It's generally accepted that Amanda Milling persuaded Boris to retreat last autumn from a mass move to unitaries (plus preference for elected Mayors), having been confronted by swathes of mutinous Tory District and Borough Councillors.
A lot depends on how the proposal for local Government re-organisation is couched. Taking Surrey as an example, if the County puts up a proposal saying it can do everything, the Districts and Boroughs kick off and for those Conservative "twin hatters", it's a dilemma. Do you back the County against your own District - do you stand up in the District chamber and argue for your own abolition?
In its consultation, the Government proposed authorities with a population base of 350,000 so that would split Surrey into three and that proposal has been doing the rounds for decades and has the benefit of being equally disliked by everyone.
The problem with two-tier is if you get divergent political control at County and District/Borough levels, the relations between the two authorities at member level can become acrimonious to the disbenefit of both.
In London, Newham is a Unitary authority but we also have the Mayor's office and the GLA so it's not straightforward.
The other trend in recent years has been for Councils to amalgamate or consolidate back-office functions to save money. If one Council can do the payroll for four or five other authorities, there's a saving. I'd have though one authority administering the Council Tax collection for two, three or eleven others would make sense. In the end, though, the contracts with providers like Northgate or Capita leave elected officials with very little room for manoeuvre.
CNN: In the EU, leaders will now face the question of how to rebuild any trust in the AstraZeneca vaccine that has been lost over the past week. The bloc's rollout of the jab has stumbled from one obstacle to another since it was approved for use in January, with governments scrambling to secure limited supplies of the jab while simultaneously casting doubts over its efficacy and safety.
Italy said it will resume AstraZeneca vaccinations on Friday, and other countries are expected to follow. Milan's largest vaccine center told CNN it would overbook appointments in an attempt to make up for the shortfalls of the past few days. Ireland's Prime Minister had earlier told CNN he hoped his country could "catch up fairly quickly" once the vaccination program resumed.
But experts fear that some damage has already been done. In France, an Elabe poll showed this week that only 22% of the population now trusts the AstraZeneca vaccine. Remi Salomon, a senior French hospitals official, told BFM TV on Thursday that "people are being overly cautious" in the country and that he feared "people will not interpret" the suspensions in "the right way."
"A scare like this has the potential to increase vaccine hesitancy," Michael Head, senior research fellow in Global Health at the University of Southampton in Britain, told CNN earlier in the week. "These vaccines are to protect against a pandemic virus. There is an urgency to the rollout."
"But experts fear that some damage has already been done."
No shit.
It would be nice if one person in the EU, just one, just one single person, came out and said "Sorry for all the deaths we will be causing with our rank stupidity"
But they won't. Handelsblatt never apologised over the "8% effective" story.
My opinion of our EU neighbours - by this I mean some of their media and many of their politicians - could not, I fear, go any lower.
So much for the French Enlightenment.
Someone on Twitter has suggested that Macron is, deep down, an anti-vaxxer.
Hmm. It seems incredibly unlikely, for an Enarquist technocrat, but it would explain some of his more bizarre statements. And anti vaxxery is extremely widespread in France, even with people who are otherwise highly intelligent and educated
Having visited them all I probably go for St Vedast-alias-Foster due to the modest Epstein in the Courtyard and All Hallows on the Wall because the ceiling is like a perfect drawing room."
Like Topping I'd go for Hawksmoor's Christ Church, Spitalfields. Possibly my favourite church in the world, not just London. But is it in the City, technically? I think not
So I'd go for either St Brides, Fleet St (Roman foundations in the cellar!), St Stephen Walbrook - Wrenaissance perfection - or St Bartholomew the Great - medieval and picturesque
I like Christchurch Greyfriars, next to my first place of work, which is bombed out, but provides a great bit of rare open space in the city, which is far more useful than it ever was actually being a church. And LSO St Luke’s, another just outside the city, both for the wonderful outreach musical venue is is nowadays, and for the utterly memorable moment, when it was still bombed out in the 1990s, when I was walking past it accompanying a delegation from the German Post Office to lunch, and they asked me what had happened to it (the idea that it would still be in ruins fifty years later never having occurred to them).
I did a walking tour of the City churches a couple of years ago and was absolutely bowled over by them. The interiors of some are like jewel-boxes. Quite extraordinary.
The two that stood out, in the sense that they were that bit different, were St Barts as it is relatively complete medieval, and the one by the Tower (forget its name) due to the crypt.
But doing a tour of them is highly recommended, just don't do what we did and try to cram in too many at once.
Spent 25 years working in the place and never did any of that. Really wish I had. If only you could stick your 60 year old sensibility into your 30 year old brain. I worked for quite a while next to St Pauls yet never saw the inside of it until a good mate exchanged Grift for God and got ordained there.
"My Lord, I believe that I am truly called to the life and work of a deacon in your church."
I remember that so well. I'd last seen the bloke pissed as a fart and arguing with a taxi driver.
He went on to serve as an Army Chaplain in Afghanistan. At the time I thought he was nuts but I'm not so sure now.
That's criminal neglect. The City churches are one of the jewels of European architecture. No other city in Europe has anything like them, apart from maybe Rome. And the London churches are very different to anywhere else.
And they are so varied, it's not just Wren. Go!
Shrewsbury has an impressive variety of churches too, albeit on a much smaller scale than London.
Salisbury has quite a spire. Well worth a small diversion to check it out.
But only very briefly. Barely time to coat a handle, as we say in Russia...
Having visited them all I probably go for St Vedast-alias-Foster due to the modest Epstein in the Courtyard and All Hallows on the Wall because the ceiling is like a perfect drawing room."
Like Topping I'd go for Hawksmoor's Christ Church, Spitalfields. Possibly my favourite church in the world, not just London. But is it in the City, technically? I think not
So I'd go for either St Brides, Fleet St (Roman foundations in the cellar!), St Stephen Walbrook - Wrenaissance perfection - or St Bartholomew the Great - medieval and picturesque
I like Christchurch Greyfriars, next to my first place of work, which is bombed out, but provides a great bit of rare open space in the city, which is far more useful than it ever was actually being a church. And LSO St Luke’s, another just outside the city, both for the wonderful outreach musical venue is is nowadays, and for the utterly memorable moment, when it was still bombed out in the 1990s, when I was walking past it accompanying a delegation from the German Post Office to lunch, and they asked me what had happened to it (the idea that it would still be in ruins fifty years later never having occurred to them).
I did a walking tour of the City churches a couple of years ago and was absolutely bowled over by them. The interiors of some are like jewel-boxes. Quite extraordinary.
The two that stood out, in the sense that they were that bit different, were St Barts as it is relatively complete medieval, and the one by the Tower (forget its name) due to the crypt.
But doing a tour of them is highly recommended, just don't do what we did and try to cram in too many at once.
Spent 25 years working in the place and never did any of that. Really wish I had. If only you could stick your 60 year old sensibility into your 30 year old brain. I worked for quite a while next to St Pauls yet never saw the inside of it until a good mate exchanged Grift for God and got ordained there.
"My Lord, I believe that I am truly called to the life and work of a deacon in your church."
I remember that so well. I'd last seen the bloke pissed as a fart and arguing with a taxi driver.
He went on to serve as an Army Chaplain in Afghanistan. At the time I thought he was nuts but I'm not so sure now.
That's criminal neglect. The City churches are one of the jewels of European architecture. No other city in Europe has anything like them, apart from maybe Rome. And the London churches are very different to anywhere else.
And they are so varied, it's not just Wren. Go!
Shrewsbury has an impressive variety of churches too, albeit on a much smaller scale than London.
Salisbury has quite a spire. Well worth a small diversion to check it out.
But only very briefly. Barely time to coat a handle, as we say in Russia...
As a man who has clearly put in his 10,000 hours – working with a wide range of partners and producing an indeterminate number of offspring as a result – you'd expect Boris Johnson to be an expert shag. Not the case according to friends of his private technology tutor, Jennifer Arcuri.
Her experience? Over in seconds and "like having sex with a boulder".
Now waiting for asinine tweets from fans of Pidcock, Burgon, Corbyn about Labour's Hartlepool selection.
I read @RochdalePioneers take on it, but I would think with Williams as candidate Hartlepool is now more likely than not to vote Labour. Which, of course, will be the first priority for SKS.
They are waiting until next week to decide if they will resume vaxxing with AZ. They need to "study the EMA report", AKA "My God we've made a terrible juvenile error, let's save face by pretending we are just being careful".
Having visited them all I probably go for St Vedast-alias-Foster due to the modest Epstein in the Courtyard and All Hallows on the Wall because the ceiling is like a perfect drawing room."
Like Topping I'd go for Hawksmoor's Christ Church, Spitalfields. Possibly my favourite church in the world, not just London. But is it in the City, technically? I think not
So I'd go for either St Brides, Fleet St (Roman foundations in the cellar!), St Stephen Walbrook - Wrenaissance perfection - or St Bartholomew the Great - medieval and picturesque
I like Christchurch Greyfriars, next to my first place of work, which is bombed out, but provides a great bit of rare open space in the city, which is far more useful than it ever was actually being a church. And LSO St Luke’s, another just outside the city, both for the wonderful outreach musical venue is is nowadays, and for the utterly memorable moment, when it was still bombed out in the 1990s, when I was walking past it accompanying a delegation from the German Post Office to lunch, and they asked me what had happened to it (the idea that it would still be in ruins fifty years later never having occurred to them).
I did a walking tour of the City churches a couple of years ago and was absolutely bowled over by them. The interiors of some are like jewel-boxes. Quite extraordinary.
The two that stood out, in the sense that they were that bit different, were St Barts as it is relatively complete medieval, and the one by the Tower (forget its name) due to the crypt.
But doing a tour of them is highly recommended, just don't do what we did and try to cram in too many at once.
Spent 25 years working in the place and never did any of that. Really wish I had. If only you could stick your 60 year old sensibility into your 30 year old brain. I worked for quite a while next to St Pauls yet never saw the inside of it until a good mate exchanged Grift for God and got ordained there.
"My Lord, I believe that I am truly called to the life and work of a deacon in your church."
I remember that so well. I'd last seen the bloke pissed as a fart and arguing with a taxi driver.
He went on to serve as an Army Chaplain in Afghanistan. At the time I thought he was nuts but I'm not so sure now.
That's criminal neglect. The City churches are one of the jewels of European architecture. No other city in Europe has anything like them, apart from maybe Rome. And the London churches are very different to anywhere else.
And they are so varied, it's not just Wren. Go!
Shrewsbury has an impressive variety of churches too, albeit on a much smaller scale than London.
My favourite UK church building is the now deconsecrated St Mary's in Wythall, Worcestershire. It has a stunningly beautiful belltower. No bells since the 1980s sadly.
How come there are nearly 20000 councillors? Northumberland manages with 67. Scaled up that would make fewer than 14 000 in the UK.
Some places have unitary councils others have district councils and county councils.
But any government which moved us to all unitaries would face a mass rebellion from their council base.
It's generally accepted that Amanda Milling persuaded Boris to retreat last autumn from a mass move to unitaries (plus preference for elected Mayors), having been confronted by swathes of mutinous Tory District and Borough Councillors.
John and I are I believe both members of the tacit Surrey Resistance Front on this. It wasn't handled well by the Surrey leadership, who rushed out proposals to take up the idea before the Government announcement and were then left with egg on their faces when the Government said er, maybe not, or not yet. I'm really not clear whether it's still coming a year or two later.
The "Do you really want Waverley to be governed from Reigate?" argument was quite widely shared here, mostly in relation to planning. But I do agree that most people don't get involved in these squabbles.
I was told next Tuesday is a Day of Remembrance for those lost to the coronavirus in the past year.
This doesn't seem to have been well advertised so far - given there have been 125,000 excess deaths, it's entirely appropriate to take the time, before we concentrate on life, to remember those who won't be there to enjoy it with us.
As a man who has clearly put in his 10,000 hours – working with a wide range of partners and producing an indeterminate number of offspring as a result – you'd expect Boris Johnson to be an expert shag. Not the case according to friends of his private technology tutor, Jennifer Arcuri.
Her experience? Over in seconds and "like having sex with a boulder".
A lot of big womanisers have been famously brief and unsatisfying in bed.
JFK and Clinton immediately come to mind. It's all about the conquest, not the pleasure. An alpha male thing, perhaps.
I suppose the question from this is the extent to which our "return to normality" will be affected by the much slower ending of restrictions in parts of Europe.
The "Great British Staycation" is all well and good but as New Zealand will tell you, it's the money coming in from outside that matters - I presume also we will continue to provide appropriate testing and control measures for be travellers coming through from affected parts of Europe after May 17th.
I note progress in America - Vegas in '22, perhaps?
I'm not attached to the districts, but I am to the counties.
I'd only support it if, say, Hampshire County Council became the unitary.
But I can’t imagine that would be possible given the government target of around 300,000 in a UA. You would have to split it into at least four. And it wouldn’t be as easy as taking the largest towns out either as apart from Southampton and Portsmouth, already unitaries, the towns and cities are quite small.
Now waiting for asinine tweets from fans of Pidcock, Burgon, Corbyn about Labour's Hartlepool selection.
I read @RochdalePioneers take on it, but I would think with Williams as candidate Hartlepool is now more likely than not to vote Labour. Which, of course, will be the first priority for SKS.
If it had been Pidcock...
The temptation to end her career after a by-election defeat must have been overtaken by the need to win another seat for Labour.
How come there are nearly 20000 councillors? Northumberland manages with 67. Scaled up that would make fewer than 14 000 in the UK.
Some places have unitary councils others have district councils and county councils.
Not sure PB has anyone who supports two-tier councils.
PB has few past and present councillors and they are also pro making everywhere a unitary.
Sadly given the generous allowances councillors receive I cannot see the move to all unitaries happening.
What would you call generous? I've just finished 8 hours of discussions over 3 days with half a dozen councillors on allocation of infrastructure funds, and the non-executive members are paid around £10 a day. I think they more than earn their keep. Exec members get around £30/day, which is probably about right for the commitment needed.
I suppose the question from this is the extent to which our "return to normality" will be affected by the much slower ending of restrictions in parts of Europe.
The "Great British Staycation" is all well and good but as New Zealand will tell you, it's the money coming in from outside that matters - I presume also we will continue to provide appropriate testing and control measures for be travellers coming through from affected parts of Europe after May 17th.
I note progress in America - Vegas in '22, perhaps?
Presumably though we are in normal times a net exporter of tourist money? So from a narrow economic perspective at least, we will keep more money in the UK?
"And this wholly incidental mention of Liz Lloyd conveniently brings us back to the statement released by an unknown complainer through Rape Crisis Scotland, because Liz Lloyd is the subject of it."
How come there are nearly 20000 councillors? Northumberland manages with 67. Scaled up that would make fewer than 14 000 in the UK.
Some places have unitary councils others have district councils and county councils.
Not sure PB has anyone who supports two-tier councils.
PB has few past and present councillors and they are also pro making everywhere a unitary.
Sadly given the generous allowances councillors receive I cannot see the move to all unitaries happening.
What would you call generous? I've just finished 8 hours of discussions over 3 days with half a dozen councillors on allocation of infrastructure funds, and the non-executive members are paid around £10 a day. I think they more than earn their keep. Exec members get around £30/day, which is probably about right for the commitment needed.
This kinda level.
The highest basic allowance in the UK in 2018-19 was set by the Scottish remuneration panel at £16,994 for all Scottish local authorities. Of the 32 councils, 26 Scottish authorities paid the maximum basic allowance to their councillors.
The highest basic allowance for councillors in England in 2018-19 was £16,926, paid by Manchester city council. This was paid to all members of the council including Sir Richard Leese - the leader of Manchester city council. He also received an additional £42,272 in special responsibility allowance. The total payment he received was more than two and a half times median earnings in Manchester during 2019.
The lowest basic allowance for councillors in the UK in 2018-19 was £687, paid by Torbay.
The highest special responsibility allowance in the UK in 2018-19 was £82,620 paid by Newham. This was a £781 increase from 2017-18 for the directly elected mayor.
More councils need to be like Cornwall and Torbay.
The lowest basic allowance for councillors in the UK in 2018-19 was £687, paid by Torbay.
The highest special responsibility allowance in the UK in 2018-19 was £82,620 paid by Newham. This was a £781 increase from 2017-18 for the directly elected mayor.
CNN: In the EU, leaders will now face the question of how to rebuild any trust in the AstraZeneca vaccine that has been lost over the past week. The bloc's rollout of the jab has stumbled from one obstacle to another since it was approved for use in January, with governments scrambling to secure limited supplies of the jab while simultaneously casting doubts over its efficacy and safety.
Italy said it will resume AstraZeneca vaccinations on Friday, and other countries are expected to follow. Milan's largest vaccine center told CNN it would overbook appointments in an attempt to make up for the shortfalls of the past few days. Ireland's Prime Minister had earlier told CNN he hoped his country could "catch up fairly quickly" once the vaccination program resumed.
But experts fear that some damage has already been done. In France, an Elabe poll showed this week that only 22% of the population now trusts the AstraZeneca vaccine. Remi Salomon, a senior French hospitals official, told BFM TV on Thursday that "people are being overly cautious" in the country and that he feared "people will not interpret" the suspensions in "the right way."
"A scare like this has the potential to increase vaccine hesitancy," Michael Head, senior research fellow in Global Health at the University of Southampton in Britain, told CNN earlier in the week. "These vaccines are to protect against a pandemic virus. There is an urgency to the rollout."
"But experts fear that some damage has already been done."
No shit.
It would be nice if one person in the EU, just one, just one single person, came out and said "Sorry for all the deaths we will be causing with our rank stupidity"
But they won't. Handelsblatt never apologised over the "8% effective" story.
My opinion of our EU neighbours - by this I mean some of their media and many of their politicians - could not, I fear, go any lower.
So much for the French Enlightenment.
Someone on Twitter has suggested that Macron is, deep down, an anti-vaxxer.
Hmm. It seems incredibly unlikely, for an Enarquist technocrat, but it would explain some of his more bizarre statements. And anti vaxxery is extremely widespread in France, even with people who are otherwise highly intelligent and educated
The "self taught expert on medical matters" thing that was being briefed by his spin doctors the other day was a bit worrying.
I'm not attached to the districts, but I am to the counties.
I'd only support it if, say, Hampshire County Council became the unitary.
But I can’t imagine that would be possible given the government target of around 300,000 in a UA. You would have to split it into at least four. And it wouldn’t be as easy as taking the largest towns out either as apart from Southampton and Portsmouth, already unitaries, the towns and cities are quite small.
Yes, and breaking up the counties would be about as popular as syphilis.
Remember what happened to Ted Heath. Some of these counties have been around as long as England, if not longer.
No, 16 regions in total I think. Quite a severe lockdown. No internal travel, etc
I wonder how long it will last. Two months?
They are starting with a month, but they said that back in early 2020, and in the end it lasted 55 days, so two months is a reasonable bet. I wonder if they will be able to restrict it to these 16 regions
They are waiting until next week to decide if they will resume vaxxing with AZ. They need to "study the EMA report", AKA "My God we've made a terrible juvenile error, let's save face by pretending we are just being careful".
Presumably they can use Russian contractors with no interest in doing business in the United States. Germany won't care about pissing off Biden. Its leadership is Russophile and it's desperate for the gas.
I suppose the question from this is the extent to which our "return to normality" will be affected by the much slower ending of restrictions in parts of Europe.
The "Great British Staycation" is all well and good but as New Zealand will tell you, it's the money coming in from outside that matters - I presume also we will continue to provide appropriate testing and control measures for be travellers coming through from affected parts of Europe after May 17th.
I note progress in America - Vegas in '22, perhaps?
Presumably though we are in normal times a net exporter of tourist money? So from a narrow economic perspective at least, we will keep more money in the UK?
CNN: In the EU, leaders will now face the question of how to rebuild any trust in the AstraZeneca vaccine that has been lost over the past week. The bloc's rollout of the jab has stumbled from one obstacle to another since it was approved for use in January, with governments scrambling to secure limited supplies of the jab while simultaneously casting doubts over its efficacy and safety.
Italy said it will resume AstraZeneca vaccinations on Friday, and other countries are expected to follow. Milan's largest vaccine center told CNN it would overbook appointments in an attempt to make up for the shortfalls of the past few days. Ireland's Prime Minister had earlier told CNN he hoped his country could "catch up fairly quickly" once the vaccination program resumed.
But experts fear that some damage has already been done. In France, an Elabe poll showed this week that only 22% of the population now trusts the AstraZeneca vaccine. Remi Salomon, a senior French hospitals official, told BFM TV on Thursday that "people are being overly cautious" in the country and that he feared "people will not interpret" the suspensions in "the right way."
"A scare like this has the potential to increase vaccine hesitancy," Michael Head, senior research fellow in Global Health at the University of Southampton in Britain, told CNN earlier in the week. "These vaccines are to protect against a pandemic virus. There is an urgency to the rollout."
"But experts fear that some damage has already been done."
No shit.
It would be nice if one person in the EU, just one, just one single person, came out and said "Sorry for all the deaths we will be causing with our rank stupidity"
But they won't. Handelsblatt never apologised over the "8% effective" story.
My opinion of our EU neighbours - by this I mean some of their media and many of their politicians - could not, I fear, go any lower.
So much for the French Enlightenment.
Someone on Twitter has suggested that Macron is, deep down, an anti-vaxxer.
Hmm. It seems incredibly unlikely, for an Enarquist technocrat, but it would explain some of his more bizarre statements. And anti vaxxery is extremely widespread in France, even with people who are otherwise highly intelligent and educated
The "self taught expert on medical matters" thing that was being briefed by his spin doctors the other day was a bit worrying.
There are about 53 million adults in the UK. If we assume that, to get out of the shit, we need to jab everyone once plus all the vulnerable groups for a second time, that gets us up to 85 million vaccinations.
As of tonight, 27.6m doses have been administered. Let us be optimistic and assume that we get up to 35m by the end of the month, due to the brief uplift in supply. That leaves 50m to go.
How long will that take if supply from abroad goes to shit, as looks increasingly likely? IIRC, domestic production is about 2m AZ per week and that assumes nothing else goes wrong (bad batches, low yields, vials running out and everything else.) It could be a long, long wait.
I'm not attached to the districts, but I am to the counties.
I'd only support it if, say, Hampshire County Council became the unitary.
But I can’t imagine that would be possible given the government target of around 300,000 in a UA. You would have to split it into at least four. And it wouldn’t be as easy as taking the largest towns out either as apart from Southampton and Portsmouth, already unitaries, the towns and cities are quite small.
Yes, and breaking up the counties would be about as popular as syphilis.
Remember what happened to Ted Heath. Some of these counties have been around as long as England, if not longer.
Quite.
Staffordshire has a similar problem. The only way it could be done is by taking Stafford and Newcastle out as one county, and having the most horrendous, bizarre, convoluted sprawl left based on one of Lichfield or Burton.
Well, that would not be terribly popular.
Edit - or indeed splitting Tamworth, Burton and the Moorlands into one county, and Lichfield, Cannock and Codsall into another. But separating Tamworth and Lichfield would turn two very safe Tory seats into two very safe other seats.
"And this wholly incidental mention of Liz Lloyd conveniently brings us back to the statement released by an unknown complainer through Rape Crisis Scotland, because Liz Lloyd is the subject of it."
The twats even left the name of the complainer in , they are getting even worse. Bet Wolfe is nowhere to be seen this week. Too busy threatening Spectator and Guido.
They are waiting until next week to decide if they will resume vaxxing with AZ. They need to "study the EMA report", AKA "My God we've made a terrible juvenile error, let's save face by pretending we are just being careful".
Also worth remembering that AstraZeneca is half Swedish too.
It's mind boggling. The idea that Sweden - home to half of Astra Zeneca, as you say - is going to turn around and come up with a different decision to the EMA, and instead maintain the prohibition on AZ, is nonsensical. Of course they won't do that. They will approve it
So why this? The only explanation I can see is face-saving. Yet another EU government utterly humiliating itself, with a potential cost of human lives lost
How come there are nearly 20000 councillors? Northumberland manages with 67. Scaled up that would make fewer than 14 000 in the UK.
Some places have unitary councils others have district councils and county councils.
But any government which moved us to all unitaries would face a mass rebellion from their council base.
It's generally accepted that Amanda Milling persuaded Boris to retreat last autumn from a mass move to unitaries (plus preference for elected Mayors), having been confronted by swathes of mutinous Tory District and Borough Councillors.
John and I are I believe both members of the tacit Surrey Resistance Front on this. It wasn't handled well by the Surrey leadership, who rushed out proposals to take up the idea before the Government announcement and were then left with egg on their faces when the Government said er, maybe not, or not yet. I'm really not clear whether it's still coming a year or two later.
The "Do you really want Waverley to be governed from Reigate?" argument was quite widely shared here, mostly in relation to planning. But I do agree that most people don't get involved in these squabbles.
I'm not 100% sure those in Reigate want to be ruled by the County from Reigate.
I was told next Tuesday is a Day of Remembrance for those lost to the coronavirus in the past year.
This doesn't seem to have been well advertised so far - given there have been 125,000 excess deaths, it's entirely appropriate to take the time, before we concentrate on life, to remember those who won't be there to enjoy it with us.
I would like to propose that we find some suitable land somewhere to plant a new wood as a memorial to the dead. At one tree per dead, at mature broadleaf tree density, it would be about half the size of Richmond Park - I think the scale would get across well the size of the loss.
And then, unlike with something that puts an exact number on the dead, the fuzzy numbers involved would represent the inevitable uncertainty in counting the dead.
CNN: In the EU, leaders will now face the question of how to rebuild any trust in the AstraZeneca vaccine that has been lost over the past week. The bloc's rollout of the jab has stumbled from one obstacle to another since it was approved for use in January, with governments scrambling to secure limited supplies of the jab while simultaneously casting doubts over its efficacy and safety.
Italy said it will resume AstraZeneca vaccinations on Friday, and other countries are expected to follow. Milan's largest vaccine center told CNN it would overbook appointments in an attempt to make up for the shortfalls of the past few days. Ireland's Prime Minister had earlier told CNN he hoped his country could "catch up fairly quickly" once the vaccination program resumed.
But experts fear that some damage has already been done. In France, an Elabe poll showed this week that only 22% of the population now trusts the AstraZeneca vaccine. Remi Salomon, a senior French hospitals official, told BFM TV on Thursday that "people are being overly cautious" in the country and that he feared "people will not interpret" the suspensions in "the right way."
"A scare like this has the potential to increase vaccine hesitancy," Michael Head, senior research fellow in Global Health at the University of Southampton in Britain, told CNN earlier in the week. "These vaccines are to protect against a pandemic virus. There is an urgency to the rollout."
"But experts fear that some damage has already been done."
No shit.
It would be nice if one person in the EU, just one, just one single person, came out and said "Sorry for all the deaths we will be causing with our rank stupidity"
But they won't. Handelsblatt never apologised over the "8% effective" story.
My opinion of our EU neighbours - by this I mean some of their media and many of their politicians - could not, I fear, go any lower.
So much for the French Enlightenment.
Someone on Twitter has suggested that Macron is, deep down, an anti-vaxxer.
Hmm. It seems incredibly unlikely, for an Enarquist technocrat, but it would explain some of his more bizarre statements. And anti vaxxery is extremely widespread in France, even with people who are otherwise highly intelligent and educated
The "self taught expert on medical matters" thing that was being briefed by his spin doctors the other day was a bit worrying.
There's a lot of it about...
LOL, yes...
But it is a different issue when a national leader starts rolling his own advice.
The other important bit, is when confronted with actual experts with actual facts, not going all Toby Young....
Having visited them all I probably go for St Vedast-alias-Foster due to the modest Epstein in the Courtyard and All Hallows on the Wall because the ceiling is like a perfect drawing room.
Hawksmoor's Spitalfields all day long.
I find the church quite bombastic. Though peal of bells is one of the best to ring in London, and the acoustic is great.
For Hawksmoor I prefer St Mary Woolnoth, just by the statue of Wotsit Peabody near Bank Station.
Spitalfields is just outside the city. St Mary at Hill before the fire was my favourite - amazing furnishings. St Stephen Walbrook.
I'm not attached to the districts, but I am to the counties.
I'd only support it if, say, Hampshire County Council became the unitary.
But I can’t imagine that would be possible given the government target of around 300,000 in a UA. You would have to split it into at least four. And it wouldn’t be as easy as taking the largest towns out either as apart from Southampton and Portsmouth, already unitaries, the towns and cities are quite small.
Yes, and breaking up the counties would be about as popular as syphilis.
Remember what happened to Ted Heath. Some of these counties have been around as long as England, if not longer.
Quite.
Staffordshire has a similar problem. The only way it could be done is by taking Stafford and Newcastle out as one county, and having the most horrendous, bizarre, convoluted sprawl left based on one of Lichfield or Burton.
Well, that would not be terribly popular.
Edit - or indeed splitting Tamworth, Burton and the Moorlands into one county, and Lichfield, Cannock and Codsall into another. But separating Tamworth and Lichfield would turn two very safe Tory seats into two very safe other seats.
I mentioned yesterday the disaster that Ted Heath created in 1974 from joining Royalist Herefordshire with Parliamentarian Worcestershire.
I'm not attached to the districts, but I am to the counties.
I'd only support it if, say, Hampshire County Council became the unitary.
But I can’t imagine that would be possible given the government target of around 300,000 in a UA. You would have to split it into at least four. And it wouldn’t be as easy as taking the largest towns out either as apart from Southampton and Portsmouth, already unitaries, the towns and cities are quite small.
Yes, and breaking up the counties would be about as popular as syphilis.
Remember what happened to Ted Heath. Some of these counties have been around as long as England, if not longer.
Quite.
Staffordshire has a similar problem. The only way it could be done is by taking Stafford and Newcastle out as one county, and having the most horrendous, bizarre, convoluted sprawl left based on one of Lichfield or Burton.
Well, that would not be terribly popular.
Edit - or indeed splitting Tamworth, Burton and the Moorlands into one county, and Lichfield, Cannock and Codsall into another. But separating Tamworth and Lichfield would turn two very safe Tory seats into two very safe other seats.
I mentioned yesterday the disaster that Ted Heath created in 1974 from joining Royalist Herefordshire with Parliamentarian Worcestershire.
There was hardly universal delight with the new counties of Wales either.
I'm not attached to the districts, but I am to the counties.
I'd only support it if, say, Hampshire County Council became the unitary.
But I can’t imagine that would be possible given the government target of around 300,000 in a UA. You would have to split it into at least four. And it wouldn’t be as easy as taking the largest towns out either as apart from Southampton and Portsmouth, already unitaries, the towns and cities are quite small.
Potentially you end up giving the Portsmouth surrounds (Gosport, Fareham, Havant) to Portsmouth (which is then oversized rather than undersized); or create their own Unitary - 'Portsmouth Outer', but neither is a great option and it works even less well for the Southampton surrounds.
As a man who has clearly put in his 10,000 hours – working with a wide range of partners and producing an indeterminate number of offspring as a result – you'd expect Boris Johnson to be an expert shag. Not the case according to friends of his private technology tutor, Jennifer Arcuri.
Her experience? Over in seconds and "like having sex with a boulder".
A lot of big womanisers have been famously brief and unsatisfying in bed.
JFK and Clinton immediately come to mind. It's all about the conquest, not the pleasure. An alpha male thing, perhaps.
Benny Hill too. Apparently all the 'pleasing Uncle Benny' the assorted glamorous assistants did was just the odd handjob.
There are about 53 million adults in the UK. If we assume that, to get out of the shit, we need to jab everyone once plus all the vulnerable groups for a second time, that gets us up to 85 million vaccinations.
As of tonight, 27.6m doses have been administered. Let us be optimistic and assume that we get up to 35m by the end of the month, due to the brief uplift in supply. That leaves 50m to go.
How long will that take if supply from abroad goes to shit, as looks increasingly likely? IIRC, domestic production is about 2m AZ per week and that assumes nothing else goes wrong (bad batches, low yields, vials running out and everything else.) It could be a long, long wait.
Novavax, Moderna, Pfizer. The SII in India have said they WILL give us the other 5m AZ in about 4 weeks.
AZ production in the UK is a lot more than you say, I believe - and will improve
You are being unduly pessimistic. We've had bad news, but remember we have now done 27.6 MILLION injections; 580,000 - 1% of the adult population - were done just today
I have relatively recently moved to North Yorkshire. Reading the local press I realised there is a plan to re-organise local government here. There will be a North Yorkshire Combined Authority with a Mayor. But then there are two plans for unitaries for the county which seems to largely be different proposals from the Conservatives who are the main party in the county.
The county council want North Yorkshire county council area to be one unitary with the City of York staying as the other unitary. A majority, although not all of the district/borough councils disagree and have proposed an West/East split. Not sure on the proposed names but the Western unitary would include Craven, Richmondshire, Hambleton and Harrogate BC. The Eastern Unitary, York, Scarborough, Selby and Ryedale.
Local elections to the district councils have, I believe, been suspended in some areas as a decision is made on which proposal to take forward. I believe the Local Government SoS makes the decision with consultations currently ongoing.
I have relatively recently moved to North Yorkshire. Reading the local press I realised there is a plan to re-organise local government here. There will be a North Yorkshire Combined Authority with a Mayor. But then there are two plans for unitaries for the county which seems to largely be different proposals from the Conservatives who are the main party in the county.
The county council want North Yorkshire county council area to be one unitary with the City of York staying as the other unitary. A majority, although not all of the district/borough councils disagree and have proposed an West/East split. Not sure on the proposed names but the Western unitary would include Craven, Richmondshire, Hambleton and Harrogate BC. The Eastern Unitary, York, Scarborough, Selby and Ryedale.
Local elections to the district councils have, I believe, been suspended in some areas as a decision is made on which proposal to take forward. I believe the Local Government SoS makes the decision with consultations currently ongoing.
Which do you prefer? The former is the preference of my Yorkshire friends. Reflects how the North East *should* work with Northumberland CC and then a "Greater Newcastle" CA.
I have relatively recently moved to North Yorkshire. Reading the local press I realised there is a plan to re-organise local government here. There will be a North Yorkshire Combined Authority with a Mayor. But then there are two plans for unitaries for the county which seems to largely be different proposals from the Conservatives who are the main party in the county.
The county council want North Yorkshire county council area to be one unitary with the City of York staying as the other unitary. A majority, although not all of the district/borough councils disagree and have proposed an West/East split. Not sure on the proposed names but the Western unitary would include Craven, Richmondshire, Hambleton and Harrogate BC. The Eastern Unitary, York, Scarborough, Selby and Ryedale.
Local elections to the district councils have, I believe, been suspended in some areas as a decision is made on which proposal to take forward. I believe the Local Government SoS makes the decision with consultations currently ongoing.
Which do you prefer? The former is the preference of my Yorkshire friends. Reflects how the North East *should* work with Northumberland CC and then a "Greater Newcastle" CA.
The issue is that it will be too big if the county is one authority. Getting from one end of the county to the other would take 3+ hours
EXCLUSIVE: First Minister Nicola Sturgeon misled Parliament, concludes Holyrood harassment committee @SkyNews
Bet she will try to brass neck it and say it is not a resigning matter just an oversight due to her faulty memory
Whoof.
If that’s the unanimous conclusion of a committee with an SNP majority she is surely toast.
But let’s see the details. If it’s a minority report she will probably survive.
I would imagine that they've decided that any other conclusion would bring more ignominy on the Scottish Government than saying she did, as well as provoke a wholesale walkout by the non-SNP members. I would still imagine it's fairly mild and contains some get outs.
There are about 53 million adults in the UK. If we assume that, to get out of the shit, we need to jab everyone once plus all the vulnerable groups for a second time, that gets us up to 85 million vaccinations.
As of tonight, 27.6m doses have been administered. Let us be optimistic and assume that we get up to 35m by the end of the month, due to the brief uplift in supply. That leaves 50m to go.
How long will that take if supply from abroad goes to shit, as looks increasingly likely? IIRC, domestic production is about 2m AZ per week and that assumes nothing else goes wrong (bad batches, low yields, vials running out and everything else.) It could be a long, long wait.
Novavax, Moderna, Pfizer. The SII in India have said they WILL give us the other 5m AZ in about 4 weeks.
AZ production in the UK is a lot more than you say, I believe - and will improve
You are being unduly pessimistic. We've had bad news, but remember we have now done 27.6 MILLION injections; 580,000 - 1% of the adult population - were done just today
We have done 27.6 million injections - but it's taken about three months.
If we want to do the remaining 70+ million injections by the end of July (so we can then start on the autumn boosters) we have to increase the rate very significantly. Instead of 10 million per month we need close to 20 million.
There are about 53 million adults in the UK. If we assume that, to get out of the shit, we need to jab everyone once plus all the vulnerable groups for a second time, that gets us up to 85 million vaccinations.
As of tonight, 27.6m doses have been administered. Let us be optimistic and assume that we get up to 35m by the end of the month, due to the brief uplift in supply. That leaves 50m to go.
How long will that take if supply from abroad goes to shit, as looks increasingly likely? IIRC, domestic production is about 2m AZ per week and that assumes nothing else goes wrong (bad batches, low yields, vials running out and everything else.) It could be a long, long wait.
It doesn't look increasingly likely.
We're going to get Moderna, from Switzerland. They've had some delays getting their plant (which is a new one) up and running, but it's going to be producing close to a million doses a day when it's ramped up. And the SII has not ramped quite as quickly in producing AZ as hoped.
The key though, is that only vaccine we currently import from the EU is Pfizer, and while Belgium could block exports to the UK, if it did then the UK would ban the exports of the precursors used to make the vaccine. Plus, Belgium has a large pharmaceutical manufacturing industry and won't be keen to lose that.
EXCLUSIVE: First Minister Nicola Sturgeon misled Parliament, concludes Holyrood harassment committee @SkyNews
Bet she will try to brass neck it and say it is not a resigning matter just an oversight due to her faulty memory
Whoof.
If that’s the unanimous conclusion of a committee with an SNP majority she is surely toast.
But let’s see the details. If it’s a minority report she will probably survive.
I would imagine that they've decided that any other conclusion would bring more ignominy on the Scottish Government than saying she did, as well as provoke a wholesale walkout by the non-SNP members. I would still imagine it's fairly mild and contains some get outs.
Still it is undoubtedly GOOD NEWS.
It is not good news that our politicians are a bunch of crooks and liars.
It is moderately good news if the institutions are willing to hold them to account for it despite threats, obstruction and intimidation.
Blimey BigG.is there no news from which you don't demand the defenestration of an opponent of this Government? It was Khan at the weekend, UVDL earlier today and now Nippy.
There are about 53 million adults in the UK. If we assume that, to get out of the shit, we need to jab everyone once plus all the vulnerable groups for a second time, that gets us up to 85 million vaccinations.
As of tonight, 27.6m doses have been administered. Let us be optimistic and assume that we get up to 35m by the end of the month, due to the brief uplift in supply. That leaves 50m to go.
How long will that take if supply from abroad goes to shit, as looks increasingly likely? IIRC, domestic production is about 2m AZ per week and that assumes nothing else goes wrong (bad batches, low yields, vials running out and everything else.) It could be a long, long wait.
Novavax, Moderna, Pfizer. The SII in India have said they WILL give us the other 5m AZ in about 4 weeks.
AZ production in the UK is a lot more than you say, I believe - and will improve
You are being unduly pessimistic. We've had bad news, but remember we have now done 27.6 MILLION injections; 580,000 - 1% of the adult population - were done just today
I believe that I'm right on domestic AZ production but stand to be corrected if someone has recent numbers to hand. The Novavax facility on Teesside wasn't due to begin delivery until the second half of the year and that'll probably start out as a piss dribble even if it isn't delayed outright. Everything else comes from abroad so we can't rely on any of it.
Of course, everything may go wonderfully after April and the Government might be proven right on all its remaining milestones and targets, but from hereon in I won't believe any of it at all until it actually happens. Promises mean nothing.
Worth noting: if Sturgeon goes that isn't necessarily bad for the SNP in May.
Remember John Smith for Blair?
It's now bad either way for the SNP.
If she stays, that looks extremely awkward, and it will dog her through the campaign; the SNP must surely lose votes. Maybe not many, but enough to nix a majority.
If she goes, that looks just as bad, if not worse. Proven corruption, a scene of chaos, and she's their best politician, albeit now severely tarnished. Who can replace her?
My guess is she will try and tough it out but it will cause collateral damage for her party
Comments
In its consultation, the Government proposed authorities with a population base of 350,000 so that would split Surrey into three and that proposal has been doing the rounds for decades and has the benefit of being equally disliked by everyone.
The problem with two-tier is if you get divergent political control at County and District/Borough levels, the relations between the two authorities at member level can become acrimonious to the disbenefit of both.
In London, Newham is a Unitary authority but we also have the Mayor's office and the GLA so it's not straightforward.
The other trend in recent years has been for Councils to amalgamate or consolidate back-office functions to save money. If one Council can do the payroll for four or five other authorities, there's a saving. I'd have though one authority administering the Council Tax collection for two, three or eleven others would make sense. In the end, though, the contracts with providers like Northgate or Capita leave elected officials with very little room for manoeuvre.
One of my lecturers refused to drink in it because an atheist he thought repurposing a chapel as a pub was very offensive.
Quite who it was offensive to, he didn’t say.
Hmm. It seems incredibly unlikely, for an Enarquist technocrat, but it would explain some of his more bizarre statements. And anti vaxxery is extremely widespread in France, even with people who are otherwise highly intelligent and educated
As a man who has clearly put in his 10,000 hours – working with a wide range of partners and producing an indeterminate number of offspring as a result – you'd expect Boris Johnson to be an expert shag. Not the case according to friends of his private technology tutor, Jennifer Arcuri.
Her experience? Over in seconds and "like having sex with a boulder".
If it had been Pidcock...
They are waiting until next week to decide if they will resume vaxxing with AZ. They need to "study the EMA report", AKA "My God we've made a terrible juvenile error, let's save face by pretending we are just being careful".
https://twitter.com/DrKassandraPari/status/1372619087797436421?s=20
The "Do you really want Waverley to be governed from Reigate?" argument was quite widely shared here, mostly in relation to planning. But I do agree that most people don't get involved in these squabbles.
This doesn't seem to have been well advertised so far - given there have been 125,000 excess deaths, it's entirely appropriate to take the time, before we concentrate on life, to remember those who won't be there to enjoy it with us.
I'd only support it if, say, Hampshire County Council became the unitary.
JFK and Clinton immediately come to mind. It's all about the conquest, not the pleasure. An alpha male thing, perhaps.
The "Great British Staycation" is all well and good but as New Zealand will tell you, it's the money coming in from outside that matters - I presume also we will continue to provide appropriate testing and control measures for be travellers coming through from affected parts of Europe after May 17th.
I note progress in America - Vegas in '22, perhaps?
https://twitter.com/NorthEast_Party/status/1372593512043151363?s=20
Having said that he seems a solid candidate.
But fighting on NHS and "cuts" might not be enough given he's a Remainer - and the two come together rather neatly here:
https://twitter.com/PaulWilliamsLAB/status/1020289377862410241?s=20
This extract from the Wings blog is hilarious:
"And this wholly incidental mention of Liz Lloyd conveniently brings us back to the statement released by an unknown complainer through Rape Crisis Scotland, because Liz Lloyd is the subject of it."
Have we nuked India and the USA yet? Trying to catch up on the news.
It looks like there's plenty of scope for Labour and Lib Dem gains compared to 2016/7, but how many - and where?
I think it was @AlastairMeeks who had a list of constituencies to watch at the next GE - so if there's some overlap with that list too...
The highest basic allowance in the UK in 2018-19 was set by the Scottish remuneration panel at £16,994 for all Scottish local authorities. Of the 32 councils, 26 Scottish authorities paid the maximum basic allowance to their councillors.
The highest basic allowance for councillors in England in 2018-19 was £16,926, paid by Manchester city council. This was paid to all members of the council including Sir Richard Leese - the leader of Manchester city council. He also received an additional £42,272 in special responsibility allowance. The total payment he received was more than two and a half times median earnings in Manchester during 2019.
The lowest basic allowance for councillors in the UK in 2018-19 was £687, paid by Torbay.
The highest special responsibility allowance in the UK in 2018-19 was £82,620 paid by Newham. This was a £781 increase from 2017-18 for the directly elected mayor.
https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/councillors_allowances_2020
More councils need to be like Cornwall and Torbay.
The lowest basic allowance for councillors in the UK in 2018-19 was £687, paid by Torbay.
The highest special responsibility allowance in the UK in 2018-19 was £82,620 paid by Newham. This was a £781 increase from 2017-18 for the directly elected mayor.
Remember what happened to Ted Heath. Some of these counties have been around as long as England, if not longer.
The big winners are D66 23 (+4 but below some of the early forecasts) and the FvD who won 8 seats (+6).
The big losers are the Greens (-6), the Socialists (-5), the centre-right CDA (-4), the far-right PVV (-3) and the 50+ Party (-3)
Rutte's VVD gained two to 35 while two new groups, JA21 and Volt Netherlands joined with 3 MPs each.
The existing Coalition won 78 seats so a majority and it seems likely Rutte will want to continue the existing arrangement.
There are about 53 million adults in the UK. If we assume that, to get out of the shit, we need to jab everyone once plus all the vulnerable groups for a second time, that gets us up to 85 million vaccinations.
As of tonight, 27.6m doses have been administered. Let us be optimistic and assume that we get up to 35m by the end of the month, due to the brief uplift in supply. That leaves 50m to go.
How long will that take if supply from abroad goes to shit, as looks increasingly likely? IIRC, domestic production is about 2m AZ per week and that assumes nothing else goes wrong (bad batches, low yields, vials running out and everything else.) It could be a long, long wait.
Staffordshire has a similar problem. The only way it could be done is by taking Stafford and Newcastle out as one county, and having the most horrendous, bizarre, convoluted sprawl left based on one of Lichfield or Burton.
Well, that would not be terribly popular.
Edit - or indeed splitting Tamworth, Burton and the Moorlands into one county, and Lichfield, Cannock and Codsall into another. But separating Tamworth and Lichfield would turn two very safe Tory seats into two very safe other seats.
So why this? The only explanation I can see is face-saving. Yet another EU government utterly humiliating itself, with a potential cost of human lives lost
And then, unlike with something that puts an exact number on the dead, the fuzzy numbers involved would represent the inevitable uncertainty in counting the dead.
But it is a different issue when a national leader starts rolling his own advice.
The other important bit, is when confronted with actual experts with actual facts, not going all Toby Young....
St Mary at Hill before the fire was my favourite - amazing furnishings.
St Stephen Walbrook.
Bet she will try to brass neck it and say it is not a resigning matter just an oversight due to her faulty memory
AZ production in the UK is a lot more than you say, I believe - and will improve
You are being unduly pessimistic. We've had bad news, but remember we have now done 27.6 MILLION injections; 580,000 - 1% of the adult population - were done just today
https://twitter.com/jamesmatthewsky/status/1372623487995670532
The county council want North Yorkshire county council area to be one unitary with the City of York staying as the other unitary. A majority, although not all of the district/borough councils disagree and have proposed an West/East split. Not sure on the proposed names but the Western unitary would include Craven, Richmondshire, Hambleton and Harrogate BC. The Eastern Unitary, York, Scarborough, Selby and Ryedale.
Local elections to the district councils have, I believe, been suspended in some areas as a decision is made on which proposal to take forward. I believe the Local Government SoS makes the decision with consultations currently ongoing.
If that’s the unanimous conclusion of a committee with an SNP majority she is surely toast.
But let’s see the details. If it’s a minority report she will probably survive.
Must have been pretty conclusive
https://twitter.com/jamesmatthewsky/status/1372623487995670532
SNPFU.
Either way a lot of people may suddenly need to check their summer residence
No biggie
Still it is undoubtedly GOOD NEWS.
https://twitter.com/kingdomfm/status/1372626651318747142?s=20
(The 'whoof" not Nippy).
If we want to do the remaining 70+ million injections by the end of July (so we can then start on the autumn boosters) we have to increase the rate very significantly. Instead of 10 million per month we need close to 20 million.
It's a big challenge.
Interesting to see what happens
Ev money the pair on Betfair Exchange
We're going to get Moderna, from Switzerland. They've had some delays getting their plant (which is a new one) up and running, but it's going to be producing close to a million doses a day when it's ramped up. And the SII has not ramped quite as quickly in producing AZ as hoped.
The key though, is that only vaccine we currently import from the EU is Pfizer, and while Belgium could block exports to the UK, if it did then the UK would ban the exports of the precursors used to make the vaccine. Plus, Belgium has a large pharmaceutical manufacturing industry and won't be keen to lose that.
It is moderately good news if the institutions are willing to hold them to account for it despite threats, obstruction and intimidation.
It seems insane, given the worldwide vial shortage, that they binned them rather than recycling them.
(admittedly, not a mental image I'm really looking for)
Scotland has just entered uncharted territory
Remember John Smith for Blair?
Of course, everything may go wonderfully after April and the Government might be proven right on all its remaining milestones and targets, but from hereon in I won't believe any of it at all until it actually happens. Promises mean nothing.
If she stays, that looks extremely awkward, and it will dog her through the campaign; the SNP must surely lose votes. Maybe not many, but enough to nix a majority.
If she goes, that looks just as bad, if not worse. Proven corruption, a scene of chaos, and she's their best politician, albeit now severely tarnished. Who can replace her?
My guess is she will try and tough it out but it will cause collateral damage for her party