Harry and Meghan say they left the royal family because they had so much to offer the world, so much they could say. But apparently all they have to talk about is themselves
Even if that is an unfair summary, certainly they appear to get a lot more attention about talking about themselves or other royals rather than the things they are presumably interested in.
Prediction: they are going to end up massively unpopular. Always famous, but really disliked by many, as his boyish charm disappears, and her beauty fades. Because that is what they are trading in now. The Bitcoin of celebrity.
That would be a shame, but I just can't see what the endgame here is for them - their status is because they are royals, and while there'll always be a market for 'the royals who slag off/speak the truth about the other royals', that's pretty exhausing and surely not what they want to spend their time on for decades to come? And that they want attention at all means they don't wish to just sit back and enjoy their wealth and family, so what's the next move?
I don't think they are particularly wealthy: Harry's off the Civil List (or Sovereign Grant thingy), and Meghan's not working. My understanding is that there's a massive mortgage on their Santa Barbara property.
They probably need to bring in $3-4m/year (before tax) to cover their expenses - and while they can probably do that fairly easily in the short term, can they manage it year after year after year?
Harry's got an inheritance from Diana and she must have residuals from Suits.
The inheritance was spent - I believe - on the deposit for their house. Her residuals might be enough for a single person living a modest life in a small town, but they're barely going to pay the electricity bill in Santa Barbara.
He has at every stage come over as a conspircy theorist and all round loon. While there are some good points he makes its largely been lost because its surrounded by his tinfoil hat
The whole saga is ridiculous. Both Airbus and Boeing receive massive subsidies, and then each complains the ones the other recieves.
Yep but the EU subsidies Airbus in ways that the US Government won't (outright cash) while the US does it via paying multiple times the odds for Government Projects.
Have been, er, busy today so missed the @contrarian shenanigans.
Whatever the merits of his position, I continually find it interesting if not disappointing that there is such instant animosity and dismissal of his views. He is entitled not to want a jab because that's the country we live in. Or used to.
How we all laughed and pointed fingers when the Chinese announced that people wouldn't be allowed to leave HK and lo and behold our govt is making us fill out forms before we go abroad to see if we are going when it's not allowed. Just ponder that. Today we can't go to see our dying parents at home. By law.
Ponder also the year of unprecedented restrictions of liberty, the damage done to so many physically, psychologically and economically by the govt.
Now, there are good reasons for all of it. But for PB, that group of independent, free-thinking types, the falling in behind the government's every move has been an eye-opener.
Everyone has their red lines. @contrarian has his and others have theirs. Some had theirs tested the other day when it was mooted that restrictions would be based on cases and lockdown wouldn't end until these were low. In the end the govt has now set a date when all restrictions will be lifted. But if it hadn't, then that would have been cheered by many on here also.
You write that, but isn't it much more likely to be a phone app ?
It's a fine for leaving the country for the wrong reasons.
I remember Farage mooching about the "Government demanding 'papers' when in fact it would likely be an ID card that was needed. I get the feeling that forms/papers are used by people wanting to mentally invoke the Ordnungspolizei trope.
Phrase it how you want I'm not bothered. It is registering to leave the country. Something that we derided the Chinese for doing just days ago. In the UK now, most people don't bat an eyelid.
You mean the Swedes are right, Toby Young is right, and the the government and the scientists will never let us out of lockdown down posts are valuable?
It is a contrarian view which constantly and aggressively questions measures taken by the government. On anything (it seems).
I have said many times that while I don't agree with everything he says, it is absolutely vital that such voices exist.
We have a bumbling fool as PM who happens also to err on the side of personal liberty. Imagine if Jeremy Corbyn or any one of so many other politicians was PM. These laws set the most extraordinary of precedents.
I have said more than once over the past 12 months - ask Walter Wolfgang about how such laws can be misused.
It's not so much contrarian as illogical.
He hates lockdowns (we all do) but he do what is the quickest route of lockdown and get a vaccine PDQ, but he'll get it private but not on the NHS because of the man, unaware that man will also be aware who gets the vaccine privately.
Yes maybe. Maybe he has been driven mad by so much government. No idea. But it is his stand and he is entitled to make it and I find it disappointing that he is so ostracised by PB for doing so. As he has been throughout. Right up until there was an "oh shit" moment when it was thought that the govt would behave "illogically" by not bringing us out of lockdown when PB consensus thought it should and we all all of a sudden looked to Steve Baker as our one recourse to sanity.
Firstly, he's not 'ostracised'.
Secondly, we take the piss out of him because he believes the government wants to keep us locked down forever because... hey, look a dead squirrel.
He has at every stage questioned the huge restrictions on our liberty while everyone else was applauding them.
Sure, and he's right to do so.
But he also repeatedly claims that the government doesn't want lockdown to end, and plans to continue it indefinitely, as part of some extraordinary power grab.
Harry and Meghan say they left the royal family because they had so much to offer the world, so much they could say. But apparently all they have to talk about is themselves
Even if that is an unfair summary, certainly they appear to get a lot more attention about talking about themselves or other royals rather than the things they are presumably interested in.
Prediction: they are going to end up massively unpopular. Always famous, but really disliked by many, as his boyish charm disappears, and her beauty fades. Because that is what they are trading in now. The Bitcoin of celebrity.
That would be a shame, but I just can't see what the endgame here is for them - their status is because they are royals, and while there'll always be a market for 'the royals who slag off/speak the truth about the other royals', that's pretty exhausing and surely not what they want to spend their time on for decades to come? And that they want attention at all means they don't wish to just sit back and enjoy their wealth and family, so what's the next move?
I don't think they are particularly wealthy: Harry's off the Civil List (or Sovereign Grant thingy), and Meghan's not working. My understanding is that there's a massive mortgage on their Santa Barbara property.
They probably need to bring in $3-4m/year (before tax) to cover their expenses - and while they can probably do that fairly easily in the short term, can they manage it year after year after year?
Harry's got an inheritance from Diana and she must have residuals from Suits.
The inheritance was spent - I believe - on the deposit for their house. Her residuals might be enough for a single person living a modest life in a small town, but they're barely going to pay the electricity bill in Santa Barbara.
I thought that he also received a serious amount (6 figures) yearly from the Diana estate?
Harry and Meghan say they left the royal family because they had so much to offer the world, so much they could say. But apparently all they have to talk about is themselves
Even if that is an unfair summary, certainly they appear to get a lot more attention about talking about themselves or other royals rather than the things they are presumably interested in.
Prediction: they are going to end up massively unpopular. Always famous, but really disliked by many, as his boyish charm disappears, and her beauty fades. Because that is what they are trading in now. The Bitcoin of celebrity.
That would be a shame, but I just can't see what the endgame here is for them - their status is because they are royals, and while there'll always be a market for 'the royals who slag off/speak the truth about the other royals', that's pretty exhausing and surely not what they want to spend their time on for decades to come? And that they want attention at all means they don't wish to just sit back and enjoy their wealth and family, so what's the next move?
I don't think they are particularly wealthy: Harry's off the Civil List (or Sovereign Grant thingy), and Meghan's not working. My understanding is that there's a massive mortgage on their Santa Barbara property.
They probably need to bring in $3-4m/year (before tax) to cover their expenses - and while they can probably do that fairly easily in the short term, can they manage it year after year after year?
Harry's got an inheritance from Diana and she must have residuals from Suits.
The inheritance was spent - I believe - on the deposit for their house. Her residuals might be enough for a single person living a modest life in a small town, but they're barely going to pay the electricity bill in Santa Barbara.
I thought that he also received a serious amount (6 figures) yearly from the Diana estate?
I didn't know that.
Still... when you have a $10m mortgage, it'd better be a high six figure sum and not a low one.
The whole saga is ridiculous. Both Airbus and Boeing receive massive subsidies, and then each complains the ones the other recieves.
Yep but the EU subsidies Airbus in ways that the US Government won't (outright cash) while the US does it via paying multiple times the odds for Government Projects.
Have been, er, busy today so missed the @contrarian shenanigans.
Whatever the merits of his position, I continually find it interesting if not disappointing that there is such instant animosity and dismissal of his views. He is entitled not to want a jab because that's the country we live in. Or used to.
How we all laughed and pointed fingers when the Chinese announced that people wouldn't be allowed to leave HK and lo and behold our govt is making us fill out forms before we go abroad to see if we are going when it's not allowed. Just ponder that. Today we can't go to see our dying parents at home. By law.
Ponder also the year of unprecedented restrictions of liberty, the damage done to so many physically, psychologically and economically by the govt.
Now, there are good reasons for all of it. But for PB, that group of independent, free-thinking types, the falling in behind the government's every move has been an eye-opener.
Everyone has their red lines. @contrarian has his and others have theirs. Some had theirs tested the other day when it was mooted that restrictions would be based on cases and lockdown wouldn't end until these were low. In the end the govt has now set a date when all restrictions will be lifted. But if it hadn't, then that would have been cheered by many on here also.
You write that, but isn't it much more likely to be a phone app ?
It's a fine for leaving the country for the wrong reasons.
I remember Farage mooching about the "Government demanding 'papers' when in fact it would likely be an ID card that was needed. I get the feeling that forms/papers are used by people wanting to mentally invoke the Ordnungspolizei trope.
Phrase it how you want I'm not bothered. It is registering to leave the country. Something that we derided the Chinese for doing just days ago. In the UK now, most people don't bat an eyelid.
You mean the Swedes are right, Toby Young is right, and the the government and the scientists will never let us out of lockdown down posts are valuable?
It is a contrarian view which constantly and aggressively questions measures taken by the government. On anything (it seems).
I have said many times that while I don't agree with everything he says, it is absolutely vital that such voices exist.
We have a bumbling fool as PM who happens also to err on the side of personal liberty. Imagine if Jeremy Corbyn or any one of so many other politicians was PM. These laws set the most extraordinary of precedents.
I have said more than once over the past 12 months - ask Walter Wolfgang about how such laws can be misused.
It's not so much contrarian as illogical.
He hates lockdowns (we all do) but he do what is the quickest route of lockdown and get a vaccine PDQ, but he'll get it private but not on the NHS because of the man, unaware that man will also be aware who gets the vaccine privately.
Yes maybe. Maybe he has been driven mad by so much government. No idea. But it is his stand and he is entitled to make it and I find it disappointing that he is so ostracised by PB for doing so. As he has been throughout. Right up until there was an "oh shit" moment when it was thought that the govt would behave "illogically" by not bringing us out of lockdown when PB consensus thought it should and we all all of a sudden looked to Steve Baker as our one recourse to sanity.
Firstly, he's not 'ostracised'.
Secondly, we take the piss out of him because he believes the government wants to keep us locked down forever because... hey, look a dead squirrel.
He has at every stage questioned the huge restrictions on our liberty while everyone else was applauding them.
And if he'd had his way - no restrictions ever for any reason, because freedom - the pandemic would have surged out of control, crashed the health service, and killed many more people. Does he want a medal for that?
Have been, er, busy today so missed the @contrarian shenanigans.
Whatever the merits of his position, I continually find it interesting if not disappointing that there is such instant animosity and dismissal of his views. He is entitled not to want a jab because that's the country we live in. Or used to.
How we all laughed and pointed fingers when the Chinese announced that people wouldn't be allowed to leave HK and lo and behold our govt is making us fill out forms before we go abroad to see if we are going when it's not allowed. Just ponder that. Today we can't go to see our dying parents at home. By law.
Ponder also the year of unprecedented restrictions of liberty, the damage done to so many physically, psychologically and economically by the govt.
Now, there are good reasons for all of it. But for PB, that group of independent, free-thinking types, the falling in behind the government's every move has been an eye-opener.
Everyone has their red lines. @contrarian has his and others have theirs. Some had theirs tested the other day when it was mooted that restrictions would be based on cases and lockdown wouldn't end until these were low. In the end the govt has now set a date when all restrictions will be lifted. But if it hadn't, then that would have been cheered by many on here also.
You write that, but isn't it much more likely to be a phone app ?
It's a fine for leaving the country for the wrong reasons.
I remember Farage mooching about the "Government demanding 'papers' when in fact it would likely be an ID card that was needed. I get the feeling that forms/papers are used by people wanting to mentally invoke the Ordnungspolizei trope.
Phrase it how you want I'm not bothered. It is registering to leave the country. Something that we derided the Chinese for doing just days ago. In the UK now, most people don't bat an eyelid.
You mean the Swedes are right, Toby Young is right, and the the government and the scientists will never let us out of lockdown down posts are valuable?
It is a contrarian view which constantly and aggressively questions measures taken by the government. On anything (it seems).
I have said many times that while I don't agree with everything he says, it is absolutely vital that such voices exist.
We have a bumbling fool as PM who happens also to err on the side of personal liberty. Imagine if Jeremy Corbyn or any one of so many other politicians was PM. These laws set the most extraordinary of precedents.
I have said more than once over the past 12 months - ask Walter Wolfgang about how such laws can be misused.
It's not so much contrarian as illogical.
He hates lockdowns (we all do) but he do what is the quickest route of lockdown and get a vaccine PDQ, but he'll get it private but not on the NHS because of the man, unaware that man will also be aware who gets the vaccine privately.
Yes maybe. Maybe he has been driven mad by so much government. No idea. But it is his stand and he is entitled to make it and I find it disappointing that he is so ostracised by PB for doing so. As he has been throughout. Right up until there was an "oh shit" moment when it was thought that the govt would behave "illogically" by not bringing us out of lockdown when PB consensus thought it should and we all all of a sudden looked to Steve Baker as our one recourse to sanity.
Firstly, he's not 'ostracised'.
Secondly, we take the piss out of him because he believes the government wants to keep us locked down forever because... hey, look a dead squirrel.
He has at every stage questioned the huge restrictions on our liberty while everyone else was applauding them.
And if he'd had his way - no restrictions ever for any reason, because freedom - the pandemic would have surged out of control, crashed the health service, and killed many more people. Does he want a medal for that?
What I find strangest is that people laud Sweden.
Yet the Swedes imposed increasingly harsh compulsory measures in the second half of last year, and most Swedes feel their country has not done a very good job with Coronavirus relative to - say - Germany.
He has at every stage questioned the huge restrictions on our liberty while everyone else was applauding them.
When the history of all this is written, this will be the part that most fascinates me; how is it that the vast majority of the UK public accepted these infringements on personal liberty without so much as a peep of protest? I would never have believed it had I not been witness to it. How the government has, on the one hand, manipulated the masses into compliance and, on the other, stamped out any dissent (even Peter Hitchens has given up recently) is quite astonishing.
Feeling as powerless as I do to influence anything, and realizing that I belong to a tiny minority of opinion, I can share contrarian's incredulity and frustration.
Given the complete lack of a coordinated dissenting voice, does anyone believe that lockdowns will not become a regular feature of life in the future whenever the government needs or wants to influence collective behaviour 'for the common good'? As I say, the climate change lobby must be rubbing its hands in anticipation ...
The whole saga is ridiculous. Both Airbus and Boeing receive massive subsidies, and then each complains the ones the other recieves.
Yep but the EU subsidies Airbus in ways that the US Government won't (outright cash) while the US does it via paying multiple times the odds for Government Projects.
Oh, Boeing is subsidised in more ways than that!
They have strayed into British Leyland territory, but I don't know the finances. Care to elaborate?
He has at every stage come over as a conspircy theorist and all round loon. While there are some good points he makes its largely been lost because its surrounded by his tinfoil hat
I agree but I think there is a high trolling quotient. He will be amused at being taken so seriously.
The whole saga is ridiculous. Both Airbus and Boeing receive massive subsidies, and then each complains the ones the other recieves.
Yep but the EU subsidies Airbus in ways that the US Government won't (outright cash) while the US does it via paying multiple times the odds for Government Projects.
Oh, Boeing is subsidised in more ways than that!
They have strayed into British Leyland territory, but I don't know the finances. Care to elaborate?
They also get direct R&D grants and the US government guarantees Boeing will get paid by certain less creditworthy customers.
Have been, er, busy today so missed the @contrarian shenanigans.
Whatever the merits of his position, I continually find it interesting if not disappointing that there is such instant animosity and dismissal of his views. He is entitled not to want a jab because that's the country we live in. Or used to.
How we all laughed and pointed fingers when the Chinese announced that people wouldn't be allowed to leave HK and lo and behold our govt is making us fill out forms before we go abroad to see if we are going when it's not allowed. Just ponder that. Today we can't go to see our dying parents at home. By law.
Ponder also the year of unprecedented restrictions of liberty, the damage done to so many physically, psychologically and economically by the govt.
Now, there are good reasons for all of it. But for PB, that group of independent, free-thinking types, the falling in behind the government's every move has been an eye-opener.
Everyone has their red lines. @contrarian has his and others have theirs. Some had theirs tested the other day when it was mooted that restrictions would be based on cases and lockdown wouldn't end until these were low. In the end the govt has now set a date when all restrictions will be lifted. But if it hadn't, then that would have been cheered by many on here also.
You write that, but isn't it much more likely to be a phone app ?
It's a fine for leaving the country for the wrong reasons.
I remember Farage mooching about the "Government demanding 'papers' when in fact it would likely be an ID card that was needed. I get the feeling that forms/papers are used by people wanting to mentally invoke the Ordnungspolizei trope.
Phrase it how you want I'm not bothered. It is registering to leave the country. Something that we derided the Chinese for doing just days ago. In the UK now, most people don't bat an eyelid.
You mean the Swedes are right, Toby Young is right, and the the government and the scientists will never let us out of lockdown down posts are valuable?
It is a contrarian view which constantly and aggressively questions measures taken by the government. On anything (it seems).
I have said many times that while I don't agree with everything he says, it is absolutely vital that such voices exist.
We have a bumbling fool as PM who happens also to err on the side of personal liberty. Imagine if Jeremy Corbyn or any one of so many other politicians was PM. These laws set the most extraordinary of precedents.
I have said more than once over the past 12 months - ask Walter Wolfgang about how such laws can be misused.
It's not so much contrarian as illogical.
He hates lockdowns (we all do) but he do what is the quickest route of lockdown and get a vaccine PDQ, but he'll get it private but not on the NHS because of the man, unaware that man will also be aware who gets the vaccine privately.
Yes maybe. Maybe he has been driven mad by so much government. No idea. But it is his stand and he is entitled to make it and I find it disappointing that he is so ostracised by PB for doing so. As he has been throughout. Right up until there was an "oh shit" moment when it was thought that the govt would behave "illogically" by not bringing us out of lockdown when PB consensus thought it should and we all all of a sudden looked to Steve Baker as our one recourse to sanity.
Firstly, he's not 'ostracised'.
Secondly, we take the piss out of him because he believes the government wants to keep us locked down forever because... hey, look a dead squirrel.
He has at every stage questioned the huge restrictions on our liberty while everyone else was applauding them.
And if he'd had his way - no restrictions ever for any reason, because freedom - the pandemic would have surged out of control, crashed the health service, and killed many more people. Does he want a medal for that?
I don't think that's a helpful characterisation.
I sincerely hope that the (thus far) world leading success in rolling out the vaccine and the joyous scenes it deserves to bring, do not lead to a white wash in the public mind of what we got very seriously wrong. Because we're going to have a pandemic every 5 years for the rest of our lives. It's on us all to retrospectively assess what we variously supported out of blind terror and what we opposed out of hopeless optimism. Cut the guy some slack and have a little introspection.
He has at every stage questioned the huge restrictions on our liberty while everyone else was applauding them.
When the history of all this is written, this will be the part that most fascinates me; how is it that the vast majority of the UK public accepted these infringements on personal liberty without so much as a peep of protest? I would never have believed it had I not been witness to it. How the government has, on the one hand, manipulated the masses into compliance and, on the other, stamped out any dissent (even Peter Hitchens has given up recently) is quite astonishing.
Feeling as powerless as I do to influence anything, and realizing that I belong to a tiny minority of opinion, I can share contrarian's incredulity and frustration.
Given the complete lack of a coordinated dissenting voice, does anyone believe that lockdowns will not become a regular feature of life in the future whenever the government needs or wants to influence collective behaviour 'for the common good'? As I say, the climate change lobby must be rubbing its hands in anticipation ...
The problem is that the people who have most questioned the restrictions have been the most divorced from reality.
Let us take Toby Young. He has claimed at various points
- herd immunity was reached in late Spring 2020 - the autumn increase in cases was just false positives caused by more testing - the second wave wasn't real, because hospitalisations hadn't moved - the CV19 IFR was 0.1%
He has at every stage come over as a conspircy theorist and all round loon. While there are some good points he makes its largely been lost because its surrounded by his tinfoil hat
I agree but I think there is a high trolling quotient. He will be amused at being taken so seriously.
I have never taken him seriously it is topping holding up as a warrior for liberty. I have misgivings myself about the lockdowns and have questioned them on cost.....however I haven't stooped to citing crackpots as a reason not to do it
Have been, er, busy today so missed the @contrarian shenanigans.
Whatever the merits of his position, I continually find it interesting if not disappointing that there is such instant animosity and dismissal of his views. He is entitled not to want a jab because that's the country we live in. Or used to.
How we all laughed and pointed fingers when the Chinese announced that people wouldn't be allowed to leave HK and lo and behold our govt is making us fill out forms before we go abroad to see if we are going when it's not allowed. Just ponder that. Today we can't go to see our dying parents at home. By law.
Ponder also the year of unprecedented restrictions of liberty, the damage done to so many physically, psychologically and economically by the govt.
Now, there are good reasons for all of it. But for PB, that group of independent, free-thinking types, the falling in behind the government's every move has been an eye-opener.
Everyone has their red lines. @contrarian has his and others have theirs. Some had theirs tested the other day when it was mooted that restrictions would be based on cases and lockdown wouldn't end until these were low. In the end the govt has now set a date when all restrictions will be lifted. But if it hadn't, then that would have been cheered by many on here also.
You write that, but isn't it much more likely to be a phone app ?
It's a fine for leaving the country for the wrong reasons.
I remember Farage mooching about the "Government demanding 'papers' when in fact it would likely be an ID card that was needed. I get the feeling that forms/papers are used by people wanting to mentally invoke the Ordnungspolizei trope.
Phrase it how you want I'm not bothered. It is registering to leave the country. Something that we derided the Chinese for doing just days ago. In the UK now, most people don't bat an eyelid.
You mean the Swedes are right, Toby Young is right, and the the government and the scientists will never let us out of lockdown down posts are valuable?
It is a contrarian view which constantly and aggressively questions measures taken by the government. On anything (it seems).
I have said many times that while I don't agree with everything he says, it is absolutely vital that such voices exist.
We have a bumbling fool as PM who happens also to err on the side of personal liberty. Imagine if Jeremy Corbyn or any one of so many other politicians was PM. These laws set the most extraordinary of precedents.
I have said more than once over the past 12 months - ask Walter Wolfgang about how such laws can be misused.
It's not so much contrarian as illogical.
He hates lockdowns (we all do) but he do what is the quickest route of lockdown and get a vaccine PDQ, but he'll get it private but not on the NHS because of the man, unaware that man will also be aware who gets the vaccine privately.
Yes maybe. Maybe he has been driven mad by so much government. No idea. But it is his stand and he is entitled to make it and I find it disappointing that he is so ostracised by PB for doing so. As he has been throughout. Right up until there was an "oh shit" moment when it was thought that the govt would behave "illogically" by not bringing us out of lockdown when PB consensus thought it should and we all all of a sudden looked to Steve Baker as our one recourse to sanity.
Firstly, he's not 'ostracised'.
Secondly, we take the piss out of him because he believes the government wants to keep us locked down forever because... hey, look a dead squirrel.
He has at every stage questioned the huge restrictions on our liberty while everyone else was applauding them.
And if he'd had his way - no restrictions ever for any reason, because freedom - the pandemic would have surged out of control, crashed the health service, and killed many more people. Does he want a medal for that?
What I find strangest is that people laud Sweden.
Yet the Swedes imposed increasingly harsh compulsory measures in the second half of last year, and most Swedes feel their country has not done a very good job with Coronavirus relative to - say - Germany.
Is it because so many people of both genders fantasise about following Swedish models?
He has at every stage questioned the huge restrictions on our liberty while everyone else was applauding them.
When the history of all this is written, this will be the part that most fascinates me; how is it that the vast majority of the UK public accepted these infringements on personal liberty without so much as a peep of protest? I would never have believed it had I not been witness to it. How the government has, on the one hand, manipulated the masses into compliance and, on the other, stamped out any dissent (even Peter Hitchens has given up recently) is quite astonishing.
Feeling as powerless as I do to influence anything, and realizing that I belong to a tiny minority of opinion, I can share contrarian's incredulity and frustration.
Given the complete lack of a coordinated dissenting voice, does anyone believe that lockdowns will not become a regular feature of life in the future whenever the government needs or wants to influence collective behaviour 'for the common good'? As I say, the climate change lobby must be rubbing its hands in anticipation ...
The problem is that the people who have most questioned the restrictions have been the most divorced from reality.
Let us take Toby Young. He has claimed at various points
- herd immunity was reached in late Spring 2020 - the autumn increase in cases was just false positives caused by more testing - the second wave wasn't real, because hospitalisations hadn't moved - the CV19 IFR was 0.1%
That's fair, but conversely there are still plenty of people that post here that are clinging to real world IFR's of "1-2%" when that's patently a nonsense.
Harry and Meghan say they left the royal family because they had so much to offer the world, so much they could say. But apparently all they have to talk about is themselves
Even if that is an unfair summary, certainly they appear to get a lot more attention about talking about themselves or other royals rather than the things they are presumably interested in.
Prediction: they are going to end up massively unpopular. Always famous, but really disliked by many, as his boyish charm disappears, and her beauty fades. Because that is what they are trading in now. The Bitcoin of celebrity.
That would be a shame, but I just can't see what the endgame here is for them - their status is because they are royals, and while there'll always be a market for 'the royals who slag off/speak the truth about the other royals', that's pretty exhausing and surely not what they want to spend their time on for decades to come? And that they want attention at all means they don't wish to just sit back and enjoy their wealth and family, so what's the next move?
I don't think they are particularly wealthy: Harry's off the Civil List (or Sovereign Grant thingy), and Meghan's not working. My understanding is that there's a massive mortgage on their Santa Barbara property.
They probably need to bring in $3-4m/year (before tax) to cover their expenses - and while they can probably do that fairly easily in the short term, can they manage it year after year after year?
Harry's got an inheritance from Diana and she must have residuals from Suits.
The inheritance was spent - I believe - on the deposit for their house. Her residuals might be enough for a single person living a modest life in a small town, but they're barely going to pay the electricity bill in Santa Barbara.
I thought that he also received a serious amount (6 figures) yearly from the Diana estate?
I didn't know that.
Still... when you have a $10m mortgage, it'd better be a high six figure sum and not a low one.
I thought the Diana inheritance was £10m+ each, plus a 7 figure chunk from the Queen Mum, plus some more later in life.
The whole saga is ridiculous. Both Airbus and Boeing receive massive subsidies, and then each complains the ones the other recieves.
Yep but the EU subsidies Airbus in ways that the US Government won't (outright cash) while the US does it via paying multiple times the odds for Government Projects.
Oh, Boeing is subsidised in more ways than that!
They have strayed into British Leyland territory, but I don't know the finances. Care to elaborate?
They also get direct R&D grants and the US government guarantees Boeing will get paid by certain less creditworthy customers.
Tbf, European countries also give Airbus export guarantees and finance as well.
Harry and Meghan say they left the royal family because they had so much to offer the world, so much they could say. But apparently all they have to talk about is themselves
Even if that is an unfair summary, certainly they appear to get a lot more attention about talking about themselves or other royals rather than the things they are presumably interested in.
Prediction: they are going to end up massively unpopular. Always famous, but really disliked by many, as his boyish charm disappears, and her beauty fades. Because that is what they are trading in now. The Bitcoin of celebrity.
That would be a shame, but I just can't see what the endgame here is for them - their status is because they are royals, and while there'll always be a market for 'the royals who slag off/speak the truth about the other royals', that's pretty exhausing and surely not what they want to spend their time on for decades to come? And that they want attention at all means they don't wish to just sit back and enjoy their wealth and family, so what's the next move?
I don't think they are particularly wealthy: Harry's off the Civil List (or Sovereign Grant thingy), and Meghan's not working. My understanding is that there's a massive mortgage on their Santa Barbara property.
They probably need to bring in $3-4m/year (before tax) to cover their expenses - and while they can probably do that fairly easily in the short term, can they manage it year after year after year?
Harry's got an inheritance from Diana and she must have residuals from Suits.
The inheritance was spent - I believe - on the deposit for their house. Her residuals might be enough for a single person living a modest life in a small town, but they're barely going to pay the electricity bill in Santa Barbara.
I thought that he also received a serious amount (6 figures) yearly from the Diana estate?
I didn't know that.
Still... when you have a $10m mortgage, it'd better be a high six figure sum and not a low one.
I thought the Diana inheritance was £10m+ each, plus a 7 figure chunk from the Queen Mum, plus some more later in life.
Princess Diana’s estate was around £17 million before tax. So not quite that much. More probably around £4 million.
You would have thought that would be enough to live on though, if spent intelligently.
Have been, er, busy today so missed the @contrarian shenanigans.
Whatever the merits of his position, I continually find it interesting if not disappointing that there is such instant animosity and dismissal of his views. He is entitled not to want a jab because that's the country we live in. Or used to.
How we all laughed and pointed fingers when the Chinese announced that people wouldn't be allowed to leave HK and lo and behold our govt is making us fill out forms before we go abroad to see if we are going when it's not allowed. Just ponder that. Today we can't go to see our dying parents at home. By law.
Ponder also the year of unprecedented restrictions of liberty, the damage done to so many physically, psychologically and economically by the govt.
Now, there are good reasons for all of it. But for PB, that group of independent, free-thinking types, the falling in behind the government's every move has been an eye-opener.
Everyone has their red lines. @contrarian has his and others have theirs. Some had theirs tested the other day when it was mooted that restrictions would be based on cases and lockdown wouldn't end until these were low. In the end the govt has now set a date when all restrictions will be lifted. But if it hadn't, then that would have been cheered by many on here also.
You write that, but isn't it much more likely to be a phone app ?
It's a fine for leaving the country for the wrong reasons.
I remember Farage mooching about the "Government demanding 'papers' when in fact it would likely be an ID card that was needed. I get the feeling that forms/papers are used by people wanting to mentally invoke the Ordnungspolizei trope.
Phrase it how you want I'm not bothered. It is registering to leave the country. Something that we derided the Chinese for doing just days ago. In the UK now, most people don't bat an eyelid.
You mean the Swedes are right, Toby Young is right, and the the government and the scientists will never let us out of lockdown down posts are valuable?
It is a contrarian view which constantly and aggressively questions measures taken by the government. On anything (it seems).
I have said many times that while I don't agree with everything he says, it is absolutely vital that such voices exist.
We have a bumbling fool as PM who happens also to err on the side of personal liberty. Imagine if Jeremy Corbyn or any one of so many other politicians was PM. These laws set the most extraordinary of precedents.
I have said more than once over the past 12 months - ask Walter Wolfgang about how such laws can be misused.
It's not so much contrarian as illogical.
He hates lockdowns (we all do) but he do what is the quickest route of lockdown and get a vaccine PDQ, but he'll get it private but not on the NHS because of the man, unaware that man will also be aware who gets the vaccine privately.
Yes maybe. Maybe he has been driven mad by so much government. No idea. But it is his stand and he is entitled to make it and I find it disappointing that he is so ostracised by PB for doing so. As he has been throughout. Right up until there was an "oh shit" moment when it was thought that the govt would behave "illogically" by not bringing us out of lockdown when PB consensus thought it should and we all all of a sudden looked to Steve Baker as our one recourse to sanity.
Firstly, he's not 'ostracised'.
Secondly, we take the piss out of him because he believes the government wants to keep us locked down forever because... hey, look a dead squirrel.
He has at every stage questioned the huge restrictions on our liberty while everyone else was applauding them.
And if he'd had his way - no restrictions ever for any reason, because freedom - the pandemic would have surged out of control, crashed the health service, and killed many more people. Does he want a medal for that?
I don't think that's a helpful characterisation.
I sincerely hope that the (thus far) world leading success in rolling out the vaccine and the joyous scenes it deserves to bring, do not lead to a white wash in the public mind of what we got very seriously wrong. Because we're going to have a pandemic every 5 years for the rest of our lives. It's on us all to retrospectively assess what we variously supported out of blind terror and what we opposed out of hopeless optimism. Cut the guy some slack and have a little introspection.
Having had the dubious pleasure of reading his posts throughout, I'm confident that I'm not mischaracterizing his position - it really is that extreme. As many people have said, there are legitimate arguments to be had about where the balance is struck between liberty and safety - I tend to lean on the safety side because as we've seen mass behaviour has tended to swing between panic and complacency, with little capacity for adhering to a middle ground - but contrarian's absolutism makes him the worst possible advocate for those arguments.
Harry and Meghan say they left the royal family because they had so much to offer the world, so much they could say. But apparently all they have to talk about is themselves
Even if that is an unfair summary, certainly they appear to get a lot more attention about talking about themselves or other royals rather than the things they are presumably interested in.
Prediction: they are going to end up massively unpopular. Always famous, but really disliked by many, as his boyish charm disappears, and her beauty fades. Because that is what they are trading in now. The Bitcoin of celebrity.
That would be a shame, but I just can't see what the endgame here is for them - their status is because they are royals, and while there'll always be a market for 'the royals who slag off/speak the truth about the other royals', that's pretty exhausing and surely not what they want to spend their time on for decades to come? And that they want attention at all means they don't wish to just sit back and enjoy their wealth and family, so what's the next move?
I don't think they are particularly wealthy: Harry's off the Civil List (or Sovereign Grant thingy), and Meghan's not working. My understanding is that there's a massive mortgage on their Santa Barbara property.
They probably need to bring in $3-4m/year (before tax) to cover their expenses - and while they can probably do that fairly easily in the short term, can they manage it year after year after year?
Harry's got an inheritance from Diana and she must have residuals from Suits.
The inheritance was spent - I believe - on the deposit for their house. Her residuals might be enough for a single person living a modest life in a small town, but they're barely going to pay the electricity bill in Santa Barbara.
I thought that he also received a serious amount (6 figures) yearly from the Diana estate?
I didn't know that.
Still... when you have a $10m mortgage, it'd better be a high six figure sum and not a low one.
I thought the Diana inheritance was £10m+ each, plus a 7 figure chunk from the Queen Mum, plus some more later in life.
Princess Diana’s estate was around £17 million before tax. So not quite that much. More probably around £4 million.
You would have thought that would be enough to live on though, if spent intelligently.
Christ - where did she get that amount of cash from? I'd open my legs for Charles to get £17...
Harry and Meghan say they left the royal family because they had so much to offer the world, so much they could say. But apparently all they have to talk about is themselves
Even if that is an unfair summary, certainly they appear to get a lot more attention about talking about themselves or other royals rather than the things they are presumably interested in.
Prediction: they are going to end up massively unpopular. Always famous, but really disliked by many, as his boyish charm disappears, and her beauty fades. Because that is what they are trading in now. The Bitcoin of celebrity.
That would be a shame, but I just can't see what the endgame here is for them - their status is because they are royals, and while there'll always be a market for 'the royals who slag off/speak the truth about the other royals', that's pretty exhausing and surely not what they want to spend their time on for decades to come? And that they want attention at all means they don't wish to just sit back and enjoy their wealth and family, so what's the next move?
I don't think they are particularly wealthy: Harry's off the Civil List (or Sovereign Grant thingy), and Meghan's not working. My understanding is that there's a massive mortgage on their Santa Barbara property.
They probably need to bring in $3-4m/year (before tax) to cover their expenses - and while they can probably do that fairly easily in the short term, can they manage it year after year after year?
Harry's got an inheritance from Diana and she must have residuals from Suits.
The inheritance was spent - I believe - on the deposit for their house. Her residuals might be enough for a single person living a modest life in a small town, but they're barely going to pay the electricity bill in Santa Barbara.
I thought that he also received a serious amount (6 figures) yearly from the Diana estate?
I didn't know that.
Still... when you have a $10m mortgage, it'd better be a high six figure sum and not a low one.
I thought the Diana inheritance was £10m+ each, plus a 7 figure chunk from the Queen Mum, plus some more later in life.
Princess Diana’s estate was around £17 million before tax. So not quite that much. More probably around £4 million.
You would have thought that would be enough to live on though, if spent intelligently.
Christ - where did she get that amount of cash from? I'd open my legs for Charles to get £17...
Roughly speaking, that’s how she did it. Almost all her money came from the divorce settlement.
Harry and Meghan say they left the royal family because they had so much to offer the world, so much they could say. But apparently all they have to talk about is themselves
Even if that is an unfair summary, certainly they appear to get a lot more attention about talking about themselves or other royals rather than the things they are presumably interested in.
Prediction: they are going to end up massively unpopular. Always famous, but really disliked by many, as his boyish charm disappears, and her beauty fades. Because that is what they are trading in now. The Bitcoin of celebrity.
That would be a shame, but I just can't see what the endgame here is for them - their status is because they are royals, and while there'll always be a market for 'the royals who slag off/speak the truth about the other royals', that's pretty exhausing and surely not what they want to spend their time on for decades to come? And that they want attention at all means they don't wish to just sit back and enjoy their wealth and family, so what's the next move?
I don't think they are particularly wealthy: Harry's off the Civil List (or Sovereign Grant thingy), and Meghan's not working. My understanding is that there's a massive mortgage on their Santa Barbara property.
They probably need to bring in $3-4m/year (before tax) to cover their expenses - and while they can probably do that fairly easily in the short term, can they manage it year after year after year?
Harry's got an inheritance from Diana and she must have residuals from Suits.
The inheritance was spent - I believe - on the deposit for their house. Her residuals might be enough for a single person living a modest life in a small town, but they're barely going to pay the electricity bill in Santa Barbara.
I thought that he also received a serious amount (6 figures) yearly from the Diana estate?
I didn't know that.
Still... when you have a $10m mortgage, it'd better be a high six figure sum and not a low one.
I thought the Diana inheritance was £10m+ each, plus a 7 figure chunk from the Queen Mum, plus some more later in life.
Princess Diana’s estate was around £17 million before tax. So not quite that much. More probably around £4 million.
You would have thought that would be enough to live on though, if spent intelligently.
Christ - where did she get that amount of cash from? I'd open my legs for Charles to get £17...
The whole saga is ridiculous. Both Airbus and Boeing receive massive subsidies, and then each complains the ones the other recieves.
Yep but the EU subsidies Airbus in ways that the US Government won't (outright cash) while the US does it via paying multiple times the odds for Government Projects.
Oh, Boeing is subsidised in more ways than that!
They have strayed into British Leyland territory, but I don't know the finances. Care to elaborate?
They also get direct R&D grants and the US government guarantees Boeing will get paid by certain less creditworthy customers.
Tbf, European countries also give Airbus export guarantees and finance as well.
Oh, Airbus is appallingly subsidised too - quite probably more in aggregate that Boeing.
I just get annoyed that both of them bitch about the other being subsidised while trousering billions of government money.
We are told that there are other aspects to the case which justify the running of the defence and that, accordingly, there is no prospect of the petition being conceded.
Harry and Meghan say they left the royal family because they had so much to offer the world, so much they could say. But apparently all they have to talk about is themselves
Even if that is an unfair summary, certainly they appear to get a lot more attention about talking about themselves or other royals rather than the things they are presumably interested in.
Prediction: they are going to end up massively unpopular. Always famous, but really disliked by many, as his boyish charm disappears, and her beauty fades. Because that is what they are trading in now. The Bitcoin of celebrity.
That would be a shame, but I just can't see what the endgame here is for them - their status is because they are royals, and while there'll always be a market for 'the royals who slag off/speak the truth about the other royals', that's pretty exhausing and surely not what they want to spend their time on for decades to come? And that they want attention at all means they don't wish to just sit back and enjoy their wealth and family, so what's the next move?
I don't think they are particularly wealthy: Harry's off the Civil List (or Sovereign Grant thingy), and Meghan's not working. My understanding is that there's a massive mortgage on their Santa Barbara property.
They probably need to bring in $3-4m/year (before tax) to cover their expenses - and while they can probably do that fairly easily in the short term, can they manage it year after year after year?
Harry's got an inheritance from Diana and she must have residuals from Suits.
The inheritance was spent - I believe - on the deposit for their house. Her residuals might be enough for a single person living a modest life in a small town, but they're barely going to pay the electricity bill in Santa Barbara.
I thought that he also received a serious amount (6 figures) yearly from the Diana estate?
I didn't know that.
Still... when you have a $10m mortgage, it'd better be a high six figure sum and not a low one.
I thought the Diana inheritance was £10m+ each, plus a 7 figure chunk from the Queen Mum, plus some more later in life.
Princess Diana’s estate was around £17 million before tax. So not quite that much. More probably around £4 million.
You would have thought that would be enough to live on though, if spent intelligently.
Christ - where did she get that amount of cash from? I'd open my legs for Charles to get £17...
Well, you're a bit of a cheap date...
Yep. just spotted the missing millions (a bit like Rishi...)
The whole saga is ridiculous. Both Airbus and Boeing receive massive subsidies, and then each complains the ones the other recieves.
Yep but the EU subsidies Airbus in ways that the US Government won't (outright cash) while the US does it via paying multiple times the odds for Government Projects.
Oh, Boeing is subsidised in more ways than that!
They have strayed into British Leyland territory, but I don't know the finances. Care to elaborate?
They also get direct R&D grants and the US government guarantees Boeing will get paid by certain less creditworthy customers.
Tbf, European countries also give Airbus export guarantees and finance as well.
Oh, Airbus is appallingly subsidised too - quite probably more in aggregate that Boeing.
I just get annoyed that both of them bitch about the other being subsidised while trousering billions of government money.
Yeah I know it's ridiculous. It's like doper Dwain Chambers complaining he's got to race against doper Justin Gatlin.
Harry and Meghan say they left the royal family because they had so much to offer the world, so much they could say. But apparently all they have to talk about is themselves
Even if that is an unfair summary, certainly they appear to get a lot more attention about talking about themselves or other royals rather than the things they are presumably interested in.
Prediction: they are going to end up massively unpopular. Always famous, but really disliked by many, as his boyish charm disappears, and her beauty fades. Because that is what they are trading in now. The Bitcoin of celebrity.
That would be a shame, but I just can't see what the endgame here is for them - their status is because they are royals, and while there'll always be a market for 'the royals who slag off/speak the truth about the other royals', that's pretty exhausing and surely not what they want to spend their time on for decades to come? And that they want attention at all means they don't wish to just sit back and enjoy their wealth and family, so what's the next move?
I don't think they are particularly wealthy: Harry's off the Civil List (or Sovereign Grant thingy), and Meghan's not working. My understanding is that there's a massive mortgage on their Santa Barbara property.
They probably need to bring in $3-4m/year (before tax) to cover their expenses - and while they can probably do that fairly easily in the short term, can they manage it year after year after year?
Harry's got an inheritance from Diana and she must have residuals from Suits.
The inheritance was spent - I believe - on the deposit for their house. Her residuals might be enough for a single person living a modest life in a small town, but they're barely going to pay the electricity bill in Santa Barbara.
I thought that he also received a serious amount (6 figures) yearly from the Diana estate?
I didn't know that.
Still... when you have a $10m mortgage, it'd better be a high six figure sum and not a low one.
I thought the Diana inheritance was £10m+ each, plus a 7 figure chunk from the Queen Mum, plus some more later in life.
Princess Diana’s estate was around £17 million before tax. So not quite that much. More probably around £4 million.
You would have thought that would be enough to live on though, if spent intelligently.
Christ - where did she get that amount of cash from? I'd open my legs for Charles to get £17...
Well, you're a bit of a cheap date...
I hate admitting I know this, however Princess Diana got a stonking divorce settlement. My story is that I shared a house with a Diana enthusiast and a Diana disliker in Clapham when she was killed, which was fireworks.
Checking, £17 million, plus 400k a year income (1990s prices, but tragically not for long), plus "keep the jewels".
Since this is Royal Gossip week, she played it well enough that PC had to borrow a significant amount from HMQ.
Have been, er, busy today so missed the @contrarian shenanigans.
Whatever the merits of his position, I continually find it interesting if not disappointing that there is such instant animosity and dismissal of his views.
How we all laughed and pointed fingers when the Chinese announced that people wouldn't be allowed to leave HK and lo and behold our govt is making us fill out forms before we go abroad to see if we are going when it's not allowed. Just ponder that. Today we can't go to see our dying parents at home. By law.
Ponder also the year of unprecedented restrictions of liberty, the damage done to so many physically, psychologically and economically by the govt.
Now, there are good reasons for all of it. But for PB, that group of independent, free-thinking types, the falling in behind the government's every move has been an eye-opener.
Everyone has their red lines. @contrarian has his and others have theirs. Some had theirs tested the other day when it was mooted that restrictions would be based on cases and lockdown wouldn't end until these were low. In the end the govt has now set a date when all restrictions will be lifted. But if it hadn't, then that would have been cheered by many on here also.
I have explicitly said I believe his choice is fair. If he's not harming anyone else, go for it.
Still quite odd, however, for the reasons kinabalu sketches. But that is not a criticism just an opinion
He says he will get the jab in his own time if it's not govt-related.
Perhaps he is sick to death and has had enough of the government regulating every single element of our lives including when we can walk outside our front door and who we can sleep with for the past year.
Well it is a very odd way of drawing the line to not do what the government suggests, bearing in mind it is not mandating the jab. And when he is whigning about lockdown all the time and thus relying on everyone else to follow government suggestion and provision, so that he does not have to.
He doesn't want to have 'the government' do it, fine, regardless of whether that makes sense in terms of it, you know, protecting him. But enough of this playing the hero as though its a moral failing of others to, non bindingly, decide that with all else we entrust in government, they can know if we've had a jab.
We all draw lines wherever we want. He wants to make a stand on this. I don't have a problem with it.
Is he playing the hero? Not that I've noticed.
Absolutely by implication, with the whole thing about people who do accept a vaccination from the government wanting the government to run their entire lives - that's a moral judgement on those who have done so suggesting they are weak or dumb.
I wouldn't mind taking a stand in the slightest except that his personal lines requires that most people do not make the same choice, otherwise we'd not open up as not enough people would be vaccinated, so it is expecting others to take steps for wider society while not doing the same.
It's the difference between making a stand and requiring others to support a position to make your stand viable. The very fact you call it taking a stand adds to the playing the hero card - I am a bold visionary standing by my principles...so long as others do vaccinate sooner to make my choice viable.
Having had the dubious pleasure of reading his posts throughout, I'm confident that I'm not mischaracterizing his position - it really is that extreme. As many people have said, there are legitimate arguments to be had about where the balance is struck between liberty and safety - I tend to lean on the safety side because as we've seen mass behaviour has tended to swing between panic and complacency, with little capacity for adhering to a middle ground - but contrarian's absolutism makes him the worst possible advocate for those arguments.
Make people frightened enough and they'll do anything including sign away their freedom and their liberty.
Terrorism (hence its name) isn't about the actual physical attacks but about the propagation of a climate of fear which provokes a response from Government. Every time there's an attack plenty stand up and say the Government "must do something to keep us safe" so a little more freedom is taken and a little more control is given to the security State and in truth we're no safer even though we "feel" safer.
The virus was a form of terrorism - it wasn't about the physicality of the virus. In truth, the numbers infected and the numbers lost (terrible as they both are) weren't a direct threat to the societal fabric mandating a severe response - had the virus been much more transmissible and killed 75% of those infected, we'd have seen a really severe response.
Yet, the fear of the virus was enough - the accounts of what it could do and how you would die from it were enough. I know I was scared because at my time of life and in my health it wasn't a risk I was prepared to take. Call me risk averse if you like but it's my life and I've only got one so I'll be as risk averse as I want.
Whether, in a society dominated by older people, that risk averse response was wholly appropriate is something we will debate for some time to come. Should Government have imposed lockdown on society or should it have merely "suggested" it? I know from my surroundings for example there are many people who would have no choice about going to work - they need the job and the money to survive and if their employer tells them they have to report to work that's what they do - put simply, I could afford to be risk averse, not everyone can.
He has at every stage questioned the huge restrictions on our liberty while everyone else was applauding them.
When the history of all this is written, this will be the part that most fascinates me; how is it that the vast majority of the UK public accepted these infringements on personal liberty without so much as a peep of protest? I would never have believed it had I not been witness to it. How the government has, on the one hand, manipulated the masses into compliance and, on the other, stamped out any dissent (even Peter Hitchens has given up recently) is quite astonishing.
Feeling as powerless as I do to influence anything, and realizing that I belong to a tiny minority of opinion, I can share contrarian's incredulity and frustration.
Given the complete lack of a coordinated dissenting voice, does anyone believe that lockdowns will not become a regular feature of life in the future whenever the government needs or wants to influence collective behaviour 'for the common good'? As I say, the climate change lobby must be rubbing its hands in anticipation ...
The problem is that the people who have most questioned the restrictions have been the most divorced from reality.
Let us take Toby Young. He has claimed at various points
- herd immunity was reached in late Spring 2020 - the autumn increase in cases was just false positives caused by more testing - the second wave wasn't real, because hospitalisations hadn't moved - the CV19 IFR was 0.1%
There are arguments to be made on restrictions of liberty even in the face of increasing deaths, of the consequential costs of such policies. People might not agree but there are arguments there and absolutely with very serious policies and draconian laws there needed and still needs challenge.
That people have so often also bolted on denialist arguments or misrepresentations of the position in places like Sweden is therefore highly suspect as there is no need to do so. Nor a need for a having cake and eat it attitude where others are expected to 'surrender' to do whatever the government want and yet be criticised for doing so, as the individual 'resisting' can only do so if others play ball.
Have been, er, busy today so missed the @contrarian shenanigans.
Whatever the merits of his position, I continually find it interesting if not disappointing that there is such instant animosity and dismissal of his views. He is entitled not to want a jab because that's the country we live in. Or used to.
How we all laughed and pointed fingers when the Chinese announced that people wouldn't be allowed to leave HK and lo and behold our govt is making us fill out forms before we go abroad to see if we are going when it's not allowed. Just ponder that. Today we can't go to see our dying parents at home. By law.
Ponder also the year of unprecedented restrictions of liberty, the damage done to so many physically, psychologically and economically by the govt.
Now, there are good reasons for all of it. But for PB, that group of independent, free-thinking types, the falling in behind the government's every move has been an eye-opener.
Everyone has their red lines. @contrarian has his and others have theirs. Some had theirs tested the other day when it was mooted that restrictions would be based on cases and lockdown wouldn't end until these were low. In the end the govt has now set a date when all restrictions will be lifted. But if it hadn't, then that would have been cheered by many on here also.
You write that, but isn't it much more likely to be a phone app ?
It's a fine for leaving the country for the wrong reasons.
I remember Farage mooching about the "Government demanding 'papers' when in fact it would likely be an ID card that was needed. I get the feeling that forms/papers are used by people wanting to mentally invoke the Ordnungspolizei trope.
Phrase it how you want I'm not bothered. It is registering to leave the country. Something that we derided the Chinese for doing just days ago. In the UK now, most people don't bat an eyelid.
You mean the Swedes are right, Toby Young is right, and the the government and the scientists will never let us out of lockdown down posts are valuable?
It is a contrarian view which constantly and aggressively questions measures taken by the government. On anything (it seems).
I have said many times that while I don't agree with everything he says, it is absolutely vital that such voices exist.
We have a bumbling fool as PM who happens also to err on the side of personal liberty. Imagine if Jeremy Corbyn or any one of so many other politicians was PM. These laws set the most extraordinary of precedents.
I have said more than once over the past 12 months - ask Walter Wolfgang about how such laws can be misused.
It's not so much contrarian as illogical.
He hates lockdowns (we all do) but he do what is the quickest route of lockdown and get a vaccine PDQ, but he'll get it private but not on the NHS because of the man, unaware that man will also be aware who gets the vaccine privately.
Yes maybe. Maybe he has been driven mad by so much government. No idea. But it is his stand and he is entitled to make it and I find it disappointing that he is so ostracised by PB for doing so. As he has been throughout. Right up until there was an "oh shit" moment when it was thought that the govt would behave "illogically" by not bringing us out of lockdown when PB consensus thought it should and we all all of a sudden looked to Steve Baker as our one recourse to sanity.
Firstly, he's not 'ostracised'.
Secondly, we take the piss out of him because he believes the government wants to keep us locked down forever because... hey, look a dead squirrel.
He has at every stage questioned the huge restrictions on our liberty while everyone else was applauding them.
And if he'd had his way - no restrictions ever for any reason, because freedom - the pandemic would have surged out of control, crashed the health service, and killed many more people. Does he want a medal for that?
What I find strangest is that people laud Sweden.
Yet the Swedes imposed increasingly harsh compulsory measures in the second half of last year, and most Swedes feel their country has not done a very good job with Coronavirus relative to - say - Germany.
Have been, er, busy today so missed the @contrarian shenanigans.
Whatever the merits of his position, I continually find it interesting if not disappointing that there is such instant animosity and dismissal of his views. He is entitled not to want a jab because that's the country we live in. Or used to.
How we all laughed and pointed fingers when the Chinese announced that people wouldn't be allowed to leave HK and lo and behold our govt is making us fill out forms before we go abroad to see if we are going when it's not allowed. Just ponder that. Today we can't go to see our dying parents at home. By law.
Ponder also the year of unprecedented restrictions of liberty, the damage done to so many physically, psychologically and economically by the govt.
Now, there are good reasons for all of it. But for PB, that group of independent, free-thinking types, the falling in behind the government's every move has been an eye-opener.
Everyone has their red lines. @contrarian has his and others have theirs. Some had theirs tested the other day when it was mooted that restrictions would be based on cases and lockdown wouldn't end until these were low. In the end the govt has now set a date when all restrictions will be lifted. But if it hadn't, then that would have been cheered by many on here also.
You write that, but isn't it much more likely to be a phone app ?
It's a fine for leaving the country for the wrong reasons.
I remember Farage mooching about the "Government demanding 'papers' when in fact it would likely be an ID card that was needed. I get the feeling that forms/papers are used by people wanting to mentally invoke the Ordnungspolizei trope.
Phrase it how you want I'm not bothered. It is registering to leave the country. Something that we derided the Chinese for doing just days ago. In the UK now, most people don't bat an eyelid.
You mean the Swedes are right, Toby Young is right, and the the government and the scientists will never let us out of lockdown down posts are valuable?
It is a contrarian view which constantly and aggressively questions measures taken by the government. On anything (it seems).
I have said many times that while I don't agree with everything he says, it is absolutely vital that such voices exist.
We have a bumbling fool as PM who happens also to err on the side of personal liberty. Imagine if Jeremy Corbyn or any one of so many other politicians was PM. These laws set the most extraordinary of precedents.
I have said more than once over the past 12 months - ask Walter Wolfgang about how such laws can be misused.
It's not so much contrarian as illogical.
He hates lockdowns (we all do) but he do what is the quickest route of lockdown and get a vaccine PDQ, but he'll get it private but not on the NHS because of the man, unaware that man will also be aware who gets the vaccine privately.
Yes maybe. Maybe he has been driven mad by so much government. No idea. But it is his stand and he is entitled to make it and I find it disappointing that he is so ostracised by PB for doing so. As he has been throughout. Right up until there was an "oh shit" moment when it was thought that the govt would behave "illogically" by not bringing us out of lockdown when PB consensus thought it should and we all all of a sudden looked to Steve Baker as our one recourse to sanity.
Firstly, he's not 'ostracised'.
Secondly, we take the piss out of him because he believes the government wants to keep us locked down forever because... hey, look a dead squirrel.
He has at every stage questioned the huge restrictions on our liberty while everyone else was applauding them.
And if he'd had his way - no restrictions ever for any reason, because freedom - the pandemic would have surged out of control, crashed the health service, and killed many more people. Does he want a medal for that?
What I find strangest is that people laud Sweden.
Yet the Swedes imposed increasingly harsh compulsory measures in the second half of last year, and most Swedes feel their country has not done a very good job with Coronavirus relative to - say - Germany.
Are people still lauding Sweden?
Depends what you mean by ‘still’. Andra Neil certainly still was in December, but seems to have completely lost interest since then. Can’t think why.
Have been, er, busy today so missed the @contrarian shenanigans.
Whatever the merits of his position, I continually find it interesting if not disappointing that there is such instant animosity and dismissal of his views. He is entitled not to want a jab because that's the country we live in. Or used to.
How we all laughed and pointed fingers when the Chinese announced that people wouldn't be allowed to leave HK and lo and behold our govt is making us fill out forms before we go abroad to see if we are going when it's not allowed. Just ponder that. Today we can't go to see our dying parents at home. By law.
Ponder also the year of unprecedented restrictions of liberty, the damage done to so many physically, psychologically and economically by the govt.
Now, there are good reasons for all of it. But for PB, that group of independent, free-thinking types, the falling in behind the government's every move has been an eye-opener.
Everyone has their red lines. @contrarian has his and others have theirs. Some had theirs tested the other day when it was mooted that restrictions would be based on cases and lockdown wouldn't end until these were low. In the end the govt has now set a date when all restrictions will be lifted. But if it hadn't, then that would have been cheered by many on here also.
You write that, but isn't it much more likely to be a phone app ?
It's a fine for leaving the country for the wrong reasons.
I remember Farage mooching about the "Government demanding 'papers' when in fact it would likely be an ID card that was needed. I get the feeling that forms/papers are used by people wanting to mentally invoke the Ordnungspolizei trope.
Phrase it how you want I'm not bothered. It is registering to leave the country. Something that we derided the Chinese for doing just days ago. In the UK now, most people don't bat an eyelid.
You mean the Swedes are right, Toby Young is right, and the the government and the scientists will never let us out of lockdown down posts are valuable?
It is a contrarian view which constantly and aggressively questions measures taken by the government. On anything (it seems).
I have said many times that while I don't agree with everything he says, it is absolutely vital that such voices exist.
We have a bumbling fool as PM who happens also to err on the side of personal liberty. Imagine if Jeremy Corbyn or any one of so many other politicians was PM. These laws set the most extraordinary of precedents.
I have said more than once over the past 12 months - ask Walter Wolfgang about how such laws can be misused.
It's not so much contrarian as illogical.
He hates lockdowns (we all do) but he do what is the quickest route of lockdown and get a vaccine PDQ, but he'll get it private but not on the NHS because of the man, unaware that man will also be aware who gets the vaccine privately.
Yes maybe. Maybe he has been driven mad by so much government. No idea. But it is his stand and he is entitled to make it and I find it disappointing that he is so ostracised by PB for doing so. As he has been throughout. Right up until there was an "oh shit" moment when it was thought that the govt would behave "illogically" by not bringing us out of lockdown when PB consensus thought it should and we all all of a sudden looked to Steve Baker as our one recourse to sanity.
Firstly, he's not 'ostracised'.
Secondly, we take the piss out of him because he believes the government wants to keep us locked down forever because... hey, look a dead squirrel.
He has at every stage questioned the huge restrictions on our liberty while everyone else was applauding them.
And if he'd had his way - no restrictions ever for any reason, because freedom - the pandemic would have surged out of control, crashed the health service, and killed many more people. Does he want a medal for that?
What I find strangest is that people laud Sweden.
Yet the Swedes imposed increasingly harsh compulsory measures in the second half of last year, and most Swedes feel their country has not done a very good job with Coronavirus relative to - say - Germany.
Is it because so many people of both genders fantasise about following Swedish models?
Have been, er, busy today so missed the @contrarian shenanigans.
Whatever the merits of his position, I continually find it interesting if not disappointing that there is such instant animosity and dismissal of his views. He is entitled not to want a jab because that's the country we live in. Or used to.
How we all laughed and pointed fingers when the Chinese announced that people wouldn't be allowed to leave HK and lo and behold our govt is making us fill out forms before we go abroad to see if we are going when it's not allowed. Just ponder that. Today we can't go to see our dying parents at home. By law.
Ponder also the year of unprecedented restrictions of liberty, the damage done to so many physically, psychologically and economically by the govt.
Now, there are good reasons for all of it. But for PB, that group of independent, free-thinking types, the falling in behind the government's every move has been an eye-opener.
Everyone has their red lines. @contrarian has his and others have theirs. Some had theirs tested the other day when it was mooted that restrictions would be based on cases and lockdown wouldn't end until these were low. In the end the govt has now set a date when all restrictions will be lifted. But if it hadn't, then that would have been cheered by many on here also.
You write that, but isn't it much more likely to be a phone app ?
It's a fine for leaving the country for the wrong reasons.
I remember Farage mooching about the "Government demanding 'papers' when in fact it would likely be an ID card that was needed. I get the feeling that forms/papers are used by people wanting to mentally invoke the Ordnungspolizei trope.
Phrase it how you want I'm not bothered. It is registering to leave the country. Something that we derided the Chinese for doing just days ago. In the UK now, most people don't bat an eyelid.
You mean the Swedes are right, Toby Young is right, and the the government and the scientists will never let us out of lockdown down posts are valuable?
It is a contrarian view which constantly and aggressively questions measures taken by the government. On anything (it seems).
I have said many times that while I don't agree with everything he says, it is absolutely vital that such voices exist.
We have a bumbling fool as PM who happens also to err on the side of personal liberty. Imagine if Jeremy Corbyn or any one of so many other politicians was PM. These laws set the most extraordinary of precedents.
I have said more than once over the past 12 months - ask Walter Wolfgang about how such laws can be misused.
It's not so much contrarian as illogical.
He hates lockdowns (we all do) but he do what is the quickest route of lockdown and get a vaccine PDQ, but he'll get it private but not on the NHS because of the man, unaware that man will also be aware who gets the vaccine privately.
Yes maybe. Maybe he has been driven mad by so much government. No idea. But it is his stand and he is entitled to make it and I find it disappointing that he is so ostracised by PB for doing so. As he has been throughout. Right up until there was an "oh shit" moment when it was thought that the govt would behave "illogically" by not bringing us out of lockdown when PB consensus thought it should and we all all of a sudden looked to Steve Baker as our one recourse to sanity.
Firstly, he's not 'ostracised'.
Secondly, we take the piss out of him because he believes the government wants to keep us locked down forever because... hey, look a dead squirrel.
He has at every stage questioned the huge restrictions on our liberty while everyone else was applauding them.
And if he'd had his way - no restrictions ever for any reason, because freedom - the pandemic would have surged out of control, crashed the health service, and killed many more people. Does he want a medal for that?
What I find strangest is that people laud Sweden.
Yet the Swedes imposed increasingly harsh compulsory measures in the second half of last year, and most Swedes feel their country has not done a very good job with Coronavirus relative to - say - Germany.
Is it because so many people of both genders fantasise about following Swedish models?
Now here's a politician who truly loves freedom and has guts.
Yet on Thursday Mr Bolsonaro continued to downplay the threat posed by the virus.
"Stop whining. How long are you going to keep crying about it?" Mr Bolsonaro said at an event. "How much longer will you stay at home and close everything? No one can stand it anymore. We regret the deaths, again, but we need a solution
Now here's a politician who truly loves freedom and has guts.
Yet on Thursday Mr Bolsonaro continued to downplay the threat posed by the virus.
"Stop whining. How long are you going to keep crying about it?" Mr Bolsonaro said at an event. "How much longer will you stay at home and close everything? No one can stand it anymore. We regret the deaths, again, but we need a solution
Having had the dubious pleasure of reading his posts throughout, I'm confident that I'm not mischaracterizing his position - it really is that extreme. As many people have said, there are legitimate arguments to be had about where the balance is struck between liberty and safety - I tend to lean on the safety side because as we've seen mass behaviour has tended to swing between panic and complacency, with little capacity for adhering to a middle ground - but contrarian's absolutism makes him the worst possible advocate for those arguments.
Make people frightened enough and they'll do anything including sign away their freedom and their liberty.
Terrorism (hence its name) isn't about the actual physical attacks but about the propagation of a climate of fear which provokes a response from Government. Every time there's an attack plenty stand up and say the Government "must do something to keep us safe" so a little more freedom is taken and a little more control is given to the security State and in truth we're no safer even though we "feel" safer.
The virus was a form of terrorism - it wasn't about the physicality of the virus. In truth, the numbers infected and the numbers lost (terrible as they both are) weren't a direct threat to the societal fabric mandating a severe response - had the virus been much more transmissible and killed 75% of those infected, we'd have seen a really severe response.
Yet, the fear of the virus was enough - the accounts of what it could do and how you would die from it were enough. I know I was scared because at my time of life and in my health it wasn't a risk I was prepared to take. Call me risk averse if you like but it's my life and I've only got one so I'll be as risk averse as I want.
Whether, in a society dominated by older people, that risk averse response was wholly appropriate is something we will debate for some time to come. Should Government have imposed lockdown on society or should it have merely "suggested" it? I know from my surroundings for example there are many people who would have no choice about going to work - they need the job and the money to survive and if their employer tells them they have to report to work that's what they do - put simply, I could afford to be risk averse, not everyone can.
You make a good point about terrorism. The measures taken to keep us safe from terrorists could be seen as disproportionate to the threat. Apparently, since 1970, terrorism has killed around 3,500 people in the UK:
Though of course, without safety measures/legislation some would argue that terrorism would have killed a lot more. (I'm not convinced that Prevent has saved many lives, but that's a different argument).
By contrast, however, Covid has killed around 120,000 people in a year in the UK. So I'm not sure that the measures taken are disproportionate to the threat (setting aside the "it's mainly killing the old" issue), when one compares the loss of life to the terrorist death toll. I shudder to think what measures would be in place if terrorist attacks caused a similar number of deaths to Covid.
Now here's a politician who truly loves freedom and has guts.
Yet on Thursday Mr Bolsonaro continued to downplay the threat posed by the virus.
"Stop whining. How long are you going to keep crying about it?" Mr Bolsonaro said at an event. "How much longer will you stay at home and close everything? No one can stand it anymore. We regret the deaths, again, but we need a solution
Now here's a politician who truly loves freedom and has guts.
Yet on Thursday Mr Bolsonaro continued to downplay the threat posed by the virus.
"Stop whining. How long are you going to keep crying about it?" Mr Bolsonaro said at an event. "How much longer will you stay at home and close everything? No one can stand it anymore. We regret the deaths, again, but we need a solution
Now here's a politician who truly loves freedom and has guts.
Yet on Thursday Mr Bolsonaro continued to downplay the threat posed by the virus.
"Stop whining. How long are you going to keep crying about it?" Mr Bolsonaro said at an event. "How much longer will you stay at home and close everything? No one can stand it anymore. We regret the deaths, again, but we need a solution
Now here's a politician who truly loves freedom and has guts.
Yet on Thursday Mr Bolsonaro continued to downplay the threat posed by the virus.
"Stop whining. How long are you going to keep crying about it?" Mr Bolsonaro said at an event. "How much longer will you stay at home and close everything? No one can stand it anymore. We regret the deaths, again, but we need a solution
There are freedoms he likes and freedoms he doesn't like.
Then he doesn’t ‘truly love freedom,’ does he?
Shhh. It's not as though certain strands of freedom lovers have a tendency toward inconsistent application of those freedoms focused on their personal satisfaction.
Have been, er, busy today so missed the @contrarian shenanigans.
Whatever the merits of his position, I continually find it interesting if not disappointing that there is such instant animosity and dismissal of his views. He is entitled not to want a jab because that's the country we live in. Or used to.
How we all laughed and pointed fingers when the Chinese announced that people wouldn't be allowed to leave HK and lo and behold our govt is making us fill out forms before we go abroad to see if we are going when it's not allowed. Just ponder that. Today we can't go to see our dying parents at home. By law.
Ponder also the year of unprecedented restrictions of liberty, the damage done to so many physically, psychologically and economically by the govt.
Now, there are good reasons for all of it. But for PB, that group of independent, free-thinking types, the falling in behind the government's every move has been an eye-opener.
Everyone has their red lines. @contrarian has his and others have theirs. Some had theirs tested the other day when it was mooted that restrictions would be based on cases and lockdown wouldn't end until these were low. In the end the govt has now set a date when all restrictions will be lifted. But if it hadn't, then that would have been cheered by many on here also.
You write that, but isn't it much more likely to be a phone app ?
It's a fine for leaving the country for the wrong reasons.
I remember Farage mooching about the "Government demanding 'papers' when in fact it would likely be an ID card that was needed. I get the feeling that forms/papers are used by people wanting to mentally invoke the Ordnungspolizei trope.
Phrase it how you want I'm not bothered. It is registering to leave the country. Something that we derided the Chinese for doing just days ago. In the UK now, most people don't bat an eyelid.
You mean the Swedes are right, Toby Young is right, and the the government and the scientists will never let us out of lockdown down posts are valuable?
It is a contrarian view which constantly and aggressively questions measures taken by the government. On anything (it seems).
I have said many times that while I don't agree with everything he says, it is absolutely vital that such voices exist.
We have a bumbling fool as PM who happens also to err on the side of personal liberty. Imagine if Jeremy Corbyn or any one of so many other politicians was PM. These laws set the most extraordinary of precedents.
I have said more than once over the past 12 months - ask Walter Wolfgang about how such laws can be misused.
It's not so much contrarian as illogical.
He hates lockdowns (we all do) but he do what is the quickest route of lockdown and get a vaccine PDQ, but he'll get it private but not on the NHS because of the man, unaware that man will also be aware who gets the vaccine privately.
Yes maybe. Maybe he has been driven mad by so much government. No idea. But it is his stand and he is entitled to make it and I find it disappointing that he is so ostracised by PB for doing so. As he has been throughout. Right up until there was an "oh shit" moment when it was thought that the govt would behave "illogically" by not bringing us out of lockdown when PB consensus thought it should and we all all of a sudden looked to Steve Baker as our one recourse to sanity.
Firstly, he's not 'ostracised'.
Secondly, we take the piss out of him because he believes the government wants to keep us locked down forever because... hey, look a dead squirrel.
He has at every stage questioned the huge restrictions on our liberty while everyone else was applauding them.
And if he'd had his way - no restrictions ever for any reason, because freedom - the pandemic would have surged out of control, crashed the health service, and killed many more people. Does he want a medal for that?
What I find strangest is that people laud Sweden.
Yet the Swedes imposed increasingly harsh compulsory measures in the second half of last year, and most Swedes feel their country has not done a very good job with Coronavirus relative to - say - Germany.
Are people still lauding Sweden?
Depends what you mean by ‘still’. Andra Neil certainly still was in December, but seems to have completely lost interest since then. Can’t think why.
2021 has been a busy year, and he has Fox News UK to set up.
There's a deeper argument at work here. The line was that the Swedes were acting responsibly, both individually and collectively, in working out for themselves how to keep the virus under control. They didn't need Government diktat to enforce counter measures against the virus - they had, individually and collectively, come to a point where the virus could be controlled but life could go on.
The argument went the British Government should encourage individual and collective responsibility and allow people to establish the balance between controlling the spread of the virus and the maintenance of economic life.
I said on here last August that wasn't working.
Unfortunately, for a minority, the preservation of a "normal" lifestyle meant no compromise whatsoever with the virus - no masks, no social distancing and if that meant they and those around them got the virus, so be it.
In the end, Government had to force measures on the population to control the virus and that meant the dislocation of normal economic and social life. This was done primarily to reduce the transmission of the virus and the consequent pressure of those needing hospital treatment on the NHS. It also relied on individuals both being willing to obey the law and being suitably risk-averse or sensible to rely there was a greater goal at work and the temporarily inability to have a pint at the Dog & Duck was, to quote someone else "a price worth paying".
Having watched her testimony, it is very believable....
They're slipping out more information all the time, safely after the inquiry has closed. Been a master-class in obfuscation. Swinney really is the opposite of "Honest John".
Have been, er, busy today so missed the @contrarian shenanigans.
Whatever the merits of his position, I continually find it interesting if not disappointing that there is such instant animosity and dismissal of his views. He is entitled not to want a jab because that's the country we live in. Or used to.
How we all laughed and pointed fingers when the Chinese announced that people wouldn't be allowed to leave HK and lo and behold our govt is making us fill out forms before we go abroad to see if we are going when it's not allowed. Just ponder that. Today we can't go to see our dying parents at home. By law.
Ponder also the year of unprecedented restrictions of liberty, the damage done to so many physically, psychologically and economically by the govt.
Now, there are good reasons for all of it. But for PB, that group of independent, free-thinking types, the falling in behind the government's every move has been an eye-opener.
Everyone has their red lines. @contrarian has his and others have theirs. Some had theirs tested the other day when it was mooted that restrictions would be based on cases and lockdown wouldn't end until these were low. In the end the govt has now set a date when all restrictions will be lifted. But if it hadn't, then that would have been cheered by many on here also.
You write that, but isn't it much more likely to be a phone app ?
It's a fine for leaving the country for the wrong reasons.
I remember Farage mooching about the "Government demanding 'papers' when in fact it would likely be an ID card that was needed. I get the feeling that forms/papers are used by people wanting to mentally invoke the Ordnungspolizei trope.
Phrase it how you want I'm not bothered. It is registering to leave the country. Something that we derided the Chinese for doing just days ago. In the UK now, most people don't bat an eyelid.
You mean the Swedes are right, Toby Young is right, and the the government and the scientists will never let us out of lockdown down posts are valuable?
It is a contrarian view which constantly and aggressively questions measures taken by the government. On anything (it seems).
I have said many times that while I don't agree with everything he says, it is absolutely vital that such voices exist.
We have a bumbling fool as PM who happens also to err on the side of personal liberty. Imagine if Jeremy Corbyn or any one of so many other politicians was PM. These laws set the most extraordinary of precedents.
I have said more than once over the past 12 months - ask Walter Wolfgang about how such laws can be misused.
It's not so much contrarian as illogical.
He hates lockdowns (we all do) but he do what is the quickest route of lockdown and get a vaccine PDQ, but he'll get it private but not on the NHS because of the man, unaware that man will also be aware who gets the vaccine privately.
Yes maybe. Maybe he has been driven mad by so much government. No idea. But it is his stand and he is entitled to make it and I find it disappointing that he is so ostracised by PB for doing so. As he has been throughout. Right up until there was an "oh shit" moment when it was thought that the govt would behave "illogically" by not bringing us out of lockdown when PB consensus thought it should and we all all of a sudden looked to Steve Baker as our one recourse to sanity.
Firstly, he's not 'ostracised'.
Secondly, we take the piss out of him because he believes the government wants to keep us locked down forever because... hey, look a dead squirrel.
He has at every stage questioned the huge restrictions on our liberty while everyone else was applauding them.
And if he'd had his way - no restrictions ever for any reason, because freedom - the pandemic would have surged out of control, crashed the health service, and killed many more people. Does he want a medal for that?
What I find strangest is that people laud Sweden.
Yet the Swedes imposed increasingly harsh compulsory measures in the second half of last year, and most Swedes feel their country has not done a very good job with Coronavirus relative to - say - Germany.
Are people still lauding Sweden?
Depends what you mean by ‘still’. Andra Neil certainly still was in December, but seems to have completely lost interest since then. Can’t think why.
2021 has been a busy year, and he has Fox News UK to set up.
And there was his complete misreading of the assault on the Capitol to deal with. Busy man.
Having had the dubious pleasure of reading his posts throughout, I'm confident that I'm not mischaracterizing his position - it really is that extreme. As many people have said, there are legitimate arguments to be had about where the balance is struck between liberty and safety - I tend to lean on the safety side because as we've seen mass behaviour has tended to swing between panic and complacency, with little capacity for adhering to a middle ground - but contrarian's absolutism makes him the worst possible advocate for those arguments.
Make people frightened enough and they'll do anything including sign away their freedom and their liberty.
Terrorism (hence its name) isn't about the actual physical attacks but about the propagation of a climate of fear which provokes a response from Government. Every time there's an attack plenty stand up and say the Government "must do something to keep us safe" so a little more freedom is taken and a little more control is given to the security State and in truth we're no safer even though we "feel" safer.
The virus was a form of terrorism - it wasn't about the physicality of the virus. In truth, the numbers infected and the numbers lost (terrible as they both are) weren't a direct threat to the societal fabric mandating a severe response - had the virus been much more transmissible and killed 75% of those infected, we'd have seen a really severe response.
Yet, the fear of the virus was enough - the accounts of what it could do and how you would die from it were enough. I know I was scared because at my time of life and in my health it wasn't a risk I was prepared to take. Call me risk averse if you like but it's my life and I've only got one so I'll be as risk averse as I want.
Whether, in a society dominated by older people, that risk averse response was wholly appropriate is something we will debate for some time to come. Should Government have imposed lockdown on society or should it have merely "suggested" it? I know from my surroundings for example there are many people who would have no choice about going to work - they need the job and the money to survive and if their employer tells them they have to report to work that's what they do - put simply, I could afford to be risk averse, not everyone can.
There was the closing down of shops and hospitality etc but other than that the "restrictions" were in essence voluntary. It wasn't actively policed. Most of the things that were illegal were illegal like taping off the radio used to be illegal. Maybe still is, not sure.
I never for one minute felt I couldn't meet friends and family, stay over, have visitors, go out whenever I wanted, walk around, drive around. Some of this I did. Some I didn't. And whether I did or I didn't depended not one iota on what Boris Johnson or Matt Hancock were telling me but just on my own assessment of the risk, informed by data on the virus, and the opinions of people close to me.
So I get a slight sense of unreality sometimes when I observe the extremes of this debate.
The ban on visiting people in care is the exception. That has always struck me as harsh in the extreme and not warranted.
What a surprise that somehow the SNP only managed to release the most damming paperwork after Sturgeon went before the committee and even now documentation missing.
Having had the dubious pleasure of reading his posts throughout, I'm confident that I'm not mischaracterizing his position - it really is that extreme. As many people have said, there are legitimate arguments to be had about where the balance is struck between liberty and safety - I tend to lean on the safety side because as we've seen mass behaviour has tended to swing between panic and complacency, with little capacity for adhering to a middle ground - but contrarian's absolutism makes him the worst possible advocate for those arguments.
Make people frightened enough and they'll do anything including sign away their freedom and their liberty.
Terrorism (hence its name) isn't about the actual physical attacks but about the propagation of a climate of fear which provokes a response from Government. Every time there's an attack plenty stand up and say the Government "must do something to keep us safe" so a little more freedom is taken and a little more control is given to the security State and in truth we're no safer even though we "feel" safer.
The virus was a form of terrorism - it wasn't about the physicality of the virus. In truth, the numbers infected and the numbers lost (terrible as they both are) weren't a direct threat to the societal fabric mandating a severe response - had the virus been much more transmissible and killed 75% of those infected, we'd have seen a really severe response.
Yet, the fear of the virus was enough - the accounts of what it could do and how you would die from it were enough. I know I was scared because at my time of life and in my health it wasn't a risk I was prepared to take. Call me risk averse if you like but it's my life and I've only got one so I'll be as risk averse as I want.
Whether, in a society dominated by older people, that risk averse response was wholly appropriate is something we will debate for some time to come. Should Government have imposed lockdown on society or should it have merely "suggested" it? I know from my surroundings for example there are many people who would have no choice about going to work - they need the job and the money to survive and if their employer tells them they have to report to work that's what they do - put simply, I could afford to be risk averse, not everyone can.
There was the closing down of shops and hospitality etc but other than that the "restrictions" were in essence voluntary. It wasn't actively policed. Most of the things that were illegal were illegal like taping off the radio used to be illegal. Maybe still is, not sure.
I never for one minute felt I couldn't meet friends and family, stay over, have visitors, go out whenever I wanted, walk around, drive around. Some of this I did. Some I didn't. And whether I did or I didn't depended not one iota on what Boris Johnson or Matt Hancock were telling me but just on my own assessment of the risk, informed by data on the virus, and the opinions of people close to me.
So I get a slight sense of unreality sometimes when I observe the extremes of this debate.
The ban on visiting people in care is the exception. That has always struck me as harsh in the extreme and not warranted.
GM police used to proudly tweet about how they had broken up childrens' birthday parties. It was enthusiastically policed. I saw officers sending home those they saw outside who they decided weren't 'exercising'. LD1 was pretty universally observed, in my experience, whether we thought it a good idea or not. We're not - we weren't - a nation of lawbreakers. Presenting us with contemptible laws has led to us treating the law with contempt. It's not a great position to be in.
What a surprise that somehow the SNP only managed to release the most damming paperwork after Sturgeon went before the committee and even now documentation missing.
What was the excuse for only publishing it now, a day or so after her appearance?
Friday night and no comments for 20 minutes. Have we all suddenly got lives?
I'm writing one of my threads for Sunday, after giving you a thread about (Scottish) subsamples last weekend I may really spoil you and give you a thread that combines AV and Indyref2.
There was the closing down of shops and hospitality etc but other than that the "restrictions" were in essence voluntary. It wasn't actively policed. Most of the things that were illegal were illegal like taping off the radio used to be illegal. Maybe still is, not sure.
I never for one minute felt I couldn't meet friends and family, stay over, have visitors, go out whenever I wanted, walk around, drive around. Some of this I did. Some I didn't. And whether I did or I didn't depended not one iota on what Boris Johnson or Matt Hancock were telling me but just on my own assessment of the risk, informed by data on the virus, and the opinions of people close to me.
So I get a slight sense of unreality sometimes when I observe the extremes of this debate.
The ban on visiting people in care is the exception. That has always struck me as harsh in the extreme and not warranted.
The point was the restrictions imposed aligned with and supported the risk assessment of a large segment of the population. As such, it didn't need much "enforcement" and to be fair the Police have cracked down on the more obvious transgressions such as parties and businesses continuing "underground".
They have also shown to fray when public opinion hasn't been in support - from last Easter onward, good weather encouraged people to go out and move about and visit coast and country with all the tensions that caused with locals who were trying to maintain their own risk aversion but were seeing that compromised by visitors.
The tensions are also manifest in the mental health response, in the sharp rises of those seeking help for physical abuse and for others seeking mental and physical support. That "cost" will emerge with time and will last long after the virus has been eradicated.
I'd also argue technology and the availability of home broadband enabled a new way of working for many which would not have been feasible 20 years ago. The option to "work from home" has its supporters and its critics but it has proved to be largely successful though not without its drawbacks and again whether this is a temporary aberration (as Goldman Sachs would have you believe) or a permanent shift in the socio-economic pattern remains to be seen.
What a surprise that somehow the SNP only managed to release the most damming paperwork after Sturgeon went before the committee and even now documentation missing.
What was the excuse for only publishing it now, a day or so after her appearance?
There isn't one. They haven't even bothered offering one. The cover-up is so blatant they don't even bother pretending any more
It is incredible
And if the Scots want to follow this parade of fraudulent creeps over the cliff, and on to the rocks of independence, good luck to them, frankly
Friday night and no comments for 20 minutes. Have we all suddenly got lives?
I'm writing one of my threads for Sunday, after giving you a thread about (Scottish) subsamples last weekend I may really spoil you and give you a thread that combines AV and Indyref2.
Having had the dubious pleasure of reading his posts throughout, I'm confident that I'm not mischaracterizing his position - it really is that extreme. As many people have said, there are legitimate arguments to be had about where the balance is struck between liberty and safety - I tend to lean on the safety side because as we've seen mass behaviour has tended to swing between panic and complacency, with little capacity for adhering to a middle ground - but contrarian's absolutism makes him the worst possible advocate for those arguments.
Make people frightened enough and they'll do anything including sign away their freedom and their liberty.
Terrorism (hence its name) isn't about the actual physical attacks but about the propagation of a climate of fear which provokes a response from Government. Every time there's an attack plenty stand up and say the Government "must do something to keep us safe" so a little more freedom is taken and a little more control is given to the security State and in truth we're no safer even though we "feel" safer.
The virus was a form of terrorism - it wasn't about the physicality of the virus. In truth, the numbers infected and the numbers lost (terrible as they both are) weren't a direct threat to the societal fabric mandating a severe response - had the virus been much more transmissible and killed 75% of those infected, we'd have seen a really severe response.
Yet, the fear of the virus was enough - the accounts of what it could do and how you would die from it were enough. I know I was scared because at my time of life and in my health it wasn't a risk I was prepared to take. Call me risk averse if you like but it's my life and I've only got one so I'll be as risk averse as I want.
Whether, in a society dominated by older people, that risk averse response was wholly appropriate is something we will debate for some time to come. Should Government have imposed lockdown on society or should it have merely "suggested" it? I know from my surroundings for example there are many people who would have no choice about going to work - they need the job and the money to survive and if their employer tells them they have to report to work that's what they do - put simply, I could afford to be risk averse, not everyone can.
There was the closing down of shops and hospitality etc but other than that the "restrictions" were in essence voluntary. It wasn't actively policed. Most of the things that were illegal were illegal like taping off the radio used to be illegal. Maybe still is, not sure.
I never for one minute felt I couldn't meet friends and family, stay over, have visitors, go out whenever I wanted, walk around, drive around. Some of this I did. Some I didn't. And whether I did or I didn't depended not one iota on what Boris Johnson or Matt Hancock were telling me but just on my own assessment of the risk, informed by data on the virus, and the opinions of people close to me.
So I get a slight sense of unreality sometimes when I observe the extremes of this debate.
The ban on visiting people in care is the exception. That has always struck me as harsh in the extreme and not warranted.
You`ve done exactly as I have: treated the law as guidelines and applied common sense - informed by one`s own research.
In Stodge`s excellent (as usual) post he says "Call me risk averse if you like but it's my life and I've only got one so I'll be as risk averse as I want." Absolutely. But what irks me is many of the risk-averse (not Stodge) extend this into not taking responsibility for their own health (even though they think they are) by trying to co-opt others by coercion into adapting choices and behaviours to, in effect, protect their health for them.
And the care home situation is a disgrace - don`t get me started on that.
My Facebook promoting a most overrated band/artist thread, so rather than provoke hatred amongst a group of genuine strangers, I will state my nomination and provoke hatred in OGH's friendly little cantina.
Weller, post-1982. What was the point of all that?
The legal action – brought by Anna Rothery, who holds the ceremonial position of lord mayor of Liverpool – is the latest messy chapter in what one local MP described as the “shitshow” surrounding Labour’s handling of one of its most loyal cities, which has not elected a Tory MP since the 1970s.
My Facebook promoting a most overrated band/artist thread, so rather than provoke hatred amongst a group of genuine strangers, I will state my nomination and provoke hatred in OGH's friendly little cantina.
Weller, post-1982. What was the point of all that?
My hair is insane and ridiculous. Has anyone ever successfully cut their own hair? Is it possible?
I last went to the barber's in January last year! Mum's been cutting my hair since (mostly at HER insistence!). Got away with haircuts in May, August, November and January.
What is the best book on politics to buy for my 15 year old niece, whose birthday is later this month ?
(She dislikes Thatcher & Boris).
'On politics' is pretty broad.
I did enjoy Isabel Hardman's 'Why we get the wrong policitians?', which has some interesting info on how people are selected, and the realities of the job and why MPs don't really get trained in or rewarded for actual governing skill.
The legal action – brought by Anna Rothery, who holds the ceremonial position of lord mayor of Liverpool – is the latest messy chapter in what one local MP described as the “shitshow” surrounding Labour’s handling of one of its most loyal cities, which has not elected a Tory MP since the 1970s.
1970s? For once i feel justin would be right in pointing out that is really not that long ago.
Comments
If a point's worth making...
Q. The UK is a representative democracy. State one other type of government.
A. Scottish Government.
A. The one we`ve got.
But he also repeatedly claims that the government doesn't want lockdown to end, and plans to continue it indefinitely, as part of some extraordinary power grab.
That's what I ridicule him for.
Still... when you have a $10m mortgage, it'd better be a high six figure sum and not a low one.
Yet the Swedes imposed increasingly harsh compulsory measures in the second half of last year, and most Swedes feel their country has not done a very good job with Coronavirus relative to - say - Germany.
He has at every stage questioned the huge restrictions on our liberty while everyone else was applauding them.
When the history of all this is written, this will be the part that most fascinates me; how is it that the vast majority of the UK public accepted these infringements on personal liberty without so much as a peep of protest? I would never have believed it had I not been witness to it. How the government has, on the one hand, manipulated the masses into compliance and, on the other, stamped out any dissent (even Peter Hitchens has given up recently) is quite astonishing.
Feeling as powerless as I do to influence anything, and realizing that I belong to a tiny minority of opinion, I can share contrarian's incredulity and frustration.
Given the complete lack of a coordinated dissenting voice, does anyone believe that lockdowns will not become a regular feature of life in the future whenever the government needs or wants to influence collective behaviour 'for the common good'? As I say, the climate change lobby must be rubbing its hands in anticipation ...
I sincerely hope that the (thus far) world leading success in rolling out the vaccine and the joyous scenes it deserves to bring, do not lead to a white wash in the public mind of what we got very seriously wrong. Because we're going to have a pandemic every 5 years for the rest of our lives. It's on us all to retrospectively assess what we variously supported out of blind terror and what we opposed out of hopeless optimism. Cut the guy some slack and have a little introspection.
Let us take Toby Young. He has claimed at various points
- herd immunity was reached in late Spring 2020
- the autumn increase in cases was just false positives caused by more testing
- the second wave wasn't real, because hospitalisations hadn't moved
- the CV19 IFR was 0.1%
Feeling as powerless as I do to influence anything, and realizing that I belong to a tiny minority of opinion, I can share contrarian's incredulity and frustration.
Given the complete lack of a coordinated dissenting voice, does anyone believe that lockdowns will not become a regular feature of life in the future whenever the government needs or wants to influence collective behaviour 'for the common good'? As I say, the climate change lobby must be rubbing its hands in anticipation ...
The problem is that the people who have most questioned the restrictions have been the most divorced from reality.
Let us take Toby Young. He has claimed at various points
- herd immunity was reached in late Spring 2020
- the autumn increase in cases was just false positives caused by more testing
- the second wave wasn't real, because hospitalisations hadn't moved
- the CV19 IFR was 0.1%
That's fair, but conversely there are still plenty of people that post here that are clinging to real world IFR's of "1-2%" when that's patently a nonsense.
You would have thought that would be enough to live on though, if spent intelligently.
I just get annoyed that both of them bitch about the other being subsidised while trousering billions of government money.
The criminal case?
Checking, £17 million, plus 400k a year income (1990s prices, but tragically not for long), plus "keep the jewels".
Since this is Royal Gossip week, she played it well enough that PC had to borrow a significant amount from HMQ.
It was ‘Labour Party.’
But those were genuine LOL moments and let’s face it marking is not something where you get many of them.
I wouldn't mind taking a stand in the slightest except that his personal lines requires that most people do not make the same choice, otherwise we'd not open up as not enough people would be vaccinated, so it is expecting others to take steps for wider society while not doing the same.
It's the difference between making a stand and requiring others to support a position to make your stand viable. The very fact you call it taking a stand adds to the playing the hero card - I am a bold visionary standing by my principles...so long as others do vaccinate sooner to make my choice viable.
Terrorism (hence its name) isn't about the actual physical attacks but about the propagation of a climate of fear which provokes a response from Government. Every time there's an attack plenty stand up and say the Government "must do something to keep us safe" so a little more freedom is taken and a little more control is given to the security State and in truth we're no safer even though we "feel" safer.
The virus was a form of terrorism - it wasn't about the physicality of the virus. In truth, the numbers infected and the numbers lost (terrible as they both are) weren't a direct threat to the societal fabric mandating a severe response - had the virus been much more transmissible and killed 75% of those infected, we'd have seen a really severe response.
Yet, the fear of the virus was enough - the accounts of what it could do and how you would die from it were enough. I know I was scared because at my time of life and in my health it wasn't a risk I was prepared to take. Call me risk averse if you like but it's my life and I've only got one so I'll be as risk averse as I want.
Whether, in a society dominated by older people, that risk averse response was wholly appropriate is something we will debate for some time to come. Should Government have imposed lockdown on society or should it have merely "suggested" it? I know from my surroundings for example there are many people who would have no choice about going to work - they need the job and the money to survive and if their employer tells them they have to report to work that's what they do - put simply, I could afford to be risk averse, not everyone can.
That people have so often also bolted on denialist arguments or misrepresentations of the position in places like Sweden is therefore highly suspect as there is no need to do so. Nor a need for a having cake and eat it attitude where others are expected to 'surrender' to do whatever the government want and yet be criticised for doing so, as the individual 'resisting' can only do so if others play ball.
https://twitter.com/andrew_croxford/status/1366788722679631884
Report for reprogramming comrade
Yet on Thursday Mr Bolsonaro continued to downplay the threat posed by the virus.
"Stop whining. How long are you going to keep crying about it?" Mr Bolsonaro said at an event. "How much longer will you stay at home and close everything? No one can stand it anymore. We regret the deaths, again, but we need a solution
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-56288548
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/22/brazils-jair-bolsonaro-says-he-would-put-army-on-streets-to-fight
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_Kingdom
Though of course, without safety measures/legislation some would argue that terrorism would have killed a lot more. (I'm not convinced that Prevent has saved many lives, but that's a different argument).
By contrast, however, Covid has killed around 120,000 people in a year in the UK. So I'm not sure that the measures taken are disproportionate to the threat (setting aside the "it's mainly killing the old" issue), when one compares the loss of life to the terrorist death toll. I shudder to think what measures would be in place if terrorist attacks caused a similar number of deaths to Covid.
The argument went the British Government should encourage individual and collective responsibility and allow people to establish the balance between controlling the spread of the virus and the maintenance of economic life.
I said on here last August that wasn't working.
Unfortunately, for a minority, the preservation of a "normal" lifestyle meant no compromise whatsoever with the virus - no masks, no social distancing and if that meant they and those around them got the virus, so be it.
In the end, Government had to force measures on the population to control the virus and that meant the dislocation of normal economic and social life. This was done primarily to reduce the transmission of the virus and the consequent pressure of those needing hospital treatment on the NHS. It also relied on individuals both being willing to obey the law and being suitably risk-averse or sensible to rely there was a greater goal at work and the temporarily inability to have a pint at the Dog & Duck was, to quote someone else "a price worth paying".
I never for one minute felt I couldn't meet friends and family, stay over, have visitors, go out whenever I wanted, walk around, drive around. Some of this I did. Some I didn't. And whether I did or I didn't depended not one iota on what Boris Johnson or Matt Hancock were telling me but just on my own assessment of the risk, informed by data on the virus, and the opinions of people close to me.
So I get a slight sense of unreality sometimes when I observe the extremes of this debate.
The ban on visiting people in care is the exception. That has always struck me as harsh in the extreme and not warranted.
LD1 was pretty universally observed, in my experience, whether we thought it a good idea or not.
We're not - we weren't - a nation of lawbreakers. Presenting us with contemptible laws has led to us treating the law with contempt. It's not a great position to be in.
They have also shown to fray when public opinion hasn't been in support - from last Easter onward, good weather encouraged people to go out and move about and visit coast and country with all the tensions that caused with locals who were trying to maintain their own risk aversion but were seeing that compromised by visitors.
The tensions are also manifest in the mental health response, in the sharp rises of those seeking help for physical abuse and for others seeking mental and physical support. That "cost" will emerge with time and will last long after the virus has been eradicated.
I'd also argue technology and the availability of home broadband enabled a new way of working for many which would not have been feasible 20 years ago. The option to "work from home" has its supporters and its critics but it has proved to be largely successful though not without its drawbacks and again whether this is a temporary aberration (as Goldman Sachs would have you believe) or a permanent shift in the socio-economic pattern remains to be seen.
It is incredible
And if the Scots want to follow this parade of fraudulent creeps over the cliff, and on to the rocks of independence, good luck to them, frankly
No2AV = 68%
Yes2AV = 32%
#justsayin'
In Stodge`s excellent (as usual) post he says "Call me risk averse if you like but it's my life and I've only got one so I'll be as risk averse as I want." Absolutely. But what irks me is many of the risk-averse (not Stodge) extend this into not taking responsibility for their own health (even though they think they are) by trying to co-opt others by coercion into adapting choices and behaviours to, in effect, protect their health for them.
And the care home situation is a disgrace - don`t get me started on that.
It’s easier if you don’t have a lot.
Help, please, pb brains trust,
What is the best book on politics to buy for my 15 year old niece, whose birthday is later this month ?
(She dislikes Thatcher & Boris).
Simply shaving your head might be a better route, but not one I've followed.
Weller, post-1982. What was the point of all that?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/05/liverpool-mayoral-race-in-chaos-as-anna-rothery-sues-labour-party
The legal action – brought by Anna Rothery, who holds the ceremonial position of lord mayor of Liverpool – is the latest messy chapter in what one local MP described as the “shitshow” surrounding Labour’s handling of one of its most loyal cities, which has not elected a Tory MP since the 1970s.
I did enjoy Isabel Hardman's 'Why we get the wrong policitians?', which has some interesting info on how people are selected, and the realities of the job and why MPs don't really get trained in or rewarded for actual governing skill.
She should find his predicament fairly relatable, and it's quite amusingly written.
These are obviously a little long-in-the-tooth.
I can't think of anything more recent that I'd recommend though.