O/T, who did PBers reckon will be the next cartoon / children's character to be cancelled? My money is on Bagpuss - old, pale, stale male and figure of the Patriarchy, with slightly dubious intentions towards Emily.
TinTin has to be a goner. One particular book has long since been verboten, but I think every adventure leans heavily on cultural stereotypes.
Curfews for men is one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard. Christ.
Why?
Because it doesn't solve anything and it's the opposite of liberty. I haven't ever committed violence towards women so why should I be punished by being forced to stay inside my house?
FFS I've just seen this - Mike is allegedly a liberal.
What I'm wondering is when we are going to get round to criticising - you know - the actual criminal that murdered the poor woman?
After his trial, one would hope.
Yes, agreed, but he`s measurably closer to that point than the rest of us is.
O/T, who did PBers reckon will be the next cartoon / children's character to be cancelled? My money is on Bagpuss - old, pale, stale male and figure of the Patriarchy, with slightly dubious intentions towards Emily.
TinTin has to be a goner. One particular book has long since been verboten, but I think every adventure leans heavily on cultural stereotypes.
I believe that Tin Tin has already had some of the stories... deprecated.. for reprints etc.
I think we discussed the other day how this kind of removal of problematic works has effected how people see Kipling. His unambiguously racist stuff has been pushed out of sight....
@rkrkrk, you make an interesting point, if I understand your header correctly. Johnson has made a decision to cut aid for populist reasons without thinking things through, and this is now coming back to bite him. This is regardless of whether the cut makes sense in its own terms.
The Johnson government has no strategy, acts very ad-hoc, at times despotic. This shows up as consequences, which we are also seeing today in the truly awful January trade figures.
A big issue, as I understand, with the aid cut is that the UK is committed to multilateral programmes for a large part of its aid budget. The only way it can get to 0.5% of GDP (one third cut) is to decimate its own programmes. If you decided 0.5% is the appropriate amount, you would sensibly reduce the actual amount gradually, to allow you to unwind your multilateral commitments and reduce your own programmes in a managed way.
But this was entirely about creating a headline.
The other issue is Cameron’s idiocy in setting it as a % of GDP. GDP has fallen a lot - at a time when we should be supporting bilateral aid
Cameron may have set the percentage but the 2019 Conservative manifesto on which Boris and this government were elected pledged to "proudly maintain our commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of GNI on development".
ETA you perhaps have a point that an actual cash figure might have been better.
Two strongest EU vaccinators are from "small countries which bought outside the EU procurement scheme that was supposed to protect small countries that wouldn't be able to buy vaccines":
'Lighted' and 'lit' are both perfectly acceptable, and have been in common usage for centuries.
It was a joke rather than pedantry, however even where multiple forms are in common usage it's acceptable to have an opinion about which one is more aesthetically pleasing.
I remember watching the 1988 Olympics when Des Lynam broke the news of Ben Johnson testing positive for drugs and always assumed the shame of it all would mean noone would ever try anything like that again.
Cycling is dirtier than it's ever been at all levels because the techniques are so well known and the 'produits' are so readily available. I know people who do blood bags/testosterone gels for Regional C races - the 2nd lowest level of amateur competition in the UK.
Is it still on balance good for you, then, if all that shit is going on? I mean, weighing up the massive fitness you accrue from elite sport against the poison of the drugs?
I recall a documentary about the Ben Johnson saga. The only guy in that race who hasn't tested positive for something, since, was interviewed. He'd never got anywhere in international sprinting - no sudden surge in performance etc. They asked him about how he felt, knowing that everyone else....
Yes, sprinting seems to be up there with cycling on the doping front.
So 100 Tweets later does anyone here other that Scott and to an extent Richard Nabavi care about today's numbers?
But weeks ago when reports said lorry numbers hadn't declined in Jan you were happy to post that multiple times and say na na nah to Remainers.
Pot and kettle.
Eh? I did no such thing.
Lorry numbers declining in January was completely expected because of stockpiling in Q4 and people waiting to see how the border coped. The only thing I said na na nah about if any was the absence of the supposed border problems and tailbacks we'd been told ad nauseum would be there.
We were then told the border problems weren't there because lorry numbers were down. But then the report came that by February lorry numbers were back to normal. Still no border problems and tailbacks to go with the lorries.
Now flash forward and its back down to "there was a dip in January". Yeah, we all knew that. February will be more interesting, I expect there'll still be a dip but nothing like this.
O/T, who did PBers reckon will be the next cartoon / children's character to be cancelled? My money is on Bagpuss - old, pale, stale male and figure of the Patriarchy, with slightly dubious intentions towards Emily.
TinTin has to be a goner. One particular book has long since been verboten, but I think every adventure leans heavily on cultural stereotypes.
I believe that Tin Tin has already had some of the stories... deprecated.. for reprints etc.
I think we discussed the other day how this kind of removal of problematic works has effected how people see Kipling. His unambiguously racist stuff has been pushed out of sight....
Amazingly I've just seen a discussion on 'Steph's Packed Lunch' on whether there should be a 6pm curfew on men going outside. I seriously worry whether this temporary suspension of our liberties over the last twelve months is going to become something rather more sinister.
Yes, also demonstrates my point that had we still been part of the EU we would most likely not have been part of the EU scheme, we would have done our own thing.
Sorry Brexiteers, but your only claim to good news about Brexit is, like everything else you have claimed, a crock of shit.
I remember watching the 1988 Olympics when Des Lynam broke the news of Ben Johnson testing positive for drugs and always assumed the shame of it all would mean noone would ever try anything like that again.
Cycling is dirtier than it's ever been at all levels because the techniques are so well known and the 'produits' are so readily available. I know people who do blood bags/testosterone gels for Regional C races - the 2nd lowest level of amateur competition in the UK.
Is it still on balance good for you, then, if all that shit is going on? I mean, weighing up the massive fitness you accrue from elite sport against the poison of the drugs?
Dunno. On balance involvement in a competitive cycling at a high level has probably been a net positive for me even though I regularly used to inject myself with steroids and dodgy Italian amphetamines - I missed out on all the oxygen vector doping that came later. At 53 I weigh the same as I did when I was 18 and am in the 3.0 W/kg club.
Meanwhile, Italy's exciting new system of four tiers of house arrest is proving about as successful, and lasting about as long, as the English one did. From the Graun:
Italy’s government is expected to announce the closure of schools, restaurants and shops across most of the country later today as a new wave of coronavirus infections puts hospitals under strain.
Prime minister Mario Draghi is expected to hold a cabinet meeting shortly to decide new restrictions for the eurozone’s third-largest economy, which on Thursday recorded almost 26,000 new Covid-19 cases and 373 deaths.
With new, more contagious variants now widespread, Italy’s more populated northern regions such as Lombardy, which includes Milan, will reportedly join several others in being classified as the highest risk “red zones” from Monday, as will Calabria in the south.
Lazio, the region that includes Rome, could also join them, although the situation is uncertain.
Draghi’s new national unity government tightened restrictions for red zones earlier this month, to include not just the closure of bars, restaurants, shops and high schools but also primary schools. Residents are told to stay home where possible.
Other regions including Tuscany and Liguria are expected to pass into the medium-risk orange zone, with all shops, museums, bars and restaurants closed.
That leaves only Sicily in the lower category of yellow, and Sardinia in the new category of white, with hardly any restrictions at all.
Apart from the vaccines, nothing seems to work against this bastard disease except endless cycles of mass imprisonment. One thing that can be said in favour of this country is that at least we aren't cursed with vast hordes of stupid anti-vaxxers.
If you think that voters - especially Tory voters - have the slightest concern about a small cut in the aid budget at a time when we're whacking up taxes to fill a giant fiscal hole, then you're frankly out of your mind. You're lucky we're not cutting aid to zero for the next several years until we get back on our feet.
I think you've misunderstood the piece - I'm very clear that voters would be happy to cut the aid budget. The issue is that MPs may have a different view. We won't know until its crunch time in parliament. The fact that the govt is delaying suggests to me they know it might be a close vote.
Further thought. If Scotland was independent, which undoubtedly is the topic UKGovScotland is addressing with its tweet, there would be no US countervailing tariffs against Scottish Whisky because there is no Airbus production in the country.
Um. The tariffs are suspended for four months while Airbus/EU/Boeing/USA sort out their issues, if they do. The UK is a party to the dispute as long as it wants to keep Airbus wing manufacture in the UK, but UKGov doesn't have agency. The decisions will be made in Toulouse, Brussels, Chicago and Washington.
Ok, but we can test the grandstanding here with the counter-argument: if cutting from 0.7% to 0.5% costs "hundreds of thousands" of lives then it stands to reason that having it at 0.7% rather than 1% also costs "hundreds of thousands" of lives, and we should spend more.
So, if you're concerned about saving lives above all else then you should be arguing for an increase on the basis that the current level of spending is a tragedy. Otherwise you are innately conceding an affordability argument that you don't really want to engage in.
I don't see much of that so I'm forced to conclude it's just grandstanding.
I can argue for higher quite compellingly but all that would do is trigger a whole bunch of "If you're so concerned about it why don't YOU give all your money to Oxfam? Total hypocrite if you don't" type grief from the likes of anotherrichard and pagan and the general band of reactionary reductives. Then I'd get frustrated and tetchy and start having spats with people. Not appropriate for a Friday.
More seriously, on a pure "spend where the need is greatest" rationale every rich country would be allocating an order of magnitude more to overseas aid than they do at the moment. And every single one of them could afford it. But one has to be realistic and recognize that the limits of domestic political acceptability are in the current range of nought point something of GDP.
Then I think we agree; the trouble is that the limits of domestic political acceptability (amongst the electorate, and not establishment politicians) are lower than 0.7% of GDP, and it's their money we are spending.
I have a lot of sympathy with the idea the UK should be generous and, from a centre-right perspective, I'm attracted to the idea it also extends our brand and global influence at the same time.
But, I think there should be a national or strategic business case for each one, or a compelling humanitarian lead, and it should be based on helping each country develop the infrastructure and capacity to stabilise, and succeed, whilst also not being a cop-out for incompetent or corrupt governments.
So I think enshrining an arbitrary target in law is the work of numbskulls.
Yes, also demonstrates my point that had we still been part of the EU we would most likely not have been part of the EU scheme, we would have done our own thing.
Sorry Brexiteers, but your only claim to good news about Brexit is, like everything else you have claimed, a crock of shit.
No you're only betraying your own pea-brained inability to think through things.
The vaccine scheme is proof of concept that a country able to nimbly determine its own rules and its own actions can do better than a sclerotic bloc working together to the lowest common denominator.
Today that was on vaccines, tomorrow it can be on anything else. The future is in our hands.
Apologising for questioning somebodies opinion that Piers Morgan is a racist, because despite no racist words were used, they determined he was a racist because of the tone he used when talking.
You can't challenge somebody making outlandish claims, because the person making an unsubstantiated claim has a lived experience, but no personal knowledge of those they are making a claim about...and you do.
Curfews for men is one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard. Christ.
Why?
Because it doesn't solve anything and it's the opposite of liberty. I haven't ever committed violence towards women so why should I be punished by being forced to stay inside my house?
FFS I've just seen this - Mike is allegedly a liberal.
What I'm wondering is when we are going to get round to criticising - you know - the actual criminal that murdered the poor woman?
After his trial, one would hope.
Yes, agreed, but he`s measurably closer to that point than the rest of us is.
Criticising "the actual criminal that murdered the poor woman" is perfectly fair. We don't yet know who that is, but we can be pretty certain there is an actual criminal that murdered the poor woman. Possibly more than one, of course. What we shouldn't be doing is opining on the suspect.
If you think that voters - especially Tory voters - have the slightest concern about a small cut in the aid budget at a time when we're whacking up taxes to fill a giant fiscal hole, then you're frankly out of your mind. You're lucky we're not cutting aid to zero for the next several years until we get back on our feet.
Andrew Mitchell, Theresa May and even David Davis say hi!
Sounds like a who's who of MPs that should be replaced at the next election.
Andrew Mitchell is a fascinating case study as, by almost all accounts, he's not a particularly pleasant person.
I wonder if this is a mechanism via which he tries to convince himself he's alright.
So 100 Tweets later does anyone here other that Scott and to an extent Richard Nabavi care about today's numbers?
But weeks ago when reports said lorry numbers hadn't declined in Jan you were happy to post that multiple times and say na na nah to Remainers.
Pot and kettle.
Eh? I did no such thing.
Lorry numbers declining in January was completely expected because of stockpiling in Q4 and people waiting to see how the border coped. The only thing I said na na nah about if any was the absence of the supposed border problems and tailbacks we'd been told ad nauseum would be there.
We were then told the border problems weren't there because lorry numbers were down. But then the report came that by February lorry numbers were back to normal. Still no border problems and tailbacks to go with the lorries.
Now flash forward and its back down to "there was a dip in January". Yeah, we all knew that. February will be more interesting, I expect there'll still be a dip but nothing like this.
Sounds like the majority of lorries returning to Europe are empty european lorries which don't require paperwork anyway, so no queues. Brexit's brave new world eh?
Big round of applause for the EU Commission. Their vaccination programme that was designed to foster solidarity and a fair supply of vaccines has now caused the exact infighting that it was meant to prevent.
Off topic, I'm working with lots of northerners currently on the Transpennine upgrade programme at the moment, and it's *way* more fun than down in London.
They are more relaxed, informal, conversational and have a far better sense of humour. They don't police language. They don't grandstand. They don't have massive egos. And they're not up their own arseholes either, they will give you the benefit of the doubt in both your style and your work. I always feel I'm perpetually treading on eggshells Up in Town.
So refreshing. And fun.
Some of my best work friends are either Northerners or Southern Europeans (Italian, mostly) as they've got no PC filter.
Here's the thing: there hasn't been any unPC chat. It's just they don't judge you and mark your card if you don't use the right phrase at the right time for everything. Because they recognise that's not important.
Also, they laugh and smile a lot, enjoy their work and make it fun. I've had conversations about Oasis, Ian Brown, and cracked jokes about Vikings and working in Sainsbury's if we get this wrong, this morning.
They know that humour is what makes life bearable, and they're absolutely fine with it.
Makes me want to move house.
Is that kind of talk not normal everywhere?
Possibly one reason I'm not bothered by woke is that the idea of what you describe as woke seems like alien nonsense only read about on Twitter and here whereas what you've just said is normal life.
The stories I could tell you, Philip.
Sadly, it's not normal where I am. I've had lots of bad experiences.
Honestly, this is just a whole load of rambling nonsense. You've basically used a whole load of words to say "we don't know how this ends". The point is fair, though I think you've failed to address the wider point of EU trade losing value for the UK resulting in the UK diluting the existing trade deal even further.
You've got to move on from brexit, you're a broken record and you can keep banging on about it until you're blue in the face, it's not going to change anything and ultimately brexit has already happened. Make peace with it.
Err, Brexit hasn't fully happened. You obviously haven't been following the news properly. The UK is trying to renegotiate the two agreements, including the one it signed just a few weeks ago. Well, I say 'renegotiate', but Lord Frost's approach can scarcely be called negotiation, it's more a combination of insults and reneging, which certainly isn't going to end well as an approach.
As for making peace on it, I've already written a pair of pieces for PB where I proposed a constructive way forward which would fully respect the referendum result (indeed, more fully than what we're getting). Of course, it's true that before that can happen, we'd need a sane government, and I'm afraid there's no chance of that in the foreseeable future. So, yes, we are stuck with the damage. It will take many years, perhaps a couple of decades, to recover the lost ground.
You have an extreme bias towards the 2016 status quo and see any deviation from it in any direction as insane by definition.
We here, on Ye Olde PB, will always remember the day that williamglenn called out Richard Nabavi for being overly europhile
Apologising for questioning somebodies opinion that Piers Morgan is a racist, because despite no racist words were used, they determined he was a racist because of the tone he used when talking.
Ok, but we can test the grandstanding here with the counter-argument: if cutting from 0.7% to 0.5% costs "hundreds of thousands" of lives then it stands to reason that having it at 0.7% rather than 1% also costs "hundreds of thousands" of lives, and we should spend more.
So, if you're concerned about saving lives above all else then you should be arguing for an increase on the basis that the current level of spending is a tragedy. Otherwise you are innately conceding an affordability argument that you don't really want to engage in.
I don't see much of that so I'm forced to conclude it's just grandstanding.
I can argue for higher quite compellingly but all that would do is trigger a whole bunch of "If you're so concerned about it why don't YOU give all your money to Oxfam? Total hypocrite if you don't" type grief from the likes of anotherrichard and pagan and the general band of reactionary reductives. Then I'd get frustrated and tetchy and start having spats with people. Not appropriate for a Friday.
More seriously, on a pure "spend where the need is greatest" rationale every rich country would be allocating an order of magnitude more to overseas aid than they do at the moment. And every single one of them could afford it. But one has to be realistic and recognize that the limits of domestic political acceptability are in the current range of nought point something of GDP.
Then I think we agree; the trouble is that the limits of domestic political acceptability (amongst the electorate, and not establishment politicians) are lower than 0.7% of GDP, and it's their money we are spending.
I have a lot of sympathy with the idea the UK should be generous and, from a centre-right perspective, I'm attracted to the idea it also extends our brand and global influence at the same time.
But, I think there should be a national or strategic business case for each one, or a compelling humanitarian lead, and it should be based on helping each country develop the infrastructure and capacity to stabilise, and succeed, whilst also not being a cop-out for incompetent or corrupt governments.
So I think enshrining an arbitrary target in law is the work of numbskulls.
Indeed. 0.7% is virtue signalling. 0.5% is iniquity signalling. Iniquity pulls more than virtue with Johnson's crowd.
Your upthread suggestion was a good one IMO. What I like about it, is that it is based on principles and thought through.
'Lighted' and 'lit' are both perfectly acceptable, and have been in common usage for centuries.
It probably be "misled" in this context. Gaslighting for things you can see with your own eyes or are perfectly obvious. Unless you work in an export industry, it isn't.
I mean, I've said this a thousand times on here. I'm just trying to help you people.
Indeed, it (should) be.
Don't know why you're getting on my case, though, since I was addressing a completely different point.
O/T, who did PBers reckon will be the next cartoon / children's character to be cancelled? My money is on Bagpuss - old, pale, stale male and figure of the Patriarchy, with slightly dubious intentions towards Emily.
TinTin has to be a goner. One particular book has long since been verboten, but I think every adventure leans heavily on cultural stereotypes.
I believe that Tin Tin has already had some of the stories... deprecated.. for reprints etc.
I think we discussed the other day how this kind of removal of problematic works has effected how people see Kipling. His unambiguously racist stuff has been pushed out of sight....
Lets not ban TinTin just yet
I wish I could purchase this as a gift for some relatives.....
Curfews for men is one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard. Christ.
Why?
Because it doesn't solve anything and it's the opposite of liberty. I haven't ever committed violence towards women so why should I be punished by being forced to stay inside my house?
FFS I've just seen this - Mike is allegedly a liberal.
What I'm wondering is when we are going to get round to criticising - you know - the actual criminal that murdered the poor woman?
I'm afraid a debate on the actual perp and the actual crime is not going to be very rich. I'd predict a 100% unanimity of opinion.
Off topic, I'm working with lots of northerners currently on the Transpennine upgrade programme at the moment, and it's *way* more fun than down in London.
They are more relaxed, informal, conversational and have a far better sense of humour. They don't police language. They don't grandstand. They don't have massive egos. And they're not up their own arseholes either, they will give you the benefit of the doubt in both your style and your work. I always feel I'm perpetually treading on eggshells Up in Town.
So refreshing. And fun.
Some of my best work friends are either Northerners or Southern Europeans (Italian, mostly) as they've got no PC filter.
Here's the thing: there hasn't been any unPC chat. It's just they don't judge you and mark your card if you don't use the right phrase at the right time for everything. Because they recognise that's not important.
Also, they laugh and smile a lot, enjoy their work and make it fun. I've had conversations about Oasis, Ian Brown, and cracked jokes about Vikings and working in Sainsbury's if we get this wrong, this morning.
They know that humour is what makes life bearable, and they're absolutely fine with it.
Makes me want to move house.
Is that kind of talk not normal everywhere?
Possibly one reason I'm not bothered by woke is that the idea of what you describe as woke seems like alien nonsense only read about on Twitter and here whereas what you've just said is normal life.
The stories I could tell you, Philip.
Sadly, it's not normal where I am. I've had lots of bad experiences.
Makes me think back to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels 'northern monkeys' and 'southern fairies'.
'Lighted' and 'lit' are both perfectly acceptable, and have been in common usage for centuries.
It was a joke rather than pedantry, however even where multiple forms are in common usage it's acceptable to have an opinion about which one is more aesthetically pleasing.
I gaslight my colleagues by pretending that "highlit" is a correct past participle. This has caused some fights.
O/T, who did PBers reckon will be the next cartoon / children's character to be cancelled? My money is on Bagpuss - old, pale, stale male and figure of the Patriarchy, with slightly dubious intentions towards Emily.
TinTin has to be a goner. One particular book has long since been verboten, but I think every adventure leans heavily on cultural stereotypes.
I believe that Tin Tin has already had some of the stories... deprecated.. for reprints etc.
I think we discussed the other day how this kind of removal of problematic works has effected how people see Kipling. His unambiguously racist stuff has been pushed out of sight....
Lets not ban TinTin just yet
I wish I could purchase this as a gift for some relatives.....
I seem to recall an actual mock Famous Five Brexit book at Waterstones...
Off topic, I'm working with lots of northerners currently on the Transpennine upgrade programme at the moment, and it's *way* more fun than down in London.
They are more relaxed, informal, conversational and have a far better sense of humour. They don't police language. They don't grandstand. They don't have massive egos. And they're not up their own arseholes either, they will give you the benefit of the doubt in both your style and your work. I always feel I'm perpetually treading on eggshells Up in Town.
So refreshing. And fun.
It's just like having discussions with me on here.
Yes, also demonstrates my point that had we still been part of the EU we would most likely not have been part of the EU scheme, we would have done our own thing.
Sorry Brexiteers, but your only claim to good news about Brexit is, like everything else you have claimed, a crock of shit.
No you're only betraying your own pea-brained inability to think through things.
The vaccine scheme is proof of concept that a country able to nimbly determine its own rules and its own actions can do better than a sclerotic bloc working together to the lowest common denominator.
Today that was on vaccines, tomorrow it can be on anything else. The future is in our hands.
Pea-brained? So says the man that has nothing else to do with his day but sit on a on a political betting site and parrot shit that he reads in the Daily Express or cuts and pastes from Wiki, or takes from mind numbing slogans from Conservative Central Office press briefings . If anything is pea brained I can think of few behaviours that are more so than that.
Questioning someone else's intelligence, when you are clearly one of the most politically brainwashed and stupid contributors to this site is pretty dumb even by your low standards.
Off topic, I'm working with lots of northerners currently on the Transpennine upgrade programme at the moment, and it's *way* more fun than down in London.
They are more relaxed, informal, conversational and have a far better sense of humour. They don't police language. They don't grandstand. They don't have massive egos. And they're not up their own arseholes either, they will give you the benefit of the doubt in both your style and your work. I always feel I'm perpetually treading on eggshells Up in Town.
So refreshing. And fun.
Some of my best work friends are either Northerners or Southern Europeans (Italian, mostly) as they've got no PC filter.
Here's the thing: there hasn't been any unPC chat. It's just they don't judge you and mark your card if you don't use the right phrase at the right time for everything. Because they recognise that's not important.
Also, they laugh and smile a lot, enjoy their work and make it fun. I've had conversations about Oasis, Ian Brown, and cracked jokes about Vikings and working in Sainsbury's if we get this wrong, this morning.
They know that humour is what makes life bearable, and they're absolutely fine with it.
Makes me want to move house.
Is that kind of talk not normal everywhere?
Possibly one reason I'm not bothered by woke is that the idea of what you describe as woke seems like alien nonsense only read about on Twitter and here whereas what you've just said is normal life.
The stories I could tell you, Philip.
Sadly, it's not normal where I am. I've had lots of bad experiences.
I had the same reaction as Philip. Your new Northern colleagues sound great but also just normal, so what it made me think was, gosh, his usual crowd must be a real shower.
Amazingly I've just seen a discussion on 'Steph's Packed Lunch' on whether there should be a 6pm curfew on men going outside. I seriously worry whether this temporary suspension of our liberties over the last twelve months is going to become something rather more sinister.
Yep, the genie is well and truly out of that bottle. Rather like taxes; once imposed very, very difficult to unwind.
I fear lockdowns will become the first policy response rather than the last resort when dealing with future "crises". Seasonal 'flu anyone? And just wait until the green lobby feel emboldened enough to suggest lockdowns to deal with "the climate emergency".
I fail to see the outrage, unless you're an actual heifer.
I mean what adjectives do you use for someone who managed to lose a council seat to the Tories and then a parliamentary seat to the Tories that the Tories have never held before in a little over two years?
I fail to see the outrage, unless you're an actual heifer.
I mean what adjectives who managed to lose a council seat to the Tories and then a parliamentary seat to the Tories that the Tories have never held before?
Agent Pidcock would be even better than Agent Corbyn at destroying the Labour Party.
O/T, who did PBers reckon will be the next cartoon / children's character to be cancelled? My money is on Bagpuss - old, pale, stale male and figure of the Patriarchy, with slightly dubious intentions towards Emily.
TinTin has to be a goner. One particular book has long since been verboten, but I think every adventure leans heavily on cultural stereotypes.
O/T, who did PBers reckon will be the next cartoon / children's character to be cancelled? My money is on Bagpuss - old, pale, stale male and figure of the Patriarchy, with slightly dubious intentions towards Emily.
TinTin has to be a goner. One particular book has long since been verboten, but I think every adventure leans heavily on cultural stereotypes.
I believe that Tin Tin has already had some of the stories... deprecated.. for reprints etc.
I think we discussed the other day how this kind of removal of problematic works has effected how people see Kipling. His unambiguously racist stuff has been pushed out of sight....
Lets not ban TinTin just yet
I wish I could purchase this as a gift for some relatives.....
Ebay have t-shirts on sale. Do you know their size?
O/T, who did PBers reckon will be the next cartoon / children's character to be cancelled? My money is on Bagpuss - old, pale, stale male and figure of the Patriarchy, with slightly dubious intentions towards Emily.
TinTin has to be a goner. One particular book has long since been verboten, but I think every adventure leans heavily on cultural stereotypes.
I believe that Tin Tin has already had some of the stories... deprecated.. for reprints etc.
I think we discussed the other day how this kind of removal of problematic works has effected how people see Kipling. His unambiguously racist stuff has been pushed out of sight....
Lets not ban TinTin just yet
I wish I could purchase this as a gift for some relatives.....
I seem to recall an actual mock Famous Five Brexit book at Waterstones...
A real live book. Was very funny! Haven't read the sequel yet - Five Escape from Brexit Island
President Joe Biden’s $1.9trn stimulus bill takes to nearly $3trn, or 14% of pre-pandemic GDP, the amount of coronavirus-related spending passed since December, and to about $6trn the total paid out since the start of the crisis. The Federal Reserve and Treasury are due to pour some $2.5trn into the banking system this year, and interest rates will stay near zero. If this gamble pays off, America will avoid the miserable low-inflation, low-rate trap in which Europe and Japan seem stuck. Other central banks may copy the Fed’s new, more tolerant, attitude towards temporary price spikes. Massive fiscal stimulus may become the normal response to recessions. The risk, however, is that America will be left with rising debts, an inflation problem and a central bank facing a test of its credibility.
I fail to see the outrage, unless you're an actual heifer.
I mean what adjectives do you use for someone who managed to lose a council seat to the Tories and then a parliamentary seat to the Tories that the Tories have never held before in a little over two years?
If only we had @ydoethur around. There's an Eric Heifer pun dying to be made.
I fail to see the outrage, unless you're an actual heifer.
I mean what adjectives do you use for someone who managed to lose a council seat to the Tories and then a parliamentary seat to the Tories that the Tories have never held before in a little over two years?
O/T, who did PBers reckon will be the next cartoon / children's character to be cancelled? My money is on Bagpuss - old, pale, stale male and figure of the Patriarchy, with slightly dubious intentions towards Emily.
TinTin has to be a goner. One particular book has long since been verboten, but I think every adventure leans heavily on cultural stereotypes.
I believe that Tin Tin has already had some of the stories... deprecated.. for reprints etc.
I think we discussed the other day how this kind of removal of problematic works has effected how people see Kipling. His unambiguously racist stuff has been pushed out of sight....
Lets not ban TinTin just yet
I wish I could purchase this as a gift for some relatives.....
I seem to recall an actual mock Famous Five Brexit book at Waterstones...
Someone bought that for me. It was awful.
(to which some wag adds "but still better than Brexit" )
Edit: I see RP and I disagree on this book. Maybe I should revisit, although I have a suspicion it was used for kindling.
I fail to see the outrage, unless you're an actual heifer.
I mean what adjectives do you use for someone who managed to lose a council seat to the Tories and then a parliamentary seat to the Tories that the Tories have never held before in a little over two years?
Towards the end of my time I nearly got suspended from the party for calling her "Laura Pillock". I was a council candidate at the time, and pointed out that my actual suspension would prompt my removal from the ticket and its too late to replace me.
The complaint was filed in the circular file. Much to the chagrin of the complainee - who later entertained* the troops by running for the "Entryist Trot of the Year" award during the 2019 campaign by repeatedly arguing with Labour > Tory voters on the doorstep calling them all kinds of exciting names.
Beckett is right. Pillock is everything that is wrong with the Labour Party.
If you think that voters - especially Tory voters - have the slightest concern about a small cut in the aid budget at a time when we're whacking up taxes to fill a giant fiscal hole, then you're frankly out of your mind. You're lucky we're not cutting aid to zero for the next several years until we get back on our feet.
I think you've misunderstood the piece - I'm very clear that voters would be happy to cut the aid budget. The issue is that MPs may have a different view. We won't know until its crunch time in parliament. The fact that the govt is delaying suggests to me they know it might be a close vote.
The MPs are there to represent their voters. If they don't - and instead prefer to load us down with taxes while we borrow 15 billion a year to give away - then the party and / or its voters should give them the boot with extreme gusto. May, Mitchell, Davis and any other idiots should take heed.
Quite extraordinary that a journalist from the Economist, an hysterically anti-Brexit journal which has been having huge anti-Brexit tantrums since 2016. should write an anti-Brexit tweet
O/T, who did PBers reckon will be the next cartoon / children's character to be cancelled? My money is on Bagpuss - old, pale, stale male and figure of the Patriarchy, with slightly dubious intentions towards Emily.
TinTin has to be a goner. One particular book has long since been verboten, but I think every adventure leans heavily on cultural stereotypes.
I believe that Tin Tin has already had some of the stories... deprecated.. for reprints etc.
I think we discussed the other day how this kind of removal of problematic works has effected how people see Kipling. His unambiguously racist stuff has been pushed out of sight....
Lets not ban TinTin just yet
I wish I could purchase this as a gift for some relatives.....
I seem to recall an actual mock Famous Five Brexit book at Waterstones...
Someone bought that for me. It was awful.
(to which some wag adds "but still better than Brexit" )
yes, browsed in Waterstones. Actually making the book was a fail, I agree.
Yes, also demonstrates my point that had we still been part of the EU we would most likely not have been part of the EU scheme, we would have done our own thing.
Sorry Brexiteers, but your only claim to good news about Brexit is, like everything else you have claimed, a crock of shit.
I think Brexiteers are making a broader point, that doing your own thing is better than being part of the collective, where the EU represents the collective way of doing things. I think that point is reasonable. If the EU isn't for the collective way of doing things, then what is it for? Whether the issue is the way the EU has gone about it and collectives are in principle OK, or that collectives are never a good idea isn't explored.
My personal view is that UK's vaccine success, which is a genuine one, is essentially a prisoner's dilemma, given the extent to which the UK programme depends on EU supplied vaccines. From its own PoV, the EU slipped up by not maximally securing its own supply. The success of the UK programme depended on the EU making that mistake. The context to Charles Michel's comments this week was his trying to justify the export of vaccines as international solidarity, rather than EU incompetence. No-one believed him.
For perspective - Global population Billion: 1889: 1.6 1920: 1.9 1957: 2.9 1968: 3.5 2020: 7.8
So the contemporary percapita mortality of the Kentucky "Spanish" (sic) Flu would be around 205 million dead....
I still like the theory that the 1889 pandemic was caused by a coronavirus.
I like the theory that the 1889 pandemic was caused by a coronavirus that is now one of our common colds.
Yes - it is intriguing. There is evidence that it was a flu of course so we don't know. I do think that the coronaviruses we have that cause common colds would have been pandemics sometime in the past - but given life expectancy up to 1900 was below 50 even in the west, and obisity was a problem only of the richest 1% or less, few would have noticed it.
Quite extraordinary that a journalist from the Economist, an hysterically anti-Brexit journal which has been having huge anti-Brexit tantrums since 2016. should write an anti-Brexit tweet
And that ScottP should retwatter* it....
* In before Scott has a tantrum about claims of it being a retweet.
'Lighted' and 'lit' are both perfectly acceptable, and have been in common usage for centuries.
It was a joke rather than pedantry, however even where multiple forms are in common usage it's acceptable to have an opinion about which one is more aesthetically pleasing.
I gaslight my colleagues by pretending that "highlit" is a correct past participle. This has caused some fights.
You could escalate by pretending that 'chick-lit' is a past tense formed from the verb 'chicklight', meaning 'to impose the views of a Twitter feminist upon x'.
E.g. 'He's started to go around telling people that as a man he really should self-curfew at 6pm. He's been totally chick-lit...'
But I fear that the "parliament thwarted the Brexit vote" narrative would be rolled out should any MPs be minded to oppose a government proposal that has or seems to have popular support.
Ok, but we can test the grandstanding here with the counter-argument: if cutting from 0.7% to 0.5% costs "hundreds of thousands" of lives then it stands to reason that having it at 0.7% rather than 1% also costs "hundreds of thousands" of lives, and we should spend more.
So, if you're concerned about saving lives above all else then you should be arguing for an increase on the basis that the current level of spending is a tragedy. Otherwise you are innately conceding an affordability argument that you don't really want to engage in.
I don't see much of that so I'm forced to conclude it's just grandstanding.
I can argue for higher quite compellingly but all that would do is trigger a whole bunch of "If you're so concerned about it why don't YOU give all your money to Oxfam? Total hypocrite if you don't" type grief from the likes of anotherrichard and pagan and the general band of reactionary reductives. Then I'd get frustrated and tetchy and start having spats with people. Not appropriate for a Friday.
More seriously, on a pure "spend where the need is greatest" rationale every rich country would be allocating an order of magnitude more to overseas aid than they do at the moment. And every single one of them could afford it. But one has to be realistic and recognize that the limits of domestic political acceptability are in the current range of nought point something of GDP.
Then I think we agree; the trouble is that the limits of domestic political acceptability (amongst the electorate, and not establishment politicians) are lower than 0.7% of GDP, and it's their money we are spending.
I have a lot of sympathy with the idea the UK should be generous and, from a centre-right perspective, I'm attracted to the idea it also extends our brand and global influence at the same time.
But, I think there should be a national or strategic business case for each one, or a compelling humanitarian lead, and it should be based on helping each country develop the infrastructure and capacity to stabilise, and succeed, whilst also not being a cop-out for incompetent or corrupt governments.
So I think enshrining an arbitrary target in law is the work of numbskulls.
Indeed. 0.7% is virtue signalling. 0.5% is iniquity signalling. Iniquity pulls more than virtue with Johnson's crowd.
Your upthread suggestion was a good one IMO. What I like about it, is that it is based on principles and thought through.
If you think that voters - especially Tory voters - have the slightest concern about a small cut in the aid budget at a time when we're whacking up taxes to fill a giant fiscal hole, then you're frankly out of your mind. You're lucky we're not cutting aid to zero for the next several years until we get back on our feet.
I think you've misunderstood the piece - I'm very clear that voters would be happy to cut the aid budget. The issue is that MPs may have a different view. We won't know until its crunch time in parliament. The fact that the govt is delaying suggests to me they know it might be a close vote.
The MPs are there to represent their voters. If they don't - and instead prefer to load us down with taxes while we borrow 15 billion a year to give away - then the party and / or its voters should give them the boot with extreme gusto. May, Mitchell, Davis and any other idiots should take heed.
We trust our MPs to weigh up the evidence and use their judgement so we don't have to, hence an MP may vote in a different way to the mob. It is the same reason we have juries in trials and not react to the mob opinion. The MPs are also representing those voters who do not vote for them, all of them.
Yes, also demonstrates my point that had we still been part of the EU we would most likely not have been part of the EU scheme, we would have done our own thing.
Sorry Brexiteers, but your only claim to good news about Brexit is, like everything else you have claimed, a crock of shit.
Except yet again that is utter rubbish from you. If we had still been in the EU then we would have gone along with the EU scheme exactly as every other country did because the pressure not to do otherwise would have been immense and we would have been governed by those who still thought the EU was, on the whole, competent. Even outside we were subject to endless attacks from moronic Europhiles criticising the UK for not joining various joint EU schemes all of which turned out to be utterly worthless.
And so if we had remained in it is an absolute certainty that more people would have died than has otherwise been the case and that, although we may well have cut lose at some point, we would not have had the benefit of early adoption and early vaccine buying that has saved 1000s of extra lives.
You Eurofanatics are simply unable to accept that anything good could ever possibly come from Brexit. It has turned you completely mad.
Quite extraordinary that a journalist from the Economist, an hysterically anti-Brexit journal which has been having huge anti-Brexit tantrums since 2016. should write an anti-Brexit tweet
I fail to see the outrage, unless you're an actual heifer.
I mean what adjectives do you use for someone who managed to lose a council seat to the Tories and then a parliamentary seat to the Tories that the Tories have never held before in a little over two years?
Towards the end of my time I nearly got suspended from the party for calling her "Laura Pillock". I was a council candidate at the time, and pointed out that my actual suspension would prompt my removal from the ticket and its too late to replace me.
The complaint was filed in the circular file. Much to the chagrin of the complainee - who later entertained* the troops by running for the "Entryist Trot of the Year" award during the 2019 campaign by repeatedly arguing with Labour > Tory voters on the doorstep calling them all kinds of exciting names.
Beckett is right. Pillock is everything that is wrong with the Labour Party.
I remember the time @SouthamObserver got reported for writing a thread header on here.
How long after this first dose can I expect some immunity to kick in? T'internet is not clear. Some say it slowly rises from day 1 - and keeps rising for months.
Others say there is no evidence for any immunity until about 22 days in... or at least that's how it reads - but then it is quite high
Yes, also demonstrates my point that had we still been part of the EU we would most likely not have been part of the EU scheme, we would have done our own thing.
Sorry Brexiteers, but your only claim to good news about Brexit is, like everything else you have claimed, a crock of shit.
I think Brexiteers are making a broader point, that doing your own thing is better than being part of the collective, where the EU represents the collective way of doing things. I think that point is reasonable. If the EU isn't for the collective way of doing things, then what is it for? Whether the issue is the way the EU has gone about it and collectives are in principle OK, or that collectives are never a good idea isn't explored.
My personal view is that UK's vaccine success, which is a genuine one, is essentially a prisoner's dilemma, given the extent to which the UK programme depends on EU supplied vaccines. From its own PoV, the EU slipped up by not maximally securing its own supply. The success of the UK programme depended on the EU making that mistake. The context to Charles Michel's comments this week was his trying to justify the export of vaccines as international solidarity, rather than EU incompetence. No-one believed him.
The UK programme does not depend on EU supplied vaccines.
If you think that voters - especially Tory voters - have the slightest concern about a small cut in the aid budget at a time when we're whacking up taxes to fill a giant fiscal hole, then you're frankly out of your mind. You're lucky we're not cutting aid to zero for the next several years until we get back on our feet.
I think you've misunderstood the piece - I'm very clear that voters would be happy to cut the aid budget. The issue is that MPs may have a different view. We won't know until its crunch time in parliament. The fact that the govt is delaying suggests to me they know it might be a close vote.
The MPs are there to represent their voters. If they don't - and instead prefer to load us down with taxes while we borrow 15 billion a year to give away - then the party and / or its voters should give them the boot with extreme gusto. May, Mitchell, Davis and any other idiots should take heed.
We trust our MPs to weigh up the evidence and use their judgement so we don't have to, hence an MP may vote in a different way to the mob. It is the same reason we have juries in trials and not react to the mob opinion. The MPs are also representing those voters who do not vote for them, all of them.
And if they want to keep their jobs, they can respect the wishes of the 'mob' - otherwise known as the voters who elected them. Entirely up to them.
How long after this first dose can I expect some immunity to kick in? T'internet is not clear. Some say it slowly rises from day 1 - and keeps rising for months.
Others say there is no evidence for any immunity until about 22 days in... or at least that's how it reads - but then it is quite high
You are supposed to wait three weeks, and not assume any immunity prior.
Data shows that the infection rate in Israel doubled for people in the eight days after vaccination, and in practice vaccination increased net risk until day 14. Surveys of older Brits suggest a majority broke the rules in the period after vaccination. QED.
How long after this first dose can I expect some immunity to kick in? T'internet is not clear. Some say it slowly rises from day 1 - and keeps rising for months.
Others say there is no evidence for any immunity until about 22 days in... or at least that's how it reads - but then it is quite high
How long after this first dose can I expect some immunity to kick in? T'internet is not clear. Some say it slowly rises from day 1 - and keeps rising for months.
Others say there is no evidence for any immunity until about 22 days in... or at least that's how it reads - but then it is quite high
So 100 Tweets later does anyone here other that Scott and to an extent Richard Nabavi care about today's numbers?
If they were positive numbers they would be of great interest to you, and you would be trumpeting them from the rooftops. The fact that bad numbers don't fit your narrative means they can be disregarded.
What is the point of political discourse if one can only discuss issues that put the Government/Brexit/ Boris Johnson in a positive light?
Not really because December's numbers were very positive - did anyone here trumpet them as "businesses excited we're going to leave the EU, look at all this trade"?
No, of course not, don't be ridiculous.
Ridiculous! How rude and dismissive.
A 19% decline in World/UK trade for January, which under the circumstances doesn't seem too bad, absolutely through the roof decline in EU/UK trade- all of it not explained by stockpiling or Covid, worries me.
But hey, continue to post your only positive news old bollocks, people on here seem to like it.
Sadly you are another one like Richard Nabavi who has been so desperate to see Brexit as a disaster that you fail to demonstrate even the slightest bit of informed analysis on these numbers. Thankfully the Guardian does. It points out that the ONS itself says that these numbers are not to be considered accurate or final because they have changed the way they record the imports and exports which will make them appear worse than actuality. They also point out that the drop is significantly warped by the fact that so many companies in the EU were stockpiling in advance of the deadline for fear of what would happen to supply chains. They also say they are unable at the moment to define how much of the drop is due to lockdowns and covid affecting exports.
If you had had any sense at all you would have waited and got the figures after a year. You would be sure to have still seen a drop in exports but at least the numbers would have been in some way representative. But like big kids you are all just too impatient to try and be proved right and of course you fear this is about as good as it is going to get for you.
Comments
E.g. Front cover of TinTin in America...
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/816rDg-FpZL.jpg
Oh dear.....
I think we discussed the other day how this kind of removal of problematic works has effected how people see Kipling. His unambiguously racist stuff has been pushed out of sight....
ETA you perhaps have a point that an actual cash figure might have been better.
https://www.politico.eu/coronavirus-in-europe/
Lorry numbers declining in January was completely expected because of stockpiling in Q4 and people waiting to see how the border coped. The only thing I said na na nah about if any was the absence of the supposed border problems and tailbacks we'd been told ad nauseum would be there.
We were then told the border problems weren't there because lorry numbers were down. But then the report came that by February lorry numbers were back to normal. Still no border problems and tailbacks to go with the lorries.
Now flash forward and its back down to "there was a dip in January". Yeah, we all knew that. February will be more interesting, I expect there'll still be a dip but nothing like this.
Sorry Brexiteers, but your only claim to good news about Brexit is, like everything else you have claimed, a crock of shit.
Italy’s government is expected to announce the closure of schools, restaurants and shops across most of the country later today as a new wave of coronavirus infections puts hospitals under strain.
Prime minister Mario Draghi is expected to hold a cabinet meeting shortly to decide new restrictions for the eurozone’s third-largest economy, which on Thursday recorded almost 26,000 new Covid-19 cases and 373 deaths.
With new, more contagious variants now widespread, Italy’s more populated northern regions such as Lombardy, which includes Milan, will reportedly join several others in being classified as the highest risk “red zones” from Monday, as will Calabria in the south.
Lazio, the region that includes Rome, could also join them, although the situation is uncertain.
Draghi’s new national unity government tightened restrictions for red zones earlier this month, to include not just the closure of bars, restaurants, shops and high schools but also primary schools. Residents are told to stay home where possible.
Other regions including Tuscany and Liguria are expected to pass into the medium-risk orange zone, with all shops, museums, bars and restaurants closed.
That leaves only Sicily in the lower category of yellow, and Sardinia in the new category of white, with hardly any restrictions at all.
Apart from the vaccines, nothing seems to work against this bastard disease except endless cycles of mass imprisonment. One thing that can be said in favour of this country is that at least we aren't cursed with vast hordes of stupid anti-vaxxers.
The issue is that MPs may have a different view. We won't know until its crunch time in parliament.
The fact that the govt is delaying suggests to me they know it might be a close vote.
Not recommending. Just saying.
I have a lot of sympathy with the idea the UK should be generous and, from a centre-right perspective, I'm attracted to the idea it also extends our brand and global influence at the same time.
But, I think there should be a national or strategic business case for each one, or a compelling humanitarian lead, and it should be based on helping each country develop the infrastructure and capacity to stabilise, and succeed, whilst also not being a cop-out for incompetent or corrupt governments.
So I think enshrining an arbitrary target in law is the work of numbskulls.
The vaccine scheme is proof of concept that a country able to nimbly determine its own rules and its own actions can do better than a sclerotic bloc working together to the lowest common denominator.
Today that was on vaccines, tomorrow it can be on anything else. The future is in our hands.
BBC News - Sharon Osbourne apologises for her 'panicked' defence of Piers Morgan
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56371826
Apologising for questioning somebodies opinion that Piers Morgan is a racist, because despite no racist words were used, they determined he was a racist because of the tone he used when talking.
You can't challenge somebody making outlandish claims, because the person making an unsubstantiated claim has a lived experience, but no personal knowledge of those they are making a claim about...and you do.
I wonder if this is a mechanism via which he tries to convince himself he's alright.
Sadly, it's not normal where I am. I've had lots of bad experiences.
Scenes
Your upthread suggestion was a good one IMO. What I like about it, is that it is based on principles and thought through.
Don't know why you're getting on my case, though, since I was addressing a completely different point.
Questioning someone else's intelligence, when you are clearly one of the most politically brainwashed and stupid contributors to this site is pretty dumb even by your low standards.
https://twitter.com/politicsforali/status/1370095872273420295
I fear lockdowns will become the first policy response rather than the last resort when dealing with future "crises". Seasonal 'flu anyone? And just wait until the green lobby feel emboldened enough to suggest lockdowns to deal with "the climate emergency".
https://twitter.com/Spectator_LIFE/status/1370347088014282757?s=20
I fail to see the outrage, unless you're an actual heifer.
I mean what adjectives do you use for someone who managed to lose a council seat to the Tories and then a parliamentary seat to the Tories that the Tories have never held before in a little over two years?
I'd be having a punt on significant Democratic gains.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/03/11/the-political-weapon-biden-didnt-deploy-475488
Very sandy on the circuit. Luckily, there's lots of testing* so this won't affect teams much.
*This bit is a lie.
First, Bolsheviks don't exist any more.
And second anti-Russian prejudice seems to be perfectly acceptable everywhere (though not with @YBarddCwsc).
President Joe Biden’s $1.9trn stimulus bill takes to nearly $3trn, or 14% of pre-pandemic GDP, the amount of coronavirus-related spending passed since December, and to about $6trn the total paid out since the start of the crisis. The Federal Reserve and Treasury are due to pour some $2.5trn into the banking system this year, and interest rates will stay near zero. If this gamble pays off, America will avoid the miserable low-inflation, low-rate trap in which Europe and Japan seem stuck. Other central banks may copy the Fed’s new, more tolerant, attitude towards temporary price spikes. Massive fiscal stimulus may become the normal response to recessions. The risk, however, is that America will be left with rising debts, an inflation problem and a central bank facing a test of its credibility.
There's an Eric Heifer pun dying to be made.
(to which some wag adds "but still better than Brexit"
Edit: I see RP and I disagree on this book. Maybe I should revisit, although I have a suspicion it was used for kindling.
Today 6 pm is the cut-off on Cameo for anybody wishing to get Nigel Farage to do a video message for their mum on Mothers Day.
Yorkshire icon Dickie Bird has been shielding on his own for the last year. https://twitter.com/BBCLookNorth/status/1370077310259392513?s=20
The complaint was filed in the circular file. Much to the chagrin of the complainee - who later entertained* the troops by running for the "Entryist Trot of the Year" award during the 2019 campaign by repeatedly arguing with Labour > Tory voters on the doorstep calling them all kinds of exciting names.
Beckett is right. Pillock is everything that is wrong with the Labour Party.
https://twitter.com/govgg/status/1370362728804724738?s=21
My personal view is that UK's vaccine success, which is a genuine one, is essentially a prisoner's dilemma, given the extent to which the UK programme depends on EU supplied vaccines. From its own PoV, the EU slipped up by not maximally securing its own supply. The success of the UK programme depended on the EU making that mistake. The context to Charles Michel's comments this week was his trying to justify the export of vaccines as international solidarity, rather than EU incompetence. No-one believed him.
* In before Scott has a tantrum about claims of it being a retweet.
E.g. 'He's started to go around telling people that as a man he really should self-curfew at 6pm. He's been totally chick-lit...'
But I fear that the "parliament thwarted the Brexit vote" narrative would be rolled out should any MPs be minded to oppose a government proposal that has or seems to have popular support.
And so if we had remained in it is an absolute certainty that more people would have died than has otherwise been the case and that, although we may well have cut lose at some point, we would not have had the benefit of early adoption and early vaccine buying that has saved 1000s of extra lives.
You Eurofanatics are simply unable to accept that anything good could ever possibly come from Brexit. It has turned you completely mad.
The day you realise it will be intense...
Hence you will increasingly find more Etonians at St Andrews, Durham, Bristol, Yale, Trinity College Dublin, Stanford, Exeter etc than at Oxbridge
How long after this first dose can I expect some immunity to kick in? T'internet is not clear. Some say it slowly rises from day 1 - and keeps rising for months.
Others say there is no evidence for any immunity until about 22 days in... or at least that's how it reads - but then it is quite high
I watched less than 60 seconds of his last public announcement and had to turn it off
The Mitchell tendency has been severely reduced by Brexit. 20 odd rebelling is my prediction.
Data shows that the infection rate in Israel doubled for people in the eight days after vaccination, and in practice vaccination increased net risk until day 14. Surveys of older Brits suggest a majority broke the rules in the period after vaccination. QED.
If you had had any sense at all you would have waited and got the figures after a year. You would be sure to have still seen a drop in exports but at least the numbers would have been in some way representative. But like big kids you are all just too impatient to try and be proved right and of course you fear this is about as good as it is going to get for you.