Is it significant he's not using the plane with the £million paint job?
He’s in a smaller plane, a BAe 146. Cheaper than an A330 for a domestic flight, even without any operational constraints. The 146 can (and probably did) take off from Northolt, which the larger plane can’t.
The German decision re AZ over 65’s is rather worrying.
What if it isn’t effective?
It's the absence of clinical data (its unusual to test drugs on the elderly until they've checked out ok on the young) because we've done in 9 months what typically takes 6 years - which means you have to decide either to:
- wait for clinical data, or - use your judgement based on other available data - in this case a peer reviewed paper in the Lancet showing the response in the elderly was very similar to that in the young.
Given Germany also has the Pfizer vaccine its not an unreasonable decision - it will be a tougher call for those without Pfizer/its infrastructure.
Wait for "perfection" or go with "good enough".
Given the number of dead 65+ year olds we have I believe "good enough" is good enough.
The Times now has the actual data (reported in the Guardian blog) - the sample of over-65s was 341 taking the AZ vaccine and 319 controls. There was ONE Covid case in each group, meaning that we are none the wiser, and the confidence interval is a ridiculous -1400 to +94 (with, if anyone cares, a median of 6.3%, compared with 70% for everyone else).
So the data does not support any conclusion for the over-65 sample - we only have the indirect evidence showing that the AZ vaccine acts similarly (which is not the same as being effective) in all groups. I think that "Use it and hope for the best" is perfectly defensible, as is "Only use it for under-65s where we know it works", and nobody should be snarky about either policy. What is crucial is that we knock on the head any suggestion that the data proves it's ineffective. There is simply inadequate data, not bad data.
I'd like to see Britain modify our policy to use Pfizer by preference for the elderly where the vaccinaiton point has both in stock, while still giving priority to getting everyone vaccinated. It's unfortunate as it turns out that we didn't order more of the Pfizer vaccine, but nobody expects Ministers or the NHS to be able to guess in advance what will work best.
My mum (83) has just had her 1st dose appointment through for this Saturday at a local pharmacy. I expect, given the location, that she will be getting the AZ jab. I've no concerns about that - I'd much rather she get a vaccine now than wait.
My point is, in trying to deal with this at pace, I don't think we really have the luxury to focus different vaccines on different demographics at the moment.
Ideal world AZN wouldn't even be approved. But we have to get anyway from thinking about this in terms of the individual. It isn't about that at the moment, it is about driving now infection and hospitalisations across the whole community, rather than maximum individual protection.
I don't actually agree with this. The data presented shows efficacy above 60% for over 18's. Four months ago we would have snapped the offering hand off for that. And don't forget - NO-ONE who received the vaccine needed hospital treatment. That's enough. The very high efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine has skewed perceptions of what the target needs to be.
Yes, but 60% is very different to 95%. If you look at Israel and their experience with the Pfizer jab, they have seen - in total - something like just 12 cases of coronavirus in older people from one week after the second dose. And of those 12 cases, none had a fever above 38.5 degrees.
Unfortunately, Pfizer (and Moderna) availability is low right now. If I'd been the German government (or even the EU), instead of threatening, I'd have been paying the mother of all subsidies to try and get now mRNA vaccine capacity built.
You catch, as the saying goes, more flies with honey than with vinegar.
Quite. In my experience of contracts - when you start waving legal threats around, everyone circles the wagons. Which slows things down...
To put it another way - who thinks that AZN will be talking to the EU, other than through a filter composed of tens of thousands of pounds per hour of lawyers, tens of thousands of pounds per hour of political consultants and probably tens of thousands of pounds per hour of PR consultants?
Sky reporting AZ factory in Belgium was raided by Belgium authorities
Which is one way of producing more vaccines?
"Raided" is a bit strong
Rather like the "send in the gunboats" on French fishermen.
Inspectors using their inspection rights.
Its not a bit strong then, it's wrong!
'Raided' was the word used by the Sky reporter
Glad you're back to trusting Sky again, I seem to recall you'd gone off them for a bit.
It is an inconvenient truth for you that he used raided
If you had a smidgeon of self awareness it would be an inconvenient truth for you that you have on several occasions staggered about the place rending your clothing and bewailing the bias of Sky News. Unfortunately..
One important factor that was emphasised recently at the UK gov press conference is strong showing of AZ vaccine in reducing mortality and serious illness which is a different but related metric to lowering infections.
No one should give a stuff about infections. It's all about hospitalisations and mortality.
...which follow infections.
Not necessarily. A positive infection result would be given by someone asymptomatic (whether they've had the jab or not).
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying hospitalisation are always caused by infections. Disrupting asymptomatic transmission is also valuable.
That is true. Then we need to look at hospitalisations/(as in over) infections.
You will be the importer of the product. Which means you will have to pay import VAT and tariffs (if appropriate), charges for the customs forms etc.
In the case of buying from EBay, they *should* (it seems a bit random right now) collect applicable VAT at the checkout. They seem to be using the same system used for imports into Australia, where EBay collects and remits sales tax and the seller gets a code to put on the package to tell customs tax has been paid.
Just yesterday I received an item I bought on EBay from Poland, where I just paid one price at the checkout and nothing more. Interestingly, though, today I did get a call from DHL asking for proof of the item's value, which I gave them and it doesn't seem to be an issue. But I wonder if they've been told by HMRC to tighten up on people under-reporting values to dodge tax.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
Something like 140% of shares are already out on loan, impossible to short at the moment.
You've just blown a fuse in my brain with that statement.
People have borrowed shares that don't exist?
Yes... kinda....here is a simple explainer of how that occurs. Its a bit like Gordon Browns double counting approach to spending.
Actually the Brown example is apposite. He was faced with a similar situation when he sold the UK's gold. Market makers had massively over shorted the metal relative to what was physically available to deliver at those hugely depressed prices. The market was eminently squeezable. What did that F8ckwit Brown do? He sold right at the bottom to help the bankers out of what was an increasingly desperate trade.
Of course, since then gold has gone up by almost a factor of ten. costing the UK a massive fortune. And yet some people still think we should listen to this idiot.
It wasn't a trade, it was what's called an OAFAS. A once and forever asset switch. Maintaining a theoretical P&L on that after the event is not meaningful unless you 'test track & trace' where the proceeds went, and further went, and then again went, and the interest, plus the compounding, and the FX fluctuations on different currencies etc etc etc. I mean, if gold plummets tomorrow, should we be saying, "Shit, Gordon Brown made us £x milllion today. Go Gordo!" Hardly.
The stupid bit was dumping it on the market. The South African government thought it was some kind of attack on their economy - they depend on the gold price and crashing it was a bit rude.
Shame they got rid of the Bank of England gold unit, really.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
Something like 140% of shares are already out on loan, impossible to short at the moment.
You've just blown a fuse in my brain with that statement.
People have borrowed shares that don't exist?
Yes... kinda....here is a simple explainer of how that occurs. Its a bit like Gordon Browns double counting approach to spending.
Actually the Brown example is apposite. He was faced with a similar situation when he sold the UK's gold. Market makers had massively over shorted the metal relative to what was physically available to deliver at those hugely depressed prices. The market was eminently squeezable. What did that F8ckwit Brown do? He sold right at the bottom to help the bankers out of what was an increasingly desperate trade.
Of course, since then gold has gone up by almost a factor of ten. costing the UK a massive fortune. And yet some people still think we should listen to this idiot.
"But the gold" is the "but her emails" before "but her emails" was a thing.
I always find it funny that Brown sold gold for less than it was worth, and 3G spectrum for more, and you'd think it would all balance out.
Brown kept us out of the Euro & that was worth more to this country than any of his supposed sins ten times over.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Yes, the gleeful reaction of europhobes to the EU's vaccine troubles has been quite intense. I've given it some thought and I think what we might be seeing is an example of something known in the football world, and indeed in wider society, as Stockport County Syndrome. The name derives from the tendency of the more fervent supporters of a small town, perennially struggling club to take great pleasure from the occasional defeat of their wealthy, big city rivals. All very understandable on a human level, and certainly nothing to overly chastize people for, but of course it changes nothing. When the excitement dies down a week or so later, it's BAU. There is still Man Utd. And there is still Stockport County.
I sincerely hope you're wrong. One of the selling points of Brexit was that we'd stop obsessing over everything the EU does and start start holding our own politicians to account with their newly granted sovereignty. I'm not seeing many signs of this yet: even now, some are more keen to boom about the EU's current Covid failings than they ever were about Boris's. It does make we wonder what these people really wanted out of Brexit.
I suppose it makes sense in that if the reason you voted Leave was you considered Brussels to be an incompetent bunch of unaccountable eurocrats, then you will be watching like a hawk for anything to confirm that opinion. But over time this really ought to subside. If it doesn't, and if people on the other side do the same, it would mean the EU question continues to dominate our politics even after Brexit. Like you, I hope not.
Is this not just the need to manage the relationship? It is now a relationship with far more facets.
EU Commish says that they have a contract dispute with AZ and that it is nothing to do with UK Govt. Fair enough.
Then they start making bizarre accusations about profiteering and heaven knows what wrt a British Company. Then they say they will prevent exports to the UK from an entirely unrelated business. All without showing that they have even a contractual leg to stand on.
It's certainly UK Govt business now.
Very Ruritanian behaviour for an allegedly important law-abiding trade block.
My diagnosis is still that it is a couple of complacent senior Eurocrats covering their backsides.
You will be the importer of the product. Which means you will have to pay import VAT and tariffs (if appropriate), charges for the customs forms etc.
In the case of buying from EBay, they *should* (it seems a bit random right now) collect applicable VAT at the checkout. They seem to be using the same system used for imports into Australia, where EBay collects and remits sales tax and the seller gets a code to put on the package to tell customs tax has been paid.
Just yesterday I received an item I bought on EBay from Poland, where I just paid one price at the checkout and nothing more. Interestingly, though, today I did get a call from DHL asking for proof of the item's value, which I gave them and it doesn't seem to be an issue. But I wonder if they've been told by HMRC to tighten up on people under-reporting values to dodge tax.
eBay haven't really spotted Brexit yet: if you filter your search on Location = EU it includes UK items.
A Scotch Unionist speaks, one of my 'fellow countrymen' which appears to be the preferred term on here
'Boris Johnson’s Scotland trip is a gift to the SNP
He’ll be at it again today. Mark my words. Or, rather, mark his. For Johnson will, as always, talk about the glories of the United Kingdom and all the support it has offered Scotland during this pandemic. There is the furlough scheme, of course, and there will be talk of the vaccine programme and the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom state and about how the army — now seemingly rebranded as the 'British army' — is supporting everything and it all shows how much better we are together.
Well, all of this could be true. It is possible to believe all of this in good faith while also recognising that it is a hopeless way of persuading those who need to be persuaded. For, implicitly, it asks them to believe that, perhaps uniquely, an independent Scotland would not have been capable of organising an employment support scheme or purchasing vaccines (albeit perhaps not as promptly as the UK has managed) or having soldiers to help set up vaccination centres or anything else. How have other countries coped without being part of the Prime Minister’s 'awesome foursome'?'
Didn't one person say fellow countrymen? And that makes it a preferred term?
You take it all a bit too seriously when you do the faked outraged 'north Briton/provincial' self referencing as though lots of people are doing it. I like to self pity as much as the next guy though, so you do you.
Curses, I was just going to write a 2000 word treatise on PB's preferred term being fellow countryman.
Lighten up, you've no idea what really outrages me.
1st dose 2nd dose Cumulative Total Doses to Date Total 251,902 1,090 252,992 East Of England 24,773 51 24,824 London 41,254 298 41,552 Midlands 41,416 75 41,491 North East And Yorkshire 38,606 76 38,682 North West 38,266 408 38,674 South East 37,176 125 37,301 South West 28,317 53 28,370
What kind of panic do you think we should go for? Running round with hair on fire? War with Erewhon?
Now I think it is undisputable there are supply issues here in the UK....but our government aren't going full metal Cartman.
"Tight but we're confident of meeting our target" suggests that the government have the capacity to deliver but not the supply at present but think that more is on the way. Hopefully there's a big batch incoming, as it's easily possible for us to be doing 500k a day if the supply is there as demonstrated last week.
If I remember right this was the week we were expecting delays, especially with Pfizer. Hopefully back to full steam ahead next week.
Typical that an aspiration for the government is to reach equivalence to 19th century steam power.
Let's nuclear ahead.
You do know that nuclear power uses steam, don't you?
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
Something like 140% of shares are already out on loan, impossible to short at the moment.
You've just blown a fuse in my brain with that statement.
People have borrowed shares that don't exist?
Yes... kinda....here is a simple explainer of how that occurs. Its a bit like Gordon Browns double counting approach to spending.
Actually the Brown example is apposite. He was faced with a similar situation when he sold the UK's gold. Market makers had massively over shorted the metal relative to what was physically available to deliver at those hugely depressed prices. The market was eminently squeezable. What did that F8ckwit Brown do? He sold right at the bottom to help the bankers out of what was an increasingly desperate trade.
Of course, since then gold has gone up by almost a factor of ten. costing the UK a massive fortune. And yet some people still think we should listen to this idiot.
It wasn't a trade, it was what's called an OAFAS. A once and forever asset switch. Maintaining a theoretical P&L on that after the event is not meaningful unless you 'test track & trace' where the proceeds went, and further went, and then again went, and the interest, plus the compounding, and the FX fluctuations on different currencies etc etc etc. I mean, if gold plummets tomorrow, should we be saying, "Shit, Gordon Brown made us £x milllion today. Go Gordo!" Hardly.
Quite. The money went into treasuries & other interest bearing securities. Guess what became more & more valuable over the next decade as interest rates dropped & then the financial crisis hit?
Was it a bad time to sell gold? Sure. Did the country actually end up worse off overall? Well, that’s an entirely different question.
Yep. The "loss" is the shortfall between what he reasonably could have got and what he did get in the circs. i.e. if the sale were bungled in a practical way, needlessly telegraphed, say, then fair enough, what that cost us as a differential can be called a loss. But beyond that, like if you start tracking the ups and downs of gold since, it gets unreal.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Yes, the gleeful reaction of europhobes to the EU's vaccine troubles has been quite intense. I've given it some thought and I think what we might be seeing is an example of something known in the football world, and indeed in wider society, as Stockport County Syndrome. The name derives from the tendency of the more fervent supporters of a small town, perennially struggling club to take great pleasure from the occasional defeat of their wealthy, big city rivals. All very understandable on a human level, and certainly nothing to overly chastize people for, but of course it changes nothing. When the excitement dies down a week or so later, it's BAU. There is still Man Utd. And there is still Stockport County.
I don't see a single person here "gleeful" that the EU is troubled.
I see a lot of people acknowledging the EU is troubled, right down to williamglenn calling for UVDL's resignation on the subject. I see other people trying to whatabout or downplay just how serious this is.
The EU aren't just failing to protect their own citizens, they're jeopardising us. The science and technology exists to eradicate this damned nasty bug but because they've chosen to cheap out on it instead its going to remain on our continent and risks mutation and reintroduction into this country.
I don't see a single person happy about that.
There is some glee. You can only see it if you're not feeling it.
Or if you're a paranoid fool who projects emotions onto others.
I see more anger than glee. With an element of "I told you so" at the worst.
Next time you criticise anyone should I use the word "glee" about your emotions at the time?
I detect not project. Sorry, Philip, you're not fooling me on this one. I have a persona for every poster and yours is Gareth Keenan (or more accurately Mackenzie Crook). This means I can see your face as you post and atm, with this EU vaccine debacle, the expression etched upon it is ... well, it looks like glee.
Excellent. So without wishing to push this too far, who in your view is the David Brent of PB?
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Yes, the gleeful reaction of europhobes to the EU's vaccine troubles has been quite intense. I've given it some thought and I think what we might be seeing is an example of something known in the football world, and indeed in wider society, as Stockport County Syndrome. The name derives from the tendency of the more fervent supporters of a small town, perennially struggling club to take great pleasure from the occasional defeat of their wealthy, big city rivals. All very understandable on a human level, and certainly nothing to overly chastize people for, but of course it changes nothing. When the excitement dies down a week or so later, it's BAU. There is still Man Utd. And there is still Stockport County.
I sincerely hope you're wrong. One of the selling points of Brexit was that we'd stop obsessing over everything the EU does and start start holding our own politicians to account with their newly granted sovereignty. I'm not seeing many signs of this yet: even now, some are more keen to boom about the EU's current Covid failings than they ever were about Boris's. It does make we wonder what these people really wanted out of Brexit.
I suppose it makes sense in that if the reason you voted Leave was you considered Brussels to be an incompetent bunch of unaccountable eurocrats, then you will be watching like a hawk for anything to confirm that opinion. But over time this really ought to subside. If it doesn't, and if people on the other side do the same, it would mean the EU question continues to dominate our politics even after Brexit. Like you, I hope not.
Is this not just the need to manage the relationship? It is now a relationship with far more facets.
EU Commish says that they have a contract dispute with AZ and that it is nothing to do with UK Govt. Fair enough.
Then they start making bizarre accusations about profiteering and heaven knows what wrt a British Company. Then they say they will prevent exports to the UK from an entirely unrelated business. All without showing that they have even a contractual leg to stand on.
It's certainly UK Govt business now.
Very Ruritanian behaviour for an allegedly important law-abiding trade block.
My diagnosis is still that it is a couple of complacent senior Eurocrats covering their backsides.
There's a further subplot in that France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands were ready to sign a contract with AstraZeneca in June last year. They were sat on and the negotiations were taken over by the Commission which delayed the contact until the end of August. A lot of reputations are at stake.
1st dose 2nd dose Cumulative Total Doses to Date Total 251,902 1,090 252,992 East Of England 24,773 51 24,824 London 41,254 298 41,552 Midlands 41,416 75 41,491 North East And Yorkshire 38,606 76 38,682 North West 38,266 408 38,674 South East 37,176 125 37,301 South West 28,317 53 28,370
What kind of panic do you think we should go for? Running round with hair on fire? War with Erewhon?
Now I think it is undisputable there are supply issues here in the UK....but our government aren't going full metal Cartman.
"Tight but we're confident of meeting our target" suggests that the government have the capacity to deliver but not the supply at present but think that more is on the way. Hopefully there's a big batch incoming, as it's easily possible for us to be doing 500k a day if the supply is there as demonstrated last week.
If I remember right this was the week we were expecting delays, especially with Pfizer. Hopefully back to full steam ahead next week.
Typical that an aspiration for the government is to reach equivalence to 19th century steam power.
Let's nuclear ahead.
You do know that nuclear power uses steam, don't you?
You know what I want now? A nuclear-powered steam train. Lockdown and homeschooling might be sending me a bit loco.
I don't pretend to entirely understand the mechanics behind this but if the shares are bouncing along at 100 times what they are really worth, isn't now exactly the time to short them? Why wouldn't even those hedge funds that have lost money so far just pile back in?
Something like 140% of shares are already out on loan, impossible to short at the moment.
You've just blown a fuse in my brain with that statement.
People have borrowed shares that don't exist?
Yes... kinda....here is a simple explainer of how that occurs. Its a bit like Gordon Browns double counting approach to spending.
Actually the Brown example is apposite. He was faced with a similar situation when he sold the UK's gold. Market makers had massively over shorted the metal relative to what was physically available to deliver at those hugely depressed prices. The market was eminently squeezable. What did that F8ckwit Brown do? He sold right at the bottom to help the bankers out of what was an increasingly desperate trade.
Of course, since then gold has gone up by almost a factor of ten. costing the UK a massive fortune. And yet some people still think we should listen to this idiot.
It wasn't a trade, it was what's called an OAFAS. A once and forever asset switch. Maintaining a theoretical P&L on that after the event is not meaningful unless you 'test track & trace' where the proceeds went, and further went, and then again went, and the interest, plus the compounding, and the FX fluctuations on different currencies etc etc etc. I mean, if gold plummets tomorrow, should we be saying, "Shit, Gordon Brown made us £x milllion today. Go Gordo!" Hardly.
The stupid bit was dumping it on the market. The South African government thought it was some kind of attack on their economy - they depend on the gold price and crashing it was a bit rude.
Shame they got rid of the Bank of England gold unit, really.
Yes. The logistics and tactics were sub-optimal. That's a fair cop. But the "Brown cost us a fortune on gold" thing has long become a bow-tie reactionary trope.
One important factor that was emphasised recently at the UK gov press conference is strong showing of AZ vaccine in reducing mortality and serious illness which is a different but related metric to lowering infections.
No one should give a stuff about infections. It's all about hospitalisations and mortality.
...which follow infections.
Not necessarily. A positive infection result would be given by someone asymptomatic (whether they've had the jab or not).
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying hospitalisation are always caused by infections. Disrupting asymptomatic transmission is also valuable.
That is true. Then we need to look at hospitalisations/(as in over) infections.
Yes, agreed. I've idly wondered for a while whether it's a mistake to focus only on the more vulnerable. There are some lines of work that bring people into more frequent contact with other people, and inoculating them ahead of others might make sense. I don't know what modelling has been done, and I don't imagine it's a particularly easy choice to make either way, and it might not even be worth it as a practical exercise, but in theory I can imagine a circumstance where vaccinating a city bus driver ahead of a retired elderly couple in rural Devon is the course that saves most lives. Far more important than any of that, though was all the people cramming into pubs and cafes in the autumn. It baffled me then, and it baffles me still. A lot of vulnerable people are dead today because of infections that non-vulnerable people caught and spread back then. Which is why I got twitchy about the "No one should give a stuff about infections" comment.
A Scotch Unionist speaks, one of my 'fellow countrymen' which appears to be the preferred term on here
'Boris Johnson’s Scotland trip is a gift to the SNP
He’ll be at it again today. Mark my words. Or, rather, mark his. For Johnson will, as always, talk about the glories of the United Kingdom and all the support it has offered Scotland during this pandemic. There is the furlough scheme, of course, and there will be talk of the vaccine programme and the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom state and about how the army — now seemingly rebranded as the 'British army' — is supporting everything and it all shows how much better we are together.
Well, all of this could be true. It is possible to believe all of this in good faith while also recognising that it is a hopeless way of persuading those who need to be persuaded. For, implicitly, it asks them to believe that, perhaps uniquely, an independent Scotland would not have been capable of organising an employment support scheme or purchasing vaccines (albeit perhaps not as promptly as the UK has managed) or having soldiers to help set up vaccination centres or anything else. How have other countries coped without being part of the Prime Minister’s 'awesome foursome'?'
Didn't one person say fellow countrymen? And that makes it a preferred term?
You take it all a bit too seriously when you do the faked outraged 'north Briton/provincial' self referencing as though lots of people are doing it. I like to self pity as much as the next guy though, so you do you.
Curses, I was just going to write a 2000 word treatise on PB's preferred term being fellow countryman.
Lighten up, you've no idea what really outrages me.
Losing referenda?
Actually I find that pricks I and my country didn't vote for telling me that they'll decide when we can hold referenda pushes the needle a bit higher on the outrageometer.
1st dose 2nd dose Cumulative Total Doses to Date Total 251,902 1,090 252,992 East Of England 24,773 51 24,824 London 41,254 298 41,552 Midlands 41,416 75 41,491 North East And Yorkshire 38,606 76 38,682 North West 38,266 408 38,674 South East 37,176 125 37,301 South West 28,317 53 28,370
What kind of panic do you think we should go for? Running round with hair on fire? War with Erewhon?
Now I think it is undisputable there are supply issues here in the UK....but our government aren't going full metal Cartman.
"Tight but we're confident of meeting our target" suggests that the government have the capacity to deliver but not the supply at present but think that more is on the way. Hopefully there's a big batch incoming, as it's easily possible for us to be doing 500k a day if the supply is there as demonstrated last week.
If I remember right this was the week we were expecting delays, especially with Pfizer. Hopefully back to full steam ahead next week.
Typical that an aspiration for the government is to reach equivalence to 19th century steam power.
Let's nuclear ahead.
You do know that nuclear power uses steam, don't you?
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Yes, the gleeful reaction of europhobes to the EU's vaccine troubles has been quite intense. I've given it some thought and I think what we might be seeing is an example of something known in the football world, and indeed in wider society, as Stockport County Syndrome. The name derives from the tendency of the more fervent supporters of a small town, perennially struggling club to take great pleasure from the occasional defeat of their wealthy, big city rivals. All very understandable on a human level, and certainly nothing to overly chastize people for, but of course it changes nothing. When the excitement dies down a week or so later, it's BAU. There is still Man Utd. And there is still Stockport County.
I sincerely hope you're wrong. One of the selling points of Brexit was that we'd stop obsessing over everything the EU does and start start holding our own politicians to account with their newly granted sovereignty. I'm not seeing many signs of this yet: even now, some are more keen to boom about the EU's current Covid failings than they ever were about Boris's. It does make we wonder what these people really wanted out of Brexit.
I suppose it makes sense in that if the reason you voted Leave was you considered Brussels to be an incompetent bunch of unaccountable eurocrats, then you will be watching like a hawk for anything to confirm that opinion. But over time this really ought to subside. If it doesn't, and if people on the other side do the same, it would mean the EU question continues to dominate our politics even after Brexit. Like you, I hope not.
Is this not just the need to manage the relationship? It is now a relationship with far more facets.
EU Commish says that they have a contract dispute with AZ and that it is nothing to do with UK Govt. Fair enough.
Then they start making bizarre accusations about profiteering and heaven knows what wrt a British Company. Then they say they will prevent exports to the UK from an entirely unrelated business. All without showing that they have even a contractual leg to stand on.
It's certainly UK Govt business now.
Very Ruritanian behaviour for an allegedly important law-abiding trade block.
My diagnosis is still that it is a couple of complacent senior Eurocrats covering their backsides.
There's a further subplot in that France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands were ready to sign a contract with AstraZeneca in June last year. They were sat on and the negotiations were taken over by the Commission which delayed the contact until the end of August. A lot of reputations are at stake.
And the boss of AZN is blaming the delay then for the delay now.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
"Massachusetts state regulator William Galvin called on the New York Stock Exchange to suspend GameStop for 30 days to allow a cooling-off period. "This isn't investing, this is gambling," he said in an interview. "This is obviously contrived.""
Sturgeon is usually sure footed and competent. However criticising Johnson over a visit to Scotland seems a bit over the top and churlish.
Is it? All he's doing is cart people over the border and back down. During lockdown. From a higher-risk area to a lower one. Just so he can be photographed somewhere with plastic goggles and a yellow jacket/white coat, near a nice convenient fridge.
And what stops it being against the law is his interpretation of need and work.
If a relative of mine can get married with just two people present - the witnesses - on the principle of minimising risk, and doing without any wedding lunch never mind reception on the same principle, then Mr J can bloody well reduce his extracurricular activities to a minimum.
If it comes to that, why does Sturgeon do a daily commute between tiers?
Eh? Are you living in England? We don't have tiers in Scotland, and we have all the same Level in the Mainland anyway.
Woo Hoo, my dear old Mum just got her first vaccine! A Pfizer jab at the main vaccination centre in Rutland. Great to see the massive smile on her face, and the first real sign that things are slowly going to get back to something approaching normal.
One important factor that was emphasised recently at the UK gov press conference is strong showing of AZ vaccine in reducing mortality and serious illness which is a different but related metric to lowering infections.
No one should give a stuff about infections. It's all about hospitalisations and mortality.
...which follow infections.
Not necessarily. A positive infection result would be given by someone asymptomatic (whether they've had the jab or not).
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying hospitalisation are always caused by infections. Disrupting asymptomatic transmission is also valuable.
That is true. Then we need to look at hospitalisations/(as in over) infections.
Yes, agreed. I've idly wondered for a while whether it's a mistake to focus only on the more vulnerable. There are some lines of work that bring people into more frequent contact with other people, and inoculating them ahead of others might make sense. I don't know what modelling has been done, and I don't imagine it's a particularly easy choice to make either way, and it might not even be worth it as a practical exercise, but in theory I can imagine a circumstance where vaccinating a city bus driver ahead of a retired elderly couple in rural Devon is the course that saves most lives. Far more important than any of that, though was all the people cramming into pubs and cafes in the autumn. It baffled me then, and it baffles me still. A lot of vulnerable people are dead today because of infections that non-vulnerable people caught and spread back then. Which is why I got twitchy about the "No one should give a stuff about infections" comment.
Young people who work as receptionists in chemists and dentists are being vaccinated ahead of healthy 70 year olds, and that's probably the right decision IMO.
Wouldn't surprise me if it finishes below its starting point. I expect a fair few stock holders would have taken the opportunity to exit while the price was high. Those that have replaced them seem to have no intention of actually holding the stock. So who will at the end of this?
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Yes, the gleeful reaction of europhobes to the EU's vaccine troubles has been quite intense. I've given it some thought and I think what we might be seeing is an example of something known in the football world, and indeed in wider society, as Stockport County Syndrome. The name derives from the tendency of the more fervent supporters of a small town, perennially struggling club to take great pleasure from the occasional defeat of their wealthy, big city rivals. All very understandable on a human level, and certainly nothing to overly chastize people for, but of course it changes nothing. When the excitement dies down a week or so later, it's BAU. There is still Man Utd. And there is still Stockport County.
I don't see a single person here "gleeful" that the EU is troubled.
I see a lot of people acknowledging the EU is troubled, right down to williamglenn calling for UVDL's resignation on the subject. I see other people trying to whatabout or downplay just how serious this is.
The EU aren't just failing to protect their own citizens, they're jeopardising us. The science and technology exists to eradicate this damned nasty bug but because they've chosen to cheap out on it instead its going to remain on our continent and risks mutation and reintroduction into this country.
I don't see a single person happy about that.
There is some glee. You can only see it if you're not feeling it.
Or if you're a paranoid fool who projects emotions onto others.
I see more anger than glee. With an element of "I told you so" at the worst.
Next time you criticise anyone should I use the word "glee" about your emotions at the time?
I detect not project. Sorry, Philip, you're not fooling me on this one. I have a persona for every poster and yours is Gareth Keenan (or more accurately Mackenzie Crook). This means I can see your face as you post and atm, with this EU vaccine debacle, the expression etched upon it is ... well, it looks like glee.
Excellent. So without wishing to push this too far, who in your view is the David Brent of PB?
Think that's me.
Oh dear, sorry. I guessed you might see yourself more as Tim - long-suffering but still quite sharp.
"Massachusetts state regulator William Galvin called on the New York Stock Exchange to suspend GameStop for 30 days to allow a cooling-off period. "This isn't investing, this is gambling," he said in an interview. "This is obviously contrived.""
"Massachusetts state regulator William Galvin called on the New York Stock Exchange to suspend GameStop for 30 days to allow a cooling-off period. "This isn't investing, this is gambling," he said in an interview. "This is obviously contrived.""
Sturgeon is usually sure footed and competent. However criticising Johnson over a visit to Scotland seems a bit over the top and churlish.
Is it? All he's doing is cart people over the border and back down. During lockdown. From a higher-risk area to a lower one. Just so he can be photographed somewhere with plastic goggles and a yellow jacket/white coat, near a nice convenient fridge.
And what stops it being against the law is his interpretation of need and work.
If a relative of mine can get married with just two people present - the witnesses - on the principle of minimising risk, and doing without any wedding lunch never mind reception on the same principle, then Mr J can bloody well reduce his extracurricular activities to a minimum.
If it comes to that, why does Sturgeon do a daily commute between tiers?
Eh? Are you living in England? We don't have tiers in Scotland, and we have all the same Level in the Mainland anyway.
Luckyguy is just striking a blow for the superiority of the English system. Take that Nippy!
1st dose 2nd dose Cumulative Total Doses to Date Total 251,902 1,090 252,992 East Of England 24,773 51 24,824 London 41,254 298 41,552 Midlands 41,416 75 41,491 North East And Yorkshire 38,606 76 38,682 North West 38,266 408 38,674 South East 37,176 125 37,301 South West 28,317 53 28,370
What kind of panic do you think we should go for? Running round with hair on fire? War with Erewhon?
Now I think it is undisputable there are supply issues here in the UK....but our government aren't going full metal Cartman.
"Tight but we're confident of meeting our target" suggests that the government have the capacity to deliver but not the supply at present but think that more is on the way. Hopefully there's a big batch incoming, as it's easily possible for us to be doing 500k a day if the supply is there as demonstrated last week.
If I remember right this was the week we were expecting delays, especially with Pfizer. Hopefully back to full steam ahead next week.
Typical that an aspiration for the government is to reach equivalence to 19th century steam power.
Let's nuclear ahead.
You do know that nuclear power uses steam, don't you?
You know what I want now? A nuclear-powered steam train. Lockdown and homeschooling might be sending me a bit loco.
Well, we pretty much have them already if you don't mind the generator being static and overhead wires used to transmit the power ...
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Yes, the gleeful reaction of europhobes to the EU's vaccine troubles has been quite intense. I've given it some thought and I think what we might be seeing is an example of something known in the football world, and indeed in wider society, as Stockport County Syndrome. The name derives from the tendency of the more fervent supporters of a small town, perennially struggling club to take great pleasure from the occasional defeat of their wealthy, big city rivals. All very understandable on a human level, and certainly nothing to overly chastize people for, but of course it changes nothing. When the excitement dies down a week or so later, it's BAU. There is still Man Utd. And there is still Stockport County.
I sincerely hope you're wrong. One of the selling points of Brexit was that we'd stop obsessing over everything the EU does and start start holding our own politicians to account with their newly granted sovereignty. I'm not seeing many signs of this yet: even now, some are more keen to boom about the EU's current Covid failings than they ever were about Boris's. It does make we wonder what these people really wanted out of Brexit.
I suppose it makes sense in that if the reason you voted Leave was you considered Brussels to be an incompetent bunch of unaccountable eurocrats, then you will be watching like a hawk for anything to confirm that opinion. But over time this really ought to subside. If it doesn't, and if people on the other side do the same, it would mean the EU question continues to dominate our politics even after Brexit. Like you, I hope not.
Is this not just the need to manage the relationship? It is now a relationship with far more facets.
EU Commish says that they have a contract dispute with AZ and that it is nothing to do with UK Govt. Fair enough.
Then they start making bizarre accusations about profiteering and heaven knows what wrt a British Company. Then they say they will prevent exports to the UK from an entirely unrelated business. All without showing that they have even a contractual leg to stand on.
It's certainly UK Govt business now.
Very Ruritanian behaviour for an allegedly important law-abiding trade block.
My diagnosis is still that it is a couple of complacent senior Eurocrats covering their backsides.
There's a further subplot in that France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands were ready to sign a contract with AstraZeneca in June last year. They were sat on and the negotiations were taken over by the Commission which delayed the contact until the end of August. A lot of reputations are at stake.
And another one.
That they did that as a prod to get the EC off their backside.
1st dose 2nd dose Cumulative Total Doses to Date Total 251,902 1,090 252,992 East Of England 24,773 51 24,824 London 41,254 298 41,552 Midlands 41,416 75 41,491 North East And Yorkshire 38,606 76 38,682 North West 38,266 408 38,674 South East 37,176 125 37,301 South West 28,317 53 28,370
What kind of panic do you think we should go for? Running round with hair on fire? War with Erewhon?
Now I think it is undisputable there are supply issues here in the UK....but our government aren't going full metal Cartman.
"Tight but we're confident of meeting our target" suggests that the government have the capacity to deliver but not the supply at present but think that more is on the way. Hopefully there's a big batch incoming, as it's easily possible for us to be doing 500k a day if the supply is there as demonstrated last week.
If I remember right this was the week we were expecting delays, especially with Pfizer. Hopefully back to full steam ahead next week.
Typical that an aspiration for the government is to reach equivalence to 19th century steam power.
Let's nuclear ahead.
You do know that nuclear power uses steam, don't you?
You know what I want now? A nuclear-powered steam train. Lockdown and homeschooling might be sending me a bit loco.
Well, we pretty much have them already if you don't mind the generator being static and overhead wires used to transmit the power ...
Has the German 8% hack been sacked yet? Or admitted the 8% is bollocks? Or is he sticking it out as the part about the approval for under 65 is correct?
1st dose 2nd dose Cumulative Total Doses to Date Total 251,902 1,090 252,992 East Of England 24,773 51 24,824 London 41,254 298 41,552 Midlands 41,416 75 41,491 North East And Yorkshire 38,606 76 38,682 North West 38,266 408 38,674 South East 37,176 125 37,301 South West 28,317 53 28,370
What kind of panic do you think we should go for? Running round with hair on fire? War with Erewhon?
Now I think it is undisputable there are supply issues here in the UK....but our government aren't going full metal Cartman.
"Tight but we're confident of meeting our target" suggests that the government have the capacity to deliver but not the supply at present but think that more is on the way. Hopefully there's a big batch incoming, as it's easily possible for us to be doing 500k a day if the supply is there as demonstrated last week.
If I remember right this was the week we were expecting delays, especially with Pfizer. Hopefully back to full steam ahead next week.
Typical that an aspiration for the government is to reach equivalence to 19th century steam power.
Let's nuclear ahead.
You do know that nuclear power uses steam, don't you?
Yes, conceptually, but I didn't want to hold up a joke.
A Scotch Unionist speaks, one of my 'fellow countrymen' which appears to be the preferred term on here
'Boris Johnson’s Scotland trip is a gift to the SNP
He’ll be at it again today. Mark my words. Or, rather, mark his. For Johnson will, as always, talk about the glories of the United Kingdom and all the support it has offered Scotland during this pandemic. There is the furlough scheme, of course, and there will be talk of the vaccine programme and the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom state and about how the army — now seemingly rebranded as the 'British army' — is supporting everything and it all shows how much better we are together.
Well, all of this could be true. It is possible to believe all of this in good faith while also recognising that it is a hopeless way of persuading those who need to be persuaded. For, implicitly, it asks them to believe that, perhaps uniquely, an independent Scotland would not have been capable of organising an employment support scheme or purchasing vaccines (albeit perhaps not as promptly as the UK has managed) or having soldiers to help set up vaccination centres or anything else. How have other countries coped without being part of the Prime Minister’s 'awesome foursome'?'
Not necessarily disagreeing with most of what you are saying but just one point.. It has always been the British Army. I have never in my life heard it referred to as anything other than 'The British Army'. There is no 'rebranding' at all. That is its name.
Hasn't it normally simply been called "The Army", with the difference that the other two branches are "Royal [Navy|Air Force]"?
That's because the Regiments were (and to some extent still symbolically are) the private property of their Colonels. Significantly, however, the historically intelligent bits (the Royal Artillery and the Royal Engineers) have always been State property.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Yes, the gleeful reaction of europhobes to the EU's vaccine troubles has been quite intense. I've given it some thought and I think what we might be seeing is an example of something known in the football world, and indeed in wider society, as Stockport County Syndrome. The name derives from the tendency of the more fervent supporters of a small town, perennially struggling club to take great pleasure from the occasional defeat of their wealthy, big city rivals. All very understandable on a human level, and certainly nothing to overly chastize people for, but of course it changes nothing. When the excitement dies down a week or so later, it's BAU. There is still Man Utd. And there is still Stockport County.
I sincerely hope you're wrong. One of the selling points of Brexit was that we'd stop obsessing over everything the EU does and start start holding our own politicians to account with their newly granted sovereignty. I'm not seeing many signs of this yet: even now, some are more keen to boom about the EU's current Covid failings than they ever were about Boris's. It does make we wonder what these people really wanted out of Brexit.
I suppose it makes sense in that if the reason you voted Leave was you considered Brussels to be an incompetent bunch of unaccountable eurocrats, then you will be watching like a hawk for anything to confirm that opinion. But over time this really ought to subside. If it doesn't, and if people on the other side do the same, it would mean the EU question continues to dominate our politics even after Brexit. Like you, I hope not.
Is this not just the need to manage the relationship? It is now a relationship with far more facets.
EU Commish says that they have a contract dispute with AZ and that it is nothing to do with UK Govt. Fair enough.
Then they start making bizarre accusations about profiteering and heaven knows what wrt a British Company. Then they say they will prevent exports to the UK from an entirely unrelated business. All without showing that they have even a contractual leg to stand on.
It's certainly UK Govt business now.
Very Ruritanian behaviour for an allegedly important law-abiding trade block.
My diagnosis is still that it is a couple of complacent senior Eurocrats covering their backsides.
There's a further subplot in that France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands were ready to sign a contract with AstraZeneca in June last year. They were sat on and the negotiations were taken over by the Commission which delayed the contact until the end of August. A lot of reputations are at stake.
And the boss of AZN is blaming the delay then for the delay now.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
Ouch.
To be honest if the AZN contract release affirms their case then @ williamglenn says, UVDL and other resignations must follow
One important factor that was emphasised recently at the UK gov press conference is strong showing of AZ vaccine in reducing mortality and serious illness which is a different but related metric to lowering infections.
No one should give a stuff about infections. It's all about hospitalisations and mortality.
...which follow infections.
Not necessarily. A positive infection result would be given by someone asymptomatic (whether they've had the jab or not).
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying hospitalisation are always caused by infections. Disrupting asymptomatic transmission is also valuable.
That is true. Then we need to look at hospitalisations/(as in over) infections.
Yes, agreed. I've idly wondered for a while whether it's a mistake to focus only on the more vulnerable. There are some lines of work that bring people into more frequent contact with other people, and inoculating them ahead of others might make sense. I don't know what modelling has been done, and I don't imagine it's a particularly easy choice to make either way, and it might not even be worth it as a practical exercise, but in theory I can imagine a circumstance where vaccinating a city bus driver ahead of a retired elderly couple in rural Devon is the course that saves most lives. Far more important than any of that, though was all the people cramming into pubs and cafes in the autumn. It baffled me then, and it baffles me still. A lot of vulnerable people are dead today because of infections that non-vulnerable people caught and spread back then. Which is why I got twitchy about the "No one should give a stuff about infections" comment.
Yes that is true. Although as we have rehearsed on here often, someone vaccinated and asymptomatic and jabbed and asymptomatic liekly pose, as far as research has proven, the same risk of onwards transmission.
Has the German 8% hack been sacked yet? Or admitted the 8% is bollocks? Or is he sticking it out as the part about the approval for under 65 is correct?
It's within the 95% confidence interval, so I guess he/she will claim it wasn't a significant error
1st dose 2nd dose Cumulative Total Doses to Date Total 251,902 1,090 252,992 East Of England 24,773 51 24,824 London 41,254 298 41,552 Midlands 41,416 75 41,491 North East And Yorkshire 38,606 76 38,682 North West 38,266 408 38,674 South East 37,176 125 37,301 South West 28,317 53 28,370
What kind of panic do you think we should go for? Running round with hair on fire? War with Erewhon?
Now I think it is undisputable there are supply issues here in the UK....but our government aren't going full metal Cartman.
"Tight but we're confident of meeting our target" suggests that the government have the capacity to deliver but not the supply at present but think that more is on the way. Hopefully there's a big batch incoming, as it's easily possible for us to be doing 500k a day if the supply is there as demonstrated last week.
If I remember right this was the week we were expecting delays, especially with Pfizer. Hopefully back to full steam ahead next week.
Typical that an aspiration for the government is to reach equivalence to 19th century steam power.
Let's nuclear ahead.
You do know that nuclear power uses steam, don't you?
You know what I want now? A nuclear-powered steam train. Lockdown and homeschooling might be sending me a bit loco.
Well, we pretty much have them already if you don't mind the generator being static and overhead wires used to transmit the power ...
A Scotch Unionist speaks, one of my 'fellow countrymen' which appears to be the preferred term on here
'Boris Johnson’s Scotland trip is a gift to the SNP
He’ll be at it again today. Mark my words. Or, rather, mark his. For Johnson will, as always, talk about the glories of the United Kingdom and all the support it has offered Scotland during this pandemic. There is the furlough scheme, of course, and there will be talk of the vaccine programme and the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom state and about how the army — now seemingly rebranded as the 'British army' — is supporting everything and it all shows how much better we are together.
Well, all of this could be true. It is possible to believe all of this in good faith while also recognising that it is a hopeless way of persuading those who need to be persuaded. For, implicitly, it asks them to believe that, perhaps uniquely, an independent Scotland would not have been capable of organising an employment support scheme or purchasing vaccines (albeit perhaps not as promptly as the UK has managed) or having soldiers to help set up vaccination centres or anything else. How have other countries coped without being part of the Prime Minister’s 'awesome foursome'?'
Didn't one person say fellow countrymen? And that makes it a preferred term?
You take it all a bit too seriously when you do the faked outraged 'north Briton/provincial' self referencing as though lots of people are doing it. I like to self pity as much as the next guy though, so you do you.
Curses, I was just going to write a 2000 word treatise on PB's preferred term being fellow countryman.
Lighten up, you've no idea what really outrages me.
"Massachusetts state regulator William Galvin called on the New York Stock Exchange to suspend GameStop for 30 days to allow a cooling-off period. "This isn't investing, this is gambling," he said in an interview. "This is obviously contrived.""
Woo Hoo, my dear old Mum just got her first vaccine! A Pfizer jab at the main vaccination centre in Rutland. Great to see the massive smile on her face, and the first real sign that things are slowly going to get back to something approaching normal.
Woo Hoo, my dear old Mum just got her first vaccine! A Pfizer jab at the main vaccination centre in Rutland. Great to see the massive smile on her face, and the first real sign that things are slowly going to get back to something approaching normal.
Do you mind me asking how old she is?
She’ll be 74 on Saturday, happy to have received an early birthday present!
Wouldn't surprise me if it finishes below its starting point. I expect a fair few stock holders would have taken the opportunity to exit while the price was high. Those that have replaced them seem to have no intention of actually holding the stock. So who will at the end of this?
Well somewhere (the analyst at Melvin Cap for example) someone is working out a fundamental value for this. Which I think is what started the whole shebang.
Woo Hoo, my dear old Mum just got her first vaccine! A Pfizer jab at the main vaccination centre in Rutland. Great to see the massive smile on her face, and the first real sign that things are slowly going to get back to something approaching normal.
Bumped into another neighbour today as we were out walking the dogs. He and his wife have been jabbed too. Wife and I might be about the only people in our postcode not done!
One important factor that was emphasised recently at the UK gov press conference is strong showing of AZ vaccine in reducing mortality and serious illness which is a different but related metric to lowering infections.
No one should give a stuff about infections. It's all about hospitalisations and mortality.
...which follow infections.
Not necessarily. A positive infection result would be given by someone asymptomatic (whether they've had the jab or not).
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying hospitalisation are always caused by infections. Disrupting asymptomatic transmission is also valuable.
That is true. Then we need to look at hospitalisations/(as in over) infections.
Yes, agreed. I've idly wondered for a while whether it's a mistake to focus only on the more vulnerable. There are some lines of work that bring people into more frequent contact with other people, and inoculating them ahead of others might make sense. I don't know what modelling has been done, and I don't imagine it's a particularly easy choice to make either way, and it might not even be worth it as a practical exercise, but in theory I can imagine a circumstance where vaccinating a city bus driver ahead of a retired elderly couple in rural Devon is the course that saves most lives. Far more important than any of that, though was all the people cramming into pubs and cafes in the autumn. It baffled me then, and it baffles me still. A lot of vulnerable people are dead today because of infections that non-vulnerable people caught and spread back then. Which is why I got twitchy about the "No one should give a stuff about infections" comment.
Yes that is true. Although as we have rehearsed on here often, someone vaccinated and asymptomatic and jabbed and asymptomatic liekly pose, as far as research has proven, the same risk of onwards transmission.
I think you messed some syntax up there, I don't quite follow. Are you saying that people who've gone through the vaccination and having waited a few weeks are equal transmission risks to someone completely unvaccinated? I don't remember seeing discussions on that.
A Scotch Unionist speaks, one of my 'fellow countrymen' which appears to be the preferred term on here
'Boris Johnson’s Scotland trip is a gift to the SNP
He’ll be at it again today. Mark my words. Or, rather, mark his. For Johnson will, as always, talk about the glories of the United Kingdom and all the support it has offered Scotland during this pandemic. There is the furlough scheme, of course, and there will be talk of the vaccine programme and the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom state and about how the army — now seemingly rebranded as the 'British army' — is supporting everything and it all shows how much better we are together.
Well, all of this could be true. It is possible to believe all of this in good faith while also recognising that it is a hopeless way of persuading those who need to be persuaded. For, implicitly, it asks them to believe that, perhaps uniquely, an independent Scotland would not have been capable of organising an employment support scheme or purchasing vaccines (albeit perhaps not as promptly as the UK has managed) or having soldiers to help set up vaccination centres or anything else. How have other countries coped without being part of the Prime Minister’s 'awesome foursome'?'
Didn't one person say fellow countrymen? And that makes it a preferred term?
You take it all a bit too seriously when you do the faked outraged 'north Briton/provincial' self referencing as though lots of people are doing it. I like to self pity as much as the next guy though, so you do you.
Curses, I was just going to write a 2000 word treatise on PB's preferred term being fellow countryman.
Lighten up, you've no idea what really outrages me.
Losing referenda?
Actually I find that pricks I and my country didn't vote for telling me that they'll decide when we can hold referenda pushes the needle a bit higher on the outrageometer.
Get those blood pressure meds cranked up then.....
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Yes, the gleeful reaction of europhobes to the EU's vaccine troubles has been quite intense. I've given it some thought and I think what we might be seeing is an example of something known in the football world, and indeed in wider society, as Stockport County Syndrome. The name derives from the tendency of the more fervent supporters of a small town, perennially struggling club to take great pleasure from the occasional defeat of their wealthy, big city rivals. All very understandable on a human level, and certainly nothing to overly chastize people for, but of course it changes nothing. When the excitement dies down a week or so later, it's BAU. There is still Man Utd. And there is still Stockport County.
I sincerely hope you're wrong. One of the selling points of Brexit was that we'd stop obsessing over everything the EU does and start start holding our own politicians to account with their newly granted sovereignty. I'm not seeing many signs of this yet: even now, some are more keen to boom about the EU's current Covid failings than they ever were about Boris's. It does make we wonder what these people really wanted out of Brexit.
I suppose it makes sense in that if the reason you voted Leave was you considered Brussels to be an incompetent bunch of unaccountable eurocrats, then you will be watching like a hawk for anything to confirm that opinion. But over time this really ought to subside. If it doesn't, and if people on the other side do the same, it would mean the EU question continues to dominate our politics even after Brexit. Like you, I hope not.
Is this not just the need to manage the relationship? It is now a relationship with far more facets.
EU Commish says that they have a contract dispute with AZ and that it is nothing to do with UK Govt. Fair enough.
Then they start making bizarre accusations about profiteering and heaven knows what wrt a British Company. Then they say they will prevent exports to the UK from an entirely unrelated business. All without showing that they have even a contractual leg to stand on.
It's certainly UK Govt business now.
Very Ruritanian behaviour for an allegedly important law-abiding trade block.
My diagnosis is still that it is a couple of complacent senior Eurocrats covering their backsides.
There's a further subplot in that France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands were ready to sign a contract with AstraZeneca in June last year. They were sat on and the negotiations were taken over by the Commission which delayed the contact until the end of August. A lot of reputations are at stake.
And the boss of AZN is blaming the delay then for the delay now.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
Ouch.
To be honest if the AZN contract release affirms their case then @ williamglenn says, UVDL and other resignations must follow
I severely doubt going a bit hard on rhetoric while expressing anger at vaccine delay could get them fired. They've surely not been dumb enough to completely contradict rather than merely misunderstand the contract.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Yes, the gleeful reaction of europhobes to the EU's vaccine troubles has been quite intense. I've given it some thought and I think what we might be seeing is an example of something known in the football world, and indeed in wider society, as Stockport County Syndrome. The name derives from the tendency of the more fervent supporters of a small town, perennially struggling club to take great pleasure from the occasional defeat of their wealthy, big city rivals. All very understandable on a human level, and certainly nothing to overly chastize people for, but of course it changes nothing. When the excitement dies down a week or so later, it's BAU. There is still Man Utd. And there is still Stockport County.
I don't see a single person here "gleeful" that the EU is troubled.
I see a lot of people acknowledging the EU is troubled, right down to williamglenn calling for UVDL's resignation on the subject. I see other people trying to whatabout or downplay just how serious this is.
The EU aren't just failing to protect their own citizens, they're jeopardising us. The science and technology exists to eradicate this damned nasty bug but because they've chosen to cheap out on it instead its going to remain on our continent and risks mutation and reintroduction into this country.
I don't see a single person happy about that.
There is some glee. You can only see it if you're not feeling it.
Or if you're a paranoid fool who projects emotions onto others.
I see more anger than glee. With an element of "I told you so" at the worst.
Next time you criticise anyone should I use the word "glee" about your emotions at the time?
I detect not project. Sorry, Philip, you're not fooling me on this one. I have a persona for every poster and yours is Gareth Keenan (or more accurately Mackenzie Crook). This means I can see your face as you post and atm, with this EU vaccine debacle, the expression etched upon it is ... well, it looks like glee.
Excellent. So without wishing to push this too far, who in your view is the David Brent of PB?
Think that's me.
Oh dear, sorry. I guessed you might see yourself more as Tim - long-suffering but still quite sharp.
Well there is that. And I certainly do suffer. But I also like to think I'm a pundit first, a punter second, and probably an entertainer third. And if we had a fork lift truck test, I'd set it.
1st dose 2nd dose Cumulative Total Doses to Date Total 251,902 1,090 252,992 East Of England 24,773 51 24,824 London 41,254 298 41,552 Midlands 41,416 75 41,491 North East And Yorkshire 38,606 76 38,682 North West 38,266 408 38,674 South East 37,176 125 37,301 South West 28,317 53 28,370
What kind of panic do you think we should go for? Running round with hair on fire? War with Erewhon?
Now I think it is undisputable there are supply issues here in the UK....but our government aren't going full metal Cartman.
"Tight but we're confident of meeting our target" suggests that the government have the capacity to deliver but not the supply at present but think that more is on the way. Hopefully there's a big batch incoming, as it's easily possible for us to be doing 500k a day if the supply is there as demonstrated last week.
If I remember right this was the week we were expecting delays, especially with Pfizer. Hopefully back to full steam ahead next week.
Typical that an aspiration for the government is to reach equivalence to 19th century steam power.
Let's nuclear ahead.
You do know that nuclear power uses steam, don't you?
You know what I want now? A nuclear-powered steam train. Lockdown and homeschooling might be sending me a bit loco.
Well, we pretty much have them already if you don't mind the generator being static and overhead wires used to transmit the power ...
One interesting thought about AZN approving the release of the contract, it's interesting that it's taken them a day to agree to it ... Not only was the contract probably written with thousand dollar an hour lawyers involved, but I bet in the past 24 hours they will have had a team of thousand dollar an hour lawyers checking through the contract for any red flags prior to agreeing to release.
Woo Hoo, my dear old Mum just got her first vaccine! A Pfizer jab at the main vaccination centre in Rutland. Great to see the massive smile on her face, and the first real sign that things are slowly going to get back to something approaching normal.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Yes, the gleeful reaction of europhobes to the EU's vaccine troubles has been quite intense. I've given it some thought and I think what we might be seeing is an example of something known in the football world, and indeed in wider society, as Stockport County Syndrome. The name derives from the tendency of the more fervent supporters of a small town, perennially struggling club to take great pleasure from the occasional defeat of their wealthy, big city rivals. All very understandable on a human level, and certainly nothing to overly chastize people for, but of course it changes nothing. When the excitement dies down a week or so later, it's BAU. There is still Man Utd. And there is still Stockport County.
I sincerely hope you're wrong. One of the selling points of Brexit was that we'd stop obsessing over everything the EU does and start start holding our own politicians to account with their newly granted sovereignty. I'm not seeing many signs of this yet: even now, some are more keen to boom about the EU's current Covid failings than they ever were about Boris's. It does make we wonder what these people really wanted out of Brexit.
I suppose it makes sense in that if the reason you voted Leave was you considered Brussels to be an incompetent bunch of unaccountable eurocrats, then you will be watching like a hawk for anything to confirm that opinion. But over time this really ought to subside. If it doesn't, and if people on the other side do the same, it would mean the EU question continues to dominate our politics even after Brexit. Like you, I hope not.
Is this not just the need to manage the relationship? It is now a relationship with far more facets.
EU Commish says that they have a contract dispute with AZ and that it is nothing to do with UK Govt. Fair enough.
Then they start making bizarre accusations about profiteering and heaven knows what wrt a British Company. Then they say they will prevent exports to the UK from an entirely unrelated business. All without showing that they have even a contractual leg to stand on.
It's certainly UK Govt business now.
Very Ruritanian behaviour for an allegedly important law-abiding trade block.
My diagnosis is still that it is a couple of complacent senior Eurocrats covering their backsides.
There's a further subplot in that France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands were ready to sign a contract with AstraZeneca in June last year. They were sat on and the negotiations were taken over by the Commission which delayed the contact until the end of August. A lot of reputations are at stake.
And the boss of AZN is blaming the delay then for the delay now.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
Ouch.
To be honest if the AZN contract release affirms their case then @ williamglenn says, UVDL and other resignations must follow
I severely doubt going a bit hard on rhetoric while expressing anger at vaccine delay could get them fired. They've surely not been dumb enough to completely contradict rather than merely misunderstand the contract.
However, if they do prevent vaccines meant for the UK being sent from Belgium, that would be one seriously hostile act. It may affect the ability of some patients to receive their booster dose. I find it hard to believe an ally could do that to another country.
That's not really appropriate for a member of the government speaking in the Commons.
Captain hindsight may pass muster just about in the hurly burly of PMQs, but the First Minister's position should be respected.
Yes, JRM is a complete idiot. That sort of rhetoric (which I'd also suggest is, sotto voce, sexist) will be used by the SNP to add fuel to the independence fire. Posh 19th century English toff slagging off our 21st century leader, showing no respect.
One important factor that was emphasised recently at the UK gov press conference is strong showing of AZ vaccine in reducing mortality and serious illness which is a different but related metric to lowering infections.
No one should give a stuff about infections. It's all about hospitalisations and mortality.
...which follow infections.
Not necessarily. A positive infection result would be given by someone asymptomatic (whether they've had the jab or not).
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying hospitalisation are always caused by infections. Disrupting asymptomatic transmission is also valuable.
That is true. Then we need to look at hospitalisations/(as in over) infections.
Yes, agreed. I've idly wondered for a while whether it's a mistake to focus only on the more vulnerable. There are some lines of work that bring people into more frequent contact with other people, and inoculating them ahead of others might make sense. I don't know what modelling has been done, and I don't imagine it's a particularly easy choice to make either way, and it might not even be worth it as a practical exercise, but in theory I can imagine a circumstance where vaccinating a city bus driver ahead of a retired elderly couple in rural Devon is the course that saves most lives. Far more important than any of that, though was all the people cramming into pubs and cafes in the autumn. It baffled me then, and it baffles me still. A lot of vulnerable people are dead today because of infections that non-vulnerable people caught and spread back then. Which is why I got twitchy about the "No one should give a stuff about infections" comment.
Yes that is true. Although as we have rehearsed on here often, someone vaccinated and asymptomatic and jabbed and asymptomatic liekly pose, as far as research has proven, the same risk of onwards transmission.
I think you messed some syntax up there, I don't quite follow. Are you saying that people who've gone through the vaccination and having waited a few weeks are equal transmission risks to someone completely unvaccinated? I don't remember seeing discussions on that.
We have had (endless) discussions about transmissibility. It is not known whether the jab reduces it. Well it does in all likelihood because if you are asymptomatic you cough and sneeze less. But then if you have the virus, haven't been jabbed, and are asymptomatic you cough and sneeze less.
So as more people are jabbed, there will be less coughing and sneezing and hence the transmission and prevalence of the virus will diminish.
But there have been no trials on transmissibility. And we are all aware that people have caught it from asymptomatic carriers.
Woo Hoo, my dear old Mum just got her first vaccine! A Pfizer jab at the main vaccination centre in Rutland. Great to see the massive smile on her face, and the first real sign that things are slowly going to get back to something approaching normal.
Bumped into another neighbour today as we were out walking the dogs. He and his wife have been jabbed too. Wife and I might be about the only people in our postcode not done!
It’s weird how one’s perception of things changes when it gets very close to home. We’ve been talking about vaccines on here for months, but to get a call from your own mother on her way home from the centre feels very different.
Hopefully Dad is only a couple of weeks away from also getting jabbed, he’s a couple of years younger than mum but still 70.
Wouldn't surprise me if it finishes below its starting point. I expect a fair few stock holders would have taken the opportunity to exit while the price was high. Those that have replaced them seem to have no intention of actually holding the stock. So who will at the end of this?
Well somewhere (the analyst at Melvin Cap for example) someone is working out a fundamental value for this. Which I think is what started the whole shebang.
50% off now.
However. These reddit guys may well have discovered a tool for disrupting markets quite swiftly and spectacularly. And encouraging millions of new players. One would have thought capitalists everywhere would be overjoyed.
One important factor that was emphasised recently at the UK gov press conference is strong showing of AZ vaccine in reducing mortality and serious illness which is a different but related metric to lowering infections.
No one should give a stuff about infections. It's all about hospitalisations and mortality.
...which follow infections.
Not necessarily. A positive infection result would be given by someone asymptomatic (whether they've had the jab or not).
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying hospitalisation are always caused by infections. Disrupting asymptomatic transmission is also valuable.
That is true. Then we need to look at hospitalisations/(as in over) infections.
Yes, agreed. I've idly wondered for a while whether it's a mistake to focus only on the more vulnerable. There are some lines of work that bring people into more frequent contact with other people, and inoculating them ahead of others might make sense. I don't know what modelling has been done, and I don't imagine it's a particularly easy choice to make either way, and it might not even be worth it as a practical exercise, but in theory I can imagine a circumstance where vaccinating a city bus driver ahead of a retired elderly couple in rural Devon is the course that saves most lives. Far more important than any of that, though was all the people cramming into pubs and cafes in the autumn. It baffled me then, and it baffles me still. A lot of vulnerable people are dead today because of infections that non-vulnerable people caught and spread back then. Which is why I got twitchy about the "No one should give a stuff about infections" comment.
Yes that is true. Although as we have rehearsed on here often, someone vaccinated and asymptomatic and jabbed and asymptomatic liekly pose, as far as research has proven, the same risk of onwards transmission.
I think you messed some syntax up there, I don't quite follow. Are you saying that people who've gone through the vaccination and having waited a few weeks are equal transmission risks to someone completely unvaccinated? I don't remember seeing discussions on that.
We have had (endless) discussions about transmissibility. It is not known whether the jab reduces it. Well it does in all likelihood because if you are asymptomatic you cough and sneeze less. But then if you have the virus, haven't been jabbed, and are asymptomatic you cough and sneeze less.
So as more people are jabbed, there will be less coughing and sneezing and hence the transmission and prevalence of the virus will diminish.
But there have been no trials on transmissibility. And we are all aware that people have caught it from asymptomatic carriers.
1st dose 2nd dose Cumulative Total Doses to Date Total 251,902 1,090 252,992 East Of England 24,773 51 24,824 London 41,254 298 41,552 Midlands 41,416 75 41,491 North East And Yorkshire 38,606 76 38,682 North West 38,266 408 38,674 South East 37,176 125 37,301 South West 28,317 53 28,370
What kind of panic do you think we should go for? Running round with hair on fire? War with Erewhon?
Now I think it is undisputable there are supply issues here in the UK....but our government aren't going full metal Cartman.
"Tight but we're confident of meeting our target" suggests that the government have the capacity to deliver but not the supply at present but think that more is on the way. Hopefully there's a big batch incoming, as it's easily possible for us to be doing 500k a day if the supply is there as demonstrated last week.
If I remember right this was the week we were expecting delays, especially with Pfizer. Hopefully back to full steam ahead next week.
Typical that an aspiration for the government is to reach equivalence to 19th century steam power.
Let's nuclear ahead.
You do know that nuclear power uses steam, don't you?
You know what I want now? A nuclear-powered steam train. Lockdown and homeschooling might be sending me a bit loco.
There was a design for a nuclear powered plane that never made it off the ground...
Actually for a truly mad idea have a look a project Orion. Not just nuclear propulsion, but propulsion by nuclear bombs.
I think we are seeing with the vaccine response that old sore in the relationship of PB Leavers to the EU in their fruit-loop way: it's not enough for you to succeed; your friends must fail.
Yes, the gleeful reaction of europhobes to the EU's vaccine troubles has been quite intense. I've given it some thought and I think what we might be seeing is an example of something known in the football world, and indeed in wider society, as Stockport County Syndrome. The name derives from the tendency of the more fervent supporters of a small town, perennially struggling club to take great pleasure from the occasional defeat of their wealthy, big city rivals. All very understandable on a human level, and certainly nothing to overly chastize people for, but of course it changes nothing. When the excitement dies down a week or so later, it's BAU. There is still Man Utd. And there is still Stockport County.
I sincerely hope you're wrong. One of the selling points of Brexit was that we'd stop obsessing over everything the EU does and start start holding our own politicians to account with their newly granted sovereignty. I'm not seeing many signs of this yet: even now, some are more keen to boom about the EU's current Covid failings than they ever were about Boris's. It does make we wonder what these people really wanted out of Brexit.
I suppose it makes sense in that if the reason you voted Leave was you considered Brussels to be an incompetent bunch of unaccountable eurocrats, then you will be watching like a hawk for anything to confirm that opinion. But over time this really ought to subside. If it doesn't, and if people on the other side do the same, it would mean the EU question continues to dominate our politics even after Brexit. Like you, I hope not.
Is this not just the need to manage the relationship? It is now a relationship with far more facets.
EU Commish says that they have a contract dispute with AZ and that it is nothing to do with UK Govt. Fair enough.
Then they start making bizarre accusations about profiteering and heaven knows what wrt a British Company. Then they say they will prevent exports to the UK from an entirely unrelated business. All without showing that they have even a contractual leg to stand on.
It's certainly UK Govt business now.
Very Ruritanian behaviour for an allegedly important law-abiding trade block.
My diagnosis is still that it is a couple of complacent senior Eurocrats covering their backsides.
There's a further subplot in that France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands were ready to sign a contract with AstraZeneca in June last year. They were sat on and the negotiations were taken over by the Commission which delayed the contact until the end of August. A lot of reputations are at stake.
And the boss of AZN is blaming the delay then for the delay now.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
Ouch.
Indeed. And a confession here. It would not a comfortable experience for me if I have to side with big pharma over the EU. I naturally fight against this. Nevertheless, I can see it might be what I have to do. Not totally there yet - awaiting more info and developments - but I'm getting ready. But I think you should do likewise. You're talking as if this is a total slam dunk but I think you should grant the slimmest of possibilities that the EU might have just a scintilla of a case that the shortfall is not entirely 100% due to the exact timing of the contract signature. That they might have an argument - and succeed in it - for some action to be taken to help them out. That way we're both covered.
A Scotch Unionist speaks, one of my 'fellow countrymen' which appears to be the preferred term on here
'Boris Johnson’s Scotland trip is a gift to the SNP
He’ll be at it again today. Mark my words. Or, rather, mark his. For Johnson will, as always, talk about the glories of the United Kingdom and all the support it has offered Scotland during this pandemic. There is the furlough scheme, of course, and there will be talk of the vaccine programme and the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom state and about how the army — now seemingly rebranded as the 'British army' — is supporting everything and it all shows how much better we are together.
Well, all of this could be true. It is possible to believe all of this in good faith while also recognising that it is a hopeless way of persuading those who need to be persuaded. For, implicitly, it asks them to believe that, perhaps uniquely, an independent Scotland would not have been capable of organising an employment support scheme or purchasing vaccines (albeit perhaps not as promptly as the UK has managed) or having soldiers to help set up vaccination centres or anything else. How have other countries coped without being part of the Prime Minister’s 'awesome foursome'?'
Not necessarily disagreeing with most of what you are saying but just one point.. It has always been the British Army. I have never in my life heard it referred to as anything other than 'The British Army'. There is no 'rebranding' at all. That is its name.
Hasn't it normally simply been called "The Army", with the difference that the other two branches are "Royal [Navy|Air Force]"?
Nah it was always called the British Army. Still is officially
A Scotch Unionist speaks, one of my 'fellow countrymen' which appears to be the preferred term on here
'Boris Johnson’s Scotland trip is a gift to the SNP
He’ll be at it again today. Mark my words. Or, rather, mark his. For Johnson will, as always, talk about the glories of the United Kingdom and all the support it has offered Scotland during this pandemic. There is the furlough scheme, of course, and there will be talk of the vaccine programme and the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom state and about how the army — now seemingly rebranded as the 'British army' — is supporting everything and it all shows how much better we are together.
Well, all of this could be true. It is possible to believe all of this in good faith while also recognising that it is a hopeless way of persuading those who need to be persuaded. For, implicitly, it asks them to believe that, perhaps uniquely, an independent Scotland would not have been capable of organising an employment support scheme or purchasing vaccines (albeit perhaps not as promptly as the UK has managed) or having soldiers to help set up vaccination centres or anything else. How have other countries coped without being part of the Prime Minister’s 'awesome foursome'?'
Not necessarily disagreeing with most of what you are saying but just one point.. It has always been the British Army. I have never in my life heard it referred to as anything other than 'The British Army'. There is no 'rebranding' at all. That is its name.
Hasn't it normally simply been called "The Army", with the difference that the other two branches are "Royal [Navy|Air Force]"?
Nah it was always called the British Army. Still is officially
Wouldn't surprise me if it finishes below its starting point. I expect a fair few stock holders would have taken the opportunity to exit while the price was high. Those that have replaced them seem to have no intention of actually holding the stock. So who will at the end of this?
Well somewhere (the analyst at Melvin Cap for example) someone is working out a fundamental value for this. Which I think is what started the whole shebang.
50% off now.
Well indeed. The shorters were making the right call. But the right call isn't always profitable if you can't ride through your margin calls.
Something wrong though with a hedge fund requiring billions of bailout due to one stock rising. Shouldn't there have been some form of margin call or stop loss before it got that bad?
A Scotch Unionist speaks, one of my 'fellow countrymen' which appears to be the preferred term on here
'Boris Johnson’s Scotland trip is a gift to the SNP
He’ll be at it again today. Mark my words. Or, rather, mark his. For Johnson will, as always, talk about the glories of the United Kingdom and all the support it has offered Scotland during this pandemic. There is the furlough scheme, of course, and there will be talk of the vaccine programme and the broad shoulders of the United Kingdom state and about how the army — now seemingly rebranded as the 'British army' — is supporting everything and it all shows how much better we are together.
Well, all of this could be true. It is possible to believe all of this in good faith while also recognising that it is a hopeless way of persuading those who need to be persuaded. For, implicitly, it asks them to believe that, perhaps uniquely, an independent Scotland would not have been capable of organising an employment support scheme or purchasing vaccines (albeit perhaps not as promptly as the UK has managed) or having soldiers to help set up vaccination centres or anything else. How have other countries coped without being part of the Prime Minister’s 'awesome foursome'?'
Not necessarily disagreeing with most of what you are saying but just one point.. It has always been the British Army. I have never in my life heard it referred to as anything other than 'The British Army'. There is no 'rebranding' at all. That is its name.
Hasn't it normally simply been called "The Army", with the difference that the other two branches are "Royal [Navy|Air Force]"?
Nah it was always called the British Army. Still is officially
I believe that's what's called seeing conditions on the ground for himself...
Well that is one way of describing it but it's yet another gift from the Tories to the SNP, free gratis and for nothing.
The Scots have made up their minds about Boris and there's nothing he can do to change that.
It's not as if Mrt Johnson ever meets any random members of the Scottish public, either - though neither did Ms May have the guts to do so. I rather feel the incident of Mr Cameron and the porridge factory rather put the Tories off that for good.
Did anyone see him outside at all, even if just running to/from his range rover
That's not really appropriate for a member of the government speaking in the Commons.
Captain hindsight may pass muster just about in the hurly burly of PMQs, but the First Minister's position should be respected.
Yes, JRM is a complete idiot. That sort of rhetoric (which I'd also suggest is, sotto voce, sexist) will be used by the SNP to add fuel to the independence fire. Posh 19th century English toff slagging off our 21st century leader, showing no respect.
JRM "19th century English toff"?
Obvious typo. Should read "17th century English toff"!
Comments
To put it another way - who thinks that AZN will be talking to the EU, other than through a filter composed of tens of thousands of pounds per hour of lawyers, tens of thousands of pounds per hour of political consultants and probably tens of thousands of pounds per hour of PR consultants?
https://twitter.com/ChrisMusson/status/1354816355854245888?s=20
Just yesterday I received an item I bought on EBay from Poland, where I just paid one price at the checkout and nothing more. Interestingly, though, today I did get a call from DHL asking for proof of the item's value, which I gave them and it doesn't seem to be an issue. But I wonder if they've been told by HMRC to tighten up on people under-reporting values to dodge tax.
Shame they got rid of the Bank of England gold unit, really.
EU Commish says that they have a contract dispute with AZ and that it is nothing to do with UK Govt. Fair enough.
Then they start making bizarre accusations about profiteering and heaven knows what wrt a British Company. Then they say they will prevent exports to the UK from an entirely unrelated business. All without showing that they have even a contractual leg to stand on.
It's certainly UK Govt business now.
Very Ruritanian behaviour for an allegedly important law-abiding trade block.
My diagnosis is still that it is a couple of complacent senior Eurocrats covering their backsides.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55837519
Maybe they're wating to see if Brexit sticks? 😂
What was the addendum they also referred to?
A nuclear-powered steam train.
Lockdown and homeschooling might be sending me a bit loco.
Just a penny coin. Nothing more needs saying.
I've idly wondered for a while whether it's a mistake to focus only on the more vulnerable. There are some lines of work that bring people into more frequent contact with other people, and inoculating them ahead of others might make sense. I don't know what modelling has been done, and I don't imagine it's a particularly easy choice to make either way, and it might not even be worth it as a practical exercise, but in theory I can imagine a circumstance where vaccinating a city bus driver ahead of a retired elderly couple in rural Devon is the course that saves most lives.
Far more important than any of that, though was all the people cramming into pubs and cafes in the autumn. It baffled me then, and it baffles me still. A lot of vulnerable people are dead today because of infections that non-vulnerable people caught and spread back then. Which is why I got twitchy about the "No one should give a stuff about infections" comment.
'We've had also teething issues like this in the UK supply chain. But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. '
Ouch.
"Massachusetts state regulator William Galvin called on the New York Stock Exchange to suspend GameStop for 30 days to allow a cooling-off period. "This isn't investing, this is gambling," he said in an interview. "This is obviously contrived.""
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55837519
Wouldn't surprise me if it finishes below its starting point. I expect a fair few stock holders would have taken the opportunity to exit while the price was high. Those that have replaced them seem to have no intention of actually holding the stock. So who will at the end of this?
https://www.zdnet.com/article/britains-nuclear-powered-trains/
But for thos eof us who have happy memories of the Eagle
https://twsmedia.co.uk/2020/05/09/atomic-trains/
That they did that as a prod to get the EC off their backside.
https://twitter.com/PoliticsJOE_UK/status/1354779034849312768?s=20
Then when the options become due, the hedges will really be having fun looking for shares to deliver.
Captain hindsight may pass muster just about in the hurly burly of PMQs, but the First Minister's position should be respected.
50% off now.
Free prescriptions for the middle classes
Free University tuition and fewer opportunities for the poor, but nice bung to the middle class....
But I also like to think I'm a pundit first, a punter second, and probably an entertainer third.
And if we had a fork lift truck test, I'd set it.
Woo Hoo indeed. Congrats.
So as more people are jabbed, there will be less coughing and sneezing and hence the transmission and prevalence of the virus will diminish.
But there have been no trials on transmissibility. And we are all aware that people have caught it from asymptomatic carriers.
Hopefully Dad is only a couple of weeks away from also getting jabbed, he’s a couple of years younger than mum but still 70.
These reddit guys may well have discovered a tool for disrupting markets quite swiftly and spectacularly. And encouraging millions of new players.
One would have thought capitalists everywhere would be overjoyed.
Actually for a truly mad idea have a look a project Orion. Not just nuclear propulsion, but propulsion by nuclear bombs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion) for anyone who thinks I'm joking.
But I think you should do likewise. You're talking as if this is a total slam dunk but I think you should grant the slimmest of possibilities that the EU might have just a scintilla of a case that the shortfall is not entirely 100% due to the exact timing of the contract signature. That they might have an argument - and succeed in it - for some action to be taken to help them out.
That way we're both covered.
https://www.army.mod.uk/
Something wrong though with a hedge fund requiring billions of bailout due to one stock rising. Shouldn't there have been some form of margin call or stop loss before it got that bad?
Obvious typo. Should read "17th century English toff"!