Far better to abolish all hereditary titles, of course. I defer to nobody who owes a position simply because some ancestor graced the royal bed.
Hasn't HMG got anything else to worry about?
Multiple things can be done at once. It's trivial and rightly who really cares, but how much legislative time is it really going to take up?
Thing is. It's making the news cos multiple things aren't happening at once. Brexit and Covid have sucked the energy out of everything else. But if and when they are gone what then? Statues and heredity don't inspire much confidence that this government has fleshed out what it actually wants to do with hard won power. Unfortunately, Labour hasn't much of a clue either.
That is being incredibly generous to Labour.
Even after Skyr's speech this week, there is nothing more than raising money from bonds at a rate that will, er, not actually raise money.
I have no idea how Labour propose the UK would be better if the Tories all just vanished down a rabbit hole and Labour were asked to form a Govt. by HM the Q. Really, not a clue.
A few days on and I have no idea what the Covid bonds are supposed to be achieve.
He could have / should have announced a sovereign wealth fund instead.
A sovereign wealth fund wouldn't invest in the UK though which negates what Starmer wants to achieve with public ownership of key UK industry.
David Cameron's original concept of "sharing the proceeds of growth".
I think it will be viable over the next decade as I think we will see some stonking high growth in the next few years. A roaring twenties.
PS for any on the loony left who still believe the ludicrous notion that austerity or the Brexit result choked off economic growth it's worth remembering in the real world that Britain grew faster than Europe in the past decade.
What does make me laugh is how selective people's memories were. Brown definitely was a Bad Man and Cameron would have done it all differently apparently. Yet, as you say, the alternative Tory economic plan was to "match Labour spending plans pound for pound" - because people feared Tory cuts - and inflate the bubble even faster so that he could "share the proceeds of [even more] growth" in the form of tax cuts which would drive spending and inflate the bubble even faster.
Yet after the event people seemed to be under the impression that Cameron and Osbrown were sagely warning against (their own policies) and planning to regulate the banks by deregulating them even further than Darling had. Not that Darling had deregulated *that* far - Barclays were prevented from buying Leeman remember...
Well said. It's beyond tedious, all these years after the 08 crash, to still encounter the fictional Tory Story about it.
I predict it will stop two decades after the "Fatcha shut down all the minesandfactories and schoolsandhospitals" talk ends.
If rather than call out lies we seek to excuse them by pointing to other lies, we end up in a bad place. But in any event this is false equivalence. The Labour Story in 1997 was that our public services needed a major upgrade after 18 years of Tory neglect. There was much truth in this. Such cannot be said for the almost wholly fictional Tory Story that Labour overspending had by 2008 bankrupted Britain.
There is a compelling argument to make that we need to spend money to Build Back Better, but that Boris is wasting all our cash on boondoggles and jobs for cronies.
How much did we spend on track and trace again?
There’s a party going on, but you’re not invited. Keir needs to appeal to financial FOMO.
David Cameron's original concept of "sharing the proceeds of growth".
I think it will be viable over the next decade as I think we will see some stonking high growth in the next few years. A roaring twenties.
PS for any on the loony left who still believe the ludicrous notion that austerity or the Brexit result choked off economic growth it's worth remembering in the real world that Britain grew faster than Europe in the past decade.
What does make me laugh is how selective people's memories were. Brown definitely was a Bad Man and Cameron would have done it all differently apparently. Yet, as you say, the alternative Tory economic plan was to "match Labour spending plans pound for pound" - because people feared Tory cuts - and inflate the bubble even faster so that he could "share the proceeds of [even more] growth" in the form of tax cuts which would drive spending and inflate the bubble even faster.
Yet after the event people seemed to be under the impression that Cameron and Osbrown were sagely warning against (their own policies) and planning to regulate the banks by deregulating them even further than Darling had. Not that Darling had deregulated *that* far - Barclays were prevented from buying Leeman remember...
Well said. It's beyond tedious, all these years after the 08 crash, to still encounter the fictional Tory Story about it.
I predict it will stop two decades after the "Fatcha shut down all the minesandfactories and schoolsandhospitals" talk ends.
If rather than call out lies we seek to excuse them by pointing to other lies, we end up in a bad place. But in any event this is false equivalence. The Labour Story in 1997 was that our public services needed a major upgrade after 18 years of Tory neglect. There was much truth in this. Such cannot be said for the almost wholly fictional Tory Story that Labour overspending had by 2008 bankrupted Britain.
No. Your ongoing denial that Labour overspending was an unmitigated catastrophic failure of governance just shows you've learnt no lessons and hopefully there's decades to go before your lot are ever near power again.
Unless or until you can learn from your mistakes a Japanese style 50 year Tory reign would be best for Britain.
Supply definitely being held back now IMO. There's no other explanation for the rate. I think we're probably going to be doing just a few hundred thousand Pfizer first doses per week from next week.
I'm not sure it changes the short term picture of all groups 1-9 being done at some point in March. We're still on course for that.
Would be good if @Anabobazina could get the Vaxometer running again with the new target and second doses as well.
Up to the 18th, about 16.9m first doses had been dished out. The total number of recipients in phase one was given as 31.8m, before the shielding list was updated and we found that there were about 800,000 additional shielders to be prioritised (and who hadn't already been lanced anyway by dint of their age.) But even if we assume that all of them are under 50, the phase one total still can't be any more than 32.6m.
That means 15.7 million first jabs to be given to complete phase one. Therefore, working forward from February 18th, the following average first dose rates would get all the first nine cohorts cleared by the indicated dates:
500,000/day: March 22nd 400,000/day: March 30th 300,000/day: April 12th 200,000/day: May 8th
So, the Government can hit the first dose target for phase one (i.e. the end of April) if it can keep the first doses running at a mean of 220k per day from hereon in. That would, in turn, require total supply to hit about 650k per day by the end of April, in order to deal simultaneously with all the second doses that will by then be coming due. A more ambitious goal, like getting the over 50s done by Easter and moving onto the fortysomethings, will therefore require more supply than that.
I thought that there were reliable reports about UK supply restrictions this week and next?
Re Scotland "That will reduce our expected supply next week and the week after by about somewhere between 120,000 and 190,000 doses a week overall over the two vaccines."
If that is correct, and the numbers are in proportion to the UK supply, that is a drop in supply of millions per week for the UK as a whole.
Yes, if the over 50s target of the end of April really has been made as a realistic aim rather than being a case of under promising to over deliver, then this obviously implies a major slowdown in the effort. That, in turn, could easily mean only a token easing of lockdown - schools but very little else of anything - until the back end of May. Very, very depressing.
Isn't it the exact same effort as has been getting made, once you add on the second doses being done?
It averages at about 400-450k per day doesn't it?
No increase in rate but if there's no increase in supply available then not sure what can be done about that? But it's steady as she goes not a drop off.
Now you know perfectly well what I'm getting at: if the supply isn't fixed, the first doses start to dry up as the second ones come due. If the first doses dry up then we're all prisoners until God knows when.
Because that's all Britain is now. Once vast open prison. You go out for your jog around the exercise yard, and on day release to do a shit job for a few hours if you're really lucky, and you spend the rest of the time locked in your cell. And there's no time off for good behaviour and certainly no fixed term. It just gets extended and extended, and you've no idea if it'll be three more months, or six, or a year, or more than that. And even when or if we do finally get let out, does anyone seriously believe the Government's empty rhetoric about this being the last lockdown? From now on, for years to come and possibly forever, we're only ever one SPI-M model panic away from renewed incarceration.
Until the Government rolls back the entire mechanism of repression, repeals the Coronavirus Act and promises us that lockdowns are done and finished for good, the nightmare will never be over. And does anyone trust Boris Johnson's promises? Thought not.
Far better to abolish all hereditary titles, of course. I defer to nobody who owes a position simply because some ancestor graced the royal bed.
Hasn't HMG got anything else to worry about?
Multiple things can be done at once. It's trivial and rightly who really cares, but how much legislative time is it really going to take up?
Thing is. It's making the news cos multiple things aren't happening at once. Brexit and Covid have sucked the energy out of everything else. But if and when they are gone what then? Statues and heredity don't inspire much confidence that this government has fleshed out what it actually wants to do with hard won power. Unfortunately, Labour hasn't much of a clue either.
That is being incredibly generous to Labour.
Even after Skyr's speech this week, there is nothing more than raising money from bonds at a rate that will, er, not actually raise money.
I have no idea how Labour propose the UK would be better if the Tories all just vanished down a rabbit hole and Labour were asked to form a Govt. by HM the Q. Really, not a clue.
A few days on and I have no idea what the Covid bonds are supposed to be achieve.
He could have / should have announced a sovereign wealth fund instead.
A sovereign wealth fund wouldn't invest in the UK though which negates what Starmer wants to achieve with public ownership of key UK industry.
It could do. Or be primarily focus on doing so. I get that would make it different from other wealth funds.
I’m just trying to retro fit some vague logic or sense on the Covid bonds.
The medium post has ≈ 30 testimonies from working academics and researchers about problems they are having with academic freedom and free speech in our universities.
But the problem doesn't exist. They're making it all up and universities don't have any issues with free speech. Anyone saying otherwise is a liar or a transphobe.
Oh come off it Max. What has this got to do with people being invited to talk at Student Unions? This is a completely separate issue and I don't believe it has any relevance to the big Gavin's proposed new law?
I'm not saying this isn't an issue because it clearly is, but your response is ridiculous.
That's just a starting point in the war for free speech. The whole system needs upending including bringing protection from disciplinary action for faculty of students who have "controversial" opinions according to the church of woke.
Again. A ridiculously inflammatory comment.
I don't disagree that people should be protected from being discriminated against in response to having voiced their own views.
But "church of woke" ffs. You're better than this.
You're admitting there's a problem but then against any measures to actually try and fix them. I don't get it.
I'm happy to discuss each actual issue on its merits without resorting to divide and conquer "us vs them-ism".
Issue 1: academics are afraid to voice their opinions on certain topics due to fear of discrimination.
It's bad. Definitely. And I definitely agree that in certain circles there's a complete lack of effort in even trying to understand someone else's view point. It's either "you're with us or you're against us".
But what realistically can you do about that? Of course you can make laws that protect staff from clear discrimination based on their views but how can you legislate to stop "the majority" disliking you for voicing such views?
For example, @Casino_Royale clearly hates me for my views on the EU so if I worked for him he would be unlikely to give me a promotion based on simply disliking me. That is always the case in employment so how do you stop that?
No I don't. My best friend is a Remainer. In fact, most of them are - to varying degrees. Nor would I ever let my views of someone's personal politics colour my views on whether I thought they were fit for a promotion.
I simply don't think like that. In my professional life (which you don't know about, of course) my record in this speaks for itself: it would be based solely on your abilities.
I think you can be a bit of dick at times, and act like a stroppy teenager, but I think that's largely because you are young and passionate about certain things. I think you're essentially a good egg and you definitely have your own mind but, yeah, a bit dickish at times.
I *might* not promote you yet if you dickish in a professional context and that'd be because people skills and the ability to handle constructive disagreement become more and more important as you climb the ladder. But I'd at least sit you down and acknowledge your potential, and give you feedback as to where I thought you needed to work on, before you were promoted.
It wouldn't be because of your personal views.
In reality, we know that the secret pb.com handshake would get you the job...
There is surely no other explanation for the frequent* discussions of first class air travel on here....
*until about last March, strangely.
Along with the ultimate put down of someone boasting about flying first-class: you fly commercial?
The German magazine Spiegel reported this week figures from Germany’s Robert Koch Institute which show that of 736,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine delivered to Germany, just 64,869 have actually been used.
I remember being assured by EUphiles on here that there would be no additional anti-vaxxer sentiment from the comments of Macron and others maligning the AZ vaccine. Care to comment @kinabalu?
Yes, of course. The AZ vaccine is regarded by some as inferior due to lower efficacy and stronger side effects. You don't need to be a loonytunes antivaxxer to hold this view and expressing it is not necessarily to malign AZ. I can't comment on side effects (seen no relative data) but on efficacy the evidence is it's not as good as the Pfizer and others. When I get my jab I'll be hoping it isn't the AZ. But of course I will take what I'm offered because they are all miles better than nothing and it's a public duty to get protection. It's a problem that people are irrationally refusing the AZ because it slows the journey out of the pandemic. How much of this is down to Macron's comments, as opposed to the data and the fact it is not licensed for the over 65s in some countries, I don't know. Certainly he didn't help.
You're falling for the narrative of AZ having more side effects, in the actual data they're referencing the AZ vaccine showed 11k incidences of side effects in 3.5m doses administered and the Pfizer one showed 20 incidences of side effects in 7m doses administered. The EU media and politicians have chosen to publicise the AZ side effects as part of their war against AZ but the reality is that neither has a particularly significant difference in the rate of side effects and Pfizer actually has a huge drawback in that it can elicit anaphylaxis in people who have allergies which means the addition of monitoring time for recipients. That doesn't make it a bad vaccine though.
As usual you're far too ready to accept the EU fake news because you want them to be right about this. Though it's good that you wouldn't go as far as rejecting the AZ vaccine.
I think you're missing a rather important k there?
The German magazine Spiegel reported this week figures from Germany’s Robert Koch Institute which show that of 736,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine delivered to Germany, just 64,869 have actually been used.
I remember being assured by EUphiles on here that there would be no additional anti-vaxxer sentiment from the comments of Macron and others maligning the AZ vaccine. Care to comment @kinabalu?
Yes, of course. The AZ vaccine is regarded by some as inferior due to lower efficacy and stronger side effects. You don't need to be a loonytunes antivaxxer to hold this view and expressing it is not necessarily to malign AZ. I can't comment on side effects (seen no relative data) but on efficacy the evidence is it's not as good as the Pfizer and others. When I get my jab I'll be hoping it isn't the AZ. But of course I will take what I'm offered because they are all miles better than nothing and it's a public duty to get protection. It's a problem that people are irrationally refusing the AZ because it slows the journey out of the pandemic. How much of this is down to Macron's comments, as opposed to the data and the fact it is not licensed for the over 65s in some countries, I don't know. Certainly he didn't help.
For me there is only one datum that matters, and that is that all the vaccines approved by the UK authorities convey very high levels of protection against severe disease. On that basis, I am totally agnostic on which jab I get.
Not to mention that all the vaccines have side effects. For Pfizer they recommend you sit down and take a break for 15 minutes after taking it....
Macron acted like a twat from Twatter.
It is more than recommended, they enforce it. In a marquee, with little separated cubby holes and a clock. It is REALLY efficient.
David Cameron's original concept of "sharing the proceeds of growth".
I think it will be viable over the next decade as I think we will see some stonking high growth in the next few years. A roaring twenties.
PS for any on the loony left who still believe the ludicrous notion that austerity or the Brexit result choked off economic growth it's worth remembering in the real world that Britain grew faster than Europe in the past decade.
What does make me laugh is how selective people's memories were. Brown definitely was a Bad Man and Cameron would have done it all differently apparently. Yet, as you say, the alternative Tory economic plan was to "match Labour spending plans pound for pound" - because people feared Tory cuts - and inflate the bubble even faster so that he could "share the proceeds of [even more] growth" in the form of tax cuts which would drive spending and inflate the bubble even faster.
Yet after the event people seemed to be under the impression that Cameron and Osbrown were sagely warning against (their own policies) and planning to regulate the banks by deregulating them even further than Darling had. Not that Darling had deregulated *that* far - Barclays were prevented from buying Leeman remember...
Well said. It's beyond tedious, all these years after the 08 crash, to still encounter the fictional Tory Story about it.
I predict it will stop two decades after the "Fatcha shut down all the minesandfactories and schoolsandhospitals" talk ends.
If rather than call out lies we seek to excuse them by pointing to other lies, we end up in a bad place. But in any event this is false equivalence. The Labour Story in 1997 was that our public services needed a major upgrade after 18 years of Tory neglect. There was much truth in this. Such cannot be said for the almost wholly fictional Tory Story that Labour overspending had by 2008 bankrupted Britain.
Lies and false equivalences are all in the eyes of the beholder.
Far better to abolish all hereditary titles, of course. I defer to nobody who owes a position simply because some ancestor graced the royal bed.
You don't need to defer to an aristocrat. Any power they have now will be because of inherited wealth, not because they are the Earl of Blusterford. They really do need to do something about the remaining heriditaries in the Lords though. It's kind of funny that 22 years on that temporary solution is still in place, but it really is time to sort it out.
I remember Michael Onslow commenting that he had no doubt his great great grandson would open a speech in the Lords by saying, ‘My Lords, nobody in their senses would have devised this system, but as they did and it works...’
David Cameron's original concept of "sharing the proceeds of growth".
I think it will be viable over the next decade as I think we will see some stonking high growth in the next few years. A roaring twenties.
PS for any on the loony left who still believe the ludicrous notion that austerity or the Brexit result choked off economic growth it's worth remembering in the real world that Britain grew faster than Europe in the past decade.
What does make me laugh is how selective people's memories were. Brown definitely was a Bad Man and Cameron would have done it all differently apparently. Yet, as you say, the alternative Tory economic plan was to "match Labour spending plans pound for pound" - because people feared Tory cuts - and inflate the bubble even faster so that he could "share the proceeds of [even more] growth" in the form of tax cuts which would drive spending and inflate the bubble even faster.
Yet after the event people seemed to be under the impression that Cameron and Osbrown were sagely warning against (their own policies) and planning to regulate the banks by deregulating them even further than Darling had. Not that Darling had deregulated *that* far - Barclays were prevented from buying Leeman remember...
Well said. It's beyond tedious, all these years after the 08 crash, to still encounter the fictional Tory Story about it.
I predict it will stop two decades after the "Fatcha shut down all the minesandfactories and schoolsandhospitals" talk ends.
If rather than call out lies we seek to excuse them by pointing to other lies, we end up in a bad place. But in any event this is false equivalence. The Labour Story in 1997 was that our public services needed a major upgrade after 18 years of Tory neglect. There was much truth in this. Such cannot be said for the almost wholly fictional Tory Story that Labour overspending had by 2008 bankrupted Britain.
Lies and false equivalences are all in the eyes of the beholder.
It’s worth looking at the other side, too. But even I as a politics obsessive have hardly heard of most of these.
Rayner: Invisible Dodds: Would be good Treasury Chief Sec. Nandy: Excellent, but wasted in this post. Thomas-Symonds: Invisible. Reeves: Good. Lammy: OK. Gets press, at least. Healey: Invisible Miliband: In theory, v good in this role. Thornberry: Invisible. Reynolds: Literally, who? Ashworth: I don’t trust him for some reason. Green: Actively harmful. The rest: Who, who, who?
Honourable mentions: Allin-Khan: Excellent Murray, Griffiths: Sound, but invisible. Haigh, (Cat) Smith: Actively harmful to Labour’s electoral chances.
There should be front bench roles for Stephen Kinnock, Stella Creasey, Dan Jarvis, Rupa Huq, Sarah Champion, and Angela Eagle.
Benn and Cooper are both very effective in their current roles.
Bring back Balls, FGS.
And really quite white compared to their government equivalents.
Oh, hardly. The issue is they are not cutting the mustard, not because they aren’t “diverse” enough.
Both front benches are statistically more diverse, ethnically speaking, than the broader British population.
Missing my point. Labour and others talk a lot about inclusiveness - Tories go for the best .. and do it.
Patel, to take an example, is definitely not “the best”.
And yet if Boris had listened to her in February of last year and closed the border 80-100k people who died would probably still be alive today and we wouldn't have had anywhere near the level of economic carnage we experienced in 2020 while the whole second wave would have passed us by.
Guernsey, which required quarantine, and later mandatory testing plus quarantine of all arrivals from mid-March 2020 has had the UK equivalent of 13,000 deaths.
The German magazine Spiegel reported this week figures from Germany’s Robert Koch Institute which show that of 736,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine delivered to Germany, just 64,869 have actually been used.
I remember being assured by EUphiles on here that there would be no additional anti-vaxxer sentiment from the comments of Macron and others maligning the AZ vaccine. Care to comment @kinabalu?
Yes, of course. The AZ vaccine is regarded by some as inferior due to lower efficacy and stronger side effects. You don't need to be a loonytunes antivaxxer to hold this view and expressing it is not necessarily to malign AZ. I can't comment on side effects (seen no relative data) but on efficacy the evidence is it's not as good as the Pfizer and others. When I get my jab I'll be hoping it isn't the AZ. But of course I will take what I'm offered because they are all miles better than nothing and it's a public duty to get protection. It's a problem that people are irrationally refusing the AZ because it slows the journey out of the pandemic. How much of this is down to Macron's comments, as opposed to the data and the fact it is not licensed for the over 65s in some countries, I don't know. Certainly he didn't help.
For me there is only one datum that matters, and that is that all the vaccines approved by the UK authorities convey very high levels of protection against severe disease. On that basis, I am totally agnostic on which jab I get.
The Irish doctors association summed it up best "the best vaccine you can have is the one you can have now".
The German magazine Spiegel reported this week figures from Germany’s Robert Koch Institute which show that of 736,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine delivered to Germany, just 64,869 have actually been used.
I remember being assured by EUphiles on here that there would be no additional anti-vaxxer sentiment from the comments of Macron and others maligning the AZ vaccine. Care to comment @kinabalu?
Yes, of course. The AZ vaccine is regarded by some as inferior due to lower efficacy and stronger side effects. You don't need to be a loonytunes antivaxxer to hold this view and expressing it is not necessarily to malign AZ. I can't comment on side effects (seen no relative data) but on efficacy the evidence is it's not as good as the Pfizer and others. When I get my jab I'll be hoping it isn't the AZ. But of course I will take what I'm offered because they are all miles better than nothing and it's a public duty to get protection. It's a problem that people are irrationally refusing the AZ because it slows the journey out of the pandemic. How much of this is down to Macron's comments, as opposed to the data and the fact it is not licensed for the over 65s in some countries, I don't know. Certainly he didn't help.
You're falling for the narrative of AZ having more side effects, in the actual data they're referencing the AZ vaccine showed 11k incidences of side effects in 3.5m doses administered and the Pfizer one showed 20 incidences of side effects in 7m doses administered. The EU media and politicians have chosen to publicise the AZ side effects as part of their war against AZ but the reality is that neither has a particularly significant difference in the rate of side effects and Pfizer actually has a huge drawback in that it can elicit anaphylaxis in people who have allergies which means the addition of monitoring time for recipients. That doesn't make it a bad vaccine though.
As usual you're far too ready to accept the EU fake news because you want them to be right about this. Though it's good that you wouldn't go as far as rejecting the AZ vaccine.
Err, Max. I said specifically that I couldn't comment on side effects having not seen the relevant data! I'm not accepting any fake news from anyone. What's true is I am not as keen as you are to embrace the notion that the EU is prosecuting a smear campaign against the AZ vaccine.
The German magazine Spiegel reported this week figures from Germany’s Robert Koch Institute which show that of 736,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine delivered to Germany, just 64,869 have actually been used.
I remember being assured by EUphiles on here that there would be no additional anti-vaxxer sentiment from the comments of Macron and others maligning the AZ vaccine. Care to comment @kinabalu?
Yes, of course. The AZ vaccine is regarded by some as inferior due to lower efficacy and stronger side effects. You don't need to be a loonytunes antivaxxer to hold this view and expressing it is not necessarily to malign AZ. I can't comment on side effects (seen no relative data) but on efficacy the evidence is it's not as good as the Pfizer and others. When I get my jab I'll be hoping it isn't the AZ. But of course I will take what I'm offered because they are all miles better than nothing and it's a public duty to get protection. It's a problem that people are irrationally refusing the AZ because it slows the journey out of the pandemic. How much of this is down to Macron's comments, as opposed to the data and the fact it is not licensed for the over 65s in some countries, I don't know. Certainly he didn't help.
For me there is only one datum that matters, and that is that all the vaccines approved by the UK authorities convey very high levels of protection against severe disease. On that basis, I am totally agnostic on which jab I get.
The Irish doctors association summed it up best "the best vaccine you can have is the one you can have now".
The medium post has ≈ 30 testimonies from working academics and researchers about problems they are having with academic freedom and free speech in our universities.
But the problem doesn't exist. They're making it all up and universities don't have any issues with free speech. Anyone saying otherwise is a liar or a transphobe.
Oh come off it Max. What has this got to do with people being invited to talk at Student Unions? This is a completely separate issue and I don't believe it has any relevance to the big Gavin's proposed new law?
I'm not saying this isn't an issue because it clearly is, but your response is ridiculous.
That's just a starting point in the war for free speech. The whole system needs upending including bringing protection from disciplinary action for faculty of students who have "controversial" opinions according to the church of woke.
Again. A ridiculously inflammatory comment.
I don't disagree that people should be protected from being discriminated against in response to having voiced their own views.
But "church of woke" ffs. You're better than this.
You're admitting there's a problem but then against any measures to actually try and fix them. I don't get it.
I'm happy to discuss each actual issue on its merits without resorting to divide and conquer "us vs them-ism".
Issue 1: academics are afraid to voice their opinions on certain topics due to fear of discrimination.
It's bad. Definitely. And I definitely agree that in certain circles there's a complete lack of effort in even trying to understand someone else's view point. It's either "you're with us or you're against us".
But what realistically can you do about that? Of course you can make laws that protect staff from clear discrimination based on their views but how can you legislate to stop "the majority" disliking you for voicing such views?
For example, @Casino_Royale clearly hates me for my views on the EU so if I worked for him he would be unlikely to give me a promotion based on simply disliking me. That is always the case in employment so how do you stop that?
No I don't. My best friend is a Remainer. In fact, most of them are - to varying degrees. Nor would I ever let my views of someone's personal politics colour my views on whether I thought they were fit for a promotion.
I simply don't think like that. In my professional life (which you don't know about, of course) my record in this speaks for itself: it would be based solely on your abilities.
I think you can be a bit of dick at times, and act like a stroppy teenager, but I think that's largely because you are young and passionate about certain things. I think you're essentially a good egg and you definitely have your own mind but, yeah, a bit dickish at times.
I *might* not promote you yet if you dickish in a professional context and that'd be because people skills and the ability to handle constructive disagreement become more and more important as you climb the ladder. But I'd at least sit you down and acknowledge your potential, and give you feedback as to where I thought you needed to work on, before you were promoted.
It wouldn't be because of your personal views.
In reality, we know that the secret pb.com handshake would get you the job...
There is surely no other explanation for the frequent* discussions of first class air travel on here....
*until about last March, strangely.
Along with the ultimate put down of someone boasting about flying first-class: you fly commercial?
What's the general situation with hosptial visits for non-covid patients at the moment? Is it being routinally allowed or is it like those who are on a covid ward restricted to only those thought to be at end of life?
The German magazine Spiegel reported this week figures from Germany’s Robert Koch Institute which show that of 736,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine delivered to Germany, just 64,869 have actually been used.
I remember being assured by EUphiles on here that there would be no additional anti-vaxxer sentiment from the comments of Macron and others maligning the AZ vaccine. Care to comment @kinabalu?
Yes, of course. The AZ vaccine is regarded by some as inferior due to lower efficacy and stronger side effects. You don't need to be a loonytunes antivaxxer to hold this view and expressing it is not necessarily to malign AZ. I can't comment on side effects (seen no relative data) but on efficacy the evidence is it's not as good as the Pfizer and others. When I get my jab I'll be hoping it isn't the AZ. But of course I will take what I'm offered because they are all miles better than nothing and it's a public duty to get protection. It's a problem that people are irrationally refusing the AZ because it slows the journey out of the pandemic. How much of this is down to Macron's comments, as opposed to the data and the fact it is not licensed for the over 65s in some countries, I don't know. Certainly he didn't help.
For me there is only one datum that matters, and that is that all the vaccines approved by the UK authorities convey very high levels of protection against severe disease. On that basis, I am totally agnostic on which jab I get.
I am almost. Certainly the difference in my mind between jab and no jab dwarfs that between AZ and Pfizer. Nevertheless, when I get it, I'm hoping for the Pfizer. Just marginally. I have a marginal preference for what looks on the balance of the evidence to be marginally the better vaccine. This is not irrational.
My wife has remarked at her work how depressing it is now to see relatives. The guidance is that relatives only visit in an end of life situation so seeing relatives can sometimes be a shock if you hadn't been working with that individual as it's a sign that things are worse than they were.
Who knows if guidance like that applies to the Royals though?
Keeping relatives away from the sick, old and dying has to be one of the cruelest elements of this pandemic.
It's a shame that the UK has fallen so far behind in EV manufacturing that the royals are having to use American cars now. Hopefully JLR gets on with it.
Supply definitely being held back now IMO. There's no other explanation for the rate. I think we're probably going to be doing just a few hundred thousand Pfizer first doses per week from next week.
I'm not sure it changes the short term picture of all groups 1-9 being done at some point in March. We're still on course for that.
Would be good if @Anabobazina could get the Vaxometer running again with the new target and second doses as well.
Up to the 18th, about 16.9m first doses had been dished out. The total number of recipients in phase one was given as 31.8m, before the shielding list was updated and we found that there were about 800,000 additional shielders to be prioritised (and who hadn't already been lanced anyway by dint of their age.) But even if we assume that all of them are under 50, the phase one total still can't be any more than 32.6m.
That means 15.7 million first jabs to be given to complete phase one. Therefore, working forward from February 18th, the following average first dose rates would get all the first nine cohorts cleared by the indicated dates:
500,000/day: March 22nd 400,000/day: March 30th 300,000/day: April 12th 200,000/day: May 8th
So, the Government can hit the first dose target for phase one (i.e. the end of April) if it can keep the first doses running at a mean of 220k per day from hereon in. That would, in turn, require total supply to hit about 650k per day by the end of April, in order to deal simultaneously with all the second doses that will by then be coming due. A more ambitious goal, like getting the over 50s done by Easter and moving onto the fortysomethings, will therefore require more supply than that.
I thought that there were reliable reports about UK supply restrictions this week and next?
Re Scotland "That will reduce our expected supply next week and the week after by about somewhere between 120,000 and 190,000 doses a week overall over the two vaccines."
If that is correct, and the numbers are in proportion to the UK supply, that is a drop in supply of millions per week for the UK as a whole.
Yes, if the over 50s target of the end of April really has been made as a realistic aim rather than being a case of under promising to over deliver, then this obviously implies a major slowdown in the effort. That, in turn, could easily mean only a token easing of lockdown - schools but very little else of anything - until the back end of May. Very, very depressing.
Isn't it the exact same effort as has been getting made, once you add on the second doses being done?
It averages at about 400-450k per day doesn't it?
No increase in rate but if there's no increase in supply available then not sure what can be done about that? But it's steady as she goes not a drop off.
Now you know perfectly well what I'm getting at: if the supply isn't fixed, the first doses start to dry up as the second ones come due. If the first doses dry up then we're all prisoners until God knows when.
Because that's all Britain is now. Once vast open prison. You go out for your jog around the exercise yard, and on day release to do a shit job for a few hours if you're really lucky, and you spend the rest of the time locked in your cell. And there's no time off for good behaviour and certainly no fixed term. It just gets extended and extended, and you've no idea if it'll be three more months, or six, or a year, or more than that. And even when or if we do finally get let out, does anyone seriously believe the Government's empty rhetoric about this being the last lockdown? From now on, for years to come and possibly forever, we're only ever one SPI-M model panic away from renewed incarceration.
Until the Government rolls back the entire mechanism of repression, repeals the Coronavirus Act and promises us that lockdowns are done and finished for good, the nightmare will never be over. And does anyone trust Boris Johnson's promises? Thought not.
I can see where you're coming from there... But the one crumb of comforts for me, is that for all his faults my reading is that Johnson is basically a 1990s Tory / Libertarian at heart, and locking people up goes against what passes for his core values. As evidenced by the late lockdown last Spring, and the reluctance to bring in more restrictions in October.
Plus, he's got the ERG block now banging the drum for lockdown scepticism. Whatever you think of that lot, they aren't going anywhere for the next few years and know how to get their way.
This is assuming that there's no a cult of lizards people running things behind the scenes, with an agenda to keep us locked up in our boxes forever (evidence for that appears sketchy).
I'm hoping that once things start to open up, people's hesitance will be overcome as confidence in the vaccine grows and FOMO and good old consumer capitalism starts kicking in again.
David Cameron's original concept of "sharing the proceeds of growth".
I think it will be viable over the next decade as I think we will see some stonking high growth in the next few years. A roaring twenties.
PS for any on the loony left who still believe the ludicrous notion that austerity or the Brexit result choked off economic growth it's worth remembering in the real world that Britain grew faster than Europe in the past decade.
What does make me laugh is how selective people's memories were. Brown definitely was a Bad Man and Cameron would have done it all differently apparently. Yet, as you say, the alternative Tory economic plan was to "match Labour spending plans pound for pound" - because people feared Tory cuts - and inflate the bubble even faster so that he could "share the proceeds of [even more] growth" in the form of tax cuts which would drive spending and inflate the bubble even faster.
Yet after the event people seemed to be under the impression that Cameron and Osbrown were sagely warning against (their own policies) and planning to regulate the banks by deregulating them even further than Darling had. Not that Darling had deregulated *that* far - Barclays were prevented from buying Leeman remember...
Well said. It's beyond tedious, all these years after the 08 crash, to still encounter the fictional Tory Story about it.
I predict it will stop two decades after the "Fatcha shut down all the minesandfactories and schoolsandhospitals" talk ends.
If rather than call out lies we seek to excuse them by pointing to other lies, we end up in a bad place. But in any event this is false equivalence. The Labour Story in 1997 was that our public services needed a major upgrade after 18 years of Tory neglect. There was much truth in this. Such cannot be said for the almost wholly fictional Tory Story that Labour overspending had by 2008 bankrupted Britain.
Lies and false equivalences are all in the eyes of the beholder.
Surely you've realised that at your age ?
There is such a thing as lying and it's important there are people like me who have both the desire and the ability to root it out.
Supply definitely being held back now IMO. There's no other explanation for the rate. I think we're probably going to be doing just a few hundred thousand Pfizer first doses per week from next week.
I'm not sure it changes the short term picture of all groups 1-9 being done at some point in March. We're still on course for that.
Would be good if @Anabobazina could get the Vaxometer running again with the new target and second doses as well.
Up to the 18th, about 16.9m first doses had been dished out. The total number of recipients in phase one was given as 31.8m, before the shielding list was updated and we found that there were about 800,000 additional shielders to be prioritised (and who hadn't already been lanced anyway by dint of their age.) But even if we assume that all of them are under 50, the phase one total still can't be any more than 32.6m.
That means 15.7 million first jabs to be given to complete phase one. Therefore, working forward from February 18th, the following average first dose rates would get all the first nine cohorts cleared by the indicated dates:
500,000/day: March 22nd 400,000/day: March 30th 300,000/day: April 12th 200,000/day: May 8th
So, the Government can hit the first dose target for phase one (i.e. the end of April) if it can keep the first doses running at a mean of 220k per day from hereon in. That would, in turn, require total supply to hit about 650k per day by the end of April, in order to deal simultaneously with all the second doses that will by then be coming due. A more ambitious goal, like getting the over 50s done by Easter and moving onto the fortysomethings, will therefore require more supply than that.
I thought that there were reliable reports about UK supply restrictions this week and next?
Re Scotland "That will reduce our expected supply next week and the week after by about somewhere between 120,000 and 190,000 doses a week overall over the two vaccines."
If that is correct, and the numbers are in proportion to the UK supply, that is a drop in supply of millions per week for the UK as a whole.
Yes, if the over 50s target of the end of April really has been made as a realistic aim rather than being a case of under promising to over deliver, then this obviously implies a major slowdown in the effort. That, in turn, could easily mean only a token easing of lockdown - schools but very little else of anything - until the back end of May. Very, very depressing.
Isn't it the exact same effort as has been getting made, once you add on the second doses being done?
It averages at about 400-450k per day doesn't it?
No increase in rate but if there's no increase in supply available then not sure what can be done about that? But it's steady as she goes not a drop off.
Now you know perfectly well what I'm getting at: if the supply isn't fixed, the first doses start to dry up as the second ones come due. If the first doses dry up then we're all prisoners until God knows when.
Because that's all Britain is now. Once vast open prison. You go out for your jog around the exercise yard, and on day release to do a shit job for a few hours if you're really lucky, and you spend the rest of the time locked in your cell. And there's no time off for good behaviour and certainly no fixed term. It just gets extended and extended, and you've no idea if it'll be three more months, or six, or a year, or more than that. And even when or if we do finally get let out, does anyone seriously believe the Government's empty rhetoric about this being the last lockdown? From now on, for years to come and possibly forever, we're only ever one SPI-M model panic away from renewed incarceration.
Until the Government rolls back the entire mechanism of repression, repeals the Coronavirus Act and promises us that lockdowns are done and finished for good, the nightmare will never be over. And does anyone trust Boris Johnson's promises? Thought not.
I often feel similarly but it is the case that all pandemics end - the acute phase of them anyway. Without vaccines, Neil Ferguson’s lot predicted last year that just opening up to let the virus rip would result in 500,000 deaths. We are 30% of the way there based on IFR alone, which means we are 30% of the way to herd immunity even without vaccines.
The supply is being fixed. AZ have largely sorted their supply problems and Pfizer are openly boasting about how good theirs are. If we get to a state where the figures no longer justify these measures and Johnson decides to keep them then the Tory party alone will defenestrate him. Labour may even have grown a pair by then.
In any event Johnson has set himself to be a geopolitical competitor to China in alliance with the USA. We cannot compete with an opened China while closed. Can’t work. There are lockdowns of varying severity in every part of the western alliance and a locked down west cannot compete with an opened China or, indeed, Russia. So he will have to open up sometime.
To protect our patients we need to limit visitors to our hospital. We recommend virtual visits where possible. Visitors will only be considered in exceptional circumstances, where one visitor will be permitted to visit. No children will be permitted to visit. The health, safety and well-being of our patients, family, carers and staff remain our absolute priority.
Permission for visiting must be discussed directly with Matron’s Office, and would be allowed under the following circumstances:
- One regular carer will be allowed for patients with additional needs e.g. dementia, learning disabilities. They will be swabbed to allow them to continue with caring commitments.
Deaths dropping faster than admissions faster than cases.
Interesting. Positive vaccine sign or noise?
Weren't we told that on this spike, deaths would decrease fastest, then admissions, then positive tests?
On Monday, Boris is going to make his announcement against a backdrop of sub-500 deaths a day, sub 1,500 hospital admissions and c 10,000 daily positive tests.
I suspect he wants daily hospital admissions sub-1000 to know the pressure is really coming off the NHS. Deaths sub-300 a day would be a good improvement from the peak numbers, but I suspect that might be tougher to achieve.
Cases are still likely to be north of 5,000 a day though well into March. That is still a troubling reservoir of infection that will limit his ability to do much in March itself. But the vaccine roll-out should surely start kicking the door down by April.
To protect our patients we need to limit visitors to our hospital. We recommend virtual visits where possible. Visitors will only be considered in exceptional circumstances, where one visitor will be permitted to visit. No children will be permitted to visit. The health, safety and well-being of our patients, family, carers and staff remain our absolute priority.
Permission for visiting must be discussed directly with Matron’s Office, and would be allowed under the following circumstances:
- One regular carer will be allowed for patients with additional needs e.g. dementia, learning disabilities. They will be swabbed to allow them to continue with caring commitments.
David Cameron's original concept of "sharing the proceeds of growth".
I think it will be viable over the next decade as I think we will see some stonking high growth in the next few years. A roaring twenties.
PS for any on the loony left who still believe the ludicrous notion that austerity or the Brexit result choked off economic growth it's worth remembering in the real world that Britain grew faster than Europe in the past decade.
What does make me laugh is how selective people's memories were. Brown definitely was a Bad Man and Cameron would have done it all differently apparently. Yet, as you say, the alternative Tory economic plan was to "match Labour spending plans pound for pound" - because people feared Tory cuts - and inflate the bubble even faster so that he could "share the proceeds of [even more] growth" in the form of tax cuts which would drive spending and inflate the bubble even faster.
Yet after the event people seemed to be under the impression that Cameron and Osbrown were sagely warning against (their own policies) and planning to regulate the banks by deregulating them even further than Darling had. Not that Darling had deregulated *that* far - Barclays were prevented from buying Leeman remember...
Well said. It's beyond tedious, all these years after the 08 crash, to still encounter the fictional Tory Story about it.
I predict it will stop two decades after the "Fatcha shut down all the minesandfactories and schoolsandhospitals" talk ends.
If rather than call out lies we seek to excuse them by pointing to other lies, we end up in a bad place. But in any event this is false equivalence. The Labour Story in 1997 was that our public services needed a major upgrade after 18 years of Tory neglect. There was much truth in this. Such cannot be said for the almost wholly fictional Tory Story that Labour overspending had by 2008 bankrupted Britain.
No. Your ongoing denial that Labour overspending was an unmitigated catastrophic failure of governance just shows you've learnt no lessons and hopefully there's decades to go before your lot are ever near power again.
Unless or until you can learn from your mistakes a Japanese style 50 year Tory reign would be best for Britain.
Even the authors of the Tory Story never believed it. It was strictly for the gullible. And to still be spouting it in 2021 - well that is beyond gullible. We need another word.
It's a shame that the UK has fallen so far behind in EV manufacturing that the royals are having to use American cars now. Hopefully JLR gets on with it.
They should be using compact, value EVs from that great British marque MG...oh wait.
David Cameron's original concept of "sharing the proceeds of growth".
I think it will be viable over the next decade as I think we will see some stonking high growth in the next few years. A roaring twenties.
PS for any on the loony left who still believe the ludicrous notion that austerity or the Brexit result choked off economic growth it's worth remembering in the real world that Britain grew faster than Europe in the past decade.
What does make me laugh is how selective people's memories were. Brown definitely was a Bad Man and Cameron would have done it all differently apparently. Yet, as you say, the alternative Tory economic plan was to "match Labour spending plans pound for pound" - because people feared Tory cuts - and inflate the bubble even faster so that he could "share the proceeds of [even more] growth" in the form of tax cuts which would drive spending and inflate the bubble even faster.
Yet after the event people seemed to be under the impression that Cameron and Osbrown were sagely warning against (their own policies) and planning to regulate the banks by deregulating them even further than Darling had. Not that Darling had deregulated *that* far - Barclays were prevented from buying Leeman remember...
Well said. It's beyond tedious, all these years after the 08 crash, to still encounter the fictional Tory Story about it.
I predict it will stop two decades after the "Fatcha shut down all the minesandfactories and schoolsandhospitals" talk ends.
If rather than call out lies we seek to excuse them by pointing to other lies, we end up in a bad place. But in any event this is false equivalence. The Labour Story in 1997 was that our public services needed a major upgrade after 18 years of Tory neglect. There was much truth in this. Such cannot be said for the almost wholly fictional Tory Story that Labour overspending had by 2008 bankrupted Britain.
No. Your ongoing denial that Labour overspending was an unmitigated catastrophic failure of governance just shows you've learnt no lessons and hopefully there's decades to go before your lot are ever near power again.
Unless or until you can learn from your mistakes a Japanese style 50 year Tory reign would be best for Britain.
Even the authors of the Tory Story never believed it. It was strictly for the gullible. And to still be spouting it in 2021 - well that is beyond gullible. We need another word.
Supply definitely being held back now IMO. There's no other explanation for the rate. I think we're probably going to be doing just a few hundred thousand Pfizer first doses per week from next week.
I'm not sure it changes the short term picture of all groups 1-9 being done at some point in March. We're still on course for that.
Would be good if @Anabobazina could get the Vaxometer running again with the new target and second doses as well.
Up to the 18th, about 16.9m first doses had been dished out. The total number of recipients in phase one was given as 31.8m, before the shielding list was updated and we found that there were about 800,000 additional shielders to be prioritised (and who hadn't already been lanced anyway by dint of their age.) But even if we assume that all of them are under 50, the phase one total still can't be any more than 32.6m.
That means 15.7 million first jabs to be given to complete phase one. Therefore, working forward from February 18th, the following average first dose rates would get all the first nine cohorts cleared by the indicated dates:
500,000/day: March 22nd 400,000/day: March 30th 300,000/day: April 12th 200,000/day: May 8th
So, the Government can hit the first dose target for phase one (i.e. the end of April) if it can keep the first doses running at a mean of 220k per day from hereon in. That would, in turn, require total supply to hit about 650k per day by the end of April, in order to deal simultaneously with all the second doses that will by then be coming due. A more ambitious goal, like getting the over 50s done by Easter and moving onto the fortysomethings, will therefore require more supply than that.
I thought that there were reliable reports about UK supply restrictions this week and next?
Re Scotland "That will reduce our expected supply next week and the week after by about somewhere between 120,000 and 190,000 doses a week overall over the two vaccines."
If that is correct, and the numbers are in proportion to the UK supply, that is a drop in supply of millions per week for the UK as a whole.
Yes, if the over 50s target of the end of April really has been made as a realistic aim rather than being a case of under promising to over deliver, then this obviously implies a major slowdown in the effort. That, in turn, could easily mean only a token easing of lockdown - schools but very little else of anything - until the back end of May. Very, very depressing.
Isn't it the exact same effort as has been getting made, once you add on the second doses being done?
It averages at about 400-450k per day doesn't it?
No increase in rate but if there's no increase in supply available then not sure what can be done about that? But it's steady as she goes not a drop off.
Now you know perfectly well what I'm getting at: if the supply isn't fixed, the first doses start to dry up as the second ones come due. If the first doses dry up then we're all prisoners until God knows when.
Because that's all Britain is now. Once vast open prison. You go out for your jog around the exercise yard, and on day release to do a shit job for a few hours if you're really lucky, and you spend the rest of the time locked in your cell. And there's no time off for good behaviour and certainly no fixed term. It just gets extended and extended, and you've no idea if it'll be three more months, or six, or a year, or more than that. And even when or if we do finally get let out, does anyone seriously believe the Government's empty rhetoric about this being the last lockdown? From now on, for years to come and possibly forever, we're only ever one SPI-M model panic away from renewed incarceration.
Until the Government rolls back the entire mechanism of repression, repeals the Coronavirus Act and promises us that lockdowns are done and finished for good, the nightmare will never be over. And does anyone trust Boris Johnson's promises? Thought not.
I can see where you're coming from there... But the one crumb of comforts for me, is that for all his faults my reading is that Johnson is basically a 1990s Tory / Libertarian at heart, and locking people up goes against what passes for his core values. As evidenced by the late lockdown last Spring, and the reluctance to bring in more restrictions in October.
Plus, he's got the ERG block now banging the drum for lockdown scepticism. Whatever you think of that lot, they aren't going anywhere for the next few years and know how to get their way.
This is assuming that there's no a cult of lizards people running things behind the scenes, with an agenda to keep us locked up in our boxes forever (evidence for that appears sketchy).
I'm hoping that once things start to open up, people's hesitance will be overcome as confidence in the vaccine grows and FOMO and good old consumer capitalism starts kicking in again.
Now, if Corbyn had got in, I'd be worried...
Nah, we'd all have been vaccinated with Sputnik V by now!
Deaths dropping faster than admissions faster than cases.
Interesting. Positive vaccine sign or noise?
Lag. Cases were falling fastest a couple of weeks ago and have now slowed down a bit. That slowdown would normally feed through into hospitalisations and deaths in a week or three as well, although this time the vaccines kicking in should mean that they'll keep falling more than cases.
Mind you, if cases start rising, as they're threatening to do in Scotland, that could easily cancel out the vaccine effect.
David Cameron's original concept of "sharing the proceeds of growth".
I think it will be viable over the next decade as I think we will see some stonking high growth in the next few years. A roaring twenties.
PS for any on the loony left who still believe the ludicrous notion that austerity or the Brexit result choked off economic growth it's worth remembering in the real world that Britain grew faster than Europe in the past decade.
What does make me laugh is how selective people's memories were. Brown definitely was a Bad Man and Cameron would have done it all differently apparently. Yet, as you say, the alternative Tory economic plan was to "match Labour spending plans pound for pound" - because people feared Tory cuts - and inflate the bubble even faster so that he could "share the proceeds of [even more] growth" in the form of tax cuts which would drive spending and inflate the bubble even faster.
Yet after the event people seemed to be under the impression that Cameron and Osbrown were sagely warning against (their own policies) and planning to regulate the banks by deregulating them even further than Darling had. Not that Darling had deregulated *that* far - Barclays were prevented from buying Leeman remember...
Well said. It's beyond tedious, all these years after the 08 crash, to still encounter the fictional Tory Story about it.
I predict it will stop two decades after the "Fatcha shut down all the minesandfactories and schoolsandhospitals" talk ends.
If rather than call out lies we seek to excuse them by pointing to other lies, we end up in a bad place. But in any event this is false equivalence. The Labour Story in 1997 was that our public services needed a major upgrade after 18 years of Tory neglect. There was much truth in this. Such cannot be said for the almost wholly fictional Tory Story that Labour overspending had by 2008 bankrupted Britain.
No. Your ongoing denial that Labour overspending was an unmitigated catastrophic failure of governance just shows you've learnt no lessons and hopefully there's decades to go before your lot are ever near power again.
Unless or until you can learn from your mistakes a Japanese style 50 year Tory reign would be best for Britain.
Even the authors of the Tory Story never believed it. It was strictly for the gullible. And to still be spouting it in 2021 - well that is beyond gullible. We need another word.
I may be being naive but there may not have been as many cases recorded while the snow was here resulting in them being shunted into this week from the week before last. Given the snow has been gone three or four days now a more “normal” rate of decrease may be being re-established.
David Cameron's original concept of "sharing the proceeds of growth".
I think it will be viable over the next decade as I think we will see some stonking high growth in the next few years. A roaring twenties.
PS for any on the loony left who still believe the ludicrous notion that austerity or the Brexit result choked off economic growth it's worth remembering in the real world that Britain grew faster than Europe in the past decade.
What does make me laugh is how selective people's memories were. Brown definitely was a Bad Man and Cameron would have done it all differently apparently. Yet, as you say, the alternative Tory economic plan was to "match Labour spending plans pound for pound" - because people feared Tory cuts - and inflate the bubble even faster so that he could "share the proceeds of [even more] growth" in the form of tax cuts which would drive spending and inflate the bubble even faster.
Yet after the event people seemed to be under the impression that Cameron and Osbrown were sagely warning against (their own policies) and planning to regulate the banks by deregulating them even further than Darling had. Not that Darling had deregulated *that* far - Barclays were prevented from buying Leeman remember...
Well said. It's beyond tedious, all these years after the 08 crash, to still encounter the fictional Tory Story about it.
I predict it will stop two decades after the "Fatcha shut down all the minesandfactories and schoolsandhospitals" talk ends.
If rather than call out lies we seek to excuse them by pointing to other lies, we end up in a bad place. But in any event this is false equivalence. The Labour Story in 1997 was that our public services needed a major upgrade after 18 years of Tory neglect. There was much truth in this. Such cannot be said for the almost wholly fictional Tory Story that Labour overspending had by 2008 bankrupted Britain.
There is a compelling argument to make that we need to spend money to Build Back Better, but that Boris is wasting all our cash on boondoggles and jobs for cronies.
How much did we spend on track and trace again?
There’s a party going on, but you’re not invited. Keir needs to appeal to financial FOMO.
Yep, the country will soon be post two traumatic gamechanging episodes, the pandemic and Brexit. Labour need a vision for where we go from here. All such a vision needs to beat are vacuous soundbites about "levelling up" and "Global Britain", a pandering to retro social values, and flag waving. So, you know, it's gonna be tough.
It’s worth looking at the other side, too. But even I as a politics obsessive have hardly heard of most of these.
Rayner: Invisible Dodds: Would be good Treasury Chief Sec. Nandy: Excellent, but wasted in this post. Thomas-Symonds: Invisible. Reeves: Good. Lammy: OK. Gets press, at least. Healey: Invisible Miliband: In theory, v good in this role. Thornberry: Invisible. Reynolds: Literally, who? Ashworth: I don’t trust him for some reason. Green: Actively harmful. The rest: Who, who, who?
Honourable mentions: Allin-Khan: Excellent Murray, Griffiths: Sound, but invisible. Haigh, (Cat) Smith: Actively harmful to Labour’s electoral chances.
There should be front bench roles for Stephen Kinnock, Stella Creasey, Dan Jarvis, Rupa Huq, Sarah Champion, and Angela Eagle.
Benn and Cooper are both very effective in their current roles.
Bring back Balls, FGS.
And really quite white compared to their government equivalents.
Oh, hardly. The issue is they are not cutting the mustard, not because they aren’t “diverse” enough.
Both front benches are statistically more diverse, ethnically speaking, than the broader British population.
Missing my point. Labour and others talk a lot about inclusiveness - Tories go for the best .. and do it.
Patel, to take an example, is definitely not “the best”.
And yet if Boris had listened to her in February of last year and closed the border 80-100k people who died would probably still be alive today and we wouldn't have had anywhere near the level of economic carnage we experienced in 2020 while the whole second wave would have passed us by.
I think she said it March not February, by which time it would have made no difference. And the second wave was at least partly home grown.
It's not really practical for a country like ours to close the borders completely anyway, because of hauliers and so on, so you'd only be talking about delaying waves.
David Cameron's original concept of "sharing the proceeds of growth".
I think it will be viable over the next decade as I think we will see some stonking high growth in the next few years. A roaring twenties.
PS for any on the loony left who still believe the ludicrous notion that austerity or the Brexit result choked off economic growth it's worth remembering in the real world that Britain grew faster than Europe in the past decade.
What does make me laugh is how selective people's memories were. Brown definitely was a Bad Man and Cameron would have done it all differently apparently. Yet, as you say, the alternative Tory economic plan was to "match Labour spending plans pound for pound" - because people feared Tory cuts - and inflate the bubble even faster so that he could "share the proceeds of [even more] growth" in the form of tax cuts which would drive spending and inflate the bubble even faster.
Yet after the event people seemed to be under the impression that Cameron and Osbrown were sagely warning against (their own policies) and planning to regulate the banks by deregulating them even further than Darling had. Not that Darling had deregulated *that* far - Barclays were prevented from buying Leeman remember...
Well said. It's beyond tedious, all these years after the 08 crash, to still encounter the fictional Tory Story about it.
I predict it will stop two decades after the "Fatcha shut down all the minesandfactories and schoolsandhospitals" talk ends.
If rather than call out lies we seek to excuse them by pointing to other lies, we end up in a bad place. But in any event this is false equivalence. The Labour Story in 1997 was that our public services needed a major upgrade after 18 years of Tory neglect. There was much truth in this. Such cannot be said for the almost wholly fictional Tory Story that Labour overspending had by 2008 bankrupted Britain.
Lies and false equivalences are all in the eyes of the beholder.
Surely you've realised that at your age ?
There is such a thing as lying and it's important there are people like me who have both the desire and the ability to root it out.
Forgive me for being cynical but I suspect people's desire to root out lies might be affected by who is saying them.
I may be being naive but there may not have been as many cases recorded while the snow was here resulting in them being shunted into this week from the week before last. Given the snow has been gone three or four days now a more “normal” rate of decrease may be being re-established.
I want that theory to be true. Looking at the fairly benign forecast, we should know by next weekend.
It’s worth looking at the other side, too. But even I as a politics obsessive have hardly heard of most of these.
Rayner: Invisible Dodds: Would be good Treasury Chief Sec. Nandy: Excellent, but wasted in this post. Thomas-Symonds: Invisible. Reeves: Good. Lammy: OK. Gets press, at least. Healey: Invisible Miliband: In theory, v good in this role. Thornberry: Invisible. Reynolds: Literally, who? Ashworth: I don’t trust him for some reason. Green: Actively harmful. The rest: Who, who, who?
Honourable mentions: Allin-Khan: Excellent Murray, Griffiths: Sound, but invisible. Haigh, (Cat) Smith: Actively harmful to Labour’s electoral chances.
There should be front bench roles for Stephen Kinnock, Stella Creasey, Dan Jarvis, Rupa Huq, Sarah Champion, and Angela Eagle.
Benn and Cooper are both very effective in their current roles.
Bring back Balls, FGS.
And really quite white compared to their government equivalents.
Oh, hardly. The issue is they are not cutting the mustard, not because they aren’t “diverse” enough.
Both front benches are statistically more diverse, ethnically speaking, than the broader British population.
Missing my point. Labour and others talk a lot about inclusiveness - Tories go for the best .. and do it.
Patel, to take an example, is definitely not “the best”.
And yet if Boris had listened to her in February of last year and closed the border 80-100k people who died would probably still be alive today and we wouldn't have had anywhere near the level of economic carnage we experienced in 2020 while the whole second wave would have passed us by.
I think she said it March not February, by which time it would have made no difference. And the second wave was at least partly home grown.
It's not really practical for a country like ours to close the borders completely anyway, because of hauliers and so on, so you'd only be talking about delaying waves.
Bollocks.
We lost a critical week or two - even Boris now apparently believes so - and we could have made an exception for hauliers.
It's a shame that the UK has fallen so far behind in EV manufacturing that the royals are having to use American cars now. Hopefully JLR gets on with it.
They should be using compact, value EVs from that great British marque MG...oh wait.
Deaths dropping faster than admissions faster than cases.
Interesting. Positive vaccine sign or noise?
Lag. Cases were falling fastest a couple of weeks ago and have now slowed down a bit. That slowdown would normally feed through into hospitalisations and deaths in a week or three as well, although this time the vaccines kicking in should mean that they'll keep falling more than cases.
Mind you, if cases start rising, as they're threatening to do in Scotland, that could easily cancel out the vaccine effect.
Compared with last Saturday there was a pretty healthy drop in Scotland today. They’ve also had a couple of hefty prison outbreaks to deal with.
It's a shame that the UK has fallen so far behind in EV manufacturing that the royals are having to use American cars now. Hopefully JLR gets on with it.
They should be using compact, value EVs from that great British marque MG...oh wait.
He could use a Jaguar I-Pace!!
I saw one in Cowbridge today. I am not a fan of overweight SUV style EVs but this was a fine looking vehicle.
I agree, bin the Tesla's and replace with a fleet of Castle Bromwich's finest.
I may be being naive but there may not have been as many cases recorded while the snow was here resulting in them being shunted into this week from the week before last. Given the snow has been gone three or four days now a more “normal” rate of decrease may be being re-established.
I want that theory to be true. Looking at the fairly benign forecast, we should know by next weekend.
I’m not usually right about these things. I tend to suffer from confirmation bias. It’s hopeful that after three days of rises Zoe showed a drop yesterday though. They haven’t updated today.
David Cameron's original concept of "sharing the proceeds of growth".
I think it will be viable over the next decade as I think we will see some stonking high growth in the next few years. A roaring twenties.
PS for any on the loony left who still believe the ludicrous notion that austerity or the Brexit result choked off economic growth it's worth remembering in the real world that Britain grew faster than Europe in the past decade.
What does make me laugh is how selective people's memories were. Brown definitely was a Bad Man and Cameron would have done it all differently apparently. Yet, as you say, the alternative Tory economic plan was to "match Labour spending plans pound for pound" - because people feared Tory cuts - and inflate the bubble even faster so that he could "share the proceeds of [even more] growth" in the form of tax cuts which would drive spending and inflate the bubble even faster.
Yet after the event people seemed to be under the impression that Cameron and Osbrown were sagely warning against (their own policies) and planning to regulate the banks by deregulating them even further than Darling had. Not that Darling had deregulated *that* far - Barclays were prevented from buying Leeman remember...
Well said. It's beyond tedious, all these years after the 08 crash, to still encounter the fictional Tory Story about it.
I predict it will stop two decades after the "Fatcha shut down all the minesandfactories and schoolsandhospitals" talk ends.
If rather than call out lies we seek to excuse them by pointing to other lies, we end up in a bad place. But in any event this is false equivalence. The Labour Story in 1997 was that our public services needed a major upgrade after 18 years of Tory neglect. There was much truth in this. Such cannot be said for the almost wholly fictional Tory Story that Labour overspending had by 2008 bankrupted Britain.
Lies and false equivalences are all in the eyes of the beholder.
Surely you've realised that at your age ?
There is such a thing as lying and it's important there are people like me who have both the desire and the ability to root it out.
Forgive me for being cynical but I suspect people's desire to root out lies might be affected by who is saying them.
That's a non point. Of course there is bias with everyone. It's part of being humanoid. But the level of bias is greater in some than others. Ditto the tolerance for lies. Ditto the desire and ability to root them out. We are not all equal in this regard. If only.
It's a shame that the UK has fallen so far behind in EV manufacturing that the royals are having to use American cars now. Hopefully JLR gets on with it.
They should be using compact, value EVs from that great British marque MG...oh wait.
He could use a Jaguar I-Pace!!
I saw one in Cowbridge today. I am not a fan of overweight SUV style EVs but this was a fine looking vehicle.
I agree, bin the Tesla's and replace with a fleet of Castle Bromwich's finest.
I wanted to buy an i-Pace (at the very beginning of last year) and was really shocked by how cheap and flimsy stuff felt inside. The SatNav/ICE system was also slow and unresponsive.
So, I didn't get it.
They need to remember they're selling a premium electric vehicle. Stuff can't feel cheap inside.
David Cameron's original concept of "sharing the proceeds of growth".
I think it will be viable over the next decade as I think we will see some stonking high growth in the next few years. A roaring twenties.
PS for any on the loony left who still believe the ludicrous notion that austerity or the Brexit result choked off economic growth it's worth remembering in the real world that Britain grew faster than Europe in the past decade.
What does make me laugh is how selective people's memories were. Brown definitely was a Bad Man and Cameron would have done it all differently apparently. Yet, as you say, the alternative Tory economic plan was to "match Labour spending plans pound for pound" - because people feared Tory cuts - and inflate the bubble even faster so that he could "share the proceeds of [even more] growth" in the form of tax cuts which would drive spending and inflate the bubble even faster.
Yet after the event people seemed to be under the impression that Cameron and Osbrown were sagely warning against (their own policies) and planning to regulate the banks by deregulating them even further than Darling had. Not that Darling had deregulated *that* far - Barclays were prevented from buying Leeman remember...
Well said. It's beyond tedious, all these years after the 08 crash, to still encounter the fictional Tory Story about it.
I predict it will stop two decades after the "Fatcha shut down all the minesandfactories and schoolsandhospitals" talk ends.
If rather than call out lies we seek to excuse them by pointing to other lies, we end up in a bad place. But in any event this is false equivalence. The Labour Story in 1997 was that our public services needed a major upgrade after 18 years of Tory neglect. There was much truth in this. Such cannot be said for the almost wholly fictional Tory Story that Labour overspending had by 2008 bankrupted Britain.
No. Your ongoing denial that Labour overspending was an unmitigated catastrophic failure of governance just shows you've learnt no lessons and hopefully there's decades to go before your lot are ever near power again.
Unless or until you can learn from your mistakes a Japanese style 50 year Tory reign would be best for Britain.
Even the authors of the Tory Story never believed it. It was strictly for the gullible. And to still be spouting it in 2021 - well that is beyond gullible. We need another word.
It's a shame that the UK has fallen so far behind in EV manufacturing that the royals are having to use American cars now. Hopefully JLR gets on with it.
They should be using compact, value EVs from that great British marque MG...oh wait.
He could use a Jaguar I-Pace!!
I saw one in Cowbridge today. I am not a fan of overweight SUV style EVs but this was a fine looking vehicle.
I agree, bin the Tesla's and replace with a fleet of Castle Bromwich's finest.
I wanted to buy an i-Pace (at the very beginning of last year) and was really shocked by how cheap and flimsy stuff felt inside. The SatNav/ICE system was also slow and unresponsive.
So, I didn't get it.
They need to remember they're selling a premium electric vehicle. Stuff can't feel cheap inside.
(I've owned three EVs - the original Tesla Roadster, the Tesla Model S, and now the Taycan. I am considering getting the Bolt as our second car, because it's a terrific city run around, and feels 3x as expensive as it is.)
It's a shame that the UK has fallen so far behind in EV manufacturing that the royals are having to use American cars now. Hopefully JLR gets on with it.
They should be using compact, value EVs from that great British marque MG...oh wait.
He could use a Jaguar I-Pace!!
I saw one in Cowbridge today. I am not a fan of overweight SUV style EVs but this was a fine looking vehicle.
I agree, bin the Tesla's and replace with a fleet of Castle Bromwich's finest.
I wanted to buy an i-Pace (at the very beginning of last year) and was really shocked by how cheap and flimsy stuff felt inside. The SatNav/ICE system was also slow and unresponsive.
So, I didn't get it.
They need to remember they're selling a premium electric vehicle. Stuff can't feel cheap inside.
There is no excuse for crap satnav systems these days, when Waze can just be builtin into them really easily. In fact, i don't really see a reason why every car just wouldn't have waze, it is far superior to every other sat nav app.
David Cameron's original concept of "sharing the proceeds of growth".
I think it will be viable over the next decade as I think we will see some stonking high growth in the next few years. A roaring twenties.
PS for any on the loony left who still believe the ludicrous notion that austerity or the Brexit result choked off economic growth it's worth remembering in the real world that Britain grew faster than Europe in the past decade.
What does make me laugh is how selective people's memories were. Brown definitely was a Bad Man and Cameron would have done it all differently apparently. Yet, as you say, the alternative Tory economic plan was to "match Labour spending plans pound for pound" - because people feared Tory cuts - and inflate the bubble even faster so that he could "share the proceeds of [even more] growth" in the form of tax cuts which would drive spending and inflate the bubble even faster.
Yet after the event people seemed to be under the impression that Cameron and Osbrown were sagely warning against (their own policies) and planning to regulate the banks by deregulating them even further than Darling had. Not that Darling had deregulated *that* far - Barclays were prevented from buying Leeman remember...
Well said. It's beyond tedious, all these years after the 08 crash, to still encounter the fictional Tory Story about it.
I predict it will stop two decades after the "Fatcha shut down all the minesandfactories and schoolsandhospitals" talk ends.
If rather than call out lies we seek to excuse them by pointing to other lies, we end up in a bad place. But in any event this is false equivalence. The Labour Story in 1997 was that our public services needed a major upgrade after 18 years of Tory neglect. There was much truth in this. Such cannot be said for the almost wholly fictional Tory Story that Labour overspending had by 2008 bankrupted Britain.
No. Your ongoing denial that Labour overspending was an unmitigated catastrophic failure of governance just shows you've learnt no lessons and hopefully there's decades to go before your lot are ever near power again.
Unless or until you can learn from your mistakes a Japanese style 50 year Tory reign would be best for Britain.
Even the authors of the Tory Story never believed it. It was strictly for the gullible. And to still be spouting it in 2021 - well that is beyond gullible. We need another word.
You are convincing no-one....!
I'm not crazed with that ambition. You know the proverb. Lead a horse to water ...
David Cameron's original concept of "sharing the proceeds of growth".
I think it will be viable over the next decade as I think we will see some stonking high growth in the next few years. A roaring twenties.
PS for any on the loony left who still believe the ludicrous notion that austerity or the Brexit result choked off economic growth it's worth remembering in the real world that Britain grew faster than Europe in the past decade.
What does make me laugh is how selective people's memories were. Brown definitely was a Bad Man and Cameron would have done it all differently apparently. Yet, as you say, the alternative Tory economic plan was to "match Labour spending plans pound for pound" - because people feared Tory cuts - and inflate the bubble even faster so that he could "share the proceeds of [even more] growth" in the form of tax cuts which would drive spending and inflate the bubble even faster.
Yet after the event people seemed to be under the impression that Cameron and Osbrown were sagely warning against (their own policies) and planning to regulate the banks by deregulating them even further than Darling had. Not that Darling had deregulated *that* far - Barclays were prevented from buying Leeman remember...
Well said. It's beyond tedious, all these years after the 08 crash, to still encounter the fictional Tory Story about it.
I predict it will stop two decades after the "Fatcha shut down all the minesandfactories and schoolsandhospitals" talk ends.
If rather than call out lies we seek to excuse them by pointing to other lies, we end up in a bad place. But in any event this is false equivalence. The Labour Story in 1997 was that our public services needed a major upgrade after 18 years of Tory neglect. There was much truth in this. Such cannot be said for the almost wholly fictional Tory Story that Labour overspending had by 2008 bankrupted Britain.
Lies and false equivalences are all in the eyes of the beholder.
Surely you've realised that at your age ?
There is such a thing as lying and it's important there are people like me who have both the desire and the ability to root it out.
Forgive me for being cynical but I suspect people's desire to root out lies might be affected by who is saying them.
That's a non point. Of course there is bias with everyone. It's part of being humanoid. But the level of bias is greater in some than others. Ditto the tolerance for lies. Ditto the desire and ability to root them out. We are not all equal in this regard. If only.
Considering you still believe the lie that spending £4 for every £3 taken in tax had nothing to do with Labour overspending you have comprehensively failed at the first hurdle.
It's a shame that the UK has fallen so far behind in EV manufacturing that the royals are having to use American cars now. Hopefully JLR gets on with it.
They should be using compact, value EVs from that great British marque MG...oh wait.
He could use a Jaguar I-Pace!!
I saw one in Cowbridge today. I am not a fan of overweight SUV style EVs but this was a fine looking vehicle.
I agree, bin the Tesla's and replace with a fleet of Castle Bromwich's finest.
I wanted to buy an i-Pace (at the very beginning of last year) and was really shocked by how cheap and flimsy stuff felt inside. The SatNav/ICE system was also slow and unresponsive.
So, I didn't get it.
They need to remember they're selling a premium electric vehicle. Stuff can't feel cheap inside.
There is no excuse for crap satnav systems these days, when Waze can just be builtin into them really easily.
The Taycan has a very lightly skinned version of Android. It's not exciting, but it's that most important thing... extremely fast.
In both 2020 and 2021 London got hit mega hard, followed by very low rates. Areas like mine, Bassetlaw seem to have had lower highs and higher low incidences of the virus.
The full publication of the European Union's contract with AstraZeneca reveals that the Commission and EU countries waived the right to sue the drugmaker over any delays in coronavirus vaccine deliveries — a provision that takes any bite out of threats to file a lawsuit against the company over its failure to deliver to the Continent.
It's a shame that the UK has fallen so far behind in EV manufacturing that the royals are having to use American cars now. Hopefully JLR gets on with it.
They should be using compact, value EVs from that great British marque MG...oh wait.
He could use a Jaguar I-Pace!!
I saw one in Cowbridge today. I am not a fan of overweight SUV style EVs but this was a fine looking vehicle.
I agree, bin the Tesla's and replace with a fleet of Castle Bromwich's finest.
I wanted to buy an i-Pace (at the very beginning of last year) and was really shocked by how cheap and flimsy stuff felt inside. The SatNav/ICE system was also slow and unresponsive.
So, I didn't get it.
They need to remember they're selling a premium electric vehicle. Stuff can't feel cheap inside.
This car was finished in a Westminster Blue colour and at a distance looked classy.
When the time comes I suspect I will as usual (for the Sunday best family car) look no closer or further than Stuttgart.
Even Simon Caulder might be embarrassed by this piece...
There's also wide open premium availability with airmiles.
My wife is desperate to see her Mom CT for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. Assuming they are not letting Brits in by then I might take the risk and get her a ticket.
Deaths dropping faster than admissions faster than cases.
Interesting. Positive vaccine sign or noise?
Lag. Cases were falling fastest a couple of weeks ago and have now slowed down a bit. That slowdown would normally feed through into hospitalisations and deaths in a week or three as well, although this time the vaccines kicking in should mean that they'll keep falling more than cases.
Mind you, if cases start rising, as they're threatening to do in Scotland, that could easily cancel out the vaccine effect.
At least R is significantly lower than 1 in all metrics.
I think the most important metric is hospital admissions. Cases might include very slight symptoms or none at all.
In the first wave, peak admissions was 7th April at 3,115 Lowest was 25th August at 95! Everyone relaxed In the second wave peak admissions was 12th January at 4,204. At bursting point. It is now 1,545 and halving every 20 days (R= 0.78) so if this continues: 12th March 772 1st April 366 21st April 183 11th May 90 - relax again
...or MoE, or if you were @BluestBlue a whopping 3 point advantage.
Lol. Ed Miliband - Ed Miliband! - had a 6-point average lead over Cameron's Tories at this point in the 2010-2015 Parliament. The failure of the Opposition to hold a lead in mid-term, let alone when people's lives are so grim and difficult at the moment, is a terrible omen for their prospects at a GE.
But don't worry, I'm sure Captain 'Close the Zoos!' will turn it around for them in no time...
But we have yet to reach mid-term! The latest Yougov poll would imply a return to a Hung Parliament with Labour gaining 45 Tory seats. Beyond that , there could be some Tory losses to the SNP and the LDs which would probably leave them below 315 seats. The poll may actually be a bit better for Labour than suggested by the headline GB figures in that the Greens would do well to reach 3% in a GE - rather than 6% recorded here.Many would be likely to switch to Labour taking the party to 39%/40%. A further 10 gains from the Tories would be likely as a result.
David Cameron's original concept of "sharing the proceeds of growth".
I think it will be viable over the next decade as I think we will see some stonking high growth in the next few years. A roaring twenties.
PS for any on the loony left who still believe the ludicrous notion that austerity or the Brexit result choked off economic growth it's worth remembering in the real world that Britain grew faster than Europe in the past decade.
What does make me laugh is how selective people's memories were. Brown definitely was a Bad Man and Cameron would have done it all differently apparently. Yet, as you say, the alternative Tory economic plan was to "match Labour spending plans pound for pound" - because people feared Tory cuts - and inflate the bubble even faster so that he could "share the proceeds of [even more] growth" in the form of tax cuts which would drive spending and inflate the bubble even faster.
Yet after the event people seemed to be under the impression that Cameron and Osbrown were sagely warning against (their own policies) and planning to regulate the banks by deregulating them even further than Darling had. Not that Darling had deregulated *that* far - Barclays were prevented from buying Leeman remember...
Well said. It's beyond tedious, all these years after the 08 crash, to still encounter the fictional Tory Story about it.
I predict it will stop two decades after the "Fatcha shut down all the minesandfactories and schoolsandhospitals" talk ends.
If rather than call out lies we seek to excuse them by pointing to other lies, we end up in a bad place. But in any event this is false equivalence. The Labour Story in 1997 was that our public services needed a major upgrade after 18 years of Tory neglect. There was much truth in this. Such cannot be said for the almost wholly fictional Tory Story that Labour overspending had by 2008 bankrupted Britain.
Lies and false equivalences are all in the eyes of the beholder.
Surely you've realised that at your age ?
There is such a thing as lying and it's important there are people like me who have both the desire and the ability to root it out.
Comments
How much did we spend on track and trace again?
There’s a party going on, but you’re not invited. Keir needs to appeal to financial FOMO.
Unless or until you can learn from your mistakes a Japanese style 50 year Tory reign would be best for Britain.
Because that's all Britain is now. Once vast open prison. You go out for your jog around the exercise yard, and on day release to do a shit job for a few hours if you're really lucky, and you spend the rest of the time locked in your cell. And there's no time off for good behaviour and certainly no fixed term. It just gets extended and extended, and you've no idea if it'll be three more months, or six, or a year, or more than that. And even when or if we do finally get let out, does anyone seriously believe the Government's empty rhetoric about this being the last lockdown? From now on, for years to come and possibly forever, we're only ever one SPI-M model panic away from renewed incarceration.
Until the Government rolls back the entire mechanism of repression, repeals the Coronavirus Act and promises us that lockdowns are done and finished for good, the nightmare will never be over. And does anyone trust Boris Johnson's promises? Thought not.
Or be primarily focus on doing so.
I get that would make it different from other wealth funds.
I’m just trying to retro fit some vague logic or sense on the Covid bonds.
Surely you've realised that at your age ?
The falls seem to have started again.
Can it get sub my target of 475 this week? Maybe.....
Admissions is 1,547 for the 7 day average daily admission rate (down 22% this past week)
Positive tests fall though dropped to 19.2%. Slowing. Hmmmm.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
https://twitter.com/chrisshipitv/status/1363157954489417732?s=20
Who knows if guidance like that applies to the Royals though?
Keeping relatives away from the sick, old and dying has to be one of the cruelest elements of this pandemic.
Interesting. Positive vaccine sign or noise?
Plus, he's got the ERG block now banging the drum for lockdown scepticism. Whatever you think of that lot, they aren't going anywhere for the next few years and know how to get their way.
This is assuming that there's no a cult of lizards people running things behind the scenes, with an agenda to keep us locked up in our boxes forever (evidence for that appears sketchy).
I'm hoping that once things start to open up, people's hesitance will be overcome as confidence in the vaccine grows and FOMO and good old consumer capitalism starts kicking in again.
Now, if Corbyn had got in, I'd be worried...
The supply is being fixed. AZ have largely sorted their supply problems and Pfizer are openly boasting about how good theirs are. If we get to a state where the figures no longer justify these measures and Johnson decides to keep them then the Tory party alone will defenestrate him. Labour may even have grown a pair by then.
In any event Johnson has set himself to be a geopolitical competitor to China in alliance with the USA. We cannot compete with an opened China while closed. Can’t work. There are lockdowns of varying severity in every part of the western alliance and a locked down west cannot compete with an opened China or, indeed, Russia. So he will have to open up sometime.
To protect our patients we need to limit visitors to our hospital. We recommend virtual visits where possible. Visitors will only be considered in exceptional circumstances, where one visitor will be permitted to visit. No children will be permitted to visit. The health, safety and well-being of our patients, family, carers and staff remain our absolute priority.
Permission for visiting must be discussed directly with Matron’s Office, and would be allowed under the following circumstances:
- One regular carer will be allowed for patients with additional needs e.g. dementia, learning disabilities. They will be swabbed to allow them to continue with caring commitments.
- For patients receiving end of life care.
https://www.kingedwardvii.co.uk/patient-information/visiting-a-patient
On Monday, Boris is going to make his announcement against a backdrop of sub-500 deaths a day, sub 1,500 hospital admissions and c 10,000 daily positive tests.
I suspect he wants daily hospital admissions sub-1000 to know the pressure is really coming off the NHS. Deaths sub-300 a day would be a good improvement from the peak numbers, but I suspect that might be tougher to achieve.
Cases are still likely to be north of 5,000 a day though well into March. That is still a troubling reservoir of infection that will limit his ability to do much in March itself. But the vaccine roll-out should surely start kicking the door down by April.
from case data
from hospitalisations
Putin doesn't f##k around on hospital visits...
https://www.ft.com/content/9e372bf2-6dcb-11ea-89df-41bea055720b
It is interesting that, all things being equal, the U.K. *was* expected to surpass Germany as the most populous nation in Europe around 2035 or 2040.
That would have been interesting in terms of EU dynamics.
But it looks like it is not to be.
I’m hoping he, and the Queen, outlast Boris’s premiership.
Not that it helps, I don't expect regional differences in the roadmap.
Mind you, if cases start rising, as they're threatening to do in Scotland, that could easily cancel out the vaccine effect.
It's not really practical for a country like ours to close the borders completely anyway, because of hauliers and so on, so you'd only be talking about delaying waves.
The US has deported a 95-year-old former guard at a Nazi concentration camp to Germany.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56140903
We lost a critical week or two - even Boris now apparently believes so - and we could have made an exception for hauliers.
https://twitter.com/UKCovid19Stats/status/1363126521322500098
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-9279331/Airlines-slashing-cost-business-class-seats-not-treat-yourself.html
Even Simon Caulder might be embarrassed by this piece...
I agree, bin the Tesla's and replace with a fleet of Castle Bromwich's finest.
So, I didn't get it.
They need to remember they're selling a premium electric vehicle. Stuff can't feel cheap inside.
I doubt she would take the chance. Although at her age she probably is double vaccinated by now (without queue jumping).
Quite what Operation Forth Bridge would look like in the current circumstances, I don’t know.
He'll look much younger too, although Marina's presence might take some explaining.
https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-vaccine-europe-commission-contract-astrazeneca-ties-hands-lawsuits/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-56139243
When the time comes I suspect I will as usual (for the Sunday best family car) look no closer or further than Stuttgart.
cases 0.81
admissions 0.78
in hospital 0.79
ventilators 0.84
deaths 0.72
At least R is significantly lower than 1 in all metrics.
I think the most important metric is hospital admissions.
Cases might include very slight symptoms or none at all.
In the first wave, peak admissions was 7th April at 3,115
Lowest was 25th August at 95! Everyone relaxed
In the second wave peak admissions was 12th January at 4,204. At bursting point.
It is now 1,545 and halving every 20 days (R= 0.78)
so if this continues:
12th March 772
1st April 366
21st April 183
11th May 90 - relax again
You can imagine their conversations.
https://twitter.com/uk_domain_names/status/1362860166035738625
Also time to apply equality to parents names automatically on birth certificates.