someone of a certain race in public in a subservient position - and there is one on the frieze of the Royal Exchange, for instance.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there. The change should be minimal and it should be absolutely proportionate to the architecture, history and heritage, which should otherwise be conserved.
When I put up a strong defence it's because I think the "problem" they are argued to cause is non-existent (and therefore it's a strawman) or because I think someone is simply looking for villiany (and advancing tenuous arguments to do so) because they want the notoriety for themselves, which I see as narcissistic and selfish.
This isn't a fantasy either. We've seen buildings named after William Gladstone (one of our greatest prime ministers), David Hume (a pillar of the Scottish enlightenment) and Baden Powell (founder of the scout movement that gives pleasures to millions of children) all come under attack in recent months, as well as generals involved in Victorian Wars, just because offence archeologists have found attitudes or statements they made during their lives that are non-U by modern standards somewhere in their past.
Well, balls to that. They don't get to make unilateral (and irrevocable) decisions like that just to satisfy some inner need they have for achievement and attention off the back of a trendy movement.
Not on my watch.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there.
Pyramids, the biggest monuments to slavers on earth, will be safe.
I thought modern scholarship has moved on from thinking they were built by slaves, to suggesting they were built by farmers during the off season when the Nile was flooded?
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
But @Casino_Royale you appear to get enraged about the removal of *any* statue.
I wouldn't be happy if statues of actual British heroes, people who are actually part of our national myth, were taken down. The likes of Churchill, Boudica, Darwin, Kings and Queens, etc.
But why do you care if a statue of some random slaver is taken down? Nobody cares about them. They have no historical or emotional value. Why?
Or is it simply to fight back at your enemy, the woke?
That's not true. I would object to statues or monuments that are prima face offensive. I disagreed with a plaque in a church in Dorchester that celebrated the suppression of a slave rebellion, and used the n-word too. Nor do I feel comfortable with those that show someone of a certain race in public in a subservient position - and there is one on the frieze of the Royal Exchange, for instance.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there. The change should be minimal and it should be absolutely proportionate to the architecture, history and heritage, which should otherwise be conserved.
When I put up a strong defence it's because I think the "problem" they are argued to cause is non-existent (and therefore it's a strawman) or because I think someone is simply looking for villiany (and advancing tenuous arguments to do so) because they want the notoriety for themselves, which I see as narcissistic and selfish.
This isn't a fantasy either. We've seen buildings named after William Gladstone (one of our greatest prime ministers), David Hume (a pillar of the Scottish enlightenment) and Baden Powell (founder of the scout movement that gives pleasures to millions of children) all come under attack in recent months, as well as generals involved in Victorian Wars, just because offence archeologists have found attitudes or statements they made during their lives that are non-U by modern standards somewhere in their past.
Well, balls to that. They don't get to make unilateral (and irrevocable) decisions like that just to satisfy some inner need they have for achievement and attention off the back of a trendy movement.
Not on my watch.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there.
Pyramids, the biggest monuments to slavers on earth, will be safe.
I thought modern scholarship has moved on from thinking they were built by slaves, to suggesting they were built by farmers during the off season when the Nile was flooded?
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
Who is the 'our' you refer to?
The history of the United Kingdom.
Which started in 1801.
And ends sometime around 2030, I suspect.
Pretty decent run as far as states go, especially composite ones.
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
But @Casino_Royale you appear to get enraged about the removal of *any* statue.
I wouldn't be happy if statues of actual British heroes, people who are actually part of our national myth, were taken down. The likes of Churchill, Boudica, Darwin, Kings and Queens, etc.
But why do you care if a statue of some random slaver is taken down? Nobody cares about them. They have no historical or emotional value. Why?
Or is it simply to fight back at your enemy, the woke?
That's not true. I would object to statues or monuments that are prima face offensive. I disagreed with a plaque in a church in Dorchester that celebrated the suppression of a slave rebellion, and used the n-word too. Nor do I feel comfortable with those that show someone of a certain race in public in a subservient position - and there is one on the frieze of the Royal Exchange, for instance.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there. The change should be minimal and it should be absolutely proportionate to the architecture, history and heritage, which should otherwise be conserved.
When I put up a strong defence it's because I think the "problem" they are argued to cause is non-existent (and therefore it's a strawman) or because I think someone is simply looking for villiany (and advancing tenuous arguments to do so) because they want the notoriety for themselves, which I see as narcissistic and selfish.
This isn't a fantasy either. We've seen buildings named after William Gladstone (one of our greatest prime ministers), David Hume (a pillar of the Scottish enlightenment) and Baden Powell (founder of the scout movement that gives pleasures to millions of children) all come under attack in recent months, as well as generals involved in Victorian Wars, just because offence archeologists have found attitudes or statements they made during their lives that are non-U by modern standards somewhere in their past.
Well, balls to that. They don't get to make unilateral (and irrevocable) decisions like that just to satisfy some inner need they have for achievement and attention off the back of a trendy movement.
Not on my watch.
Any such changes should not be done flippantly. Consideration and process, and proportionate response, are key.
Indeed, which is what Robert Jenrick's reforms are about and, so, I support them wholeheartedly.
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
But @Casino_Royale you appear to get enraged about the removal of *any* statue.
I wouldn't be happy if statues of actual British heroes, people who are actually part of our national myth, were taken down. The likes of Churchill, Boudica, Darwin, Kings and Queens, etc.
But why do you care if a statue of some random slaver is taken down? Nobody cares about them. They have no historical or emotional value. Why?
Or is it simply to fight back at your enemy, the woke?
That's not true. I would object to statues or monuments that are prima face offensive. I disagreed with a plaque in a church in Dorchester that celebrated the suppression of a slave rebellion, and used the n-word too. Nor do I feel comfortable with those that show someone of a certain race in public in a subservient position - and there is one on the frieze of the Royal Exchange, for instance.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there. The change should be minimal and it should be absolutely proportionate to the architecture, history and heritage, which should otherwise be conserved.
When I put up a strong defence it's because I think the "problem" they are argued to cause is non-existent (and therefore it's a strawman) or because I think someone is simply looking for villiany (and advancing tenuous arguments to do so) because they want the notoriety for themselves, which I see as narcissistic and selfish.
This isn't a fantasy either. We've seen buildings named after William Gladstone (one of our greatest prime ministers), David Hume (a pillar of the Scottish enlightenment) and Baden Powell (founder of the scout movement that gives pleasures to millions of children) all come under attack in recent months, as well as generals involved in Victorian Wars, just because offence archeologists have found attitudes or statements they made during their lives that are non-U by modern standards somewhere in their past.
Well, balls to that. They don't get to make unilateral (and irrevocable) decisions like that just to satisfy some inner need they have for achievement and attention off the back of a trendy movement.
Not on my watch.
"Not on my watch" Lol!
Like you can actually do anything about it other than harrumph loudly.
Well, to be precise he can't do anything other than harrumph loudly and then elect a government that will put the presumption of retention into law ... which is exactly what's happening
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
Who is the 'our' you refer to?
The history of the United Kingdom.
Which started in 1801.
And ends sometime around 2030, I suspect.
Pretty decent run as far as states go, especially composite ones.
Just because something has been there for ages doesn’t mean it should always be there. Ironically if our ancestors hadn’t have thought that we wouldn’t have had half the things we treasure today.
Ripping things up, starting over and trying new things is a key part of our culture that made Britain successful.
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
Who is the 'our' you refer to?
The history of the United Kingdom.
Is that the land mass, the constitutional entity or the people who have resided in said Kingdom over the years?
All different, and in the latter case, millions of different versions.
For example, do you celebrate the struggle for an independent Ireland that occurred within the Kingdom? While at the same time celebrating its suppression?
Which side in the Civil War do you celebrate? The execution of Charles and the restoration?
I think Cromwell was a piece of work but I probably would have supported him at the time. When I realised what he was like I probably would have then turned restorationist.
The common thread being moving from autocratic monarchy to constitutional monarchy.
It's a fascinating story and I have no problems with statues of both.
I think it's hilarious that King Charles Street leads to Parliament Street.
Personally I would hand out £800 fines for more than 15 people being smug in the same forum . Could raise a lot of money from politicalbetting recently
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
But @Casino_Royale you appear to get enraged about the removal of *any* statue.
I wouldn't be happy if statues of actual British heroes, people who are actually part of our national myth, were taken down. The likes of Churchill, Boudica, Darwin, Kings and Queens, etc.
But why do you care if a statue of some random slaver is taken down? Nobody cares about them. They have no historical or emotional value. Why?
Or is it simply to fight back at your enemy, the woke?
That's not true. I would object to statues or monuments that are prima face offensive. I disagreed with a plaque in a church in Dorchester that celebrated the suppression of a slave rebellion, and used the n-word too. Nor do I feel comfortable with those that show someone of a certain race in public in a subservient position - and there is one on the frieze of the Royal Exchange, for instance.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there. The change should be minimal and it should be absolutely proportionate to the architecture, history and heritage, which should otherwise be conserved.
When I put up a strong defence it's because I think the "problem" they are argued to cause is non-existent (and therefore it's a strawman) or because I think someone is simply looking for villiany (and advancing tenuous arguments to do so) because they want the notoriety for themselves, which I see as narcissistic and selfish.
This isn't a fantasy either. We've seen buildings named after William Gladstone (one of our greatest prime ministers), David Hume (a pillar of the Scottish enlightenment) and Baden Powell (founder of the scout movement that gives pleasures to millions of children) all come under attack in recent months, as well as generals involved in Victorian Wars, just because offence archeologists have found attitudes or statements they made during their lives that are non-U by modern standards somewhere in their past.
Well, balls to that. They don't get to make unilateral (and irrevocable) decisions like that just to satisfy some inner need they have for achievement and attention off the back of a trendy movement.
Not on my watch.
"Not on my watch" Lol!
Like you can actually do anything about it other than harrumph loudly.
I donate monthly to Save our Statues. I have written to the Rhodes Commission, City of London taskforce and Exeter Council. I have lobbied my MP. I have contacted, privately, a couple of my friends in parliament on the matter. I make the argument to friends and colleagues.
So, yeah, it might be harrumphing loudly. But I bet it's a lot more than you do.
It is more than I do but then why would I do anything for a cause I have no interest in?
Nothing wrong with houses being built there - it's the refusal to dredge the rivers based on EU regulations and enforced by the environment agency that is the issue. Now we've left the EU, a this is something that can be re-assessed.
Dredging rivers won't make up for the propensity to develop willy nilly on flood plains and increased flooding from increased climate energy.
Dredging rivers is mostly waste of time.
There were people jumping up and down saying that the flooding in Fishlake last year was caused by lack of dredging.
Except...the river is tidal. Dredging below sea level doesn't do much.
Slowing down the floods is what is needed. Better management of uplands, and less run off from tarmac.
Building houses in a place that floods does two things - it adds another asset that has to be defended (inevitably not against every conceivable flood) and adds risk to everyone downstream.
Stupid idea.
Building houses on a flood plain isn't a great idea, that much is true of course. But that doesn't mean that rivers shouldn't be dredged regularly to prevent the river bed rising over time. Even with tidal rivers, it still increases the capacity of the river to accommodate rainfall - the people objecting to a lack of dredging still had a valid argument.
I had already read that 'fact check' - it's sad how the term has become so debased.
Dredging does two main things - firstly it increases the capacity of rivers to hold water (this of course doesn't 'make it worse', it makes it better all round). The second is to increase flow through the dredged area. If that increases the risk of flooding downstream, the answer is fairly simple - dredge there too. You are trying to facilitate the flow of water into the sea. If downstream, flooding doesn't matter so much, don't dredge there.
Out of interest, where do you think all this silt comes from? And what effect do you think faster flows will have on that process? Can you think of any unintended consequences of trying to engineer rivers into devices for moving water away from here as fast as possible? Are you aware of any obstacles to increased river flow that might interact badly with higher flow peaks? I'll give you a clue on the last one: BR*DGES.
You speak as if dredging is some risky new Brexiteer wheeze that I've just invented. Dredging is THE NORM. It has been done for decades as part of responsible river management. It is leaving the rivers to clutter up that is the new experiment, and the lack of dredging cannot be absolved from responsibility for the current flooding, no matter how many irrelevant arguments attacking its use get brought up.
Again, the knee-jerk response to criticism of the EU from you guys is hilarious. Is anti-dredging the new PC? Is dredging racist?
Your actual complaint is against "overzealous national agencies" which for some reason you want to blame the EU for. Did it poison their minds against your common sense solutions?
I've always tried to be fair in apportioning blame for the stupidity of EU life where it's due, and yes, a large part of the problem is the way that UK Governments, civil service and quangocracy implement things so over-zealously. I am pretty sure if the above had been different, we wouldn't have left. But it wasn't, and we did.
In this case, it must be said that the regulations are fairly watertight (hoho) with not much room for ambiguity, and we're not the only country to have suffered.
Just because something has been there for ages doesn’t mean it should always be there. Ironically if our ancestors hadn’t have thought that we wouldn’t have had half the things we treasure today.
Ripping things up, starting over and trying new things is a key part of our culture that made Britain successful.
I fear we are stuck in nostalgia.
@Casino_Royale likes to think he's above identity politics but he really isn't. He identifies as a conservative and therefore anything anti-conservative is the enemy.
Just because something has been there for ages doesn’t mean it should always be there. Ironically if our ancestors hadn’t have thought that we wouldn’t have had half the things we treasure today.
Ripping things up, starting over and trying new things is a key part of our culture that made Britain successful.
I fear we are stuck in nostalgia.
I detect a New Labour vibe there - 1997 was year zero.
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
But @Casino_Royale you appear to get enraged about the removal of *any* statue.
I wouldn't be happy if statues of actual British heroes, people who are actually part of our national myth, were taken down. The likes of Churchill, Boudica, Darwin, Kings and Queens, etc.
But why do you care if a statue of some random slaver is taken down? Nobody cares about them. They have no historical or emotional value. Why?
Or is it simply to fight back at your enemy, the woke?
That's not true. I would object to statues or monuments that are prima face offensive. I disagreed with a plaque in a church in Dorchester that celebrated the suppression of a slave rebellion, and used the n-word too. Nor do I feel comfortable with those that show someone of a certain race in public in a subservient position - and there is one on the frieze of the Royal Exchange, for instance.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there. The change should be minimal and it should be absolutely proportionate to the architecture, history and heritage, which should otherwise be conserved.
When I put up a strong defence it's because I think the "problem" they are argued to cause is non-existent (and therefore it's a strawman) or because I think someone is simply looking for villiany (and advancing tenuous arguments to do so) because they want the notoriety for themselves, which I see as narcissistic and selfish.
This isn't a fantasy either. We've seen buildings named after William Gladstone (one of our greatest prime ministers), David Hume (a pillar of the Scottish enlightenment) and Baden Powell (founder of the scout movement that gives pleasures to millions of children) all come under attack in recent months, as well as generals involved in Victorian Wars, just because offence archeologists have found attitudes or statements they made during their lives that are non-U by modern standards somewhere in their past.
Well, balls to that. They don't get to make unilateral (and irrevocable) decisions like that just to satisfy some inner need they have for achievement and attention off the back of a trendy movement.
Not on my watch.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there.
Pyramids, the biggest monuments to slavers on earth, will be safe.
I thought modern scholarship has moved on from thinking they were built by slaves, to suggesting they were built by farmers during the off season when the Nile was flooded?
A professional caste of skilled artisans supplemented by seasonal labour. Here is a simple non scholarly summary.
Personally I would hand out £800 fines for more than 15 people being smug in the same forum . Could raise a lot of money from politicalbetting recently
If an organisation wants to rename their building, who cares?
If an organisation wants to move certain statues to a museum, who cares?
You are always clamouring on about the "woke" imposing their views on others and yet here you are imposing your views on others.
You are very institutionalist. The environment belongs to us collectively; the likes of the City of London are delegated to look after bits of it for us, they aren't absolute beneficial owners who can do what the hell they like and it's none of our business.
Just because something has been there for ages doesn’t mean it should always be there. Ironically if our ancestors hadn’t have thought that we wouldn’t have had half the things we treasure today.
Ripping things up, starting over and trying new things is a key part of our culture that made Britain successful.
I fear we are stuck in nostalgia.
@Casino_Royale likes to think he's above identity politics but he really isn't. He identifies as a conservative and therefore anything anti-conservative is the enemy.
Identity politics is a bad thing whoever's promoting it.
Just because something has been there for ages doesn’t mean it should always be there. Ironically if our ancestors hadn’t have thought that we wouldn’t have had half the things we treasure today.
Ripping things up, starting over and trying new things is a key part of our culture that made Britain successful.
I fear we are stuck in nostalgia.
I think the fear of nostalgia gets overdone, personally. It's there, but to adapt the common saying, nostalgia ain't what it used to be. That is, even nostalgia moves about quite a bit.
We build and create plenty of new things, places and processes - we're not merely reliving the past, nor are we in danger of wiping everything clean in some year zero nonsense.
I think we all just like arguing that things must change/must not change too much.
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
But @Casino_Royale you appear to get enraged about the removal of *any* statue.
I wouldn't be happy if statues of actual British heroes, people who are actually part of our national myth, were taken down. The likes of Churchill, Boudica, Darwin, Kings and Queens, etc.
But why do you care if a statue of some random slaver is taken down? Nobody cares about them. They have no historical or emotional value. Why?
Or is it simply to fight back at your enemy, the woke?
That's not true. I would object to statues or monuments that are prima face offensive. I disagreed with a plaque in a church in Dorchester that celebrated the suppression of a slave rebellion, and used the n-word too. Nor do I feel comfortable with those that show someone of a certain race in public in a subservient position - and there is one on the frieze of the Royal Exchange, for instance.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there. The change should be minimal and it should be absolutely proportionate to the architecture, history and heritage, which should otherwise be conserved.
When I put up a strong defence it's because I think the "problem" they are argued to cause is non-existent (and therefore it's a strawman) or because I think someone is simply looking for villiany (and advancing tenuous arguments to do so) because they want the notoriety for themselves, which I see as narcissistic and selfish.
This isn't a fantasy either. We've seen buildings named after William Gladstone (one of our greatest prime ministers), David Hume (a pillar of the Scottish enlightenment) and Baden Powell (founder of the scout movement that gives pleasures to millions of children) all come under attack in recent months, as well as generals involved in Victorian Wars, just because offence archeologists have found attitudes or statements they made during their lives that are non-U by modern standards somewhere in their past.
Well, balls to that. They don't get to make unilateral (and irrevocable) decisions like that just to satisfy some inner need they have for achievement and attention off the back of a trendy movement.
Not on my watch.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there.
Pyramids, the biggest monuments to slavers on earth, will be safe.
I thought modern scholarship has moved on from thinking they were built by slaves, to suggesting they were built by farmers during the off season when the Nile was flooded?
I'd heard it was paid labourers, though in good pedant fashion he did say monuments to slavers, which they surely were, regardless of construction.
Just because something has been there for ages doesn’t mean it should always be there. Ironically if our ancestors hadn’t have thought that we wouldn’t have had half the things we treasure today.
Ripping things up, starting over and trying new things is a key part of our culture that made Britain successful.
I fear we are stuck in nostalgia.
There is something in that. Most statues date to competitive municipal statue building more than a hundred years ago. Relatively few are of anyone most people have heard of. Even fewer are of great artistic merit.
Just because something has been there for ages doesn’t mean it should always be there. Ironically if our ancestors hadn’t have thought that we wouldn’t have had half the things we treasure today.
Ripping things up, starting over and trying new things is a key part of our culture that made Britain successful.
I fear we are stuck in nostalgia.
I detect a New Labour vibe there - 1997 was year zero.
New Labour, excellent stuff. But this is a core part of DNA.
Take tea. A core part of what it is to be English. But if it was down to conservative minded folk from days gone by we would never have touched the nasty stuff.
The British are a complex mix of radicals, adventurers and conservatives. The conservatives may hate us radicals, but they need us.
Transport numbers in Lockdown 3 are stabilising - Tube passenger numbers are 15% of pre-Covid numbers with bus passenger numbers a third of pre-Covid and national rail also 15% of pre-Covid.
I see Matt Hancock continues to state the case a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine produces an efficacy of 89% between Days 15 ad 21. Okay - what I find curious is why we are offering second vaccinations if all that does is increase the efficacy from 89% to 92% - that sounds marginal to me.
Hancock's figures contradict Pfizer's own data but if we have genuinely proved a single dose of the vaccine conveys 89% efficacy after three weeks, so be it.
I'm a bit Victor Meldrew to be honest about it.
Anyway, if we only need to provide one vaccination after all, it does suggest we can vaccinate more people more quickly and ease restrictions more quickly, er, doesn't it?
In England, nearly 4 million have been vaccinated including 430,000 who have had two vaccinations. That's about 1 in 14 of the whole population or 7%. Across the United Kingdom, there are 25 million people over the age of 50.
As others have said, in terms of the very elderly, it seems likely the "quick wins" have been done and it's now a question of getting the vaccine to the mobility impaired or others who cannot travel to a GP or vaccination centre.
In East Ham High Street today, shades of last spring with queues outside Sainsbury's and Lidl - mask wearing still far from universal though being enforced in some shops.
If an organisation wants to rename their building, who cares?
If an organisation wants to move certain statues to a museum, who cares?
You are always clamouring on about the "woke" imposing their views on others and yet here you are imposing your views on others.
I care. And so do many others.
These are monuments to significant historical figures in our public spaces and national institutions that our civic society has taken for granted, often for generations. The case to modify that should naturally need to be a very strong one with a high degree of public consensus.
So it's quite the opposite: I'm not imposing my view on anyone since I'm not proposing any change; I'm stopping others from imposing theirs on everyone else with kneejerk reactions.
Nothing wrong with houses being built there - it's the refusal to dredge the rivers based on EU regulations and enforced by the environment agency that is the issue. Now we've left the EU, a this is something that can be re-assessed.
Dredging rivers won't make up for the propensity to develop willy nilly on flood plains and increased flooding from increased climate energy.
Dredging rivers is mostly waste of time.
There were people jumping up and down saying that the flooding in Fishlake last year was caused by lack of dredging.
Except...the river is tidal. Dredging below sea level doesn't do much.
Slowing down the floods is what is needed. Better management of uplands, and less run off from tarmac.
Building houses in a place that floods does two things - it adds another asset that has to be defended (inevitably not against every conceivable flood) and adds risk to everyone downstream.
Stupid idea.
Building houses on a flood plain isn't a great idea, that much is true of course. But that doesn't mean that rivers shouldn't be dredged regularly to prevent the river bed rising over time. Even with tidal rivers, it still increases the capacity of the river to accommodate rainfall - the people objecting to a lack of dredging still had a valid argument.
I had already read that 'fact check' - it's sad how the term has become so debased.
Dredging does two main things - firstly it increases the capacity of rivers to hold water (this of course doesn't 'make it worse', it makes it better all round). The second is to increase flow through the dredged area. If that increases the risk of flooding downstream, the answer is fairly simple - dredge there too. You are trying to facilitate the flow of water into the sea. If downstream, flooding doesn't matter so much, don't dredge there.
What parts of it are contentious? Are there expert opinions suggesting otherwise.
As for the comments about dredging further downstream, you can't do that forever. The water has to go somewhere, and at some point it reaches the sea where no amount of dredging will help.
People don't live in the sea Rob.
Do you really think I don't know that. But dreding will not help you if you are in the tidal area of the river, since there is an almost infinite amount of water that will fill it. At that point it backs up, and you are back to square one. Do you really think the various people who study this sort of thing for a living are really that dumb?
Just watched the Tom Hanks film "Greyhound" about the Atlantic convoys. Only 90 minutes long, but incredibly gripping. The CGI does make it feel a bit like a video-game, but it still gives a grim insight into the terror of running through that area where there was no air cover and the wolfpacks came out to play.
On Amazon TV, so maybe tricky for some to catch yet.
I didn’t enjoy it, if I’m honest. Probably this was because I know the book well, and could see how at every turn they were trying - and failing - to bring out the extraordinary character of Krause as portrayed by Forester.
Which was brave, but always doomed to failure because the whole point about Krause is that he is totally introverted and nobody around him knows what he’s thinking - except the reader.
Which left a perfectly competent action movie, but not much more. A bit like the average Hornblower adaptation, and for the same reason.
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
Who is the 'our' you refer to?
The history of the United Kingdom.
Which started in 1801.
And ends sometime around 2030, I suspect.
Pretty decent run as far as states go, especially composite ones.
I recently described the structure of the UK to my friend in Canada as being a bit like her country, only with three Quebecs instead of one.
If an organisation wants to rename their building, who cares?
If an organisation wants to move certain statues to a museum, who cares?
You are always clamouring on about the "woke" imposing their views on others and yet here you are imposing your views on others.
You are very institutionalist. The environment belongs to us collectively; the likes of the City of London are delegated to look after bits of it for us, they aren't absolute beneficial owners who can do what the hell they like and it's none of our business.
Why would I care what someone's random building was called? Why would our society care what someone's random building was called?
If someone replaced a statue on the facade of their building, why would I care? Why would our society care?
I'm sorry to say that if your biggest gripe in life is such things, you must live an incredibly privileged life.
We should spend more energy thinking how we might make history rather than protecting it, else our descendants will look back on us as rather dull and backward looking.
Just because something has been there for ages doesn’t mean it should always be there. Ironically if our ancestors hadn’t have thought that we wouldn’t have had half the things we treasure today.
Ripping things up, starting over and trying new things is a key part of our culture that made Britain successful.
I fear we are stuck in nostalgia.
I detect a New Labour vibe there - 1997 was year zero.
New Labour, excellent stuff. But this is a core part of DNA.
Take tea. A core part of what it is to be English. But if it was down to conservative minded folk from days gone by we would never have touched the nasty stuff.
The British are a complex mix of radicals, adventurers and conservatives. The conservatives may hate us radicals, but they need us.
Maybe that works in reverse. Radicals need conservatives, else what could they radicalise against?
Nothing wrong with houses being built there - it's the refusal to dredge the rivers based on EU regulations and enforced by the environment agency that is the issue. Now we've left the EU, a this is something that can be re-assessed.
Dredging rivers won't make up for the propensity to develop willy nilly on flood plains and increased flooding from increased climate energy.
Dredging rivers is mostly waste of time.
There were people jumping up and down saying that the flooding in Fishlake last year was caused by lack of dredging.
Except...the river is tidal. Dredging below sea level doesn't do much.
Slowing down the floods is what is needed. Better management of uplands, and less run off from tarmac.
Building houses in a place that floods does two things - it adds another asset that has to be defended (inevitably not against every conceivable flood) and adds risk to everyone downstream.
Stupid idea.
Building houses on a flood plain isn't a great idea, that much is true of course. But that doesn't mean that rivers shouldn't be dredged regularly to prevent the river bed rising over time. Even with tidal rivers, it still increases the capacity of the river to accommodate rainfall - the people objecting to a lack of dredging still had a valid argument.
I had already read that 'fact check' - it's sad how the term has become so debased.
Dredging does two main things - firstly it increases the capacity of rivers to hold water (this of course doesn't 'make it worse', it makes it better all round). The second is to increase flow through the dredged area. If that increases the risk of flooding downstream, the answer is fairly simple - dredge there too. You are trying to facilitate the flow of water into the sea. If downstream, flooding doesn't matter so much, don't dredge there.
What parts of it are contentious? Are there expert opinions suggesting otherwise.
As for the comments about dredging further downstream, you can't do that forever. The water has to go somewhere, and at some point it reaches the sea where no amount of dredging will help.
People don't live in the sea Rob.
Do you really think I don't know that. But dreding will not help you if you are in the tidal area of the river, since there is an almost infinite amount of water that will fill it. At that point it backs up, and you are back to square one. Do you really think the various people who study this sort of thing for a living are really that dumb?
I'm relieved to hear it confirmed.
I notice again you are not actually debating the point.
I'd like to see scholarly articles refuting the claims made in that fullfact website, which had extensive references throughout. I am not denying that it can be useful, but the claim that EU regulations have somehow caused excess flooding does not seem to be proven.
Transport numbers in Lockdown 3 are stabilising - Tube passenger numbers are 15% of pre-Covid numbers with bus passenger numbers a third of pre-Covid and national rail also 15% of pre-Covid.
I see Matt Hancock continues to state the case a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine produces an efficacy of 89% between Days 15 ad 21. Okay - what I find curious is why we are offering second vaccinations if all that does is increase the efficacy from 89% to 92% - that sounds marginal to me.
Hancock's figures contradict Pfizer's own data but if we have genuinely proved a single dose of the vaccine conveys 89% efficacy after three weeks, so be it.
I'm a bit Victor Meldrew to be honest about it.
Anyway, if we only need to provide one vaccination after all, it does suggest we can vaccinate more people more quickly and ease restrictions more quickly, er, doesn't it?
In England, nearly 4 million have been vaccinated including 430,000 who have had two vaccinations. That's about 1 in 14 of the whole population or 7%. Across the United Kingdom, there are 25 million people over the age of 50.
As others have said, in terms of the very elderly, it seems likely the "quick wins" have been done and it's now a question of getting the vaccine to the mobility impaired or others who cannot travel to a GP or vaccination centre.
In East Ham High Street today, shades of last spring with queues outside Sainsbury's and Lidl - mask wearing still far from universal though being enforced in some shops.
Plenty of over 80s have not yet been vaccinated; my 83 year old mum has still heard nothing.
Transport numbers in Lockdown 3 are stabilising - Tube passenger numbers are 15% of pre-Covid numbers with bus passenger numbers a third of pre-Covid and national rail also 15% of pre-Covid.
I see Matt Hancock continues to state the case a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine produces an efficacy of 89% between Days 15 ad 21. Okay - what I find curious is why we are offering second vaccinations if all that does is increase the efficacy from 89% to 92% - that sounds marginal to me.
Hancock's figures contradict Pfizer's own data but if we have genuinely proved a single dose of the vaccine conveys 89% efficacy after three weeks, so be it.
I'm a bit Victor Meldrew to be honest about it.
Anyway, if we only need to provide one vaccination after all, it does suggest we can vaccinate more people more quickly and ease restrictions more quickly, er, doesn't it?
In England, nearly 4 million have been vaccinated including 430,000 who have had two vaccinations. That's about 1 in 14 of the whole population or 7%. Across the United Kingdom, there are 25 million people over the age of 50.
As others have said, in terms of the very elderly, it seems likely the "quick wins" have been done and it's now a question of getting the vaccine to the mobility impaired or others who cannot travel to a GP or vaccination centre.
In East Ham High Street today, shades of last spring with queues outside Sainsbury's and Lidl - mask wearing still far from universal though being enforced in some shops.
Plenty of over 80s have not yet been vaccinated; my 83 year old mum has still heard nothing.
The latest number I saw was around 60% in England.
If an organisation wants to rename their building, who cares?
If an organisation wants to move certain statues to a museum, who cares?
You are always clamouring on about the "woke" imposing their views on others and yet here you are imposing your views on others.
I care. And so do many others.
These are monuments to significant historical figures in our public spaces and national institutions that our civic society has taken for granted, often for generations. The case to modify that should naturally need to be a very strong one with a high degree of public consensus.
So it's quite the opposite: I'm not imposing my view on anyone since I'm not proposing any change; I'm stopping others from imposing theirs on everyone else with kneejerk reactions.
"Significant historical figures" yeah right. More like, random old men nobody cares about, other than nerds and the obsessed.
I have equal contempt for those obsessed with removing statues and for those obsessed with keeping them.
If an organisation wants to rename their building, who cares?
If an organisation wants to move certain statues to a museum, who cares?
You are always clamouring on about the "woke" imposing their views on others and yet here you are imposing your views on others.
I care. And so do many others.
These are monuments to significant historical figures in our public spaces and national institutions that our civic society has taken for granted, often for generations. The case to modify that should naturally need to be a very strong one with a high degree of public consensus.
So it's quite the opposite: I'm not imposing my view on anyone since I'm not proposing any change; I'm stopping others from imposing theirs on everyone else with kneejerk reactions.
"Significant historical figures" yeah right. More like, random old men nobody cares about, other than nerds and the obsessed.
I have equal contempt for those obsessed with removing statues and for those obsessed with keeping them.
First it's the random old men nobody cares about....
If an organisation wants to rename their building, who cares?
If an organisation wants to move certain statues to a museum, who cares?
You are always clamouring on about the "woke" imposing their views on others and yet here you are imposing your views on others.
You are very institutionalist. The environment belongs to us collectively; the likes of the City of London are delegated to look after bits of it for us, they aren't absolute beneficial owners who can do what the hell they like and it's none of our business.
Why would I care what someone's random building was called? Why would our society care what someone's random building was called?
If someone replaced a statue on the facade of their building, why would I care? Why would our society care?
I'm sorry to say that if your biggest gripe in life is such things, you must live an incredibly privileged life.
It's middle class problems to the extreme.
Drunk driver's fallacy there. I can think about more than one thing at a time.
Calling things "random" is a curious way of trivialising them. The slave trade was just some random white men shipping some random Africans across the Atlantic, so is it ok not to mind about it?
Transport numbers in Lockdown 3 are stabilising - Tube passenger numbers are 15% of pre-Covid numbers with bus passenger numbers a third of pre-Covid and national rail also 15% of pre-Covid.
I see Matt Hancock continues to state the case a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine produces an efficacy of 89% between Days 15 ad 21. Okay - what I find curious is why we are offering second vaccinations if all that does is increase the efficacy from 89% to 92% - that sounds marginal to me.
Hancock's figures contradict Pfizer's own data but if we have genuinely proved a single dose of the vaccine conveys 89% efficacy after three weeks, so be it.
I'm a bit Victor Meldrew to be honest about it.
Anyway, if we only need to provide one vaccination after all, it does suggest we can vaccinate more people more quickly and ease restrictions more quickly, er, doesn't it?
In England, nearly 4 million have been vaccinated including 430,000 who have had two vaccinations. That's about 1 in 14 of the whole population or 7%. Across the United Kingdom, there are 25 million people over the age of 50.
As others have said, in terms of the very elderly, it seems likely the "quick wins" have been done and it's now a question of getting the vaccine to the mobility impaired or others who cannot travel to a GP or vaccination centre.
In East Ham High Street today, shades of last spring with queues outside Sainsbury's and Lidl - mask wearing still far from universal though being enforced in some shops.
Isn't one function of the second shot to prolong the protection? So even if the increase in efficacy is marginal it stays that way for many months longer.
In better news, we've now covered 9.2% of the eligible population with at least one dose of the vaccine. Should hit 10% tomorrow. Barring supply issues we now have a large enough distribution network in place or coming into place to do 4m jabs every week IMO so everything is now down to supply, supply, supply. Whatever AZ needs the government should be facilitating to get doses delivered even if it means spending 10x as we would normally need to spend on it. The opportunity cost of counting coppers on the vaccine is absolutely massive.
The thing is, the length of the lockdown is no longer dependent on vaccination numbers. Read the press. Ministers are now spinning for the summer. SAGE are setting out their stall for post vaccination lockdown.
There's going to be an almightly clash between the party and the cabinet in February/March, and the party is going to lose.
And we are going to be in lockdown, for better or worse, until the summer. Possibly. Or longer. They do not know. They are promising nothing.
It was never going to be based on vaccination numbers. It was always going to be based on hospitalisation numbers, indirectly that is based on the number of people with partial or full immunity in key age demographics as they are less likely to end up in hospital. By the time we get to May/June the case for any kind of major lockdown is going to be almost non-existent unless there is a vaccine evading mutation in circulation. By the beginning of June we should be close to herd immunity through vaccination and prior infections, the number of symptomatic cases will be very tiny and the number of people being hospitalised everyday from this will be vanishingly small. If the scientists are asking for continued lockdown measures at that point the government will rightly tell them to do one, the people will simply ignore the rules.
I fear you underestimate how obsessed Johnson and Co are.
Read the press. Read his comments. He and his cabinet are completely at sea mentally. He cannot and will not make a decision until the scientists have given him the go ahead. They won't. Ever. Indeed they are shaking him with new bits of alarm. And so he will not make a decision.
Look at the press today. All commitments to everything have been removed, and more draconian measures are being imposed. Its completely open ended. There is no timetable, there is no plan, there is nothing.
I have a certain sympathy with the idea that broadly following science doesn't mean following scientists who appear, in this case, to be on an entirely conservative side and act and advise on that basis. They are human and also risk averse. The story of a rep[ort suggesting rising infections after the start of the current round of restrictions seems to have garnered plenty of airtime but what is soo shocking about it? Of course it kept rising at the start but it makes it sound like things are going wrong, its bad news, worry news but its not in fact its not news at all. Shit takes time to turn.
The wider problem, however, in government and in certain sections of the public & media is the do something mentality which results in this slew of stories and statements. Restrictions barely got a chance to start and the stories were about adding more and more.
That there is no firm timetable is not unexpected. The approach seems to be similar to what happens to inpatients. They suggest you might be discharged tomorrow then the consultant comes in and says 'no we need to keep you one more day' . Its not so bad after you've been there a week to be told to hang on for another day. I haven't met anyone who thinks anything will shift before late March.
Science, however does need to be followed on the vaccinations and I have my doubts that the NHS is flexible enough to manage it. Some vaccines such as AZs are apparently fine with long gaps between dose 1 & 2. The mRNAs appear not so good with that. Are they going to address that and work according to the manufacturers suggested vaccine protocol? I haven't heard anything to suggest that yet, so far it appears to be a blanket stretching out of doses 1 &2 unless someone can tell me something different. A lot of airtime has been expended on the Israeli outputs on the Pfizer dose 1 impact being lower than manufacturers suggestions. Less said about the two dose impacts outputs which appear rather good.
Transport numbers in Lockdown 3 are stabilising - Tube passenger numbers are 15% of pre-Covid numbers with bus passenger numbers a third of pre-Covid and national rail also 15% of pre-Covid.
I see Matt Hancock continues to state the case a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine produces an efficacy of 89% between Days 15 ad 21. Okay - what I find curious is why we are offering second vaccinations if all that does is increase the efficacy from 89% to 92% - that sounds marginal to me.
Hancock's figures contradict Pfizer's own data but if we have genuinely proved a single dose of the vaccine conveys 89% efficacy after three weeks, so be it.
I'm a bit Victor Meldrew to be honest about it.
Anyway, if we only need to provide one vaccination after all, it does suggest we can vaccinate more people more quickly and ease restrictions more quickly, er, doesn't it?
In England, nearly 4 million have been vaccinated including 430,000 who have had two vaccinations. That's about 1 in 14 of the whole population or 7%. Across the United Kingdom, there are 25 million people over the age of 50.
As others have said, in terms of the very elderly, it seems likely the "quick wins" have been done and it's now a question of getting the vaccine to the mobility impaired or others who cannot travel to a GP or vaccination centre.
In East Ham High Street today, shades of last spring with queues outside Sainsbury's and Lidl - mask wearing still far from universal though being enforced in some shops.
Plenty of over 80s have not yet been vaccinated; my 83 year old mum has still heard nothing.
The latest number I saw was around 60% in England.
If the BBC have got their numbers right the proportion of over 80s having been vaccinated (presumably those in the general population, the care homes being counted separately) currently stands at about 56% in England, 45% in Northern Ireland, 24% in Wales and 13% in Scotland.
The latter figure would, of course, have been 383% if there were independence.
Transport numbers in Lockdown 3 are stabilising - Tube passenger numbers are 15% of pre-Covid numbers with bus passenger numbers a third of pre-Covid and national rail also 15% of pre-Covid.
I see Matt Hancock continues to state the case a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine produces an efficacy of 89% between Days 15 ad 21. Okay - what I find curious is why we are offering second vaccinations if all that does is increase the efficacy from 89% to 92% - that sounds marginal to me.
Hancock's figures contradict Pfizer's own data but if we have genuinely proved a single dose of the vaccine conveys 89% efficacy after three weeks, so be it.
I'm a bit Victor Meldrew to be honest about it.
Anyway, if we only need to provide one vaccination after all, it does suggest we can vaccinate more people more quickly and ease restrictions more quickly, er, doesn't it?
In England, nearly 4 million have been vaccinated including 430,000 who have had two vaccinations. That's about 1 in 14 of the whole population or 7%. Across the United Kingdom, there are 25 million people over the age of 50.
As others have said, in terms of the very elderly, it seems likely the "quick wins" have been done and it's now a question of getting the vaccine to the mobility impaired or others who cannot travel to a GP or vaccination centre.
In East Ham High Street today, shades of last spring with queues outside Sainsbury's and Lidl - mask wearing still far from universal though being enforced in some shops.
Plenty of over 80s have not yet been vaccinated; my 83 year old mum has still heard nothing.
Make the phonecall, some GPs are very slow and tbh, you shouldn't wait now. The government should now say all remaining 80 year olds xan phone up for appointments if they've yet to be contacted.
Nothing wrong with houses being built there - it's the refusal to dredge the rivers based on EU regulations and enforced by the environment agency that is the issue. Now we've left the EU, a this is something that can be re-assessed.
The state of this...
Because you know so much about the issue?
There would be no flooding if it wasn’t for EU regulations aye? You’re deranged. Just like your obsession with veganism being the cause of all ills.
Not regulations, a regulation. It's called the Water framework directive. It doesn't ban dredging, that wouldn't be a very 'EU' way of doing things, it just introduces assessment criteria that make it nearly impossible, the more so when the regulations are gold-plated by overzealous national agencies. In the UK, it's produced an almost total deadening effect. Not just in the UK, the Irish have been having issues too: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/floods-eu-laws-not-to-blame-insists-european-commission-1.2485660
A quick Google also tells me some poor buggers tried to petition the Government to have the Roch and Irwell dredged back in 2016, getting a rather sad 68 signatures. I doubt this worked, so in the absence of other information, I am going to make the leap that these rivers still haven't been dredged, so the base of the rivers have just been left to rise and rise - so hardly surprising that this happens when it pisses it down.
You're so confident that your precious EU would never do anything wrong aren't you? It might be nice if you had the good manners to apologise for jumping down my throat when it's clear you knew less than nothing about the issue.
Like I said, you're deranged. I have never said that the EU never does anything wrong.
What I am doing is laughing at you for blaming flooding on the EU.
Oh, OK, it's just simple ignorance of the process of dredging. Well that's easily explained - dredging is the process of removing silt and other matter from river beds. Without being dredged the river bed rises year on year, reducing the capacity of the river year on year. That has an enormous impact on flooding, for obvious reasons.
You're welcome.
"Without being dredged the river bed rises year on year, reducing the capacity of the river year on year."
So, over time, the world's rivers will simply disappear, right? Because that's the logical conclusion of what you've just written.
Back in the real world, there are complex interplays: rivers often erode their beds and their banks, naturally increasing their capacity. Locks and levees and concrete embankments further affect the flow of water.
The real problem (a while back) was that much of the drainage systems, in some areas, are maintained and artificial.
The EU rules were sometimes used as an *excuse* not to do anything. By people who wanted the budget to spend on other things.
In Oxfordshire, where I was brought up, after some bad floods a while back, suddenly all the small brooks, streams etc were massively cleared. Almost over night.
In built-up areas and other altered landscapes, where dredging waterways has been been part of the alteration, as a rule it MUST be kept up on a VERY regular basis, with due adjustment for changing conditions.
Otherwise, you're gonna have a situation on your hands.
Here in WA State, we've recently had some experience with dam removals to restore old salmon runs. Which have resulted in significant changes downstream, mostly beneficial but also new realities.
Aren't there even bigger problems in WA?
Building on a flood plain is one thing, but building on a flood plain below a glacier with a volcano under it? Good thinking!
That's Tacoma. Which many if not most in Seattle & elsewhere in the Evergreen State consider to be expendable.
Note that residents of Puyallup Valley downstream from Mt Rainier DO have benefit of early-warning system in case of eruption accompanied by lahar = clastic mudflow(s); sirens will sound giving them up to 30 minutes or thereabouts to flee to higher ground on either side of the deluge.
Just kidding. About Tacoma being expendable that is.
Just because something has been there for ages doesn’t mean it should always be there. Ironically if our ancestors hadn’t have thought that we wouldn’t have had half the things we treasure today.
Ripping things up, starting over and trying new things is a key part of our culture that made Britain successful.
I fear we are stuck in nostalgia.
I detect a New Labour vibe there - 1997 was year zero.
New Labour, excellent stuff. But this is a core part of DNA.
Take tea. A core part of what it is to be English. But if it was down to conservative minded folk from days gone by we would never have touched the nasty stuff.
The British are a complex mix of radicals, adventurers and conservatives. The conservatives may hate us radicals, but they need us.
Maybe that works in reverse. Radicals need conservatives, else what could they radicalise against?
A healthy society needs a mix of radical and conservative impulses. And although people may offer a caricatured or extreme version of themselves when debating with others, I am sure most people have competing, even contradictory, impulses within themselves too. The pendulum swings between those competing impulses over time. Right now I suspect the British are due a swing in a more radical direction. It feels like we have become very stale as a country.
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
Who is the 'our' you refer to?
The history of the United Kingdom.
Is that the land mass, the constitutional entity or the people who have resided in said Kingdom over the years?
All different, and in the latter case, millions of different versions.
For example, do you celebrate the struggle for an independent Ireland that occurred within the Kingdom? While at the same time celebrating its suppression?
Which side in the Civil War do you celebrate? The execution of Charles and the restoration?
He said he loved 'the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all', why would he need to take a side in the Civil War to do that?
Lots of people in most countries of the globe have probably said the love their country and its history at some point, it doesn't mean they must celebrate particular elements, though there may be parts they choose to. It doesn't seem like love of a country or history need be taken quite so literally or exhaustively.
As it happens I probably would celebrate the execution of Charles and the restoration. In the long run it led to a pretty decent constitutional settlement. And it is very interesting.
I love the stories that are told within and around these isles. No it is not particularly rational to be more interested in them than ones in other places when so long ago some of it was not really 'this' country, but rationality doesn't always matter.
I sympathise with Thomas Fairfax the most, of the civil war figures.
Isn't one function of the second shot to prolong the protection? So even if the increase in efficacy is marginal it stays that way for many months longer.
Pfizer never claimed that - they did say efficacy improved to 95% seven days after the second vaccination where it was only 52% twelve days after the first.
It now seems the improvement in efficacy is so rapid between days 12 and 21 from the original vaccination we don't really need a second vaccination but as you say how long would such immunity last without a second vaccination?
Perhaps we're testing that by having a second vaccination three months rather than three weeks after the first - we'll see.
Transport numbers in Lockdown 3 are stabilising - Tube passenger numbers are 15% of pre-Covid numbers with bus passenger numbers a third of pre-Covid and national rail also 15% of pre-Covid.
I see Matt Hancock continues to state the case a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine produces an efficacy of 89% between Days 15 ad 21. Okay - what I find curious is why we are offering second vaccinations if all that does is increase the efficacy from 89% to 92% - that sounds marginal to me.
Hancock's figures contradict Pfizer's own data but if we have genuinely proved a single dose of the vaccine conveys 89% efficacy after three weeks, so be it.
I'm a bit Victor Meldrew to be honest about it.
Anyway, if we only need to provide one vaccination after all, it does suggest we can vaccinate more people more quickly and ease restrictions more quickly, er, doesn't it?
In England, nearly 4 million have been vaccinated including 430,000 who have had two vaccinations. That's about 1 in 14 of the whole population or 7%. Across the United Kingdom, there are 25 million people over the age of 50.
As others have said, in terms of the very elderly, it seems likely the "quick wins" have been done and it's now a question of getting the vaccine to the mobility impaired or others who cannot travel to a GP or vaccination centre.
In East Ham High Street today, shades of last spring with queues outside Sainsbury's and Lidl - mask wearing still far from universal though being enforced in some shops.
Plenty of over 80s have not yet been vaccinated; my 83 year old mum has still heard nothing.
Make the phonecall, some GPs are very slow and tbh, you shouldn't wait now. The government should now say all remaining 80 year olds xan phone up for appointments if they've yet to be contacted.
Basically the government just needs to get on with it. We need 1m jabs a day now!
Transport numbers in Lockdown 3 are stabilising - Tube passenger numbers are 15% of pre-Covid numbers with bus passenger numbers a third of pre-Covid and national rail also 15% of pre-Covid.
I see Matt Hancock continues to state the case a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine produces an efficacy of 89% between Days 15 ad 21. Okay - what I find curious is why we are offering second vaccinations if all that does is increase the efficacy from 89% to 92% - that sounds marginal to me.
Hancock's figures contradict Pfizer's own data but if we have genuinely proved a single dose of the vaccine conveys 89% efficacy after three weeks, so be it.
I'm a bit Victor Meldrew to be honest about it.
Anyway, if we only need to provide one vaccination after all, it does suggest we can vaccinate more people more quickly and ease restrictions more quickly, er, doesn't it?
In England, nearly 4 million have been vaccinated including 430,000 who have had two vaccinations. That's about 1 in 14 of the whole population or 7%. Across the United Kingdom, there are 25 million people over the age of 50.
As others have said, in terms of the very elderly, it seems likely the "quick wins" have been done and it's now a question of getting the vaccine to the mobility impaired or others who cannot travel to a GP or vaccination centre.
In East Ham High Street today, shades of last spring with queues outside Sainsbury's and Lidl - mask wearing still far from universal though being enforced in some shops.
Plenty of over 80s have not yet been vaccinated; my 83 year old mum has still heard nothing.
The latest number I saw was around 60% in England.
I'm hoping she'll hear something in the next week.
If an organisation wants to rename their building, who cares?
If an organisation wants to move certain statues to a museum, who cares?
You are always clamouring on about the "woke" imposing their views on others and yet here you are imposing your views on others.
You are very institutionalist. The environment belongs to us collectively; the likes of the City of London are delegated to look after bits of it for us, they aren't absolute beneficial owners who can do what the hell they like and it's none of our business.
Why would I care what someone's random building was called? Why would our society care what someone's random building was called?
If someone replaced a statue on the facade of their building, why would I care? Why would our society care?
I'm sorry to say that if your biggest gripe in life is such things, you must live an incredibly privileged life.
It's middle class problems to the extreme.
Drunk driver's fallacy there. I can think about more than one thing at a time.
Calling things "random" is a curious way of trivialising them. The slave trade was just some random white men shipping some random Africans across the Atlantic, so is it ok not to mind about it?
But on the whole they aren't important to either our national myth or to civic pride.
If you took 100 teenagers to the City and asked them how many of the people who have statues they recognised, how many do you think they would recognise?
And then ask yourself, does it matter how many they recognise?
I'm all for statues. I love public art and feel it should be encouraged. But statues of random men with no real artistic merit? Who cares? Maybe we could do better with those plinths and facades?
Transport numbers in Lockdown 3 are stabilising - Tube passenger numbers are 15% of pre-Covid numbers with bus passenger numbers a third of pre-Covid and national rail also 15% of pre-Covid.
I see Matt Hancock continues to state the case a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine produces an efficacy of 89% between Days 15 ad 21. Okay - what I find curious is why we are offering second vaccinations if all that does is increase the efficacy from 89% to 92% - that sounds marginal to me.
Hancock's figures contradict Pfizer's own data but if we have genuinely proved a single dose of the vaccine conveys 89% efficacy after three weeks, so be it.
I'm a bit Victor Meldrew to be honest about it.
Anyway, if we only need to provide one vaccination after all, it does suggest we can vaccinate more people more quickly and ease restrictions more quickly, er, doesn't it?
In England, nearly 4 million have been vaccinated including 430,000 who have had two vaccinations. That's about 1 in 14 of the whole population or 7%. Across the United Kingdom, there are 25 million people over the age of 50.
As others have said, in terms of the very elderly, it seems likely the "quick wins" have been done and it's now a question of getting the vaccine to the mobility impaired or others who cannot travel to a GP or vaccination centre.
In East Ham High Street today, shades of last spring with queues outside Sainsbury's and Lidl - mask wearing still far from universal though being enforced in some shops.
Plenty of over 80s have not yet been vaccinated; my 83 year old mum has still heard nothing.
Make the phonecall, some GPs are very slow and tbh, you shouldn't wait now. The government should now say all remaining 80 year olds xan phone up for appointments if they've yet to be contacted.
Basically the government just needs to get on with it. We need 1m jabs a day now!
I think what this has done is shown how inefficient some GPs are compared to others.
Transport numbers in Lockdown 3 are stabilising - Tube passenger numbers are 15% of pre-Covid numbers with bus passenger numbers a third of pre-Covid and national rail also 15% of pre-Covid.
I see Matt Hancock continues to state the case a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine produces an efficacy of 89% between Days 15 ad 21. Okay - what I find curious is why we are offering second vaccinations if all that does is increase the efficacy from 89% to 92% - that sounds marginal to me.
Hancock's figures contradict Pfizer's own data but if we have genuinely proved a single dose of the vaccine conveys 89% efficacy after three weeks, so be it.
I'm a bit Victor Meldrew to be honest about it.
Anyway, if we only need to provide one vaccination after all, it does suggest we can vaccinate more people more quickly and ease restrictions more quickly, er, doesn't it?
In England, nearly 4 million have been vaccinated including 430,000 who have had two vaccinations. That's about 1 in 14 of the whole population or 7%. Across the United Kingdom, there are 25 million people over the age of 50.
As others have said, in terms of the very elderly, it seems likely the "quick wins" have been done and it's now a question of getting the vaccine to the mobility impaired or others who cannot travel to a GP or vaccination centre.
In East Ham High Street today, shades of last spring with queues outside Sainsbury's and Lidl - mask wearing still far from universal though being enforced in some shops.
Plenty of over 80s have not yet been vaccinated; my 83 year old mum has still heard nothing.
Make the phonecall, some GPs are very slow and tbh, you shouldn't wait now. The government should now say all remaining 80 year olds xan phone up for appointments if they've yet to be contacted.
Basically the government just needs to get on with it. We need 1m jabs a day now!
I think what this has done is shown how inefficient some GPs are compared to others.
Get Yorkshire doctors to rollout the vaccine nationwide, they've shown up the rest of the country.
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
But @Casino_Royale you appear to get enraged about the removal of *any* statue.
I wouldn't be happy if statues of actual British heroes, people who are actually part of our national myth, were taken down. The likes of Churchill, Boudica, Darwin, Kings and Queens, etc.
But why do you care if a statue of some random slaver is taken down? Nobody cares about them. They have no historical or emotional value. Why?
Or is it simply to fight back at your enemy, the woke?
That's not true. I would object to statues or monuments that are prima face offensive. I disagreed with a plaque in a church in Dorchester that celebrated the suppression of a slave rebellion, and used the n-word too. Nor do I feel comfortable with those that show someone of a certain race in public in a subservient position - and there is one on the frieze of the Royal Exchange, for instance.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there. The change should be minimal and it should be absolutely proportionate to the architecture, history and heritage, which should otherwise be conserved.
When I put up a strong defence it's because I think the "problem" they are argued to cause is non-existent (and therefore it's a strawman) or because I think someone is simply looking for villiany (and advancing tenuous arguments to do so) because they want the notoriety for themselves, which I see as narcissistic and selfish.
This isn't a fantasy either. We've seen buildings named after William Gladstone (one of our greatest prime ministers), David Hume (a pillar of the Scottish enlightenment) and Baden Powell (founder of the scout movement that gives pleasures to millions of children) all come under attack in recent months, as well as generals involved in Victorian Wars, just because offence archeologists have found attitudes or statements they made during their lives that are non-U by modern standards somewhere in their past.
Well, balls to that. They don't get to make unilateral (and irrevocable) decisions like that just to satisfy some inner need they have for achievement and attention off the back of a trendy movement.
Not on my watch.
"Not on my watch" Lol!
Like you can actually do anything about it other than harrumph loudly.
I donate monthly to Save our Statues. I have written to the Rhodes Commission, City of London taskforce and Exeter Council. I have lobbied my MP. I have contacted, privately, a couple of my friends in parliament on the matter. I make the argument to friends and colleagues.
So, yeah, it might be harrumphing loudly. But I bet it's a lot more than you do.
Keep going. And bravo.
I detest the molestation of our heritage at the whim of a mob. And it was a mob that chucked Colston in the river in Bristol.
Was his statue problematic? Yes. Of course.
Is it OK therefore, for a bunch of Covid-dodging students to just casually chuck him in the water?
Absolutely not. Prosecute these vandals.
If you want to bring down a statue, have a democratic vote on it, or elect a council/assembly/parliament that has this policy in its manifesto, explicitly. I am not sure a single council, assembly, parliament in the UK has ever been elected on a platform of official iconoclasm. If they are, then fair enough. Tear the statues down.
All the polls show that the public seriously dislike mob-handed statue-destroying. We have recently seen extra evidence of the dangerous madness of mobs, in Washington DC.
We are a democracy. Do it legally, calmly, democratically. If that doesn't work, then put the statues in context. Put up a plaque to explain why many people are offended by its existence. This stuff isn't hard.
Transport numbers in Lockdown 3 are stabilising - Tube passenger numbers are 15% of pre-Covid numbers with bus passenger numbers a third of pre-Covid and national rail also 15% of pre-Covid.
I see Matt Hancock continues to state the case a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine produces an efficacy of 89% between Days 15 ad 21. Okay - what I find curious is why we are offering second vaccinations if all that does is increase the efficacy from 89% to 92% - that sounds marginal to me.
Hancock's figures contradict Pfizer's own data but if we have genuinely proved a single dose of the vaccine conveys 89% efficacy after three weeks, so be it.
I'm a bit Victor Meldrew to be honest about it.
Anyway, if we only need to provide one vaccination after all, it does suggest we can vaccinate more people more quickly and ease restrictions more quickly, er, doesn't it?
In England, nearly 4 million have been vaccinated including 430,000 who have had two vaccinations. That's about 1 in 14 of the whole population or 7%. Across the United Kingdom, there are 25 million people over the age of 50.
As others have said, in terms of the very elderly, it seems likely the "quick wins" have been done and it's now a question of getting the vaccine to the mobility impaired or others who cannot travel to a GP or vaccination centre.
In East Ham High Street today, shades of last spring with queues outside Sainsbury's and Lidl - mask wearing still far from universal though being enforced in some shops.
Plenty of over 80s have not yet been vaccinated; my 83 year old mum has still heard nothing.
Make the phonecall, some GPs are very slow and tbh, you shouldn't wait now. The government should now say all remaining 80 year olds xan phone up for appointments if they've yet to be contacted.
Basically the government just needs to get on with it. We need 1m jabs a day now!
I think what this has done is shown how inefficient some GPs are compared to others.
Get Yorkshire doctors to rollout the vaccine nationwide, they've shown up the rest of the country.
Isn't one function of the second shot to prolong the protection? So even if the increase in efficacy is marginal it stays that way for many months longer.
Pfizer never claimed that - they did say efficacy improved to 95% seven days after the second vaccination where it was only 52% twelve days after the first.
It now seems the improvement in efficacy is so rapid between days 12 and 21 from the original vaccination we don't really need a second vaccination but as you say how long would such immunity last without a second vaccination?
Perhaps we're testing that by having a second vaccination three months rather than three weeks after the first - we'll see.
The 89% figure is great, but Pfizer have, rightly, pointed out that no one knows what happens from day 14-84 and how low that 89% becomes. That's the gamble.
Just watched the Tom Hanks film "Greyhound" about the Atlantic convoys. Only 90 minutes long, but incredibly gripping. The CGI does make it feel a bit like a video-game, but it still gives a grim insight into the terror of running through that area where there was no air cover and the wolfpacks came out to play.
On Amazon TV, so maybe tricky for some to catch yet.
I didn’t enjoy it, if I’m honest. Probably this was because I know the book well, and could see how at every turn they were trying - and failing - to bring out the extraordinary character of Krause as portrayed by Forester.
Which was brave, but always doomed to failure because the whole point about Krause is that he is totally introverted and nobody around him knows what he’s thinking - except the reader.
Which left a perfectly competent action movie, but not much more. A bit like the average Hornblower adaptation, and for the same reason.
But coming at it as cinema, I thought Hanks perfectly portrayed that inner monologue.
If an organisation wants to rename their building, who cares?
If an organisation wants to move certain statues to a museum, who cares?
You are always clamouring on about the "woke" imposing their views on others and yet here you are imposing your views on others.
I care. And so do many others.
These are monuments to significant historical figures in our public spaces and national institutions that our civic society has taken for granted, often for generations. The case to modify that should naturally need to be a very strong one with a high degree of public consensus.
So it's quite the opposite: I'm not imposing my view on anyone since I'm not proposing any change; I'm stopping others from imposing theirs on everyone else with kneejerk reactions.
"Significant historical figures" yeah right. More like, random old men nobody cares about, other than nerds and the obsessed.
I have equal contempt for those obsessed with removing statues and for those obsessed with keeping them.
First it's the random old men nobody cares about....
If an organisation wants to rename their building, who cares?
If an organisation wants to move certain statues to a museum, who cares?
You are always clamouring on about the "woke" imposing their views on others and yet here you are imposing your views on others.
You are very institutionalist. The environment belongs to us collectively; the likes of the City of London are delegated to look after bits of it for us, they aren't absolute beneficial owners who can do what the hell they like and it's none of our business.
Why would I care what someone's random building was called? Why would our society care what someone's random building was called?
If someone replaced a statue on the facade of their building, why would I care? Why would our society care?
I'm sorry to say that if your biggest gripe in life is such things, you must live an incredibly privileged life.
It's middle class problems to the extreme.
Drunk driver's fallacy there. I can think about more than one thing at a time.
Calling things "random" is a curious way of trivialising them. The slave trade was just some random white men shipping some random Africans across the Atlantic, so is it ok not to mind about it?
But on the whole they aren't important to either our national myth or to civic pride.
If you took 100 teenagers to the City and asked them how many of the people who have statues they recognised, how many do you think they would recognise?
And then ask yourself, does it matter how many they recognise?
I'm all for statues. I love public art and feel it should be encouraged. But statues of random men with no real artistic merit? Who cares? Maybe we could do better with those plinths and facades?
OK, up to a point, if you have a strict no removal without firm replacement plan policy. Your 100 teenagers might be better off being taught about the people they don't recognise, though; if you disagree you are going to have to commit to replacing all your statues once every Scottish generation to keep au courant.
Once again, they aren't random. The only one I can recall offhand from my City days is the Duke of Wellington.
Transport numbers in Lockdown 3 are stabilising - Tube passenger numbers are 15% of pre-Covid numbers with bus passenger numbers a third of pre-Covid and national rail also 15% of pre-Covid.
I see Matt Hancock continues to state the case a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine produces an efficacy of 89% between Days 15 ad 21. Okay - what I find curious is why we are offering second vaccinations if all that does is increase the efficacy from 89% to 92% - that sounds marginal to me.
Hancock's figures contradict Pfizer's own data but if we have genuinely proved a single dose of the vaccine conveys 89% efficacy after three weeks, so be it.
I'm a bit Victor Meldrew to be honest about it.
Anyway, if we only need to provide one vaccination after all, it does suggest we can vaccinate more people more quickly and ease restrictions more quickly, er, doesn't it?
In England, nearly 4 million have been vaccinated including 430,000 who have had two vaccinations. That's about 1 in 14 of the whole population or 7%. Across the United Kingdom, there are 25 million people over the age of 50.
As others have said, in terms of the very elderly, it seems likely the "quick wins" have been done and it's now a question of getting the vaccine to the mobility impaired or others who cannot travel to a GP or vaccination centre.
In East Ham High Street today, shades of last spring with queues outside Sainsbury's and Lidl - mask wearing still far from universal though being enforced in some shops.
Plenty of over 80s have not yet been vaccinated; my 83 year old mum has still heard nothing.
The latest number I saw was around 60% in England.
I'm hoping she'll hear something in the next week.
Make the phone call tomorrow on her behalf and get something booked in. You're not elbowing others out of the way for her, over 70s are being contacted nationally so her GP has clearly completely bollocksed up the roll out for their patient list by not getting her booked in by now.
As I've said, I don't favour confrontation with China in general, but I think what they're doing with the Uighurs is intolerable. Glad to see Owen Jones saying the same:
If we don't strategically compete and occasionally face off with China they will own you. I want the western nations, led by the US, who are the only ones with the size and potentially the cajones to lead it, on top in the global order. Not equal, on top when it comes down to it and willing to push very hard to be in that position. We have the lives we have and the benefits of it because we are on top, and if we want those benefits to continue then we have to weaken China to a more manageable position.
Dictatorships with such global ambitions do not share. Don't give them a single inch.
Just because something has been there for ages doesn’t mean it should always be there. Ironically if our ancestors hadn’t have thought that we wouldn’t have had half the things we treasure today.
Ripping things up, starting over and trying new things is a key part of our culture that made Britain successful.
I fear we are stuck in nostalgia.
I detect a New Labour vibe there - 1997 was year zero.
New Labour, excellent stuff. But this is a core part of DNA.
Take tea. A core part of what it is to be English. But if it was down to conservative minded folk from days gone by we would never have touched the nasty stuff.
The British are a complex mix of radicals, adventurers and conservatives. The conservatives may hate us radicals, but they need us.
Maybe that works in reverse. Radicals need conservatives, else what could they radicalise against?
Not wanting to come over all Lib Dem (perish the thought), but perhaps radicals and conservatives live in constant dynamic tension? They, indeed we all, need them both.
Edit. I see @OnlyLivingBoy made the point rather eloquently.
Transport numbers in Lockdown 3 are stabilising - Tube passenger numbers are 15% of pre-Covid numbers with bus passenger numbers a third of pre-Covid and national rail also 15% of pre-Covid.
I see Matt Hancock continues to state the case a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine produces an efficacy of 89% between Days 15 ad 21. Okay - what I find curious is why we are offering second vaccinations if all that does is increase the efficacy from 89% to 92% - that sounds marginal to me.
Hancock's figures contradict Pfizer's own data but if we have genuinely proved a single dose of the vaccine conveys 89% efficacy after three weeks, so be it.
I'm a bit Victor Meldrew to be honest about it.
Anyway, if we only need to provide one vaccination after all, it does suggest we can vaccinate more people more quickly and ease restrictions more quickly, er, doesn't it?
In England, nearly 4 million have been vaccinated including 430,000 who have had two vaccinations. That's about 1 in 14 of the whole population or 7%. Across the United Kingdom, there are 25 million people over the age of 50.
As others have said, in terms of the very elderly, it seems likely the "quick wins" have been done and it's now a question of getting the vaccine to the mobility impaired or others who cannot travel to a GP or vaccination centre.
In East Ham High Street today, shades of last spring with queues outside Sainsbury's and Lidl - mask wearing still far from universal though being enforced in some shops.
Plenty of over 80s have not yet been vaccinated; my 83 year old mum has still heard nothing.
Make the phonecall, some GPs are very slow and tbh, you shouldn't wait now. The government should now say all remaining 80 year olds xan phone up for appointments if they've yet to be contacted.
Basically the government just needs to get on with it. We need 1m jabs a day now!
Read the news. Read Johnson's comments. Vaccinations mean nothing. Vaccinating the most vulnerable means nothing. It will not end the lockdown. The SAGE committee are putting new fears in his way. Super mutant strains! Long Covid! Fast mutating overseas variants! And so he is shutting down all commercial travel from everywhere.
Look at him. He is completely at sea mentally, he has no plan, or timetable, or vision, to get us out of this. At all.
Transport numbers in Lockdown 3 are stabilising - Tube passenger numbers are 15% of pre-Covid numbers with bus passenger numbers a third of pre-Covid and national rail also 15% of pre-Covid.
I see Matt Hancock continues to state the case a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine produces an efficacy of 89% between Days 15 ad 21. Okay - what I find curious is why we are offering second vaccinations if all that does is increase the efficacy from 89% to 92% - that sounds marginal to me.
Hancock's figures contradict Pfizer's own data but if we have genuinely proved a single dose of the vaccine conveys 89% efficacy after three weeks, so be it.
I'm a bit Victor Meldrew to be honest about it.
Anyway, if we only need to provide one vaccination after all, it does suggest we can vaccinate more people more quickly and ease restrictions more quickly, er, doesn't it?
In England, nearly 4 million have been vaccinated including 430,000 who have had two vaccinations. That's about 1 in 14 of the whole population or 7%. Across the United Kingdom, there are 25 million people over the age of 50.
As others have said, in terms of the very elderly, it seems likely the "quick wins" have been done and it's now a question of getting the vaccine to the mobility impaired or others who cannot travel to a GP or vaccination centre.
In East Ham High Street today, shades of last spring with queues outside Sainsbury's and Lidl - mask wearing still far from universal though being enforced in some shops.
Plenty of over 80s have not yet been vaccinated; my 83 year old mum has still heard nothing.
Make the phonecall, some GPs are very slow and tbh, you shouldn't wait now. The government should now say all remaining 80 year olds xan phone up for appointments if they've yet to be contacted.
Basically the government just needs to get on with it. We need 1m jabs a day now!
I think what this has done is shown how inefficient some GPs are compared to others.
Get Yorkshire doctors to rollout the vaccine nationwide, they've shown up the rest of the country.
It's quite simple. I love our history, heritage and culture - the stories of how we became who we are, warts and all - and I don't want to see it desecrated.
The rest of it is a strong detestation for narcissism and self-absorption, the contradictory illogical bullshit one feels obliged to agree with (on pain of being called a bigot) and being preached at by the self-righteous and hypocritical, which I react to.
But @Casino_Royale you appear to get enraged about the removal of *any* statue.
I wouldn't be happy if statues of actual British heroes, people who are actually part of our national myth, were taken down. The likes of Churchill, Boudica, Darwin, Kings and Queens, etc.
But why do you care if a statue of some random slaver is taken down? Nobody cares about them. They have no historical or emotional value. Why?
Or is it simply to fight back at your enemy, the woke?
That's not true. I would object to statues or monuments that are prima face offensive. I disagreed with a plaque in a church in Dorchester that celebrated the suppression of a slave rebellion, and used the n-word too. Nor do I feel comfortable with those that show someone of a certain race in public in a subservient position - and there is one on the frieze of the Royal Exchange, for instance.
But I have a traditional conservative attitude to statues and monuments that have been there for a long time, and I think the test should be higher the longer it has been up there. The change should be minimal and it should be absolutely proportionate to the architecture, history and heritage, which should otherwise be conserved.
When I put up a strong defence it's because I think the "problem" they are argued to cause is non-existent (and therefore it's a strawman) or because I think someone is simply looking for villiany (and advancing tenuous arguments to do so) because they want the notoriety for themselves, which I see as narcissistic and selfish.
This isn't a fantasy either. We've seen buildings named after William Gladstone (one of our greatest prime ministers), David Hume (a pillar of the Scottish enlightenment) and Baden Powell (founder of the scout movement that gives pleasures to millions of children) all come under attack in recent months, as well as generals involved in Victorian Wars, just because offence archeologists have found attitudes or statements they made during their lives that are non-U by modern standards somewhere in their past.
Well, balls to that. They don't get to make unilateral (and irrevocable) decisions like that just to satisfy some inner need they have for achievement and attention off the back of a trendy movement.
Not on my watch.
"Not on my watch" Lol!
Like you can actually do anything about it other than harrumph loudly.
I donate monthly to Save our Statues. I have written to the Rhodes Commission, City of London taskforce and Exeter Council. I have lobbied my MP. I have contacted, privately, a couple of my friends in parliament on the matter. I make the argument to friends and colleagues.
So, yeah, it might be harrumphing loudly. But I bet it's a lot more than you do.
Keep going. And bravo.
I detest the molestation of our heritage at the whim of a mob. And it was a mob that chucked Colston in the river in Bristol.
Was his statue problematic? Yes. Of course.
Is it OK therefore, for a bunch of Covid-dodging students to just casually chuck him in the water?
Absolutely not. Prosecute these vandals.
If you want to bring down a statue, have a democratic vote on it, or elect a council/assembly/parliament that has this policy in its manifesto, explicitly. I am not sure a single council, assembly, parliament in the UK has ever been elected on a platform of official iconoclasm. If they are, then fair enough. Tear the statues down.
All the polls show that the public seriously dislike mob-handed statue-destroying. We have recently seen extra evidence of the dangerous madness of mobs, in Washington DC.
We are a democracy. Do it legally, calmly, democratically. If that doesn't work, then put the statues in context. Put up a plaque to explain why many people are offended by its existence. This stuff isn't hard.
I'm not sure what you are arguing here. I certainly don't support the mob's right to tear down statues and nor do most people on here.
But there's certainly a massive gulf between "Rhodes must fall to the mob" and "donate to Save our Statues" which is the most laughable organisation I've ever heard.
Save our Statues is an organisation who's website has the Cenotaph and Winston Churchill on the front page and yet I am willing to bet only a good 5% of the population, at best, would want to "tear those down". What a load of fear-mongering tosh.
Transport numbers in Lockdown 3 are stabilising - Tube passenger numbers are 15% of pre-Covid numbers with bus passenger numbers a third of pre-Covid and national rail also 15% of pre-Covid.
I see Matt Hancock continues to state the case a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine produces an efficacy of 89% between Days 15 ad 21. Okay - what I find curious is why we are offering second vaccinations if all that does is increase the efficacy from 89% to 92% - that sounds marginal to me.
Hancock's figures contradict Pfizer's own data but if we have genuinely proved a single dose of the vaccine conveys 89% efficacy after three weeks, so be it.
I'm a bit Victor Meldrew to be honest about it.
Anyway, if we only need to provide one vaccination after all, it does suggest we can vaccinate more people more quickly and ease restrictions more quickly, er, doesn't it?
In England, nearly 4 million have been vaccinated including 430,000 who have had two vaccinations. That's about 1 in 14 of the whole population or 7%. Across the United Kingdom, there are 25 million people over the age of 50.
As others have said, in terms of the very elderly, it seems likely the "quick wins" have been done and it's now a question of getting the vaccine to the mobility impaired or others who cannot travel to a GP or vaccination centre.
In East Ham High Street today, shades of last spring with queues outside Sainsbury's and Lidl - mask wearing still far from universal though being enforced in some shops.
Plenty of over 80s have not yet been vaccinated; my 83 year old mum has still heard nothing.
Make the phonecall, some GPs are very slow and tbh, you shouldn't wait now. The government should now say all remaining 80 year olds xan phone up for appointments if they've yet to be contacted.
Basically the government just needs to get on with it. We need 1m jabs a day now!
I know that some vaccination centres are not as busy as they might be, and in those places younger people could be invited to take up slots if no-one else wants them.
If an organisation wants to rename their building, who cares?
If an organisation wants to move certain statues to a museum, who cares?
You are always clamouring on about the "woke" imposing their views on others and yet here you are imposing your views on others.
You are very institutionalist. The environment belongs to us collectively; the likes of the City of London are delegated to look after bits of it for us, they aren't absolute beneficial owners who can do what the hell they like and it's none of our business.
Why would I care what someone's random building was called? Why would our society care what someone's random building was called?
If someone replaced a statue on the facade of their building, why would I care? Why would our society care?
I'm sorry to say that if your biggest gripe in life is such things, you must live an incredibly privileged life.
It's middle class problems to the extreme.
Drunk driver's fallacy there. I can think about more than one thing at a time.
Calling things "random" is a curious way of trivialising them. The slave trade was just some random white men shipping some random Africans across the Atlantic, so is it ok not to mind about it?
But on the whole they aren't important to either our national myth or to civic pride.
If you took 100 teenagers to the City and asked them how many of the people who have statues they recognised, how many do you think they would recognise?
And then ask yourself, does it matter how many they recognise?
I'm all for statues. I love public art and feel it should be encouraged. But statues of random men with no real artistic merit? Who cares? Maybe we could do better with those plinths and facades?
OK, up to a point, if you have a strict no removal without firm replacement plan policy. Your 100 teenagers might be better off being taught about the people they don't recognise, though; if you disagree you are going to have to commit to replacing all your statues once every Scottish generation to keep au courant.
Once again, they aren't random. The only one I can recall offhand from my City days is the Duke of Wellington.
The Duke of Wellington is the kind of statue we should have. A bloke most people are familiar with and who has a significant impact on British culture. Same with Baden Powell.
Remember when everyone used to say Klopp was "a breath of fresh air"? Seems a long time ago now.
He still is.
Haters going to hate when he started to win the big trophies.
Not a Liverpool fan but god do I wish my team had Klopp as manager. Not just supremely good at what he does but, from everything I have read and seen about him, a genuinely good bloke as well.
Isn't one function of the second shot to prolong the protection? So even if the increase in efficacy is marginal it stays that way for many months longer.
Pfizer never claimed that - they did say efficacy improved to 95% seven days after the second vaccination where it was only 52% twelve days after the first.
It now seems the improvement in efficacy is so rapid between days 12 and 21 from the original vaccination we don't really need a second vaccination but as you say how long would such immunity last without a second vaccination?
Perhaps we're testing that by having a second vaccination three months rather than three weeks after the first - we'll see.
Antibodies go up 10 fold from day 21 booster to 28. That may be particularly important in the elderly, due to immunosenesence and also to suppress viral replication and preventing transmission. It isn't just about prolongation.
Transport numbers in Lockdown 3 are stabilising - Tube passenger numbers are 15% of pre-Covid numbers with bus passenger numbers a third of pre-Covid and national rail also 15% of pre-Covid.
I see Matt Hancock continues to state the case a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine produces an efficacy of 89% between Days 15 ad 21. Okay - what I find curious is why we are offering second vaccinations if all that does is increase the efficacy from 89% to 92% - that sounds marginal to me.
Hancock's figures contradict Pfizer's own data but if we have genuinely proved a single dose of the vaccine conveys 89% efficacy after three weeks, so be it.
I'm a bit Victor Meldrew to be honest about it.
Anyway, if we only need to provide one vaccination after all, it does suggest we can vaccinate more people more quickly and ease restrictions more quickly, er, doesn't it?
In England, nearly 4 million have been vaccinated including 430,000 who have had two vaccinations. That's about 1 in 14 of the whole population or 7%. Across the United Kingdom, there are 25 million people over the age of 50.
As others have said, in terms of the very elderly, it seems likely the "quick wins" have been done and it's now a question of getting the vaccine to the mobility impaired or others who cannot travel to a GP or vaccination centre.
In East Ham High Street today, shades of last spring with queues outside Sainsbury's and Lidl - mask wearing still far from universal though being enforced in some shops.
Plenty of over 80s have not yet been vaccinated; my 83 year old mum has still heard nothing.
Make the phonecall, some GPs are very slow and tbh, you shouldn't wait now. The government should now say all remaining 80 year olds xan phone up for appointments if they've yet to be contacted.
Yes, I would but... she's very independent and won't allow me or my brother to get involved on her behalf. And without her consent, the practice is unlikely to speak to us.
Comments
There may well be specific cases where dredging would help but they are few and far between.
The catchments need fixing. Fortunately, there are several groups working on this, funded to a large degree by the water companies (who don't want silted up reservoirs or rivers either). Don't drain the swamp!
Wise up.
We are not getting out.
Not this year.
Lots of people in most countries of the globe have probably said the love their country and its history at some point, it doesn't mean they must celebrate particular elements, though there may be parts they choose to. It doesn't seem like love of a country or history need be taken quite so literally or exhaustively.
As it happens I probably would celebrate the execution of Charles and the restoration. In the long run it led to a pretty decent constitutional settlement. And it is very interesting.
I love the stories that are told within and around these isles. No it is not particularly rational to be more interested in them than ones in other places when so long ago some of it was not really 'this' country, but rationality doesn't always matter.
Like you can actually do anything about it other than harrumph loudly.
The common thread being moving from autocratic monarchy to constitutional monarchy.
It's a fascinating story and I have no problems with statues of both.
Pyramids, the biggest monuments to slavers on earth, will be safe.
The only other thing that could stop this is some sort of financial collapse or break down in order. Which may come.
In the end, the only thing that will stop it is the voters deciding when they have had enough. Or the conservative MPs. And the latter just won't.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/21/right-condemns-china-over-its-uighur-abuses-left-must-do
So, yeah, it might be harrumphing loudly. But I bet it's a lot more than you do.
Ripping things up, starting over and trying new things is a key part of our culture that made Britain successful.
I fear we are stuck in nostalgia.
If an organisation wants to rename their building, who cares?
If an organisation wants to move certain statues to a museum, who cares?
You are always clamouring on about the "woke" imposing their views on others and yet here you are imposing your views on others.
In this case, it must be said that the regulations are fairly watertight (hoho) with not much room for ambiguity, and we're not the only country to have suffered.
Here is a simple non scholarly summary.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/egyptians/pyramid_builders_01.shtml
We build and create plenty of new things, places and processes - we're not merely reliving the past, nor are we in danger of wiping everything clean in some year zero nonsense.
I think we all just like arguing that things must change/must not change too much. I'd heard it was paid labourers, though in good pedant fashion he did say monuments to slavers, which they surely were, regardless of construction.
Relatively few are of anyone most people have heard of. Even fewer are of great artistic merit.
Take tea. A core part of what it is to be English. But if it was down to conservative minded folk from days gone by we would never have touched the nasty stuff.
The British are a complex mix of radicals, adventurers and conservatives. The conservatives may hate us radicals, but they need us.
Transport numbers in Lockdown 3 are stabilising - Tube passenger numbers are 15% of pre-Covid numbers with bus passenger numbers a third of pre-Covid and national rail also 15% of pre-Covid.
I see Matt Hancock continues to state the case a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine produces an efficacy of 89% between Days 15 ad 21. Okay - what I find curious is why we are offering second vaccinations if all that does is increase the efficacy from 89% to 92% - that sounds marginal to me.
Hancock's figures contradict Pfizer's own data but if we have genuinely proved a single dose of the vaccine conveys 89% efficacy after three weeks, so be it.
I'm a bit Victor Meldrew to be honest about it.
Anyway, if we only need to provide one vaccination after all, it does suggest we can vaccinate more people more quickly and ease restrictions more quickly, er, doesn't it?
In England, nearly 4 million have been vaccinated including 430,000 who have had two vaccinations. That's about 1 in 14 of the whole population or 7%. Across the United Kingdom, there are 25 million people over the age of 50.
As others have said, in terms of the very elderly, it seems likely the "quick wins" have been done and it's now a question of getting the vaccine to the mobility impaired or others who cannot travel to a GP or vaccination centre.
In East Ham High Street today, shades of last spring with queues outside Sainsbury's and Lidl - mask wearing still far from universal though being enforced in some shops.
These are monuments to significant historical figures in our public spaces and national institutions that our civic society has taken for granted, often for generations. The case to modify that should naturally need to be a very strong one with a high degree of public consensus.
So it's quite the opposite: I'm not imposing my view on anyone since I'm not proposing any change; I'm stopping others from imposing theirs on everyone else with kneejerk reactions.
Which was brave, but always doomed to failure because the whole point about Krause is that he is totally introverted and nobody around him knows what he’s thinking - except the reader.
Which left a perfectly competent action movie, but not much more. A bit like the average Hornblower adaptation, and for the same reason.
If someone replaced a statue on the facade of their building, why would I care? Why would our society care?
I'm sorry to say that if your biggest gripe in life is such things, you must live an incredibly privileged life.
It's middle class problems to the extreme.
Good discussion all.
I'd like to see scholarly articles refuting the claims made in that fullfact website, which had extensive references throughout. I am not denying that it can be useful, but the claim that EU regulations have somehow caused excess flooding does not seem to be proven.
No, your supper is beckoning.
I have equal contempt for those obsessed with removing statues and for those obsessed with keeping them.
Calling things "random" is a curious way of trivialising them. The slave trade was just some random white men shipping some random Africans across the Atlantic, so is it ok not to mind about it?
The wider problem, however, in government and in certain sections of the public & media is the do something mentality which results in this slew of stories and statements. Restrictions barely got a chance to start and the stories were about adding more and more.
That there is no firm timetable is not unexpected. The approach seems to be similar to what happens to inpatients. They suggest you might be discharged tomorrow then the consultant comes in and says 'no we need to keep you one more day' . Its not so bad after you've been there a week to be told to hang on for another day. I haven't met anyone who thinks anything will shift before late March.
Science, however does need to be followed on the vaccinations and I have my doubts that the NHS is flexible enough to manage it. Some vaccines such as AZs are apparently fine with long gaps between dose 1 & 2. The mRNAs appear not so good with that. Are they going to address that and work according to the manufacturers suggested vaccine protocol? I haven't heard anything to suggest that yet, so far it appears to be a blanket stretching out of doses 1 &2 unless someone can tell me something different. A lot of airtime has been expended on the Israeli outputs on the Pfizer dose 1 impact being lower than manufacturers suggestions. Less said about the two dose impacts outputs which appear rather good.
The latter figure would, of course, have been 383% if there were independence.
Everyone will be happy.
Note that residents of Puyallup Valley downstream from Mt Rainier DO have benefit of early-warning system in case of eruption accompanied by lahar = clastic mudflow(s); sirens will sound giving them up to 30 minutes or thereabouts to flee to higher ground on either side of the deluge.
Just kidding. About Tacoma being expendable that is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbmWbco-CLI
It now seems the improvement in efficacy is so rapid between days 12 and 21 from the original vaccination we don't really need a second vaccination but as you say how long would such immunity last without a second vaccination?
Perhaps we're testing that by having a second vaccination three months rather than three weeks after the first - we'll see.
If you took 100 teenagers to the City and asked them how many of the people who have statues they recognised, how many do you think they would recognise?
And then ask yourself, does it matter how many they recognise?
I'm all for statues. I love public art and feel it should be encouraged. But statues of random men with no real artistic merit? Who cares? Maybe we could do better with those plinths and facades?
Yorkshire doctors are awesome.
I detest the molestation of our heritage at the whim of a mob. And it was a mob that chucked Colston in the river in Bristol.
Was his statue problematic? Yes. Of course.
Is it OK therefore, for a bunch of Covid-dodging students to just casually chuck him in the water?
Absolutely not. Prosecute these vandals.
If you want to bring down a statue, have a democratic vote on it, or elect a council/assembly/parliament that has this policy in its manifesto, explicitly. I am not sure a single council, assembly, parliament in the UK has ever been elected on a platform of official iconoclasm. If they are, then fair enough. Tear the statues down.
All the polls show that the public seriously dislike mob-handed statue-destroying. We have recently seen extra evidence of the dangerous madness of mobs, in Washington DC.
We are a democracy. Do it legally, calmly, democratically. If that doesn't work, then put the statues in context. Put up a plaque to explain why many people are offended by its existence. This stuff isn't hard.
Yeah yeah they're both the same bla bla
(I think you may have misplaced a comma. With amusing consequences.)
Once again, they aren't random. The only one I can recall offhand from my City days is the Duke of Wellington.
Me of all people not using a comma correctly.
Dictatorships with such global ambitions do not share. Don't give them a single inch.
Edit. I see @OnlyLivingBoy made the point rather eloquently.
Haters going to hate when he started to win the big trophies.
Also, a bit of a slaver
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/aug/03/wilberforce-slavery-sierra-leone
Look at him. He is completely at sea mentally, he has no plan, or timetable, or vision, to get us out of this. At all.
Same area code for Newcastle and Sunderland.
But there's certainly a massive gulf between "Rhodes must fall to the mob" and "donate to Save our Statues" which is the most laughable organisation I've ever heard.
Save our Statues is an organisation who's website has the Cenotaph and Winston Churchill on the front page and yet I am willing to bet only a good 5% of the population, at best, would want to "tear those down". What a load of fear-mongering tosh.
I'm not arguing with someone who thinks the father of Kamala Harris isn't a black man.