I've got May pencilled in for the 40-49 yr olds, June for those of us in our thirties and 18 - 29 will really have to try and dodge* when the country is fully open and they're unjabbed till July. * Noone is going to care
Of course only those vaccinated by 31/5 will have their immunity by 21/6.
I don't expect to be done by then, since I agree with your timeline as likely.
We might have half a chance if the 50 - 55 cohort can be done by April 15th, followed by 40s to May 15th ? Touch and go by the 21st with the lag factor for antibodies.
One factor that may work in our favour making it easier to accelerate is that previously age groups have been done alongside younger ages. EG over 80s + NHS + Care. Over 70s + very vulnerable. Over 60 + vulnerable.
Going forwards not only will the younger cohorts not be seeing even younger done simultaneously, but some of the younger cohorts will already be done. Indeed over 1/6th of under 65s are already done.
So when it gets to 40s it will be doing the 40s - NHS - care - vulnerable.
Very true. I know loads of 30-somethings who are already done (including yours truly). For example prior history of gestational diabetes is now a condition for priority jabbing.
Part of the reason why it feels like it’s taking longer is uptake has been so overwhelmingly high in the older groups. This will reduce quite a bit with each decade one assumes. I’m still expecting general 40-somethings to have begun well before the end of March in most places.
Indeed.
I expect 60-69 + anyone vulnerable will be the biggest cohort of all by quite some margin. At last count I think over 7 million fall under the "under 65 but vulnerable" category. So we may be stuck doing the sixties for quite some time, but if supply accelerates hopefully we can accelerate through other decades sooner. Even while doing increasing numbers of second jabs.
Hopefully it doesn't accelerate due to people refusing the jab. I'd rather wait another week than get it sooner because others before me refused.
Refused is perhaps a bit strong. But you’ll get more and more people who can’t especially be faffed to be prompt, because they’ve already had the disease and brushed it off and are self employed.
For my taste, Prince Charles has too few periods of design he likes, and it all ends up a bit "ersatz history" and "Trumpton".
The recent 'Build Beautiful' document by Scruton was quite good imo.
But what is good design? And what is beautiful?
(Remember that tastes change constantly - in the 1960s they were happily putting dual carriageways through medieval town centres)
And what matters? For example, should we have permeable estates and street patterns, or should we follow crime prevention guidelines of the last 25 years and prevent scrotes having so many escape routes they are never caught?
You raise a fascinating question - but I'd disagree with some of the points here. People in the 1960's knew those buildings and projects were f**k ugly. A vanguard of brutalists insisted on them, most went along with the Emperor's new clothes, and a few who called it right were dismissed.
There are certain universal principles as to what pleases the human eye, and they have good 'primeval' reasons. We prefer natural, or natural looking materials, as they evoke lush, fertile, natural landscape. We prefer curves and undulations to jagged edges for the same reason. We prefer thick looking walls with deeply recessed windows, because they look like the buildings will be safer and warmer. We prefer rich decoration to lack of ornament because it reflects wealth and abundance. If we develop these and other natural preferences into a set of principles for beautiful buildings, we can steer clear of monstrosities, whatever the trends of the future - that would be incredibly worthwhile.
Regarding Prince Charles, all the criticism I have seen of Poundbury and his other architectural pastiches seems to be that they lack authenticity - comparing them to real 18th and 19th century buildings. That is not a valid comparison, because there was never any possibility of 18th and 19th century buildings being conjured up. The real comparison is with modern grey rabbit hutches, and I think few of his critics would not overcome their aversion to Poundbury if their alternative was living on a grey estate in Crawley or Milton Keynes.
I think you somewhat stereotype by decade. There was far more than "Brutalist" (let's not argue about the precise meaning) built in the 60s/early 70s (allowing for time to build), and some of the brutalist that was built was very attractive; much of it is still popular.
One or two that are arguably brutalist and works in say London: Barbican & Silver Lane, Brentford Dock for housing estates, and many in Camden. Plus plenty of others.
Where they don't work I would say it is more down to people who are put there, or insufficient concern for the human scale, or skimping on the design / care / maintenance of the building. Equally non-brutalist things fail for similar reasons.
And some brutalist materials are back in the last 15 years eg textured concrete.
Plus the 60s gave us things like Span and Segal. If I point you at one good 1960s place to visit it would be Peter Aldington's House at Turn End in Bucks. https://www.turnend.org.uk/
On your 'universal principles' - is that in part a "Royal We"?
I agree some way on proportions etc, but the definition of "monstrosity" is very personal. OTOH the proportions for urban highways in the Manual for Streets policy document are not dissimilar to those used by Haussman for rebuilding Paris in the 1850s-1880s.
My preferred architectural style is probably what I call 'humanist' which emerged in the early 60s/70s, and relies on light, space, proportion, simplicity, practicality. For eg churches I am more attracted to Wren preaching boxes or East Anglian wool churches, rather than Baroque or High Gothic (say St Giles, Cheadle), perhaps for similar reasons. That is different to your suggestions wrt to eg decoration.
Have you read "A Pattern Language"? - which is very interesting on how people live socially in their spaces. Somewhere there is a website with much content. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language
On Prince Charles, I think Poundbury can arguably be called a little post-modern, because the exterior is in some ways a curtain wrapped around a different style of interior - like a stage set.
On the thorny issue of housing, the problem isn't simply defined as not enough places for people to live.
There are many different housing "problems" and construction is one solution but far from the only one. The conundrum is for many people their house is their only capital asset. Its appreciation in advance of inflation provides many with the only sure-fire way of accumulating wealth. For so many, it's not just the asset it's the pension. Downsizing out of a large family home to something smaller releases that cash equity to fund the cruises, the other holidays and the lifestyle of the newly-retired.
At the other end of the problem, building all the new houses you like in Cornwall isn't going to make them affordable for local young people. There needs to be affordable rental property - a public as well as private rental environment so those in areas with unaffordable housing can start somewhere.
Into the problems you can chuck a fair splash of politics - the Conservative side are all over home ownership because home owners are the bedrock of Conservative support. Buy your own home, become a Tory you might say. The problem is not everyone can or wants to become a homeowner from the start - the housing offering has to involve active and regulated public and private rental sectors.
The other side of home ownership is once you have one home, you see the attraction of owning another so houses become not just places to live but assets, investment commodities like jewellery, cars or information.
BTL arose because the collapse in interest rates enabled many to pay off their mortgages and become both debt free and cash rich so they could invest in property. Thus, an already heavily distorted land market was further distorted and houses became even more expensive.
The return of sensible monetary policy and inflation (two of the consequences of the post Covid world I'd expect along with haircuts and everyone having to learn the charleston apparently) will also impact the housing market. Somebody asked this morning whether, as a buyer, you wanted high or low interest rates. I'd answer the preferred option was interest rate stability. We've had a decade or more of rock bottom rates but I think Covid has ended that as we will see inflation re-emerge as all the cash tied up for the past year is released.
For my taste, Prince Charles has too few periods of design he likes, and it all ends up a bit "ersatz history" and "Trumpton".
The recent 'Build Beautiful' document by Scruton was quite good imo.
But what is good design? And what is beautiful?
(Remember that tastes change constantly - in the 1960s they were happily putting dual carriageways through medieval town centres)
And what matters? For example, should we have permeable estates and street patterns, or should we follow crime prevention guidelines of the last 25 years and prevent scrotes having so many escape routes they are never caught?
You raise a fascinating question - but I'd disagree with some of the points here. People in the 1960's knew those buildings and projects were f**k ugly. A vanguard of brutalists insisted on them, most went along with the Emperor's new clothes, and a few who called it right were dismissed.
There are certain universal principles as to what pleases the human eye, and they have good 'primeval' reasons. We prefer natural, or natural looking materials, as they evoke lush, fertile, natural landscape. We prefer curves and undulations to jagged edges for the same reason. We prefer thick looking walls with deeply recessed windows, because they look like the buildings will be safer and warmer. We prefer rich decoration to lack of ornament because it reflects wealth and abundance. If we develop these and other natural preferences into a set of principles for beautiful buildings, we can steer clear of monstrosities, whatever the trends of the future - that would be incredibly worthwhile.
Regarding Prince Charles, all the criticism I have seen of Poundbury and his other architectural pastiches seems to be that they lack authenticity - comparing them to real 18th and 19th century buildings. That is not a valid comparison, because there was never any possibility of 18th and 19th century buildings being conjured up. The real comparison is with modern grey rabbit hutches, and I think few of his critics would not overcome their aversion to Poundbury if their alternative was living on a grey estate in Crawley or Milton Keynes.
I think you somewhat stereotype by decade. There was far more than "Brutalist" (let's not argue about the precise meaning) built in the 60s/early 70s (allowing for time to build), and some of the brutalist that was built was very attractive; much of it is still popular.
One or two that are arguably brutalist and works in say London: Barbican & Silver Lane, Brentford Dock for housing estates, and many in Camden. Plus plenty of others.
Where they don't work I would say it is more down to people who are put there, or insufficient concern for the human scale, or skimping on the design / care / maintenance of the building. Equally non-brutalist things fail for similar reasons.
And some brutalist materials are back in the last 15 years eg textured concrete.
Plus the 60s gave us things like Span and Segal. If I point you at one good 1960s place to visit it would be Peter Aldington's House at Turn End in Bucks. https://www.turnend.org.uk/
On your 'universal principles' - is that in part a "Royal We"?
I agree some way on proportions etc, but the definition of "monstrosity" is very personal. OTOH the proportions for urban highways in the Manual for Streets policy document are not dissimilar to those used by Haussman for rebuilding Paris in the 1850s-1880s.
My preferred architectural style is probably what I call 'humanist' which emerged in the early 60s/70s, and relies on light, space, proportion, simplicity, practicality. For eg churches I am more attracted to Wren preaching boxes or East Anglian wool churches, rather than Baroque or High Gothic (say St Giles, Cheadle), perhaps for similar reasons. That is different to your suggestions wrt to eg decoration.
Have you read "A Pattern Language"? - which is very interesting on how people live socially in their spaces. Somewhere there is a website with much content. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language
On Prince Charles, I think Poundbury can arguably be called a little post-modern, because the exterior is in some ways a curtain wrapped around a different style of interior - like a stage set.
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The SNP could win the May election at a canter with Pol Pot in charge.
Not Salmond’s biggest fan but it seems harsh to compare him to Pol Pot.
In any case, the question is how well they will do under Sturgeon.
Now now, you know perfectly well what I'm getting it. Sturgeon isn't relevant to the result one way or another.
I disagree. I think Sturgeon is very key. She is a very talented politician, and has a very carefully cultivated public image, which many, especially women, can strongly identify with, and results in a softening of the image of the SNP. She is also widely believed - when she says independence would be fine, it adds significant credibility to that message. Personally I wouldn't believe her if she told me the time, but it is foolish to pretend that's a majority view. When she goes, there isn't any talent to replace her. I think Salmond, great operator as he is, isn't going to replace her - that's a pipe dream.
I expect 60-69 + anyone vulnerable will be the biggest cohort of all by quite some margin. At last count I think over 7 million fall under the "under 65 but vulnerable" category. So we may be stuck doing the sixties for quite some time, but if supply accelerates hopefully we can accelerate through other decades sooner. Even while doing increasing numbers of second jabs.
Hopefully it doesn't accelerate due to people refusing the jab. I'd rather wait another week than get it sooner because others before me refused.
As I quoted earlier, my part of the world is a long way behind the national figures with Newham having only vaccinated 71% of over 65s and one sixth of its adult population.
7.3 million are in the "16-64 but vulnerable" category and it is the largest adult cohort.
Not sure why this couldn't have been included in your 'breathless wank sold to gullible journalists' post, though I suppose calling the people who cobble together The National 'journalists' is somewhat of a stretch.
One has an actual quote from stupid doggie Dougie about an actual thing done by BJ, the other an unattributed puff right at the start of the paean to Rishi-ism. I know that you're now pinning all your hopes on serial loser Sarwar to break the bonds of banana republicanism and save the Union, but are you really saying Ross's words are breathless wank?
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The SNP could win the May election at a canter with Pol Pot in charge.
Not Salmond’s biggest fan but it seems harsh to compare him to Pol Pot.
In any case, the question is how well they will do under Sturgeon.
Now now, you know perfectly well what I'm getting it. Sturgeon isn't relevant to the result one way or another.
I disagree. I think Sturgeon is very key. She is a very talented politician, and has a very carefully cultivated public image, which many, especially women, can strongly identify with, and results in a softening of the image of the SNP. She is also widely believed - when she says independence would be fine, it adds significant credibility to that message. Personally I wouldn't believe her if she told me the time, but it is foolish to pretend that's a majority view. When she goes, there isn't any talent to replace her. I think Salmond, great operator as he is, isn't going to replace her - that's a pipe dream.
I see no way back for Salmond, but the way he presented his case yesterday must have sent shivers through Sturgeon, her husband, and the SNP hierarchy
If any of his case is substantiated it would put an earthquake through the SNP and Sturgeon's own future
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The SNP could win the May election at a canter with Pol Pot in charge.
Not Salmond’s biggest fan but it seems harsh to compare him to Pol Pot.
In any case, the question is how well they will do under Sturgeon.
Now now, you know perfectly well what I'm getting it. Sturgeon isn't relevant to the result one way or another.
I disagree. I think Sturgeon is very key. She is a very talented politician, and has a very carefully cultivated public image, which many, especially women, can strongly identify with, and results in a softening of the image of the SNP. She is also widely believed - when she says independence would be fine, it adds significant credibility to that message. Personally I wouldn't believe her if she told me the time, but it is foolish to pretend that's a majority view. When she goes, there isn't any talent to replace her. I think Salmond, great operator as he is, isn't going to replace her - that's a pipe dream.
The SNP vote wants rid of the Union. All else is noise. The notion that they would start trickling back to pro-Union parties without Nicola Sturgeon's leadership is for the birds.
Not sure why this couldn't have been included in your 'breathless wank sold to gullible journalists' post, though I suppose calling the people who cobble together The National 'journalists' is somewhat of a stretch.
One has an actual quote from stupid doggie Dougie about an actual thing done by BJ, the other an unattributed puff right at the start of the paean to Rishi-ism. I know that you're now pinning all your hopes on serial loser Sarwar to break the bonds of banana republicanism and save the Union, but are you really saying Ross's words are breathless wank?
You may well do better to consider the state of the current SNP internal warfare than criticise others
I expect 60-69 + anyone vulnerable will be the biggest cohort of all by quite some margin. At last count I think over 7 million fall under the "under 65 but vulnerable" category. So we may be stuck doing the sixties for quite some time, but if supply accelerates hopefully we can accelerate through other decades sooner. Even while doing increasing numbers of second jabs.
Hopefully it doesn't accelerate due to people refusing the jab. I'd rather wait another week than get it sooner because others before me refused.
As I quoted earlier, my part of the world is a long way behind the national figures with Newham having only vaccinated 71% of over 65s and one sixth of its adult population.
7.3 million are in the "16-64 but vulnerable" category and it is the largest adult cohort.
Even so, that is only about a fortnight's worth of doses if the delivery schedule mentioned earlier is correct.
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The SNP could win the May election at a canter with Pol Pot in charge.
Not Salmond’s biggest fan but it seems harsh to compare him to Pol Pot.
In any case, the question is how well they will do under Sturgeon.
Now now, you know perfectly well what I'm getting it. Sturgeon isn't relevant to the result one way or another.
I disagree. I think Sturgeon is very key. She is a very talented politician, and has a very carefully cultivated public image, which many, especially women, can strongly identify with, and results in a softening of the image of the SNP. She is also widely believed - when she says independence would be fine, it adds significant credibility to that message. Personally I wouldn't believe her if she told me the time, but it is foolish to pretend that's a majority view. When she goes, there isn't any talent to replace her. I think Salmond, great operator as he is, isn't going to replace her - that's a pipe dream.
The SNP vote wants rid of the Union. All else is noise. The notion that they would start trickling back to pro-Union parties without Nicola Sturgeon's leadership is for the birds.
There are many who vote SNP do not want out of the union, indeed some are in our family
For my taste, Prince Charles has too few periods of design he likes, and it all ends up a bit "ersatz history" and "Trumpton".
The recent 'Build Beautiful' document by Scruton was quite good imo.
But what is good design? And what is beautiful?
(Remember that tastes change constantly - in the 1960s they were happily putting dual carriageways through medieval town centres)
And what matters? For example, should we have permeable estates and street patterns, or should we follow crime prevention guidelines of the last 25 years and prevent scrotes having so many escape routes they are never caught?
You raise a fascinating question - but I'd disagree with some of the points here. People in the 1960's knew those buildings and projects were f**k ugly. A vanguard of brutalists insisted on them, most went along with the Emperor's new clothes, and a few who called it right were dismissed.
There are certain universal principles as to what pleases the human eye, and they have good 'primeval' reasons. We prefer natural, or natural looking materials, as they evoke lush, fertile, natural landscape. We prefer curves and undulations to jagged edges for the same reason. We prefer thick looking walls with deeply recessed windows, because they look like the buildings will be safer and warmer. We prefer rich decoration to lack of ornament because it reflects wealth and abundance. If we develop these and other natural preferences into a set of principles for beautiful buildings, we can steer clear of monstrosities, whatever the trends of the future - that would be incredibly worthwhile.
Regarding Prince Charles, all the criticism I have seen of Poundbury and his other architectural pastiches seems to be that they lack authenticity - comparing them to real 18th and 19th century buildings. That is not a valid comparison, because there was never any possibility of 18th and 19th century buildings being conjured up. The real comparison is with modern grey rabbit hutches, and I think few of his critics would not overcome their aversion to Poundbury if their alternative was living on a grey estate in Crawley or Milton Keynes.
I think you somewhat stereotype by decade. There was far more than "Brutalist" (let's not argue about the precise meaning) built in the 60s/early 70s (allowing for time to build), and some of the brutalist that was built was very attractive; much of it is still popular.
One or two that are arguably brutalist and works in say London: Barbican & Silver Lane, Brentford Dock for housing estates, and many in Camden. Plus plenty of others.
Where they don't work I would say it is more down to people who are put there, or insufficient concern for the human scale, or skimping on the design / care / maintenance of the building. Equally non-brutalist things fail for similar reasons.
And some brutalist materials are back in the last 15 years eg textured concrete.
Plus the 60s gave us things like Span and Segal. If I point you at one good 1960s place to visit it would be Peter Aldington's House at Turn End in Bucks. https://www.turnend.org.uk/
On your 'universal principles' - is that in part a "Royal We"?
I agree some way on proportions etc, but the definition of "monstrosity" is very personal. OTOH the proportions for urban highways in the Manual for Streets policy document are not dissimilar to those used by Haussman for rebuilding Paris in the 1850s-1880s.
My preferred architectural style is probably what I call 'humanist' which emerged in the early 60s/70s, and relies on light, space, proportion, simplicity, practicality. For eg churches I am more attracted to Wren preaching boxes or East Anglian wool churches, rather than Baroque or High Gothic (say St Giles, Cheadle), perhaps for similar reasons. That is different to your suggestions wrt to eg decoration.
Have you read "A Pattern Language"? - which is very interesting on how people live socially in their spaces. Somewhere there is a website with much content. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language
On Prince Charles, I think Poundbury can arguably be called a little post-modern, because the exterior is in some ways a curtain wrapped around a different style of interior - like a stage set.
Enough for now.
I'd suggest the Home Office building also works.
I suppose also the Economist Building qualifies, as it was built by the Smithsons.
Looks like we should pass the 30 jabs per 100 people mark tomorrow. 💉👍
If you add to that a degree of protection offered by having caught the damn bug previously...I think vaccines are starting to play a part in blocking infections now but maybe also some seasonality (warmer after the cold snap) and more communities building up natural immunity are factors too.
The SNP vote wants rid of the Union. All else is noise. The notion that they would start trickling back to pro-Union parties without Nicola Sturgeon's leadership is for the birds.
I think you're substantially off-base with that. I know plenty of people who normally vote SNP but aren't all that fussed about independence. Most of them are former Labour supporters, who gave up on the party.
Sturgeon seems to be phenomenally popular with that kind of voter, regardless of how much trouble she’s in. If she goes the SNP will pay for it in votes, not perhaps as much as might be expected due to the woeful opposition, but probably enough to hurt.
Looks like we should pass the 30 jabs per 100 people mark tomorrow. 💉👍
If you add to that a degree of protection offered by having caught the damn bug previously...I think vaccines are starting to play a part in blocking infections now but maybe also some seasonality (warmer after the cold snap) and more communities building up natural immunity are factors too.
Looks like we should pass the 30 jabs per 100 people mark tomorrow. 💉👍
If you add to that a degree of protection offered by having caught the damn bug previously...I think vaccines are starting to play a part in blocking infections now but maybe also some seasonality (warmer after the cold snap) and more communities building up natural immunity are factors too.
That makes me think of you chasing a beetle around the kitchen with a lassoo.
Looks like we should pass the 30 jabs per 100 people mark tomorrow. 💉👍
That's a big chunk of those who would otherwise be at risk of serious illness/death/ Superb outcome by the end of February, when January looked so bleak....
Really pissed off having scraped together a relatively (well, for anywhere except London) decent deposit, that might, at a push, buy a half decent two bed somewhere not on fire.
Yay, more house price inflation. Guess I'll just rent for another few years. Thanks Rishi, wasn't voting for you anyway, but. Yup.
What are you talking about?
If your deposit was enough to buy a two bed at 10% deposit, then with Rishi's scheme it should be enough eg for you to buy a three bed at 5%.
Why are you pissed off, you're exactly the kind of person this scheme is aiming to help? 😕
The cost of the asset I'd be borrowing a chunk of money for is being artificially inflated by government policy. What's required is lower prices, so I have to pay less back over the life of a mortgage.
I guess the point is I'm in a slightly advantageous position that I'm not a 5% borrower. This is how my financial prudence over the years has been rewarded, rock bottom interest rates and souring asset prices.
Souring?
If you mean soaring then no, house prices haven't soared over the past decade. They did soar when Labour were in charge, they've grown relatively slowly over the past decade.
The deposit is the hardest part of getting a house, not the amount you pay over the lifetime of the mortgage. Over the lifetime of a mortgage you'll pay less in mortgage repayments than you would in rent - it is the deposit that is the stumbling block people struggle with the most
PS why the heck would you as a prospective buyer be whinging about low interest rates? Literally nothing you are writing makes any sense whatsoever. Low interest rates are good for buyers.
With respect, I think I understand my financial circumstances better than you.
You are talking to @Philip_Thompson in respect of whom the word “omniscience” is a woeful understatement; so no, you don’t understand better.
Well if I was wrong then perhaps say what was wrong rather than petulant ad hominem remarks.
Do you think high or low interest rates are best for buyers?
Not if they are permanently low - but that seems exceedingly unlikely. Buying at a high price with assistance on the deposit, at rock bottom interest rates is potentially a financial trap for a lot of people.
Increasing supply rather than demand might be preferable.
Increasing supply is the best long term solution, I 100% agree with that. I am a massive advocate for supply side reforms of this market.
In the meantime though helping owner occupiers while taxing BTLs is a good combination. Especially if the tax on BTL pays for the help towards owner occupiers getting their deposits.
What are your proposals for taxing BTLs?
Bearing in mind the sector has now been under the cosh for quite some time, and came to a screeching halt in 2016 after Osborne's 'Gordon Brown' budget in 2014 or 2015 (can't remember which, but so complicated no one could understand the impact including probably Osborne himself), and has been at best flat since.
Chart from the latest English Housing Survey.
Flat is a good start, Osborne did a good job there. The question is how to get it onto a downward trend now without majorly upsetting the applecart. Possibly adding 1% to that precept and using that to fund the HTB extension might be a good idea?
Next I'd suggest when Council Tax is reformed making the owner of the property be the one who pays the bill rather than the tenant. Yes that may mean rents are increased but not likely by more than the cost of the Council Tax.
Plus of course removing any tax relief that BTL gets.
You need to justify why you would shrink a Private Rental sector that is already smaller than in many other comparable countries.
Do you think that people who rent should not have a reasonable choice of places to live, or that rents should be forced higher by restricting supply etc?
I don't want to eliminate the private rental sector, just gradually get it back to what it was stable at until the end of the 20th century according to your chart - and get the amount buying with mortgage back up to what it used to be according to your chart instead.
Why do you think 8-10% is the right number?
And is that not a strange stance for a free marketeer - to decide what sort of tenure other people should live under?
One specific problem is that there are probably more people than that who will not be able to get a mortgage, or buy a house even if prices shifted down significantly, never mind people who would rather have someone else look after it or are mobile workers etc.
I'd call it an awful muckup by Osborne, not least because he choked off billions of investment in improving housing that was not being made by anyone else, and I am not aware has been replaced since.
(Yes, there are a lot of issues there, and I'm about to pop out - will reply later.)
It’s NOT a free market. People don’t have £300k in the bank and think “I quite like that property, I’ll buy it.”
Leaving interest rates at rock bottom for 12 years has distorted the market. The idea that people have chosen to rent rather than buy is utterly stupid.
The problem is that we’ve got so many people on the ladder who would not be able to afford a moderate rate rise. So we carry on as we are hoping that the whole thing doesn’t collapse.
While I agree with all the rest of what you have written can I please point out the market got distorted before interest rates hit rock bottom.
2000-2010 population increased much more than housing stocks did. That caused the house prices to surge. The interest rate falls came after the house price rises, not before it.
Certainly the population increase had contributed to the problem, but pre-2008 I reckon a lot of the increase was related to the 100%+ mortgages and other nonsense.
Perhaps. But either way from 1997 to 2010 house prices tripled but from 2010-2020 they increased by about a third.
A third is considerably less than tripling. Indeed its not that far off general inflation levels.
But from a much higher base. Really, we needed them to stagnate if not fall slightly.
Indeed. The damage was done and its hard to reverse it now. They are relatively stagnant now compared to what it was.
Liberalising planning consent would allow more construction, would add more supply, would see prices fall gradually as new stocks are added. There's no need to have major increases in interest rates to achieve that - the prices rose in the first place when rates were much higher than today anyway.
There is one serious fly in that ointment, and it's one that's only become apparent to me since becoming a councillor (and one who pays a LOT of attention to the planning permission and new development area, as I want to see supply rise and prices drop):
Developers know about supply and demand.
It's bloody obvious when I think of it, but I never really dwelt on it before. We issue planning permission for, say, 4500 houses. They decide to build out at a rate of 250 houses per year. "Due to market pressures."
They don't want prices to crater, because then they'd make a loss on the land they bought at overblown prices.
Of course, if prices drop, land prices will drop, but the monkey's fist is already in the bottle. He can't extract it without releasing those juicy sweets.
Developers will never willingly build out at sufficient a rate to bring house prices down - a slow upwards trend is better for them. If house prices aren't coming down, the value of the land isn't coming down with it. And we're stuck in the loop.
We're looking hard at the land we already own as a council with the view to finding suitable locations and commissioning self-build-support for people and finding a way to fund a chunky amount of social housing (think of it as "trickle-up" - as long as the numbers are increasing, the pressure on house prices will decrease).
But we went past the point where we could just liberalise planning consent (we've issued significantly more permissions than would be needed to support a national rate of 450,000 per year if everywhere went like we did) but the developers just won't build out fast enough off their own bat. I mean, it would be irrational for them to do so - no-one wants to shoot the hen that lays the golden eggs.
But those problems are symptoms of our irrational planning system.
It's because you're dealing with developers who are building large estates. Which they do because the planning system is so convoluted that only developers can manage it.
Plus having consent gives a tremendous increase in value without putting a shovel into the ground or laying a single brick. So they've already made the first stage of their profit and can "bank" that without doing anything else for now.
In other countries with simplified planning system getting consent doesn't increase value of the land tremendously, which means that developers don't sit on land as much - and it means you get much more construction of small developments, even one house at a time getting constructed on a road to the owners specs which we don't see so much here. If consent is easy to get then anyone who gets consent but doesn't build will see their profits eroded by others getting consent and actually building.
One (potentially short-ish term) fix would be to implement what I've long argued for - that undeveloped land which has already had planning permission granted for development is charged a large tax (subject to a 6 month 'time to build' holiday or whatever). Potentially this could be done as (Council Tax on the new house) x (undeveloped multiplier) in the same way as some Councils have 200% Council Tax charges on empty properties, and would both incentivise councils to grant development, and reduce the value to developers of land hoarding.
For my taste, Prince Charles has too few periods of design he likes, and it all ends up a bit "ersatz history" and "Trumpton".
The recent 'Build Beautiful' document by Scruton was quite good imo.
But what is good design? And what is beautiful?
(Remember that tastes change constantly - in the 1960s they were happily putting dual carriageways through medieval town centres)
And what matters? For example, should we have permeable estates and street patterns, or should we follow crime prevention guidelines of the last 25 years and prevent scrotes having so many escape routes they are never caught?
You raise a fascinating question - but I'd disagree with some of the points here. People in the 1960's knew those buildings and projects were f**k ugly. A vanguard of brutalists insisted on them, most went along with the Emperor's new clothes, and a few who called it right were dismissed.
There are certain universal principles as to what pleases the human eye, and they have good 'primeval' reasons. We prefer natural, or natural looking materials, as they evoke lush, fertile, natural landscape. We prefer curves and undulations to jagged edges for the same reason. We prefer thick looking walls with deeply recessed windows, because they look like the buildings will be safer and warmer. We prefer rich decoration to lack of ornament because it reflects wealth and abundance. If we develop these and other natural preferences into a set of principles for beautiful buildings, we can steer clear of monstrosities, whatever the trends of the future - that would be incredibly worthwhile.
Regarding Prince Charles, all the criticism I have seen of Poundbury and his other architectural pastiches seems to be that they lack authenticity - comparing them to real 18th and 19th century buildings. That is not a valid comparison, because there was never any possibility of 18th and 19th century buildings being conjured up. The real comparison is with modern grey rabbit hutches, and I think few of his critics would not overcome their aversion to Poundbury if their alternative was living on a grey estate in Crawley or Milton Keynes.
I think you somewhat stereotype by decade. There was far more than "Brutalist" (let's not argue about the precise meaning) built in the 60s/early 70s (allowing for time to build), and some of the brutalist that was built was very attractive; much of it is still popular.
One or two that are arguably brutalist and works in say London: Barbican & Silver Lane, Brentford Dock for housing estates, and many in Camden. Plus plenty of others.
Where they don't work I would say it is more down to people who are put there, or insufficient concern for the human scale, or skimping on the design / care / maintenance of the building. Equally non-brutalist things fail for similar reasons.
And some brutalist materials are back in the last 15 years eg textured concrete.
Plus the 60s gave us things like Span and Segal. If I point you at one good 1960s place to visit it would be Peter Aldington's House at Turn End in Bucks. https://www.turnend.org.uk/
On your 'universal principles' - is that in part a "Royal We"?
I agree some way on proportions etc, but the definition of "monstrosity" is very personal. OTOH the proportions for urban highways in the Manual for Streets policy document are not dissimilar to those used by Haussman for rebuilding Paris in the 1850s-1880s.
My preferred architectural style is probably what I call 'humanist' which emerged in the early 60s/70s, and relies on light, space, proportion, simplicity, practicality. For eg churches I am more attracted to Wren preaching boxes or East Anglian wool churches, rather than Baroque or High Gothic (say St Giles, Cheadle), perhaps for similar reasons. That is different to your suggestions wrt to eg decoration.
Have you read "A Pattern Language"? - which is very interesting on how people live socially in their spaces. Somewhere there is a website with much content. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language
On Prince Charles, I think Poundbury can arguably be called a little post-modern, because the exterior is in some ways a curtain wrapped around a different style of interior - like a stage set.
Enough for now.
Wonderful stuff.
One of my favourite websites is The Modern House (www.themodernhouse.com) which is property porn for architecture fans.
In fact I bought my current house through them a few years back.
I love period architecture too, of course. But not of all it is good. Brussel’s Palais de Justice, for example, is an abomination.
Hackney, where I live, is pretty good for innovative new domestic architecture. But generally, Britain’s self-build industry is miniscule, for reasons I do not understand.
Not sure why this couldn't have been included in your 'breathless wank sold to gullible journalists' post, though I suppose calling the people who cobble together The National 'journalists' is somewhat of a stretch.
One has an actual quote from stupid doggie Dougie about an actual thing done by BJ, the other an unattributed puff right at the start of the paean to Rishi-ism. I know that you're now pinning all your hopes on serial loser Sarwar to break the bonds of banana republicanism and save the Union, but are you really saying Ross's words are breathless wank?
You may well do better to consider the state of the current SNP internal warfare than criticise others
Save your sermonising till tomorrow, oh vicar of Bray.
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The real issue, I think, is not so much Sturgeon herself, but who else is involved.
Salmond was claiming that he had written/typed evidence that a number of senior SNP people had conspired to get him convicted. And he really, really meant conspired.
The senior SNP people are likely to be staffers, rather than MPs or MSPs. People like Peter Murrell and Sue Ruddick.
Not sure why this couldn't have been included in your 'breathless wank sold to gullible journalists' post, though I suppose calling the people who cobble together The National 'journalists' is somewhat of a stretch.
One has an actual quote from stupid doggie Dougie about an actual thing done by BJ, the other an unattributed puff right at the start of the paean to Rishi-ism. I know that you're now pinning all your hopes on serial loser Sarwar to break the bonds of banana republicanism and save the Union, but are you really saying Ross's words are breathless wank?
I am? I think all I've said was that I'm impressed by the delivery of his Twitter speech - it's nice to be able to comment objectively about a politician I don't support, you should try it sometime. Unless you're being paid by the word, your perpetual campaign mode must be very tiresome for you. Thanks for telling me he's a serial loser though, that's great to know. You do lose points for not pointing out that he's a millionaire serial loser though.
If a cabinet committee not including someone who isn't in the cabinet is not breathless wank, it will certainly do until some breathless wank comes along.
Looks like we should pass the 30 jabs per 100 people mark tomorrow. 💉👍
If you add to that a degree of protection offered by having caught the damn bug previously...I think vaccines are starting to play a part in blocking infections now but maybe also some seasonality (warmer after the cold snap) and more communities building up natural immunity are factors too.
That makes me think of you chasing a beetle around the kitchen with a lassoo.
Your mental picture of my hobbies is uncannily accurate
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The SNP could win the May election at a canter with Pol Pot in charge.
Not Salmond’s biggest fan but it seems harsh to compare him to Pol Pot.
In any case, the question is how well they will do under Sturgeon.
Now now, you know perfectly well what I'm getting it. Sturgeon isn't relevant to the result one way or another.
I disagree. I think Sturgeon is very key. She is a very talented politician, and has a very carefully cultivated public image, which many, especially women, can strongly identify with, and results in a softening of the image of the SNP. She is also widely believed - when she says independence would be fine, it adds significant credibility to that message. Personally I wouldn't believe her if she told me the time, but it is foolish to pretend that's a majority view. When she goes, there isn't any talent to replace her. I think Salmond, great operator as he is, isn't going to replace her - that's a pipe dream.
The SNP vote wants rid of the Union. All else is noise. The notion that they would start trickling back to pro-Union parties without Nicola Sturgeon's leadership is for the birds.
There are many who vote SNP do not want out of the union, indeed some are in our family
If a commitment to a second referendum appears in the SNP manifesto and then you vote SNP, you know exactly what you're voting to achieve. The SNP are not, as a political movement, an unknown quantity. They return to Government and independence will be their entire focus. Nothing else in Scottish politics will matter for another four year term. It is their entire raison d'etre.
Anyone voting SNP wants rid of the Union. For them to imagine otherwise suggests a remarkable degree of cognitive dissonance.
The SNP vote wants rid of the Union. All else is noise. The notion that they would start trickling back to pro-Union parties without Nicola Sturgeon's leadership is for the birds.
I think you're substantially off-base with that. I know plenty of people who normally vote SNP but aren't all that fussed about independence. Most of them are former Labour supporters, who gave up on the party.
Sturgeon seems to be phenomenally popular with that kind of voter, regardless of how much trouble she’s in. If she goes the SNP will pay for it in votes, not perhaps as much as might be expected due to the woeful opposition, but probably enough to hurt.
Any Scottish subsamples with which to test the water today?
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The real issue, I think, is not so much Sturgeon herself, but who else is involved.
Salmond was claiming that he had written/typed evidence that a number of senior SNP people had conspired to get him convicted. And he really, really meant conspired.
The senior SNP people are likely to be staffers, rather than MPs or MSPs. People like Peter Murrell and Sue Ruddick.
Just a theoretical - could Sturgeon survive her husband being found instrumental in conspiring to bring down Salmond to protect her?
Looks like we should pass the 30 jabs per 100 people mark tomorrow. 💉👍
If you add to that a degree of protection offered by having caught the damn bug previously...I think vaccines are starting to play a part in blocking infections now but maybe also some seasonality (warmer after the cold snap) and more communities building up natural immunity are factors too.
Whisper it quietly, a degree of herd immunity....
There is a heavy price to pay for a degree of herd immunity sans vaccine. We paid it.
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The SNP could win the May election at a canter with Pol Pot in charge.
Not Salmond’s biggest fan but it seems harsh to compare him to Pol Pot.
In any case, the question is how well they will do under Sturgeon.
Now now, you know perfectly well what I'm getting it. Sturgeon isn't relevant to the result one way or another.
I disagree. I think Sturgeon is very key. She is a very talented politician, and has a very carefully cultivated public image, which many, especially women, can strongly identify with, and results in a softening of the image of the SNP. She is also widely believed - when she says independence would be fine, it adds significant credibility to that message. Personally I wouldn't believe her if she told me the time, but it is foolish to pretend that's a majority view. When she goes, there isn't any talent to replace her. I think Salmond, great operator as he is, isn't going to replace her - that's a pipe dream.
The SNP vote wants rid of the Union. All else is noise. The notion that they would start trickling back to pro-Union parties without Nicola Sturgeon's leadership is for the birds.
My experience tells me this notion is absurd, but if you want to believe it, rock on.
The SNP vote wants rid of the Union. All else is noise. The notion that they would start trickling back to pro-Union parties without Nicola Sturgeon's leadership is for the birds.
I think you're substantially off-base with that. I know plenty of people who normally vote SNP but aren't all that fussed about independence. Most of them are former Labour supporters, who gave up on the party.
Sturgeon seems to be phenomenally popular with that kind of voter, regardless of how much trouble she’s in. If she goes the SNP will pay for it in votes, not perhaps as much as might be expected due to the woeful opposition, but probably enough to hurt.
Any Scottish subsamples with which to test the water today?
It's an extraordinarily damning indictment of the SNP Government from you that in 14 years you don't think they've picked up a single voter just by being, y'know, good at their job.
Not sure why this couldn't have been included in your 'breathless wank sold to gullible journalists' post, though I suppose calling the people who cobble together The National 'journalists' is somewhat of a stretch.
One has an actual quote from stupid doggie Dougie about an actual thing done by BJ, the other an unattributed puff right at the start of the paean to Rishi-ism. I know that you're now pinning all your hopes on serial loser Sarwar to break the bonds of banana republicanism and save the Union, but are you really saying Ross's words are breathless wank?
You may well do better to consider the state of the current SNP internal warfare than criticise others
Save your sermonising till tomorrow, oh vicar of Bray.
Looks like we should pass the 30 jabs per 100 people mark tomorrow. 💉👍
If you add to that a degree of protection offered by having caught the damn bug previously...I think vaccines are starting to play a part in blocking infections now but maybe also some seasonality (warmer after the cold snap) and more communities building up natural immunity are factors too.
Whisper it quietly, a degree of herd immunity....
There is a heavy price to pay for a degree of herd immunity sans vaccine. We paid it.
Hmmm. France and Germany look to be paying it for months longer. Their choice.
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The real issue, I think, is not so much Sturgeon herself, but who else is involved.
Salmond was claiming that he had written/typed evidence that a number of senior SNP people had conspired to get him convicted. And he really, really meant conspired.
The senior SNP people are likely to be staffers, rather than MPs or MSPs. People like Peter Murrell and Sue Ruddick.
Just a theoretical - could Sturgeon survive her husband being found instrumental in conspiring to bring down Salmond to protect her?
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The SNP could win the May election at a canter with Pol Pot in charge.
Not Salmond’s biggest fan but it seems harsh to compare him to Pol Pot.
In any case, the question is how well they will do under Sturgeon.
Now now, you know perfectly well what I'm getting it. Sturgeon isn't relevant to the result one way or another.
I disagree. I think Sturgeon is very key. She is a very talented politician, and has a very carefully cultivated public image, which many, especially women, can strongly identify with, and results in a softening of the image of the SNP. She is also widely believed - when she says independence would be fine, it adds significant credibility to that message. Personally I wouldn't believe her if she told me the time, but it is foolish to pretend that's a majority view. When she goes, there isn't any talent to replace her. I think Salmond, great operator as he is, isn't going to replace her - that's a pipe dream.
The SNP vote wants rid of the Union. All else is noise. The notion that they would start trickling back to pro-Union parties without Nicola Sturgeon's leadership is for the birds.
My experience tells me this notion is absurd, but if you want to believe it, rock on.
If Salmon manages to blow up the SNP hierarchy, I'd say all bets are ... interesting.
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The SNP could win the May election at a canter with Pol Pot in charge.
Not Salmond’s biggest fan but it seems harsh to compare him to Pol Pot.
In any case, the question is how well they will do under Sturgeon.
Now now, you know perfectly well what I'm getting it. Sturgeon isn't relevant to the result one way or another.
I disagree. I think Sturgeon is very key. She is a very talented politician, and has a very carefully cultivated public image, which many, especially women, can strongly identify with, and results in a softening of the image of the SNP. She is also widely believed - when she says independence would be fine, it adds significant credibility to that message. Personally I wouldn't believe her if she told me the time, but it is foolish to pretend that's a majority view. When she goes, there isn't any talent to replace her. I think Salmond, great operator as he is, isn't going to replace her - that's a pipe dream.
The SNP vote wants rid of the Union. All else is noise. The notion that they would start trickling back to pro-Union parties without Nicola Sturgeon's leadership is for the birds.
There are many who vote SNP do not want out of the union, indeed some are in our family
If a commitment to a second referendum appears in the SNP manifesto and then you vote SNP, you know exactly what you're voting to achieve. The SNP are not, as a political movement, an unknown quantity. They return to Government and independence will be their entire focus. Nothing else in Scottish politics will matter for another four year term. It is their entire raison d'etre.
Anyone voting SNP wants rid of the Union. For them to imagine otherwise suggests a remarkable degree of cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance happens though, there were people stating that Boris Johnson was a disgrace and would be a disaster if elected leader of the Tories, yet there they were voting for him to be pm a few short months later.
Thought tbf that may be moral and intellectual inconsistency rather than cognitive dissonance.
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The SNP could win the May election at a canter with Pol Pot in charge.
Not Salmond’s biggest fan but it seems harsh to compare him to Pol Pot.
In any case, the question is how well they will do under Sturgeon.
Now now, you know perfectly well what I'm getting it. Sturgeon isn't relevant to the result one way or another.
I disagree. I think Sturgeon is very key. She is a very talented politician, and has a very carefully cultivated public image, which many, especially women, can strongly identify with, and results in a softening of the image of the SNP. She is also widely believed - when she says independence would be fine, it adds significant credibility to that message. Personally I wouldn't believe her if she told me the time, but it is foolish to pretend that's a majority view. When she goes, there isn't any talent to replace her. I think Salmond, great operator as he is, isn't going to replace her - that's a pipe dream.
The SNP vote wants rid of the Union. All else is noise. The notion that they would start trickling back to pro-Union parties without Nicola Sturgeon's leadership is for the birds.
There are many who vote SNP do not want out of the union, indeed some are in our family
If a commitment to a second referendum appears in the SNP manifesto and then you vote SNP, you know exactly what you're voting to achieve. The SNP are not, as a political movement, an unknown quantity. They return to Government and independence will be their entire focus. Nothing else in Scottish politics will matter for another four year term. It is their entire raison d'etre.
Anyone voting SNP wants rid of the Union. For them to imagine otherwise suggests a remarkable degree of cognitive dissonance.
Have you ever lived in Scotland
The SNP replaced Labour hence why they appeal but a good number of former Labour voters do not support independence and would vote no in a referendum
And I have family members in exactly that position
Do we have any idea how many J&J ones we moght get by June/July time...we could do insane numbers of those via drive thrus every day.
I doubt we're going to need them. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the government delayed delivery of them to use in the winter booster jab programme with updates to defeat mutations.
Just watched the Anas Sawar give his speech after winning the Scottish Labour leadership . First impressions he speaks very well. Whether that will matter at all with dominant SNP and a split unionist opposition. It might if there was another independence referendum.
First ethinic minority leader of a major UK party I believe.
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The SNP could win the May election at a canter with Pol Pot in charge.
Not Salmond’s biggest fan but it seems harsh to compare him to Pol Pot.
In any case, the question is how well they will do under Sturgeon.
Now now, you know perfectly well what I'm getting it. Sturgeon isn't relevant to the result one way or another.
I disagree. I think Sturgeon is very key. She is a very talented politician, and has a very carefully cultivated public image, which many, especially women, can strongly identify with, and results in a softening of the image of the SNP. She is also widely believed - when she says independence would be fine, it adds significant credibility to that message. Personally I wouldn't believe her if she told me the time, but it is foolish to pretend that's a majority view. When she goes, there isn't any talent to replace her. I think Salmond, great operator as he is, isn't going to replace her - that's a pipe dream.
The SNP vote wants rid of the Union. All else is noise. The notion that they would start trickling back to pro-Union parties without Nicola Sturgeon's leadership is for the birds.
There are many who vote SNP do not want out of the union, indeed some are in our family
If a commitment to a second referendum appears in the SNP manifesto and then you vote SNP, you know exactly what you're voting to achieve. The SNP are not, as a political movement, an unknown quantity. They return to Government and independence will be their entire focus. Nothing else in Scottish politics will matter for another four year term. It is their entire raison d'etre.
Anyone voting SNP wants rid of the Union. For them to imagine otherwise suggests a remarkable degree of cognitive dissonance.
Have you ever lived in Scotland
The SNP replaced Labour hence why they appeal but a good number of former Labour voters do not support independence and would vote no in a referendum
And I have family members in exactly that position
Is that the Scottish fishing community branch of your family?
You've stopped talking about them since Boris Johnson's awesome Brexit deal.
Do we have any idea how many J&J ones we moght get by June/July time...we could do insane numbers of those via drive thrus every day.
I doubt we're going to need them. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the government delayed delivery of them to use in the winter booster jab programme with updates to defeat mutations.
I wonder if the contract allows them to do that i.e. effectively saying we aren't buying gen 1 versions, we will only take gen 2? Or will they be obligated to take delivery of whatever they have agreed.
Looks like we should pass the 30 jabs per 100 people mark tomorrow. 💉👍
If you add to that a degree of protection offered by having caught the damn bug previously...I think vaccines are starting to play a part in blocking infections now but maybe also some seasonality (warmer after the cold snap) and more communities building up natural immunity are factors too.
Whisper it quietly, a degree of herd immunity....
There is a heavy price to pay for a degree of herd immunity sans vaccine. We paid it.
Hmmm. France and Germany look to be paying it for months longer. Their choice.
The maths is pretty straightforward. Imperial, last March, predicted some 500,000 deaths without interventions before this played out. We're at roughly 135,000 so, if the modelling the govt has been relyng upon is to be beleived, and assuming there is acquired immunity from infection that lasts (there appears to be) we are around 30% of the way to hypothetical herd immunity based on infection alone. Some areas of the country will be further along that road than others. Add in vaccination we are even further along. Don't take my word for it though, noted over-optimist Prof Neil Ferguson says -
"As much as one-third of the UK population may already have gained some level of immunity by contracting and recovering from Covid-19, said Prof Ferguson. And this pool of protection is being quickly expanded by vaccination to take the population towards herd immunity status."
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The real issue, I think, is not so much Sturgeon herself, but who else is involved.
Salmond was claiming that he had written/typed evidence that a number of senior SNP people had conspired to get him convicted. And he really, really meant conspired.
The senior SNP people are likely to be staffers, rather than MPs or MSPs. People like Peter Murrell and Sue Ruddick.
Just a theoretical - could Sturgeon survive her husband being found instrumental in conspiring to bring down Salmond to protect her?
Yes, I think so.
She would take big damage. How many would believe she didn't know?
Just watched the Anas Sawar give his speech after winning the Scottish Labour leadership . First impressions he speaks very well. Whether that will matter at all with dominant SNP and a split unionist opposition. It might if there was another independence referendum.
First ethinic minority leader of a major UK party I believe.
Do we have any idea how many J&J ones we moght get by June/July time...we could do insane numbers of those via drive thrus every day.
I doubt we're going to need them. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the government delayed delivery of them to use in the winter booster jab programme with updates to defeat mutations.
I wonder if the contract allows them to do that i.e. effectively saying we aren't buying gen 1 versions, we will only take gen 2? Or will they be obligated to take delivery of whatever they have agreed.
I imagine it probably won't be difficult to get it changed because I'm sure J&J would happily serve other customers our 30m doses from June onwards and give use the updated ones in October when supply shortages will have eased up significantly.
I don't think PBers ever managed fully appreciate Joe Anderson's brilliance.
1) He spent most of the 2010s complaining about Tory 'austerity' forcing cuts on Liverpool, yet he managed to find £280 million to give Everton as a loan for their new stadium.
2) Calling the rozzers over Ross Barkley's transfer to Chelsea.
For my taste, Prince Charles has too few periods of design he likes, and it all ends up a bit "ersatz history" and "Trumpton".
The recent 'Build Beautiful' document by Scruton was quite good imo.
But what is good design? And what is beautiful?
(Remember that tastes change constantly - in the 1960s they were happily putting dual carriageways through medieval town centres)
And what matters? For example, should we have permeable estates and street patterns, or should we follow crime prevention guidelines of the last 25 years and prevent scrotes having so many escape routes they are never caught?
You raise a fascinating question - but I'd disagree with some of the points here. People in the 1960's knew those buildings and projects were f**k ugly. A vanguard of brutalists insisted on them, most went along with the Emperor's new clothes, and a few who called it right were dismissed.
There are certain universal principles as to what pleases the human eye, and they have good 'primeval' reasons. We prefer natural, or natural looking materials, as they evoke lush, fertile, natural landscape. We prefer curves and undulations to jagged edges for the same reason. We prefer thick looking walls with deeply recessed windows, because they look like the buildings will be safer and warmer. We prefer rich decoration to lack of ornament because it reflects wealth and abundance. If we develop these and other natural preferences into a set of principles for beautiful buildings, we can steer clear of monstrosities, whatever the trends of the future - that would be incredibly worthwhile.
Regarding Prince Charles, all the criticism I have seen of Poundbury and his other architectural pastiches seems to be that they lack authenticity - comparing them to real 18th and 19th century buildings. That is not a valid comparison, because there was never any possibility of 18th and 19th century buildings being conjured up. The real comparison is with modern grey rabbit hutches, and I think few of his critics would not overcome their aversion to Poundbury if their alternative was living on a grey estate in Crawley or Milton Keynes.
I think you somewhat stereotype by decade. There was far more than "Brutalist" (let's not argue about the precise meaning) built in the 60s/early 70s (allowing for time to build), and some of the brutalist that was built was very attractive; much of it is still popular.
One or two that are arguably brutalist and works in say London: Barbican & Silver Lane, Brentford Dock for housing estates, and many in Camden. Plus plenty of others.
Where they don't work I would say it is more down to people who are put there, or insufficient concern for the human scale, or skimping on the design / care / maintenance of the building. Equally non-brutalist things fail for similar reasons.
And some brutalist materials are back in the last 15 years eg textured concrete.
Plus the 60s gave us things like Span and Segal. If I point you at one good 1960s place to visit it would be Peter Aldington's House at Turn End in Bucks. https://www.turnend.org.uk/
On your 'universal principles' - is that in part a "Royal We"?
I agree some way on proportions etc, but the definition of "monstrosity" is very personal. OTOH the proportions for urban highways in the Manual for Streets policy document are not dissimilar to those used by Haussman for rebuilding Paris in the 1850s-1880s.
My preferred architectural style is probably what I call 'humanist' which emerged in the early 60s/70s, and relies on light, space, proportion, simplicity, practicality. For eg churches I am more attracted to Wren preaching boxes or East Anglian wool churches, rather than Baroque or High Gothic (say St Giles, Cheadle), perhaps for similar reasons. That is different to your suggestions wrt to eg decoration.
Have you read "A Pattern Language"? - which is very interesting on how people live socially in their spaces. Somewhere there is a website with much content. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language
On Prince Charles, I think Poundbury can arguably be called a little post-modern, because the exterior is in some ways a curtain wrapped around a different style of interior - like a stage set.
Enough for now.
I'd suggest the Home Office building also works.
I suppose also the Economist Building qualifies, as it was built by the Smithsons.
Thanks for the book recommendation.
I can't comment on the building that you have a sketch of, but I am afraid I don't agree that the Home Office building pictured is an attractive building. I think it's a very ugly building. We develop sentimental attachments to long standing buildings like The National Theatre, but I don't think that means they're not ugly. In a few cases, a very few cases, I'd preserve such buildings as museum pieces. In all other instances, a large amount of semtex would improve things no end for the actual victims who live there.
Yes, there are times when more sparsely decorated buildings have a power about them, I'd agree. However, as a rule, most buildings are enhanced by some decorative flourishes. Even when we lived in caves we were still painting them.
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The SNP could win the May election at a canter with Pol Pot in charge.
Not Salmond’s biggest fan but it seems harsh to compare him to Pol Pot.
In any case, the question is how well they will do under Sturgeon.
Now now, you know perfectly well what I'm getting it. Sturgeon isn't relevant to the result one way or another.
I disagree. I think Sturgeon is very key. She is a very talented politician, and has a very carefully cultivated public image, which many, especially women, can strongly identify with, and results in a softening of the image of the SNP. She is also widely believed - when she says independence would be fine, it adds significant credibility to that message. Personally I wouldn't believe her if she told me the time, but it is foolish to pretend that's a majority view. When she goes, there isn't any talent to replace her. I think Salmond, great operator as he is, isn't going to replace her - that's a pipe dream.
The SNP vote wants rid of the Union. All else is noise. The notion that they would start trickling back to pro-Union parties without Nicola Sturgeon's leadership is for the birds.
There are many who vote SNP do not want out of the union, indeed some are in our family
If a commitment to a second referendum appears in the SNP manifesto and then you vote SNP, you know exactly what you're voting to achieve. The SNP are not, as a political movement, an unknown quantity. They return to Government and independence will be their entire focus. Nothing else in Scottish politics will matter for another four year term. It is their entire raison d'etre.
Anyone voting SNP wants rid of the Union. For them to imagine otherwise suggests a remarkable degree of cognitive dissonance.
Have you ever lived in Scotland
The SNP replaced Labour hence why they appeal but a good number of former Labour voters do not support independence and would vote no in a referendum
And I have family members in exactly that position
Not for a long time.
Well, if they want a second referendum (and, if the second fails as well, potentially a third, fourth, fifth and sixth) then I guess that's up to them. It just strikes one as an interesting way to approach something of which you approve. You know, beating it continually with a baseball bat.
Just watched the Anas Sawar give his speech after winning the Scottish Labour leadership . First impressions he speaks very well. Whether that will matter at all with dominant SNP and a split unionist opposition. It might if there was another independence referendum.
First ethinic minority leader of a major UK party I believe.
Disraeli waves.
So do Ed Miliband and Michael Howard.
There was a liberal leader who was also Jewish, but I've forgotten his name.
Do we have any idea how many J&J ones we moght get by June/July time...we could do insane numbers of those via drive thrus every day.
We should be mostly done with 1st jabs at that point
J&J is juicy juicy for Saffa Strain. So if there’s an efficacy problem with AZN or Pfizer we’ve got something in our back pockets ready to smother any new wave before it gets going. Rather than door to door lateral flow testing in Liverpool or Woking or Walsall, just smash those places with J&J in a weekend.
That’s before we get to the inevitable pre Winter mRNA tweaked booster doses.
Do we have any idea how many J&J ones we moght get by June/July time...we could do insane numbers of those via drive thrus every day.
I doubt we're going to need them. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the government delayed delivery of them to use in the winter booster jab programme with updates to defeat mutations.
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The SNP could win the May election at a canter with Pol Pot in charge.
Not Salmond’s biggest fan but it seems harsh to compare him to Pol Pot.
In any case, the question is how well they will do under Sturgeon.
Now now, you know perfectly well what I'm getting it. Sturgeon isn't relevant to the result one way or another.
I disagree. I think Sturgeon is very key. She is a very talented politician, and has a very carefully cultivated public image, which many, especially women, can strongly identify with, and results in a softening of the image of the SNP. She is also widely believed - when she says independence would be fine, it adds significant credibility to that message. Personally I wouldn't believe her if she told me the time, but it is foolish to pretend that's a majority view. When she goes, there isn't any talent to replace her. I think Salmond, great operator as he is, isn't going to replace her - that's a pipe dream.
The SNP vote wants rid of the Union. All else is noise. The notion that they would start trickling back to pro-Union parties without Nicola Sturgeon's leadership is for the birds.
There are many who vote SNP do not want out of the union, indeed some are in our family
If a commitment to a second referendum appears in the SNP manifesto and then you vote SNP, you know exactly what you're voting to achieve. The SNP are not, as a political movement, an unknown quantity. They return to Government and independence will be their entire focus. Nothing else in Scottish politics will matter for another four year term. It is their entire raison d'etre.
Anyone voting SNP wants rid of the Union. For them to imagine otherwise suggests a remarkable degree of cognitive dissonance.
Have you ever lived in Scotland
The SNP replaced Labour hence why they appeal but a good number of former Labour voters do not support independence and would vote no in a referendum
And I have family members in exactly that position
Is that Scottish fishing community branch of your family?
You've stopped talking about them since Boris Johnson's awesome Brexit deal.
Indeed it is and the fishing issue does need addressing
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The SNP could win the May election at a canter with Pol Pot in charge.
Not Salmond’s biggest fan but it seems harsh to compare him to Pol Pot.
In any case, the question is how well they will do under Sturgeon.
Now now, you know perfectly well what I'm getting it. Sturgeon isn't relevant to the result one way or another.
I disagree. I think Sturgeon is very key. She is a very talented politician, and has a very carefully cultivated public image, which many, especially women, can strongly identify with, and results in a softening of the image of the SNP. She is also widely believed - when she says independence would be fine, it adds significant credibility to that message. Personally I wouldn't believe her if she told me the time, but it is foolish to pretend that's a majority view. When she goes, there isn't any talent to replace her. I think Salmond, great operator as he is, isn't going to replace her - that's a pipe dream.
The SNP vote wants rid of the Union. All else is noise. The notion that they would start trickling back to pro-Union parties without Nicola Sturgeon's leadership is for the birds.
There are many who vote SNP do not want out of the union, indeed some are in our family
If a commitment to a second referendum appears in the SNP manifesto and then you vote SNP, you know exactly what you're voting to achieve. The SNP are not, as a political movement, an unknown quantity. They return to Government and independence will be their entire focus. Nothing else in Scottish politics will matter for another four year term. It is their entire raison d'etre.
Anyone voting SNP wants rid of the Union. For them to imagine otherwise suggests a remarkable degree of cognitive dissonance.
Have you ever lived in Scotland
The SNP replaced Labour hence why they appeal but a good number of former Labour voters do not support independence and would vote no in a referendum
And I have family members in exactly that position
Not for a long time.
Well, if they want a second referendum (and, if the second fails as well, potentially a third, fourth, fifth and sixth) then I guess that's up to them. It just strikes one as an interesting way to approach something of which you approve. You know, beating it continually with a baseball bat.
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The real issue, I think, is not so much Sturgeon herself, but who else is involved.
Salmond was claiming that he had written/typed evidence that a number of senior SNP people had conspired to get him convicted. And he really, really meant conspired.
The senior SNP people are likely to be staffers, rather than MPs or MSPs. People like Peter Murrell and Sue Ruddick.
Just a theoretical - could Sturgeon survive her husband being found instrumental in conspiring to bring down Salmond to protect her?
Yes, I think so.
She would take big damage. How many would believe she didn't know?
Nobody would believe it, but the people who still wanted Sturgeon at all costs (provided she continues to be an electoral asset) wouldn't care. It is very important that if Sturgeon is forced to resign, it is widely seen as justified. The clarity behind the reason for going is almost as important as the going.
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The SNP could win the May election at a canter with Pol Pot in charge.
Not Salmond’s biggest fan but it seems harsh to compare him to Pol Pot.
In any case, the question is how well they will do under Sturgeon.
Now now, you know perfectly well what I'm getting it. Sturgeon isn't relevant to the result one way or another.
I disagree. I think Sturgeon is very key. She is a very talented politician, and has a very carefully cultivated public image, which many, especially women, can strongly identify with, and results in a softening of the image of the SNP. She is also widely believed - when she says independence would be fine, it adds significant credibility to that message. Personally I wouldn't believe her if she told me the time, but it is foolish to pretend that's a majority view. When she goes, there isn't any talent to replace her. I think Salmond, great operator as he is, isn't going to replace her - that's a pipe dream.
The SNP vote wants rid of the Union. All else is noise. The notion that they would start trickling back to pro-Union parties without Nicola Sturgeon's leadership is for the birds.
There are many who vote SNP do not want out of the union, indeed some are in our family
If a commitment to a second referendum appears in the SNP manifesto and then you vote SNP, you know exactly what you're voting to achieve. The SNP are not, as a political movement, an unknown quantity. They return to Government and independence will be their entire focus. Nothing else in Scottish politics will matter for another four year term. It is their entire raison d'etre.
Anyone voting SNP wants rid of the Union. For them to imagine otherwise suggests a remarkable degree of cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance happens though, there were people stating that Boris Johnson was a disgrace and would be a disaster if elected leader of the Tories, yet there they were voting for him to be pm a few short months later.
Thought tbf that may be moral and intellectual inconsistency rather than cognitive dissonance.
Or even a change in the range of options. We saw it in the US with Trump. During the primaries, many said they'd never vote for him. Then faced with the choice between Trump and Hillary, they did. So I think some of that effect is neither cognitive dissonance, nor inconsistency - both of which undoubtedly exist - but forced choice.
I listened to the entire testimony by Alex Salmond from his swearing of the oath to the end and it was a consummate performance, full of well presented arguments, and coruscating of Sturgeon and her government.
The hearing was also interesting for the shocking level of interrogation by his former SNP colleagues and the Lib Dem, who was plain embarrassing, and the way Salmond made them look incompetent in the extreme
Indeed, it seems to be generally accepted that Jackie Baillie (labour) and Murdo Fraser (consevstive) were far more forensic in their questions, and it has to be said they opened the door for Salmond to make his case
I understand the hearing has requested important documents from the Crown office by Tuesday and before Sturgeon's attendance at the meeting the following day
This story has many more twists and turns but it does make the SNP look as if it is at war with itself
And polls have not yet taken place post yesterday, and more importantly as this saga develops over the weeks and months ahead
The SNP may survive unscathed but it is less certain today, then before yesterday extraordinary events
The real issue, I think, is not so much Sturgeon herself, but who else is involved.
Salmond was claiming that he had written/typed evidence that a number of senior SNP people had conspired to get him convicted. And he really, really meant conspired.
The senior SNP people are likely to be staffers, rather than MPs or MSPs. People like Peter Murrell and Sue Ruddick.
Just a theoretical - could Sturgeon survive her husband being found instrumental in conspiring to bring down Salmond to protect her?
Yes, I think so.
She would take big damage. How many would believe she didn't know?
Nobody would believe it, but the people who still wanted Sturgeon at all costs (provided she continues to be an electoral asset) wouldn't care. It is very important that if Sturgeon is forced to resign, it is widely seen as justified. The clarity behind the reason for going is almost as important as the going.
I reckon there's a significant portion of SNP support that would have no truck with her if they believed she was a liar. Their support might depart at least until she was replaced as First Minister - regardless of being given a "clean bill of health" by the Scottish Establishment.
Looks like we should pass the 30 jabs per 100 people mark tomorrow. 💉👍
If you add to that a degree of protection offered by having caught the damn bug previously...I think vaccines are starting to play a part in blocking infections now but maybe also some seasonality (warmer after the cold snap) and more communities building up natural immunity are factors too.
Whisper it quietly, a degree of herd immunity....
There is a heavy price to pay for a degree of herd immunity sans vaccine. We paid it.
Hmmm. France and Germany look to be paying it for months longer. Their choice.
The maths is pretty straightforward. Imperial, last March, predicted some 500,000 deaths without interventions before this played out. We're at roughly 135,000 so, if the modelling the govt has been relyng upon is to be beleived, and assuming there is acquired immunity from infection that lasts (there appears to be) we are around 30% of the way to hypothetical herd immunity based on infection alone. Some areas of the country will be further along that road than others. Add in vaccination we are even further along. Don't take my word for it though, noted over-optimist Prof Neil Ferguson says -
"As much as one-third of the UK population may already have gained some level of immunity by contracting and recovering from Covid-19, said Prof Ferguson. And this pool of protection is being quickly expanded by vaccination to take the population towards herd immunity status."
There will be a significant overlap between those.
Primarily those who caught the virus and then got vaccinated. Less frequently those who got the injection and still got the disease anyway.
I mentioned a couple of days ago my wife tested positive despite having Pfizer back in December, she was due for her booster jab today ironically. For what its worth as an anecdote she doesn't seem to be suffering much except for being very, very tired and sleeping a lot more than normal.
She called to reschedule her booster jab as obviously can't go in for it - the person she spoke to on the phone said that she'd have to wait now for 28 symptom-free days following her 10 day isolation period before she could book back in for her booster. That puts her well past the 12 week window as a result so he thought she might have to have it as another first dose. I'm guessing he was wrong and that's not what they'd really do, I can't imagine her having to have two more doses after this.
Do we have any idea how many J&J ones we moght get by June/July time...we could do insane numbers of those via drive thrus every day.
We should be mostly done with 1st jabs at that point
J&J is juicy juicy for Saffa Strain. So if there’s an efficacy problem with AZN or Pfizer we’ve got something in our back pockets ready to smother any new wave before it gets going. Rather than door to door lateral flow testing in Liverpool or Woking or Walsall, just smash those places with J&J in a weekend.
That’s before we get to the inevitable pre Winter mRNA tweaked booster doses.
AZN can also be tweaked just as easily as the mRNA vaccines. Same basic process - select genetic material to insert, make genetic material, insert into delivery vehicle of choice (viral vector, lipid vesicle), inject.
For my taste, Prince Charles has too few periods of design he likes, and it all ends up a bit "ersatz history" and "Trumpton".
The recent 'Build Beautiful' document by Scruton was quite good imo.
But what is good design? And what is beautiful?
(Remember that tastes change constantly - in the 1960s they were happily putting dual carriageways through medieval town centres)
And what matters? For example, should we have permeable estates and street patterns, or should we follow crime prevention guidelines of the last 25 years and prevent scrotes having so many escape routes they are never caught?
You raise a fascinating question - but I'd disagree with some of the points here. People in the 1960's knew those buildings and projects were f**k ugly. A vanguard of brutalists insisted on them, most went along with the Emperor's new clothes, and a few who called it right were dismissed.
There are certain universal principles as to what pleases the human eye, and they have good 'primeval' reasons. We prefer natural, or natural looking materials, as they evoke lush, fertile, natural landscape. We prefer curves and undulations to jagged edges for the same reason. We prefer thick looking walls with deeply recessed windows, because they look like the buildings will be safer and warmer. We prefer rich decoration to lack of ornament because it reflects wealth and abundance. If we develop these and other natural preferences into a set of principles for beautiful buildings, we can steer clear of monstrosities, whatever the trends of the future - that would be incredibly worthwhile.
Regarding Prince Charles, all the criticism I have seen of Poundbury and his other architectural pastiches seems to be that they lack authenticity - comparing them to real 18th and 19th century buildings. That is not a valid comparison, because there was never any possibility of 18th and 19th century buildings being conjured up. The real comparison is with modern grey rabbit hutches, and I think few of his critics would not overcome their aversion to Poundbury if their alternative was living on a grey estate in Crawley or Milton Keynes.
I think you somewhat stereotype by decade. There was far more than "Brutalist" (let's not argue about the precise meaning) built in the 60s/early 70s (allowing for time to build), and some of the brutalist that was built was very attractive; much of it is still popular.
One or two that are arguably brutalist and works in say London: Barbican & Silver Lane, Brentford Dock for housing estates, and many in Camden. Plus plenty of others.
Where they don't work I would say it is more down to people who are put there, or insufficient concern for the human scale, or skimping on the design / care / maintenance of the building. Equally non-brutalist things fail for similar reasons.
And some brutalist materials are back in the last 15 years eg textured concrete.
Plus the 60s gave us things like Span and Segal. If I point you at one good 1960s place to visit it would be Peter Aldington's House at Turn End in Bucks. https://www.turnend.org.uk/
On your 'universal principles' - is that in part a "Royal We"?
I agree some way on proportions etc, but the definition of "monstrosity" is very personal. OTOH the proportions for urban highways in the Manual for Streets policy document are not dissimilar to those used by Haussman for rebuilding Paris in the 1850s-1880s.
My preferred architectural style is probably what I call 'humanist' which emerged in the early 60s/70s, and relies on light, space, proportion, simplicity, practicality. For eg churches I am more attracted to Wren preaching boxes or East Anglian wool churches, rather than Baroque or High Gothic (say St Giles, Cheadle), perhaps for similar reasons. That is different to your suggestions wrt to eg decoration.
Have you read "A Pattern Language"? - which is very interesting on how people live socially in their spaces. Somewhere there is a website with much content. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language
On Prince Charles, I think Poundbury can arguably be called a little post-modern, because the exterior is in some ways a curtain wrapped around a different style of interior - like a stage set.
Enough for now.
I'd suggest the Home Office building also works.
I suppose also the Economist Building qualifies, as it was built by the Smithsons.
Thanks for the book recommendation.
I can't comment on the building that you have a sketch of, but I am afraid I don't agree that the Home Office building pictured is an attractive building. I think it's a very ugly building. We develop sentimental attachments to long standing buildings like The National Theatre, but I don't think that means they're not ugly. In a few cases, a very few cases, I'd preserve such buildings as museum pieces. In all other instances, a large amount of semtex would improve things no end for the actual victims who live there.
Yes, there are times when more sparsely decorated buildings have a power about them, I'd agree. However, as a rule, most buildings are enhanced by some decorative flourishes. Even when we lived in caves we were still painting them.
Interesting.
What's your viiew of the sparsely decorated (but probably not 'brutalist')
a - British Library. b - Coventry Cathedral.
For me, those both probably rate amongst the top 50 buildings in the country.
Looks like we should pass the 30 jabs per 100 people mark tomorrow. 💉👍
If you add to that a degree of protection offered by having caught the damn bug previously...I think vaccines are starting to play a part in blocking infections now but maybe also some seasonality (warmer after the cold snap) and more communities building up natural immunity are factors too.
Whisper it quietly, a degree of herd immunity....
There is a heavy price to pay for a degree of herd immunity sans vaccine. We paid it.
Hmmm. France and Germany look to be paying it for months longer. Their choice.
The maths is pretty straightforward. Imperial, last March, predicted some 500,000 deaths without interventions before this played out. We're at roughly 135,000 so, if the modelling the govt has been relyng upon is to be beleived, and assuming there is acquired immunity from infection that lasts (there appears to be) we are around 30% of the way to hypothetical herd immunity based on infection alone. Some areas of the country will be further along that road than others. Add in vaccination we are even further along. Don't take my word for it though, noted over-optimist Prof Neil Ferguson says -
"As much as one-third of the UK population may already have gained some level of immunity by contracting and recovering from Covid-19, said Prof Ferguson. And this pool of protection is being quickly expanded by vaccination to take the population towards herd immunity status."
There will be a significant overlap between those.
Primarily those who caught the virus and then got vaccinated. Less frequently those who got the injection and still got the disease anyway.
I mentioned a couple of days ago my wife tested positive despite having Pfizer back in December, she was due for her booster jab today ironically. For what its worth as an anecdote she doesn't seem to be suffering much except for being very, very tired and sleeping a lot more than normal.
She called to reschedule her booster jab as obviously can't go in for it - the person she spoke to on the phone said that she'd have to wait now for 28 symptom-free days following her 10 day isolation period before she could book back in for her booster. That puts her well past the 12 week window as a result so he thought she might have to have it as another first dose. I'm guessing he was wrong and that's not what they'd really do, I can't imagine her having to have two more doses after this.
There is no evidence for a 12 week gap for Pfizer, so no less evidence than for a 16 week gap. I would expect good immunity after confirmed infection and a booster though.
Just watched the Anas Sawar give his speech after winning the Scottish Labour leadership . First impressions he speaks very well. Whether that will matter at all with dominant SNP and a split unionist opposition. It might if there was another independence referendum.
First ethinic minority leader of a major UK party I believe.
Disraeli waves.
So do Ed Miliband and Michael Howard.
There was a liberal leader who was also Jewish, but I've forgotten his name.
Sir Herbert Samuel, leader from 1931-35 and leader in the Lords from 1944-55.
Just watched the Anas Sawar give his speech after winning the Scottish Labour leadership . First impressions he speaks very well. Whether that will matter at all with dominant SNP and a split unionist opposition. It might if there was another independence referendum.
First ethinic minority leader of a major UK party I believe.
Disraeli waves.
So do Ed Miliband and Michael Howard.
There was a liberal leader who was also Jewish, but I've forgotten his name.
Sir Herbert Samuel, leader from 1931-35 and leader in the Lords from 1944-55.
Do we have any idea how many J&J ones we moght get by June/July time...we could do insane numbers of those via drive thrus every day.
We should be mostly done with 1st jabs at that point
J&J is juicy juicy for Saffa Strain. So if there’s an efficacy problem with AZN or Pfizer we’ve got something in our back pockets ready to smother any new wave before it gets going. Rather than door to door lateral flow testing in Liverpool or Woking or Walsall, just smash those places with J&J in a weekend.
That’s before we get to the inevitable pre Winter mRNA tweaked booster doses.
AZN can also be tweaked just as easily as the mRNA vaccines. Same basic process - select genetic material to insert, make genetic material, insert into delivery vehicle of choice (viral vector, lipid vesicle), inject.
I think the worry for both of the viral vector vaccines is that booster jabs may suffer from vector immunity and not give a useful immune response to updated spike protein. It's one of the clear advantages of mRNA and protein adjuvant approaches.
Just watched the Anas Sawar give his speech after winning the Scottish Labour leadership . First impressions he speaks very well. Whether that will matter at all with dominant SNP and a split unionist opposition. It might if there was another independence referendum.
First ethinic minority leader of a major UK party I believe.
Disraeli waves.
So do Ed Miliband and Michael Howard.
There was a liberal leader who was also Jewish, but I've forgotten his name.
Sir Herbert Samuel, leader from 1931-35 and leader in the Lords from 1944-55.
That's the chap.
Also, interestingly, British Governor of the Mandate of Palestine from 1919-25, and therefore the first Jewish ruler of the Holy Land since before the Roman occupation.
Do we have any idea how many J&J ones we moght get by June/July time...we could do insane numbers of those via drive thrus every day.
We should be mostly done with 1st jabs at that point
J&J is juicy juicy for Saffa Strain. So if there’s an efficacy problem with AZN or Pfizer we’ve got something in our back pockets ready to smother any new wave before it gets going. Rather than door to door lateral flow testing in Liverpool or Woking or Walsall, just smash those places with J&J in a weekend.
That’s before we get to the inevitable pre Winter mRNA tweaked booster doses.
AZN can also be tweaked just as easily as the mRNA vaccines. Same basic process - select genetic material to insert, make genetic material, insert into delivery vehicle of choice (viral vector, lipid vesicle), inject.
For AZN though there must be the risk of diminishing returns, with he immune system recognising and destroying the chimp adenovirus vector before the material inside can get to work. And while they may have a stable of new vectors, you’d want that to go through new testing I’d have thought.
Looks like we should pass the 30 jabs per 100 people mark tomorrow. 💉👍
If you add to that a degree of protection offered by having caught the damn bug previously...I think vaccines are starting to play a part in blocking infections now but maybe also some seasonality (warmer after the cold snap) and more communities building up natural immunity are factors too.
Whisper it quietly, a degree of herd immunity....
There is a heavy price to pay for a degree of herd immunity sans vaccine. We paid it.
Hmmm. France and Germany look to be paying it for months longer. Their choice.
The maths is pretty straightforward. Imperial, last March, predicted some 500,000 deaths without interventions before this played out. We're at roughly 135,000 so, if the modelling the govt has been relyng upon is to be beleived, and assuming there is acquired immunity from infection that lasts (there appears to be) we are around 30% of the way to hypothetical herd immunity based on infection alone. Some areas of the country will be further along that road than others. Add in vaccination we are even further along. Don't take my word for it though, noted over-optimist Prof Neil Ferguson says -
"As much as one-third of the UK population may already have gained some level of immunity by contracting and recovering from Covid-19, said Prof Ferguson. And this pool of protection is being quickly expanded by vaccination to take the population towards herd immunity status."
There will be a significant overlap between those.
Primarily those who caught the virus and then got vaccinated. Less frequently those who got the injection and still got the disease anyway.
I mentioned a couple of days ago my wife tested positive despite having Pfizer back in December, she was due for her booster jab today ironically. For what its worth as an anecdote she doesn't seem to be suffering much except for being very, very tired and sleeping a lot more than normal.
She called to reschedule her booster jab as obviously can't go in for it - the person she spoke to on the phone said that she'd have to wait now for 28 symptom-free days following her 10 day isolation period before she could book back in for her booster. That puts her well past the 12 week window as a result so he thought she might have to have it as another first dose. I'm guessing he was wrong and that's not what they'd really do, I can't imagine her having to have two more doses after this.
Lets say 30% of the population have had it (slightly less than Prof Ferguson's one third - based on an IRF of 0.75 18 million should have caught it). If you say that the percentage of people who have been vaccinated and also had Covid previously is that national figure (30%) then that's an overlap of roughly 6 million people. 30% of the UK population is 20 million people.
So (19m - 6m) + 20m = 33 million or so people will have a degree of immune response (whether from infection altogether or just severe disease) in one way or another in three weeks time. Just under 50% of the population. And of course that will be rising all the time.
Do we have any idea how many J&J ones we moght get by June/July time...we could do insane numbers of those via drive thrus every day.
We should be mostly done with 1st jabs at that point
J&J is juicy juicy for Saffa Strain. So if there’s an efficacy problem with AZN or Pfizer we’ve got something in our back pockets ready to smother any new wave before it gets going. Rather than door to door lateral flow testing in Liverpool or Woking or Walsall, just smash those places with J&J in a weekend.
That’s before we get to the inevitable pre Winter mRNA tweaked booster doses.
AZN can also be tweaked just as easily as the mRNA vaccines. Same basic process - select genetic material to insert, make genetic material, insert into delivery vehicle of choice (viral vector, lipid vesicle), inject.
For AZN though there must be the risk of diminishing returns, with he immune system recognising and destroying the chimp adenovirus vector before the material inside can get to work. And while they may have a stable of new vectors, you’d want that to go through new testing I’d have thought.
Indeed and a new vector would need a new safety trial. It's why the government has made its deal with GSK/CureVac for mutation busting boosters.
Just watched the Anas Sawar give his speech after winning the Scottish Labour leadership . First impressions he speaks very well. Whether that will matter at all with dominant SNP and a split unionist opposition. It might if there was another independence referendum.
First ethinic minority leader of a major UK party I believe.
Just watched the Anas Sawar give his speech after winning the Scottish Labour leadership . First impressions he speaks very well. Whether that will matter at all with dominant SNP and a split unionist opposition. It might if there was another independence referendum.
First ethinic minority leader of a major UK party I believe.
Just watched the Anas Sawar give his speech after winning the Scottish Labour leadership . First impressions he speaks very well. Whether that will matter at all with dominant SNP and a split unionist opposition. It might if there was another independence referendum.
First ethinic minority leader of a major UK party I believe.
Disraeli says Hello!
And Michael Howard.
There’s also been a suggestion made that the 2nd Earl of Liverpool had some Indian ancestry, although personally I think that’s BS, a bit like those dumb Bridgerton claims about Queen Caroline.
But Johnson himself of course has Turkish ancestry.
I expect 60-69 + anyone vulnerable will be the biggest cohort of all by quite some margin. At last count I think over 7 million fall under the "under 65 but vulnerable" category. So we may be stuck doing the sixties for quite some time, but if supply accelerates hopefully we can accelerate through other decades sooner. Even while doing increasing numbers of second jabs.
Hopefully it doesn't accelerate due to people refusing the jab. I'd rather wait another week than get it sooner because others before me refused.
As I quoted earlier, my part of the world is a long way behind the national figures with Newham having only vaccinated 71% of over 65s and one sixth of its adult population.
7.3 million are in the "16-64 but vulnerable" category and it is the largest adult cohort.
So how come parts of London are doing the 50s-y-os?
Comments
There are many different housing "problems" and construction is one solution but far from the only one. The conundrum is for many people their house is their only capital asset. Its appreciation in advance of inflation provides many with the only sure-fire way of accumulating wealth. For so many, it's not just the asset it's the pension. Downsizing out of a large family home to something smaller releases that cash equity to fund the cruises, the other holidays and the lifestyle of the newly-retired.
At the other end of the problem, building all the new houses you like in Cornwall isn't going to make them affordable for local young people. There needs to be affordable rental property - a public as well as private rental environment so those in areas with unaffordable housing can start somewhere.
Into the problems you can chuck a fair splash of politics - the Conservative side are all over home ownership because home owners are the bedrock of Conservative support. Buy your own home, become a Tory you might say. The problem is not everyone can or wants to become a homeowner from the start - the housing offering has to involve active and regulated public and private rental sectors.
The other side of home ownership is once you have one home, you see the attraction of owning another so houses become not just places to live but assets, investment commodities like jewellery, cars or information.
BTL arose because the collapse in interest rates enabled many to pay off their mortgages and become both debt free and cash rich so they could invest in property. Thus, an already heavily distorted land market was further distorted and houses became even more expensive.
The return of sensible monetary policy and inflation (two of the consequences of the post Covid world I'd expect along with haircuts and everyone having to learn the charleston apparently) will also impact the housing market. Somebody asked this morning whether, as a buyer, you wanted high or low interest rates. I'd answer the preferred option was interest rate stability. We've had a decade or more of rock bottom rates but I think Covid has ended that as we will see inflation re-emerge as all the cash tied up for the past year is released.
7.3 million are in the "16-64 but vulnerable" category and it is the largest adult cohort.
Deaths 290 - down 32.3% week on week.
1,111 patients admitted - down 22% week on week.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
If any of his case is substantiated it would put an earthquake through the SNP and Sturgeon's own future
Sturgeon seems to be phenomenally popular with that kind of voter, regardless of how much trouble she’s in. If she goes the SNP will pay for it in votes, not perhaps as much as might be expected due to the woeful opposition, but probably enough to hurt.
https://twitter.com/LanceForman/status/1365674075398549506?s=20
One of my favourite websites is The Modern House (www.themodernhouse.com) which is property porn for architecture fans.
In fact I bought my current house through them a few years back.
I love period architecture too, of course. But not of all it is good. Brussel’s Palais de Justice, for example, is an abomination.
Hackney, where I live, is pretty good for innovative new domestic architecture. But generally, Britain’s self-build industry is miniscule, for reasons I do not understand.
If a cabinet committee not including someone who isn't in the cabinet is not breathless wank, it will certainly do until some breathless wank comes along.
Anyone voting SNP wants rid of the Union. For them to imagine otherwise suggests a remarkable degree of cognitive dissonance.
Is he from Dover?
But it needs to play out.
Thought tbf that may be moral and intellectual inconsistency rather than cognitive dissonance.
The SNP replaced Labour hence why they appeal but a good number of former Labour voters do not support independence and would vote no in a referendum
And I have family members in exactly that position
First impressions he speaks very well.
Whether that will matter at all with dominant SNP and a split unionist opposition.
It might if there was another independence referendum.
First ethinic minority leader of a major UK party I believe.
You've stopped talking about them since Boris Johnson's awesome Brexit deal.
Might save Starmer from an awkward decision.
Which would suggest you get at least a year's immunity from previous infection.
"As much as one-third of the UK population may already have gained some level of immunity by contracting and recovering from Covid-19, said Prof Ferguson. And this pool of protection is being quickly expanded by vaccination to take the population towards herd immunity status."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-vaccine-uk-neil-ferguson-lockdown-b1801354.html
1) He spent most of the 2010s complaining about Tory 'austerity' forcing cuts on Liverpool, yet he managed to find £280 million to give Everton as a loan for their new stadium.
2) Calling the rozzers over Ross Barkley's transfer to Chelsea.
I'll miss him.
I can't comment on the building that you have a sketch of, but I am afraid I don't agree that the Home Office building pictured is an attractive building. I think it's a very ugly building. We develop sentimental attachments to long standing buildings like The National Theatre, but I don't think that means they're not ugly. In a few cases, a very few cases, I'd preserve such buildings as museum pieces. In all other instances, a large amount of semtex would improve things no end for the actual victims who live there.
Yes, there are times when more sparsely decorated buildings have a power about them, I'd agree. However, as a rule, most buildings are enhanced by some decorative flourishes. Even when we lived in caves we were still painting them.
Well, if they want a second referendum (and, if the second fails as well, potentially a third, fourth, fifth and sixth) then I guess that's up to them. It just strikes one as an interesting way to approach something of which you approve. You know, beating it continually with a baseball bat.
There was a liberal leader who was also Jewish, but I've forgotten his name.
That’s before we get to the inevitable pre Winter mRNA tweaked booster doses.
Would be the right numbers for a winter booster.
Primarily those who caught the virus and then got vaccinated.
Less frequently those who got the injection and still got the disease anyway.
I mentioned a couple of days ago my wife tested positive despite having Pfizer back in December, she was due for her booster jab today ironically. For what its worth as an anecdote she doesn't seem to be suffering much except for being very, very tired and sleeping a lot more than normal.
She called to reschedule her booster jab as obviously can't go in for it - the person she spoke to on the phone said that she'd have to wait now for 28 symptom-free days following her 10 day isolation period before she could book back in for her booster. That puts her well past the 12 week window as a result so he thought she might have to have it as another first dose. I'm guessing he was wrong and that's not what they'd really do, I can't imagine her having to have two more doses after this.
What's your viiew of the sparsely decorated (but probably not 'brutalist')
a - British Library.
b - Coventry Cathedral.
For me, those both probably rate amongst the top 50 buildings in the country.
England giving too many penalties, but the ref is helping by finding everything England do to be worthy of a penalty....
So (19m - 6m) + 20m = 33 million or so people will have a degree of immune response (whether from infection altogether or just severe disease) in one way or another in three weeks time. Just under 50% of the population. And of course that will be rising all the time.
This has to be worse performance by the rugby officials since Craig Joubert's performance in Scotland v. Australia in 2015.
But Johnson himself of course has Turkish ancestry.