Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
It's not the Tories owning patriotism that is the issue. It is Labour owning - for decades - national self-loathing. Sticking a few flags on a PPB isn't going to convince anybody that behind their hands, Labour isn't laughing at the insincerity of its own actions.
The embodiment of Labour's problem here is Emily Thornberry tweeting about the ridiculousness of draping flags over your house. Anyone want to assess her private views on this new policy. a) Yes Leader, I'm right behind you. I love a flag. I love OUR flag or b) pfffft - what bullshit?
You make my point for me. Disliking the Tory version of patriotism is not self-loathing. It is disliking the Tory version of patriotism - one that has led us to where we are today: a horribly divided country which erects barriers to trade and celebrates removing freedoms from its citizens. Patriotism doesn't have to be like that.
Gloriously showing why Labour will get stuffed next time too. The citizens voted to remove those freedoms from its citizens. It was the result of democracy.
And SKS and the Labour movement love flags, for sure. We have seen them emblazoned everywhere. They fly flags VERY proudly. Unfortunately, for the past five years, that flag has been gold stars on a blue background.
If you want to stop dividing this country, stop flying the flag of a foreign power all over your social media presence, Remainers. That is a weird type of patriotism you've got there....
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing.
Labour are never going to compete with the tories on this front. The tories own the flag wanker vote - it is the alpha and omega of their offer.
I agree. The Tories clearly own the English/UK nationalist vote. But the vast majority of voters are not instinctive nationalists, they are quiet patriots. There is a big difference, IMO.
Just out of curiosity, which category would you put that guy in Rochester/Strood who had a flag on his house?
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing.
Labour are never going to compete with the tories on this front. The tories own the flag wanker vote - it is the alpha and omega of their offer.
I agree. The Tories clearly own the English/UK nationalist vote. But the vast majority of voters are not instinctive nationalists, they are quiet patriots. There is a big difference, IMO.
Just out of curiosity, which category would you put that guy in Rochester/Strood who had a flag on his house?
Fair point! I suspect he would be in your latter category. Whereas I'm obviously a horrible English nat who wouldn't dream of hanging a flag outside my house.
Reflecting on passports, I think there could (perhaps should) be a field in the pasport biometric record, or perhaps in a visa wrt to COVID jab status.
If no field, no entry.
I wonder whether there will be implications for Shengen?
I think ideally it should happen, but in todays nationalistic age how is this going to really work? Over 65 and taken AZ, cant travel to France or Germany? Taken Sinopharm, not recognised in the US, maybe not here? And so on.
Morning all.
Quite a thought that, especially when travelling to the Chinese 'sphere of influence' such as SE Asia. At some time soon, the WHO is going to have to get sa grip on what works, what doesn't and perchance publish a list. Or something!
They all work at stopping hospitalisation which is good enough for me. Id be happy to take any of the ones approved in multiple countries. But there wont be agreement on this, the same people who are most outraged by the German and French idiocy on AZ are equally idiotic about Chinese and Russian vaccines. Even the BBC and Guardian struggle to admit that they even exist, let alone were approved before our first in the world approval. Sadly flags matter more than science here.
I don't think that's either fair or accurate. The first on the world approval was actually caveated as first in the world following a Phase III trial, which it was. AZN has followed the Phase III trial requirements and been legitimately authorised following impartial analysis of the data.
I'm sceptical about the Russian vaccine because until yesterday there was no public data on it - and because I'm sceptical about Russia. Given what I know about Russia I wouldn't trust anything they report without independent verification; see: Navalny, Novichok, Doping etc etc etc. Yesterday their report was in the Lancet which gives a degree of independent scrutiny too it (though they have form, they published Wakefield too) - but I don't know and haven't been able to find out if Lancet have just accepted on faith the Russian data which might not be trustworthy, or if the data has been independently verified. I don't think anyone has suggested the UK, AZN or anyone else has manipulated the data like the Russians have form in doing.
Finally the criticism of "the German and French idiocy" comes from people in positions of authority who should know better like Macron undermining confidence in vaccines and independent scrutiny. Macron's comments attack and undermine the MHRA, but they also attack and undermine the EU's own EMA too given that the EMA have authorised the vaccines for over 65s. To be "equally idiotic" would mean that the people in positions of authority here, like Prime Minister Johnson and the MHRA, were attacking Sinopharm and SputnikV. I don't recall Johnson ever speaking about either, so no there's no equal equivalency here.
Nonsense from start to finish.
Here is the UAE approving Sinopharm in November after a trial of 30k people in Abu Dhabi.
You trust the UK and distrust Russians. The Chinese trust the Chinese and distrust the UK. And so on, that was my whole point.
Yes, UAE has approved Sinopharm and Sputnik vaccines following local trials, as well as Pfizer and Oxford/AZ, so although we don't like to trust China and Russia, there is evidence that their vaccines do work.
I have just been informed that Sir Captain Tom Moore family took him on holiday to the Caribbean at Christmas. Which seemed to me a quite dangerous thing to do in a pandemic, with a vulnerable 100 year old man.
Yes and no. Tbh at 100 what are you waiting for? You life expectancy isn’t measured in decades at that point...
In my fathers end-stage illness I asked his Dr whether we should take him on holiday - medically the answer was almost certainly “no” - but he said “yes” and we had a wonderful holiday a few months before he died.
My father did much the same. Not with us, but he managed a Norwegian coast cruise with my mother, something they'd done before and enjoyed
You screwed up (accidently but in style) so we want to use that to solve our screw up and get the time we should have asked for in the first place to ensure we can work out what paperwork our demands created.
In fairness to Gove - and I’m not his biggest fan - I thought that was the point of negotiating?
Negotiations were finished in December remember - we left on December 31st.
Gove is now desperately using anything (and everything) to solve the mess the UK Government created by not asking for a transition period.
But we were also told they would be continuing as matters evolved - which they have, some for reasons that should have been obvious (and were obvious to everyone except the government, apparently) and others because of a huge unforced error by the EU. So, no I'm not unduly concerned about his attempt to use that as leverage, even though it would have been better had he done the job properly first time around.
Anyone realistic would always expect disruption and teething issues doing the biggest change in our trading terms in nearly half a century.
To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical.
To use the other sides own goals to pressure them to resolve issues in a way beneficial to yourself is entirely logical.
Look where uncritical adherence to a party line can get you.
What's your point?
If any problems are swiftly identified, corrected and fixed then yes it would in my eyes fall under the category of "disruption and teething problems".
If you don't fix them, that becomes a more serious longterm concern.
Hence: "To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical." I'm not expecting all issues to just magically go away.
You screwed up (accidently but in style) so we want to use that to solve our screw up and get the time we should have asked for in the first place to ensure we can work out what paperwork our demands created.
In fairness to Gove - and I’m not his biggest fan - I thought that was the point of negotiating?
Negotiations were finished in December remember - we left on December 31st.
Gove is now desperately using anything (and everything) to solve the mess the UK Government created by not asking for a transition period.
I can't help thinking not that Churchill gag about "In the morning, I'll be sober and you will be ugly." A16 was a huge mistake; someone needs to fess up and resign. But it's temporary, whereas the Schrödinger's Border in the Irish Sea is meant to last.
Except only one side wants it to last. I think you'll find actually that any Irish Sea border is not meant to last as far as half of NI is concerned - and the British Government has no particular desire to see it last either.
The true nature of the Good Friday Agreement was fudge so that all communities could squint and claim they have what they wanted, even if they didn't. To fudge NI so it is in both the UK and Eire. To do away with the Boolean choice of it being one or the other.
It was the EU that tore up the principles of the Good Friday Agreement by insisting it was either an Irish Sea Border or a land border. The true choice, the only option that fits with the spirit of the GFA is to say "neither".
Boris blatantly lying about it didn't help one little bit, either.
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
It's not the Tories owning patriotism that is the issue. It is Labour owning - for decades - national self-loathing. Sticking a few flags on a PPB isn't going to convince anybody that behind their hands, Labour isn't laughing at the insincerity of its own actions.
The embodiment of Labour's problem here is Emily Thornberry tweeting about the ridiculousness of draping flags over your house. Anyone want to assess her private views on this new policy. a) Yes Leader, I'm right behind you. I love a flag. I love OUR flag or b) pfffft - what bullshit?
You make my point for me. Disliking the Tory version of patriotism is not self-loathing. It is disliking the Tory version of patriotism - one that has led us to where we are today: a horribly divided country which erects barriers to trade and celebrates removing freedoms from its citizens. Patriotism doesn't have to be like that.
Gloriously showing why Labour will get stuffed next time too. The citizens voted to remove those freedoms from its citizens. It was the result of democracy.
And SKS and the Labour movement love flags, for sure. We have seen them emblazoned everywhere. They fly flags VERY proudly. Unfortunately, for the past five years, that flag has been gold stars on a blue background.
If you want to stop dividing this country, stop flying the flag of a foreign power all over your social media presence, Remainers. That is a weird type of patriotism you've got there....
We will have to disagree on whether people voted to erect barriers to trade and to make themselves less free. As I say, we should not let the Tories own patriotism and decide what it means. Doing so causes immense harm and puts the very future of the country at risk.
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
Spot on. Starmer has no choice but to seek to correct the 'anti-British' narrative that took hold in the Corbyn years.
I'd ague that it went back even further. Remember all the stuff about Ed Miliband - his father was a (foreign) communist, so the implication from the tabloids was that he was obviously on the side of the Russians. Absurd, but it would have had cut through among some. Then along came Corbyn to exacerbate the 'Labour hates Britain' meme. Starmer wouldn't have to be doing the flag stuff without the history of the last 10 years.
It does go back quite a few years sadly - and of course it is linked very much to the dominance of the London party. Also probably some links to the party's reliance on ethnic votes in some of the big and not so big cities, which in recent years have among some of the more politicised tended to be less supportive of patriotism. The anti-patriotic mood did grow a lot stronger during the Corbyn era and despite his demise I suspect is still very strong within sime of the membership.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing.
Labour are never going to compete with the tories on this front. The tories own the flag wanker vote - it is the alpha and omega of their offer.
I agree. The Tories clearly own the English/UK nationalist vote. But the vast majority of voters are not instinctive nationalists, they are quiet patriots. There is a big difference, IMO.
Just out of curiosity, which category would you put that guy in Rochester/Strood who had a flag on his house?
Fair point! I suspect he would be in your latter category. Whereas I'm obviously a horrible English nat who wouldn't dream of hanging a flag outside my house.
I suspect if you were to display the Flag of St. George on, say a Six Nations weekend, it would have a wholly different meaning to a protestor wearing one on an EDL march.
You screwed up (accidently but in style) so we want to use that to solve our screw up and get the time we should have asked for in the first place to ensure we can work out what paperwork our demands created.
In fairness to Gove - and I’m not his biggest fan - I thought that was the point of negotiating?
Negotiations were finished in December remember - we left on December 31st.
Gove is now desperately using anything (and everything) to solve the mess the UK Government created by not asking for a transition period.
I can't help thinking not that Churchill gag about "In the morning, I'll be sober and you will be ugly." A16 was a huge mistake; someone needs to fess up and resign. But it's temporary, whereas the Schrödinger's Border in the Irish Sea is meant to last.
Except only one side wants it to last. I think you'll find actually that any Irish Sea border is not meant to last as far as half of NI is concerned - and the British Government has no particular desire to see it last either.
The true nature of the Good Friday Agreement was fudge so that all communities could squint and claim they have what they wanted, even if they didn't. To fudge NI so it is in both the UK and Eire. To do away with the Boolean choice of it being one or the other.
It was the EU that tore up the principles of the Good Friday Agreement by insisting it was either an Irish Sea Border or a land border. The true choice, the only option that fits with the spirit of the GFA is to say "neither".
And the UK rejected that by opting to remove itself from the Customs Union.
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
I agree RP sees a bit bitter and twisted whatever SKS does .
I want to see Labour resurrected to a party that actually can win elections - Starmer was the absolute best option of a limited bunch. Pointing out that he isn't very good isn't being bitter and twisted - doing so when he was clearly doing very well might be, but he isn't.
I have no problem at all with Labour using the union jack and my point was that Blair did so successfully and convincingly. Its not criticism of Keir having flag backdrops, its that he's doing so because focus groups have told him that he needs to put on a show. Its fake.
You screwed up (accidently but in style) so we want to use that to solve our screw up and get the time we should have asked for in the first place to ensure we can work out what paperwork our demands created.
In fairness to Gove - and I’m not his biggest fan - I thought that was the point of negotiating?
Negotiations were finished in December remember - we left on December 31st.
Gove is now desperately using anything (and everything) to solve the mess the UK Government created by not asking for a transition period.
But we were also told they would be continuing as matters evolved - which they have, some for reasons that should have been obvious (and were obvious to everyone except the government, apparently) and others because of a huge unforced error by the EU. So, no I'm not unduly concerned about his attempt to use that as leverage, even though it would have been better had he done the job properly first time around.
Anyone realistic would always expect disruption and teething issues doing the biggest change in our trading terms in nearly half a century.
To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical.
To use the other sides own goals to pressure them to resolve issues in a way beneficial to yourself is entirely logical.
Look where uncritical adherence to a party line can get you.
What's your point?
If any problems are swiftly identified, corrected and fixed then yes it would in my eyes fall under the category of "disruption and teething problems".
If you don't fix them, that becomes a more serious longterm concern.
Hence: "To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical." I'm not expecting all issues to just magically go away.
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
Spot on. Starmer has no choice but to seek to correct the 'anti-British' narrative that took hold in the Corbyn years.
I'd ague that it went back even further. Remember all the stuff about Ed Miliband - his father was a (foreign) communist, so the implication from the tabloids was that he was obviously on the side of the Russians. Absurd, but it would have had cut through among some. Then along came Corbyn to exacerbate the 'Labour hates Britain' meme. Starmer wouldn't have to be doing the flag stuff without the history of the last 10 years.
It does go back quite a few years sadly - and of course it is linked very much to the dominance of the London party. Also probably some links to the party's reliance on ethnic votes in some of the big and not so big cities, which in recent years have among some of the more politicised tended to be less supportive of patriotism. The anti-patriotic mood did grow a lot stronger during the Corbyn era and despite his demise I suspect is still very strong within sime of the membership.
Actually, research indicates that ethnic minorities tend to have a comparatively strong feeling of Britishness:
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
It's not the Tories owning patriotism that is the issue. It is Labour owning - for decades - national self-loathing. Sticking a few flags on a PPB isn't going to convince anybody that behind their hands, Labour isn't laughing at the insincerity of its own actions.
The embodiment of Labour's problem here is Emily Thornberry tweeting about the ridiculousness of draping flags over your house. Anyone want to assess her private views on this new policy. a) Yes Leader, I'm right behind you. I love a flag. I love OUR flag or b) pfffft - what bullshit?
You make my point for me. Disliking the Tory version of patriotism is not self-loathing. It is disliking the Tory version of patriotism - one that has led us to where we are today: a horribly divided country which erects barriers to trade and celebrates removing freedoms from its citizens. Patriotism doesn't have to be like that.
Gloriously showing why Labour will get stuffed next time too. The citizens voted to remove those freedoms from its citizens. It was the result of democracy.
And SKS and the Labour movement love flags, for sure. We have seen them emblazoned everywhere. They fly flags VERY proudly. Unfortunately, for the past five years, that flag has been gold stars on a blue background.
If you want to stop dividing this country, stop flying the flag of a foreign power all over your social media presence, Remainers. That is a weird type of patriotism you've got there....
We will have to disagree on whether people voted to erect barriers to trade and to make themselves less free. As I say, we should not let the Tories own patriotism and decide what it means. Doing so causes immense harm and puts the very future of the country at risk.
What's Labour's version of patriotism, when it flies the EU flag? There is no alternative proposition on offer from them. What it doesn't offer is listening to the voters represented by the Unon flag and implementing their wishes. Instead, the Labour Party wrap themselves in the flag of a wannabe new nation, where we have no democratic levers against those in power. As we have just very clearly seen.
And the man most visible for recent years in bending the knee to THAT flag leads the Labour Party. He was the guy trying every trick in the book to supplant one flag for another.
Reflecting on passports, I think there could (perhaps should) be a field in the pasport biometric record, or perhaps in a visa wrt to COVID jab status.
If no field, no entry.
I wonder whether there will be implications for Shengen?
I think ideally it should happen, but in todays nationalistic age how is this going to really work? Over 65 and taken AZ, cant travel to France or Germany? Taken Sinopharm, not recognised in the US, maybe not here? And so on.
Morning all.
Quite a thought that, especially when travelling to the Chinese 'sphere of influence' such as SE Asia. At some time soon, the WHO is going to have to get sa grip on what works, what doesn't and perchance publish a list. Or something!
They all work at stopping hospitalisation which is good enough for me. Id be happy to take any of the ones approved in multiple countries. But there wont be agreement on this, the same people who are most outraged by the German and French idiocy on AZ are equally idiotic about Chinese and Russian vaccines. Even the BBC and Guardian struggle to admit that they even exist, let alone were approved before our first in the world approval. Sadly flags matter more than science here.
I don't think that's either fair or accurate. The first on the world approval was actually caveated as first in the world following a Phase III trial, which it was. AZN has followed the Phase III trial requirements and been legitimately authorised following impartial analysis of the data.
I'm sceptical about the Russian vaccine because until yesterday there was no public data on it - and because I'm sceptical about Russia. Given what I know about Russia I wouldn't trust anything they report without independent verification; see: Navalny, Novichok, Doping etc etc etc. Yesterday their report was in the Lancet which gives a degree of independent scrutiny too it (though they have form, they published Wakefield too) - but I don't know and haven't been able to find out if Lancet have just accepted on faith the Russian data which might not be trustworthy, or if the data has been independently verified. I don't think anyone has suggested the UK, AZN or anyone else has manipulated the data like the Russians have form in doing.
Finally the criticism of "the German and French idiocy" comes from people in positions of authority who should know better like Macron undermining confidence in vaccines and independent scrutiny. Macron's comments attack and undermine the MHRA, but they also attack and undermine the EU's own EMA too given that the EMA have authorised the vaccines for over 65s. To be "equally idiotic" would mean that the people in positions of authority here, like Prime Minister Johnson and the MHRA, were attacking Sinopharm and SputnikV. I don't recall Johnson ever speaking about either, so no there's no equal equivalency here.
Nonsense from start to finish.
Here is the UAE approving Sinopharm in November after a trial of 30k people in Abu Dhabi.
You trust the UK and distrust Russians. The Chinese trust the Chinese and distrust the UK. And so on, that was my whole point.
Yes, UAE has approved Sinopharm and Sputnik vaccines following local trials, as well as Pfizer and Oxford/AZ, so although we don't like to trust China and Russia, there is evidence that their vaccines do work.
Having more vaccines, from whatever source, that work is the important thing. I would be happier if there was more evidence that Russia and China were vaccinating their own people at the sort of rates the Chinese at least could manage if they wanted to.
Potentially, true. As the New Statesman piece summarised yesterday, all of the PM's best arguments against independence are spiked by his use of them as arguments for Brexit. All of the reasons why we can ignore the economics and fuck business and its about belief suddenly have to be reversed where business and the economists MUST be listened to and you can't just believe in something.
What is undeniably true is that the @HYUFD line about the Tories refusing to engage the independence debate because Catalonia is nonsense. Douglas Ross wants to debate it because he has no choice other to engage this head on.
Isn't the opposite true though - all of the best arguments for independence from the SNP were argued the other way for Brexit. I have repeatedly asked our Scottish nationalist posters on here if they believe that it is right for a country to make independent economic decisions etc.
I cannot fathom how you can be pro Scottish independence - which I am not against - but be pro EU.
You screwed up (accidently but in style) so we want to use that to solve our screw up and get the time we should have asked for in the first place to ensure we can work out what paperwork our demands created.
In fairness to Gove - and I’m not his biggest fan - I thought that was the point of negotiating?
Negotiations were finished in December remember - we left on December 31st.
Gove is now desperately using anything (and everything) to solve the mess the UK Government created by not asking for a transition period.
I can't help thinking not that Churchill gag about "In the morning, I'll be sober and you will be ugly." A16 was a huge mistake; someone needs to fess up and resign. But it's temporary, whereas the Schrödinger's Border in the Irish Sea is meant to last.
Except only one side wants it to last. I think you'll find actually that any Irish Sea border is not meant to last as far as half of NI is concerned - and the British Government has no particular desire to see it last either.
The true nature of the Good Friday Agreement was fudge so that all communities could squint and claim they have what they wanted, even if they didn't. To fudge NI so it is in both the UK and Eire. To do away with the Boolean choice of it being one or the other.
It was the EU that tore up the principles of the Good Friday Agreement by insisting it was either an Irish Sea Border or a land border. The true choice, the only option that fits with the spirit of the GFA is to say "neither".
And the UK rejected that by opting to remove itself from the Customs Union.
No it did not.
The ultimate solution is to find a solution that works as well as possible, and accept whatever compromises need making need making, outside of the customs union.
It will happen eventually because there's no alternative.
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
Spot on. Starmer has no choice but to seek to correct the 'anti-British' narrative that took hold in the Corbyn years.
I'd ague that it went back even further. Remember all the stuff about Ed Miliband - his father was a (foreign) communist, so the implication from the tabloids was that he was obviously on the side of the Russians. Absurd, but it would have had cut through among some. Then along came Corbyn to exacerbate the 'Labour hates Britain' meme. Starmer wouldn't have to be doing the flag stuff without the history of the last 10 years.
It does go back quite a few years sadly - and of course it is linked very much to the dominance of the London party. Also probably some links to the party's reliance on ethnic votes in some of the big and not so big cities, which in recent years have among some of the more politicised tended to be less supportive of patriotism. The anti-patriotic mood did grow a lot stronger during the Corbyn era and despite his demise I suspect is still very strong within sime of the membership.
Naff as it sometimes was, Blair's Cool Britannia thing was a neat way of squaring the circle. Associate the Union Flag with youth, energy and having fun. I guess a similar thing happened in the 1960's. 2012 was the last time that vibe really worked though. Trickier for Starmer to do...
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
It's not the Tories owning patriotism that is the issue. It is Labour owning - for decades - national self-loathing. Sticking a few flags on a PPB isn't going to convince anybody that behind their hands, Labour isn't laughing at the insincerity of its own actions.
The embodiment of Labour's problem here is Emily Thornberry tweeting about the ridiculousness of draping flags over your house. Anyone want to assess her private views on this new policy. a) Yes Leader, I'm right behind you. I love a flag. I love OUR flag or b) pfffft - what bullshit?
You make my point for me. Disliking the Tory version of patriotism is not self-loathing. It is disliking the Tory version of patriotism - one that has led us to where we are today: a horribly divided country which erects barriers to trade and celebrates removing freedoms from its citizens. Patriotism doesn't have to be like that.
I'd go further and argue the Tory patriotism isn't patriotism. They wave the flag and talk about our boys whilst slashing the armed forces and leaving army veterans to starve to death.
Labour should be the party of working people, who as Blair rightly pointed out are really rather conservative on issues like nation, and law and order. It isn't right wing to want criminals punished - especially when its working class communities being torn apart by crime.
So these should be Labour issues and instinctively so. My comment about Starmer was an observation that they don't appear to be instinctive - I'm not sure much of the usual politics is instinctive for him. We get gestures which very quickly look like gestures - the knee, a few flag backdrops. He needs a team backing him up who get it, and he doesn't. Having to fight internecine battles with unions and the cult can't help, which is why Blair parked the unions off to the side early on.
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
Spot on. Starmer has no choice but to seek to correct the 'anti-British' narrative that took hold in the Corbyn years.
I'd ague that it went back even further. Remember all the stuff about Ed Miliband - his father was a (foreign) communist, so the implication from the tabloids was that he was obviously on the side of the Russians. Absurd, but it would have had cut through among some. Then along came Corbyn to exacerbate the 'Labour hates Britain' meme. Starmer wouldn't have to be doing the flag stuff without the history of the last 10 years.
It does go back quite a few years sadly - and of course it is linked very much to the dominance of the London party. Also probably some links to the party's reliance on ethnic votes in some of the big and not so big cities, which in recent years have among some of the more politicised tended to be less supportive of patriotism. The anti-patriotic mood did grow a lot stronger during the Corbyn era and despite his demise I suspect is still very strong within sime of the membership.
Surely "flag-scepticism" goes back to 1960s or earlier. Did National Front not use it as their logo?
Before that to NI civil rights campaign and Loyalist flag fetish etc, vs Leftists supporting nationalists.
Plus of course anti-racist campaigners seeing UK and British Empire as identified by flag.
And the political temptation to stick those labels on Tories.
Those anti-traditions have been quite strong in parts of Lab throughout.
Well, at least he wasn't in a position to encourage the scientists to jab themselves with untested vaccines and then immediately go and visit their infected parents to 'test' whether it worked.
Also, if he was so influenced, why haven't my parents got fancy electronic bracelets giving them access to pubs and other fun places?
The residents of York (first UK cases) should be glad he hadn't been watching Outbreak!
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
It's not the Tories owning patriotism that is the issue. It is Labour owning - for decades - national self-loathing. Sticking a few flags on a PPB isn't going to convince anybody that behind their hands, Labour isn't laughing at the insincerity of its own actions.
The embodiment of Labour's problem here is Emily Thornberry tweeting about the ridiculousness of draping flags over your house. Anyone want to assess her private views on this new policy. a) Yes Leader, I'm right behind you. I love a flag. I love OUR flag or b) pfffft - what bullshit?
You make my point for me. Disliking the Tory version of patriotism is not self-loathing. It is disliking the Tory version of patriotism - one that has led us to where we are today: a horribly divided country which erects barriers to trade and celebrates removing freedoms from its citizens. Patriotism doesn't have to be like that.
Gloriously showing why Labour will get stuffed next time too. The citizens voted to remove those freedoms from its citizens. It was the result of democracy.
And SKS and the Labour movement love flags, for sure. We have seen them emblazoned everywhere. They fly flags VERY proudly. Unfortunately, for the past five years, that flag has been gold stars on a blue background.
If you want to stop dividing this country, stop flying the flag of a foreign power all over your social media presence, Remainers. That is a weird type of patriotism you've got there....
We will have to disagree on whether people voted to erect barriers to trade and to make themselves less free. As I say, we should not let the Tories own patriotism and decide what it means. Doing so causes immense harm and puts the very future of the country at risk.
What's Labour's version of patriotism, when it flies the EU flag? There is no alternative proposition on offer from them. What it doesn't offer is listening to the voters represented by the Unon flag and implementing their wishes. Instead, the Labour Party wrap themselves in the flag of a wannabe new nation, where we have no democratic levers against those in power. As we have just very clearly seen.
And the man most visible for recent years in bending the knee to THAT flag leads the Labour Party. He was the guy trying every trick in the book to supplant one flag for another.
You think people will just forget that?
I don't think you will forget that, no.
What do quiet patriots want? I think many would identify with things like improving public services, fair wages for essential workers, making sure vulnerable kids do not go hungry, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, reducing barriers to trade and so on.
You screwed up (accidently but in style) so we want to use that to solve our screw up and get the time we should have asked for in the first place to ensure we can work out what paperwork our demands created.
In fairness to Gove - and I’m not his biggest fan - I thought that was the point of negotiating?
Negotiations were finished in December remember - we left on December 31st.
Gove is now desperately using anything (and everything) to solve the mess the UK Government created by not asking for a transition period.
But we were also told they would be continuing as matters evolved - which they have, some for reasons that should have been obvious (and were obvious to everyone except the government, apparently) and others because of a huge unforced error by the EU. So, no I'm not unduly concerned about his attempt to use that as leverage, even though it would have been better had he done the job properly first time around.
Anyone realistic would always expect disruption and teething issues doing the biggest change in our trading terms in nearly half a century.
To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical.
To use the other sides own goals to pressure them to resolve issues in a way beneficial to yourself is entirely logical.
Look where uncritical adherence to a party line can get you.
What's your point?
If any problems are swiftly identified, corrected and fixed then yes it would in my eyes fall under the category of "disruption and teething problems".
If you don't fix them, that becomes a more serious longterm concern.
Hence: "To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical." I'm not expecting all issues to just magically go away.
The thing is, Philip, that while the UK has a lot of reasons for wanting to re-negotiate the EU itself does not.
Which is why Gove is so desperate to use the Article 16 howler because it's the only thing that has occurred in a month that gives Gove any reason to get the EU back at the table.
Sadly the events of the past week seem to have revealed a very deep hostility towards the UK emanating both from the Commission, Macron and one or two others. Of course any tit for tat analysis might justify this given the past 4 years but the moral high ground has been shaken and I doubt the EU realise it. It bodes ill for relationships for the future and I cannot see how it will help citizens on either side of the channel. I would have preferred to see both sides making the best of a bad situation but the inability to be sensible in the midst of a world health crisis puts all of Europe in a bad light.
The more I think about this story linking Matt Hancock with Matt Damon, the movie Contagion and Britain's vaccine success, the more perfect, in a purely political sense, it seems.
With this one, slightly self-deprecatory, story Hancock has now claimed the credit for the vaccine triumph in the nation's subconscious in a way that other claimants will find impossible to shift.
I've no idea who, among the many who would have played a role, deserves to take most of the credit, but as a public argument it's done. Hancock is now Mr Vaccine, the slightly cerebral action hero who set us free.
After his tilt for the leadership in 2019 I really didn't think much of Hancock's political abilities, but this surely has to help him for the post-Johnson contest. Apart from anything else it will give him better numbers in the hypothetical opinion polls.
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
Spot on. Starmer has no choice but to seek to correct the 'anti-British' narrative that took hold in the Corbyn years.
I'd ague that it went back even further. Remember all the stuff about Ed Miliband - his father was a (foreign) communist, so the implication from the tabloids was that he was obviously on the side of the Russians. Absurd, but it would have had cut through among some. Then along came Corbyn to exacerbate the 'Labour hates Britain' meme. Starmer wouldn't have to be doing the flag stuff without the history of the last 10 years.
It does go back quite a few years sadly - and of course it is linked very much to the dominance of the London party. Also probably some links to the party's reliance on ethnic votes in some of the big and not so big cities, which in recent years have among some of the more politicised tended to be less supportive of patriotism. The anti-patriotic mood did grow a lot stronger during the Corbyn era and despite his demise I suspect is still very strong within sime of the membership.
Actually, research indicates that ethnic minorities tend to have a comparatively strong feeling of Britishness:
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
It's not the Tories owning patriotism that is the issue. It is Labour owning - for decades - national self-loathing. Sticking a few flags on a PPB isn't going to convince anybody that behind their hands, Labour isn't laughing at the insincerity of its own actions.
The embodiment of Labour's problem here is Emily Thornberry tweeting about the ridiculousness of draping flags over your house. Anyone want to assess her private views on this new policy. a) Yes Leader, I'm right behind you. I love a flag. I love OUR flag or b) pfffft - what bullshit?
You make my point for me. Disliking the Tory version of patriotism is not self-loathing. It is disliking the Tory version of patriotism - one that has led us to where we are today: a horribly divided country which erects barriers to trade and celebrates removing freedoms from its citizens. Patriotism doesn't have to be like that.
I'd go further and argue the Tory patriotism isn't patriotism. They wave the flag and talk about our boys whilst slashing the armed forces and leaving army veterans to starve to death.
Labour should be the party of working people, who as Blair rightly pointed out are really rather conservative on issues like nation, and law and order. It isn't right wing to want criminals punished - especially when its working class communities being torn apart by crime.
So these should be Labour issues and instinctively so. My comment about Starmer was an observation that they don't appear to be instinctive - I'm not sure much of the usual politics is instinctive for him. We get gestures which very quickly look like gestures - the knee, a few flag backdrops. He needs a team backing him up who get it, and he doesn't. Having to fight internecine battles with unions and the cult can't help, which is why Blair parked the unions off to the side early on.
Tory patriotism is like statute protection and talk about Law and Order.
It's there to distract you while they quietly cut spending on the sector while hoping you don't notice.
It will make for an interesting debate. The very same politicians who said the economic forecasts were project fear, that we have had enough of experts, that doubters didn't have the required faith in the country now have to make the exact opposite arguments. If economics isn't too hard then why did we get it so very wrong with Brexit?
The key issue in politics is usually feel. Yes, the economy stupid, but even that is who do you feel will make it work best? Brexit does direct economic harm to a whole bunch of people who voted for it, so why did they do so? Because their heart told them to take the risk for something better.
It will be the exact same argument for Scottish independence. And Boris, Gove et al will get nowhere threatening Scotland with economic warnings. Boris, Gove et al should know something about the efficacy of such campaigns...
Reflecting on passports, I think there could (perhaps should) be a field in the pasport biometric record, or perhaps in a visa wrt to COVID jab status.
If no field, no entry.
I wonder whether there will be implications for Shengen?
I think ideally it should happen, but in todays nationalistic age how is this going to really work? Over 65 and taken AZ, cant travel to France or Germany? Taken Sinopharm, not recognised in the US, maybe not here? And so on.
Morning all.
Quite a thought that, especially when travelling to the Chinese 'sphere of influence' such as SE Asia. At some time soon, the WHO is going to have to get sa grip on what works, what doesn't and perchance publish a list. Or something!
They all work at stopping hospitalisation which is good enough for me. Id be happy to take any of the ones approved in multiple countries. But there wont be agreement on this, the same people who are most outraged by the German and French idiocy on AZ are equally idiotic about Chinese and Russian vaccines. Even the BBC and Guardian struggle to admit that they even exist, let alone were approved before our first in the world approval. Sadly flags matter more than science here.
I don't think that's either fair or accurate. The first on the world approval was actually caveated as first in the world following a Phase III trial, which it was. AZN has followed the Phase III trial requirements and been legitimately authorised following impartial analysis of the data.
I'm sceptical about the Russian vaccine because until yesterday there was no public data on it - and because I'm sceptical about Russia. Given what I know about Russia I wouldn't trust anything they report without independent verification; see: Navalny, Novichok, Doping etc etc etc. Yesterday their report was in the Lancet which gives a degree of independent scrutiny too it (though they have form, they published Wakefield too) - but I don't know and haven't been able to find out if Lancet have just accepted on faith the Russian data which might not be trustworthy, or if the data has been independently verified. I don't think anyone has suggested the UK, AZN or anyone else has manipulated the data like the Russians have form in doing.
Finally the criticism of "the German and French idiocy" comes from people in positions of authority who should know better like Macron undermining confidence in vaccines and independent scrutiny. Macron's comments attack and undermine the MHRA, but they also attack and undermine the EU's own EMA too given that the EMA have authorised the vaccines for over 65s. To be "equally idiotic" would mean that the people in positions of authority here, like Prime Minister Johnson and the MHRA, were attacking Sinopharm and SputnikV. I don't recall Johnson ever speaking about either, so no there's no equal equivalency here.
Nonsense from start to finish.
Here is the UAE approving Sinopharm in November after a trial of 30k people in Abu Dhabi.
You trust the UK and distrust Russians. The Chinese trust the Chinese and distrust the UK. And so on, that was my whole point.
Yes, UAE has approved Sinopharm and Sputnik vaccines following local trials, as well as Pfizer and Oxford/AZ, so although we don't like to trust China and Russia, there is evidence that their vaccines do work.
Having more vaccines, from whatever source, that work is the important thing. I would be happier if there was more evidence that Russia and China were vaccinating their own people at the sort of rates the Chinese at least could manage if they wanted to.
Oh indeed, it does appear that both Russia and China are way more interested in the international market for their vaccines, than they are in vaccinating their own people.
Like it or not, vaccines are going to be 2021's symbol of soft power, so getting Covax up and running quickly with the AZ/Oxford vaccine is going to be important.
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
Not doubt you will be pleased the party has distanced itself from this research then
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
It's not the Tories owning patriotism that is the issue. It is Labour owning - for decades - national self-loathing. Sticking a few flags on a PPB isn't going to convince anybody that behind their hands, Labour isn't laughing at the insincerity of its own actions.
The embodiment of Labour's problem here is Emily Thornberry tweeting about the ridiculousness of draping flags over your house. Anyone want to assess her private views on this new policy. a) Yes Leader, I'm right behind you. I love a flag. I love OUR flag or b) pfffft - what bullshit?
You make my point for me. Disliking the Tory version of patriotism is not self-loathing. It is disliking the Tory version of patriotism - one that has led us to where we are today: a horribly divided country which erects barriers to trade and celebrates removing freedoms from its citizens. Patriotism doesn't have to be like that.
Gloriously showing why Labour will get stuffed next time too. The citizens voted to remove those freedoms from its citizens. It was the result of democracy.
And SKS and the Labour movement love flags, for sure. We have seen them emblazoned everywhere. They fly flags VERY proudly. Unfortunately, for the past five years, that flag has been gold stars on a blue background.
If you want to stop dividing this country, stop flying the flag of a foreign power all over your social media presence, Remainers. That is a weird type of patriotism you've got there....
We will have to disagree on whether people voted to erect barriers to trade and to make themselves less free. As I say, we should not let the Tories own patriotism and decide what it means. Doing so causes immense harm and puts the very future of the country at risk.
What's Labour's version of patriotism, when it flies the EU flag? There is no alternative proposition on offer from them. What it doesn't offer is listening to the voters represented by the Unon flag and implementing their wishes. Instead, the Labour Party wrap themselves in the flag of a wannabe new nation, where we have no democratic levers against those in power. As we have just very clearly seen.
And the man most visible for recent years in bending the knee to THAT flag leads the Labour Party. He was the guy trying every trick in the book to supplant one flag for another.
You think people will just forget that?
I don't think you will forget that, no.
What do quiet patriots want? I think many would identify with things like improving public services, fair wages for essential workers, making sure vulnerable kids do not go hungry, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, reducing barriers to trade and so on.
But that isn't "patriotism". That's just the basic offer to the voters of any party seeking power. There is no over-arching love of country that underpins that offer.
You screwed up (accidently but in style) so we want to use that to solve our screw up and get the time we should have asked for in the first place to ensure we can work out what paperwork our demands created.
In fairness to Gove - and I’m not his biggest fan - I thought that was the point of negotiating?
Negotiations were finished in December remember - we left on December 31st.
Gove is now desperately using anything (and everything) to solve the mess the UK Government created by not asking for a transition period.
But we were also told they would be continuing as matters evolved - which they have, some for reasons that should have been obvious (and were obvious to everyone except the government, apparently) and others because of a huge unforced error by the EU. So, no I'm not unduly concerned about his attempt to use that as leverage, even though it would have been better had he done the job properly first time around.
Anyone realistic would always expect disruption and teething issues doing the biggest change in our trading terms in nearly half a century.
To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical.
To use the other sides own goals to pressure them to resolve issues in a way beneficial to yourself is entirely logical.
Look where uncritical adherence to a party line can get you.
What's your point?
If any problems are swiftly identified, corrected and fixed then yes it would in my eyes fall under the category of "disruption and teething problems".
If you don't fix them, that becomes a more serious longterm concern.
Hence: "To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical." I'm not expecting all issues to just magically go away.
The thing is, Philip, that while the UK has a lot of reasons for wanting to re-negotiate the EU itself does not.
Which is why Gove is so desperate to use the Article 16 howler because it's the only thing that has occurred in a month that gives Gove any reason to get the EU back at the table.
The EU have to come back to the table because there's a realisation that, while the Irish government stood up for the interests of the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland, the Johnson Ministry abandoned its responsibilities to the Unionist community - and so Johnson's Brexit Deal doesn't represent a durable settlement.
There never was a logical solution that would respect the imperatives of all parties, as I set out in the Brexit trilemma article, and now the consequences of that are becoming apparent.
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
It's not the Tories owning patriotism that is the issue. It is Labour owning - for decades - national self-loathing. Sticking a few flags on a PPB isn't going to convince anybody that behind their hands, Labour isn't laughing at the insincerity of its own actions.
The embodiment of Labour's problem here is Emily Thornberry tweeting about the ridiculousness of draping flags over your house. Anyone want to assess her private views on this new policy. a) Yes Leader, I'm right behind you. I love a flag. I love OUR flag or b) pfffft - what bullshit?
You make my point for me. Disliking the Tory version of patriotism is not self-loathing. It is disliking the Tory version of patriotism - one that has led us to where we are today: a horribly divided country which erects barriers to trade and celebrates removing freedoms from its citizens. Patriotism doesn't have to be like that.
Gloriously showing why Labour will get stuffed next time too. The citizens voted to remove those freedoms from its citizens. It was the result of democracy.
And SKS and the Labour movement love flags, for sure. We have seen them emblazoned everywhere. They fly flags VERY proudly. Unfortunately, for the past five years, that flag has been gold stars on a blue background.
If you want to stop dividing this country, stop flying the flag of a foreign power all over your social media presence, Remainers. That is a weird type of patriotism you've got there....
I'm going to set aside the "flying the flag of a foreign power" nonsense, and look at your point that people voted to remove their own freedoms.
This demonstrates a rather basic principle in sales (politics) - find out what the customer (voter) wants. Offering something they don't want makes it hard to win their business. Worse, Labour have spent a good few years insisting they know better than the voters what those voters want. Its a sight to behold when you go canvassing to houses that have voted Labour since the Danelaw, hear that the party has lost their vote and then have a cultist arguing and jabbing the finger at them complaining at their betrayal of themselves...
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
It's not the Tories owning patriotism that is the issue. It is Labour owning - for decades - national self-loathing. Sticking a few flags on a PPB isn't going to convince anybody that behind their hands, Labour isn't laughing at the insincerity of its own actions.
The embodiment of Labour's problem here is Emily Thornberry tweeting about the ridiculousness of draping flags over your house. Anyone want to assess her private views on this new policy. a) Yes Leader, I'm right behind you. I love a flag. I love OUR flag or b) pfffft - what bullshit?
You make my point for me. Disliking the Tory version of patriotism is not self-loathing. It is disliking the Tory version of patriotism - one that has led us to where we are today: a horribly divided country which erects barriers to trade and celebrates removing freedoms from its citizens. Patriotism doesn't have to be like that.
Gloriously showing why Labour will get stuffed next time too. The citizens voted to remove those freedoms from its citizens. It was the result of democracy.
And SKS and the Labour movement love flags, for sure. We have seen them emblazoned everywhere. They fly flags VERY proudly. Unfortunately, for the past five years, that flag has been gold stars on a blue background.
If you want to stop dividing this country, stop flying the flag of a foreign power all over your social media presence, Remainers. That is a weird type of patriotism you've got there....
We will have to disagree on whether people voted to erect barriers to trade and to make themselves less free. As I say, we should not let the Tories own patriotism and decide what it means. Doing so causes immense harm and puts the very future of the country at risk.
What's Labour's version of patriotism, when it flies the EU flag? There is no alternative proposition on offer from them. What it doesn't offer is listening to the voters represented by the Unon flag and implementing their wishes. Instead, the Labour Party wrap themselves in the flag of a wannabe new nation, where we have no democratic levers against those in power. As we have just very clearly seen.
And the man most visible for recent years in bending the knee to THAT flag leads the Labour Party. He was the guy trying every trick in the book to supplant one flag for another.
You think people will just forget that?
I don't think you will forget that, no.
What do quiet patriots want? I think many would identify with things like improving public services, fair wages for essential workers, making sure vulnerable kids do not go hungry, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, reducing barriers to trade and so on.
But that isn't "patriotism". That's just the basic offer to the voters of any party seeking power. There is no over-arching love of country that underpins that offer.
Of course there is - it is about making the country better than it is now. A better place to live in and to work in. Aspiring to improve your country is entirely patriotic.
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
It's not the Tories owning patriotism that is the issue. It is Labour owning - for decades - national self-loathing. Sticking a few flags on a PPB isn't going to convince anybody that behind their hands, Labour isn't laughing at the insincerity of its own actions.
The embodiment of Labour's problem here is Emily Thornberry tweeting about the ridiculousness of draping flags over your house. Anyone want to assess her private views on this new policy. a) Yes Leader, I'm right behind you. I love a flag. I love OUR flag or b) pfffft - what bullshit?
You make my point for me. Disliking the Tory version of patriotism is not self-loathing. It is disliking the Tory version of patriotism - one that has led us to where we are today: a horribly divided country which erects barriers to trade and celebrates removing freedoms from its citizens. Patriotism doesn't have to be like that.
Gloriously showing why Labour will get stuffed next time too. The citizens voted to remove those freedoms from its citizens. It was the result of democracy.
And SKS and the Labour movement love flags, for sure. We have seen them emblazoned everywhere. They fly flags VERY proudly. Unfortunately, for the past five years, that flag has been gold stars on a blue background.
If you want to stop dividing this country, stop flying the flag of a foreign power all over your social media presence, Remainers. That is a weird type of patriotism you've got there....
We will have to disagree on whether people voted to erect barriers to trade and to make themselves less free. As I say, we should not let the Tories own patriotism and decide what it means. Doing so causes immense harm and puts the very future of the country at risk.
What's Labour's version of patriotism, when it flies the EU flag? There is no alternative proposition on offer from them. What it doesn't offer is listening to the voters represented by the Unon flag and implementing their wishes. Instead, the Labour Party wrap themselves in the flag of a wannabe new nation, where we have no democratic levers against those in power. As we have just very clearly seen.
And the man most visible for recent years in bending the knee to THAT flag leads the Labour Party. He was the guy trying every trick in the book to supplant one flag for another.
You think people will just forget that?
I don't think you will forget that, no.
What do quiet patriots want? I think many would identify with things like improving public services, fair wages for essential workers, making sure vulnerable kids do not go hungry, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, reducing barriers to trade and so on.
The Churchillian wartime patriot schtick is another construct created by Alexander Johnson to bolster his comedic Boris Johnson public persona "character". It is the same patriotic characature that we used to laugh at when the late Tim Brooke-Taylor wore his Union Flag waistcoat in the Goodies.
China does deals with anyone. One of the reasons of their "success" in Africa is their attitude of simply paying the bribes to buy what they want. It is one of the reasons they are so hated in some countries - the corruption is very in-your-face.
You screwed up (accidently but in style) so we want to use that to solve our screw up and get the time we should have asked for in the first place to ensure we can work out what paperwork our demands created.
In fairness to Gove - and I’m not his biggest fan - I thought that was the point of negotiating?
Negotiations were finished in December remember - we left on December 31st.
Gove is now desperately using anything (and everything) to solve the mess the UK Government created by not asking for a transition period.
But we were also told they would be continuing as matters evolved - which they have, some for reasons that should have been obvious (and were obvious to everyone except the government, apparently) and others because of a huge unforced error by the EU. So, no I'm not unduly concerned about his attempt to use that as leverage, even though it would have been better had he done the job properly first time around.
Anyone realistic would always expect disruption and teething issues doing the biggest change in our trading terms in nearly half a century.
To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical.
To use the other sides own goals to pressure them to resolve issues in a way beneficial to yourself is entirely logical.
Look where uncritical adherence to a party line can get you.
What's your point?
If any problems are swiftly identified, corrected and fixed then yes it would in my eyes fall under the category of "disruption and teething problems".
If you don't fix them, that becomes a more serious longterm concern.
Hence: "To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical." I'm not expecting all issues to just magically go away.
The thing is, Philip, that while the UK has a lot of reasons for wanting to re-negotiate the EU itself does not.
Which is why Gove is so desperate to use the Article 16 howler because it's the only thing that has occurred in a month that gives Gove any reason to get the EU back at the table.
The EU have to come back to the table because there's a realisation that, while the Irish government stood up for the interests of the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland, the Johnson Ministry abandoned its responsibilities to the Unionist community - and so Johnson's Brexit Deal doesn't represent a durable settlement.
There never was a logical solution that would respect the imperatives of all parties, as I set out in the Brexit trilemma article, and now the consequences of that are becoming apparent.
But why is that an EU problem - it's one Boris needs to deal as I actually don't think any solution exists without us being in a Customs Union and Boris and co ruled that out.
You screwed up (accidently but in style) so we want to use that to solve our screw up and get the time we should have asked for in the first place to ensure we can work out what paperwork our demands created.
In fairness to Gove - and I’m not his biggest fan - I thought that was the point of negotiating?
Negotiations were finished in December remember - we left on December 31st.
Gove is now desperately using anything (and everything) to solve the mess the UK Government created by not asking for a transition period.
But we were also told they would be continuing as matters evolved - which they have, some for reasons that should have been obvious (and were obvious to everyone except the government, apparently) and others because of a huge unforced error by the EU. So, no I'm not unduly concerned about his attempt to use that as leverage, even though it would have been better had he done the job properly first time around.
Anyone realistic would always expect disruption and teething issues doing the biggest change in our trading terms in nearly half a century.
To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical.
To use the other sides own goals to pressure them to resolve issues in a way beneficial to yourself is entirely logical.
Look where uncritical adherence to a party line can get you.
What's your point?
If any problems are swiftly identified, corrected and fixed then yes it would in my eyes fall under the category of "disruption and teething problems".
If you don't fix them, that becomes a more serious longterm concern.
Hence: "To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical." I'm not expecting all issues to just magically go away.
The thing is, Philip, that while the UK has a lot of reasons for wanting to re-negotiate the EU itself does not.
Which is why Gove is so desperate to use the Article 16 howler because it's the only thing that has occurred in a month that gives Gove any reason to get the EU back at the table.
If you were right, then that shows Gove is good at his job at exercising the levers he has available to him. Well done Gove.
The European Union are waking up to what the British already knew. There are two communities in Northern Ireland and you can't permanently upset one of them without reprisals.
That the EU know they have a problem and they have lost any claim to the moral high ground means it is time to talk like adults and find a real solution. F**k the loyalist community is not a real solution. Mutual recognition of SPS so that SPS paperwork was abolished would be a very good starting point.
Apart from being a very good account of the lead up and opening moves of WWI, it brilliantly dissects the personalities of the players. their flaws and the systems they built up. Which in the end became a railway timetable to war.
For those that don't know the story - JFK said that he was reading it during the Cuban Missile Crisis and that if materially effected his decision making. Especially making him ready to try novel ideas to broker a deal.
On vaccines - In God We Trust. All others bring clinical studies of quality. And if your country has a recent history of murderous lying, strangely, many people will ask for more evidence.
I think it was recommended on here a while ago but I will recommend it now having read it. The shortest history of Germany by James Hawes is a fantastic book. Easy to follow, informative and relevant (pre Covid).
The middle class types that run Labour need to understand, and reflect, the nuances of working class patriotism. There is middle ground between rootless globalist cosmopolitans and flag wankers.
Working class people are proud to be British, and English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish. They support national teams and sports people. Their hearts fill with pride at the thought of the British armed forces crushing Jerry, and the Argies, and the Sand N*****s. The older ones have a rose tinted view of Empire.
Labour need to understand that stuff, and it will be uncomfortable for many of the party, but to convey the nuance - yes the Empire was a hugely impressive construct, and made Britain wealthy but it was constructed in a different time, with different social mores, that are unacceptable today - ie slavery, colonialism, racism. They were acceptable at the time, but not anymore. There is a balance to be struck between blind patriotism and tearing down statues.
They need to come up with a convincing rebuttal to the English nationalism that has become the lifeblood of the Tories, that has fuelled Brexit and threatens the UK.
It's the nuance that is difficult to get across. Perhaps it was ever thus. The masses do like their blind patriotism.
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
It's not the Tories owning patriotism that is the issue. It is Labour owning - for decades - national self-loathing. Sticking a few flags on a PPB isn't going to convince anybody that behind their hands, Labour isn't laughing at the insincerity of its own actions.
The embodiment of Labour's problem here is Emily Thornberry tweeting about the ridiculousness of draping flags over your house. Anyone want to assess her private views on this new policy. a) Yes Leader, I'm right behind you. I love a flag. I love OUR flag or b) pfffft - what bullshit?
You make my point for me. Disliking the Tory version of patriotism is not self-loathing. It is disliking the Tory version of patriotism - one that has led us to where we are today: a horribly divided country which erects barriers to trade and celebrates removing freedoms from its citizens. Patriotism doesn't have to be like that.
Gloriously showing why Labour will get stuffed next time too. The citizens voted to remove those freedoms from its citizens. It was the result of democracy.
And SKS and the Labour movement love flags, for sure. We have seen them emblazoned everywhere. They fly flags VERY proudly. Unfortunately, for the past five years, that flag has been gold stars on a blue background.
If you want to stop dividing this country, stop flying the flag of a foreign power all over your social media presence, Remainers. That is a weird type of patriotism you've got there....
We will have to disagree on whether people voted to erect barriers to trade and to make themselves less free. As I say, we should not let the Tories own patriotism and decide what it means. Doing so causes immense harm and puts the very future of the country at risk.
What's Labour's version of patriotism, when it flies the EU flag? There is no alternative proposition on offer from them. What it doesn't offer is listening to the voters represented by the Unon flag and implementing their wishes. Instead, the Labour Party wrap themselves in the flag of a wannabe new nation, where we have no democratic levers against those in power. As we have just very clearly seen.
And the man most visible for recent years in bending the knee to THAT flag leads the Labour Party. He was the guy trying every trick in the book to supplant one flag for another.
You think people will just forget that?
I don't think you will forget that, no.
What do quiet patriots want? I think many would identify with things like improving public services, fair wages for essential workers, making sure vulnerable kids do not go hungry, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, reducing barriers to trade and so on.
But that isn't "patriotism". That's just the basic offer to the voters of any party seeking power. There is no over-arching love of country that underpins that offer.
Of course there is - it is about making the country better than it is now. A better place to live in and to work in. Aspiring to improve your country is entirely patriotic.
Wrapping themselves in old colonial regalia is working well for the Tories. It won't work for Labour, your idea will have more resonance when the furlough money stops.
Potentially, true. As the New Statesman piece summarised yesterday, all of the PM's best arguments against independence are spiked by his use of them as arguments for Brexit. All of the reasons why we can ignore the economics and fuck business and its about belief suddenly have to be reversed where business and the economists MUST be listened to and you can't just believe in something.
What is undeniably true is that the @HYUFD line about the Tories refusing to engage the independence debate because Catalonia is nonsense. Douglas Ross wants to debate it because he has no choice other to engage this head on.
Isn't the opposite true though - all of the best arguments for independence from the SNP were argued the other way for Brexit. I have repeatedly asked our Scottish nationalist posters on here if they believe that it is right for a country to make independent economic decisions etc.
I cannot fathom how you can be pro Scottish independence - which I am not against - but be pro EU.
Depends on what you mean by "EU". If, like the members of the EU, you see "EU" as a partnership where you benefit economically and culturally from being part of something bigger then why wouldn't Scotland look at how small EU countries manage and say "we want that".
Or, if as it was put earlier, you see "EU" as a "foreign power" then they don't get to make independent decisions. So its a matter of perspective.
Consider this argument. Currently Scotland is subsumed into a country that many Scots no longer wish to be subsumed by. They have been granted limited authority over their own affairs but in anything more substantial the English say "you can't make that decision and we don't care what you think". Membership of the EU is NOT like that. Members are sovereign states. Yes I know Brexiteers see it the other way round and that is their right.
Their - and your - challenge is to imagine that not everyone sees the issue the way that you do.
Potentially, true. As the New Statesman piece summarised yesterday, all of the PM's best arguments against independence are spiked by his use of them as arguments for Brexit. All of the reasons why we can ignore the economics and fuck business and its about belief suddenly have to be reversed where business and the economists MUST be listened to and you can't just believe in something.
What is undeniably true is that the @HYUFD line about the Tories refusing to engage the independence debate because Catalonia is nonsense. Douglas Ross wants to debate it because he has no choice other to engage this head on.
Ross merely wants a debate with Sturgeon as to why she is pushing an indyref2 in the middle of a pandemic “Which is why I am challenging Nicola Surgeon to a debate this month on Scotland’s future.
You screwed up (accidently but in style) so we want to use that to solve our screw up and get the time we should have asked for in the first place to ensure we can work out what paperwork our demands created.
In fairness to Gove - and I’m not his biggest fan - I thought that was the point of negotiating?
Negotiations were finished in December remember - we left on December 31st.
Gove is now desperately using anything (and everything) to solve the mess the UK Government created by not asking for a transition period.
But we were also told they would be continuing as matters evolved - which they have, some for reasons that should have been obvious (and were obvious to everyone except the government, apparently) and others because of a huge unforced error by the EU. So, no I'm not unduly concerned about his attempt to use that as leverage, even though it would have been better had he done the job properly first time around.
Anyone realistic would always expect disruption and teething issues doing the biggest change in our trading terms in nearly half a century.
To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical.
To use the other sides own goals to pressure them to resolve issues in a way beneficial to yourself is entirely logical.
Look where uncritical adherence to a party line can get you.
What's your point?
If any problems are swiftly identified, corrected and fixed then yes it would in my eyes fall under the category of "disruption and teething problems".
If you don't fix them, that becomes a more serious longterm concern.
Hence: "To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical." I'm not expecting all issues to just magically go away.
The thing is, Philip, that while the UK has a lot of reasons for wanting to re-negotiate the EU itself does not.
Which is why Gove is so desperate to use the Article 16 howler because it's the only thing that has occurred in a month that gives Gove any reason to get the EU back at the table.
The EU have to come back to the table because there's a realisation that, while the Irish government stood up for the interests of the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland, the Johnson Ministry abandoned its responsibilities to the Unionist community - and so Johnson's Brexit Deal doesn't represent a durable settlement.
There never was a logical solution that would respect the imperatives of all parties, as I set out in the Brexit trilemma article, and now the consequences of that are becoming apparent.
When you have no logical solutions you need to find the best illogical solution.
Fudge is the solution. Fudge is the spirit of the GFA. It is entirely plausible if the will is there.
Sadly the events of the past week seem to have revealed a very deep hostility towards the UK emanating both from the Commission, Macron and one or two others. Of course any tit for tat analysis might justify this given the past 4 years but the moral high ground has been shaken and I doubt the EU realise it. It bodes ill for relationships for the future and I cannot see how it will help citizens on either side of the channel. I would have preferred to see both sides making the best of a bad situation but the inability to be sensible in the midst of a world health crisis puts all of Europe in a bad light.
The relationship is entirely poisoned. There is no trust. Both sides are responsible for that. What the last few weeks have shown is the impact the EU will continue to have on the UK. We need to get to a better relationship asap. But it is clearly going to take time, a few deep breaths and a lot more grown-up behaviour. The UK government's surprisingly and very welcome grown-up response to the disgraceful behaviour of the Commission and some member states over the vaccine issue offers some hope on that front. But only some.
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
I agree RP sees a bit bitter and twisted whatever SKS does .
I want to see Labour resurrected to a party that actually can win elections - Starmer was the absolute best option of a limited bunch. Pointing out that he isn't very good isn't being bitter and twisted - doing so when he was clearly doing very well might be, but he isn't.
I have no problem at all with Labour using the union jack and my point was that Blair did so successfully and convincingly. Its not criticism of Keir having flag backdrops, its that he's doing so because focus groups have told him that he needs to put on a show. Its fake.
I do not believe it is fake from SKS,. What do base that allegation on ? Are you saying SKS is not patriotic and wanting the best for this county. Mandalson was criticised at the time for using the British bulldog in the Blair era. Blair was said to be Bambi and to soft in opposition. Maybe this passed you buy.
You screwed up (accidently but in style) so we want to use that to solve our screw up and get the time we should have asked for in the first place to ensure we can work out what paperwork our demands created.
In fairness to Gove - and I’m not his biggest fan - I thought that was the point of negotiating?
Negotiations were finished in December remember - we left on December 31st.
Gove is now desperately using anything (and everything) to solve the mess the UK Government created by not asking for a transition period.
But we were also told they would be continuing as matters evolved - which they have, some for reasons that should have been obvious (and were obvious to everyone except the government, apparently) and others because of a huge unforced error by the EU. So, no I'm not unduly concerned about his attempt to use that as leverage, even though it would have been better had he done the job properly first time around.
Anyone realistic would always expect disruption and teething issues doing the biggest change in our trading terms in nearly half a century.
To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical.
To use the other sides own goals to pressure them to resolve issues in a way beneficial to yourself is entirely logical.
Look where uncritical adherence to a party line can get you.
What's your point?
If any problems are swiftly identified, corrected and fixed then yes it would in my eyes fall under the category of "disruption and teething problems".
If you don't fix them, that becomes a more serious longterm concern.
Hence: "To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical." I'm not expecting all issues to just magically go away.
The thing is, Philip, that while the UK has a lot of reasons for wanting to re-negotiate the EU itself does not.
Which is why Gove is so desperate to use the Article 16 howler because it's the only thing that has occurred in a month that gives Gove any reason to get the EU back at the table.
If you were right, then that shows Gove is good at his job at exercising the levers he has available to him. Well done Gove.
The European Union are waking up to what the British already knew. There are two communities in Northern Ireland and you can't permanently upset one of them without reprisals.
That the EU know they have a problem and they have lost any claim to the moral high ground means it is time to talk like adults and find a real solution. F**k the loyalist community is not a real solution. Mutual recognition of SPS so that SPS paperwork was abolished would be a very good starting point.
That's NI and it's a separate issue.
Gove isn't talking about NI he's talking about more general exports such as fish and virtually everything else we in Great Britain) used to export to the EU.
As for NI - the EU could easily walk away and say no imports via Larne or other NI ports.
I have just been informed that Sir Captain Tom Moore family took him on holiday to the Caribbean at Christmas. Which seemed to me a quite dangerous thing to do in a pandemic, with a vulnerable 100 year old man.
Yes and no. Tbh at 100 what are you waiting for? You life expectancy isn’t measured in decades at that point...
In my fathers end-stage illness I asked his Dr whether we should take him on holiday - medically the answer was almost certainly “no” - but he said “yes” and we had a wonderful holiday a few months before he died.
My father did much the same. Not with us, but he managed a Norwegian coast cruise with my mother, something they'd done before and enjoyed
We did exactly the same! Saw the Northern Lights as a bonus! Though I nearly killed both of us pushing him in a wheelchair through the snow!
Potentially, true. As the New Statesman piece summarised yesterday, all of the PM's best arguments against independence are spiked by his use of them as arguments for Brexit. All of the reasons why we can ignore the economics and fuck business and its about belief suddenly have to be reversed where business and the economists MUST be listened to and you can't just believe in something.
What is undeniably true is that the @HYUFD line about the Tories refusing to engage the independence debate because Catalonia is nonsense. Douglas Ross wants to debate it because he has no choice other to engage this head on.
Ross merely wants a debate with Sturgeon as to why she is pushing an indyref2 in the middle of a pandemic “Which is why I am challenging Nicola Surgeon to a debate this month on Scotland’s future.
Sadly the events of the past week seem to have revealed a very deep hostility towards the UK emanating both from the Commission, Macron and one or two others. Of course any tit for tat analysis might justify this given the past 4 years but the moral high ground has been shaken and I doubt the EU realise it. It bodes ill for relationships for the future and I cannot see how it will help citizens on either side of the channel. I would have preferred to see both sides making the best of a bad situation but the inability to be sensible in the midst of a world health crisis puts all of Europe in a bad light.
The relationship is entirely poisoned. There is no trust. Both sides are responsible for that. What the last few weeks have shown is the impact the EU will continue to have on the UK. We need to get to a better relationship asap. But it is clearly going to take time, a few deep breaths and a lot more grown-up behaviour. The UK government's surprisingly and very welcome grown-up response to the disgraceful behaviour of the Commission and some member states over the vaccine issue offers some hope on that front. But only some.
Only one side has been feeding anti-vaxxer sentiment that would make Donald Trump blush.
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
It's not the Tories owning patriotism that is the issue. It is Labour owning - for decades - national self-loathing. Sticking a few flags on a PPB isn't going to convince anybody that behind their hands, Labour isn't laughing at the insincerity of its own actions.
The embodiment of Labour's problem here is Emily Thornberry tweeting about the ridiculousness of draping flags over your house. Anyone want to assess her private views on this new policy. a) Yes Leader, I'm right behind you. I love a flag. I love OUR flag or b) pfffft - what bullshit?
You make my point for me. Disliking the Tory version of patriotism is not self-loathing. It is disliking the Tory version of patriotism - one that has led us to where we are today: a horribly divided country which erects barriers to trade and celebrates removing freedoms from its citizens. Patriotism doesn't have to be like that.
Gloriously showing why Labour will get stuffed next time too. The citizens voted to remove those freedoms from its citizens. It was the result of democracy.
And SKS and the Labour movement love flags, for sure. We have seen them emblazoned everywhere. They fly flags VERY proudly. Unfortunately, for the past five years, that flag has been gold stars on a blue background.
If you want to stop dividing this country, stop flying the flag of a foreign power all over your social media presence, Remainers. That is a weird type of patriotism you've got there....
I'm going to set aside the "flying the flag of a foreign power" nonsense, and look at your point that people voted to remove their own freedoms.
This demonstrates a rather basic principle in sales (politics) - find out what the customer (voter) wants. Offering something they don't want makes it hard to win their business. Worse, Labour have spent a good few years insisting they know better than the voters what those voters want. Its a sight to behold when you go canvassing to houses that have voted Labour since the Danelaw, hear that the party has lost their vote and then have a cultist arguing and jabbing the finger at them complaining at their betrayal of themselves...
I would also suggest (ha!) that it needs to be a positive vision. It comes back to the old PR thing - you either make your brand, or other people will do it for you.
Simply saying that "we want to do X, therefore we must kind of like the UK by implication" isn't going to work.
Blair's Cool Britannia thing was rather cringy in places, but was about this.
The middle class types that run Labour need to understand, and reflect, the nuances of working class patriotism. There is middle ground between rootless globalist cosmopolitans and flag wankers.
Working class people are proud to be British, and English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish. They support national teams and sports people. Their hearts fill with pride at the thought of the British armed forces crushing Jerry, and the Argies, and the Sand N*****s. The older ones have a rose tinted view of Empire.
Labour need to understand that stuff, and it will be uncomfortable for many of the party, but to convey the nuance - yes the Empire was a hugely impressive construct, and made Britain wealthy but it was constructed in a different time, with different social mores, that are unacceptable today - ie slavery, colonialism, racism. They were acceptable at the time, but not anymore. There is a balance to be struck between blind patriotism and tearing down statues.
They need to come up with a convincing rebuttal to the English nationalism that has become the lifeblood of the Tories, that has fuelled Brexit and threatens the UK.
It's the nuance that is difficult to get across. Perhaps it was ever thus. The masses do like their blind patriotism.
This is a very serious point that so many people on the 21st century side of the populace don't get. I don't see how we can apply 2020s morality to the past and make sound judgements. Would we today want to launch into an empire, or treat women as second class, or make racial discrimination normal? No - but you can't really attack people in the past for doing so as that would include just about everyone. They had different standards in the past...
Listening to 'More or less' in the background and not sure if I picked this up correctly so would appreciate feedback because if I have understood this correctly it makes the excellent efforts in tracking down the latest strain of virus potentially of limited benefit (although probably still worth doing).
I believe they stated that the genome sequencing takes 6 weeks, so the data they have relates to December.
I assumed, because the main stream media doesn't give any other details, that the latest variant would have been discovered from say tests that were from a few days to a week old.
Potentially, true. As the New Statesman piece summarised yesterday, all of the PM's best arguments against independence are spiked by his use of them as arguments for Brexit. All of the reasons why we can ignore the economics and fuck business and its about belief suddenly have to be reversed where business and the economists MUST be listened to and you can't just believe in something.
What is undeniably true is that the @HYUFD line about the Tories refusing to engage the independence debate because Catalonia is nonsense. Douglas Ross wants to debate it because he has no choice other to engage this head on.
Ross merely wants a debate with Sturgeon as to why she is pushing an indyref2 in the middle of a pandemic “Which is why I am challenging Nicola Surgeon to a debate this month on Scotland’s future.
They've also licensed the follow on vaccine: ...The collaboration will build on CureVac's first generation COVID-19 vaccine candidate CVnCoV, which is currently in clinical trial. GSK will also support the manufacture of up to 100 million doses of CVnCoV in 2021. Under the terms of the deal, GSK will be the marketing authorisation holder for the new vaccine, except in Switzerland, and will have exclusive rights to develop, manufacture, and commercialise the vaccine in all countries with the exception of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. GSK will make an upfront payment of €75m and a further payment of €75m conditional on the achievement of specific milestones...
That's good but it's a shame it's not the Imperial one. I expect this is just for fill and finish as well, still important of course but not actually producing the active ingredient.
The GSK Sanofi partnership was a mistake and the government should have made Imperial and GSK partner for a second all domestic vaccine.
It's point scoring / fake virtue signaling for idiots...
No,
It's murphaloonatics.
(I've no idea whether he is a real or a fake prof at present, but quite often on his hilariblog he resorts to appeals to his own authority before defenestrating pesky people who ask questions - which is wonderful.)
Sadly the events of the past week seem to have revealed a very deep hostility towards the UK emanating both from the Commission, Macron and one or two others. Of course any tit for tat analysis might justify this given the past 4 years but the moral high ground has been shaken and I doubt the EU realise it. It bodes ill for relationships for the future and I cannot see how it will help citizens on either side of the channel. I would have preferred to see both sides making the best of a bad situation but the inability to be sensible in the midst of a world health crisis puts all of Europe in a bad light.
The relationship is entirely poisoned. There is no trust. Both sides are responsible for that. What the last few weeks have shown is the impact the EU will continue to have on the UK. We need to get to a better relationship asap. But it is clearly going to take time, a few deep breaths and a lot more grown-up behaviour. The UK government's surprisingly and very welcome grown-up response to the disgraceful behaviour of the Commission and some member states over the vaccine issue offers some hope on that front. But only some.
Only one side has been feeding anti-vaxxer sentiment that would make Donald Trump blush.
Yes, I agree. But the trust issue is not one that suddenly appeared last week.
The more I think about this story linking Matt Hancock with Matt Damon, the movie Contagion and Britain's vaccine success, the more perfect, in a purely political sense, it seems.
With this one, slightly self-deprecatory, story Hancock has now claimed the credit for the vaccine triumph in the nation's subconscious in a way that other claimants will find impossible to shift.
I've no idea who, among the many who would have played a role, deserves to take most of the credit, but as a public argument it's done. Hancock is now Mr Vaccine, the slightly cerebral action hero who set us free.
After his tilt for the leadership in 2019 I really didn't think much of Hancock's political abilities, but this surely has to help him for the post-Johnson contest. Apart from anything else it will give him better numbers in the hypothetical opinion polls.
His mishaps, not getting best value for PPE, underutilised staffing issues, overly ambitious app that could never work are, thinking about it failures that if they had worked would have improved the situation (Centralised app whatever you think about it could well be better for public health), Nightingales weren't a bad idea in principle but never quite worked out how he'd think. All the other failures (Eat out spreading virus), schools whack a mole, borders are only to do with him tangentially via cabinet collective responsibility (Williamson, Shapps, Patel, Sunak, Johnson being far more responsible for those decisions. No minister is going to be perfect in a pandemic but I'd give him 8/10. It'd be 4 or 5/10 if we had the EU's vaccination rollout timeline.
They've also licensed the follow on vaccine: ...The collaboration will build on CureVac's first generation COVID-19 vaccine candidate CVnCoV, which is currently in clinical trial. GSK will also support the manufacture of up to 100 million doses of CVnCoV in 2021. Under the terms of the deal, GSK will be the marketing authorisation holder for the new vaccine, except in Switzerland, and will have exclusive rights to develop, manufacture, and commercialise the vaccine in all countries with the exception of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. GSK will make an upfront payment of €75m and a further payment of €75m conditional on the achievement of specific milestones...
Oh I take that back, looks as though they've basically bought it.
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
It's not the Tories owning patriotism that is the issue. It is Labour owning - for decades - national self-loathing. Sticking a few flags on a PPB isn't going to convince anybody that behind their hands, Labour isn't laughing at the insincerity of its own actions.
The embodiment of Labour's problem here is Emily Thornberry tweeting about the ridiculousness of draping flags over your house. Anyone want to assess her private views on this new policy. a) Yes Leader, I'm right behind you. I love a flag. I love OUR flag or b) pfffft - what bullshit?
You make my point for me. Disliking the Tory version of patriotism is not self-loathing. It is disliking the Tory version of patriotism - one that has led us to where we are today: a horribly divided country which erects barriers to trade and celebrates removing freedoms from its citizens. Patriotism doesn't have to be like that.
I'd go further and argue the Tory patriotism isn't patriotism. They wave the flag and talk about our boys whilst slashing the armed forces and leaving army veterans to starve to death.
Labour should be the party of working people, who as Blair rightly pointed out are really rather conservative on issues like nation, and law and order. It isn't right wing to want criminals punished - especially when its working class communities being torn apart by crime.
So these should be Labour issues and instinctively so. My comment about Starmer was an observation that they don't appear to be instinctive - I'm not sure much of the usual politics is instinctive for him. We get gestures which very quickly look like gestures - the knee, a few flag backdrops. He needs a team backing him up who get it, and he doesn't. Having to fight internecine battles with unions and the cult can't help, which is why Blair parked the unions off to the side early on.
Tory patriotism is like statute protection and talk about Law and Order.
It's there to distract you while they quietly cut spending on the sector while hoping you don't notice.
Yes cutting 20% from the police budget in 2010-15 was a bit over the top. Some reduction was justified like closing Police stations without custody in a modern era when crimes can be reported by other means However the loss of police officers from the front line was to drastic., it is good Johnson is reversing it.
You screwed up (accidently but in style) so we want to use that to solve our screw up and get the time we should have asked for in the first place to ensure we can work out what paperwork our demands created.
In fairness to Gove - and I’m not his biggest fan - I thought that was the point of negotiating?
Negotiations were finished in December remember - we left on December 31st.
Gove is now desperately using anything (and everything) to solve the mess the UK Government created by not asking for a transition period.
But we were also told they would be continuing as matters evolved - which they have, some for reasons that should have been obvious (and were obvious to everyone except the government, apparently) and others because of a huge unforced error by the EU. So, no I'm not unduly concerned about his attempt to use that as leverage, even though it would have been better had he done the job properly first time around.
Anyone realistic would always expect disruption and teething issues doing the biggest change in our trading terms in nearly half a century.
To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical.
To use the other sides own goals to pressure them to resolve issues in a way beneficial to yourself is entirely logical.
Look where uncritical adherence to a party line can get you.
What's your point?
If any problems are swiftly identified, corrected and fixed then yes it would in my eyes fall under the category of "disruption and teething problems".
If you don't fix them, that becomes a more serious longterm concern.
Hence: "To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical." I'm not expecting all issues to just magically go away.
The thing is, Philip, that while the UK has a lot of reasons for wanting to re-negotiate the EU itself does not.
Which is why Gove is so desperate to use the Article 16 howler because it's the only thing that has occurred in a month that gives Gove any reason to get the EU back at the table.
The EU have to come back to the table because there's a realisation that, while the Irish government stood up for the interests of the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland, the Johnson Ministry abandoned its responsibilities to the Unionist community - and so Johnson's Brexit Deal doesn't represent a durable settlement.
There never was a logical solution that would respect the imperatives of all parties, as I set out in the Brexit trilemma article, and now the consequences of that are becoming apparent.
But why is that an EU problem - it's one Boris needs to deal as I actually don't think any solution exists without us being in a Customs Union and Boris and co ruled that out.
Apart from anything else the EU has a duty of care to its employees, who it told not to turn up to work because it was worried for their safety.
You're right that there's no solution to the contradictions that doesn't involve one side, or another, giving way on its fundamental imperatives.
Irish Nationalists insists there must be no regulatory border between Dublin and Belfast.
Unionists insist there must be no regulatory border between Belfast and London.
The Good Friday Agreement compels us not to override the wishes of either community without consent.
The Johnson Ministry insists that there is a regulatory border between London and Brussels.
The EU and Ireland insist there is no regulatory border between Dublin and Brussels.
The problem is unsolvable. Brexit breaches the Good Friday Agreement. It was astonishingly reckless for Cameron to call the referendum.
Study supporting the idea that viral load is a string determinant of infectiousness - something which seems intuitively obvious, but has been argued over for the last year. (And incidentally strongly supports the rationale for rapid antigen tests, which I think was one of the biggest missed opportunities of the last twelve months.)
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
I agree RP sees a bit bitter and twisted whatever SKS does .
I want to see Labour resurrected to a party that actually can win elections - Starmer was the absolute best option of a limited bunch. Pointing out that he isn't very good isn't being bitter and twisted - doing so when he was clearly doing very well might be, but he isn't.
I have no problem at all with Labour using the union jack and my point was that Blair did so successfully and convincingly. Its not criticism of Keir having flag backdrops, its that he's doing so because focus groups have told him that he needs to put on a show. Its fake.
I do not believe it is fake from SKS,. What do base that allegation on ? Are you saying SKS is not patriotic and wanting the best for this county. Mandalson was criticised at the time for using the British bulldog in the Blair era. Blair was said to be Bambi and to soft in opposition. Maybe this passed you buy.
What on earth do you mean by "Are you saying SKS is not patriotic and wanting the best for this county."? ALL politicians of every party want that - none of them become politicians wanting to reduce the country and make it worse.
As for what do I base it on? Perhaps the leaked focus group stuff. Starmer was a career lawyer before entering into politics. He was probably wooden as a lawyer as well, as he is certainly wooden as a politician.
There is a difference between being a privately passionate believer in social justice wanting to make things better for people and being a heart on the sleeve advocate for patriotic renewal.
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
It's not the Tories owning patriotism that is the issue. It is Labour owning - for decades - national self-loathing. Sticking a few flags on a PPB isn't going to convince anybody that behind their hands, Labour isn't laughing at the insincerity of its own actions.
The embodiment of Labour's problem here is Emily Thornberry tweeting about the ridiculousness of draping flags over your house. Anyone want to assess her private views on this new policy. a) Yes Leader, I'm right behind you. I love a flag. I love OUR flag or b) pfffft - what bullshit?
You make my point for me. Disliking the Tory version of patriotism is not self-loathing. It is disliking the Tory version of patriotism - one that has led us to where we are today: a horribly divided country which erects barriers to trade and celebrates removing freedoms from its citizens. Patriotism doesn't have to be like that.
Gloriously showing why Labour will get stuffed next time too. The citizens voted to remove those freedoms from its citizens. It was the result of democracy.
And SKS and the Labour movement love flags, for sure. We have seen them emblazoned everywhere. They fly flags VERY proudly. Unfortunately, for the past five years, that flag has been gold stars on a blue background.
If you want to stop dividing this country, stop flying the flag of a foreign power all over your social media presence, Remainers. That is a weird type of patriotism you've got there....
We will have to disagree on whether people voted to erect barriers to trade and to make themselves less free. As I say, we should not let the Tories own patriotism and decide what it means. Doing so causes immense harm and puts the very future of the country at risk.
What's Labour's version of patriotism, when it flies the EU flag? There is no alternative proposition on offer from them. What it doesn't offer is listening to the voters represented by the Unon flag and implementing their wishes. Instead, the Labour Party wrap themselves in the flag of a wannabe new nation, where we have no democratic levers against those in power. As we have just very clearly seen.
And the man most visible for recent years in bending the knee to THAT flag leads the Labour Party. He was the guy trying every trick in the book to supplant one flag for another.
You think people will just forget that?
The people who obsess about that crap are not fit to vote Labour. We have standards.
I have just been informed that Sir Captain Tom Moore family took him on holiday to the Caribbean at Christmas. Which seemed to me a quite dangerous thing to do in a pandemic, with a vulnerable 100 year old man.
No write-off, the physicist Hans Bethe was writing research papers well into his nineties.
Sir Captain Tom Moore raised £33m for charity.
Absolutely. I see it (to over-simplify) as "active" vs "passive" mentally and/or physically.
Gawking at a beach in foreign climes doesn't do much for "active" in my book, and isn't much good either for climate change. Incidentally, in the last month I have seen a couple of outrageously beautiful sunsets over the Bedford river Ouse, not far from Tom's residence.
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
Spot on. Starmer has no choice but to seek to correct the 'anti-British' narrative that took hold in the Corbyn years.
I'd ague that it went back even further. Remember all the stuff about Ed Miliband - his father was a (foreign) communist, so the implication from the tabloids was that he was obviously on the side of the Russians. Absurd, but it would have had cut through among some. Then along came Corbyn to exacerbate the 'Labour hates Britain' meme. Starmer wouldn't have to be doing the flag stuff without the history of the last 10 years.
It does go back quite a few years sadly - and of course it is linked very much to the dominance of the London party. Also probably some links to the party's reliance on ethnic votes in some of the big and not so big cities, which in recent years have among some of the more politicised tended to be less supportive of patriotism. The anti-patriotic mood did grow a lot stronger during the Corbyn era and despite his demise I suspect is still very strong within sime of the membership.
Actually, research indicates that ethnic minorities tend to have a comparatively strong feeling of Britishness:
Yes. It really does seem as though the Sanofi vaccine is dead in the water with both partners now manufacturing others under licence. I'm still amazed that the Germans agreed to this.
I have just been informed that Sir Captain Tom Moore family took him on holiday to the Caribbean at Christmas. Which seemed to me a quite dangerous thing to do in a pandemic, with a vulnerable 100 year old man.
No write-off, the physicist Hans Bethe was writing research papers well into his nineties.
Sir Captain Tom Moore raised £33m for charity.
One of the most amazing things Ive seen was refreshing his website every 10 seconds and seeing the amount raised going up by hundreds of thousands of pounds each time.
You screwed up (accidently but in style) so we want to use that to solve our screw up and get the time we should have asked for in the first place to ensure we can work out what paperwork our demands created.
In fairness to Gove - and I’m not his biggest fan - I thought that was the point of negotiating?
Negotiations were finished in December remember - we left on December 31st.
Gove is now desperately using anything (and everything) to solve the mess the UK Government created by not asking for a transition period.
But we were also told they would be continuing as matters evolved - which they have, some for reasons that should have been obvious (and were obvious to everyone except the government, apparently) and others because of a huge unforced error by the EU. So, no I'm not unduly concerned about his attempt to use that as leverage, even though it would have been better had he done the job properly first time around.
Anyone realistic would always expect disruption and teething issues doing the biggest change in our trading terms in nearly half a century.
To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical.
To use the other sides own goals to pressure them to resolve issues in a way beneficial to yourself is entirely logical.
Look where uncritical adherence to a party line can get you.
What's your point?
If any problems are swiftly identified, corrected and fixed then yes it would in my eyes fall under the category of "disruption and teething problems".
If you don't fix them, that becomes a more serious longterm concern.
Hence: "To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical." I'm not expecting all issues to just magically go away.
The thing is, Philip, that while the UK has a lot of reasons for wanting to re-negotiate the EU itself does not.
Which is why Gove is so desperate to use the Article 16 howler because it's the only thing that has occurred in a month that gives Gove any reason to get the EU back at the table.
The EU have to come back to the table because there's a realisation that, while the Irish government stood up for the interests of the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland, the Johnson Ministry abandoned its responsibilities to the Unionist community - and so Johnson's Brexit Deal doesn't represent a durable settlement.
There never was a logical solution that would respect the imperatives of all parties, as I set out in the Brexit trilemma article, and now the consequences of that are becoming apparent.
When you have no logical solutions you need to find the best illogical solution.
Fudge is the solution. Fudge is the spirit of the GFA. It is entirely plausible if the will is there.
You can't easily fudge something when the foundations the previous fudge is based on no longer exist.
The GFA was a fudge that worked because we were all in the EU and a Northern Ireland that is part in the UK and part in Eire was possible because we both part of the EU. And even that fudge took 10+ years to get into place.
So how do you create a new fudge in weeks when half the foundations have disintegrated.
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
It's not the Tories owning patriotism that is the issue. It is Labour owning - for decades - national self-loathing. Sticking a few flags on a PPB isn't going to convince anybody that behind their hands, Labour isn't laughing at the insincerity of its own actions.
The embodiment of Labour's problem here is Emily Thornberry tweeting about the ridiculousness of draping flags over your house. Anyone want to assess her private views on this new policy. a) Yes Leader, I'm right behind you. I love a flag. I love OUR flag or b) pfffft - what bullshit?
You make my point for me. Disliking the Tory version of patriotism is not self-loathing. It is disliking the Tory version of patriotism - one that has led us to where we are today: a horribly divided country which erects barriers to trade and celebrates removing freedoms from its citizens. Patriotism doesn't have to be like that.
Gloriously showing why Labour will get stuffed next time too. The citizens voted to remove those freedoms from its citizens. It was the result of democracy.
And SKS and the Labour movement love flags, for sure. We have seen them emblazoned everywhere. They fly flags VERY proudly. Unfortunately, for the past five years, that flag has been gold stars on a blue background.
If you want to stop dividing this country, stop flying the flag of a foreign power all over your social media presence, Remainers. That is a weird type of patriotism you've got there....
We will have to disagree on whether people voted to erect barriers to trade and to make themselves less free. As I say, we should not let the Tories own patriotism and decide what it means. Doing so causes immense harm and puts the very future of the country at risk.
What's Labour's version of patriotism, when it flies the EU flag? There is no alternative proposition on offer from them. What it doesn't offer is listening to the voters represented by the Unon flag and implementing their wishes. Instead, the Labour Party wrap themselves in the flag of a wannabe new nation, where we have no democratic levers against those in power. As we have just very clearly seen.
And the man most visible for recent years in bending the knee to THAT flag leads the Labour Party. He was the guy trying every trick in the book to supplant one flag for another.
You think people will just forget that?
I don't think you will forget that, no.
What do quiet patriots want? I think many would identify with things like improving public services, fair wages for essential workers, making sure vulnerable kids do not go hungry, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, reducing barriers to trade and so on.
But that isn't "patriotism". That's just the basic offer to the voters of any party seeking power. There is no over-arching love of country that underpins that offer.
Of course there is - it is about making the country better than it is now. A better place to live in and to work in. Aspiring to improve your country is entirely patriotic.
A good start for Starmer would be public money, where possible, should only be spent on domestically produced products. Vehicles being the most visible sign of this. So no more BMW patrol cars, Skoda paramedic cars, Mercedes Ambulances, Isuzu Coastguard Trucks, and Peugeot mail vans.
Study supporting the idea that viral load is a string determinant of infectiousness - something which seems intuitively obvious, but has been argued over for the last year. (And incidentally strongly supports the rationale for rapid antigen tests, which I think was one of the biggest missed opportunities of the last twelve months.)
You screwed up (accidently but in style) so we want to use that to solve our screw up and get the time we should have asked for in the first place to ensure we can work out what paperwork our demands created.
In fairness to Gove - and I’m not his biggest fan - I thought that was the point of negotiating?
Negotiations were finished in December remember - we left on December 31st.
Gove is now desperately using anything (and everything) to solve the mess the UK Government created by not asking for a transition period.
But we were also told they would be continuing as matters evolved - which they have, some for reasons that should have been obvious (and were obvious to everyone except the government, apparently) and others because of a huge unforced error by the EU. So, no I'm not unduly concerned about his attempt to use that as leverage, even though it would have been better had he done the job properly first time around.
Anyone realistic would always expect disruption and teething issues doing the biggest change in our trading terms in nearly half a century.
To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical.
To use the other sides own goals to pressure them to resolve issues in a way beneficial to yourself is entirely logical.
Look where uncritical adherence to a party line can get you.
What's your point?
If any problems are swiftly identified, corrected and fixed then yes it would in my eyes fall under the category of "disruption and teething problems".
If you don't fix them, that becomes a more serious longterm concern.
Hence: "To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical." I'm not expecting all issues to just magically go away.
The thing is, Philip, that while the UK has a lot of reasons for wanting to re-negotiate the EU itself does not.
Which is why Gove is so desperate to use the Article 16 howler because it's the only thing that has occurred in a month that gives Gove any reason to get the EU back at the table.
If you were right, then that shows Gove is good at his job at exercising the levers he has available to him. Well done Gove.
The European Union are waking up to what the British already knew. There are two communities in Northern Ireland and you can't permanently upset one of them without reprisals.
That the EU know they have a problem and they have lost any claim to the moral high ground means it is time to talk like adults and find a real solution. F**k the loyalist community is not a real solution. Mutual recognition of SPS so that SPS paperwork was abolished would be a very good starting point.
That's what they also need to do wrt Covid. Ignoring lessons from past Brit mistakes will cost lives, esp. when combined with priority to arsecovering, and anti-AZT politics.
I'm going to set aside the "flying the flag of a foreign power" nonsense, and look at your point that people voted to remove their own freedoms.
This demonstrates a rather basic principle in sales (politics) - find out what the customer (voter) wants. Offering something they don't want makes it hard to win their business. Worse, Labour have spent a good few years insisting they know better than the voters what those voters want. Its a sight to behold when you go canvassing to houses that have voted Labour since the Danelaw, hear that the party has lost their vote and then have a cultist arguing and jabbing the finger at them complaining at their betrayal of themselves...
I would also suggest (ha!) that it needs to be a positive vision. It comes back to the old PR thing - you either make your brand, or other people will do it for you.
Simply saying that "we want to do X, therefore we must kind of like the UK by implication" isn't going to work.
Blair's Cool Britannia thing was rather cringy in places, but was about this.
The vacuum in the centre of politics is where do we go from here? We left the EU, the EEA, the CU. We say we want to be global Britain but we've thrown up the kind of trade barriers that the people we want to compete with remove. So whats next? With respect to CPTPP that feels like a reactive move - join anything that isn't the EU so it looks like we have a plan - rather than a strategy.
The political prize is to project a vision for a renewed UK. How this country is structured so that the home nations are content. How we see our place in the world. Our values. Our standards. Whoever can do that will shape the new political era we are now in.
You screwed up (accidently but in style) so we want to use that to solve our screw up and get the time we should have asked for in the first place to ensure we can work out what paperwork our demands created.
In fairness to Gove - and I’m not his biggest fan - I thought that was the point of negotiating?
Negotiations were finished in December remember - we left on December 31st.
Gove is now desperately using anything (and everything) to solve the mess the UK Government created by not asking for a transition period.
But we were also told they would be continuing as matters evolved - which they have, some for reasons that should have been obvious (and were obvious to everyone except the government, apparently) and others because of a huge unforced error by the EU. So, no I'm not unduly concerned about his attempt to use that as leverage, even though it would have been better had he done the job properly first time around.
Anyone realistic would always expect disruption and teething issues doing the biggest change in our trading terms in nearly half a century.
To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical.
To use the other sides own goals to pressure them to resolve issues in a way beneficial to yourself is entirely logical.
Look where uncritical adherence to a party line can get you.
What's your point?
If any problems are swiftly identified, corrected and fixed then yes it would in my eyes fall under the category of "disruption and teething problems".
If you don't fix them, that becomes a more serious longterm concern.
Hence: "To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical." I'm not expecting all issues to just magically go away.
The thing is, Philip, that while the UK has a lot of reasons for wanting to re-negotiate the EU itself does not.
Which is why Gove is so desperate to use the Article 16 howler because it's the only thing that has occurred in a month that gives Gove any reason to get the EU back at the table.
The EU have to come back to the table because there's a realisation that, while the Irish government stood up for the interests of the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland, the Johnson Ministry abandoned its responsibilities to the Unionist community - and so Johnson's Brexit Deal doesn't represent a durable settlement.
There never was a logical solution that would respect the imperatives of all parties, as I set out in the Brexit trilemma article, and now the consequences of that are becoming apparent.
Trouble is that the resolution of this trilemma depends on a theological point- which is why it's such a pain to resolve.
There are those who profoundly believe that trade just happens and that governments get in the way. That if there are border formalities, it's the stupid fault of the people guarding their borders. In that world view, it's no problem if there's a teeny weeny gap somewhere; in fact, it's a good thing really because it shows the rest of the world the true path.
The alternative world view is that trade is good, but it needs initial effort to set up and constant care and attention to maintain. That seamless borders are good, but need a shared set of rules (or rules about rules) to bring into existence. And in that case, you need a framework for setting those rules and updating them and enforcing them... you can see where this ends up.
(If you've not read it, this conversation for the history books with Phil Hammond is interesting; https://ukandeu.ac.uk/brexit-witness-archive/philip-hammond/. Here's the key paragraph: The Northern Ireland problem hadn’t really become front and centre in her mind, or indeed anybody’s mind, at this point [before the 2017 election]. The big change in Theresa’s attitude to Brexit came when she understood – and it was like a light bulb going on – when she understood that the problems over Northern Ireland would inevitably lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom if we were not able to secure an arrangement with the European Union that allowed us, effectively, to able to access the Single Market. Once she understood that, Theresa then became a fanatical devotee of an ambitious deal with the European Union. Not because it would save the economy, but because it would save the union.)
As far as I know, there aren't really any examples of places operating on the principles of "trade just happens", so it's hard to say there's empirical evidence for its realism. Also as far as I know, there are no borders that have been rendered invisible by the wonders of technology. But the possibility of such a border is currently a theological point- albeit one where the empirical evidence points to "doesn't exist".
Given all of that, there are two solutions to the need for a border which is simultaneously invisible and effective. One is, however reluctantly, to take the sovereign decision to align with the EU enough to dissolve the need for a border. The other is to believe and desire harder. Maybe this year it will come.
You screwed up (accidently but in style) so we want to use that to solve our screw up and get the time we should have asked for in the first place to ensure we can work out what paperwork our demands created.
In fairness to Gove - and I’m not his biggest fan - I thought that was the point of negotiating?
Negotiations were finished in December remember - we left on December 31st.
Gove is now desperately using anything (and everything) to solve the mess the UK Government created by not asking for a transition period.
But we were also told they would be continuing as matters evolved - which they have, some for reasons that should have been obvious (and were obvious to everyone except the government, apparently) and others because of a huge unforced error by the EU. So, no I'm not unduly concerned about his attempt to use that as leverage, even though it would have been better had he done the job properly first time around.
Anyone realistic would always expect disruption and teething issues doing the biggest change in our trading terms in nearly half a century.
To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical.
To use the other sides own goals to pressure them to resolve issues in a way beneficial to yourself is entirely logical.
Look where uncritical adherence to a party line can get you.
What's your point?
If any problems are swiftly identified, corrected and fixed then yes it would in my eyes fall under the category of "disruption and teething problems".
If you don't fix them, that becomes a more serious longterm concern.
Hence: "To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical." I'm not expecting all issues to just magically go away.
The thing is, Philip, that while the UK has a lot of reasons for wanting to re-negotiate the EU itself does not.
Which is why Gove is so desperate to use the Article 16 howler because it's the only thing that has occurred in a month that gives Gove any reason to get the EU back at the table.
The EU have to come back to the table because there's a realisation that, while the Irish government stood up for the interests of the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland, the Johnson Ministry abandoned its responsibilities to the Unionist community - and so Johnson's Brexit Deal doesn't represent a durable settlement.
There never was a logical solution that would respect the imperatives of all parties, as I set out in the Brexit trilemma article, and now the consequences of that are becoming apparent.
When you have no logical solutions you need to find the best illogical solution.
Fudge is the solution. Fudge is the spirit of the GFA. It is entirely plausible if the will is there.
You can't easily fudge something when the foundations the previous fudge is based on no longer exist.
The GFA was a fudge that worked because we were all in the EU and a Northern Ireland that is part in the UK and part in Eire was possible because we both part of the EU. And even that fudge took 10+ years to get into place.
So how do you create a new fudge in weeks when half the foundations have disintegrated.
I think fudge is probably about to be banned from adverts.
Morning all! Have we already talked about Labour's plans to de-twat themselves by slapping on lots of union jacks? It reads like a brilliant piece of dumb focus group research, "ex-voters actually like this country, bizarrely, so lets dress up like them to make them like us".
If Tony Blair was leader, and was convincing on that front with a front-bench of eager reformers, then yes, that's the strategy. Sadly Keir "we're here to hear" Starmer is leader, half the front bench are "who?" and the back benches are stuffed full of nutters.
I was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. I really struggle to understand what it is about and who it thinks it is speaking to - and this dumb "stick a flag in the background" effort will convince nobody. Had Keith purged the nutters, said mea maxima culpa and spent the last year actually reforming the party in the background then maybe.
Not letting the Tories own patriotism - especially after all the harm they have done with it - is a good thing. That's where I start from on this. Beyond that, wrapping the flag around higher public spending, fair wages for essential workers, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, tolerance, openness and solidarity is absolutely what Labour should be doing. These are all values that most voters will identify with. The Corbyn years caused immense harm to Labour's image as a party that actually liked the country it wanted to govern. You have to start somewhere in changing that. And in terms of party control, Starmer is pretty much there. He now owns the NEC and the PLP. The nutters are leaving, as the fall in membership demonstrates. Still a long, long way to go. But progress is being made.
It's not the Tories owning patriotism that is the issue. It is Labour owning - for decades - national self-loathing. Sticking a few flags on a PPB isn't going to convince anybody that behind their hands, Labour isn't laughing at the insincerity of its own actions.
The embodiment of Labour's problem here is Emily Thornberry tweeting about the ridiculousness of draping flags over your house. Anyone want to assess her private views on this new policy. a) Yes Leader, I'm right behind you. I love a flag. I love OUR flag or b) pfffft - what bullshit?
You make my point for me. Disliking the Tory version of patriotism is not self-loathing. It is disliking the Tory version of patriotism - one that has led us to where we are today: a horribly divided country which erects barriers to trade and celebrates removing freedoms from its citizens. Patriotism doesn't have to be like that.
Gloriously showing why Labour will get stuffed next time too. The citizens voted to remove those freedoms from its citizens. It was the result of democracy.
And SKS and the Labour movement love flags, for sure. We have seen them emblazoned everywhere. They fly flags VERY proudly. Unfortunately, for the past five years, that flag has been gold stars on a blue background.
If you want to stop dividing this country, stop flying the flag of a foreign power all over your social media presence, Remainers. That is a weird type of patriotism you've got there....
We will have to disagree on whether people voted to erect barriers to trade and to make themselves less free. As I say, we should not let the Tories own patriotism and decide what it means. Doing so causes immense harm and puts the very future of the country at risk.
What's Labour's version of patriotism, when it flies the EU flag? There is no alternative proposition on offer from them. What it doesn't offer is listening to the voters represented by the Unon flag and implementing their wishes. Instead, the Labour Party wrap themselves in the flag of a wannabe new nation, where we have no democratic levers against those in power. As we have just very clearly seen.
And the man most visible for recent years in bending the knee to THAT flag leads the Labour Party. He was the guy trying every trick in the book to supplant one flag for another.
You think people will just forget that?
The people who obsess about that crap are not fit to vote Labour. We have standards.
Saying that people are "not fit to vote Labour", would probably guarantee that large numbers of people who might vote Labour will not do so.
No one could have credibly argued that Labour was unpatriotic under Attlee, Gaitskell, Wilson, or Callaghan.
The middle class types that run Labour need to understand, and reflect, the nuances of working class patriotism. There is middle ground between rootless globalist cosmopolitans and flag wankers.
Working class people are proud to be British, and English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish. They support national teams and sports people. Their hearts fill with pride at the thought of the British armed forces crushing Jerry, and the Argies, and the Sand N*****s. The older ones have a rose tinted view of Empire.
Labour need to understand that stuff, and it will be uncomfortable for many of the party, but to convey the nuance - yes the Empire was a hugely impressive construct, and made Britain wealthy but it was constructed in a different time, with different social mores, that are unacceptable today - ie slavery, colonialism, racism. They were acceptable at the time, but not anymore. There is a balance to be struck between blind patriotism and tearing down statues.
They need to come up with a convincing rebuttal to the English nationalism that has become the lifeblood of the Tories, that has fuelled Brexit and threatens the UK.
It's the nuance that is difficult to get across. Perhaps it was ever thus. The masses do like their blind patriotism.
Very good post. That Left Patriotism is hard to describe is why it's hard for Labour to be both strong and authentic on this issue. Much easier for the Right.
The more I think about this story linking Matt Hancock with Matt Damon, the movie Contagion and Britain's vaccine success, the more perfect, in a purely political sense, it seems.
With this one, slightly self-deprecatory, story Hancock has now claimed the credit for the vaccine triumph in the nation's subconscious in a way that other claimants will find impossible to shift.
I've no idea who, among the many who would have played a role, deserves to take most of the credit, but as a public argument it's done. Hancock is now Mr Vaccine, the slightly cerebral action hero who set us free.
After his tilt for the leadership in 2019 I really didn't think much of Hancock's political abilities, but this surely has to help him for the post-Johnson contest. Apart from anything else it will give him better numbers in the hypothetical opinion polls.
Comments
And SKS and the Labour movement love flags, for sure. We have seen them emblazoned everywhere. They fly flags VERY proudly. Unfortunately, for the past five years, that flag has been gold stars on a blue background.
If you want to stop dividing this country, stop flying the flag of a foreign power all over your social media presence, Remainers. That is a weird type of patriotism you've got there....
Have you seen the fucking state of Hancock's office? It's decorated like a Combat 18 safehouse.
Seven months from here to do not one but two doses for everyone would be an absolutely fantastic achievement.
Hopefully it means we can get the first dose into everyone by eg the end of May. That would be amazing.
If any problems are swiftly identified, corrected and fixed then yes it would in my eyes fall under the category of "disruption and teething problems".
If you don't fix them, that becomes a more serious longterm concern.
Hence: "To have ongoing negotiations to resolve any issues that come up is entirely logical." I'm not expecting all issues to just magically go away.
I have no problem at all with Labour using the union jack and my point was that Blair did so successfully and convincingly. Its not criticism of Keir having flag backdrops, its that he's doing so because focus groups have told him that he needs to put on a show. Its fake.
https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/2012/06/30/ethnic-minorities-living-in-the-uk-feel-more-british-than-white-britons
A coincidence no doubt
And the man most visible for recent years in bending the knee to THAT flag leads the Labour Party. He was the guy trying every trick in the book to supplant one flag for another.
You think people will just forget that?
I would be happier if there was more evidence that Russia and China were vaccinating their own people at the sort of rates the Chinese at least could manage if they wanted to.
I cannot fathom how you can be pro Scottish independence - which I am not against - but be pro EU.
The ultimate solution is to find a solution that works as well as possible, and accept whatever compromises need making need making, outside of the customs union.
It will happen eventually because there's no alternative.
Trickier for Starmer to do...
Labour should be the party of working people, who as Blair rightly pointed out are really rather conservative on issues like nation, and law and order. It isn't right wing to want criminals punished - especially when its working class communities being torn apart by crime.
So these should be Labour issues and instinctively so. My comment about Starmer was an observation that they don't appear to be instinctive - I'm not sure much of the usual politics is instinctive for him. We get gestures which very quickly look like gestures - the knee, a few flag backdrops. He needs a team backing him up who get it, and he doesn't. Having to fight internecine battles with unions and the cult can't help, which is why Blair parked the unions off to the side early on.
Before that to NI civil rights campaign and Loyalist flag fetish etc, vs Leftists supporting nationalists.
Plus of course anti-racist campaigners seeing UK and British Empire as identified by flag.
And the political temptation to stick those labels on Tories.
Those anti-traditions have been quite strong in parts of Lab throughout.
Well, at least he wasn't in a position to encourage the scientists to jab themselves with untested vaccines and then immediately go and visit their infected parents to 'test' whether it worked.
Also, if he was so influenced, why haven't my parents got fancy electronic bracelets giving them access to pubs and other fun places?
The residents of York (first UK cases) should be glad he hadn't been watching Outbreak!
What do quiet patriots want? I think many would identify with things like improving public services, fair wages for essential workers, making sure vulnerable kids do not go hungry, a strong NHS, a better deal for schools, a decent and dignified care system, more affordable housing, reducing barriers to trade and so on.
The thing is, Philip, that while the UK has a lot of reasons for wanting to re-negotiate the EU itself does not.
Which is why Gove is so desperate to use the Article 16 howler because it's the only thing that has occurred in a month that gives Gove any reason to get the EU back at the table.
With this one, slightly self-deprecatory, story Hancock has now claimed the credit for the vaccine triumph in the nation's subconscious in a way that other claimants will find impossible to shift.
I've no idea who, among the many who would have played a role, deserves to take most of the credit, but as a public argument it's done. Hancock is now Mr Vaccine, the slightly cerebral action hero who set us free.
After his tilt for the leadership in 2019 I really didn't think much of Hancock's political abilities, but this surely has to help him for the post-Johnson contest. Apart from anything else it will give him better numbers in the hypothetical opinion polls.
It's there to distract you while they quietly cut spending on the sector while hoping you don't notice.
The key issue in politics is usually feel. Yes, the economy stupid, but even that is who do you feel will make it work best? Brexit does direct economic harm to a whole bunch of people who voted for it, so why did they do so? Because their heart told them to take the risk for something better.
It will be the exact same argument for Scottish independence. And Boris, Gove et al will get nowhere threatening Scotland with economic warnings. Boris, Gove et al should know something about the efficacy of such campaigns...
Like it or not, vaccines are going to be 2021's symbol of soft power, so getting Covax up and running quickly with the AZ/Oxford vaccine is going to be important.
There never was a logical solution that would respect the imperatives of all parties, as I set out in the Brexit trilemma article, and now the consequences of that are becoming apparent.
Because we all love to talk Scotland ..
“We find that changes in trade costs due to independence would be two to three times more costly for the Scottish economy than the impact of Brexit.”
Ultimately that’s why the SNP line about brexit is totally bogus - but Scots seem to not to care, so ah well
This demonstrates a rather basic principle in sales (politics) - find out what the customer (voter) wants. Offering something they don't want makes it hard to win their business. Worse, Labour have spent a good few years insisting they know better than the voters what those voters want. Its a sight to behold when you go canvassing to houses that have voted Labour since the Danelaw, hear that the party has lost their vote and then have a cultist arguing and jabbing the finger at them complaining at their betrayal of themselves...
Grand Old Duke of York Prof Murph walking himself up a moral hill a month out of date. And not understanding the subject he's talking about.
https://twitter.com/RichardJMurphy/status/1356894364396621825
But you're not right. The EU has problems that need fixing too. When the EU are advising their staff not to go to work because they don't think it is safe for them to do so - then they have a problem that needs fixing: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-northern-ireland-paramilitaries-b1796198.html
The European Union are waking up to what the British already knew. There are two communities in Northern Ireland and you can't permanently upset one of them without reprisals.
That the EU know they have a problem and they have lost any claim to the moral high ground means it is time to talk like adults and find a real solution. F**k the loyalist community is not a real solution. Mutual recognition of SPS so that SPS paperwork was abolished would be a very good starting point.
Working class people are proud to be British, and English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish. They support national teams and sports people. Their hearts fill with pride at the thought of the British armed forces crushing Jerry, and the Argies, and the Sand N*****s. The older ones have a rose tinted view of Empire.
Labour need to understand that stuff, and it will be uncomfortable for many of the party, but to convey the nuance - yes the Empire was a hugely impressive construct, and made Britain wealthy but it was constructed in a different time, with different social mores, that are unacceptable today - ie slavery, colonialism, racism. They were acceptable at the time, but not anymore. There is a balance to be struck between blind patriotism and tearing down statues.
They need to come up with a convincing rebuttal to the English nationalism that has become the lifeblood of the Tories, that has fuelled Brexit and threatens the UK.
It's the nuance that is difficult to get across. Perhaps it was ever thus. The masses do like their blind patriotism.
https://twitter.com/GSK/status/1356865000904753152
Or, if as it was put earlier, you see "EU" as a "foreign power" then they don't get to make independent decisions. So its a matter of perspective.
Consider this argument. Currently Scotland is subsumed into a country that many Scots no longer wish to be subsumed by. They have been granted limited authority over their own affairs but in anything more substantial the English say "you can't make that decision and we don't care what you think". Membership of the EU is NOT like that. Members are sovereign states. Yes I know Brexiteers see it the other way round and that is their right.
Their - and your - challenge is to imagine that not everyone sees the issue the way that you do.
https://twitter.com/paulhutcheon/status/1356876492895121411?s=21
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/douglas-ross-calls-boycott-wildcat-independence-referendum-3111735
Ross merely wants a debate with Sturgeon as to why she is pushing an indyref2 in the middle of a pandemic “Which is why I am challenging Nicola Surgeon to a debate this month on Scotland’s future.
“If she believes that this referendum plan is an essential part of Scotland’s economic recovery from coronavirus, then she should explain it to the Scottish people."
https://www.thenational.scot/news/19054388.douglas-ross-wants-debate-nicola-sturgeon-indyref2-month/
Fudge is the solution. Fudge is the spirit of the GFA. It is entirely plausible if the will is there.
What do base that allegation on ?
Are you saying SKS is not patriotic and wanting the best for this county.
Mandalson was criticised at the time for using the British bulldog in the Blair era.
Blair was said to be Bambi and to soft in opposition.
Maybe this passed you buy.
Gove isn't talking about NI he's talking about more general exports such as fish and virtually everything else we in Great Britain) used to export to the EU.
As for NI - the EU could easily walk away and say no imports via Larne or other NI ports.
Simply saying that "we want to do X, therefore we must kind of like the UK by implication" isn't going to work.
Blair's Cool Britannia thing was rather cringy in places, but was about this.
I believe they stated that the genome sequencing takes 6 weeks, so the data they have relates to December.
I assumed, because the main stream media doesn't give any other details, that the latest variant would have been discovered from say tests that were from a few days to a week old.
Have I completely misunderstood?
...The collaboration will build on CureVac's first generation COVID-19 vaccine candidate CVnCoV, which is currently in clinical trial.
GSK will also support the manufacture of up to 100 million doses of CVnCoV in 2021.
Under the terms of the deal, GSK will be the marketing authorisation holder for the new vaccine, except in Switzerland, and will have exclusive rights to develop, manufacture, and commercialise the vaccine in all countries with the exception of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
GSK will make an upfront payment of €75m and a further payment of €75m conditional on the achievement of specific milestones...
The GSK Sanofi partnership was a mistake and the government should have made Imperial and GSK partner for a second all domestic vaccine.
It's murphaloonatics.
(I've no idea whether he is a real or a fake prof at present, but quite often on his hilariblog he resorts to appeals to his own authority before defenestrating pesky people who ask questions - which is wonderful.)
No minister is going to be perfect in a pandemic but I'd give him 8/10. It'd be 4 or 5/10 if we had the EU's vaccination rollout timeline.
Some reduction was justified like closing Police stations without custody in a modern era when crimes can be reported by other means
However the loss of police officers from the front line was to drastic., it is good Johnson is reversing it.
You're right that there's no solution to the contradictions that doesn't involve one side, or another, giving way on its fundamental imperatives.
Irish Nationalists insists there must be no regulatory border between Dublin and Belfast.
Unionists insist there must be no regulatory border between Belfast and London.
The Good Friday Agreement compels us not to override the wishes of either community without consent.
The Johnson Ministry insists that there is a regulatory border between London and Brussels.
The EU and Ireland insist there is no regulatory border between Dublin and Brussels.
The problem is unsolvable. Brexit breaches the Good Friday Agreement. It was astonishingly reckless for Cameron to call the referendum.
(And incidentally strongly supports the rationale for rapid antigen tests, which I think was one of the biggest missed opportunities of the last twelve months.)
https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1356751679832555520
As for what do I base it on? Perhaps the leaked focus group stuff. Starmer was a career lawyer before entering into politics. He was probably wooden as a lawyer as well, as he is certainly wooden as a politician.
There is a difference between being a privately passionate believer in social justice wanting to make things better for people and being a heart on the sleeve advocate for patriotic renewal.
I see it (to over-simplify) as "active" vs "passive" mentally and/or physically.
Gawking at a beach in foreign climes doesn't do much for "active" in my book, and isn't much good either for climate change. Incidentally, in the last month I have seen a couple of outrageously beautiful sunsets over the Bedford river Ouse, not far from Tom's residence.
Captain Tom is a hero.
The GFA was a fudge that worked because we were all in the EU and a Northern Ireland that is part in the UK and part in Eire was possible because we both part of the EU. And even that fudge took 10+ years to get into place.
So how do you create a new fudge in weeks when half the foundations have disintegrated.
https://twitter.com/citiz_zen/status/1356878764949573632
https://twitter.com/mattwardman/status/1356891678548889601
https://twitter.com/mattwardman/status/1356892605963984899
The political prize is to project a vision for a renewed UK. How this country is structured so that the home nations are content. How we see our place in the world. Our values. Our standards. Whoever can do that will shape the new political era we are now in.
There are those who profoundly believe that trade just happens and that governments get in the way. That if there are border formalities, it's the stupid fault of the people guarding their borders. In that world view, it's no problem if there's a teeny weeny gap somewhere; in fact, it's a good thing really because it shows the rest of the world the true path.
The alternative world view is that trade is good, but it needs initial effort to set up and constant care and attention to maintain. That seamless borders are good, but need a shared set of rules (or rules about rules) to bring into existence. And in that case, you need a framework for setting those rules and updating them and enforcing them... you can see where this ends up.
(If you've not read it, this conversation for the history books with Phil Hammond is interesting;
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/brexit-witness-archive/philip-hammond/. Here's the key paragraph:
The Northern Ireland problem hadn’t really become front and centre in her mind, or indeed anybody’s mind, at this point [before the 2017 election]. The big change in Theresa’s attitude to Brexit came when she understood – and it was like a light bulb going on – when she understood that the problems over Northern Ireland would inevitably lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom if we were not able to secure an arrangement with the European Union that allowed us, effectively, to able to access the Single Market. Once she understood that, Theresa then became a fanatical devotee of an ambitious deal with the European Union. Not because it would save the economy, but because it would save the union.)
As far as I know, there aren't really any examples of places operating on the principles of "trade just happens", so it's hard to say there's empirical evidence for its realism. Also as far as I know, there are no borders that have been rendered invisible by the wonders of technology. But the possibility of such a border is currently a theological point- albeit one where the empirical evidence points to "doesn't exist".
Given all of that, there are two solutions to the need for a border which is simultaneously invisible and effective. One is, however reluctantly, to take the sovereign decision to align with the EU enough to dissolve the need for a border. The other is to believe and desire harder. Maybe this year it will come.
No one could have credibly argued that Labour was unpatriotic under Attlee, Gaitskell, Wilson, or Callaghan.