Despite the comment below about 80-somethings in some cases being asked to cross London for jabs, I am astonished at how smoothly this vaccine rollout is going.
I was expecting a lot of hiccups but, let's be honest, they're relatively few and far between as the lovely Louise Lear is fond of describing showers.
This is not a straightforward country, or cluster of countries, for such a logistical exercise for all sorts of reasons, not least our refusal to entertain national identity cards.
Nobody has answered the point about the decline or the Liberals in Wales.
Presume - like the rest of the country - Labour supplanted them as the country industrialised. It probably happened later in Wales due to the sheer hold of rural Methodist style culture.
I guess Libs last redoubt is as a competitor to the Tories in Anglo rural areas.
The LibDems are now the party of the (largely) affluent Anglo-incomer & the Anglo-farming vote. So, probably they will remain quite competitive in Powys.
The LibDems were competitive in Ceredigion (2 universities, Aber & Lampeter), Cardiff Central (dominated by the University) & Swansea West (most of Swansea Uni) until quite recently. (The Bangor University vote has always been quite strongly Labour -- it is why Labour remain very competitive in Arfon).
I think the students & University vote will take a long time to forgive and forget.
Remarkable how Cleggy Ratnered the LibDems with tuition fees.
The LDs haven’t had a good leader since Charlie Kennedy.
The Cleggasm was a weird form of centrist populism. Clegg himself was/is strategically stupid. The LDs ought to have renounced their tuition fees lunacy in the last Parliament.
Of course, they totally ignore the EU shambles on the vaccine and the UK's stellar rollout which for the next 2 years matters far more than a few rotting haddock.
I wouldn't call the rollout by the UK of vaccines as "stellar". It only has that appearance because the EU isn't as good and the trade deal negotiated by the liar in chief is so crap.
The EU vaccine situation is an utter and absolute shambles
And yes, the UK's vaccine rollout is stellar. We pre-ordered in bulk from multiple developers: the greatest policy decision by any Government since the second world war. No exaggeration.
We have now jabbed nearly 10% of the adult population placing us roughly 3rd in the world. Our backing of Astra Zeneca and rollout of that has been a triumph.
It is an absolutely stellar achievement. Quite simply the greatest of my lifetime by any Government I have witnessed.
yours, a Labour voter last time.
It was a reasonably good idea. Even a very good idea. But let's not elevate it to "Two world wars, one world cup and a vaccine rollout" status, shall we? Not when we are unchallenged numero uno worldbeaters when it comes to deaths per head of population.
Obviously not comparable to a game of football and it's far better than our performance in the first world war.
We did okay in the second world war. Plenty of errors, much bravery, some luck and a great leader. But more than anything, the Americans.
So I will elevate it and so will the Conservatives backed by the press. When we've beaten this fucker, which we will in a matter of months, you are going to have to retreat to a hermitage because there will be praise for this Government's vaccine triumph like nothing else you've ever witnessed. Deservedly so.
We won the First World War, in case you hadn’t noticed.
As for the Second World War, it was the Soviets as much as the Americans .
I don't think anyone won the first world war. It was a catastrophe for humanity. I've visited more WWI war graves and sites than probably anyone on this forum so don't think I'm unsympathetic to what you are saying. I just don't think it was a victory for anyone. One massive disaster from start to finish. And even if the Daily Mail rants about Blackadder in the classroom, the fact is that the immortal line contains a lot of truth:
'Field Marshal Haig is about to make yet another gargantuan effort to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin.'
I agree of course about the Soviets but had the Americans not intervened that begs a whole other question about where the USSR would have halted and how that might have shaped things.
In many ways Adolf Hitler lost the second world war rather than we won it. He was a military muppet. Anyone with a half-working normal brain would have learned the lesson of Napoleon's catastrophic eastern campaign and would have buttoned up the western front before launching east.
But which lesson from history should Hitler have followed ?
Russian resistance in 1812 or Russia's lack of resistance in 1917 ?
The single lesson should have been that Russia endured in both cases, even with its largest city taken.
Hitler had no problem with a permanent state of war in order to stop the German people from becoming 'soft'.
Permanent states of war tend to stop being permanent sooner or later (though Afghanistan is having a damned good try). Of course in the end the German people did prove to be too soft for oor Adolf, much to his chagrin.
Of course, they totally ignore the EU shambles on the vaccine and the UK's stellar rollout which for the next 2 years matters far more than a few rotting haddock.
Vaccines are more important than fish right now, no question about that, but I think it's still ok to post about fish. Last night for example, being Friday, we took advantage of a special delivery offer on cod & chips, 2 portions + mushy peas, £15 inc delivery - good value. We'd done the same several times last year but this was the first time in 2021, i.e. since the Thin Deal and consequent meltdown of the fishing industry. And guess what, the retail end is (surprise surprise) not immune to the chaos in the wholesale markets. The chips were great, and so were the mushies. Both of the usual high standard. But the fish was not. The fish was disappointing. For the first time ever the fish was disappointing. It was cooked ok but its overall condition told of a very difficult, downright brexity journey from sea to North London fryer. Bottom line, Brexit ruins my Friday fish & chips. Thank you Leavers. I'm not making this up or exaggerating btw. It's 100% solid anecdata.
It's clearly a made up story. Nobody south of Nottingham would ever eat mushy peas.
I'm calling it. You're a high-grade Russian bot with excellent knowledge of Britain but you've just had your "good luck / thank you" moment.
I know you're joking, at least I assume you are, but having been on the receiving end of being called a bot on here can I politely suggest we desist? It's a rather low-grade way of attempting to put down an 'opponent.'
It was a low-grade way of putting down mushy peas. But I agree, mushy peas should not be put down. They should be flung away, with energetic resolve.
I have had mushy peas here in Bucks before, and liked them. Mind you I also like the pickled Brussel Sprouts I had at Christmas, so my recommendation is not going to suit everyone.
Pickled Brussel Sprouts?! Isn't there some clause in the Geneva Convention banning them? (I like sprouts and I like pickled vegetables but I confess that combination had not occurred to me)
No, Geneva bans the use of chemical weapons. You're looking for the 1993 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction which prohibits the manufacture.
The people who drafted that obviously didn't consider the need for a definition of the point of use of a pickled sprout as a chemical weapon.
Boris getting grief for not waiting another week or two for more data before announcing this....Newsnight last night gave him grief for waiting so long for warning about chances of this...and the journalist at the press conference asked why they weren't talking about another paper that said was 90% more deadly.
Of course, they totally ignore the EU shambles on the vaccine and the UK's stellar rollout which for the next 2 years matters far more than a few rotting haddock.
Vaccines are more important than fish right now, no question about that, but I think it's still ok to post about fish. Last night for example, being Friday, we took advantage of a special delivery offer on cod & chips, 2 portions + mushy peas, £15 inc delivery - good value. We'd done the same several times last year but this was the first time in 2021, i.e. since the Thin Deal and consequent meltdown of the fishing industry. And guess what, the retail end is (surprise surprise) not immune to the chaos in the wholesale markets. The chips were great, and so were the mushies. Both of the usual high standard. But the fish was not. The fish was disappointing. For the first time ever the fish was disappointing. It was cooked ok but its overall condition told of a very difficult, downright brexity journey from sea to North London fryer. Bottom line, Brexit ruins my Friday fish & chips. Thank you Leavers. I'm not making this up or exaggerating btw. It's 100% solid anecdata.
It's clearly a made up story. Nobody south of Nottingham would ever eat mushy peas.
I'm calling it. You're a high-grade Russian bot with excellent knowledge of Britain but you've just had your "good luck / thank you" moment.
I know you're joking, at least I assume you are, but having been on the receiving end of being called a bot on here can I politely suggest we desist? It's a rather low-grade way of attempting to put down an 'opponent.'
It was a low-grade way of putting down mushy peas. But I agree, mushy peas should not be put down. They should be flung away, with energetic resolve.
I have had mushy peas here in Bucks before, and liked them. Mind you I also like the pickled Brussel Sprouts I had at Christmas, so my recommendation is not going to suit everyone.
Pickled Brussel Sprouts?! Isn't there some clause in the Geneva Convention banning them? (I like sprouts and I like pickled vegetables but I confess that combination had not occurred to me)
No, Geneva bans the use of chemical weapons. You're looking for the 1993 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction which prohibits the manufacture.
The people who drafted that obviously didn't consider the need for a definition of the point of use of a pickled sprout as a chemical weapon.
The picked sprout is very clearly a precursor. It's not going to do any last harm on its own. But once it's... processed...
Out of the loop on this one. What were they posting to cause the ban?
Freedom to publish and freedom to compel a communicator to publish you are of course two very different things, as anyone who has sent their first novel to Penguin will know.
Facebook - an organisation I like about as much as I like the SWP - wants of course to have the rights of being a publisher and of merely being a platform like the phone system at the same time, while having the duties of neither.
Declining to be a platform or publisher for the grotesque left or right is very different from cancel culture.
Whitty was absolutely clear about this once again yesterday. Given the level of protection given by 1 dose you save the most lives by putting as many first doses in as many people as possible. Yes, it is a bit more of a risk for those who already had one dose but the overall benefit is clear and only completely selfish gits would be demanding a second dose when so many have not had one. In fairness, I have not heard anyone who has had the first dose complaining, just people trying to stir up trouble supposedly on their behalf. Its ridiculous.
Joan 'no mansion tax' Bakewell wants the oldies to get the second dose so they can go to restaurants.
That’s nearly as bad as Janet Street-Porter, 74, who claims she’s “being treated like a third-class passenger on the Titanic” becuase she’s having to wait in line with everyone else.
On the successful vaccine rollout in the UK, I wonder how much the UK being a centralised country has helped? Many complaun about it, but we shouldnt decentralise for the sake of it.
On Reform UK , it is amazing that Farage can start a brand new party and overnight almost it gets the same % as the libdems with little covreage.
On the successful vaccine rollout in the UK, I wonder how much the UK being a centralised country has helped? Many complaun about it, but we shouldnt decentralise for the sake of it.
On Reform UK , it is amazing that Farage can start a brand new party and overnight almost it gets the same % as the libdems with little covreage.
Guernsey back in lockdown - 4 unidentified source cases in community identified & confirmed yesterday evening - so non-essential retail, hospitality, schools shut, wearing of face masks strongly recommended - press conference given by politicians/drs wearing masks. Further updates to follow.
Out of the loop on this one. What were they posting to cause the ban?
Freedom to publish and freedom to compel a communicator to publish you are of course two very different things, as anyone who has sent their first novel to Penguin will know.
Facebook - an organisation I like about as much as I like the SWP - wants of course to have the rights of being a publisher and of merely being a platform like the phone system at the same time, while having the duties of neither.
Declining to be a platform or publisher for the grotesque left or right is very different from cancel culture.
Facebook needs to decide if it’s a publisher or a town square. Having one’s cake and eating it isn’t sustainable.
Even as someone who intently dislikes the SWP and all they stand for, they still have a right to say what they want to say.
Actually ... and I no fan of Paul Davies ... it seems a pretty minor infringement.
My guess is he has taken advantage of the mess to do a Jackson Carlaw,
He has realised that he is not the best person to lead the Welsh Tory party.
Is there a glittering star in the Welsh Tory firmament that would match Douglas Ross as a successor?
Paul Davies was totally dark, a neutron star.
I am not sure there is a main sequence star in the Welsh Tory firmament -- but I expect they can find a low luminosity subdwarf, giving out a dim light.
Slightly odd to be recruiting Nazi saluting dog defender of free speech guy to make your point.
Jewish comedian David Baddiel defended the dog joke, saying it was making fun of the Nazis.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=taC-sc5UVuo
Well, it's all about interpretation I guess. Personally having the support of Tommy Robinson and Paul Joseph Watson might give me pause on considering someone's commitment to making fun of the Nazis.
I still think it's odd that Effingtory 'You can offend me all day long, it's your right. Free Speech.' is quote tweeting Count Dankula 'Free-Speech advocate' about people saying antisemitic stuff.
Charles Kennedy wasn't a very good leader - apart from Iraq, which was a personal and policy success, there was very little policy development of any kind. Kennedy had the good fortune of inheriting a Party with a strong local Government base at a time of almost unprecedented Conservative weakness - he faced Hague, IDS and Howard.
When Cameron became Conservative leader, the LDs had no response to his move back to the centre just as the Conservatives never came up with a serious response to Blair after 1994. Kennedy's personal demons notwithstanding, there was no intellectual or political response to Cameron apart from first to try wisdom over youth with Menzies Campbell and when that didn't work to decide imitation was the sincerest form of flattery.
Kennedy frankly coasted along as leader and while I liked the man enormously, he was not Party leader material.
The "Cleggasm" as you call it was nothing to do with centrist populism (whatever that is). Clegg used the first tv debate in 2010 to outsmart Cameron and Brown by imitating what Clinton had done in his debates. Clegg was new, young, telegenic, articulate and at a time of huge anxiety in the wake of the global financial crisis that was a huge advantage.
The problem was no one had a coherent policy answer to the events of 2008 - the centre left were broken and all the centre right had to offer was "austerity" (which never really happened) predicated on the notion the deficit needed to be closed not by raising taxes AND by cutting spending but more or less wholly by the latter.
As far as tuition fees were concerned, Clegg was hijacked by the Party which was competitive in a number of University towns and to court the student vote candidates signed pledges to scrap tuition fees. Electorally initially hugely successful but it was an issue at a time when the Government was trying to curb public expenditure.
The Party had a choice - either stand there and tell non-students public services were being cut but fees were being scrapped or renege on the policy. The error was to choose the latter not the former but the main error was allowing policy to be made during a campaign and not having candidates disciplined enough to avoid jumping on each and every bandwagon.
One more thing - AV was never LD policy. The problem was Clegg felt he had to throw the Party a bone as the price for supporting the Conservatives. The Tories wouldn't even have STV on a ballot paper such was their terror of the political implications of adopting such a system (they could have killed it stone dead of course) - Clegg didn't think he could go back with nothing so AV became a half way house and I suspect Clegg felt hubristically he could get it passed through his magnetism and personality.
The problem was Clegg didn't even have the support of his Party so the chances of getting the support of the country were nil and the political humiliation of rejection denuded what little political capital he still had.
Out of the loop on this one. What were they posting to cause the ban?
Freedom to publish and freedom to compel a communicator to publish you are of course two very different things, as anyone who has sent their first novel to Penguin will know.
Facebook - an organisation I like about as much as I like the SWP - wants of course to have the rights of being a publisher and of merely being a platform like the phone system at the same time, while having the duties of neither.
Declining to be a platform or publisher for the grotesque left or right is very different from cancel culture.
Facebook needs to decide if it’s a publisher or a town square. Having one’s cake and eating it isn’t sustainable.
Even as someone who intently dislikes the SWP and all they stand for, they still have a right to say what they want to say.
As we know the 3-4 tech giants are also rarely acting alone. When they decide to unperson somebody or something, they overwhelming act together and you basically can't run an online business without them.
It is more than the analogy of being a twat in the pub and getting barred, you are being barred from every pub and restaurant and stopped from buying booze in any shop....for life.
There isn't an easy solution, but a solution needs to be found...the status quo is not acceptable
I don't need any geography lessons on that part of the world, as I have spent a huge amount of time there. It is why I get so angry these absolute bellends are ruining the place.
Out of the loop on this one. What were they posting to cause the ban?
Freedom to publish and freedom to compel a communicator to publish you are of course two very different things, as anyone who has sent their first novel to Penguin will know.
Facebook - an organisation I like about as much as I like the SWP - wants of course to have the rights of being a publisher and of merely being a platform like the phone system at the same time, while having the duties of neither.
Declining to be a platform or publisher for the grotesque left or right is very different from cancel culture.
Facebook needs to decide if it’s a publisher or a town square. Having one’s cake and eating it isn’t sustainable.
Even as someone who intently dislikes the SWP and all they stand for, they still have a right to say what they want to say.
As we know the 3-4 tech giants are also rarely acting alone. When they decide to unperson somebody or something, they overwhelming act together and you basically can't run an online business without them.
It is more than the analogy of being a twat in the pub and getting barred, you are being barred from every pub and restaurant and stopped from buying booze in any shop....for life.
There isn't an easy solution, but a solution needs to be found...the status quo is not acceptable
Yes, a group of monopsonists acting in parallel is a clear anti-trust collusion.
The one that really got me was AWS’ takedown of Parler. That’s the equivalent of the phone company disconnecting you, because someone said something naughty in a phone call.
So we are approaching the year mark of the UK actually responding to covid. At what point does the government seriously consider giving everyone a reusable respirator mask? It's going to be a while before everyone gets the second dose.
Out of the loop on this one. What were they posting to cause the ban?
Freedom to publish and freedom to compel a communicator to publish you are of course two very different things, as anyone who has sent their first novel to Penguin will know.
Facebook - an organisation I like about as much as I like the SWP - wants of course to have the rights of being a publisher and of merely being a platform like the phone system at the same time, while having the duties of neither.
Declining to be a platform or publisher for the grotesque left or right is very different from cancel culture.
Facebook needs to decide if it’s a publisher or a town square. Having one’s cake and eating it isn’t sustainable.
Even as someone who intently dislikes the SWP and all they stand for, they still have a right to say what they want to say.
As we know the 3-4 tech giants are also rarely acting alone. When they decide to unperson somebody or something, they overwhelming act together and you basically can't run an online business without them.
It is more than the analogy of being a twat in the pub and getting barred, you are being barred from every pub and restaurant and stopped from buying booze in any shop....for life.
There isn't an easy solution, but a solution needs to be found...the status quo is not acceptable
Yes, a group of monopsonists acting in parallel is a clear anti-trust collusion.
The one that really got me was AWS’ takedown of Parler. That’s the equivalent of the phone company disconnecting you, because someone said something naughty in a phone call.
There was a great article i posted the other day that explained just how its isnt just AWS, there are so many services you need to facilitate business that you must buy from a very small number of tech companies, unless you a) spend crazy money doing it yourself or b) buy from russians or chinese companies.
Reading the moaning and whingeing that passes for comment from American conservatives and their allies (as someone said about another vote, "you lost, get over it"), I'm struck by the complaint that there is nowhere for conservatives to talk to each other.
Platforms like Facebook, Google, Twitter and Parler are apparently conducting a witch hunt against conservative voices so they are all running away to other platforms (echo chambers).
Now, as a liberal, I have to believe in Freedom of Speech though that concept is much more complex and nuanced than it sounds. It's often the volume and quality of the speech that causes issues not the fact of it. There seems this curious notion that people only want to listen to opinions and voices who agree with them. People like people like themselves I've always been told so I suppose that is a universal concept.
Rather like Cheers, it's not just a question of a place where everybody knows your name but everyone is glad you came. Security, safety and comfort in the online world comes from a place where everyone is like you, thinks like you and sees the world as you do.
Out of the loop on this one. What were they posting to cause the ban?
Freedom to publish and freedom to compel a communicator to publish you are of course two very different things, as anyone who has sent their first novel to Penguin will know.
Facebook - an organisation I like about as much as I like the SWP - wants of course to have the rights of being a publisher and of merely being a platform like the phone system at the same time, while having the duties of neither.
Declining to be a platform or publisher for the grotesque left or right is very different from cancel culture.
Facebook needs to decide if it’s a publisher or a town square. Having one’s cake and eating it isn’t sustainable.
Even as someone who intently dislikes the SWP and all they stand for, they still have a right to say what they want to say.
As we know the 3-4 tech giants are also rarely acting alone. When they decide to unperson somebody or something, they overwhelming act together and you basically can't run an online business without them.
It is more than the analogy of being a twat in the pub and getting barred, you are being barred from every pub and restaurant and stopped from buying booze in any shop....for life.
There isn't an easy solution, but a solution needs to be found...the status quo is not acceptable
Congrats for finding another far right account inventing fake riots that hasn't yet been booted off Twitter.
A journalist from komo news, a far right inventor of riots...jog on....they are the big local ABC affiliate news station in Seattle.
Another great example of it not being possible to be too woke.
Plenty of Democrats were happily cheering them on last summer when their chants were about Donald Trump the fascist dictator - but now they’re shouting f@#* Joe Biden, and smashing up Democrat party offices.
Out of the loop on this one. What were they posting to cause the ban?
Freedom to publish and freedom to compel a communicator to publish you are of course two very different things, as anyone who has sent their first novel to Penguin will know.
Facebook - an organisation I like about as much as I like the SWP - wants of course to have the rights of being a publisher and of merely being a platform like the phone system at the same time, while having the duties of neither.
Declining to be a platform or publisher for the grotesque left or right is very different from cancel culture.
Indeed, and the bar to getting banned is pretty high. As far as I can tell recent bans are not about having right or left wing views but mostly about promoting violence with some for falsehoods on vaccinations and covid. Promoting violence has always been a red line, unsurprisingly we dont hear much concern about Islamic extremist terrorists being no platformed.
Covid and vaccine deniers is a tougher one, but its temporary and the posts do cause an increase in excess deaths.
Clearly someone was smashing the windows. However quite convenient it happened right in front of a far-right journo.
Oh f##k off. There is 100s of hours of footage of black clad far leftist smashing up Portland and Seattle, intimidating elected officials at their homes, for months on end. It isn't some far right fake news QAnon conspiracy. Even the dripping wet Mayor of Portland has finally acknowledged they have a problem with this crowd.
Two are retiring (Burns & Melding). One has been deselected for being the most unpleasant shit in Welsh politics (Ramsey). Two have been caught up in Drinks-gate (Paul Davies & Darren Miller). One has failed as leader before (Andrew RT Davies). One has been an AM for less than a year, since the death of Mohammed Asgur (Laura Jones). Another has been deselected in mysterious circumstances (Suzy Davies).
We're now down to 3 possibilities: Janet Finch-Saunders, Russel George, Mark Isherwood.
We now rule out the obviously incompetent (George, Finch-Saunders) & the desperately dull (Isherwood) ... there is no-one left.
Mmmm ... I'd say the Welsh Tory's best bet is to reinstate Suzy Davies on the list and appoint her. She is not very bright, but I think she is good at campaigning, which is what they need now. Or they parachute someone in.
Big_G's opinion would be interesting -- he must know some of these folks.
Out of the loop on this one. What were they posting to cause the ban?
Freedom to publish and freedom to compel a communicator to publish you are of course two very different things, as anyone who has sent their first novel to Penguin will know.
Facebook - an organisation I like about as much as I like the SWP - wants of course to have the rights of being a publisher and of merely being a platform like the phone system at the same time, while having the duties of neither.
Declining to be a platform or publisher for the grotesque left or right is very different from cancel culture.
Facebook needs to decide if it’s a publisher or a town square. Having one’s cake and eating it isn’t sustainable.
Even as someone who intently dislikes the SWP and all they stand for, they still have a right to say what they want to say.
As we know the 3-4 tech giants are also rarely acting alone. When they decide to unperson somebody or something, they overwhelming act together and you basically can't run an online business without them.
It is more than the analogy of being a twat in the pub and getting barred, you are being barred from every pub and restaurant and stopped from buying booze in any shop....for life.
There isn't an easy solution, but a solution needs to be found...the status quo is not acceptable
Yes, a group of monopsonists acting in parallel is a clear anti-trust collusion.
The one that really got me was AWS’ takedown of Parler. That’s the equivalent of the phone company disconnecting you, because someone said something naughty in a phone call.
There was a great article i posted the other day that explained just how its isnt just AWS, there are so many services you need to facilitate business that you must buy from a very small number of tech companies, unless you a) spend crazy money doing it yourself or b) buy from russians or chinese companies.
Yes, and we’re also seeing mobs going for Visa and MasterCard, trying to get card merchant accounts cancelled.
The end result, as you say, is that Parler is now hosted by a Russian hosting provider, and outside of any reasonable US jurisdiction.
Whitty was absolutely clear about this once again yesterday. Given the level of protection given by 1 dose you save the most lives by putting as many first doses in as many people as possible. Yes, it is a bit more of a risk for those who already had one dose but the overall benefit is clear and only completely selfish gits would be demanding a second dose when so many have not had one. In fairness, I have not heard anyone who has had the first dose complaining, just people trying to stir up trouble supposedly on their behalf. Its ridiculous.
I think it fair that people question the delayed second dose strategy, as it is not what the producer has recommended, however the calculation behind the explanation seems to hold up as a reasonable and proportionate choice, especially given the extremely dire situation we find ourselves in compared to many others.
I'm no risk taker, but they seem to have been open about why this one was taken.
I know it is not a fresh observation, but while one can care about what happens in other countries, given how much these people think is intended to distract from Israeli actions, they really do seem to care more about that issue than literally anything else.
All that would accomplish is no third party (outside the nation specific ones) getting any number of seats for a third party.
Unless they moderate quite a bit I cannot see the Greens competing for second places and dreams of 1st places in places the LDs can still dream. And doing that loses them the main distinguishing feature they have.
I'd missed this - is it appropriate for an "expert" to block other experts?
What the hell happened to scientists challenging and arguing with each other? It’s the whole basis of science - or at least it was, before science started to become political.
Perhaps those people hadn’t been told about that absolutely crucial three-week isolation time: no one in Britain is handed that information in the leaflet given out with the vaccination. Why not?
Clearly someone was smashing the windows. However quite convenient it happened right in front of a far-right journo.
Oh f##k off. There is 100s of hours of footage of black clad far leftist smashing up Portland and Seattle, intimidating elected officials at their homes, for months on end. It isn't some far right fake news QAnon conspiracy. Even the dripping wet Mayor of Portland has finally acknowledged they have a problem with this crowd.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
[Blockquotes muddled above]
Pity the far left - they must have been so envious of the Trumpist occupation of the Capitol...
I'd missed this - is it appropriate for an "expert" to block other experts?
What the hell happened to scientists challenging and arguing with each other? It’s the whole basis of science - or at least it was, before science started to become political.
I'm sure most scientists are still all on board for challenging and arguing. But at what point does someone become, in effect, a politician who happens to be a scientist, rather than a scientist?
Politicians have their uses, but when non politicians become them, they lose a big part of what made them useful or respected.
On the successful vaccine rollout in the UK, I wonder how much the UK being a centralised country has helped? Many complaun about it, but we shouldnt decentralise for the sake of it.
On Reform UK , it is amazing that Farage can start a brand new party and overnight almost it gets the same % as the libdems with little covreage.
Rail investment will benefit disadvantaged communities.
East-West Rail will link Oxford and Cambridge.
Fair enough.
Snow has stopped. Sun is out. Time for a walk.
Wake me up when the announce the reopening of Hexham to Riccarton Junction, the Waverley line, Haltwhistle to Alston, and rebuilding the railway bridge over the Solway from Bowness to Annan.
I'd missed this - is it appropriate for an "expert" to block other experts?
What the hell happened to scientists challenging and arguing with each other? It’s the whole basis of science - or at least it was, before science started to become political.
Professor Sridhar is, insofar as I'm aware, an exceptional case. Overt political bias does not seem to be a feature of the epidemiological community - whether amongst those in favour of the zero Covid strategy or otherwise.
Perhaps those people hadn’t been told about that absolutely crucial three-week isolation time: no one in Britain is handed that information in the leaflet given out with the vaccination. Why not?
All that would accomplish is no third party (outside the nation specific ones) getting any number of seats for a third party.
Unless they moderate quite a bit I cannot see the Greens competing for second places and dreams of 1st places in places the LDs can still dream. And doing that loses them the main distinguishing feature they have.
Indeed. The Greens run essentially to the left of the Corbynite tendency, without their baggage but without their breadth of support either. That just leaves a solid base amongst the small minority of voters whose overriding concern is the environment, but they're too evenly spread to make a decisive difference anywhere.
You do wonder how long they would keep their single seat in Parliament if Dr Lucas got hit by a bus. They're miles from capturing anything else.
Whilst football hasn't covered itself with glory, I do wonder how many workplaces would find similar were they tested as regularly.
But unlike regular work, they spend basically all their time outside and at least in the EPL the clubs are doing everything for them like their shopping so they don't need to go near us plebs. They literally just need to train, go home and stay away from others and then they go to an empty hotel where they do the same.
The players clearly aren't sticking to it though. If you watch Ben Foster on YouTube, he is regularly meeting up with others outside of football, going to bike shops etc.
'Fronted adverbials' are indeed a stupid concept to inflict on children - or human beings of any age - but Rosen as usual spoils his argument with his monomaniacal anti-grammar crusade. The idea that English has no subjunctive is particularly dense.
I'd missed this - is it appropriate for an "expert" to block other experts?
What the hell happened to scientists challenging and arguing with each other? It’s the whole basis of science - or at least it was, before science started to become political.
I'm sure most scientists are still all on board for challenging and arguing. But at what point does someone become, in effect, a politician who happens to be a scientist, rather than a scientist?
Politicians have their uses, but when non politicians become them, they lose a big part of what made them useful or respected.
Academia has long been more political than politics. Try getting your papers published if you annoy the wrong person...
Charles Kennedy wasn't a very good leader - apart from Iraq, which was a personal and policy success, there was very little policy development of any kind. Kennedy had the good fortune of inheriting a Party with a strong local Government base at a time of almost unprecedented Conservative weakness - he faced Hague, IDS and Howard.
When Cameron became Conservative leader, the LDs had no response to his move back to the centre just as the Conservatives never came up with a serious response to Blair after 1994. Kennedy's personal demons notwithstanding, there was no intellectual or political response to Cameron apart from first to try wisdom over youth with Menzies Campbell and when that didn't work to decide imitation was the sincerest form of flattery.
Kennedy frankly coasted along as leader and while I liked the man enormously, he was not Party leader material.
The "Cleggasm" as you call it was nothing to do with centrist populism (whatever that is). Clegg used the first tv debate in 2010 to outsmart Cameron and Brown by imitating what Clinton had done in his debates. Clegg was new, young, telegenic, articulate and at a time of huge anxiety in the wake of the global financial crisis that was a huge advantage.
The problem was no one had a coherent policy answer to the events of 2008 - the centre left were broken and all the centre right had to offer was "austerity" (which never really happened) predicated on the notion the deficit needed to be closed not by raising taxes AND by cutting spending but more or less wholly by the latter.
As far as tuition fees were concerned, Clegg was hijacked by the Party which was competitive in a number of University towns and to court the student vote candidates signed pledges to scrap tuition fees. Electorally initially hugely successful but it was an issue at a time when the Government was trying to curb public expenditure.
The Party had a choice - either stand there and tell non-students public services were being cut but fees were being scrapped or renege on the policy. The error was to choose the latter not the former but the main error was allowing policy to be made during a campaign and not having candidates disciplined enough to avoid jumping on each and every bandwagon.
One more thing - AV was never LD policy. The problem was Clegg felt he had to throw the Party a bone as the price for supporting the Conservatives. The Tories wouldn't even have STV on a ballot paper such was their terror of the political implications of adopting such a system (they could have killed it stone dead of course) - Clegg didn't think he could go back with nothing so AV became a half way house and I suspect Clegg felt hubristically he could get it passed through his magnetism and personality.
The problem was Clegg didn't even have the support of his Party so the chances of getting the support of the country were nil and the political humiliation of rejection denuded what little political capital he still had.
Excellent post.
I used to think Lib Dem councils and seats were untouchable in the mid noughties - impossible to win.
We are lucky to get the quality of Welsh analysis on this Board.
I feel like we lack quality Scottish analysis, for some reason.
Depends rather on where the poster is based. But we could certainly do with a SLABber or two for their perspective. Be too much to hope for a LDer on statistical grounds, I rather suspect.
I'd missed this - is it appropriate for an "expert" to block other experts?
What the hell happened to scientists challenging and arguing with each other? It’s the whole basis of science - or at least it was, before science started to become political.
I'm sure most scientists are still all on board for challenging and arguing. But at what point does someone become, in effect, a politician who happens to be a scientist, rather than a scientist?
Politicians have their uses, but when non politicians become them, they lose a big part of what made them useful or respected.
Academia has long been more political than politics. Try getting your papers published if you annoy the wrong person...
Well sure, everywhere has its politics, and I've heard it said the less important the area the more vicious its politics, but I was thinking more of when they become partisans of national politics.
Brexiters are obsessed with the EU vaccine scheme because it’s about all they’ve got.
Fair enough, it’s a garbage fire.
It's a distraction from the hidden disaster which is importing and especially exporting anything into this country.
Mind you it's not just imports from the EU that is the problem there is a story on the BBC that relates to issues in getting from China as a lot of containers are in the wrong place.
No problems with my D2C business to Europe.
Recipients totally understanding of the VAT issue. They've been doing the same with purchases from the states....
Wait until July when you have to start doing the VAT at your end not at their end
It’s optional for small businesses (ie not Marketplace sales). I won’t be using it. Not least because some of my sales would exceed the upper threshold anyway. Just as I don’t act as the sales tax collector for governments across the world... Most e commerce customers (at least in my sector and a total my level) are savvy enough to know they’ll be liable for import TVA
Charles Kennedy wasn't a very good leader - apart from Iraq, which was a personal and policy success, there was very little policy development of any kind. Kennedy had the good fortune of inheriting a Party with a strong local Government base at a time of almost unprecedented Conservative weakness - he faced Hague, IDS and Howard.
When Cameron became Conservative leader, the LDs had no response to his move back to the centre just as the Conservatives never came up with a serious response to Blair after 1994. Kennedy's personal demons notwithstanding, there was no intellectual or political response to Cameron apart from first to try wisdom over youth with Menzies Campbell and when that didn't work to decide imitation was the sincerest form of flattery.
Kennedy frankly coasted along as leader and while I liked the man enormously, he was not Party leader material.
The "Cleggasm" as you call it was nothing to do with centrist populism (whatever that is). Clegg used the first tv debate in 2010 to outsmart Cameron and Brown by imitating what Clinton had done in his debates. Clegg was new, young, telegenic, articulate and at a time of huge anxiety in the wake of the global financial crisis that was a huge advantage.
The problem was no one had a coherent policy answer to the events of 2008 - the centre left were broken and all the centre right had to offer was "austerity" (which never really happened) predicated on the notion the deficit needed to be closed not by raising taxes AND by cutting spending but more or less wholly by the latter.
As far as tuition fees were concerned, Clegg was hijacked by the Party which was competitive in a number of University towns and to court the student vote candidates signed pledges to scrap tuition fees. Electorally initially hugely successful but it was an issue at a time when the Government was trying to curb public expenditure.
The Party had a choice - either stand there and tell non-students public services were being cut but fees were being scrapped or renege on the policy. The error was to choose the latter not the former but the main error was allowing policy to be made during a campaign and not having candidates disciplined enough to avoid jumping on each and every bandwagon.
One more thing - AV was never LD policy. The problem was Clegg felt he had to throw the Party a bone as the price for supporting the Conservatives. The Tories wouldn't even have STV on a ballot paper such was their terror of the political implications of adopting such a system (they could have killed it stone dead of course) - Clegg didn't think he could go back with nothing so AV became a half way house and I suspect Clegg felt hubristically he could get it passed through his magnetism and personality.
The problem was Clegg didn't even have the support of his Party so the chances of getting the support of the country were nil and the political humiliation of rejection denuded what little political capital he still had.
Excellent post.
I used to think Lib Dem councils and seats were untouchable in the mid noughties - impossible to win.
We forget how much we are creatures of the times.
Stodge's posts are consistently high quality and gives us (or, at least, me) an insight into the workings of a party about which I know nothing about.
300 million views on TikTok for pro Vavalny content.....what has China done....
China and Russia are not natural allies in so many ways. Russia is fearful that is sparsely populated regions in Siberia and the Far East are coveted by China and with good cause as China would love to get its hands on such natural resource rich areas.
I'd missed this - is it appropriate for an "expert" to block other experts?
What the hell happened to scientists challenging and arguing with each other? It’s the whole basis of science - or at least it was, before science started to become political.
The pandemic has amply demonstrated that a person can be eminent in their own field and yet surprisingly ignorant of things adjacent to it never mind far removed, and that now matter how smart and well educated you might be you can also still be a deeply stupid person in a whole load of other ways. The last year has been a real eye-opener.
I'd missed this - is it appropriate for an "expert" to block other experts?
What the hell happened to scientists challenging and arguing with each other? It’s the whole basis of science - or at least it was, before science started to become political.
Professor Sridhar is, insofar as I'm aware, an exceptional case. Overt political bias does not seem to be a feature of the epidemiological community - whether amongst those in favour of the zero Covid strategy or otherwise.
Comments
https://twitter.com/EfffingTory/status/1203526953787121664
I was expecting a lot of hiccups but, let's be honest, they're relatively few and far between as the lovely Louise Lear is fond of describing showers.
This is not a straightforward country, or cluster of countries, for such a logistical exercise for all sorts of reasons, not least our refusal to entertain national identity cards.
The Cleggasm was a weird form of centrist populism. Clegg himself was/is strategically stupid. The LDs ought to have renounced their tuition fees lunacy in the last Parliament.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55779171
Boris getting grief for not waiting another week or two for more data before announcing this....Newsnight last night gave him grief for waiting so long for warning about chances of this...and the journalist at the press conference asked why they weren't talking about another paper that said was 90% more deadly.
But once it's... processed...
Facebook - an organisation I like about as much as I like the SWP - wants of course to have the rights of being a publisher and of merely being a platform like the phone system at the same time, while having the duties of neither.
Declining to be a platform or publisher for the grotesque left or right is very different from cancel culture.
Obviously 4 months before an election is the ideal time to change your party leader.
My guess is he has taken advantage of the mess to do a Jackson Carlaw,
He has realised that he is not the best person to lead the Welsh Tory party.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=taC-sc5UVuo
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-9177747/JANET-STREET-PORTER-Boris-promised-vaccination-programme-fast-fair.html
On Reform UK , it is amazing that Farage can start a brand new party and overnight almost it gets the same % as the libdems with little covreage.
He was not the right leader
Even as someone who intently dislikes the SWP and all they stand for, they still have a right to say what they want to say.
East-West Rail will link Oxford and Cambridge.
Fair enough.
Snow has stopped. Sun is out. Time for a walk.
I am not sure there is a main sequence star in the Welsh Tory firmament -- but I expect they can find a low luminosity subdwarf, giving out a dim light.
I still think it's odd that Effingtory 'You can offend me all day long, it's your right. Free Speech.' is quote tweeting Count Dankula 'Free-Speech advocate' about people saying antisemitic stuff.
When Cameron became Conservative leader, the LDs had no response to his move back to the centre just as the Conservatives never came up with a serious response to Blair after 1994. Kennedy's personal demons notwithstanding, there was no intellectual or political response to Cameron apart from first to try wisdom over youth with Menzies Campbell and when that didn't work to decide imitation was the sincerest form of flattery.
Kennedy frankly coasted along as leader and while I liked the man enormously, he was not Party leader material.
The "Cleggasm" as you call it was nothing to do with centrist populism (whatever that is). Clegg used the first tv debate in 2010 to outsmart Cameron and Brown by imitating what Clinton had done in his debates. Clegg was new, young, telegenic, articulate and at a time of huge anxiety in the wake of the global financial crisis that was a huge advantage.
The problem was no one had a coherent policy answer to the events of 2008 - the centre left were broken and all the centre right had to offer was "austerity" (which never really happened) predicated on the notion the deficit needed to be closed not by raising taxes AND by cutting spending but more or less wholly by the latter.
As far as tuition fees were concerned, Clegg was hijacked by the Party which was competitive in a number of University towns and to court the student vote candidates signed pledges to scrap tuition fees. Electorally initially hugely successful but it was an issue at a time when the Government was trying to curb public expenditure.
The Party had a choice - either stand there and tell non-students public services were being cut but fees were being scrapped or renege on the policy. The error was to choose the latter not the former but the main error was allowing policy to be made during a campaign and not having candidates disciplined enough to avoid jumping on each and every bandwagon.
One more thing - AV was never LD policy. The problem was Clegg felt he had to throw the Party a bone as the price for supporting the Conservatives. The Tories wouldn't even have STV on a ballot paper such was their terror of the political implications of adopting such a system (they could have killed it stone dead of course) - Clegg didn't think he could go back with nothing so AV became a half way house and I suspect Clegg felt hubristically he could get it passed through his magnetism and personality.
The problem was Clegg didn't even have the support of his Party so the chances of getting the support of the country were nil and the political humiliation of rejection denuded what little political capital he still had.
It is more than the analogy of being a twat in the pub and getting barred, you are being barred from every pub and restaurant and stopped from buying booze in any shop....for life.
There isn't an easy solution, but a solution needs to be found...the status quo is not acceptable
https://twitter.com/Julio_Rosas11/status/1352042522868998144?s=19
I don't need any geography lessons on that part of the world, as I have spent a huge amount of time there. It is why I get so angry these absolute bellends are ruining the place.
https://twitter.com/HighlandRampage/status/1352931827321892864?s=20
The one that really got me was AWS’ takedown of Parler. That’s the equivalent of the phone company disconnecting you, because someone said something naughty in a phone call.
At what point does the government seriously consider giving everyone a reusable respirator mask? It's going to be a while before everyone gets the second dose.
Platforms like Facebook, Google, Twitter and Parler are apparently conducting a witch hunt against conservative voices so they are all running away to other platforms (echo chambers).
Now, as a liberal, I have to believe in Freedom of Speech though that concept is much more complex and nuanced than it sounds. It's often the volume and quality of the speech that causes issues not the fact of it. There seems this curious notion that people only want to listen to opinions and voices who agree with them. People like people like themselves I've always been told so I suppose that is a universal concept.
Rather like Cheers, it's not just a question of a place where everybody knows your name but everyone is glad you came. Security, safety and comfort in the online world comes from a place where everyone is like you, thinks like you and sees the world as you do.
https://twitter.com/GaryBurgessCI/status/1352950062939303936?s=20
When Jersey locked down they gave a days notice - with predictably packed pubs over two nights.
Plenty of Democrats were happily cheering them on last summer when their chants were about Donald Trump the fascist dictator - but now they’re shouting f@#* Joe Biden, and smashing up Democrat party offices.
Nah not them the 'town hall' muppet.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/almost-half-of-people-in-high-ethnic-minority-areas-snub-coronavirus-jab-dgmx9mg9t
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1352216896846913540?s=19
You can try to deny or downplay this all you like, but it is happening all the time, often day after day after day.
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1352216896846913540?s=19
Clearly someone was smashing the windows. However quite convenient it happened right in front of a far-right journo.
Covid and vaccine deniers is a tougher one, but its temporary and the posts do cause an increase in excess deaths.
Oh f##k off. There is 100s of hours of footage of black clad far leftist smashing up Portland and Seattle, intimidating elected officials at their homes, for months on end. It isn't some far right fake news QAnon conspiracy. Even the dripping wet Mayor of Portland has finally acknowledged they have a problem with this crowd.
There is a constellation of 11 stars.
Two are retiring (Burns & Melding). One has been deselected for being the most unpleasant shit in Welsh politics (Ramsey). Two have been caught up in Drinks-gate (Paul Davies & Darren Miller). One has failed as leader before (Andrew RT Davies). One has been an AM for less than a year, since the death of Mohammed Asgur (Laura Jones). Another has been deselected in mysterious circumstances (Suzy Davies).
We're now down to 3 possibilities: Janet Finch-Saunders, Russel George, Mark Isherwood.
We now rule out the obviously incompetent (George, Finch-Saunders) & the desperately dull (Isherwood) ... there is no-one left.
Mmmm ... I'd say the Welsh Tory's best bet is to reinstate Suzy Davies on the list and appoint her. She is not very bright, but I think she is good at campaigning, which is what they need now. Or they parachute someone in.
Big_G's opinion would be interesting -- he must know some of these folks.
The end result, as you say, is that Parler is now hosted by a Russian hosting provider, and outside of any reasonable US jurisdiction.
I'm no risk taker, but they seem to have been open about why this one was taken.
Unless they moderate quite a bit I cannot see the Greens competing for second places and dreams of 1st places in places the LDs can still dream. And doing that loses them the main distinguishing feature they have.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/21/sweet-relief-vaccinated-not-return-normality-older-people-covid
I shall exile myself to ConHome for the rest of the afternoon for my sins.
https://twitter.com/IlyaYashin/status/1352965942926520321?s=20
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
[Blockquotes muddled above]
Pity the far left - they must have been so envious of the Trumpist occupation of the Capitol...
Politicians have their uses, but when non politicians become them, they lose a big part of what made them useful or respected.
But I'm not sure it would have any effect.
People will do what they want to do and there's plenty of oldies who act as it they're on a suicide mission, with or without vaccination.
You do wonder how long they would keep their single seat in Parliament if Dr Lucas got hit by a bus. They're miles from capturing anything else.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/23/dear-gavin-williamson-could-you-tell-parents-what-a-fronted-adverbial-is
https://twitter.com/mikegalsworthy/status/1352958074059952128?s=21
https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1352971931889389571?s=20
The players clearly aren't sticking to it though. If you watch Ben Foster on YouTube, he is regularly meeting up with others outside of football, going to bike shops etc.
I feel like we lack quality Scottish analysis, for some reason.
I used to think Lib Dem councils and seats were untouchable in the mid noughties - impossible to win.
We forget how much we are creatures of the times.
I think Labour has 1-3% leads (on average) at present nationally.
It’s optional for small businesses (ie not Marketplace sales). I won’t be using it. Not least because some of my sales would exceed the upper threshold anyway. Just as I don’t act as the sales tax collector for governments across the world... Most e commerce customers (at least in my sector and a total my level) are savvy enough to know they’ll be liable for import TVA
It was already nothing but the far left antifa communists framing Trump.
https://twitter.com/shaunwalker7/status/1352976139627732999?s=20