Can't be long until Oxfam release a report about how snowmen are one of the clearest examples of the man white patriarchy driving the evil capitalist system.....
This Matt cartoon elicited a number of unintentionally comic wokeish responses on Twitter.
Also back on topic (yes, I know...), the trump card the SNP can play is simple. A manifesto which explicitly states that a vote for an SNP government is a vote for a new referendum on independence.
The Unionist parties can then campaign against the SNP on their various versions on support for the Union. Should the SNP secure a working majority then the will of the people is clear.
For me this is an absolute bear trap that the Tories are walking into. Supposedly someone has handed Boris paperwork proposing a "kick it into the long grass" commission on the constitution. As he is also trying to reshape constituencies in his favour and abolish an entire tier of local government to centralise even more power, it is obvious what the agenda is.
Should the commission be rejected in favour of a referendum then we're back down to colonialism. 'Yes you Scotch people with your kilts and your deep fried mars bars, you can vote if you want to, but unfortunately if you're going to vote wrong we will ignore your clear wishes and do the opposite because we matter and you don't.'
An advisory referendum and the "will of the people" became the word of God. The manifesto pledge to Get Brexit Done a literal instruction. Its politically impossible for this government to credibly try to claim the opposite is true in Scotland. They'll try because they aren't politically credible, but it won't stick.
Their only hope is to muster a Scottish election campaign where Labour, the Tories and the LibDems beat the SNP. Yeah, I know...
Even if between Labour, Tories and the LibDems they get more than 50% of the vote the SNP are going to get a majority of the seats.
Boris is going to have to resign quick if Scottish Independence isn't deemed to be his fault.
A plurality.
They may get a majority, but it isn’t easy to do. One of the great shocks of 2011 was that they managed it when the system had been gerrymandered designed to ensure nobody could.
They did in 2011 and they were close in 2016. This time round I don't think it's even going to be close
Sturgeon is regarded as having a far better Covid than Boris and co have (remember she has always been x hours ahead in doing things) which does the SNP no harm.
And the Scottish Greens will pick up enough seats to ensure the other parties aren't even close.
I really do think the Independence parties will get between 70 and 80 seats (and probably towards the higher end of that range).
I am politically fluid these days and reasonably comfortable with it. I'll get to vote in my first Scottish elections in May and it will take a lot to stop me voting SNP. Despite still being a LibDem member. And from discussions I think my wife, brother and sister-in-law will all vote the same. All English migrants.
Least surprising news ever from a leftwing Tory hater such as you.
Davey however is firmly opposed to indyref2 anytime soon
I'm not saying this is the case, (I'm REALLY not), but f you were an evil country wanting to cripple economically your competitors this would be a new textbook case of how to do it.
Design a virus which is destructive enough to kill, but not so virulent to prevent spread, have it be able to pass through a population to disrupt economies at a level enough to keep them functional but at a low level for a long period. Develop 'new' strains which prolong the pandemic and slow down vaccines. Have plans in place so your own economy although is hit, can recover quicker and faster than others/
I know that's stupid to suggest and I don't believe it, but if was a thriller writer, to goes to show you don't need a doomsday virus.
Apologies it wasn’t just the right wing press failing to report what the EU actually said but the Guardian is also guilty of a headline which doesn’t actually match the body of the report . Can someone find me the statement where the EU said they will ban exports to the UK . All I can find is the EU want to know where Pfizer is exporting and how many doses that is . What would the UK public think if for example AstraZeneca which has a factory in the UK failed to fulfill its contract with the government but at the same time was fulfilling orders with the EU . Would you expect the government to shrug its shoulders and let the matter rest .
I’d expect them to make a lot of outraged noise and totally cock up the response.
Because that is what empty populists like Johnson do.
But are we really saying that the EU have demonstrated they are as nasty, stupid and incompetent as Boris Johnson’s government? Because it doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement of either their strategy or their ability.
They are politicians.
I have noticed that many, many politicians, seem to act in the following way
- encounter a problematic reality - make statements that said situation is intolerable - take legal actions - are puzzled when reality still doesn't go their way
For the pinnacle of this kind of comedy, I direct you to the Senate Launch System* (SLS) in the US.
To cut a long story short.... after decades of failed attempts at building a replacement for the Space Shuttle, the program collapsed. Again. So the Senate Space Committee sat down and wrote a design for the rocket.
Yes, politicians literally designing a rocket. To be made of old shuttle bits, so that all their favourite contractors get some sweet, sweet pork.
They are surprised that this endeavour is working out just as badly as all the other attempts.
*Actually Space Launch System, but the name fits.
Meanwhile SpaceX are launching three rockets a week, which then can land back again on Earth, are sending astronauts to the ISS, and testing the next generation of rocket which could go to Mars - all from scratch, in little over a decade, and for an order of magnitude lower cost than the Senate Launch System which still can’t light its candles for more than a minute.
Not quite 3 a week, but yes.
The bit I like is that they are mass producing experimental rockets, to the point they have *too many*, in a swamp in Texas, using redneck welders. RAH is smiling, somewhere.
The employment numbers do not correlate to reports of 700k people leaving London.
Unless most of the 700k have either moved to work from home in the countryside, or were immigrants who have voluntarily deported themselves.
I think the second, if you're young and working in the service industry from other countries, when that work utterly dries up (which it has), the first thing you would do is head back home. All those coffee shops and restaurants in London and elsewhere.
Also back on topic (yes, I know...), the trump card the SNP can play is simple. A manifesto which explicitly states that a vote for an SNP government is a vote for a new referendum on independence.
The Unionist parties can then campaign against the SNP on their various versions on support for the Union. Should the SNP secure a working majority then the will of the people is clear.
For me this is an absolute bear trap that the Tories are walking into. Supposedly someone has handed Boris paperwork proposing a "kick it into the long grass" commission on the constitution. As he is also trying to reshape constituencies in his favour and abolish an entire tier of local government to centralise even more power, it is obvious what the agenda is.
Should the commission be rejected in favour of a referendum then we're back down to colonialism. 'Yes you Scotch people with your kilts and your deep fried mars bars, you can vote if you want to, but unfortunately if you're going to vote wrong we will ignore your clear wishes and do the opposite because we matter and you don't.'
An advisory referendum and the "will of the people" became the word of God. The manifesto pledge to Get Brexit Done a literal instruction. Its politically impossible for this government to credibly try to claim the opposite is true in Scotland. They'll try because they aren't politically credible, but it won't stick.
Their only hope is to muster a Scottish election campaign where Labour, the Tories and the LibDems beat the SNP. Yeah, I know...
Even if between Labour, Tories and the LibDems they get more than 50% of the vote the SNP are going to get a majority of the seats.
Boris is going to have to resign quick if Scottish Independence isn't deemed to be his fault.
A plurality.
They may get a majority, but it isn’t easy to do. One of the great shocks of 2011 was that they managed it when the system had been gerrymandered designed to ensure nobody could.
They did in 2011 and they were close in 2016. This time round I don't think it's even going to be close
Sturgeon is regarded as having a far better Covid than Boris and co have (remember she has always been x hours ahead in doing things) which does the SNP no harm.
And the Scottish Greens will pick up enough seats to ensure the other parties aren't even close.
I really do think the Independence parties will get between 70 and 80 seats (and probably towards the higher end of that range).
I am politically fluid these days and reasonably comfortable with it. I'll get to vote in my first Scottish elections in May and it will take a lot to stop me voting SNP. Despite still being a LibDem member. And from discussions I think my wife, brother and sister-in-law will all vote the same. All English migrants.
Least surprising news ever from a leftwing Tory hater such as you.
Davey however is firmly opposed to indyref2 anytime soon
Looks like Trump is getting off again. So disappointing. Guy could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Avenue and they'd acquit him. Boo to the senate.
We'll see.
The GOP will come to regret this. Big time.
He will be back if he is not barred from office. No one with his mental case ego would do anything else.
Letting Trump off the hook and then watching all the state, civil, and possibly new federal cases against him come home to roost is not going to be good look for the GOP. They ought to stick the boot in now, and get some credit, rather than ending up as the only remaining defender of the crook.
Defending the previous criminal president is how you get to be part of the next administration if you are a Republican. That's loyalty that is.
Can't be long until Oxfam release a report about how snowmen are one of the clearest examples of the man white patriarchy driving the evil capitalist system.....
This Matt cartoon elicited a number of unintentionally comic wokeish responses on Twitter.
Didn’t it just! Some people really don’t have a sense of humour at all.
ONS data out this morning says “economically inactive” adults are 20.7% of the population and unemployment is at 5%.
That inactivity rate is pretty low by historical standards. Plenty of people don't work - those with young children (mostly women), students, the disabled, early retired (these data don't include over 65s who are the most inactive of all). So far the increase in inactivity is very small compared to the 80s and 90s recessions. More similar to the modest increase seen in 2009. The furlough scheme is helping, I'm sure.
From PB's remainiac-in-chief who is still cheering for the EU on the day even the Guardian is reporting the implicit threat they are making to our vaccine supplies.
Allegedly Shagger will announce some kind of constitutional commission. If I thought this (a) would be a genuine attempt at reform and (b) it would actually recommend the remaking of this country to be at least fit for the 21st century and (c) that such recommendations would be implemented, I would back it.
In reality, its *this* government proposing it. A government who tried to go back on its own key manifesto pledge. With a PM and cabinet comprised of sacked liars, demonstrable fools and Theresa "I didn't say that" Coffey. Someone of the stature of Blair or Thatcher proposing it? Perhaps, but neither did.
So its going to come down a battle of wills. If the electorate return an SNP government on a manifesto of holding an independence referendum, then either Westminster says "we don't care what you think" and thus guarantees independence the minute they are removed from power, or as @Philip_Thompson rightly suggests, tackles it head on.
Ironically many of the factual reasons why Sindy is a bad idea can be demonstrated by the real world impacts of Brexit. As we know, real world practicalities aren't why people vote, and the "that could be Bad" arguments can be batted aside as the people saying that were saying the opposite with regards to Brexit.
Philip Thompson is wrong.
In 2017 the Spanish conservative government denied the Catalan nationalist majority government even one independence referendum, 4 years later Catalonia is still part of Spain and support for independence there is falling
Is your ambition to get Scotland to vote to stay in the UK because they want to stay - or to beat them into submission with violence?
The UK is not Spain or China.
The point Philip, is that support for Indy has fallen in Catalonia once the Spanish made it clear it was off the table. People have moved on. It's not inconceivable that the same could happen in Scotland, though it will be handled very differently, of course.
It's pretty obvious that there are talks behind the scene with the likes of Gordon Brown, so it will be a No, plus a constitutional commission to report some years in the future when Boris and Nicola have left the scene. Will it provoke a Caledonian insurgency and riots in Inverness? Don't think so.
This scenario is why the SNP is seething internally and Nicola has had to go along with this scheme which is immensely risky (as she knows only too well).
A bit of anecdata from the front: A few of my missus's colleagues, who are NHS scientists and normally work in an office environment, volunteered last weekend to help out with what they thought would be vaccine administrative assistance. Much to their shock and surprise, they ended up in ICU, taking bloods and turning patients after a couple of hours of training! Apparently, the situation there is desperate, with each nurse caring for many more patients than is safe, assisted by people like my missus's colleagues who barely have any idea what they are doing. They likened it to a war zone.
Where is "there?"
QE in Birmingham.
That sounds pretty grim.
Serious respect to your wife and her colleagues for not backing out as well when they were told what they would be doing. That’s impressive.
Not my missus - she's in a senior position in the lab and getting on a bit for that kind of work! It was some of her younger, more junior colleagues. But yes, they deserve considerable respect for getting stuck in to what was quite a shocking experience for them.
So now we need to figure out whether the leak was a malicious attack of misinformation about a vaccine or if it was bone headed stupidity of a politician not understanding science or statistics. I'd like to believe it was the latter but with the way the EU has been acting lately this feels like a "well it's shit and we don't want it anyway" reaction to the news from AZ which goes into column A.
You may remember that yesterday I expressed surprise at the death rate among teaching staff being similar to the community outside, despite the infection rate being triple.
Turns out there are two reasons for this figure.
One is that on the whole teachers are younger than the population at large (something to do with 40% of staff leaving the profession within five years of qualifying).
The other is that the government deliberately excluded all staff over the age of 64, which meant they excluded half of all deaths among school staff, but compared the rate to the population as a whole.
Which is extraordinary. Not only is that blatantly criminal - even by the dreadful standards set by Williamson and Gibb - but were they really so dumb as to think nobody would notice?
I can only hope that the judge gives them all life sentences.
I’d rather have Jaws than Gavin Williamson as Secretary of State for Education. At least Jaws was capable of changing his mind.
Or perhaps, more interestingly, we could cast Gavin Williamson as the villain in the next Bond movie. Urbane, slightly weird, dodgy links to a foreign power, indirectly responsible for lots of deaths.
‘Do you know him?’ ‘Not socially. His name’s Gavin Williamson. He kills people.’
It's not just Gavin though. It's the whole culture of weasel. Of presenting a dodgy factoid in the knowledge that it won't stand up for long, but not caring.
True.
If this pandemic shows anything, it’s that the DfE needs to go. Completely and entirely. Not only is it not useful, it’s actively damaging education.
Interesting - so you are now Toby Young.
Runs......
Stopped clocks and all that.
Yes
My youngest daughter attended a free school primary. Which is lambasted by some, because, using the free-school-meals criteria, it isn't diverse enough.
Apart from the comic aspect trying to say that the students are not diverse - the majority could claim at least 2 passports - this is because the school is very good.
So the local middle class have started sending their children there. Which was supposed to be the point of improving state education.
The problem with free schools is that they are very hit and miss. Some are good, as your daughter’s school appears to be - some are so bad they probably need closing.
One reason indeed why the DfE and Ofsted both need to be got rid of is that they not tolerate this disparity, at times they seem to be actively promoting it. One school of my acquaintance was placed in special measures becuase of a dispute between the Head and the Lead Inspector (purely personal, nothing to do with the school). Yet Ofsted did nothing to remove the lead inspector even though they must have been aware of the situation. The result was a superhead came in, the school inevitably cratered and it went from being an uninteresting average sort of comp to a basket case.
On the other side, a school I worked in (no longer, thankfully) decided to conceal the fact a member of staff had been caught accessing inappropriate websites on the school’s servers just before an inspection. The Head basically messed up the disciplinary procedure and had to drop the case. Did the inspectors pick it up? No. Did they know? Yes, because they were told. Did they say the school was fully compliant with all regulatory and professional standards? Yes. So their report was basically a lie.
The issue is, how do you make sure there is still some oversight? Because it is needed. Without inspections too many schools would just coast along. But at the moment, the system veers between the worthless and the damaging.
Interesting header on the legality of a unilaterally called referendum. I think the legality matters less than it appears at first sight
If Johnson accepts a referendum, it is in effect legal.
If he doesn't accept it, any move towards independence is contested, with all the implications that has. Whether it's a referendum that is being contested or independence itself largely comes to the same thing.
For Johnson the implication of a contested independence is that he is rejecting any self-determination by Scotland. The only way he has of demonstrating Scotland doesn't want to leave the United Kingdom is by allowing the referendum and winning it.
For Sturgeon the implication of a contested independence is that it is likely to invalidate that independence within sections of her own country as well as internationally. It also creates a very messy situation.
Allegedly Shagger will announce some kind of constitutional commission. If I thought this (a) would be a genuine attempt at reform and (b) it would actually recommend the remaking of this country to be at least fit for the 21st century and (c) that such recommendations would be implemented, I would back it.
In reality, its *this* government proposing it. A government who tried to go back on its own key manifesto pledge. With a PM and cabinet comprised of sacked liars, demonstrable fools and Theresa "I didn't say that" Coffey. Someone of the stature of Blair or Thatcher proposing it? Perhaps, but neither did.
So its going to come down a battle of wills. If the electorate return an SNP government on a manifesto of holding an independence referendum, then either Westminster says "we don't care what you think" and thus guarantees independence the minute they are removed from power, or as @Philip_Thompson rightly suggests, tackles it head on.
Ironically many of the factual reasons why Sindy is a bad idea can be demonstrated by the real world impacts of Brexit. As we know, real world practicalities aren't why people vote, and the "that could be Bad" arguments can be batted aside as the people saying that were saying the opposite with regards to Brexit.
Philip Thompson is wrong.
In 2017 the Spanish conservative government denied the Catalan nationalist majority government even one independence referendum, 4 years later Catalonia is still part of Spain and support for independence there is falling
Is your ambition to get Scotland to vote to stay in the UK because they want to stay - or to beat them into submission with violence?
The UK is not Spain or China.
The point Philip, is that support for Indy has fallen in Catalonia once the Spanish made it clear it was off the table. People have moved on. It's not inconceivable that the same could happen in Scotland, though it will be handled very differently, of course.
It's pretty obvious that there are talks behind the scene with the likes of Gordon Brown, so it will be a No, plus a constitutional commission to report some years in the future when Boris and Nicola have left the scene. Will it provoke a Caledonian insurgency and riots in Inverness? Don't think so.
This scenario is why the SNP is seething internally and Nicola has had to go along with this scheme which is immensely risky (as she knows only too well).
A bit of anecdata from the front: A few of my missus's colleagues, who are NHS scientists and normally work in an office environment, volunteered last weekend to help out with what they thought would be vaccine administrative assistance. Much to their shock and surprise, they ended up in ICU, taking bloods and turning patients after a couple of hours of training! Apparently, the situation there is desperate, with each nurse caring for many more patients than is safe, assisted by people like my missus's colleagues who barely have any idea what they are doing. They likened it to a war zone.
Where is "there?"
QE in Birmingham.
That sounds pretty grim.
Serious respect to your wife and her colleagues for not backing out as well when they were told what they would be doing. That’s impressive.
Not my missus - she's in a senior position and getting on a bit for that kind of work! It was some of her younger, more junior colleagues. But yes, they deserve considerable respect for getting stuck in to what was quite a shocking experience for them.
Huge props to anyone volunteering to help out on the front line in hospitals
Have to say that I'm adjusting my opinion of Martin Selmayr.
German media reports “only 8% reliable” German media reports may be as little as 8% reliable, the latest round of Berlin-based scuttlebut has revealed. The news comes as EU nations vie for the crown of the bloc’s most disreputable news outlets, following the departure of the United Kingdom.
A bit of anecdata from the front: A few of my missus's colleagues, who are NHS scientists and normally work in an office environment, volunteered last weekend to help out with what they thought would be vaccine administrative assistance. Much to their shock and surprise, they ended up in ICU, taking bloods and turning patients after a couple of hours of training! Apparently, the situation there is desperate, with each nurse caring for many more patients than is safe, assisted by people like my missus's colleagues who barely have any idea what they are doing. They likened it to a war zone.
Which is why countries shouldn't think of easing off restrictions until hospitalisations come down to a fraction of current. It is a battlezone. Hospitals will need a space to sort themselves out. It isn't just a case of getting back under maximum capacity.
You may remember that yesterday I expressed surprise at the death rate among teaching staff being similar to the community outside, despite the infection rate being triple.
Turns out there are two reasons for this figure.
One is that on the whole teachers are younger than the population at large (something to do with 40% of staff leaving the profession within five years of qualifying).
The other is that the government deliberately excluded all staff over the age of 64, which meant they excluded half of all deaths among school staff, but compared the rate to the population as a whole.
Which is extraordinary. Not only is that blatantly criminal - even by the dreadful standards set by Williamson and Gibb - but were they really so dumb as to think nobody would notice?
I can only hope that the judge gives them all life sentences.
I’d rather have Jaws than Gavin Williamson as Secretary of State for Education. At least Jaws was capable of changing his mind.
Or perhaps, more interestingly, we could cast Gavin Williamson as the villain in the next Bond movie. Urbane, slightly weird, dodgy links to a foreign power, indirectly responsible for lots of deaths.
‘Do you know him?’ ‘Not socially. His name’s Gavin Williamson. He kills people.’
It's not just Gavin though. It's the whole culture of weasel. Of presenting a dodgy factoid in the knowledge that it won't stand up for long, but not caring.
True.
If this pandemic shows anything, it’s that the DfE needs to go. Completely and entirely. Not only is it not useful, it’s actively damaging education.
Interesting - so you are now Toby Young.
Runs......
Stopped clocks and all that.
Yes
My youngest daughter attended a free school primary. Which is lambasted by some, because, using the free-school-meals criteria, it isn't diverse enough.
Apart from the comic aspect trying to say that the students are not diverse - the majority could claim at least 2 passports - this is because the school is very good.
So the local middle class have started sending their children there. Which was supposed to be the point of improving state education.
The problem with free schools is that they are very hit and miss. Some are good, as your daughter’s school appears to be - some are so bad they probably need closing.
One reason indeed why the DfE and Ofsted both need to be got rid of is that they not tolerate this disparity, at times they seem to be actively promoting it. One school of my acquaintance was placed in special measures becuase of a dispute between the Head and the Lead Inspector (purely personal, nothing to do with the school). Yet Ofsted did nothing to remove the lead inspector even though they must have been aware of the situation. The result was a superhead came in, the school inevitably cratered and it went from being an uninteresting average sort of comp to a basket case.
On the other side, a school I worked in (no longer, thankfully) decided to conceal the fact a member of staff had been caught accessing inappropriate websites on the school’s servers just before an inspection. The Head basically messed up the disciplinary procedure and had to drop the case. Did the inspectors pick it up? No. Did they know? Yes, because they were told. Did they say the school was fully compliant with all regulatory and professional standards? Yes. So their report was basically a lie.
The issue is, how do you make sure there is still some oversight? Because it is needed. Without inspections too many schools would just coast along. But at the moment, the system veers between the worthless and the damaging.
Coming up with non-crap oversight is possible. The problem is, I agree, that I'm not sure you can get from where we are to somewhere sensible. Hence bin it and start again.
For a start, announced one-off inspections are ridiculous. Gun decking is the inevitable result....
Allegedly Shagger will announce some kind of constitutional commission. If I thought this (a) would be a genuine attempt at reform and (b) it would actually recommend the remaking of this country to be at least fit for the 21st century and (c) that such recommendations would be implemented, I would back it.
In reality, its *this* government proposing it. A government who tried to go back on its own key manifesto pledge. With a PM and cabinet comprised of sacked liars, demonstrable fools and Theresa "I didn't say that" Coffey. Someone of the stature of Blair or Thatcher proposing it? Perhaps, but neither did.
So its going to come down a battle of wills. If the electorate return an SNP government on a manifesto of holding an independence referendum, then either Westminster says "we don't care what you think" and thus guarantees independence the minute they are removed from power, or as @Philip_Thompson rightly suggests, tackles it head on.
Ironically many of the factual reasons why Sindy is a bad idea can be demonstrated by the real world impacts of Brexit. As we know, real world practicalities aren't why people vote, and the "that could be Bad" arguments can be batted aside as the people saying that were saying the opposite with regards to Brexit.
Philip Thompson is wrong.
In 2017 the Spanish conservative government denied the Catalan nationalist majority government even one independence referendum, 4 years later Catalonia is still part of Spain and support for independence there is falling
Is your ambition to get Scotland to vote to stay in the UK because they want to stay - or to beat them into submission with violence?
The UK is not Spain or China.
Scots voted to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum, unlike you I respect that and there will be no legal indyref2 allowed by this Tory government.
The SNP should focus on domestic politics and the pandemic and not their divisive agenda of never ending independence referendums until they get the result they want
Have to say that I'm adjusting my opinion of Martin Selmayr.
German media reports “only 8% reliable” German media reports may be as little as 8% reliable, the latest round of Berlin-based scuttlebut has revealed. The news comes as EU nations vie for the crown of the bloc’s most disreputable news outlets, following the departure of the United Kingdom.
"“We realised it’s much easier to squint at a chart and insinuate something about the French,” a well-placed German media source told Berlaymonster. “This is going to be our next export success.”"
Allegedly Shagger will announce some kind of constitutional commission. If I thought this (a) would be a genuine attempt at reform and (b) it would actually recommend the remaking of this country to be at least fit for the 21st century and (c) that such recommendations would be implemented, I would back it.
In reality, its *this* government proposing it. A government who tried to go back on its own key manifesto pledge. With a PM and cabinet comprised of sacked liars, demonstrable fools and Theresa "I didn't say that" Coffey. Someone of the stature of Blair or Thatcher proposing it? Perhaps, but neither did.
So its going to come down a battle of wills. If the electorate return an SNP government on a manifesto of holding an independence referendum, then either Westminster says "we don't care what you think" and thus guarantees independence the minute they are removed from power, or as @Philip_Thompson rightly suggests, tackles it head on.
Ironically many of the factual reasons why Sindy is a bad idea can be demonstrated by the real world impacts of Brexit. As we know, real world practicalities aren't why people vote, and the "that could be Bad" arguments can be batted aside as the people saying that were saying the opposite with regards to Brexit.
Philip Thompson is wrong.
In 2017 the Spanish conservative government denied the Catalan nationalist majority government even one independence referendum, 4 years later Catalonia is still part of Spain and support for independence there is falling
Is your ambition to get Scotland to vote to stay in the UK because they want to stay - or to beat them into submission with violence?
The UK is not Spain or China.
The point Philip, is that support for Indy has fallen in Catalonia once the Spanish made it clear it was off the table. People have moved on. It's not inconceivable that the same could happen in Scotland, though it will be handled very differently, of course.
It's pretty obvious that there are talks behind the scene with the likes of Gordon Brown, so it will be a No, plus a constitutional commission to report some years in the future when Boris and Nicola have left the scene. Will it provoke a Caledonian insurgency and riots in Inverness? Don't think so.
This scenario is why the SNP is seething internally and Nicola has had to go along with this scheme which is immensely risky (as she knows only too well).
Is the UK going to do that? Should the UK do that?
Is it worth keeping Scotland in the UK if the only way to do so is to sell your soul and turn violent against your fellow Brits?
No, the point is that despite Spain turning violent, and doing a Franco memorial act, there hasn't been a corresponding rise in support for Catalonian independence. TBH I'm surprised. I would have thought there would be a massive reaction given the history.
There is no question of UK Govt going down that route.
Boris has a host of plausible reasons to turn down SIndy2, not least of which would be not betraying SCon voters. This will be kicked into the long grass.
Allegedly Shagger will announce some kind of constitutional commission. If I thought this (a) would be a genuine attempt at reform and (b) it would actually recommend the remaking of this country to be at least fit for the 21st century and (c) that such recommendations would be implemented, I would back it.
In reality, its *this* government proposing it. A government who tried to go back on its own key manifesto pledge. With a PM and cabinet comprised of sacked liars, demonstrable fools and Theresa "I didn't say that" Coffey. Someone of the stature of Blair or Thatcher proposing it? Perhaps, but neither did.
So its going to come down a battle of wills. If the electorate return an SNP government on a manifesto of holding an independence referendum, then either Westminster says "we don't care what you think" and thus guarantees independence the minute they are removed from power, or as @Philip_Thompson rightly suggests, tackles it head on.
Ironically many of the factual reasons why Sindy is a bad idea can be demonstrated by the real world impacts of Brexit. As we know, real world practicalities aren't why people vote, and the "that could be Bad" arguments can be batted aside as the people saying that were saying the opposite with regards to Brexit.
Philip Thompson is wrong.
In 2017 the Spanish conservative government denied the Catalan nationalist majority government even one independence referendum, 4 years later Catalonia is still part of Spain and support for independence there is falling
Is your ambition to get Scotland to vote to stay in the UK because they want to stay - or to beat them into submission with violence?
The UK is not Spain or China.
The point Philip, is that support for Indy has fallen in Catalonia once the Spanish made it clear it was off the table. People have moved on. It's not inconceivable that the same could happen in Scotland, though it will be handled very differently, of course.
It's pretty obvious that there are talks behind the scene with the likes of Gordon Brown, so it will be a No, plus a constitutional commission to report some years in the future when Boris and Nicola have left the scene. Will it provoke a Caledonian insurgency and riots in Inverness? Don't think so.
This scenario is why the SNP is seething internally and Nicola has had to go along with this scheme which is immensely risky (as she knows only too well).
Is the UK going to do that? Should the UK do that?
Is it worth keeping Scotland in the UK if the only way to do so is to sell your soul and turn violent against your fellow Brits?
In 2017 92% of Catalans voted for independence on a 43% turnout, the Spanish government correctly refused to recognise the result of that unconstitutional referendum, Catalonia is still part of Spain and support for independence there is now falling
A bit of anecdata from the front: A few of my missus's colleagues, who are NHS scientists and normally work in an office environment, volunteered last weekend to help out with what they thought would be vaccine administrative assistance. Much to their shock and surprise, they ended up in ICU, taking bloods and turning patients after a couple of hours of training! Apparently, the situation there is desperate, with each nurse caring for many more patients than is safe, assisted by people like my missus's colleagues who barely have any idea what they are doing. They likened it to a war zone.
Where is "there?"
QE in Birmingham.
That sounds pretty grim.
Serious respect to your wife and her colleagues for not backing out as well when they were told what they would be doing. That’s impressive.
Not my missus - she's in a senior position in the lab and getting on a bit for that kind of work! It was some of her younger, more junior colleagues. But yes, they deserve considerable respect for getting stuck in to what was quite a shocking experience for them.
I’m not a great one for honours and medals, but I do think there is a case for Some kind of ‘gallantry’ award for people like that once this is all over. We owe them so much.
My "acht prozent" twitter search is now showing about 1 in 10 tweets saying "AZ refute this" or "this 8% thing looks like rubbish". The other 9 are still saying "shitty british (and swedish) vaccine"
Allegedly Shagger will announce some kind of constitutional commission. If I thought this (a) would be a genuine attempt at reform and (b) it would actually recommend the remaking of this country to be at least fit for the 21st century and (c) that such recommendations would be implemented, I would back it.
In reality, its *this* government proposing it. A government who tried to go back on its own key manifesto pledge. With a PM and cabinet comprised of sacked liars, demonstrable fools and Theresa "I didn't say that" Coffey. Someone of the stature of Blair or Thatcher proposing it? Perhaps, but neither did.
So its going to come down a battle of wills. If the electorate return an SNP government on a manifesto of holding an independence referendum, then either Westminster says "we don't care what you think" and thus guarantees independence the minute they are removed from power, or as @Philip_Thompson rightly suggests, tackles it head on.
Ironically many of the factual reasons why Sindy is a bad idea can be demonstrated by the real world impacts of Brexit. As we know, real world practicalities aren't why people vote, and the "that could be Bad" arguments can be batted aside as the people saying that were saying the opposite with regards to Brexit.
Philip Thompson is wrong.
In 2017 the Spanish conservative government denied the Catalan nationalist majority government even one independence referendum, 4 years later Catalonia is still part of Spain and support for independence there is falling
Is your ambition to get Scotland to vote to stay in the UK because they want to stay - or to beat them into submission with violence?
The UK is not Spain or China.
The point Philip, is that support for Indy has fallen in Catalonia once the Spanish made it clear it was off the table. People have moved on. It's not inconceivable that the same could happen in Scotland, though it will be handled very differently, of course.
It's pretty obvious that there are talks behind the scene with the likes of Gordon Brown, so it will be a No, plus a constitutional commission to report some years in the future when Boris and Nicola have left the scene. Will it provoke a Caledonian insurgency and riots in Inverness? Don't think so.
This scenario is why the SNP is seething internally and Nicola has had to go along with this scheme which is immensely risky (as she knows only too well).
Is the UK going to do that? Should the UK do that?
Is it worth keeping Scotland in the UK if the only way to do so is to sell your soul and turn violent against your fellow Brits?
No, the point is that despite Spain turning violent, and doing a Franco memorial act, there hasn't been a corresponding rise in support for Catalonian independence. TBH I'm surprised. I would have thought there would be a massive reaction given the history.
There is no question of UK Govt going down that route.
Boris has a host of plausible reasons to turn down SIndy2, not least of which would be not betraying SCon voters. This will be kicked into the long grass.
In the case of Catalonia, while there was a large amount of support for independence, the handling of the vote and the aftermath by the Catalan government was not clever. According to many Catalans - including one of my acquaintance.
He felt they had escalated the confrontation, and thrown the game. The personal behaviour of some of the politicians involved didn't impress either.
Interesting header on the legality of a unilaterally called referendum. I think the legality matters less than it appears at first sight
If Johnson accepts a referendum, it is in effect legal.
If he doesn't accept it, any move towards independence is contested, with all the implications that has. Whether it's a referendum that is being contested or independence itself largely comes to the same thing.
For Johnson the implication of a contested independence is that he is rejecting any self-determination by Scotland. The only way he has of demonstrating Scotland doesn't want to leave the United Kingdom is by allowing the referendum and winning it.
For Sturgeon the implication of a contested independence is that it is likely to invalidate that independence within sections of her own country as well as internationally. It also creates a very messy situation.
There's also the prospect, as others raised here yesterday, that a referendum not authorised by the UK government is boycotted by unionists. Unless the nats get an absolute majority of eligible voters voting for independence in such a referendum, then it won't carry a great deal of weight - even if 90% vote to leave on a 50% turnout that does not (provably) demonstrate the majority will of the Scottish people.
That's why an unauthorised referendum will just be shit-stirring, possibly a useful tool in pushing a yes vote in an authorised referendum a few years later, but not decisive in itself.
I say that as someone who believes that if a Nationalist majority is returned to Holyrood on a ticket of calling a second independence referendum then it should be granted - and Brexit is enough of a material change in circumstances to override the once in a generation idea - even though I personally would like Scotland to stay.
In a bid to capture business flowing from the sewers of London’s Fleet Street into the EU single market, German newspapers are rumoured to be trying an experimental cocktail of inanity, miscomprehension and thinly disguised nationalism. The nation has long prided itself on a robust but costly process of Hegelian dialectical reasoning and factual analysis. “We realised it’s much easier to squint at a chart and insinuate something about the French,” a well-placed German media source told Berlaymonster. “This is going to be our next export success.”
“Only German vaccines will flow through my veins,” the source added. “Sanofi, what’s that? Sounds like a brand of toilet brush.”</blockquote?
Allegedly Shagger will announce some kind of constitutional commission. If I thought this (a) would be a genuine attempt at reform and (b) it would actually recommend the remaking of this country to be at least fit for the 21st century and (c) that such recommendations would be implemented, I would back it.
In reality, its *this* government proposing it. A government who tried to go back on its own key manifesto pledge. With a PM and cabinet comprised of sacked liars, demonstrable fools and Theresa "I didn't say that" Coffey. Someone of the stature of Blair or Thatcher proposing it? Perhaps, but neither did.
So its going to come down a battle of wills. If the electorate return an SNP government on a manifesto of holding an independence referendum, then either Westminster says "we don't care what you think" and thus guarantees independence the minute they are removed from power, or as @Philip_Thompson rightly suggests, tackles it head on.
Ironically many of the factual reasons why Sindy is a bad idea can be demonstrated by the real world impacts of Brexit. As we know, real world practicalities aren't why people vote, and the "that could be Bad" arguments can be batted aside as the people saying that were saying the opposite with regards to Brexit.
Philip Thompson is wrong.
In 2017 the Spanish conservative government denied the Catalan nationalist majority government even one independence referendum, 4 years later Catalonia is still part of Spain and support for independence there is falling
Is your ambition to get Scotland to vote to stay in the UK because they want to stay - or to beat them into submission with violence?
The UK is not Spain or China.
Scots voted to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum, unlike you I respect that and there will be no legal indyref2 allowed by this Tory government.
The SNP should focus on domestic politics and the pandemic and not their divisive agenda of never ending independence referendums until they get the result they want
The important thing is for UK Govt to hold its nerve and play the long game. The coincidence of Covid/Brexit/Nicola/Boris has led to Peak SNP which may well extend til the ScotParl elections. But what goes up will likely go down at some point. People will tire of the obsession.
And, frankly, I have yet to see a compelling reason provided why Boris would concede a referendum he would likely lose.
Flag-waving mobs on Princes Street are just as likely to repel middle-of-the-road Scots as they are to energise them.
Haley is on the moderate wing of the current GOP. manoeuvres for the 2024 nomination and posing as a defender of Trump in the hope he will be convicted and his supporters think favourably of her as a possible replacement.
FTFY
Although it is disappointing Haley is so anxious to pander to the Trumpite loons, it has to be said she would be a much better president than many alternatives in both parties.
She'd clearly need to take the oath to uphold the Constitution with fingers crossed, though.
I'm not saying this is the case, (I'm REALLY not), but f you were an evil country wanting to cripple economically your competitors this would be a new textbook case of how to do it.
Design a virus which is destructive enough to kill, but not so virulent to prevent spread, have it be able to pass through a population to disrupt economies at a level enough to keep them functional but at a low level for a long period. Develop 'new' strains which prolong the pandemic and slow down vaccines. Have plans in place so your own economy although is hit, can recover quicker and faster than others/
I know that's stupid to suggest and I don't believe it, but if was a thriller writer, to goes to show you don't need a doomsday virus.
I think that if Covid had been a bit more deadly, and the fatality less skewed towards the old, that our response might have tipped towards eradication - and we might have ended up with less economic damage as a result.
But it's been in a sort of goldilock's zone of being just deadly enough that we can't let it run through the population, but not so deadly that we're scared enough to deal with it properly.
If they refuse them to allow export, that will be completely outrageous. And what is the point in having a scheme like this if you aren't going to refuse.
It's a pretty hostile act. Not least because it puts at risk the health of those who have received the first Pfizer dose but not the second.
Allegedly Shagger will announce some kind of constitutional commission. If I thought this (a) would be a genuine attempt at reform and (b) it would actually recommend the remaking of this country to be at least fit for the 21st century and (c) that such recommendations would be implemented, I would back it.
In reality, its *this* government proposing it. A government who tried to go back on its own key manifesto pledge. With a PM and cabinet comprised of sacked liars, demonstrable fools and Theresa "I didn't say that" Coffey. Someone of the stature of Blair or Thatcher proposing it? Perhaps, but neither did.
So its going to come down a battle of wills. If the electorate return an SNP government on a manifesto of holding an independence referendum, then either Westminster says "we don't care what you think" and thus guarantees independence the minute they are removed from power, or as @Philip_Thompson rightly suggests, tackles it head on.
Ironically many of the factual reasons why Sindy is a bad idea can be demonstrated by the real world impacts of Brexit. As we know, real world practicalities aren't why people vote, and the "that could be Bad" arguments can be batted aside as the people saying that were saying the opposite with regards to Brexit.
Philip Thompson is wrong.
In 2017 the Spanish conservative government denied the Catalan nationalist majority government even one independence referendum, 4 years later Catalonia is still part of Spain and support for independence there is falling
Is your ambition to get Scotland to vote to stay in the UK because they want to stay - or to beat them into submission with violence?
The UK is not Spain or China.
Scots voted to stay in the UK in 2014 in a once in a generation referendum, unlike you I respect that and there will be no legal indyref2 allowed by this Tory government.
The SNP should focus on domestic politics and the pandemic and not their divisive agenda of never ending independence referendums until they get the result they want
The important thing is for UK Govt to hold its nerve and play the long game. The coincidence of Covid/Brexit/Nicola/Boris has led to Peak SNP which may well extend til the ScotParl elections. But what goes up will likely go down at some point. People will tire of the obsession.
And, frankly, I have yet to see a compelling reason provided why Boris would concede a referendum he would likely lose.
Flag-waving mobs on Princes Street are just as likely to repel middle-of-the-road Scots as they are to energise them.
Good article from Alastair (and apologies if this point has already been made - I've not had time to read the comments), but I don't think it's quite as simple as he says.
Firstly, if the Act is struck down as being outside Holyrood's competence, that will have a considerable political impact.
Remember how Remainers wail about Boris "illegally shutting down parliament", when in fact the extended prorogation in 2019 had almost no practical effect (and was certainly not known to be unlawful in advance). It was all theatre - but very meaningful theatre as it set a narrative that still runs.
If the Scottish government tried to hold a referendum after the Courts had struck down the Act enabling it, there would be a heavy question of legitimacy over the vote. This is not a matter of law but of consent. Yes, the 2014 and 2016 referendums were not binding but everyone treated them as such in advance; it's a different situation if one side does not, and the public accepts that the vote is dodgy.
And secondly, the administration of public votes is carried out through local councils, who hold the necessary data and incur the cost. Even if the Scottish govt took on the cost themselves, it doesn't hold the data of the electoral rolls and it's doubtful if it could force councils to hand it over for a purpose not authorised in law (and the law here is the 1998 Scotland Act, not anything that Holyrood might purport to pass but which falls foul of the same issue a Referendum Act would).
Now, this isn't to say that the UK govt *should* refuse consent to a new referendum. I agree with Alastair that the medium term consequences to doing so would be counterproductive. However, if it did, I think Sturgeon would find it harder to go through with an unauthorised vote than is suggested in the header article.
Also back on topic (yes, I know...), the trump card the SNP can play is simple. A manifesto which explicitly states that a vote for an SNP government is a vote for a new referendum on independence.
The Unionist parties can then campaign against the SNP on their various versions on support for the Union. Should the SNP secure a working majority then the will of the people is clear.
For me this is an absolute bear trap that the Tories are walking into. Supposedly someone has handed Boris paperwork proposing a "kick it into the long grass" commission on the constitution. As he is also trying to reshape constituencies in his favour and abolish an entire tier of local government to centralise even more power, it is obvious what the agenda is.
Should the commission be rejected in favour of a referendum then we're back down to colonialism. 'Yes you Scotch people with your kilts and your deep fried mars bars, you can vote if you want to, but unfortunately if you're going to vote wrong we will ignore your clear wishes and do the opposite because we matter and you don't.'
An advisory referendum and the "will of the people" became the word of God. The manifesto pledge to Get Brexit Done a literal instruction. Its politically impossible for this government to credibly try to claim the opposite is true in Scotland. They'll try because they aren't politically credible, but it won't stick.
Their only hope is to muster a Scottish election campaign where Labour, the Tories and the LibDems beat the SNP. Yeah, I know...
Even if between Labour, Tories and the LibDems they get more than 50% of the vote the SNP are going to get a majority of the seats.
Boris is going to have to resign quick if Scottish Independence isn't deemed to be his fault.
A plurality.
They may get a majority, but it isn’t easy to do. One of the great shocks of 2011 was that they managed it when the system had been gerrymandered designed to ensure nobody could.
They did in 2011 and they were close in 2016. This time round I don't think it's even going to be close
Sturgeon is regarded as having a far better Covid than Boris and co have (remember she has always been x hours ahead in doing things) which does the SNP no harm.
And the Scottish Greens will pick up enough seats to ensure the other parties aren't even close.
I really do think the Independence parties will get between 70 and 80 seats (and probably towards the higher end of that range).
I am politically fluid these days and reasonably comfortable with it. I'll get to vote in my first Scottish elections in May and it will take a lot to stop me voting SNP. Despite still being a LibDem member. And from discussions I think my wife, brother and sister-in-law will all vote the same. All English migrants.
Least surprising news ever from a leftwing Tory hater such as you.
Many thanks to Alastair for this header - really interesting and has convinced me that SIndy2 is on.
One strategy he doesn't cover is what happens if a boycott happens from the 'No' side. This would undermine the legitimacy of the referendum (I believe a similar tactic was tried with Puerto Rican statehood). The SNP would be hard pushed to get 50%+1 of the electorate voting yes I'd imagine.
A fair way to handle the vaccination problem would be to ensure the elderly in all countries get to go first. I wonder whether we will see a move amongst young people to refuse the vaccine until the more vulnerable elsewhere in the world have been covered.
There would be a boycott from the No side, that is certainly the Scottish Conservative position, much as pro Spain Unionists boycotted the unconstitutional 2017 Catalan independence referendum
Other parties have already told the Conservatives to get stuffed on that one, they know things are dire enough without being seen as Tories assistants.
Allegedly Shagger will announce some kind of constitutional commission. If I thought this (a) would be a genuine attempt at reform and (b) it would actually recommend the remaking of this country to be at least fit for the 21st century and (c) that such recommendations would be implemented, I would back it.
In reality, its *this* government proposing it. A government who tried to go back on its own key manifesto pledge. With a PM and cabinet comprised of sacked liars, demonstrable fools and Theresa "I didn't say that" Coffey. Someone of the stature of Blair or Thatcher proposing it? Perhaps, but neither did.
So its going to come down a battle of wills. If the electorate return an SNP government on a manifesto of holding an independence referendum, then either Westminster says "we don't care what you think" and thus guarantees independence the minute they are removed from power, or as @Philip_Thompson rightly suggests, tackles it head on.
Ironically many of the factual reasons why Sindy is a bad idea can be demonstrated by the real world impacts of Brexit. As we know, real world practicalities aren't why people vote, and the "that could be Bad" arguments can be batted aside as the people saying that were saying the opposite with regards to Brexit.
Philip Thompson is wrong.
In 2017 the Spanish conservative government denied the Catalan nationalist majority government even one independence referendum, 4 years later Catalonia is still part of Spain and support for independence there is falling
Is your ambition to get Scotland to vote to stay in the UK because they want to stay - or to beat them into submission with violence?
The UK is not Spain or China.
The point Philip, is that support for Indy has fallen in Catalonia once the Spanish made it clear it was off the table. People have moved on. It's not inconceivable that the same could happen in Scotland, though it will be handled very differently, of course.
It's pretty obvious that there are talks behind the scene with the likes of Gordon Brown, so it will be a No, plus a constitutional commission to report some years in the future when Boris and Nicola have left the scene. Will it provoke a Caledonian insurgency and riots in Inverness? Don't think so.
This scenario is why the SNP is seething internally and Nicola has had to go along with this scheme which is immensely risky (as she knows only too well).
What a surprise. Utter shoddy stuff from the German media there.
They say there has been confusion and 8% actually refers to the number of people in the study between 56 and 69 years old
Unf*cking believable.
Yet the anti-vaxxers now have their ammunition..........nice job Handelsblatt, Bild.....
We're in a bit of a catch 22 situation with vaccines.
If (as seems the case) the vaccines are highly effective, then more people will want to take them, but high efficacy means we could get to herd immunity with fewer vaccinations given.
If the vaccines were less effective, people would be less keen to have them (less upside, same imagined/possible downside) but reduced efficacy would mean that we would need a greater number to get vaccinated to get to herd immunity.
Fortunately, we seem to be in the first scenario, which will only mean we get well beyond herd immunity levels, hopefully, and push R well below 1.
You may remember that yesterday I expressed surprise at the death rate among teaching staff being similar to the community outside, despite the infection rate being triple.
Turns out there are two reasons for this figure.
One is that on the whole teachers are younger than the population at large (something to do with 40% of staff leaving the profession within five years of qualifying).
The other is that the government deliberately excluded all staff over the age of 64, which meant they excluded half of all deaths among school staff, but compared the rate to the population as a whole.
Which is extraordinary. Not only is that blatantly criminal - even by the dreadful standards set by Williamson and Gibb - but were they really so dumb as to think nobody would notice?
I can only hope that the judge gives them all life sentences.
That TES piece is based on an Eoin Clarke special (renamed himself to 'Toryfibs' after the Eoin Clarke 'Blizzard of apologies to people he lied about' incident. I'm still blocked 9 years later.). Handle with extreme care.
The stats are also not DES stats, they are ONS stats. Govt did not exclude older (how many active teachers are there over 64 currently working in schools?) to manipulate figures, ONS did because reliable stats do not exist, and explicitly warn that the over-65 stats are provisional.
And the TES have not claimed a deliberate Govt intention to deceive. Nor has Eoin (used to call himself Dr Eoin when he was publishing 'health stats'; Phd is in Feminist History); he knows he'd be skewered if he did.
ONS compared 20-64 age group secondary school teachers to other professionals in the same age group, because they are the only ones for whom comparable statistics are available. They found teachers to be at a *lower* risk of death from COVID (at a 5% significance) level. Significance vanishes when extended to all education related staff.
ONS keep the over 65s provisional figures separate as it is not clear who they represent - are many retired etc?
Eoin just conflates the whole lot, with no commentary, to excite his followers. IMO TES have been suckered.
If there is one conclusion I'd hazard it is that teachers of working age are safer because vulnerables are shielding, and perhaps can afford to as still paid (?).
You may remember that yesterday I expressed surprise at the death rate among teaching staff being similar to the community outside, despite the infection rate being triple.
Turns out there are two reasons for this figure.
One is that on the whole teachers are younger than the population at large (something to do with 40% of staff leaving the profession within five years of qualifying).
The other is that the government deliberately excluded all staff over the age of 64, which meant they excluded half of all deaths among school staff, but compared the rate to the population as a whole.
Which is extraordinary. Not only is that blatantly criminal - even by the dreadful standards set by Williamson and Gibb - but were they really so dumb as to think nobody would notice?
I can only hope that the judge gives them all life sentences.
That TES piece is based on an Eoin Clarke special (renamed himself to 'Toryfibs' after the Eoin Clarke 'Blizzard of apologies to people he lied about' incident. I'm still blocked 9 years later.). Handle with extreme care.
The stats are also not DES stats, they are ONS stats. Govt did not exclude older (how many active teachers are there over 64 currently working in schools?) to manipulate figures, ONS did because reliable stats do not exist, and explicitly warn that the over-65 stats are provisional.
And the TES have not claimed a deliberate Govt intention to deceive. Nor has Eoin (used to call himself Dr Eoin when he was publishing 'health stats'; Phd is in Feminist History); he knows he'd be skewered if he did.
ONS compared 20-64 age group secondary school teachers to other professionals in the same age group, because they are the only ones for whom comparable statistics are available. They found teachers to be at a *lower* risk of death from COVID (at a 5% significance) level. Significance vanishes when extended to all education related staff.
ONS keep the over 65s provisional figures separate as it is not clear who they represent - are many retired etc?
Eoin just conflates the whole lot, with no commentary, to excite his followers. IMO TES have been suckered.
If there is one conclusion I'd hazard it is that teachers of working age are safer because vulnerables are shielding, and perhaps can afford to as still paid (?).
Vulnerable teachers are not shielding routinely, and they are not safer. Infection rates are three times the general population.
So the most plausible response to the fact that there are more infections but comparable deaths is that they are (a) younger and (b) figures are being fiddled. Which they clearly are. I would point out that the TES has filtered his data because it included lecturers, and they were interested in teachers.
This is all of piece with the DfE’s attempts through a number of irresponsible sources to claim schools are safe, when they are clearly not. And I might add, having repeatedly lied about the figures in the past (claiming the infection rate was 0.2% when it was 4.2% and the number isolating was up to 23%) they have in any case a massive credibility problem.
And whatever subject Clarke’s PhD was in, he’s still a doctor (unlike almost all GPs) and perfectly entitled to call himself one.
Apologies it wasn’t just the right wing press failing to report what the EU actually said but the Guardian is also guilty of a headline which doesn’t actually match the body of the report . Can someone find me the statement where the EU said they will ban exports to the UK . All I can find is the EU want to know where Pfizer is exporting and how many doses that is . What would the UK public think if for example AstraZeneca which has a factory in the UK failed to fulfill its contract with the government but at the same time was fulfilling orders with the EU . Would you expect the government to shrug its shoulders and let the matter rest .
Party A is not generally allowed to know the details of Party B's contract with their same supplier.
Many thanks to Alastair for this header - really interesting and has convinced me that SIndy2 is on.
One strategy he doesn't cover is what happens if a boycott happens from the 'No' side. This would undermine the legitimacy of the referendum (I believe a similar tactic was tried with Puerto Rican statehood). The SNP would be hard pushed to get 50%+1 of the electorate voting yes I'd imagine.
A fair way to handle the vaccination problem would be to ensure the elderly in all countries get to go first. I wonder whether we will see a move amongst young people to refuse the vaccine until the more vulnerable elsewhere in the world have been covered.
There would be a boycott from the No side, that is certainly the Scottish Conservative position, much as pro Spain Unionists boycotted the unconstitutional 2017 Catalan independence referendum
Other parties have already told the Conservatives to get stuffed on that one, they know things are dire enough without being seen as Tories assistants.
The Scottish Conservatives are the main Unionist party in Scotland, Willie Rennie has also said the Scottish LDs believe no legal indyref2 should be allowed in the next Holyrood term and once Sarwar replaces Leonard with Ballie as his Deputy expect SLab to to join the Unionist hardline on this too
You may remember that yesterday I expressed surprise at the death rate among teaching staff being similar to the community outside, despite the infection rate being triple.
Turns out there are two reasons for this figure.
One is that on the whole teachers are younger than the population at large (something to do with 40% of staff leaving the profession within five years of qualifying).
The other is that the government deliberately excluded all staff over the age of 64, which meant they excluded half of all deaths among school staff, but compared the rate to the population as a whole.
Which is extraordinary. Not only is that blatantly criminal - even by the dreadful standards set by Williamson and Gibb - but were they really so dumb as to think nobody would notice?
I can only hope that the judge gives them all life sentences.
That TES piece is based on an Eoin Clarke special (renamed himself to 'Toryfibs' after the Eoin Clarke 'Blizzard of apologies to people he lied about' incident. I'm still blocked 9 years later.). Handle with extreme care.
The stats are also not DES stats, they are ONS stats. Govt did not exclude older (how many active teachers are there over 64 currently working in schools?) to manipulate figures, ONS did because reliable stats do not exist, and explicitly warn that the over-65 stats are provisional.
And the TES have not claimed a deliberate Govt intention to deceive. Nor has Eoin (used to call himself Dr Eoin when he was publishing 'health stats'; Phd is in Feminist History); he knows he'd be skewered if he did.
ONS compared 20-64 age group secondary school teachers to other professionals in the same age group, because they are the only ones for whom comparable statistics are available. They found teachers to be at a *lower* risk of death from COVID (at a 5% significance) level. Significance vanishes when extended to all education related staff.
ONS keep the over 65s provisional figures separate as it is not clear who they represent - are many retired etc?
Eoin just conflates the whole lot, with no commentary, to excite his followers. IMO TES have been suckered.
If there is one conclusion I'd hazard it is that teachers of working age are safer because vulnerables are shielding, and perhaps can afford to as still paid (?).
Vulnerable teachers are not shielding routinely, and they are not safer. Infection rates are three times the general population.
So the most plausible response to the fact that there are more infections but comparable deaths is that they are (a) younger and (b) figures are being fiddled. Which they clearly are. I would point out that the TES has filtered his data because it included lecturers, and they were interested in teachers.
This is all of piece with the DfE’s attempts through a number of irresponsible sources to claim schools are safe, when they are clearly not. And I might add, having repeatedly lied about the figures in the past (claiming the infection rate was 0.2% when it was 4.2% and the number isolating was up to 23%) they have in any case a massive credibility problem.
And whatever subject Clarke’s PhD was in, he’s still a doctor (unlike almost all GPs) and perfectly entitled to call himself one.
The ONS did find higher risk in secondary school male teachers compared to similar professions.
Some observations on the other things: - compared to general population, it's implied that comparisons were age matched (I'd be very surprised if not, that would be shoddy) but teachers will be better educated and paid more (I know! But compared to the general population it is true, does not mean teachers are not poorly paid for the job) which tends to suggest better outcomes, maybe through being in better health than the general population. - detected cases are high in teachers, but I would imagine that teachers are getting more tests - surely if there's a known case in a school, don't all the teachers get tested? I'd hope so! So more with mild/no symptoms may be getting detected. - including lecturers will skew the rates downwards as lecturers must be a pretty low risk group, little face to face teaching and massive precautions in place for that (also, generally, better paid and even more educated, with likely better health outcomes in general)
So, I'm not saying that teachers are not at higher risk (indeed, in the group in which comparisons were made, the ONS found that they were!) but there are reasons why they may not look higher risk compared to the general population, unless you factor in things like socio-economic status and, obviously, age profiles.
This threader is sophistry and pish in equal measure.
The matter will end, maybe after years, with the SCOTUK, which will surely rule in favour of Westminster having reserved powers to allow a binding referendum,
Sturgeon will then have the dilemma of calling a wildcat "advisory" vote (and risking a definite boycott and a Catalan outcome, where support for Catindy has now fallen), or biding her time, and waiting for a parliament more amenable in 2024.
Will this attitude from London provoke increased support for indy? Yes, quite possibly. But then, if London looks likely to lose a vote in 2022-2023, then it has nothing to lose and everything to gain by holding firm, and hoping for a change of mood.
What the heck is a "binding" referendum on a subject like this?
The EU Referendum wasn't "binding".
The question before SCOTUK will surely be whether they can lawfully hold a referendum - since under previous SCOTUK ruling all referenda are advisory, that element is moot.
If the SCOTUK rules in favour of the Scottish Parliament that they can legally hold a referendum then that is a game changer. It would be better not to go to Court than to lose that Court case because then the SCOTUK has essentially ruled it is a legal vote, not a wildcat one.
It seems odd to me that a fervent supporter of Brexit wants to take away an opportunity for the people of Scotland to experience the outplaying of some of its benefits, as opposed to just the immediate-term fissures.
Nats desperately want Indyref 2 now, I think because they lack confidence in the accuracy of their dire predictions, and they calculate that there will never be an angrier time than now, or a better opponent than Boris. I am less certain of why you want it now so desperately, you who believes that Brexit is going to be a success. I think five or six years is plenty of time to gage that. Within the context of a 300 year Union, it doesn't seem much? Your haste seems not to be about giving the Scottish people choice, but booting them out the door as quickly as possible. Why? Do you just plain not like them?
I believe in independence. Its why I voted Leave, its why I want the Scots to vote Yes. Independence works. Taking responsibility for yourself works. It is why I am a Conservative.
I don't believe in communitarianism. If the Scots want to be independent I say goodbye and good luck to them. I think it is for the best to be honest.
But either way more importantly than any of that, I believe in democracy. If they vote for it, they should get it.
What if I want to be "independent"? Or Cornwall? Or Shropshire? Hackney? A dog in the Wirral? The East Riding of old Yorkshire?
It might be appealing, in the moment. But at some point a country has to say: No, we are a country, we are unified, we have various traditions and cultures, but the centre must hold. And stay united. Otherwise we will hang apart, if we do not hang together.
Britain has arguably done a worse job of this than any other European country. We are probably the most successful big European nation over the last 300 years, judged in terms of average wealth over time, and being peaceful, safe, democratic and not-being-conquered. The fact we have allowed secessionist movements to develop, despite this success, is a total failure of the British elite, which lacks confidence in its own amazing brand.
Right now, too many posh Brits want the Scots to secede, just to punish the country for voting Leave (I accept your motivations are different)
You havering idiot , you are not a country, just some deluded spotty oick stuck in his bedroom with a keyboard and enough brain cells to be dangerous.
Comments
Design a virus which is destructive enough to kill, but not so virulent to prevent spread, have it be able to pass through a population to disrupt economies at a level enough to keep them functional but at a low level for a long period. Develop 'new' strains which prolong the pandemic and slow down vaccines. Have plans in place so your own economy although is hit, can recover quicker and faster than others/
I know that's stupid to suggest and I don't believe it, but if was a thriller writer, to goes to show you don't need a doomsday virus.
The bit I like is that they are mass producing experimental rockets, to the point they have *too many*, in a swamp in Texas, using redneck welders. RAH is smiling, somewhere.
https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1353999453028577280
What a surprise. Utter shoddy stuff from the German media there.
From PB's remainiac-in-chief who is still cheering for the EU on the day even the Guardian is reporting the implicit threat they are making to our vaccine supplies.
It's pretty obvious that there are talks behind the scene with the likes of Gordon Brown, so it will be a No, plus a constitutional commission to report some years in the future when Boris and Nicola have left the scene. Will it provoke a Caledonian insurgency and riots in Inverness? Don't think so.
This scenario is why the SNP is seething internally and Nicola has had to go along with this scheme which is immensely risky (as she knows only too well).
One reason indeed why the DfE and Ofsted both need to be got rid of is that they not tolerate this disparity, at times they seem to be actively promoting it. One school of my acquaintance was placed in special measures becuase of a dispute between the Head and the Lead Inspector (purely personal, nothing to do with the school). Yet Ofsted did nothing to remove the lead inspector even though they must have been aware of the situation. The result was a superhead came in, the school inevitably cratered and it went from being an uninteresting average sort of comp to a basket case.
On the other side, a school I worked in (no longer, thankfully) decided to conceal the fact a member of staff had been caught accessing inappropriate websites on the school’s servers just before an inspection. The Head basically messed up the disciplinary procedure and had to drop the case. Did the inspectors pick it up? No. Did they know? Yes, because they were told. Did they say the school was fully compliant with all regulatory and professional standards? Yes. So their report was basically a lie.
The issue is, how do you make sure there is still some oversight? Because it is needed. Without inspections too many schools would just coast along. But at the moment, the system veers between the worthless and the damaging.
- If Johnson accepts a referendum, it is in effect legal.
- If he doesn't accept it, any move towards independence is contested, with all the implications that has. Whether it's a referendum that is being contested or independence itself largely comes to the same thing.
For Johnson the implication of a contested independence is that he is rejecting any self-determination by Scotland. The only way he has of demonstrating Scotland doesn't want to leave the United Kingdom is by allowing the referendum and winning it.For Sturgeon the implication of a contested independence is that it is likely to invalidate that independence within sections of her own country as well as internationally. It also creates a very messy situation.
Is the UK going to do that? Should the UK do that?
Is it worth keeping Scotland in the UK if the only way to do so is to sell your soul and turn violent against your fellow Brits?
The John was a bit too far in that particular emergency.
For a start, announced one-off inspections are ridiculous. Gun decking is the inevitable result....
The SNP should focus on domestic politics and the pandemic and not their divisive agenda of never ending independence referendums until they get the result they want
"“We realised it’s much easier to squint at a chart and insinuate something about the French,” a well-placed German media source told Berlaymonster. “This is going to be our next export success.”"
There is no question of UK Govt going down that route.
Boris has a host of plausible reasons to turn down SIndy2, not least of which would be not betraying SCon voters. This will be kicked into the long grass.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Catalan_independence_referendum
Unf*cking believable.
Yet the anti-vaxxers now have their ammunition..........nice job Handelsblatt, Bild.....
He felt they had escalated the confrontation, and thrown the game. The personal behaviour of some of the politicians involved didn't impress either.
That's why an unauthorised referendum will just be shit-stirring, possibly a useful tool in pushing a yes vote in an authorised referendum a few years later, but not decisive in itself.
I say that as someone who believes that if a Nationalist majority is returned to Holyrood on a ticket of calling a second independence referendum then it should be granted - and Brexit is enough of a material change in circumstances to override the once in a generation idea - even though I personally would like Scotland to stay.
And, frankly, I have yet to see a compelling reason provided why Boris would concede a referendum he would likely lose.
Flag-waving mobs on Princes Street are just as likely to repel middle-of-the-road Scots as they are to energise them.
But it's been in a sort of goldilock's zone of being just deadly enough that we can't let it run through the population, but not so deadly that we're scared enough to deal with it properly.
For the EU to do that would be insane.
NEW THREAD?
Firstly, if the Act is struck down as being outside Holyrood's competence, that will have a considerable political impact.
Remember how Remainers wail about Boris "illegally shutting down parliament", when in fact the extended prorogation in 2019 had almost no practical effect (and was certainly not known to be unlawful in advance). It was all theatre - but very meaningful theatre as it set a narrative that still runs.
If the Scottish government tried to hold a referendum after the Courts had struck down the Act enabling it, there would be a heavy question of legitimacy over the vote. This is not a matter of law but of consent. Yes, the 2014 and 2016 referendums were not binding but everyone treated them as such in advance; it's a different situation if one side does not, and the public accepts that the vote is dodgy.
And secondly, the administration of public votes is carried out through local councils, who hold the necessary data and incur the cost. Even if the Scottish govt took on the cost themselves, it doesn't hold the data of the electoral rolls and it's doubtful if it could force councils to hand it over for a purpose not authorised in law (and the law here is the 1998 Scotland Act, not anything that Holyrood might purport to pass but which falls foul of the same issue a Referendum Act would).
Now, this isn't to say that the UK govt *should* refuse consent to a new referendum. I agree with Alastair that the medium term consequences to doing so would be counterproductive. However, if it did, I think Sturgeon would find it harder to go through with an unauthorised vote than is suggested in the header article.
If (as seems the case) the vaccines are highly effective, then more people will want to take them, but high efficacy means we could get to herd immunity with fewer vaccinations given.
If the vaccines were less effective, people would be less keen to have them (less upside, same imagined/possible downside) but reduced efficacy would mean that we would need a greater number to get vaccinated to get to herd immunity.
Fortunately, we seem to be in the first scenario, which will only mean we get well beyond herd immunity levels, hopefully, and push R well below 1.
The stats are also not DES stats, they are ONS stats. Govt did not exclude older (how many active teachers are there over 64 currently working in schools?) to manipulate figures, ONS did because reliable stats do not exist, and explicitly warn that the over-65 stats are provisional.
And the TES have not claimed a deliberate Govt intention to deceive. Nor has Eoin (used to call himself Dr Eoin when he was publishing 'health stats'; Phd is in Feminist History); he knows he'd be skewered if he did.
ONS compared 20-64 age group secondary school teachers to other professionals in the same age group, because they are the only ones for whom comparable statistics are available. They found teachers to be at a *lower* risk of death from COVID (at a 5% significance) level. Significance vanishes when extended to all education related staff.
ONS keep the over 65s provisional figures separate as it is not clear who they represent - are many retired etc?
Eoin just conflates the whole lot, with no commentary, to excite his followers. IMO TES have been suckered.
ONS commentary:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19relateddeathsbyoccupationenglandandwales/deathsregisteredbetween9marchand28december2020#deaths-involving-covid-19-in-teaching-and-educational-professionals
If there is one conclusion I'd hazard it is that teachers of working age are safer because vulnerables are shielding, and perhaps can afford to as still paid (?).
So the most plausible response to the fact that there are more infections but comparable deaths is that they are (a) younger and (b) figures are being fiddled. Which they clearly are. I would point out that the TES has filtered his data because it included lecturers, and they were interested in teachers.
This is all of piece with the DfE’s attempts through a number of irresponsible sources to claim schools are safe, when they are clearly not. And I might add, having repeatedly lied about the figures in the past (claiming the infection rate was 0.2% when it was 4.2% and the number isolating was up to 23%) they have in any case a massive credibility problem.
And whatever subject Clarke’s PhD was in, he’s still a doctor (unlike almost all GPs) and perfectly entitled to call himself one.
https://prod.news.stv.tv/politics/scottish-lib-dems-will-oppose-holding-indyref2-at-any-point?top
Some observations on the other things:
- compared to general population, it's implied that comparisons were age matched (I'd be very surprised if not, that would be shoddy) but teachers will be better educated and paid more (I know! But compared to the general population it is true, does not mean teachers are not poorly paid for the job) which tends to suggest better outcomes, maybe through being in better health than the general population.
- detected cases are high in teachers, but I would imagine that teachers are getting more tests - surely if there's a known case in a school, don't all the teachers get tested? I'd hope so! So more with mild/no symptoms may be getting detected.
- including lecturers will skew the rates downwards as lecturers must be a pretty low risk group, little face to face teaching and massive precautions in place for that (also, generally, better paid and even more educated, with likely better health outcomes in general)
So, I'm not saying that teachers are not at higher risk (indeed, in the group in which comparisons were made, the ONS found that they were!) but there are reasons why they may not look higher risk compared to the general population, unless you factor in things like socio-economic status and, obviously, age profiles.