My Ears were burning... Hi Mike and everyone Yes, I was abroad for a while, and now living in the boondocks, so I'm probably not the best person to organise a PB London pub session. A few comments - I think most people want a pub that's reasonably spacious, not too noisy, and well-ventilated. I think it helps to physically visit a pub and speak to the manager - Email or phone arrangements can suddenly turn a bit vague, in some pubs, at the most inconvenient time. - A lot of pubs have a bunch of admin around booking places, paying deposits, minimum spend etc. I always tried to look for places that didn't overdo the admin - If you can find a good one, "organising" is not a big onerous task.
- I'm posting less but continuously lurking. I'm not "not posting" for any particular reason - simply that the site is so good and broad in its views - whenever I have a political thought, someone else has already had it and expressed it better than I could ..
Anyone fancy PB drinks in Cambridge?
Absolutely, I love Cambridge.
Every time I have been to Cambridge, literally every time, I have managed to catch something - most seriously a nasty bout of bronchitis from a spliff I shared after the 1994 Freshers Varsity - a meeting memorable for the hosts ("The oldest Athletic Club in the World.") failing to measure the 100 metres properly at their antideluvian track meaning two UK records appeared to be broken until someone checked.
We each put in our NHS number, DoB, answered 'No' to the list of vulnerabilities, and hey presto - we were offered a range of nearby locations and dates.
It seems the online site is allowing cohort 7 to book now. (Good site too - very straightforward.)
That's hugely encouraging. Once the project gets through the 6's, the 7's, 8's and 9's are substantially smaller groups and should be comparatively quick to clear.
One can imagine that, whilst it might indeed take until well into April to get around specific hard-to-reach communities and localities, the wider project might be able to move onto the fortysomethings by Easter.
In other news, Northern Ireland has just announced that all elderly care home staff and residents have now been offered both first and second doses, so that particular element of their vaccination drive has been completed.
She is an HR professional and has the effrontery to say that neither mediation nor arbitration are suitable for HR matters. Just astonishing and, as Salmond pointed out, contrary to the Scottish government's policy in respect of current ministers.
We see little of the MSPs down here but if this lot are the cream of the crop theyre a shower of shite. Fraser is the only one with any gravitas and he's just having fun giving Salmond more ammo to fire.
It helps explain why Ian Blackford is seen as talent
Baillie is reasonable. Allan and Watt are on a wicket that makes that one in Ahmedabad look like a road.
Mental note. Never let Mr Allan speak in favour of anything I am in favour of, ever.
Allan is the MSP for Western Isles. Salmond fan, Angus MacNeil, is the MP for Western Isles. Wonder if there will be an attempt to remove Allan as the candidate by the local members aided and abetted by MacNeil.
I'm pretty sure that was ironic given his tweeting history. Suspect he despises O'Hara.
Indeed, iff the SNP do lose their majority in May then the internal warfare is going to be something to behold.
One side will say 'Sturgeon has cost us independence' and other side will say 'Salmond has cost us independence.'
If that happened Boris would once again have proved he has 9 lives and can comfortably ignore any demands for indyref2 while leaving the SNP to their civil war
There will be nothing civil about it, believe me.
I'm tempted to join the SNP to see the fun from the inside.
Because the SNP aren't blood and soil nationalists, they'll have no problem with me a working class kid in Sheffield joining the SNP.
I do have to admit I do miss being a member of a political party.
My knocking up the voters achievements are legendary and helpful to the SNP.
Wa-hey! "Knocking up" - that sounds terribly rude!
She is an HR professional and has the effrontery to say that neither mediation nor arbitration are suitable for HR matters. Just astonishing and, as Salmond pointed out, contrary to the Scottish government's policy in respect of current ministers.
We see little of the MSPs down here but if this lot are the cream of the crop theyre a shower of shite. Fraser is the only one with any gravitas and he's just having fun giving Salmond more ammo to fire.
It helps explain why Ian Blackford is seen as talent
Murdo Fraser and Jackie Baillie are pretty smart. Be interesting to watch how they deal with Nicola on her day out next week.
We each put in our NHS number, DoB, answered 'No' to the list of vulnerabilities, and hey presto - we were offered a range of nearby locations and dates.
It seems the online site is allowing cohort 7 to book now. (Good site too - very straightforward.)
She is an HR professional and has the effrontery to say that neither mediation nor arbitration are suitable for HR matters. Just astonishing and, as Salmond pointed out, contrary to the Scottish government's policy in respect of current ministers.
We see little of the MSPs down here but if this lot are the cream of the crop theyre a shower of shite. Fraser is the only one with any gravitas and he's just having fun giving Salmond more ammo to fire.
It helps explain why Ian Blackford is seen as talent
Baillie is reasonable. Allan and Watt are on a wicket that makes that one in Ahmedabad look like a road.
you have to say the pressure to reveal the missing documents will soon become irresistable
We each put in our NHS number, DoB, answered 'No' to the list of vulnerabilities, and hey presto - we were offered a range of nearby locations and dates.
It seems the online site is allowing cohort 7 to book now. (Good site too - very straightforward.)
Hmm. I'm group 6 but haven't heard anything yet. However the instructions on the site rule me out from using it?
EDIT: just tried it - "You are not currently eligible to book through this service"
Britain and the European Union are nearing agreement on how to cooperate on financial market rules -- a first, limited step toward working together after Brexit.
The two sides are proposing a joint forum for discussing regulations and sharing information, though this accord won’t require them to open markets through so-called equivalence decisions, according to a draft memorandum of understanding seen by Bloomberg News.
The forum would lead to “informal consultations concerning decisions to adopt, suspend or withdraw equivalence,” according to the draft. Each side will keep the power to make and change its own rules.
This does feel like the grown ups have realised the political point scoring helps no one and eventually we're going to need mutual recognition on regulations. Equivalence was never going to work for the city and the government has got a lot of defensive and offensive moves it can make should they deny it or move to take it away once given.
I noted Andrew Bailey fuming over the derivs clearing this week. Perhaps it was building up on all sides.
Yes maybe, I think over the next few months the political heat will die down and an effective mutual recognition will get announced as a footnote in some Friday afternoon briefing by the commission in August.
Derivatives clearing is a a difficult one, because clearing houses are implicitly guaranteed by central banks.
Wouldn't the BoE just take on that guarantee?
Effectively guaranteeing a Euro denominated contract between two European counterparties? That's a tough one.
What if it was the Italian government who owed (say) €250bn to LCH, and LCH owed €250bn to the German government. Would the BoE really print pounds to convert into Euros to pay the €250bn to the Germans?
Wasn't that exactly what they'd have done in recent years? So what's changed from the BoE's perspective?
Isn't that why the ECB wanted clearing in its jurisdiction before the UK fought that off?
Trust..;.
Tbf, the risk is on our side not theirs as TOPPING pointed out so I'm not sure that really makes sense.
Ultimately it boils down to Paris wanting a slice of the London action but both sides know that if the ECB moves to onshore it they'd actually have to order EU based banks to not use UK based clearing even if the BoE acts as the ultimate guarantor. I'm not sure 1) that they would listen and 2) what kind of recourse the ECB would have if say Credit Agricole UK decided to continue using London's clearing house instead of onshoring. From what both sides say there is very little other than an admonishment.
So that leaves us in a position where EU banks are breaking ECB guidelines and the BoE is helping them to do it should they decide to try and onshore derivatives clearing and that might become an end state both sides just live with.
We each put in our NHS number, DoB, answered 'No' to the list of vulnerabilities, and hey presto - we were offered a range of nearby locations and dates.
It seems the online site is allowing cohort 7 to book now. (Good site too - very straightforward.)
Hmm. I'm group 6 but haven't heard anything yet. However the instructions on the site rule me out from using it?
EDIT: just tried it - "You are not currently eligible to book through this service"
Hmm get in touch with your GP ?
I already did. They said I was group 6 and I would be contacted in due course.
My Ears were burning... Hi Mike and everyone Yes, I was abroad for a while, and now living in the boondocks, so I'm probably not the best person to organise a PB London pub session. A few comments - I think most people want a pub that's reasonably spacious, not too noisy, and well-ventilated. I think it helps to physically visit a pub and speak to the manager - Email or phone arrangements can suddenly turn a bit vague, in some pubs, at the most inconvenient time. - A lot of pubs have a bunch of admin around booking places, paying deposits, minimum spend etc. I always tried to look for places that didn't overdo the admin - If you can find a good one, "organising" is not a big onerous task.
- I'm posting less but continuously lurking. I'm not "not posting" for any particular reason - simply that the site is so good and broad in its views - whenever I have a political thought, someone else has already had it and expressed it better than I could ..
Anyone fancy PB drinks in Cambridge?
I'd be up for that. Really don't fancy the train down to the City.
Britain and the European Union are nearing agreement on how to cooperate on financial market rules -- a first, limited step toward working together after Brexit.
The two sides are proposing a joint forum for discussing regulations and sharing information, though this accord won’t require them to open markets through so-called equivalence decisions, according to a draft memorandum of understanding seen by Bloomberg News.
The forum would lead to “informal consultations concerning decisions to adopt, suspend or withdraw equivalence,” according to the draft. Each side will keep the power to make and change its own rules.
This does feel like the grown ups have realised the political point scoring helps no one and eventually we're going to need mutual recognition on regulations. Equivalence was never going to work for the city and the government has got a lot of defensive and offensive moves it can make should they deny it or move to take it away once given.
I noted Andrew Bailey fuming over the derivs clearing this week. Perhaps it was building up on all sides.
Yes maybe, I think over the next few months the political heat will die down and an effective mutual recognition will get announced as a footnote in some Friday afternoon briefing by the commission in August.
Derivatives clearing is a a difficult one, because clearing houses are implicitly guaranteed by central banks.
Wouldn't the BoE just take on that guarantee?
Effectively guaranteeing a Euro denominated contract between two European counterparties? That's a tough one.
What if it was the Italian government who owed (say) €250bn to LCH, and LCH owed €250bn to the German government. Would the BoE really print pounds to convert into Euros to pay the €250bn to the Germans?
Agree that it's not a palatable idea but it has always been the the nuclear option.
Personally, I think derivatives clearing has exactly zero interaction with the real work of the City, that it employs virtually no-one, that it pays close to zero taxes, and it carries enormous (government shouldered) risks. The only reason you want it is to willy wave.
I'd be begging the Belgians (or whoever) to take it off my hands.
She is an HR professional and has the effrontery to say that neither mediation nor arbitration are suitable for HR matters. Just astonishing and, as Salmond pointed out, contrary to the Scottish government's policy in respect of current ministers.
We see little of the MSPs down here but if this lot are the cream of the crop theyre a shower of shite. Fraser is the only one with any gravitas and he's just having fun giving Salmond more ammo to fire.
It helps explain why Ian Blackford is seen as talent
Baillie is reasonable. Allan and Watt are on a wicket that makes that one in Ahmedabad look like a road.
you have to say the pressure to reveal the missing documents will soon become irresistable
if it doesnt get published it will get leaked.
If they get leaked, the Crown Office will just forbid the committee from looking at them
We each put in our NHS number, DoB, answered 'No' to the list of vulnerabilities, and hey presto - we were offered a range of nearby locations and dates.
It seems the online site is allowing cohort 7 to book now. (Good site too - very straightforward.)
Hmm. I'm group 6 but haven't heard anything yet. However the instructions on the site rule me out from using it?
EDIT: just tried it - "You are not currently eligible to book through this service"
Beginning to get twitchy about my second. First, Pfizer 16/1, told early March for the second.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
She is an HR professional and has the effrontery to say that neither mediation nor arbitration are suitable for HR matters. Just astonishing and, as Salmond pointed out, contrary to the Scottish government's policy in respect of current ministers.
We see little of the MSPs down here but if this lot are the cream of the crop theyre a shower of shite. Fraser is the only one with any gravitas and he's just having fun giving Salmond more ammo to fire.
It helps explain why Ian Blackford is seen as talent
She is an HR professional and has the effrontery to say that neither mediation nor arbitration are suitable for HR matters. Just astonishing and, as Salmond pointed out, contrary to the Scottish government's policy in respect of current ministers.
We see little of the MSPs down here but if this lot are the cream of the crop theyre a shower of shite. Fraser is the only one with any gravitas and he's just having fun giving Salmond more ammo to fire.
It helps explain why Ian Blackford is seen as talent
Baillie is reasonable. Allan and Watt are on a wicket that makes that one in Ahmedabad look like a road.
you have to say the pressure to reveal the missing documents will soon become irresistable
if it doesnt get published it will get leaked.
If they get leaked, the Crown Office will just forbid the committee from looking at them
I await the joy of the documents being published outside Scotland
On the subject of vaccinations, I had my jab on Tuesday. My other half received a text from Bart's on Monday evening as a recent outpatient of the Royal London inviting him to come this week to the ExCeL centre. He didn't want to waste any time, so we went on Tuesday morning. Doors opened at 10am and we got there at 10.15am. The queue was epic, since it seemed that everyone else who got the text had the same idea. He eventually got jabbed at 12.50pm: I asked nicely and had my NHS number and driving licence with me, so I got done at the same time.
Apparently the queue had been just 10 minutes the day before. The staff were thrilled to bits at how many people had turned up. Despite the length of time it took, it was very efficiently run.
She is an HR professional and has the effrontery to say that neither mediation nor arbitration are suitable for HR matters. Just astonishing and, as Salmond pointed out, contrary to the Scottish government's policy in respect of current ministers.
We see little of the MSPs down here but if this lot are the cream of the crop theyre a shower of shite. Fraser is the only one with any gravitas and he's just having fun giving Salmond more ammo to fire.
It helps explain why Ian Blackford is seen as talent
Baillie is reasonable. Allan and Watt are on a wicket that makes that one in Ahmedabad look like a road.
you have to say the pressure to reveal the missing documents will soon become irresistable
if it doesnt get published it will get leaked.
If they get leaked, the Crown Office will just forbid the committee from looking at them
She is an HR professional and has the effrontery to say that neither mediation nor arbitration are suitable for HR matters. Just astonishing and, as Salmond pointed out, contrary to the Scottish government's policy in respect of current ministers.
We see little of the MSPs down here but if this lot are the cream of the crop theyre a shower of shite. Fraser is the only one with any gravitas and he's just having fun giving Salmond more ammo to fire.
It helps explain why Ian Blackford is seen as talent
Baillie is reasonable. Allan and Watt are on a wicket that makes that one in Ahmedabad look like a road.
you have to say the pressure to reveal the missing documents will soon become irresistable
if it doesnt get published it will get leaked.
If they get leaked, the Crown Office will just forbid the committee from looking at them
Could such a decision by the Crown Office be challenged in a Court?
Though whether they would get an injunction to compel the committee to read it...
We each put in our NHS number, DoB, answered 'No' to the list of vulnerabilities, and hey presto - we were offered a range of nearby locations and dates.
It seems the online site is allowing cohort 7 to book now. (Good site too - very straightforward.)
Hmm. I'm group 6 but haven't heard anything yet. However the instructions on the site rule me out from using it?
EDIT: just tried it - "You are not currently eligible to book through this service"
Hmm get in touch with your GP ?
I already did. They said I was group 6 and I would be contacted in due course.
My son is in group 6 and had a letter this week telling him he should shield but I can't get an appointment for him.
Britain and the European Union are nearing agreement on how to cooperate on financial market rules -- a first, limited step toward working together after Brexit.
The two sides are proposing a joint forum for discussing regulations and sharing information, though this accord won’t require them to open markets through so-called equivalence decisions, according to a draft memorandum of understanding seen by Bloomberg News.
The forum would lead to “informal consultations concerning decisions to adopt, suspend or withdraw equivalence,” according to the draft. Each side will keep the power to make and change its own rules.
This does feel like the grown ups have realised the political point scoring helps no one and eventually we're going to need mutual recognition on regulations. Equivalence was never going to work for the city and the government has got a lot of defensive and offensive moves it can make should they deny it or move to take it away once given.
I noted Andrew Bailey fuming over the derivs clearing this week. Perhaps it was building up on all sides.
Yes maybe, I think over the next few months the political heat will die down and an effective mutual recognition will get announced as a footnote in some Friday afternoon briefing by the commission in August.
Derivatives clearing is a a difficult one, because clearing houses are implicitly guaranteed by central banks.
Wouldn't the BoE just take on that guarantee?
Effectively guaranteeing a Euro denominated contract between two European counterparties? That's a tough one.
What if it was the Italian government who owed (say) €250bn to LCH, and LCH owed €250bn to the German government. Would the BoE really print pounds to convert into Euros to pay the €250bn to the Germans?
Agree that it's not a palatable idea but it has always been the the nuclear option.
Personally, I think derivatives clearing has exactly zero interaction with the real work of the City, that it employs virtually no-one, that it pays close to zero taxes, and it carries enormous (government shouldered) risks. The only reason you want it is to willy wave.
I'd be begging the Belgians (or whoever) to take it off my hands.
I'm inclined to agree but I'm not a huge expert on such things.
My old manager used to say that if an industry or company can't operate without a state guarantee then it probably shouldn't exist, derivatives clearing probably falls into that category. Obviously he would say that given we weren't nationalised after the financial crisis but still, he had a point.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
She is an HR professional and has the effrontery to say that neither mediation nor arbitration are suitable for HR matters. Just astonishing and, as Salmond pointed out, contrary to the Scottish government's policy in respect of current ministers.
We see little of the MSPs down here but if this lot are the cream of the crop theyre a shower of shite. Fraser is the only one with any gravitas and he's just having fun giving Salmond more ammo to fire.
It helps explain why Ian Blackford is seen as talent
Baillie is reasonable. Allan and Watt are on a wicket that makes that one in Ahmedabad look like a road.
you have to say the pressure to reveal the missing documents will soon become irresistable
if it doesnt get published it will get leaked.
Someone is sure to crack as the noose tightens. Someone will try to save their sorry hide.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I am not claiming we have done well. Only a lunatic would. We have been hit extremely hard and I hope the resulting enquiries will help to understand why.
BUT
Our death rate to the current time is better than Belgium, Czechia and Slovenia, and slightly worse than Italy, Portugal, USA, Hungary and Spain. At the current time. Lets see where we end up.
My point is that NO-ONE is doing particularly at preventing "avoidable" deaths. You clearly feel we are by far and away the worst country, but the evidence doesn't fit that, and as I said, I have doubts over some countries reporting (Russia for instance).
She is an HR professional and has the effrontery to say that neither mediation nor arbitration are suitable for HR matters. Just astonishing and, as Salmond pointed out, contrary to the Scottish government's policy in respect of current ministers.
We see little of the MSPs down here but if this lot are the cream of the crop theyre a shower of shite. Fraser is the only one with any gravitas and he's just having fun giving Salmond more ammo to fire.
It helps explain why Ian Blackford is seen as talent
Baillie is reasonable. Allan and Watt are on a wicket that makes that one in Ahmedabad look like a road.
you have to say the pressure to reveal the missing documents will soon become irresistable
if it doesnt get published it will get leaked.
If they get leaked, the Crown Office will just forbid the committee from looking at them
I await the joy of the documents being published outside Scotland
She is an HR professional and has the effrontery to say that neither mediation nor arbitration are suitable for HR matters. Just astonishing and, as Salmond pointed out, contrary to the Scottish government's policy in respect of current ministers.
We see little of the MSPs down here but if this lot are the cream of the crop theyre a shower of shite. Fraser is the only one with any gravitas and he's just having fun giving Salmond more ammo to fire.
It helps explain why Ian Blackford is seen as talent
Baillie is reasonable. Allan and Watt are on a wicket that makes that one in Ahmedabad look like a road.
you have to say the pressure to reveal the missing documents will soon become irresistable
if it doesnt get published it will get leaked.
Someone is sure to crack as the noose tightens. Someone will try to save their sorry hide.
Salmond is coming over very well and posing lots of difficult and embarrassing questions for Sturgeon
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
My memory is good enough to remember early December, when cases in Britain were obviously rising and the government was resisting tightening up. I remember the Prime Minister mocking the Leader of the Opposition for suggesting the same thing.
It was obvious what was happening at the time. And untold thousands paid with their lives because the Prime Minister couldn't bear to do the unpopular but necessary thing.
Jeez, the death rate is cratering, 10% faster decrease than hospitalisations and holding. Furthermore the decrease in cases seems to be holding at -15% a week rather than continuing to slow down. Brilliant news all round at the moment.
Good news but exactly what we'd expect given that most deaths are in the 80+ categories and they were mostly vaccinated more than 3 weeks ago.
Mental note. Never let Mr Allan speak in favour of anything I am in favour of, ever.
Allan is the MSP for Western Isles. Salmond fan, Angus MacNeil, is the MP for Western Isles. Wonder if there will be an attempt to remove Allan as the candidate by the local members aided and abetted by MacNeil.
I'm pretty sure that was ironic given his tweeting history. Suspect he despises O'Hara.
Indeed, iff the SNP do lose their majority in May then the internal warfare is going to be something to behold.
One side will say 'Sturgeon has cost us independence' and other side will say 'Salmond has cost us independence.'
If that happened Boris would once again have proved he has 9 lives and can comfortably ignore any demands for indyref2 while leaving the SNP to their civil war
There will be nothing civil about it, believe me.
I'm just worried this will be the high water mark. I mean, the scottish government clearly behaved incorrectly in some respects, given they had to pay Salmond's legal costs, but does it feel like things are at a tipping point beyond that?
I do think we will see at least a couple of overs of gentle leg side half volleys served up by Fraser in particular for Salmond to put in whatever part of the stand he sees fit.
Anyone know why Andrew Neil Frazer Nelson and The Spectator are so interested in fermenting a bloodbath in Scotland. Mere seekers after truth or Unionist Ultras promoting a cause?
Roger, I know you've been a Sturgeon fan in the past, but can you not see the way the Scottish government has behaved is a wee bit, er, Putinesque? Scrutinising the attempts of an executive to get a political opponent tarred with the Jimmy Savile brush and jailed is hardly the actions of an 'ultra'. The Spectator only did it because so much of the Scottish media has been made so sycophantic to the SNP.
As a neutral do you think it likely that nine women with nothing to gain would risk prison by perjuring themselves? If the answer is 'yes' can you offer a reason why?
A lack of perjury by complainants wouldn't necessarily mean the scottish government did not behave with malice. But not sure that can be proven easily, as it's a major charge.
There are many reasons why a jury can find someone not guilty when the evidence points towards their guilt. Nine independent women who claimed under oath that they were molested without motive would be unprecedented.
My guess is that this will come down to public opinion and Salmond whose reputation is on a par with Harvey Weinstein's will get no public sympathy and support only from those seeking a political advantage.
Weinstein is a convicted criminal serving a long prison sentence. You are on very shaky ground there, Roger.
It will be interesting if one of the wealthy Nats chooses to bring a private prosecution. Whether the jury would have found as they did if they knew he wasn't just going to hide under a rock after being given a second chance. He case isn't helped by his OWN barrister's closing argument.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
My memory is good enough to remember early December, when cases in Britain were obviously rising and the government was resisting tightening up. I remember the Prime Minister mocking the Leader of the Opposition for suggesting the same thing.
It was obvious what was happening at the time. And untold thousands paid with their lives because the Prime Minister couldn't bear to do the unpopular but necessary thing.
It was his need to be the saviour of Christmas IMO that overrode everything else. It worked out poorly and I think we're going to reopen the country a month later than we'd otherwise have been able to. That March 8th date for schools could have been a much bigger reopening if we didn't have to stay in the current lockdown to bring cases down from the 80k peak.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
My memory is good enough to remember early December, when cases in Britain were obviously rising and the government was resisting tightening up. I remember the Prime Minister mocking the Leader of the Opposition for suggesting the same thing.
It was obvious what was happening at the time. And untold thousands paid with their lives because the Prime Minister couldn't bear to do the unpopular but necessary thing.
I don't remember it being obvious or indeed any actual relaxation in December. There was an argument about Christmas where clearly Boris wanted a relaxation and which he eventually had to concede was inappropriate and cancelled it. What happened was that the underlying facts changed because of the Kent variant. That led to the spike in cases and then deaths in January and early February.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
My memory is good enough to remember early December, when cases in Britain were obviously rising and the government was resisting tightening up. I remember the Prime Minister mocking the Leader of the Opposition for suggesting the same thing.
It was obvious what was happening at the time. And untold thousands paid with their lives because the Prime Minister couldn't bear to do the unpopular but necessary thing.
I'm sure you're diligently noting down in your ledger the untold thousands of EU citizens who will perish completely unnecessarily due to the EU, and various Member State governments, putting political ideology and dogma ahead of the lives of their citizens.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I am not claiming we have done well. Only a lunatic would. We have been hit extremely hard and I hope the resulting enquiries will help to understand why.
BUT
Our death rate to the current time is better than Belgium, Czechia and Slovenia, and slightly worse than Italy, Portugal, USA, Hungary and Spain. At the current time. Lets see where we end up.
My point is that NO-ONE is doing particularly at preventing "avoidable" deaths. You clearly feel we are by far and away the worst country, but the evidence doesn't fit that, and as I said, I have doubts over some countries reporting (Russia for instance).
Your point is bullshit. The day that Britain measures its public health performance against Brazil and Russia will be a very sad day indeed, so cavilling about statistics in countries like that is pathetic.
By any measure Britain did exceptionally badly. You have named the three countries with a worse death rate in an attempt to suggest Britain is mid table. It is fourth worst in the world (and set to overtake Slovenia imminently). It is closer to the death rate in worst-performing Belgium than to fifth-placed Italy. If Britain had done as well to date as "slightly worse" Italy, more than 14,000 people in Britain would not have died of Covid-19.
Britain's success at vaccination is fantastic. It in no way erases the appalling and avoidable errors that the government has repeatedly made in every other aspect of its handling of this disease. Anyone with a conscience should feel shame at that awful failure of our most vulnerable.
But far too many on this site want only to sweep it under the carpet.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
My memory is good enough to remember early December, when cases in Britain were obviously rising and the government was resisting tightening up. I remember the Prime Minister mocking the Leader of the Opposition for suggesting the same thing.
It was obvious what was happening at the time. And untold thousands paid with their lives because the Prime Minister couldn't bear to do the unpopular but necessary thing.
France also made a point of easing restrictions for Christmas. You can say it was a mistake but the unique factor in the UK was the emergence of a more transmissible variant.
We each put in our NHS number, DoB, answered 'No' to the list of vulnerabilities, and hey presto - we were offered a range of nearby locations and dates.
It seems the online site is allowing cohort 7 to book now. (Good site too - very straightforward.)
Hmm. I'm group 6 but haven't heard anything yet. However the instructions on the site rule me out from using it?
EDIT: just tried it - "You are not currently eligible to book through this service"
Hmm get in touch with your GP ?
I already did. They said I was group 6 and I would be contacted in due course.
My son is in group 6 and had a letter this week telling him he should shield but I can't get an appointment for him.
I'm in group 6 and had letter this morning. Hoping to be done by own GP rather than travel to a centre.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
My memory is good enough to remember early December, when cases in Britain were obviously rising and the government was resisting tightening up. I remember the Prime Minister mocking the Leader of the Opposition for suggesting the same thing.
It was obvious what was happening at the time. And untold thousands paid with their lives because the Prime Minister couldn't bear to do the unpopular but necessary thing.
I would like to see again one of those comparisons between 'normally expected deaths' and deaths from Covid. And, while I'm a long way from being an apologist for our PM, I do feel that whoever decided to include all deaths where someone had tested positive in the previous 28 days didn't do UK figures any favours. Friend of mine died just after having a +ve Covid test. However, he'd been 'sick unto death' for a couple of years and the infection from an ingrowing toenail (sorry) could have carried him off.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
My memory is good enough to remember early December, when cases in Britain were obviously rising and the government was resisting tightening up. I remember the Prime Minister mocking the Leader of the Opposition for suggesting the same thing.
It was obvious what was happening at the time. And untold thousands paid with their lives because the Prime Minister couldn't bear to do the unpopular but necessary thing.
I'm sure you're diligently noting down in your ledger the untold thousands of EU citizens who will perish completely unnecessarily due to the EU, and various Member State governments, putting political ideology and dogma ahead of the lives of their citizens.
Your position the other night was that this was a pandemic and as such a natural phenomenon for which no government could be blamed for anything at all. Have you yet moved on from that ridiculous position?
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
My memory is good enough to remember early December, when cases in Britain were obviously rising and the government was resisting tightening up. I remember the Prime Minister mocking the Leader of the Opposition for suggesting the same thing.
It was obvious what was happening at the time. And untold thousands paid with their lives because the Prime Minister couldn't bear to do the unpopular but necessary thing.
I don't remember it being obvious or indeed any actual relaxation in December. There was an argument about Christmas where clearly Boris wanted a relaxation and which he eventually had to concede was inappropriate and cancelled it. What happened was that the underlying facts changed because of the Kent variant. That led to the spike in cases and then deaths in January and early February.
My recollection is closer to AlistairMeeks on this one - we had relaxed a bit from November, cases were creeping up, and all the talk was opening up for a Christmas break essentially. Eventually it was realised that was a very stupid idea, but I think it improbable the planned position had no impact. How much impact I think is hard to say. Can it really all be down to Kent?
January was bloody awful though, far worse than anticipated.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
To a great extent I think we were unlucky with the Kent variant. You can argue that we would've had less chance of being unlucky if cases had been suppressed more effectively during the Autumn, but then you're back into the territory of trade-offs. The country would've suffered a vastly lower death toll if the first lockdown had been left in place for the whole of the past year but the economic damage would've been vastly worst and it would've driven everyone mad.
Where I think that criticism is valid is over the dithering in the run-up to Christmas. It's hard to say how much better things would've turned out if, once the Government had some information about the variant and knew it was on the loose, it had thrown in the towel, abandoned both Christmas get-togethers and the clapped out Tier system and gone back into lockdown before the festive season. But, presumably, it couldn't have done anything other than help significantly.
France also made a point of easing restrictions for Christmas. You can say it was a mistake but the unique factor in the UK was the emergence of a more transmissible variant.
The cart is being put before the horse. Case numbers rose starkly. The more transmissible variant was discovered as a result.
Of course it was unfortunate that the more transmissible variant was found in Britain. But the problem could be seen before it was found. It was being talked about incessantly at the time.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
My memory is good enough to remember early December, when cases in Britain were obviously rising and the government was resisting tightening up. I remember the Prime Minister mocking the Leader of the Opposition for suggesting the same thing.
It was obvious what was happening at the time. And untold thousands paid with their lives because the Prime Minister couldn't bear to do the unpopular but necessary thing.
I don't remember it being obvious or indeed any actual relaxation in December. There was an argument about Christmas where clearly Boris wanted a relaxation and which he eventually had to concede was inappropriate and cancelled it. What happened was that the underlying facts changed because of the Kent variant. That led to the spike in cases and then deaths in January and early February.
In England everywhere except London, SE and East had condoned household mixing over Xmas and loads of places saw an explosion of cases just afterwards.
Really the safety first approach made sense because of the vaccine programme. I remember saying as such many, many times in November when Pfizer put their vaccine forwards for approval. Extending the existing lockdown suddenly made sense because we had been given the ability to vaccinate our way out of the cycle of lockdown and unlockdown. The one day of school was the most unforgivable error. Millions of kids went in, potentially got infected and then took those infections home with them. What a massive error.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
My memory is good enough to remember early December, when cases in Britain were obviously rising and the government was resisting tightening up. I remember the Prime Minister mocking the Leader of the Opposition for suggesting the same thing.
It was obvious what was happening at the time. And untold thousands paid with their lives because the Prime Minister couldn't bear to do the unpopular but necessary thing.
I don't remember it being obvious or indeed any actual relaxation in December. There was an argument about Christmas where clearly Boris wanted a relaxation and which he eventually had to concede was inappropriate and cancelled it. What happened was that the underlying facts changed because of the Kent variant. That led to the spike in cases and then deaths in January and early February.
My recollection is closer to AlistairMeeks on this one - we had relaxed a bit from November, cases were creeping up, and all the talk was opening up for a Christmas break essentially. Eventually it was realised that was a very stupid idea, but I think it improbable the planned position had no impact. How much impact I think is hard to say. Can it really all be down to Kent?
January was bloody awful though, far worse than anticipated.
"all the talk was opening up for a Christmas break"
Newspapers were being specifically briefed that Boris was going to 'save Christmas'.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I am not claiming we have done well. Only a lunatic would. We have been hit extremely hard and I hope the resulting enquiries will help to understand why.
BUT
Our death rate to the current time is better than Belgium, Czechia and Slovenia, and slightly worse than Italy, Portugal, USA, Hungary and Spain. At the current time. Lets see where we end up.
My point is that NO-ONE is doing particularly at preventing "avoidable" deaths. You clearly feel we are by far and away the worst country, but the evidence doesn't fit that, and as I said, I have doubts over some countries reporting (Russia for instance).
Your point is bullshit. The day that Britain measures its public health performance against Brazil and Russia will be a very sad day indeed, so cavilling about statistics in countries like that is pathetic.
By any measure Britain did exceptionally badly. You have named the three countries with a worse death rate in an attempt to suggest Britain is mid table. It is fourth worst in the world (and set to overtake Slovenia imminently). It is closer to the death rate in worst-performing Belgium than to fifth-placed Italy. If Britain had done as well to date as "slightly worse" Italy, more than 14,000 people in Britain would not have died of Covid-19.
Britain's success at vaccination is fantastic. It in no way erases the appalling and avoidable errors that the government has repeatedly made in every other aspect of its handling of this disease. Anyone with a conscience should feel shame at that awful failure of our most vulnerable.
But far too many on this site want only to sweep it under the carpet.
Actually you've fallen head over heals for completely bullshit statistics. Because you have an axe to grind and have been driven mad by Brexit.
Italy's death toll is massively worse than Britain's, not better.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I am not claiming we have done well. Only a lunatic would. We have been hit extremely hard and I hope the resulting enquiries will help to understand why.
BUT
Our death rate to the current time is better than Belgium, Czechia and Slovenia, and slightly worse than Italy, Portugal, USA, Hungary and Spain. At the current time. Lets see where we end up.
My point is that NO-ONE is doing particularly at preventing "avoidable" deaths. You clearly feel we are by far and away the worst country, but the evidence doesn't fit that, and as I said, I have doubts over some countries reporting (Russia for instance).
Your point is bullshit. The day that Britain measures its public health performance against Brazil and Russia will be a very sad day indeed, so cavilling about statistics in countries like that is pathetic.
By any measure Britain did exceptionally badly. You have named the three countries with a worse death rate in an attempt to suggest Britain is mid table. It is fourth worst in the world (and set to overtake Slovenia imminently). It is closer to the death rate in worst-performing Belgium than to fifth-placed Italy. If Britain had done as well to date as "slightly worse" Italy, more than 14,000 people in Britain would not have died of Covid-19.
Britain's success at vaccination is fantastic. It in no way erases the appalling and avoidable errors that the government has repeatedly made in every other aspect of its handling of this disease. Anyone with a conscience should feel shame at that awful failure of our most vulnerable.
But far too many on this site want only to sweep it under the carpet.
Its a strawman to say people want to sweep it under the carpet. I specifically mentioned the enquiries which will be crucial to understanding why we have been hit so hard. I believe it is wrong to decide already the outcome of this and just pin it on the government. The pandemic is not over, people are horrifically still dying around the work. You also neglected to mention the USA, the nation with the greatest medical resources in the world.
Do you believe the Spanish figures, despite their own press/media doubting the government figures? I guess you do, as its only the UK (or is it just the Tory government) who have struggled through this?
The message this evening from the government is clear....things still bad.
That might be a good thing in order to manage expectations and to prevent complacently. However conversely people need the hope that things are improving...
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
My memory is good enough to remember early December, when cases in Britain were obviously rising and the government was resisting tightening up. I remember the Prime Minister mocking the Leader of the Opposition for suggesting the same thing.
It was obvious what was happening at the time. And untold thousands paid with their lives because the Prime Minister couldn't bear to do the unpopular but necessary thing.
I don't remember it being obvious or indeed any actual relaxation in December. There was an argument about Christmas where clearly Boris wanted a relaxation and which he eventually had to concede was inappropriate and cancelled it. What happened was that the underlying facts changed because of the Kent variant. That led to the spike in cases and then deaths in January and early February.
My recollection is closer to AlistairMeeks on this one - we had relaxed a bit from November, cases were creeping up, and all the talk was opening up for a Christmas break essentially. Eventually it was realised that was a very stupid idea, but I think it improbable the planned position had no impact. How much impact I think is hard to say. Can it really all be down to Kent?
January was bloody awful though, far worse than anticipated.
"all the talk was opening up for a Christmas break"
Newspapers were being specifically briefed that Boris was going to 'save Christmas'.
It was a terrible terrible error imho.
The bizarre thing was given how cases and hospitalisations lag, if they had been dead set on opening for Cmas they could have just kept the November lockdown going 2 more weeks, and the rises we saw that eventuallys crapped the Xmas plan would have not happened until the holiday had passed.
Would still have been a bad idea, but they could have have the Christmas break if they'd been one iota more cautious in the preceding weeks.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
My memory is good enough to remember early December, when cases in Britain were obviously rising and the government was resisting tightening up. I remember the Prime Minister mocking the Leader of the Opposition for suggesting the same thing.
It was obvious what was happening at the time. And untold thousands paid with their lives because the Prime Minister couldn't bear to do the unpopular but necessary thing.
I don't remember it being obvious or indeed any actual relaxation in December. There was an argument about Christmas where clearly Boris wanted a relaxation and which he eventually had to concede was inappropriate and cancelled it. What happened was that the underlying facts changed because of the Kent variant. That led to the spike in cases and then deaths in January and early February.
My recollection is closer to AlistairMeeks on this one - we had relaxed a bit from November, cases were creeping up, and all the talk was opening up for a Christmas break essentially. Eventually it was realised that was a very stupid idea, but I think it improbable the planned position had no impact. How much impact I think is hard to say. Can it really all be down to Kent?
January was bloody awful though, far worse than anticipated.
There was certainly a lot of talk about the Christmas relaxation, how long, how many people etc but it did not happen. In Scotland, which also suffered badly in January, I do not recall any relaxations over that period at all. Did some people make plans for Christmas and then decide not to cancel them? Maybe, some. Did that lead to the January spike? Almost certainly not.
Meanwhile, at today's briefing, Van Tam is talking about the problem areas. Looks like, roughly speaking, Midlands, Lancs and West Yorks, and the central belt of Scotland. Wales and England south of the Severn-Wash line seem to be the best performing areas, but there are little pockets of rising cases all over the map. The race between the virus and the vaccine is still very much on.
Watching Salmond's testimony it is clear that if there was independence, Scotland would be a banana republic; in fact to call it a banana republic would be a grave insult to bananas.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
My memory is good enough to remember early December, when cases in Britain were obviously rising and the government was resisting tightening up. I remember the Prime Minister mocking the Leader of the Opposition for suggesting the same thing.
It was obvious what was happening at the time. And untold thousands paid with their lives because the Prime Minister couldn't bear to do the unpopular but necessary thing.
I don't remember it being obvious or indeed any actual relaxation in December. There was an argument about Christmas where clearly Boris wanted a relaxation and which he eventually had to concede was inappropriate and cancelled it. What happened was that the underlying facts changed because of the Kent variant. That led to the spike in cases and then deaths in January and early February.
In England everywhere except London, SE and East had condoned household mixing over Xmas and loads of places saw an explosion of cases just afterwards.
Really the safety first approach made sense because of the vaccine programme. I remember saying as such many, many times in November when Pfizer put their vaccine forwards for approval. Extending the existing lockdown suddenly made sense because we had been given the ability to vaccinate our way out of the cycle of lockdown and unlockdown. The one day of school was the most unforgivable error. Millions of kids went in, potentially got infected and then took those infections home with them. What a massive error.
I agree with this, but sadly people are sick of restrictions, and as many others have said, this lockdown is not like the others... For many round where I live the shops are shut, the pubs are closed and you cant go to the footy, but everything else seems fine. Lots of house to house visiting. That is not on the government, thats down to us.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
My memory is good enough to remember early December, when cases in Britain were obviously rising and the government was resisting tightening up. I remember the Prime Minister mocking the Leader of the Opposition for suggesting the same thing.
It was obvious what was happening at the time. And untold thousands paid with their lives because the Prime Minister couldn't bear to do the unpopular but necessary thing.
The mocking was particularly egregious. "Have yourself a merry little Christmas" indeed.
If Johnson is ever up in court for this and convicted - yes yes, I know, but to illustrate the point - when it comes to sentencing his infantile gurning will be what they call in the criminal justice system an "aggravating factor".
The message this evening from the government is clear....things still bad.
That might be a good thing in order to manage expectations and to prevent complacently. However conversely people need the hope that things are improving...
A toughie.
Its absolutely a bollocking to try to keep us in line (against the weather improving and people getting VERY restless...)
The message this evening from the government is clear....things still bad.
That might be a good thing in order to manage expectations and to prevent complacently. However conversely people need the hope that things are improving...
A toughie.
Ultimately people aren't idiots and they can see that ca. 250 people per day are dying from this down from 1300. Things are a lot better than they were and the government messaging is eventually just going to seem out of step. It feels like ministers have realised the fall in the death rate is inevitably going to lead to people relaxing their approach to lockdown over Easter. By then we might actually be down to around 20 people per day dying from this. It will be impossible for the government to justify a continued lockdown over Easter if less than 20 people per day are dying from it.
Watching Salmond's testimony it is clear that if there was independence, Scotland would be a banana republic; in fact to call it a banana republic would be a grave insult to bananas.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I am not claiming we have done well. Only a lunatic would. We have been hit extremely hard and I hope the resulting enquiries will help to understand why.
BUT
Our death rate to the current time is better than Belgium, Czechia and Slovenia, and slightly worse than Italy, Portugal, USA, Hungary and Spain. At the current time. Lets see where we end up.
My point is that NO-ONE is doing particularly at preventing "avoidable" deaths. You clearly feel we are by far and away the worst country, but the evidence doesn't fit that, and as I said, I have doubts over some countries reporting (Russia for instance).
Your point is bullshit. The day that Britain measures its public health performance against Brazil and Russia will be a very sad day indeed, so cavilling about statistics in countries like that is pathetic.
By any measure Britain did exceptionally badly. You have named the three countries with a worse death rate in an attempt to suggest Britain is mid table. It is fourth worst in the world (and set to overtake Slovenia imminently). It is closer to the death rate in worst-performing Belgium than to fifth-placed Italy. If Britain had done as well to date as "slightly worse" Italy, more than 14,000 people in Britain would not have died of Covid-19.
Britain's success at vaccination is fantastic. It in no way erases the appalling and avoidable errors that the government has repeatedly made in every other aspect of its handling of this disease. Anyone with a conscience should feel shame at that awful failure of our most vulnerable.
But far too many on this site want only to sweep it under the carpet.
Its a strawman to say people want to sweep it under the carpet. I specifically mentioned the enquiries which will be crucial to understanding why we have been hit so hard. I believe it is wrong to decide already the outcome of this and just pin it on the government. The pandemic is not over, people are horrifically still dying around the work. You also neglected to mention the USA, the nation with the greatest medical resources in the world.
Do you believe the Spanish figures, despite their own press/media doubting the government figures? I guess you do, as its only the UK (or is it just the Tory government) who have struggled through this?
Many countries have struggled. I live in one of the worst performing. I'm surrounded by government supporters who contemptibly try to pretend that it's been mid-table to date, when it obviously has not.
Now, you started your deranged attack on me by suggesting this is about Brexit. But all I can see from you is wishful thinking.
We owe it to the dead to see that the mistakes made are properly investigated. There may well be lessons to learn. Incidentally, there may be government ministers who should lose their jobs, but that's actually the least interesting bit. But Britain has no hope of getting some governance that is above atrocious until government supporters start to exercise some critical faculties.
Instead, they hope to conceal the mistakes and move on.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
My memory is good enough to remember early December, when cases in Britain were obviously rising and the government was resisting tightening up. I remember the Prime Minister mocking the Leader of the Opposition for suggesting the same thing.
It was obvious what was happening at the time. And untold thousands paid with their lives because the Prime Minister couldn't bear to do the unpopular but necessary thing.
I'm sure you're diligently noting down in your ledger the untold thousands of EU citizens who will perish completely unnecessarily due to the EU, and various Member State governments, putting political ideology and dogma ahead of the lives of their citizens.
Your position the other night was that this was a pandemic and as such a natural phenomenon for which no government could be blamed for anything at all. Have you yet moved on from that ridiculous position?
Not at all. I'm just naively assuming you must be doing as I mentioned as a logical extension of your criticisms of the UK government.
If you're not then it doesn't bother me, but it would be interesting to know. Unless of course there's axes to be ground.
I don't blame any government for anything as it happens. No government is deliberately seeking to kill their citizens. All are doing what they consider to be the best at the time they make any decision, in rapidly changing situations, with new and constantly evolving scientific evidence or theories.
But if there's an axe to be ground then so be it. Fill your boots. It won't assuage your evident hate of the UK government though. Use your vote instead. If enough people agree with you then democracy will have its say.
I have a feeling though that it won't be your current angst that'll be the undoing of Johnson.
The message this evening from the government is clear....things still bad.
That might be a good thing in order to manage expectations and to prevent complacently. However conversely people need the hope that things are improving...
A toughie.
Ultimately people aren't idiots and they can see that ca. 250 people per day are dying from this down from 1300. Things are a lot better than they were and the government messaging is eventually just going to seem out of step. It feels like ministers have realised the fall in the death rate is inevitably going to lead to people relaxing their approach to lockdown over Easter. By then we might actually be down to around 20 people per day dying from this. It will be impossible for the government to justify a continued lockdown over Easter if less than 20 people per day are dying from it.
I agree – but then why the downbeat press conference? The only rational explanation is to try and discourage people from breaking lockdown rules as things improve (which understandably people are already doing in greater and greater numbers).
If we can open up even quicker that would be fantastic.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
My memory is good enough to remember early December, when cases in Britain were obviously rising and the government was resisting tightening up. I remember the Prime Minister mocking the Leader of the Opposition for suggesting the same thing.
It was obvious what was happening at the time. And untold thousands paid with their lives because the Prime Minister couldn't bear to do the unpopular but necessary thing.
I'm sure you're diligently noting down in your ledger the untold thousands of EU citizens who will perish completely unnecessarily due to the EU, and various Member State governments, putting political ideology and dogma ahead of the lives of their citizens.
Your position the other night was that this was a pandemic and as such a natural phenomenon for which no government could be blamed for anything at all. Have you yet moved on from that ridiculous position?
Not at all. I'm just naively assuming you must be doing as I mentioned as a logical extension of your criticisms of the UK government.
If you're not then it doesn't bother me, but it would be interesting to know. Unless of course there's axes to be ground.
I don't blame any government for anything as it happens. No government is deliberately seeking to kill their citizens. All are doing what they consider to be the best at the time they make any decision, in rapidly changing situations, with new and constantly evolving scientific evidence or theories.
But if there's an axe to be ground then so be it. Fill your boots. It won't assuage your evident hate of the UK government though. Use your vote instead. If enough people agree with you then democracy will have its say.
I have a feeling though that it won't be your current angst that'll be the undoing of Johnson.
So you do agree that the outrageous number of avoidable deaths that the British government is responsible for is something that they should be held accountable for?
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
My memory is good enough to remember early December, when cases in Britain were obviously rising and the government was resisting tightening up. I remember the Prime Minister mocking the Leader of the Opposition for suggesting the same thing.
It was obvious what was happening at the time. And untold thousands paid with their lives because the Prime Minister couldn't bear to do the unpopular but necessary thing.
I don't remember it being obvious or indeed any actual relaxation in December. There was an argument about Christmas where clearly Boris wanted a relaxation and which he eventually had to concede was inappropriate and cancelled it. What happened was that the underlying facts changed because of the Kent variant. That led to the spike in cases and then deaths in January and early February.
In England everywhere except London, SE and East had condoned household mixing over Xmas and loads of places saw an explosion of cases just afterwards.
Really the safety first approach made sense because of the vaccine programme. I remember saying as such many, many times in November when Pfizer put their vaccine forwards for approval. Extending the existing lockdown suddenly made sense because we had been given the ability to vaccinate our way out of the cycle of lockdown and unlockdown. The one day of school was the most unforgivable error. Millions of kids went in, potentially got infected and then took those infections home with them. What a massive error.
Don't forget the opening of the schools for one day in January when it was clear for days, if not weeks, that the schools shouldn't reopen in January.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I raised this this morning but the hypothesis of that comment that this is something that could have been avoided is at best unproven. As far as we can tell what happened was that Kent variant took a much greater hold in this country than elsewhere, it was far more infectious and possibly marginally more dangerous.
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
My memory is good enough to remember early December, when cases in Britain were obviously rising and the government was resisting tightening up. I remember the Prime Minister mocking the Leader of the Opposition for suggesting the same thing.
It was obvious what was happening at the time. And untold thousands paid with their lives because the Prime Minister couldn't bear to do the unpopular but necessary thing.
I don't remember it being obvious or indeed any actual relaxation in December. There was an argument about Christmas where clearly Boris wanted a relaxation and which he eventually had to concede was inappropriate and cancelled it. What happened was that the underlying facts changed because of the Kent variant. That led to the spike in cases and then deaths in January and early February.
The November lockdown (which was too late) ended on Dec 2nd, with cases still at around 15,000 per day. People then started Christmas shopping and preparing for their 'freedom' at Christmas. By 13 December there were over 27,000 cases. It was very obvious to many of us that it was getting out of control, long before the government eased back on Christmas and, I think it was on Jan 4, decided that stricter measures were needed, once many youngsters had had one day at school. I don't think there's much doubt the government was negligent, regardless of the new variant.
My Ears were burning... Hi Mike and everyone Yes, I was abroad for a while, and now living in the boondocks, so I'm probably not the best person to organise a PB London pub session. A few comments - I think most people want a pub that's reasonably spacious, not too noisy, and well-ventilated. I think it helps to physically visit a pub and speak to the manager - Email or phone arrangements can suddenly turn a bit vague, in some pubs, at the most inconvenient time. - A lot of pubs have a bunch of admin around booking places, paying deposits, minimum spend etc. I always tried to look for places that didn't overdo the admin - If you can find a good one, "organising" is not a big onerous task.
- I'm posting less but continuously lurking. I'm not "not posting" for any particular reason - simply that the site is so good and broad in its views - whenever I have a political thought, someone else has already had it and expressed it better than I could ..
Anyone fancy PB drinks in Cambridge?
Absolutely, I love Cambridge.
Every time I have been to Cambridge, literally every time, I have managed to catch something - most seriously a nasty bout of bronchitis from a spliff I shared after the 1994 Freshers Varsity - a meeting memorable for the hosts ("The oldest Athletic Club in the World.") failing to measure the 100 metres properly at their antideluvian track meaning two UK records appeared to be broken until someone checked.
Well. I was at Aber, and experienced the nightlife there.
I’ve always found Cambridge very flat as a result.
The North East, including North Yorkshire as well, is a lot better.
Again, barring a disastrous variant, the endgame of this pandemic is going to be played out in urban areas with high concentrations of non-white people. Accumulation of factors recognised earlier in the pandemic - poor housing, multi-generational households, disproportionate concentrations of workers who can't WFH - now with the added burden of vaccine refusal or hesitancy.
If most of the country reaches herd immunity but these areas don't then the Government will repeal the restrictions and, unless it elects to impose targeted local lockdowns, the disease will burn through these areas and keep slaughtering people for quite a while.
Meanwhile, at the briefing, Van Tam responding to a question about the prioritisation of teachers with ONS data indicating that mortality in that profession is below national average. Also backing the JCVI more generally on their decision to prioritise phase two wholly by age group - ordering occupations by risk and trying to call people up in the correct order would be far too slow and complex.
I see the Guardian says the Begum ruling is “controversial”
This is one of those special Guardian word-definitions, where “controversial” means “it dismays three people in Islington”
The view of the court about the respect to be given to the views and judgment of Ministers is something of a throw back and may cause ripples. It is not easy to reconcile that view with the unanimous view of the Court in the Prorogation case, to take an example.
The court over-reached with the prorogation case; this time they are exactly right. These difficult executive decisions must be made by people who are democratically accountable
These two cases are easily reconciled.
In both cases the court found it had the power to intervene. It took the view that it should intervene in the prorogation case because the government was taking the piss (which it was): the government's refusal to give any account under oath for its actions may well have proven fatal to its case. You seem to have forgotten that at the time of the purported prorogation Britain had a Prime Minister who had not been elected at a general election, who did not command a majority in Parliament and indeed had not won a vote in Parliament pursuing a policy that had not been put before the British public and using prorogation as a tool to impose that irreversibly.
In the present case it took the view that the government had acted within the wide latitude granted to governments when taking decisions. Which, given that the Home Secretary was exercising statutory powers given to them in an extreme case, is not all that surprising.
The main consequence of the prorogation case was political. The public decided, unlike in the USA, that they were AOK with self-coups. As a result Britain now has a government with a light attachment to democracy and an extreme aversion to any form of accountability enthusiastically supported by a self-radicalised posse who are quite willing to overlook anything it does, up to and including the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands.
Nice example of ensuring people wont pay attention to your solidly put points because you wanted to indulge in unrelated theatrical condemnation.
Now you can pretend to be affronted when people ignore your good first paras, even though that was presumably your intention and you want Brexiteers to rage at you so you can respond in turn.
Well, each of us has fun in their own way i suppose.
The last bit is the important bit. Tens of thousands of people have died avoidable deaths, but the government's supporters simply don't think that's as important as supporting the government.
I am staggered at the self-degradation of these partisans.
Pot meet kettle. I assume the Italians, French, Germans, Americans (need I go on?) who died were all unavoidable deaths? Or maybe. just maybe there is a nasty virus in worldwide circulation causing epic problems to all governments. Ours has not performed well, I think most would accept that, but they are not the only ones to struggle in this pandemic. At least we have one of the most open and trustworthy reporting systems. How many Chinese died in Wuhan province? How many Spaniards have died (unclear reporting, and a suggestion that that true figure is far higher than the official one? I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Britain has done exceptionally badly, in the bottommost tier of countries in its response to Covid-19. Only the most crazed zealots would suggest otherwise.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
I am not claiming we have done well. Only a lunatic would. We have been hit extremely hard and I hope the resulting enquiries will help to understand why.
BUT
Our death rate to the current time is better than Belgium, Czechia and Slovenia, and slightly worse than Italy, Portugal, USA, Hungary and Spain. At the current time. Lets see where we end up.
My point is that NO-ONE is doing particularly at preventing "avoidable" deaths. You clearly feel we are by far and away the worst country, but the evidence doesn't fit that, and as I said, I have doubts over some countries reporting (Russia for instance).
Your point is bullshit. The day that Britain measures its public health performance against Brazil and Russia will be a very sad day indeed, so cavilling about statistics in countries like that is pathetic.
By any measure Britain did exceptionally badly. You have named the three countries with a worse death rate in an attempt to suggest Britain is mid table. It is fourth worst in the world (and set to overtake Slovenia imminently). It is closer to the death rate in worst-performing Belgium than to fifth-placed Italy. If Britain had done as well to date as "slightly worse" Italy, more than 14,000 people in Britain would not have died of Covid-19.
Britain's success at vaccination is fantastic. It in no way erases the appalling and avoidable errors that the government has repeatedly made in every other aspect of its handling of this disease. Anyone with a conscience should feel shame at that awful failure of our most vulnerable.
But far too many on this site want only to sweep it under the carpet.
Its a strawman to say people want to sweep it under the carpet. I specifically mentioned the enquiries which will be crucial to understanding why we have been hit so hard. I believe it is wrong to decide already the outcome of this and just pin it on the government. The pandemic is not over, people are horrifically still dying around the work. You also neglected to mention the USA, the nation with the greatest medical resources in the world.
Do you believe the Spanish figures, despite their own press/media doubting the government figures? I guess you do, as its only the UK (or is it just the Tory government) who have struggled through this?
Many countries have struggled. I live in one of the worst performing. I'm surrounded by government supporters who contemptibly try to pretend that it's been mid-table to date, when it obviously has not.
Now, you started your deranged attack on me by suggesting this is about Brexit. But all I can see from you is wishful thinking.
We owe it to the dead to see that the mistakes made are properly investigated. There may well be lessons to learn. Incidentally, there may be government ministers who should lose their jobs, but that's actually the least interesting bit. But Britain has no hope of getting some governance that is above atrocious until government supporters start to exercise some critical faculties.
Instead, they hope to conceal the mistakes and move on.
Deranged? A bit harsh for Friday. I'm glad that you admit that other countries have struggled. What is the wishful thinking I am engaging in? My wish would be covid never happened. I hate the 'ranking' of deaths that is going on. I want full, transparent enquiries after the event to change things for the future. I worry that too many have already decided that they know what went wrong and who was to blame and why. That's not the approach needed for an enquiry.
I withdraw my point about Brexit, but you are fixated on attacking the UK government. Does your ire also assail the Welsh government, or the Scottish?
Comments
One can imagine that, whilst it might indeed take until well into April to get around specific hard-to-reach communities and localities, the wider project might be able to move onto the fortysomethings by Easter.
In other news, Northern Ireland has just announced that all elderly care home staff and residents have now been offered both first and second doses, so that particular element of their vaccination drive has been completed.
if it doesnt get published it will get leaked.
Ultimately it boils down to Paris wanting a slice of the London action but both sides know that if the ECB moves to onshore it they'd actually have to order EU based banks to not use UK based clearing even if the BoE acts as the ultimate guarantor. I'm not sure 1) that they would listen and 2) what kind of recourse the ECB would have if say Credit Agricole UK decided to continue using London's clearing house instead of onshoring. From what both sides say there is very little other than an admonishment.
So that leaves us in a position where EU banks are breaking ECB guidelines and the BoE is helping them to do it should they decide to try and onshore derivatives clearing and that might become an end state both sides just live with.
https://twitter.com/electionmapsuk/status/1365340055955529734?s=21
I'd be begging the Belgians (or whoever) to take it off my hands.
I get that you hate Brexit and the current government, but you are one of the most blinkered on this site. You are an intelligent man, but your own lack of self awareness is stark.
Apparently the queue had been just 10 minutes the day before. The staff were thrilled to bits at how many people had turned up. Despite the length of time it took, it was very efficiently run.
Though whether they would get an injunction to compel the committee to read it...
My old manager used to say that if an industry or company can't operate without a state guarantee then it probably shouldn't exist, derivatives clearing probably falls into that category. Obviously he would say that given we weren't nationalised after the financial crisis but still, he had a point.
Sadly, many of those crazed zealots infest this site. Here's the sort of problem that they're determined to avoid discussing:
https://twitter.com/peterjukes/status/1364961983964053511?s=20
Your default assumption that this was a consequence of government incompetence or ineptitude may prove to be correct but it is an assumption. The UK has the best genomic analysis in the world. By that time (December) it had amongst the best test and trace and was one of the very highest levels of testing. And yet we were still caught with our trousers down. Incompetence? Maybe but it is possible that we did our very best and were simply unlucky.
BUT
Our death rate to the current time is better than Belgium, Czechia and Slovenia, and slightly worse than Italy, Portugal, USA, Hungary and Spain. At the current time. Lets see where we end up.
My point is that NO-ONE is doing particularly at preventing "avoidable" deaths. You clearly feel we are by far and away the worst country, but the evidence doesn't fit that, and as I said, I have doubts over some countries reporting (Russia for instance).
https://twitter.com/SJAMagrath/status/1365252782287167490
It was obvious what was happening at the time. And untold thousands paid with their lives because the Prime Minister couldn't bear to do the unpopular but necessary thing.
By any measure Britain did exceptionally badly. You have named the three countries with a worse death rate in an attempt to suggest Britain is mid table. It is fourth worst in the world (and set to overtake Slovenia imminently). It is closer to the death rate in worst-performing Belgium than to fifth-placed Italy. If Britain had done as well to date as "slightly worse" Italy, more than 14,000 people in Britain would not have died of Covid-19.
Britain's success at vaccination is fantastic. It in no way erases the appalling and avoidable errors that the government has repeatedly made in every other aspect of its handling of this disease. Anyone with a conscience should feel shame at that awful failure of our most vulnerable.
But far too many on this site want only to sweep it under the carpet.
And, while I'm a long way from being an apologist for our PM, I do feel that whoever decided to include all deaths where someone had tested positive in the previous 28 days didn't do UK figures any favours.
Friend of mine died just after having a +ve Covid test. However, he'd been 'sick unto death' for a couple of years and the infection from an ingrowing toenail (sorry) could have carried him off.
January was bloody awful though, far worse than anticipated.
Where I think that criticism is valid is over the dithering in the run-up to Christmas. It's hard to say how much better things would've turned out if, once the Government had some information about the variant and knew it was on the loose, it had thrown in the towel, abandoned both Christmas get-togethers and the clapped out Tier system and gone back into lockdown before the festive season. But, presumably, it couldn't have done anything other than help significantly.
Of course it was unfortunate that the more transmissible variant was found in Britain. But the problem could be seen before it was found. It was being talked about incessantly at the time.
Really the safety first approach made sense because of the vaccine programme. I remember saying as such many, many times in November when Pfizer put their vaccine forwards for approval. Extending the existing lockdown suddenly made sense because we had been given the ability to vaccinate our way out of the cycle of lockdown and unlockdown. The one day of school was the most unforgivable error. Millions of kids went in, potentially got infected and then took those infections home with them. What a massive error.
Newspapers were being specifically briefed that Boris was going to 'save Christmas'.
It was a terrible terrible error imho.
Italy's death toll is massively worse than Britain's, not better.
Do you believe the Spanish figures, despite their own press/media doubting the government figures? I guess you do, as its only the UK (or is it just the Tory government) who have struggled through this?
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/11/22/the-masque-of-the-red-death/
With the benefit of hindsight, I was far far far too optimistic.
A toughie.
Would still have been a bad idea, but they could have have the Christmas break if they'd been one iota more cautious in the preceding weeks.
from case data
from hospitalisation
If Johnson is ever up in court for this and convicted - yes yes, I know, but to illustrate the point - when it comes to sentencing his infantile gurning will be what they call in the criminal justice system an "aggravating factor".
Very aptly named. It certainly aggravated me.
Now, you started your deranged attack on me by suggesting this is about Brexit. But all I can see from you is wishful thinking.
We owe it to the dead to see that the mistakes made are properly investigated. There may well be lessons to learn. Incidentally, there may be government ministers who should lose their jobs, but that's actually the least interesting bit. But Britain has no hope of getting some governance that is above atrocious until government supporters start to exercise some critical faculties.
Instead, they hope to conceal the mistakes and move on.
If you're not then it doesn't bother me, but it would be interesting to know. Unless of course there's axes to be ground.
I don't blame any government for anything as it happens. No government is deliberately seeking to kill their citizens. All are doing what they consider to be the best at the time they make any decision, in rapidly changing situations, with new and constantly evolving scientific evidence or theories.
But if there's an axe to be ground then so be it. Fill your boots. It won't assuage your evident hate of the UK government though. Use your vote instead. If enough people agree with you then democracy will have its say.
I have a feeling though that it won't be your current angst that'll be the undoing of Johnson.
If we can open up even quicker that would be fantastic.
I’ve always found Cambridge very flat as a result.
Again, barring a disastrous variant, the endgame of this pandemic is going to be played out in urban areas with high concentrations of non-white people. Accumulation of factors recognised earlier in the pandemic - poor housing, multi-generational households, disproportionate concentrations of workers who can't WFH - now with the added burden of vaccine refusal or hesitancy.
If most of the country reaches herd immunity but these areas don't then the Government will repeal the restrictions and, unless it elects to impose targeted local lockdowns, the disease will burn through these areas and keep slaughtering people for quite a while.
Meanwhile, at the briefing, Van Tam responding to a question about the prioritisation of teachers with ONS data indicating that mortality in that profession is below national average. Also backing the JCVI more generally on their decision to prioritise phase two wholly by age group - ordering occupations by risk and trying to call people up in the correct order would be far too slow and complex.
I withdraw my point about Brexit, but you are fixated on attacking the UK government. Does your ire also assail the Welsh government, or the Scottish?