Well, that was most unexpected. Went to drop wifey at the vaccine centre and they invited me in too. 10 mins later and I’m sitting in the exit waiting room. Good times, thanks Pfizer and BioNTech. 💉
The sand pit is having a very impressive vaccine roll out, really not far behind Israel. Maybe that's a motivating factor...
Yeah, down to anyone over 40 now, and government are paying for it (in a place which is otherwise rather American when it comes to healthcare). Second dose booked in for three weeks today.
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You're a strange one.
Do you think the European Union is a nod to White Power?
Do you think CANZUK has more, less or similar level of "whiteness" to the European Union?
You're being too reductive and literal. These mindsets don't work like that. You have to ask why somebody like Grimes is flying the CANZUK shield. I'm sure you don't (do you?) so WTF is he and ilk doing it? I suggest it's for similar reasons that people in the States fly the Dixie flag. This is not to advertise a desire to refight the Civil War. It's to show support for a set of values. A set of values that encompass a high degree of nostalgia for a bygone age and the old ways. A set of values that in many cases are at the very least tinged with racism. It could be, I'm musing here but at the same time it's a little more than musing, that the CANZUK shield is becoming our version of the Confederate flag for our version of those Americans who choose to fly it. In which case, good, because it is a "tell". It's better to know than to not know.
Have you gone crazy?
The Confederate flag is literally linked with a doomed Civil War to try to maintain slavery.
The flags of Canada, the UK, New Zealand and Australia are not whatsoever.
You are making up your own strawmen.
There's not enough meaty racism left in the Britain for an insatiable disapprover of people like our Kinabula - sadly he came to it too late. Short of inventing a time machine whereby he can return to a time of the National Front and 'No blacks' signs in boarding houses, he must be content with 'tells' to convince him of how thoroughly wicked most other people are.
Just because you don't want to see it doesn't mean it isn't there. Our little nationalists are going to grow under an enabling government and certain insignia will be used to unite against the other. What's more appealing to those with specific tendencies than a union of the Anglophone, the old colonies and the populace of Empire deemed to be people like us.
Fortunately for the Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders they get a say this time and we know they are not supportive.
Oh really?
Actually they are supportive and trade talks are already underway. The Conservative Party of Canada and other parties and politicians across the four countries have endorsed the project - and all four countries are undergoing official trade talks right now.
A trade deal is not a promise of EU style freedom of movement.
Free movement doesn't need to be EU-style, there are other ways of having free movement.
From your own link "changes to work rights would be proposed and accepted on both sides but not full free movement" - so it depends what changes are accepted.
Australia and New Zealand already have a free movement agreement between themselves but it is not full EU style free movement. There are many flaws in the EU free movement scheme that don't exist in the Aus/NZ one and if a future agreement was close to the Aus/NZ one that would be a good thing.
And as much as the world cares I'd be very happy with a close a deal as possible and I was wrong about the popularity of it.
But, this is not the thrust of what I was arguing before. That a minority in the UK see the flag and are not using it for the principle of closer union but division at home.
I don't think anyone is using it for division because few people even know what it means. Its been designed as a symbol of friendship and unity between countries so you and @kinabalu trying to turn it into a symbol of division is just bitter.
It just looks like and I'm exposing my prejudice, a useful little crusader style insignia. One that could be stapled to the brim of a hat, pinned to armband or for the fanatical tattooed on a bicep.
So I just had a..... really interesting Zoom call with, amongst other people, a billionaire in Switzerland who is paying scientists to do research into the afterlife. Fascinating.
Zoom is brilliant. Bringing people together. I love Zoom, me
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You're a strange one.
Do you think the European Union is a nod to White Power?
Do you think CANZUK has more, less or similar level of "whiteness" to the European Union?
You're being too reductive and literal. These mindsets don't work like that. You have to ask why somebody like Grimes is flying the CANZUK shield. I'm sure you don't (do you?) so WTF is he and ilk doing it? I suggest it's for similar reasons that people in the States fly the Dixie flag. This is not to advertise a desire to refight the Civil War. It's to show support for a set of values. A set of values that encompass a high degree of nostalgia for a bygone age and the old ways. A set of values that in many cases are at the very least tinged with racism. It could be, I'm musing here but at the same time it's a little more than musing, that the CANZUK shield is becoming our version of the Confederate flag for our version of those Americans who choose to fly it. In which case, good, because it is a "tell". It's better to know than to not know.
Have you gone crazy?
The Confederate flag is literally linked with a doomed Civil War to try to maintain slavery.
The flags of Canada, the UK, New Zealand and Australia are not whatsoever.
You are making up your own strawmen.
There's not enough meaty racism left in the Britain for an insatiable disapprover of people like our Kinabula - sadly he came to it too late. Short of inventing a time machine whereby he can return to a time of the National Front and 'No blacks' signs in boarding houses, he must be content with 'tells' to convince him of how thoroughly wicked most other people are.
Just because you don't want to see it doesn't mean it isn't there. Our little nationalists are going to grow under an enabling government and certain insignia will be used to unite against the other. What's more appealing to those with specific tendencies than a union of the Anglophone, the old colonies and the populace of Empire deemed to be people like us.
Fortunately for the Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders they get a say this time and we know they are not supportive.
Ok its popular but will it happen? The Australian government seem pretty keen to keep Brits at arms length.
The main reason it won't happen is that the population of Britain would drop like Lithuania in the noughties.
So would New Zealand's to be fair, Australia's would probably double overnight.
Though it might reduce the pressure here for new housing
Although both Aus and NZ are having problems with their inflated housing markets. If you can't buy in the UK you can't buy in the antipodean.
Plenty of UK home owners would move to Australia, better weather and higher average salaries, not just those without home ownership who might actually find homes here more affordable if the population in the UK falls and there is less demand
In that case it cannot happen, a Conservative Government will never allow it!
Church of England accidentally announces Lutheran reformation, as all statutes and symbols relating to Christ are removed from Churches for fear they cause offence...
It is more statutes linked to slavery, the Anglican church worldwide has a growing black congregation, though ironically it is rather more conservative on social matters than most of the white Anglican clergy
I know what they meant, but they should be careful what they say.
The biblical Jesus offended a lot of people and Christian iconography and other features of worship can and do cause offence.
The report does not mention removing icons of Jesus and the altar and turning the Anglican church Lutheran, it is just statues linked to slavery
Almost any historical figure in the age of Empire - say 1600-1850, can be ‘linked to slavery’. Same goes for many historical figures before then, too.
Anyone famous in the classical world, from Ceasars to philosophers, would have kept slaves. Likewise much of the Muslim world until about 50 years ago?
What annoys me most is the theological woolyness of the whole thing. If the men in question were true Christians, and if "the Offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction, for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual," then how can they be unworthy to be in church but worthy to be in heaven? Are we now saying that involvement with slavery is a sin too weighty to be blotted out by faith - in which case, tant pis for John Newton? Or are we saying that the Archbishop of Canterbury can appoint a commission capable of looking into men's souls and judge whether they had been truly saved, at a distance of 200 years or more?
Agree. Making windows into souls is too hard for me and most. Leaving Colston where he is and commission a top quality sculpture as good as the Dying Gaul to be placed alongside it would be the imaginative thing. The same with churches. How many Archbishops of Canterbury or York up to about 1800 were not in some way 'linked' with slavery or other gross evils both ancient and modern.
Is Justin Welby 'linked' with homophobia by being the presiding bishop of a communion parts of which encourage it?
Was Jane Austen complicit because she put sugar in her tea? Was Joe Bloggs? Am I complicit with the the horrors of Tibet or the Uighurs when I buy a Chinese made telly?
Church of England accidentally announces Lutheran reformation, as all statutes and symbols relating to Christ are removed from Churches for fear they cause offence...
It is more statutes linked to slavery, the Anglican church worldwide has a growing black congregation, though ironically it is rather more conservative on social matters than most of the white Anglican clergy
I know what they meant, but they should be careful what they say.
The biblical Jesus offended a lot of people and Christian iconography and other features of worship can and do cause offence.
The report does not mention removing icons of Jesus and the altar and turning the Anglican church Lutheran, it is just statues linked to slavery
Almost any historical figure in the age of Empire - say 1600-1850, can be ‘linked to slavery’. Same goes for many historical figures before then, too.
Anyone famous in the classical world, from Ceasars to philosophers, would have kept slaves. Likewise much of the Muslim world until about 50 years ago?
What annoys me most is the theological woolyness of the whole thing. If the men in question were true Christians, and if "the Offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction, for all the sins of the whole world, both original and actual," then how can they be unworthy to be in church but worthy to be in heaven? Are we now saying that involvement with slavery is a sin too weighty to be blotted out by faith - in which case, tant pis for John Newton? Or are we saying that the Archbishop of Canterbury can appoint a commission capable of looking into men's souls and judge whether they had been truly saved, at a distance of 200 years or more?
Agree. Making windows into souls is too hard for me and most. Leaving Colston where he is and commission a top quality sculpture as good as the Dying Gaul to be placed alongside it would be the imaginative thing. The same with churches. How many Archbishops of Canterbury or York up to about 1800 were not in some way 'linked' with slavery or other gross evils both ancient and modern.
Is Justin Welby 'linked' with homophobia by being the presiding bishop of a communion parts of which encourage it?
Was Jane Austen complicit because she put sugar in her tea? Was Joe Bloggs? Am I complicit with the the horrors of Tibet or the Uighurs when I buy a Chinese made telly?
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You're a strange one.
Do you think the European Union is a nod to White Power?
Do you think CANZUK has more, less or similar level of "whiteness" to the European Union?
You're being too reductive and literal. These mindsets don't work like that. You have to ask why somebody like Grimes is flying the CANZUK shield. I'm sure you don't (do you?) so WTF is he and ilk doing it? I suggest it's for similar reasons that people in the States fly the Dixie flag. This is not to advertise a desire to refight the Civil War. It's to show support for a set of values. A set of values that encompass a high degree of nostalgia for a bygone age and the old ways. A set of values that in many cases are at the very least tinged with racism. It could be, I'm musing here but at the same time it's a little more than musing, that the CANZUK shield is becoming our version of the Confederate flag for our version of those Americans who choose to fly it. In which case, good, because it is a "tell". It's better to know than to not know.
Have you gone crazy?
The Confederate flag is literally linked with a doomed Civil War to try to maintain slavery.
The flags of Canada, the UK, New Zealand and Australia are not whatsoever.
You are making up your own strawmen.
There's not enough meaty racism left in the Britain for an insatiable disapprover of people like our Kinabula - sadly he came to it too late. Short of inventing a time machine whereby he can return to a time of the National Front and 'No blacks' signs in boarding houses, he must be content with 'tells' to convince him of how thoroughly wicked most other people are.
Just because you don't want to see it doesn't mean it isn't there. Our little nationalists are going to grow under an enabling government and certain insignia will be used to unite against the other. What's more appealing to those with specific tendencies than a union of the Anglophone, the old colonies and the populace of Empire deemed to be people like us.
Fortunately for the Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders they get a say this time and we know they are not supportive.
Oh really?
Actually they are supportive and trade talks are already underway. The Conservative Party of Canada and other parties and politicians across the four countries have endorsed the project - and all four countries are undergoing official trade talks right now.
A trade deal is not a promise of EU style freedom of movement.
Free movement doesn't need to be EU-style, there are other ways of having free movement.
From your own link "changes to work rights would be proposed and accepted on both sides but not full free movement" - so it depends what changes are accepted.
Australia and New Zealand already have a free movement agreement between themselves but it is not full EU style free movement. There are many flaws in the EU free movement scheme that don't exist in the Aus/NZ one and if a future agreement was close to the Aus/NZ one that would be a good thing.
And as much as the world cares I'd be very happy with a close a deal as possible and I was wrong about the popularity of it.
But, this is not the thrust of what I was arguing before. That a minority in the UK see the flag and are not using it for the principle of closer union but division at home.
I don't think anyone is using it for division because few people even know what it means. Its been designed as a symbol of friendship and unity between countries so you and @kinabalu trying to turn it into a symbol of division is just bitter.
It just looks like and I'm exposing my prejudice, a useful little crusader style insignia. One that could be stapled to the brim of a hat, pinned to armband or for the fanatical tattooed on a bicep.
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You're a strange one.
Do you think the European Union is a nod to White Power?
Do you think CANZUK has more, less or similar level of "whiteness" to the European Union?
You're being too reductive and literal. These mindsets don't work like that. You have to ask why somebody like Grimes is flying the CANZUK shield. I'm sure you don't (do you?) so WTF is he and ilk doing it? I suggest it's for similar reasons that people in the States fly the Dixie flag. This is not to advertise a desire to refight the Civil War. It's to show support for a set of values. A set of values that encompass a high degree of nostalgia for a bygone age and the old ways. A set of values that in many cases are at the very least tinged with racism. It could be, I'm musing here but at the same time it's a little more than musing, that the CANZUK shield is becoming our version of the Confederate flag for our version of those Americans who choose to fly it. In which case, good, because it is a "tell". It's better to know than to not know.
Have you gone crazy?
The Confederate flag is literally linked with a doomed Civil War to try to maintain slavery.
The flags of Canada, the UK, New Zealand and Australia are not whatsoever.
You are making up your own strawmen.
There's not enough meaty racism left in the Britain for an insatiable disapprover of people like our Kinabula - sadly he came to it too late. Short of inventing a time machine whereby he can return to a time of the National Front and 'No blacks' signs in boarding houses, he must be content with 'tells' to convince him of how thoroughly wicked most other people are.
Just because you don't want to see it doesn't mean it isn't there. Our little nationalists are going to grow under an enabling government and certain insignia will be used to unite against the other. What's more appealing to those with specific tendencies than a union of the Anglophone, the old colonies and the populace of Empire deemed to be people like us.
Fortunately for the Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders they get a say this time and we know they are not supportive.
Ok its popular but will it happen? The Australian government seem pretty keen to keep Brits at arms length.
The main reason it won't happen is that the population of Britain would drop like Lithuania in the noughties.
So would New Zealand's to be fair, Australia's would probably double overnight.
Though it might reduce the pressure here for new housing
Although both Aus and NZ are having problems with their inflated housing markets. If you can't buy in the UK you can't buy in the antipodean.
Plenty of UK home owners would move to Australia, better weather and higher average salaries, not just those without home ownership who might actually find homes here more affordable if the population in the UK falls and there is less demand
In that case it cannot happen, a Conservative Government will never allow it!
A Conservative government wants to encourage more home ownership, it is not the price of your house that makes you more likely to be a Tory voter as much as whether you own it or not
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
Nice try. But an opposition party losing a seat to the governing party is still rarer than rocking-horse shit.
But if another dozen Red Wall Labour MPs would like to resign to give Labour some "free hits" - they know where the Chiltern Hundreds are....
Sure, but this is a very particular scenario and the result has potentially huge ramifications for where our domestic politics is heading.
If Labour win here, the most Brexity of seats, so soon after Brexit and with it looking to the untrained eye to be a great decision, it will mean Europe is losing its salience as an issue driving votes and that by the time of the next GE it will barely feature. Plus Corbyn has gone, remember, and will be a distant memory by then. Labour now has a leader that, dull or not, most people can envisage as PM. This hasn't happened since 2010.
It will leave just one of the 3 key factors from the "BBC" election of Dec 19 still in play. "Boris". Can he carry that load? Can this political magician do it again, even after 5 years in power and with the economy in the toilet? I yield to no-one in my recognition of his powers, the guy's a vote magnet in the places that count, but I'm not so sure he can.
So that's the big story. A Labour win. If the Cons take it, it's a shrug and business as usual.
Total bollocks. If Starmer can’t win back a northern, traditionally Labour seat like Hartlepool, after seven zillion years of Tory government, then his leadership is in trouble. Simply the case. People won’t just ‘shrug’.
Yes there are complicating factors that make it somewhat harder. But, he should still win it
FWIW I think Labour will succeed
This is the traditional analysis but it's no longer applicable in the new politics forged by the 2016 EU Referendum and its aftermath. If the Tories can't win here, a triumphant Brexit just pocketed, they are losing their grip on what won them their GE majority - their consolidation and ownership of the Leave political identity, transcending class. Which means big trouble for them, since they offer little else except the "Boris" act. If Labour win this seat in May, Starmer will not quite be measuring up the curtains for number 10, but he will be immensely heartened, trust me.
Lol. Holding one of their own seats 11 years into Opposition that even Corbyn managed not to lose would be 'immensely heartening'? How Labour's ambitions have been etiolated by defeat - I remember when they used to be a national party. Now they're barely a regional one...
I've explained why I'm viewing it the way I am. We have a new politics now. The Cons have merged with Leave and they need to retain ownership of it. If they don't it's hard to see where they go. What are the Cons without Leave? That's a rhetorical question because I know you can't answer it. Nobody can. They'll still be "Boris", yes, but that's no basis for the future. Imagine having your fortunes dependent on him. Talk about precarious. No, tough times ahead for the party, methinks, if they lose their Leave USP. Like the GOP without MAGA, they'll be faced with a long and arduous rebuilding process from the bottom up.
Actually, I'd say atm that the Cons are the only UK party of genuine optimism. SNP, maybe, but in a very dour way. Optimism and hope are good for political parties, at least until self-belief in the vision is lost.
That comes from the 2 Bs in the BBC election. "Boris" has a 'sunny side up' persona but that's all that is - a persona. And then Brexit. For Remainers, it's damage limitation. Only true beLeavers see a great future coming from it. By the next GE, both of these Bs could be losing lustre. I think they will be. There's a fine line between optimism and simple-minded delusion.
That's going to be tough for the SNP to negotiate, if they abstain or vote against it they'll look ridiculous, if they vote for it then they're voting for Labour and Tory MSPs being able to completely destroy Nicola.
So I just had a..... really interesting Zoom call with, amongst other people, a billionaire in Switzerland who is paying scientists to do research into the afterlife. Fascinating.
Zoom is brilliant. Bringing people together. I love Zoom, me
My brother in law suffered heart failure and he was telling me about watching the medics working on him frantically from a position above the action. He was absolutely matter of fact about it
He said he was curious but not scared
He is absolutely convinced something awaits us after death.
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You underestimate the attraction and importance of a common language. In building trust, in economic interactions, in cultural interactions.
Probably I do. But I think others sometimes underestimate the extent to which an overt attachment to the white commonwealth can indicate a worldview that is at best nostalgic and at worst racist. And it does seem an odd flag for Grimes to have fluttering at his shoulder.
But CANZUK is significantly less white than the EU! When the UK left the EU, it lost over half of its non-white MEPs. I can see how you might question the geographical sense of CANZUKism (though I think geography is less important in these things than people think). But I don't see how it is in any way racist. Or at least no more racist than an attachment to the EU.
Philip makes the same point. My reply to him (timed 1:10) seeks to explain where I'm coming from.
Yes and you're coming from a position of trying to slander people with outrageous accusations for no reason whatsoever.
CANZUK is a proposal for free trade and free movement between those four countries. There's nothing racial to it whatsoever, any more than anyone flying 12 golden stars on a field of blue is racial.
I've just the read the chapter in question in the new HART report. It makes no sense to me. What is he on about with this stuff about a new pattern of mortality that does not fit the pattern? To be honest it may be lack of clarity in the report or just plain wrong - I can't tell.
Looking at the local Scottish results (oh God, lockdown) I wonder if Salmondgate and Sturgeon-not-resigning-gate are making Unionists more likely to vote tactically, to bring her down?
If so that is bad news for the SNP.
The Nats' support might be unwavering but if their enemies organise, bye bye majority
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You're a strange one.
Do you think the European Union is a nod to White Power?
Do you think CANZUK has more, less or similar level of "whiteness" to the European Union?
You're being too reductive and literal. These mindsets don't work like that. You have to ask why somebody like Grimes is flying the CANZUK shield. I'm sure you don't (do you?) so WTF is he and ilk doing it? I suggest it's for similar reasons that people in the States fly the Dixie flag. This is not to advertise a desire to refight the Civil War. It's to show support for a set of values. A set of values that encompass a high degree of nostalgia for a bygone age and the old ways. A set of values that in many cases are at the very least tinged with racism. It could be, I'm musing here but at the same time it's a little more than musing, that the CANZUK shield is becoming our version of the Confederate flag for our version of those Americans who choose to fly it. In which case, good, because it is a "tell". It's better to know than to not know.
Have you gone crazy?
The Confederate flag is literally linked with a doomed Civil War to try to maintain slavery.
The flags of Canada, the UK, New Zealand and Australia are not whatsoever.
You are making up your own strawmen.
There's not enough meaty racism left in the Britain for an insatiable disapprover of people like our Kinabula - sadly he came to it too late. Short of inventing a time machine whereby he can return to a time of the National Front and 'No blacks' signs in boarding houses, he must be content with 'tells' to convince him of how thoroughly wicked most other people are.
You're not the deepest of thinkers on this topic, though, are you? Somebody would need to be sat on a Union Jack sofa, wearing a "Jim Davidson: The White Riot Tour" tee-shirt, and watching endless reruns of Love Thy Neighbour before your antenna would pick up the faintest signal. And even then ...
No, I don't tend to go around looking for things in others to disapprove of - (though of course I slip up on occasion). Thanks for noticing.
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You're a strange one.
Do you think the European Union is a nod to White Power?
Do you think CANZUK has more, less or similar level of "whiteness" to the European Union?
You're being too reductive and literal. These mindsets don't work like that. You have to ask why somebody like Grimes is flying the CANZUK shield. I'm sure you don't (do you?) so WTF is he and ilk doing it? I suggest it's for similar reasons that people in the States fly the Dixie flag. This is not to advertise a desire to refight the Civil War. It's to show support for a set of values. A set of values that encompass a high degree of nostalgia for a bygone age and the old ways. A set of values that in many cases are at the very least tinged with racism. It could be, I'm musing here but at the same time it's a little more than musing, that the CANZUK shield is becoming our version of the Confederate flag for our version of those Americans who choose to fly it. In which case, good, because it is a "tell". It's better to know than to not know.
Have you gone crazy?
The Confederate flag is literally linked with a doomed Civil War to try to maintain slavery.
The flags of Canada, the UK, New Zealand and Australia are not whatsoever.
You are making up your own strawmen.
There's not enough meaty racism left in the Britain for an insatiable disapprover of people like our Kinabula - sadly he came to it too late. Short of inventing a time machine whereby he can return to a time of the National Front and 'No blacks' signs in boarding houses, he must be content with 'tells' to convince him of how thoroughly wicked most other people are.
Just because you don't want to see it doesn't mean it isn't there. Our little nationalists are going to grow under an enabling government and certain insignia will be used to unite against the other. What's more appealing to those with specific tendencies than a union of the Anglophone, the old colonies and the populace of Empire deemed to be people like us.
Fortunately for the Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders they get a say this time and we know they are not supportive.
Ok its popular but will it happen? The Australian government seem pretty keen to keep Brits at arms length.
The main reason it won't happen is that the population of Britain would drop like Lithuania in the noughties.
So would New Zealand's to be fair, Australia's would probably double overnight.
Though it might reduce the pressure here for new housing
Although both Aus and NZ are having problems with their inflated housing markets. If you can't buy in the UK you can't buy in the antipodean.
Plenty of UK home owners would move to Australia, better weather and higher average salaries, not just those without home ownership who might actually find homes here more affordable if the population in the UK falls and there is less demand
In that case it cannot happen, a Conservative Government will never allow it!
A Conservative government wants to encourage more home ownership, it is not the price of your house that makes you more likely to be a Tory voter as much as whether you own it or not
there must be a correlation between house price and party affiliation? Although I'm sure the city vs town zeitgeist may well influence things.
So I just had a..... really interesting Zoom call with, amongst other people, a billionaire in Switzerland who is paying scientists to do research into the afterlife. Fascinating.
Zoom is brilliant. Bringing people together. I love Zoom, me
My brother in law suffered heart failure and he was telling me about watching the medics working on him frantically from a position above the action. He was absolutely matter of fact about it
He said he was curious but not scared
He is absolutely convinced something awaits us after death.
This guy - the billionaire - had a similar experience. Hence the research. He's paying a UK university to do it but they have to keep it all quite hush hush. It is too woowoo
The UK has done a brilliant job in getting the overseas territories vaxxed. Look at all the mini Union Jacks and crosses of St Geo (racists!!!!!!) in that graphic
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
Nice try. But an opposition party losing a seat to the governing party is still rarer than rocking-horse shit.
But if another dozen Red Wall Labour MPs would like to resign to give Labour some "free hits" - they know where the Chiltern Hundreds are....
Sure, but this is a very particular scenario and the result has potentially huge ramifications for where our domestic politics is heading.
If Labour win here, the most Brexity of seats, so soon after Brexit and with it looking to the untrained eye to be a great decision, it will mean Europe is losing its salience as an issue driving votes and that by the time of the next GE it will barely feature. Plus Corbyn has gone, remember, and will be a distant memory by then. Labour now has a leader that, dull or not, most people can envisage as PM. This hasn't happened since 2010.
It will leave just one of the 3 key factors from the "BBC" election of Dec 19 still in play. "Boris". Can he carry that load? Can this political magician do it again, even after 5 years in power and with the economy in the toilet? I yield to no-one in my recognition of his powers, the guy's a vote magnet in the places that count, but I'm not so sure he can.
So that's the big story. A Labour win. If the Cons take it, it's a shrug and business as usual.
Total bollocks. If Starmer can’t win back a northern, traditionally Labour seat like Hartlepool, after seven zillion years of Tory government, then his leadership is in trouble. Simply the case. People won’t just ‘shrug’.
Yes there are complicating factors that make it somewhat harder. But, he should still win it
FWIW I think Labour will succeed
This is the traditional analysis but it's no longer applicable in the new politics forged by the 2016 EU Referendum and its aftermath. If the Tories can't win here, a triumphant Brexit just pocketed, they are losing their grip on what won them their GE majority - their consolidation and ownership of the Leave political identity, transcending class. Which means big trouble for them, since they offer little else except the "Boris" act. If Labour win this seat in May, Starmer will not quite be measuring up the curtains for number 10, but he will be immensely heartened, trust me.
Lol. Holding one of their own seats 11 years into Opposition that even Corbyn managed not to lose would be 'immensely heartening'? How Labour's ambitions have been etiolated by defeat - I remember when they used to be a national party. Now they're barely a regional one...
I've explained why I'm viewing it the way I am. We have a new politics now. The Cons have merged with Leave and they need to retain ownership of it. If they don't it's hard to see where they go. What are the Cons without Leave? That's a rhetorical question because I know you can't answer it. Nobody can. They'll still be "Boris", yes, but that's no basis for the future. Imagine having your fortunes dependent on him. Talk about precarious. No, tough times ahead for the party, methinks, if they lose their Leave USP. Like the GOP without MAGA, they'll be faced with a long and arduous rebuilding process from the bottom up.
Actually, I'd say atm that the Cons are the only UK party of genuine optimism. SNP, maybe, but in a very dour way. Optimism and hope are good for political parties, at least until self-belief in the vision is lost.
That comes from the 2 Bs in the BBC election. "Boris" has a 'sunny side up' persona but that's all that is - a persona. And then Brexit. For Remainers, it's damage limitation. Only true beLeavers see a great future coming from it. By the next GE, both of these Bs could be losing lustre. I think they will be. There's a fine line between optimism and simple-minded delusion.
I think it is truly sad for you if you believe your last sentence without any form of qualification. Human life is only bearable with hope and optimism. They can be sustaining in truly dark times, when all others believe the optimists to be delusional. Who best survived Auschwitz - the optimists or the pessimists?
So I just had a..... really interesting Zoom call with, amongst other people, a billionaire in Switzerland who is paying scientists to do research into the afterlife. Fascinating.
Zoom is brilliant. Bringing people together. I love Zoom, me
Who knew lithic love aids were such a passport to the rich and powerful. Davos next year?
The UK has done a brilliant job in getting the overseas territories vaxxed. Look at all the mini Union Jacks and crosses of St Geo (racists!!!!!!) in that graphic
So I just had a..... really interesting Zoom call with, amongst other people, a billionaire in Switzerland who is paying scientists to do research into the afterlife. Fascinating.
Zoom is brilliant. Bringing people together. I love Zoom, me
Who knew lithic love aids were such a passport to the rich and powerful. Davos next year?
LITHIC LOVE AIDS
Like it! Straight on the promo material. Might even change the company name
(He's also invited me to stay in one of his enormous mansions in Ibiza, so he is quite a useful client)
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You're a strange one.
Do you think the European Union is a nod to White Power?
Do you think CANZUK has more, less or similar level of "whiteness" to the European Union?
You're being too reductive and literal. These mindsets don't work like that. You have to ask why somebody like Grimes is flying the CANZUK shield. I'm sure you don't (do you?) so WTF is he and ilk doing it? I suggest it's for similar reasons that people in the States fly the Dixie flag. This is not to advertise a desire to refight the Civil War. It's to show support for a set of values. A set of values that encompass a high degree of nostalgia for a bygone age and the old ways. A set of values that in many cases are at the very least tinged with racism. It could be, I'm musing here but at the same time it's a little more than musing, that the CANZUK shield is becoming our version of the Confederate flag for our version of those Americans who choose to fly it. In which case, good, because it is a "tell". It's better to know than to not know.
Have you gone crazy?
The Confederate flag is literally linked with a doomed Civil War to try to maintain slavery.
The flags of Canada, the UK, New Zealand and Australia are not whatsoever.
You are making up your own strawmen.
There's not enough meaty racism left in the Britain for an insatiable disapprover of people like our Kinabula - sadly he came to it too late. Short of inventing a time machine whereby he can return to a time of the National Front and 'No blacks' signs in boarding houses, he must be content with 'tells' to convince him of how thoroughly wicked most other people are.
Just because you don't want to see it doesn't mean it isn't there. Our little nationalists are going to grow under an enabling government and certain insignia will be used to unite against the other. What's more appealing to those with specific tendencies than a union of the Anglophone, the old colonies and the populace of Empire deemed to be people like us.
Fortunately for the Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders they get a say this time and we know they are not supportive.
Ok its popular but will it happen? The Australian government seem pretty keen to keep Brits at arms length.
The main reason it won't happen is that the population of Britain would drop like Lithuania in the noughties.
So would New Zealand's to be fair, Australia's would probably double overnight.
Though it might reduce the pressure here for new housing
Although both Aus and NZ are having problems with their inflated housing markets. If you can't buy in the UK you can't buy in the antipodean.
Plenty of UK home owners would move to Australia, better weather and higher average salaries, not just those without home ownership who might actually find homes here more affordable if the population in the UK falls and there is less demand
In that case it cannot happen, a Conservative Government will never allow it!
A Conservative government wants to encourage more home ownership, it is not the price of your house that makes you more likely to be a Tory voter as much as whether you own it or not
there must be a correlation between house price and party affiliation? Although I'm sure the city vs town zeitgeist may well influence things.
Further off topic looking at the current age distribution of home ownership I was surprised to see that only 20% of 55-64s own as opposed to 34% of 65+s.
So I just had a..... really interesting Zoom call with, amongst other people, a billionaire in Switzerland who is paying scientists to do research into the afterlife. Fascinating.
Zoom is brilliant. Bringing people together. I love Zoom, me
Who knew lithic love aids were such a passport to the rich and powerful. Davos next year?
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You're a strange one.
Do you think the European Union is a nod to White Power?
Do you think CANZUK has more, less or similar level of "whiteness" to the European Union?
You're being too reductive and literal. These mindsets don't work like that. You have to ask why somebody like Grimes is flying the CANZUK shield. I'm sure you don't (do you?) so WTF is he and ilk doing it? I suggest it's for similar reasons that people in the States fly the Dixie flag. This is not to advertise a desire to refight the Civil War. It's to show support for a set of values. A set of values that encompass a high degree of nostalgia for a bygone age and the old ways. A set of values that in many cases are at the very least tinged with racism. It could be, I'm musing here but at the same time it's a little more than musing, that the CANZUK shield is becoming our version of the Confederate flag for our version of those Americans who choose to fly it. In which case, good, because it is a "tell". It's better to know than to not know.
Kinabalu, the Sinfinder General. Pricking the victims, to see if they bleed. Drooling as they strip
It's simply that I lack the peculiar mindset required to assume that anything short of KKK white sheets and hanging trees is not racist. And I note no substantive counter-argument yet offered by anybody as to why somebody like Darren Grimes would be flying this flag. He's from Durham.
Why would half the members of the Labour Party be flying the Palestinian flag when they're from Islington?
Great question and the answer supports my insight. For many (although not all) it is a general values statement rather than being specific to Palestine. It says to the world, "I am an anti-imperialist. I hate the west." Ditto with many symbols. The Dixie flag. The CANZUK shield. Which is where we came in. If you think everyone who flies that flag is simply and only campaigning for free movement in the White Commonwealth with no hinterland of nostalgia tinged with racism, I have a bridge to sell you.
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You're a strange one.
Do you think the European Union is a nod to White Power?
Do you think CANZUK has more, less or similar level of "whiteness" to the European Union?
You're being too reductive and literal. These mindsets don't work like that. You have to ask why somebody like Grimes is flying the CANZUK shield. I'm sure you don't (do you?) so WTF is he and ilk doing it? I suggest it's for similar reasons that people in the States fly the Dixie flag. This is not to advertise a desire to refight the Civil War. It's to show support for a set of values. A set of values that encompass a high degree of nostalgia for a bygone age and the old ways. A set of values that in many cases are at the very least tinged with racism. It could be, I'm musing here but at the same time it's a little more than musing, that the CANZUK shield is becoming our version of the Confederate flag for our version of those Americans who choose to fly it. In which case, good, because it is a "tell". It's better to know than to not know.
Have you gone crazy?
The Confederate flag is literally linked with a doomed Civil War to try to maintain slavery.
The flags of Canada, the UK, New Zealand and Australia are not whatsoever.
You are making up your own strawmen.
There's not enough meaty racism left in the Britain for an insatiable disapprover of people like our Kinabula - sadly he came to it too late. Short of inventing a time machine whereby he can return to a time of the National Front and 'No blacks' signs in boarding houses, he must be content with 'tells' to convince him of how thoroughly wicked most other people are.
Just because you don't want to see it doesn't mean it isn't there. Our little nationalists are going to grow under an enabling government and certain insignia will be used to unite against the other. What's more appealing to those with specific tendencies than a union of the Anglophone, the old colonies and the populace of Empire deemed to be people like us.
Fortunately for the Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders they get a say this time and we know they are not supportive.
Ok its popular but will it happen? The Australian government seem pretty keen to keep Brits at arms length.
The main reason it won't happen is that the population of Britain would drop like Lithuania in the noughties.
So would New Zealand's to be fair, Australia's would probably double overnight.
Though it might reduce the pressure here for new housing
Although both Aus and NZ are having problems with their inflated housing markets. If you can't buy in the UK you can't buy in the antipodean.
Plenty of UK home owners would move to Australia, better weather and higher average salaries, not just those without home ownership who might actually find homes here more affordable if the population in the UK falls and there is less demand
In that case it cannot happen, a Conservative Government will never allow it!
A Conservative government wants to encourage more home ownership, it is not the price of your house that makes you more likely to be a Tory voter as much as whether you own it or not
there must be a correlation between house price and party affiliation? Although I'm sure the city vs town zeitgeist may well influence things.
If you live in an expensive house and own it you may be slightly more likely to be a Tory voter than if you own a slightly cheaper property but if you live if an expensive house but rent it you will be less likely to be a Tory voter than someone who lives in a cheaper property but owns it
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
Nice try. But an opposition party losing a seat to the governing party is still rarer than rocking-horse shit.
But if another dozen Red Wall Labour MPs would like to resign to give Labour some "free hits" - they know where the Chiltern Hundreds are....
Sure, but this is a very particular scenario and the result has potentially huge ramifications for where our domestic politics is heading.
If Labour win here, the most Brexity of seats, so soon after Brexit and with it looking to the untrained eye to be a great decision, it will mean Europe is losing its salience as an issue driving votes and that by the time of the next GE it will barely feature. Plus Corbyn has gone, remember, and will be a distant memory by then. Labour now has a leader that, dull or not, most people can envisage as PM. This hasn't happened since 2010.
It will leave just one of the 3 key factors from the "BBC" election of Dec 19 still in play. "Boris". Can he carry that load? Can this political magician do it again, even after 5 years in power and with the economy in the toilet? I yield to no-one in my recognition of his powers, the guy's a vote magnet in the places that count, but I'm not so sure he can.
So that's the big story. A Labour win. If the Cons take it, it's a shrug and business as usual.
Total bollocks. If Starmer can’t win back a northern, traditionally Labour seat like Hartlepool, after seven zillion years of Tory government, then his leadership is in trouble. Simply the case. People won’t just ‘shrug’.
Yes there are complicating factors that make it somewhat harder. But, he should still win it
FWIW I think Labour will succeed
This is the traditional analysis but it's no longer applicable in the new politics forged by the 2016 EU Referendum and its aftermath. If the Tories can't win here, a triumphant Brexit just pocketed, they are losing their grip on what won them their GE majority - their consolidation and ownership of the Leave political identity, transcending class. Which means big trouble for them, since they offer little else except the "Boris" act. If Labour win this seat in May, Starmer will not quite be measuring up the curtains for number 10, but he will be immensely heartened, trust me.
Lol. Holding one of their own seats 11 years into Opposition that even Corbyn managed not to lose would be 'immensely heartening'? How Labour's ambitions have been etiolated by defeat - I remember when they used to be a national party. Now they're barely a regional one...
I've explained why I'm viewing it the way I am. We have a new politics now. The Cons have merged with Leave and they need to retain ownership of it. If they don't it's hard to see where they go. What are the Cons without Leave? That's a rhetorical question because I know you can't answer it. Nobody can. They'll still be "Boris", yes, but that's no basis for the future. Imagine having your fortunes dependent on him. Talk about precarious. No, tough times ahead for the party, methinks, if they lose their Leave USP. Like the GOP without MAGA, they'll be faced with a long and arduous rebuilding process from the bottom up.
Actually, I'd say atm that the Cons are the only UK party of genuine optimism. SNP, maybe, but in a very dour way. Optimism and hope are good for political parties, at least until self-belief in the vision is lost.
That comes from the 2 Bs in the BBC election. "Boris" has a 'sunny side up' persona but that's all that is - a persona. And then Brexit. For Remainers, it's damage limitation. Only true beLeavers see a great future coming from it. By the next GE, both of these Bs could be losing lustre. I think they will be. There's a fine line between optimism and simple-minded delusion.
I think it is truly sad for you if you believe your last sentence without any form of qualification. Human life is only bearable with hope and optimism. They can be sustaining in truly dark times, when all others believe the optimists to be delusional. Who best survived Auschwitz - the optimists or the pessimists?
I just don't understand this 'suspend while we investigate' business. I know doctors work on the 'first, do no harm' rule, but in this case every day of suspension is condemning people to die from covid in case one or two people get a blood clot (possibly linked, almost certainly not linked). Investigate. Number crunch. Whatever. But keep vaccinating until you get some more evidence.
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You're a strange one.
Do you think the European Union is a nod to White Power?
Do you think CANZUK has more, less or similar level of "whiteness" to the European Union?
You're being too reductive and literal. These mindsets don't work like that. You have to ask why somebody like Grimes is flying the CANZUK shield. I'm sure you don't (do you?) so WTF is he and ilk doing it? I suggest it's for similar reasons that people in the States fly the Dixie flag. This is not to advertise a desire to refight the Civil War. It's to show support for a set of values. A set of values that encompass a high degree of nostalgia for a bygone age and the old ways. A set of values that in many cases are at the very least tinged with racism. It could be, I'm musing here but at the same time it's a little more than musing, that the CANZUK shield is becoming our version of the Confederate flag for our version of those Americans who choose to fly it. In which case, good, because it is a "tell". It's better to know than to not know.
Have you gone crazy?
The Confederate flag is literally linked with a doomed Civil War to try to maintain slavery.
The flags of Canada, the UK, New Zealand and Australia are not whatsoever.
You are making up your own strawmen.
There's not enough meaty racism left in the Britain for an insatiable disapprover of people like our Kinabula - sadly he came to it too late. Short of inventing a time machine whereby he can return to a time of the National Front and 'No blacks' signs in boarding houses, he must be content with 'tells' to convince him of how thoroughly wicked most other people are.
Just because you don't want to see it doesn't mean it isn't there. Our little nationalists are going to grow under an enabling government and certain insignia will be used to unite against the other. What's more appealing to those with specific tendencies than a union of the Anglophone, the old colonies and the populace of Empire deemed to be people like us.
Fortunately for the Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders they get a say this time and we know they are not supportive.
Ok its popular but will it happen? The Australian government seem pretty keen to keep Brits at arms length.
The main reason it won't happen is that the population of Britain would drop like Lithuania in the noughties.
So would New Zealand's to be fair, Australia's would probably double overnight.
Though it might reduce the pressure here for new housing
Although both Aus and NZ are having problems with their inflated housing markets. If you can't buy in the UK you can't buy in the antipodean.
Plenty of UK home owners would move to Australia, better weather and higher average salaries, not just those without home ownership who might actually find homes here more affordable if the population in the UK falls and there is less demand
In that case it cannot happen, a Conservative Government will never allow it!
A Conservative government wants to encourage more home ownership, it is not the price of your house that makes you more likely to be a Tory voter as much as whether you own it or not
there must be a correlation between house price and party affiliation? Although I'm sure the city vs town zeitgeist may well influence things.
Further off topic looking at the current age distribution of home ownership I was surprised to see that only 20% of 55-64s own as opposed to 34% of 65+s.
Where on Earth did those numbers come from? Most olds are owner-occupiers.
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
The percentage of non-white people will almost certainly be higher in Australia, NZ, UK and Canada compared to the EU. In NZ 17% of the population are Maori for example.
Some Kiwi once told me that the numbers of people identifying as Maori jumped a couple of decades ago once the government instituted positive discrimination.
So I just had a..... really interesting Zoom call with, amongst other people, a billionaire in Switzerland who is paying scientists to do research into the afterlife. Fascinating.
Zoom is brilliant. Bringing people together. I love Zoom, me
My brother in law suffered heart failure and he was telling me about watching the medics working on him frantically from a position above the action. He was absolutely matter of fact about it
He said he was curious but not scared
He is absolutely convinced something awaits us after death.
This guy - the billionaire - had a similar experience. Hence the research. He's paying a UK university to do it but they have to keep it all quite hush hush. It is too woowoo
I've seen a number of times from various sources stories of people who have known things about their near death medical care that they just shouldn't know about.
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You're a strange one.
Do you think the European Union is a nod to White Power?
Do you think CANZUK has more, less or similar level of "whiteness" to the European Union?
You're being too reductive and literal. These mindsets don't work like that. You have to ask why somebody like Grimes is flying the CANZUK shield. I'm sure you don't (do you?) so WTF is he and ilk doing it? I suggest it's for similar reasons that people in the States fly the Dixie flag. This is not to advertise a desire to refight the Civil War. It's to show support for a set of values. A set of values that encompass a high degree of nostalgia for a bygone age and the old ways. A set of values that in many cases are at the very least tinged with racism. It could be, I'm musing here but at the same time it's a little more than musing, that the CANZUK shield is becoming our version of the Confederate flag for our version of those Americans who choose to fly it. In which case, good, because it is a "tell". It's better to know than to not know.
Q: Why are you calling Darren Grimes a racist? A: Because he's flying the CANZUK flag. Q: Why is that racist? A: Because racists fly that flag. Q: Racists like who? A: Darren Grimes.
See also: St George's cross, the Union Jack.
Welcome to the warped world of Kinabalu. Start from a set of pre-determined views and then twist the evidence to fit them.
Feel free to actually think about the issue at hand.
I do. You can't.
Sometimes you do. But I'm afraid in this case you are off the pace.
Now who was it that said that a single day's figure didn't necessarily amount to a sustained trend?
We have nine days until first dose supply runs out; let's make the most of them.
It's not going to run out, that's just ridiculous. We may have a week or two at under a million first doses and then we'll get the 1.7m recertified doses from AZ and around 1m Moderna doses per week, the latter of which is all for first doses. We will do many millions of first doses in April.
I've seen some analysis in my time, but very little has been unique enough to argue that a party who has been in opposition for over a decade failing to hold onto a heartland seat that they've held for over 60 years is a 'shrug and move on' event.
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You're a strange one.
Do you think the European Union is a nod to White Power?
Do you think CANZUK has more, less or similar level of "whiteness" to the European Union?
You're being too reductive and literal. These mindsets don't work like that. You have to ask why somebody like Grimes is flying the CANZUK shield. I'm sure you don't (do you?) so WTF is he and ilk doing it? I suggest it's for similar reasons that people in the States fly the Dixie flag. This is not to advertise a desire to refight the Civil War. It's to show support for a set of values. A set of values that encompass a high degree of nostalgia for a bygone age and the old ways. A set of values that in many cases are at the very least tinged with racism. It could be, I'm musing here but at the same time it's a little more than musing, that the CANZUK shield is becoming our version of the Confederate flag for our version of those Americans who choose to fly it. In which case, good, because it is a "tell". It's better to know than to not know.
Kinabalu, the Sinfinder General. Pricking the victims, to see if they bleed. Drooling as they strip
It's simply that I lack the peculiar mindset required to assume that anything short of KKK white sheets and hanging trees is not racist. And I note no substantive counter-argument yet offered by anybody as to why somebody like Darren Grimes would be flying this flag. He's from Durham.
Why would half the members of the Labour Party be flying the Palestinian flag when they're from Islington?
Great question and the answer supports my insight. For many (although not all) it is a general values statement rather than being specific to Palestine. It says to the world, "I am an anti-imperialist. I hate the west." Ditto with many symbols. The Dixie flag. The CANZUK shield. Which is where we came in. If you think everyone who flies that flag is simply and only campaigning for free movement in the White Commonwealth with no hinterland of nostalgia tinged with racism, I have a bridge to sell you.
What on earth is the "White Commonwealth"?
Using your logic anyone flying the White EU flag is a racist. Oh well.
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
Nice try. But an opposition party losing a seat to the governing party is still rarer than rocking-horse shit.
But if another dozen Red Wall Labour MPs would like to resign to give Labour some "free hits" - they know where the Chiltern Hundreds are....
Sure, but this is a very particular scenario and the result has potentially huge ramifications for where our domestic politics is heading.
If Labour win here, the most Brexity of seats, so soon after Brexit and with it looking to the untrained eye to be a great decision, it will mean Europe is losing its salience as an issue driving votes and that by the time of the next GE it will barely feature. Plus Corbyn has gone, remember, and will be a distant memory by then. Labour now has a leader that, dull or not, most people can envisage as PM. This hasn't happened since 2010.
It will leave just one of the 3 key factors from the "BBC" election of Dec 19 still in play. "Boris". Can he carry that load? Can this political magician do it again, even after 5 years in power and with the economy in the toilet? I yield to no-one in my recognition of his powers, the guy's a vote magnet in the places that count, but I'm not so sure he can.
So that's the big story. A Labour win. If the Cons take it, it's a shrug and business as usual.
Total bollocks. If Starmer can’t win back a northern, traditionally Labour seat like Hartlepool, after seven zillion years of Tory government, then his leadership is in trouble. Simply the case. People won’t just ‘shrug’.
Yes there are complicating factors that make it somewhat harder. But, he should still win it
FWIW I think Labour will succeed
This is the traditional analysis but it's no longer applicable in the new politics forged by the 2016 EU Referendum and its aftermath. If the Tories can't win here, a triumphant Brexit just pocketed, they are losing their grip on what won them their GE majority - their consolidation and ownership of the Leave political identity, transcending class. Which means big trouble for them, since they offer little else except the "Boris" act. If Labour win this seat in May, Starmer will not quite be measuring up the curtains for number 10, but he will be immensely heartened, trust me.
Lol. Holding one of their own seats 11 years into Opposition that even Corbyn managed not to lose would be 'immensely heartening'? How Labour's ambitions have been etiolated by defeat - I remember when they used to be a national party. Now they're barely a regional one...
I've explained why I'm viewing it the way I am. We have a new politics now. The Cons have merged with Leave and they need to retain ownership of it. If they don't it's hard to see where they go. What are the Cons without Leave? That's a rhetorical question because I know you can't answer it. Nobody can. They'll still be "Boris", yes, but that's no basis for the future. Imagine having your fortunes dependent on him. Talk about precarious. No, tough times ahead for the party, methinks, if they lose their Leave USP. Like the GOP without MAGA, they'll be faced with a long and arduous rebuilding process from the bottom up.
Actually, I'd say atm that the Cons are the only UK party of genuine optimism. SNP, maybe, but in a very dour way. Optimism and hope are good for political parties, at least until self-belief in the vision is lost.
That comes from the 2 Bs in the BBC election. "Boris" has a 'sunny side up' persona but that's all that is - a persona. And then Brexit. For Remainers, it's damage limitation. Only true beLeavers see a great future coming from it. By the next GE, both of these Bs could be losing lustre. I think they will be. There's a fine line between optimism and simple-minded delusion.
I think it is truly sad for you if you believe your last sentence without any form of qualification. Human life is only bearable with hope and optimism. They can be sustaining in truly dark times, when all others believe the optimists to be delusional. Who best survived Auschwitz - the optimists or the pessimists?
Not sure how you'd measure the last point. A case could be made for either, eg a cruelly disappointed optimist may fade faster than a sardonic pessimist who'd expected the worst to happen all along.
I'd imagine luck, one's physical genetic inheritance and a certain selfishness when it came to feeding oneself might have had more to do with it.
Priti Patel wanted police to stop people gathering at Sarah Everard vigil
Exclusive: some police chiefs feel ‘hung out to dry’ as memo reveals home secretary’s enforcement call
For a few hours at least last Sunday, the Metropolitan police and their embattled commissioner appeared on the brink. Assailed from all sides over their handling of the Sarah Everard vigil on Clapham Common, there seemed every chance Dame Cressida Dick would have to quit the force she has been in charge of since 2017.
Instead she survived, as the Home Office and then Downing Street eventually signalled they retained confidence in her, despite the disturbing scenes of her officers manhandling women.
But the support she received from the home secretary, Priti Patel, raised questions about what role, if any, Patel played behind the scenes before the vigil on Saturday evening. A memo leaked to the Guardian offers some clues.
On Friday as the police and the vigil’s organisers were heading to court over the legality of such an event, a message was sent to all police chiefs making Patel’s position clear. She wanted them to stop people gathering at vigils. She also promised she would personally urge people not to gather – but she never did.
Though the police are operationally independent, the home secretary had made her views clear, which made her criticisms of the way officers broke up the Clapham event particularly galling, according to some police chiefs who spoke to the Guardian.
As a result, some chiefs feel policing was “hung out to dry” when Patel criticised pictures of officers manhandling women at the vigil, rebuked the Met commissioner and ordered an inquiry.
One chief constable said the message from Patel and the government before the vigil had been clear, that a ban on gatherings had to be enforced.
Tensions are now running high between police and ministers.
That's going to be tough for the SNP to negotiate, if they abstain or vote against it they'll look ridiculous, if they vote for it then they're voting for Labour and Tory MSPs being able to completely destroy Nicola.
I wonder if any Labour MSPs would be willing to breach any of the conditions set of them by the enquiry in Scotland? Being able to parade enquiry martyrs could be a powerful electoral campaign line.
I just don't understand this 'suspend while we investigate' business. I know doctors work on the 'first, do no harm' rule, but in this case every day of suspension is condemning people to die from covid in case one or two people get a blood clot (possibly linked, almost certainly not linked). Investigate. Number crunch. Whatever. But keep vaccinating until you get some more evidence.
It's 100% insane. No logic at all. But this is what the first over-reaction has caused, now every govt (apart from the UK, USA, Israel, etc) is overly terrified of side-effects
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You're a strange one.
Do you think the European Union is a nod to White Power?
Do you think CANZUK has more, less or similar level of "whiteness" to the European Union?
You're being too reductive and literal. These mindsets don't work like that. You have to ask why somebody like Grimes is flying the CANZUK shield. I'm sure you don't (do you?) so WTF is he and ilk doing it? I suggest it's for similar reasons that people in the States fly the Dixie flag. This is not to advertise a desire to refight the Civil War. It's to show support for a set of values. A set of values that encompass a high degree of nostalgia for a bygone age and the old ways. A set of values that in many cases are at the very least tinged with racism. It could be, I'm musing here but at the same time it's a little more than musing, that the CANZUK shield is becoming our version of the Confederate flag for our version of those Americans who choose to fly it. In which case, good, because it is a "tell". It's better to know than to not know.
Have you gone crazy?
The Confederate flag is literally linked with a doomed Civil War to try to maintain slavery.
The flags of Canada, the UK, New Zealand and Australia are not whatsoever.
You are making up your own strawmen.
There's not enough meaty racism left in the Britain for an insatiable disapprover of people like our Kinabula - sadly he came to it too late. Short of inventing a time machine whereby he can return to a time of the National Front and 'No blacks' signs in boarding houses, he must be content with 'tells' to convince him of how thoroughly wicked most other people are.
Just because you don't want to see it doesn't mean it isn't there. Our little nationalists are going to grow under an enabling government and certain insignia will be used to unite against the other. What's more appealing to those with specific tendencies than a union of the Anglophone, the old colonies and the populace of Empire deemed to be people like us.
Fortunately for the Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders they get a say this time and we know they are not supportive.
Ok its popular but will it happen? The Australian government seem pretty keen to keep Brits at arms length.
The main reason it won't happen is that the population of Britain would drop like Lithuania in the noughties.
So would New Zealand's to be fair, Australia's would probably double overnight.
Though it might reduce the pressure here for new housing
Although both Aus and NZ are having problems with their inflated housing markets. If you can't buy in the UK you can't buy in the antipodean.
Plenty of UK home owners would move to Australia, better weather and higher average salaries, not just those without home ownership who might actually find homes here more affordable if the population in the UK falls and there is less demand
In that case it cannot happen, a Conservative Government will never allow it!
A Conservative government wants to encourage more home ownership, it is not the price of your house that makes you more likely to be a Tory voter as much as whether you own it or not
there must be a correlation between house price and party affiliation? Although I'm sure the city vs town zeitgeist may well influence things.
Further off topic looking at the current age distribution of home ownership I was surprised to see that only 20% of 55-64s own as opposed to 34% of 65+s.
Where on Earth did those numbers come from? Most olds are owner-occupiers.
Kinbalu - look, you're clearly a likeable fella, and I don't think you're trolling - but I think you're wrong about everything today. The country as a whole doesn't see anything wrong with the English flag. Or thr British flag. (Would you consider a Frenchman flying a French flag racist? If not, why are the English uniqely guilty in this respect?) And I really don't see anything wrong about CANZUK - would you consider links between Brazil and Portugal or Spain and the rest od Latin America suspect? Again, why is this particular guilt unique to English speakers? Either you are wrong, or your definition of racism is so wide that it encompasses the majority of the English population. Which, on reflection, might be reflective of the reason why Labour is struggling in places lile Hartlepool.
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
Nice try. But an opposition party losing a seat to the governing party is still rarer than rocking-horse shit.
But if another dozen Red Wall Labour MPs would like to resign to give Labour some "free hits" - they know where the Chiltern Hundreds are....
Sure, but this is a very particular scenario and the result has potentially huge ramifications for where our domestic politics is heading.
If Labour win here, the most Brexity of seats, so soon after Brexit and with it looking to the untrained eye to be a great decision, it will mean Europe is losing its salience as an issue driving votes and that by the time of the next GE it will barely feature. Plus Corbyn has gone, remember, and will be a distant memory by then. Labour now has a leader that, dull or not, most people can envisage as PM. This hasn't happened since 2010.
It will leave just one of the 3 key factors from the "BBC" election of Dec 19 still in play. "Boris". Can he carry that load? Can this political magician do it again, even after 5 years in power and with the economy in the toilet? I yield to no-one in my recognition of his powers, the guy's a vote magnet in the places that count, but I'm not so sure he can.
So that's the big story. A Labour win. If the Cons take it, it's a shrug and business as usual.
Total bollocks. If Starmer can’t win back a northern, traditionally Labour seat like Hartlepool, after seven zillion years of Tory government, then his leadership is in trouble. Simply the case. People won’t just ‘shrug’.
Yes there are complicating factors that make it somewhat harder. But, he should still win it
FWIW I think Labour will succeed
This is the traditional analysis but it's no longer applicable in the new politics forged by the 2016 EU Referendum and its aftermath. If the Tories can't win here, a triumphant Brexit just pocketed, they are losing their grip on what won them their GE majority - their consolidation and ownership of the Leave political identity, transcending class. Which means big trouble for them, since they offer little else except the "Boris" act. If Labour win this seat in May, Starmer will not quite be measuring up the curtains for number 10, but he will be immensely heartened, trust me.
Lol. Holding one of their own seats 11 years into Opposition that even Corbyn managed not to lose would be 'immensely heartening'? How Labour's ambitions have been etiolated by defeat - I remember when they used to be a national party. Now they're barely a regional one...
I've explained why I'm viewing it the way I am. We have a new politics now. The Cons have merged with Leave and they need to retain ownership of it. If they don't it's hard to see where they go. What are the Cons without Leave? That's a rhetorical question because I know you can't answer it. Nobody can. They'll still be "Boris", yes, but that's no basis for the future. Imagine having your fortunes dependent on him. Talk about precarious. No, tough times ahead for the party, methinks, if they lose their Leave USP. Like the GOP without MAGA, they'll be faced with a long and arduous rebuilding process from the bottom up.
Actually, I'd say atm that the Cons are the only UK party of genuine optimism. SNP, maybe, but in a very dour way. Optimism and hope are good for political parties, at least until self-belief in the vision is lost.
That comes from the 2 Bs in the BBC election. "Boris" has a 'sunny side up' persona but that's all that is - a persona. And then Brexit. For Remainers, it's damage limitation. Only true beLeavers see a great future coming from it. By the next GE, both of these Bs could be losing lustre. I think they will be. There's a fine line between optimism and simple-minded delusion.
I think it is truly sad for you if you believe your last sentence without any form of qualification. Human life is only bearable with hope and optimism. They can be sustaining in truly dark times, when all others believe the optimists to be delusional. Who best survived Auschwitz - the optimists or the pessimists?
Not the greatest comparison for Boris's Britain.
My point is that I'd rather be an optimist who is wrong much of the time than a pessimist who is right all the time. And that optimism is a powerful weapon for good.
Where do scientific innovation and social progress come from - the optimists or the pessimists? Where does grit and perseverance come from - the optimists or the pessimists? In both good times and bad, it is far better to be an optimist.
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
The percentage of non-white people will almost certainly be higher in Australia, NZ, UK and Canada compared to the EU. In NZ 17% of the population are Maori for example.
Some Kiwi once told me that the numbers of people identifying as Maori jumped a couple of decades ago once the government instituted positive discrimination.
Baffling, that.
Same in Oz. Huge increase in "Aboriginal" population, because of poz discrimination
Despite the devastating events of the last 12 months and the resulting decline in mental health in a number of destinations, there's been no change at the top spot when it comes to ranking the happiest country in the world.
For the fourth year running, Finland has come out on top in the annual list powered by data from the Gallup World Poll, with Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland, and the Netherlands following in second, third, fourth and fifth position respectively.
While the United States moved up from 18th to 14th place and the United Kingdom dropped from 13th to 18th, Australia held its 12th place position.
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
Nice try. But an opposition party losing a seat to the governing party is still rarer than rocking-horse shit.
But if another dozen Red Wall Labour MPs would like to resign to give Labour some "free hits" - they know where the Chiltern Hundreds are....
Sure, but this is a very particular scenario and the result has potentially huge ramifications for where our domestic politics is heading.
If Labour win here, the most Brexity of seats, so soon after Brexit and with it looking to the untrained eye to be a great decision, it will mean Europe is losing its salience as an issue driving votes and that by the time of the next GE it will barely feature. Plus Corbyn has gone, remember, and will be a distant memory by then. Labour now has a leader that, dull or not, most people can envisage as PM. This hasn't happened since 2010.
It will leave just one of the 3 key factors from the "BBC" election of Dec 19 still in play. "Boris". Can he carry that load? Can this political magician do it again, even after 5 years in power and with the economy in the toilet? I yield to no-one in my recognition of his powers, the guy's a vote magnet in the places that count, but I'm not so sure he can.
So that's the big story. A Labour win. If the Cons take it, it's a shrug and business as usual.
Total bollocks. If Starmer can’t win back a northern, traditionally Labour seat like Hartlepool, after seven zillion years of Tory government, then his leadership is in trouble. Simply the case. People won’t just ‘shrug’.
Yes there are complicating factors that make it somewhat harder. But, he should still win it
FWIW I think Labour will succeed
This is the traditional analysis but it's no longer applicable in the new politics forged by the 2016 EU Referendum and its aftermath. If the Tories can't win here, a triumphant Brexit just pocketed, they are losing their grip on what won them their GE majority - their consolidation and ownership of the Leave political identity, transcending class. Which means big trouble for them, since they offer little else except the "Boris" act. If Labour win this seat in May, Starmer will not quite be measuring up the curtains for number 10, but he will be immensely heartened, trust me.
Lol. Holding one of their own seats 11 years into Opposition that even Corbyn managed not to lose would be 'immensely heartening'? How Labour's ambitions have been etiolated by defeat - I remember when they used to be a national party. Now they're barely a regional one...
I've explained why I'm viewing it the way I am. We have a new politics now. The Cons have merged with Leave and they need to retain ownership of it. If they don't it's hard to see where they go. What are the Cons without Leave? That's a rhetorical question because I know you can't answer it. Nobody can. They'll still be "Boris", yes, but that's no basis for the future. Imagine having your fortunes dependent on him. Talk about precarious. No, tough times ahead for the party, methinks, if they lose their Leave USP. Like the GOP without MAGA, they'll be faced with a long and arduous rebuilding process from the bottom up.
Actually, I'd say atm that the Cons are the only UK party of genuine optimism. SNP, maybe, but in a very dour way. Optimism and hope are good for political parties, at least until self-belief in the vision is lost.
That comes from the 2 Bs in the BBC election. "Boris" has a 'sunny side up' persona but that's all that is - a persona. And then Brexit. For Remainers, it's damage limitation. Only true beLeavers see a great future coming from it. By the next GE, both of these Bs could be losing lustre. I think they will be. There's a fine line between optimism and simple-minded delusion.
I think it is truly sad for you if you believe your last sentence without any form of qualification. Human life is only bearable with hope and optimism. They can be sustaining in truly dark times, when all others believe the optimists to be delusional. Who best survived Auschwitz - the optimists or the pessimists?
Not sure how you'd measure the last point. A case could be made for either, eg a cruelly disappointed optimist may fade faster than a sardonic pessimist who'd expected the worst to happen all along.
I'd imagine luck, one's physical genetic inheritance and a certain selfishness when it came to feeding oneself might have had more to do with it.
I believe Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's research largely came from pondering this question.
LOL. That is a bollocks poll! So you go to some blokes's house and see he's got the flag of St George billowing from the roof - and OVER HALF of people say they APPROVE of that?
Come off it. You get out of there pronto, wondering what's down in the cellar.
No, that's people not answering honestly for fear of coming over as snobby and judgemental.
Tricky one, though. Many people may think as you do, but then think some more and, well, do they want to diss the Queen?
I guarantee you that most people - a very clear majority - would not appreciate their neighbour sticking a great big "patriotic" flag on the roof. They'd probably not make a fuss, for fear of kicking off a feud, but the feeling would be disapproval not approval. C'mon. We all know this. So that survey is a piece of nonsense.
Finland has suspended the use of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine while it investigates two possible cases of blood clots, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare has said.
The institute said it estimated that the investigation would take at least one week, meaning jabs will not resume until at least 29 March."
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
Nice try. But an opposition party losing a seat to the governing party is still rarer than rocking-horse shit.
But if another dozen Red Wall Labour MPs would like to resign to give Labour some "free hits" - they know where the Chiltern Hundreds are....
Sure, but this is a very particular scenario and the result has potentially huge ramifications for where our domestic politics is heading.
If Labour win here, the most Brexity of seats, so soon after Brexit and with it looking to the untrained eye to be a great decision, it will mean Europe is losing its salience as an issue driving votes and that by the time of the next GE it will barely feature. Plus Corbyn has gone, remember, and will be a distant memory by then. Labour now has a leader that, dull or not, most people can envisage as PM. This hasn't happened since 2010.
It will leave just one of the 3 key factors from the "BBC" election of Dec 19 still in play. "Boris". Can he carry that load? Can this political magician do it again, even after 5 years in power and with the economy in the toilet? I yield to no-one in my recognition of his powers, the guy's a vote magnet in the places that count, but I'm not so sure he can.
So that's the big story. A Labour win. If the Cons take it, it's a shrug and business as usual.
Total bollocks. If Starmer can’t win back a northern, traditionally Labour seat like Hartlepool, after seven zillion years of Tory government, then his leadership is in trouble. Simply the case. People won’t just ‘shrug’.
Yes there are complicating factors that make it somewhat harder. But, he should still win it
FWIW I think Labour will succeed
This is the traditional analysis but it's no longer applicable in the new politics forged by the 2016 EU Referendum and its aftermath. If the Tories can't win here, a triumphant Brexit just pocketed, they are losing their grip on what won them their GE majority - their consolidation and ownership of the Leave political identity, transcending class. Which means big trouble for them, since they offer little else except the "Boris" act. If Labour win this seat in May, Starmer will not quite be measuring up the curtains for number 10, but he will be immensely heartened, trust me.
Lol. Holding one of their own seats 11 years into Opposition that even Corbyn managed not to lose would be 'immensely heartening'? How Labour's ambitions have been etiolated by defeat - I remember when they used to be a national party. Now they're barely a regional one...
I've explained why I'm viewing it the way I am. We have a new politics now. The Cons have merged with Leave and they need to retain ownership of it. If they don't it's hard to see where they go. What are the Cons without Leave? That's a rhetorical question because I know you can't answer it. Nobody can. They'll still be "Boris", yes, but that's no basis for the future. Imagine having your fortunes dependent on him. Talk about precarious. No, tough times ahead for the party, methinks, if they lose their Leave USP. Like the GOP without MAGA, they'll be faced with a long and arduous rebuilding process from the bottom up.
Actually, I'd say atm that the Cons are the only UK party of genuine optimism. SNP, maybe, but in a very dour way. Optimism and hope are good for political parties, at least until self-belief in the vision is lost.
That comes from the 2 Bs in the BBC election. "Boris" has a 'sunny side up' persona but that's all that is - a persona. And then Brexit. For Remainers, it's damage limitation. Only true beLeavers see a great future coming from it. By the next GE, both of these Bs could be losing lustre. I think they will be. There's a fine line between optimism and simple-minded delusion.
I think it is truly sad for you if you believe your last sentence without any form of qualification. Human life is only bearable with hope and optimism. They can be sustaining in truly dark times, when all others believe the optimists to be delusional. Who best survived Auschwitz - the optimists or the pessimists?
Not the greatest comparison for Boris's Britain.
My point is that I'd rather be an optimist who is wrong much of the time than a pessimist who is right all the time. And that optimism is a powerful weapon for good.
Where do scientific innovation and social progress come from - the optimists or the pessimists? Where does grit and perseverance come from - the optimists or the pessimists? In both good times and bad, it is far better to be an optimist.
I don't think optimism has had a very good showing over the last year. And Boris's brand of it is doing worse than most.
Priti Patel wanted police to stop people gathering at Sarah Everard vigil
Exclusive: some police chiefs feel ‘hung out to dry’ as memo reveals home secretary’s enforcement call
For a few hours at least last Sunday, the Metropolitan police and their embattled commissioner appeared on the brink. Assailed from all sides over their handling of the Sarah Everard vigil on Clapham Common, there seemed every chance Dame Cressida Dick would have to quit the force she has been in charge of since 2017.
Instead she survived, as the Home Office and then Downing Street eventually signalled they retained confidence in her, despite the disturbing scenes of her officers manhandling women.
But the support she received from the home secretary, Priti Patel, raised questions about what role, if any, Patel played behind the scenes before the vigil on Saturday evening. A memo leaked to the Guardian offers some clues.
On Friday as the police and the vigil’s organisers were heading to court over the legality of such an event, a message was sent to all police chiefs making Patel’s position clear. She wanted them to stop people gathering at vigils. She also promised she would personally urge people not to gather – but she never did.
Though the police are operationally independent, the home secretary had made her views clear, which made her criticisms of the way officers broke up the Clapham event particularly galling, according to some police chiefs who spoke to the Guardian.
As a result, some chiefs feel policing was “hung out to dry” when Patel criticised pictures of officers manhandling women at the vigil, rebuked the Met commissioner and ordered an inquiry.
One chief constable said the message from Patel and the government before the vigil had been clear, that a ban on gatherings had to be enforced.
Tensions are now running high between police and ministers.
Paging BigG. How does Priti survive this revelation?
Answer, because Johnsonian Ministers are not obliged to resign...ever.
I'm no fan of Priti Patel, but I really don't see what she is being criticised for here (except for being a Conservative, and especially a non-white Conservative woman obv, this being the Guardian). What on earth is the contradiction between confirming that the police should enforce the (very clear) law, and objecting to the clumsy and insensitive way in which they did so?
Half the top 20 have been supplied by the UK vaccine task force.
The list is chock full of UK crown dependencies and overseas territories, including the new leaders, Gibraltar.
Strip out all the microstates, of course, and a more familiar pattern exerts itself - except that Chile is now past both the US and the UK on this metric. What both Chile and Serbia have successfully managed to do is extract large quantities of vaccines out of China; Chile has then done an heroic job of getting them distributed, substantially quicker than the NHS. Logically you'd think that Israel will still be the first country of any size to get its whole adult population inoculated twice, but Chile looks good for second place.
Priti Patel wanted police to stop people gathering at Sarah Everard vigil
Exclusive: some police chiefs feel ‘hung out to dry’ as memo reveals home secretary’s enforcement call
For a few hours at least last Sunday, the Metropolitan police and their embattled commissioner appeared on the brink. Assailed from all sides over their handling of the Sarah Everard vigil on Clapham Common, there seemed every chance Dame Cressida Dick would have to quit the force she has been in charge of since 2017.
Instead she survived, as the Home Office and then Downing Street eventually signalled they retained confidence in her, despite the disturbing scenes of her officers manhandling women.
But the support she received from the home secretary, Priti Patel, raised questions about what role, if any, Patel played behind the scenes before the vigil on Saturday evening. A memo leaked to the Guardian offers some clues.
On Friday as the police and the vigil’s organisers were heading to court over the legality of such an event, a message was sent to all police chiefs making Patel’s position clear. She wanted them to stop people gathering at vigils. She also promised she would personally urge people not to gather – but she never did.
Though the police are operationally independent, the home secretary had made her views clear, which made her criticisms of the way officers broke up the Clapham event particularly galling, according to some police chiefs who spoke to the Guardian.
As a result, some chiefs feel policing was “hung out to dry” when Patel criticised pictures of officers manhandling women at the vigil, rebuked the Met commissioner and ordered an inquiry.
One chief constable said the message from Patel and the government before the vigil had been clear, that a ban on gatherings had to be enforced.
Tensions are now running high between police and ministers.
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
The percentage of non-white people will almost certainly be higher in Australia, NZ, UK and Canada compared to the EU. In NZ 17% of the population are Maori for example.
Some Kiwi once told me that the numbers of people identifying as Maori jumped a couple of decades ago once the government instituted positive discrimination.
Baffling, that.
Same in Oz. Huge increase in "Aboriginal" population, because of poz discrimination
Yes allowing positive discrimination is an amazingly effective way of setting groups in a society against one another. We're heading the same way, of course.
This could be horrendous news for the world. The big positive for AZN was it could be deployed to places like Africa. Now with all that is gone on, I can see those governments and people saying no, we only want the other vaccines. Result, slow / no vaccinations there, covid continues to spread widely and with that speeds up mutations....which then puts all of us at risk.
Despite the devastating events of the last 12 months and the resulting decline in mental health in a number of destinations, there's been no change at the top spot when it comes to ranking the happiest country in the world.
For the fourth year running, Finland has come out on top in the annual list powered by data from the Gallup World Poll, with Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland, and the Netherlands following in second, third, fourth and fifth position respectively.
While the United States moved up from 18th to 14th place and the United Kingdom dropped from 13th to 18th, Australia held its 12th place position.
Finland has just banned the AZ vaccine while they carry out investigations into blood clots.
Priti Patel wanted police to stop people gathering at Sarah Everard vigil
Exclusive: some police chiefs feel ‘hung out to dry’ as memo reveals home secretary’s enforcement call
For a few hours at least last Sunday, the Metropolitan police and their embattled commissioner appeared on the brink. Assailed from all sides over their handling of the Sarah Everard vigil on Clapham Common, there seemed every chance Dame Cressida Dick would have to quit the force she has been in charge of since 2017.
Instead she survived, as the Home Office and then Downing Street eventually signalled they retained confidence in her, despite the disturbing scenes of her officers manhandling women.
But the support she received from the home secretary, Priti Patel, raised questions about what role, if any, Patel played behind the scenes before the vigil on Saturday evening. A memo leaked to the Guardian offers some clues.
On Friday as the police and the vigil’s organisers were heading to court over the legality of such an event, a message was sent to all police chiefs making Patel’s position clear. She wanted them to stop people gathering at vigils. She also promised she would personally urge people not to gather – but she never did.
Though the police are operationally independent, the home secretary had made her views clear, which made her criticisms of the way officers broke up the Clapham event particularly galling, according to some police chiefs who spoke to the Guardian.
As a result, some chiefs feel policing was “hung out to dry” when Patel criticised pictures of officers manhandling women at the vigil, rebuked the Met commissioner and ordered an inquiry.
One chief constable said the message from Patel and the government before the vigil had been clear, that a ban on gatherings had to be enforced.
Tensions are now running high between police and ministers.
Paging BigG. How does Priti survive this revelation?
Answer, because Johnsonian Ministers are not obliged to resign...ever.
And because the underestimated opinion of many ordinary people is that in the Covid crisis the campaigners should never have acted in this way, placing the police in an impossible position. When people with a cause do that to the police it is rarely because they want them affirmed. Ordinary provincial opinion (about which the left has a tin ear, and Boris has a sure touch) is pro police and anti public demonstration in almost every case. Even this one. And they will have noticed that the victim's family and friends have not lent the cause their vocal support.
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
Nice try. But an opposition party losing a seat to the governing party is still rarer than rocking-horse shit.
But if another dozen Red Wall Labour MPs would like to resign to give Labour some "free hits" - they know where the Chiltern Hundreds are....
Sure, but this is a very particular scenario and the result has potentially huge ramifications for where our domestic politics is heading.
If Labour win here, the most Brexity of seats, so soon after Brexit and with it looking to the untrained eye to be a great decision, it will mean Europe is losing its salience as an issue driving votes and that by the time of the next GE it will barely feature. Plus Corbyn has gone, remember, and will be a distant memory by then. Labour now has a leader that, dull or not, most people can envisage as PM. This hasn't happened since 2010.
It will leave just one of the 3 key factors from the "BBC" election of Dec 19 still in play. "Boris". Can he carry that load? Can this political magician do it again, even after 5 years in power and with the economy in the toilet? I yield to no-one in my recognition of his powers, the guy's a vote magnet in the places that count, but I'm not so sure he can.
So that's the big story. A Labour win. If the Cons take it, it's a shrug and business as usual.
Total bollocks. If Starmer can’t win back a northern, traditionally Labour seat like Hartlepool, after seven zillion years of Tory government, then his leadership is in trouble. Simply the case. People won’t just ‘shrug’.
Yes there are complicating factors that make it somewhat harder. But, he should still win it
FWIW I think Labour will succeed
This is the traditional analysis but it's no longer applicable in the new politics forged by the 2016 EU Referendum and its aftermath. If the Tories can't win here, a triumphant Brexit just pocketed, they are losing their grip on what won them their GE majority - their consolidation and ownership of the Leave political identity, transcending class. Which means big trouble for them, since they offer little else except the "Boris" act. If Labour win this seat in May, Starmer will not quite be measuring up the curtains for number 10, but he will be immensely heartened, trust me.
Lol. Holding one of their own seats 11 years into Opposition that even Corbyn managed not to lose would be 'immensely heartening'? How Labour's ambitions have been etiolated by defeat - I remember when they used to be a national party. Now they're barely a regional one...
I've explained why I'm viewing it the way I am. We have a new politics now. The Cons have merged with Leave and they need to retain ownership of it. If they don't it's hard to see where they go. What are the Cons without Leave? That's a rhetorical question because I know you can't answer it. Nobody can. They'll still be "Boris", yes, but that's no basis for the future. Imagine having your fortunes dependent on him. Talk about precarious. No, tough times ahead for the party, methinks, if they lose their Leave USP. Like the GOP without MAGA, they'll be faced with a long and arduous rebuilding process from the bottom up.
Actually, I'd say atm that the Cons are the only UK party of genuine optimism. SNP, maybe, but in a very dour way. Optimism and hope are good for political parties, at least until self-belief in the vision is lost.
That comes from the 2 Bs in the BBC election. "Boris" has a 'sunny side up' persona but that's all that is - a persona. And then Brexit. For Remainers, it's damage limitation. Only true beLeavers see a great future coming from it. By the next GE, both of these Bs could be losing lustre. I think they will be. There's a fine line between optimism and simple-minded delusion.
I think it is truly sad for you if you believe your last sentence without any form of qualification. Human life is only bearable with hope and optimism. They can be sustaining in truly dark times, when all others believe the optimists to be delusional. Who best survived Auschwitz - the optimists or the pessimists?
Not the greatest comparison for Boris's Britain.
My point is that I'd rather be an optimist who is wrong much of the time than a pessimist who is right all the time. And that optimism is a powerful weapon for good.
Where do scientific innovation and social progress come from - the optimists or the pessimists? Where does grit and perseverance come from - the optimists or the pessimists? In both good times and bad, it is far better to be an optimist.
I don't think optimism has had a very good showing over the last year. And Boris's brand of it is doing worse than most.
I will leave you to your pessimism or cynicism or whatever else you identify with.
Priti Patel wanted police to stop people gathering at Sarah Everard vigil
Exclusive: some police chiefs feel ‘hung out to dry’ as memo reveals home secretary’s enforcement call
For a few hours at least last Sunday, the Metropolitan police and their embattled commissioner appeared on the brink. Assailed from all sides over their handling of the Sarah Everard vigil on Clapham Common, there seemed every chance Dame Cressida Dick would have to quit the force she has been in charge of since 2017.
Instead she survived, as the Home Office and then Downing Street eventually signalled they retained confidence in her, despite the disturbing scenes of her officers manhandling women.
But the support she received from the home secretary, Priti Patel, raised questions about what role, if any, Patel played behind the scenes before the vigil on Saturday evening. A memo leaked to the Guardian offers some clues.
On Friday as the police and the vigil’s organisers were heading to court over the legality of such an event, a message was sent to all police chiefs making Patel’s position clear. She wanted them to stop people gathering at vigils. She also promised she would personally urge people not to gather – but she never did.
Though the police are operationally independent, the home secretary had made her views clear, which made her criticisms of the way officers broke up the Clapham event particularly galling, according to some police chiefs who spoke to the Guardian.
As a result, some chiefs feel policing was “hung out to dry” when Patel criticised pictures of officers manhandling women at the vigil, rebuked the Met commissioner and ordered an inquiry.
One chief constable said the message from Patel and the government before the vigil had been clear, that a ban on gatherings had to be enforced.
Tensions are now running high between police and ministers.
Paging BigG. How does Priti survive this revelation?
Answer, because Johnsonian Ministers are not obliged to resign...ever.
I'm no fan of Priti Patel, but I really don't see what she is being criticised for here (except for being a Conservative, and especially a non-white Conservative woman obv, this being the Guardian). What on earth is the contradiction between confirming that the police should enforce the (very clear) law, and objecting to the clumsy and insensitive way in which they did so?
Became involved in operational matters and all promised to publicly say something which she then failed to do so.
The police v. Priti Patel is a bit Alien v. Predator but still she shouldn't have done that.
I just don't understand this 'suspend while we investigate' business. I know doctors work on the 'first, do no harm' rule, but in this case every day of suspension is condemning people to die from covid in case one or two people get a blood clot (possibly linked, almost certainly not linked). Investigate. Number crunch. Whatever. But keep vaccinating until you get some more evidence.
Beyond that, you do wonder how many bloody times the European Medicines Agency, which is supposed to be the EU's supreme regulator for medical safety, has to repeat itself on the same topic before either the national scientific bodies or the member state governments bother to listen to it. On top, of course, of the quite obvious fact that the alleged side effects under investigations are so very rare that, even if a causal link can be established, far more people who would otherwise have been protected by vaccination will die from Covid than would be saved by stopping or restricting the use of the vaccine. Which would also be pointless and counterproductive.
Half the top 20 have been supplied by the UK vaccine task force.
The list is chock full of UK crown dependencies and overseas territories, including the new leaders, Gibraltar.
Strip out all the microstates, of course, and a more familiar pattern exerts itself - except that Chile is now past both the US and the UK on this metric. What both Chile and Serbia have successfully managed to do is extract large quantities of vaccines out of China; Chile has then done an heroic job of getting them distributed, substantially quicker than the NHS. Logically you'd think that Israel will still be the first country of any size to get its whole adult population inoculated twice, but Chile looks good for second place.
One of the issues Serbia is facing is that it got the shit Chinese vaccine that only showed under 50% efficacy against infection after both doses. The Chinese are unloading these at scale to unsuspecting smaller nations locked out of direct supply deals with AZ or Pfizer the only two other companies manufacturing at any kind of scale.
It's really awful and now Serbia has gone back into lockdown becuase those Chinese vaccines weren't good enough despite the really decent vaccine programme.
This could be horrendous news for the world. The big positive for AZN was it could be deployed to places like Africa. Now with all that is gone on, I can see those governments and people saying no, we only want the other vaccines. Result, slow / no vaccinations there, covid continues to spread widely and with that speeds up mutations....which then puts all of us at risk.
As I said yesterday (I think) the EU spaz-out over AZ might turn out to be the greatest public health error in world history. It has the potential to extend Covid by months - or years. And it was an entirely unforced error.
LOL. That is a bollocks poll! So you go to some blokes's house and see he's got the flag of St George billowing from the roof - and OVER HALF of people say they APPROVE of that?
Come off it. You get out of there pronto, wondering what's down in the cellar.
No, that's people not answering honestly for fear of coming over as snobby and judgemental.
Tricky one, though. Many people may think as you do, but then think some more and, well, do they want to diss the Queen?
I guarantee you that most people - a very clear majority - would not appreciate their neighbour sticking a great big "patriotic" flag on the roof. They'd probably not make a fuss, for fear of kicking off a feud, but the feeling would be disapproval not approval. C'mon. We all know this. So that survey is a piece of nonsense.
A bit of context. During a Jubilee or a sporting event, I often fly a Union Jack or England flag, but all year round I wouldn't.
LOL. That is a bollocks poll! So you go to some blokes's house and see he's got the flag of St George billowing from the roof - and OVER HALF of people say they APPROVE of that?
Come off it. You get out of there pronto, wondering what's down in the cellar.
No, that's people not answering honestly for fear of coming over as snobby and judgemental.
Are you sure you're not Emily Thornberry stuck in 2014?
My parents used to do this during the World Cup, and while it's not something I would do, I wouldn't prejudge someone based on that alone.
During the World Cup is totally different. I wear an England shirt during the World Cup. But to fly a massive great flag of St George on your roof all the time? Of course I'd make some sort of judgement, based on that, of the sort of people who reside within. Obviously I wouldn't allow this to override my personal knowledge of them if I knew them - although that would be unlikely.
We apparently had the worst death rate in Europe by June last year but were only in the top 10 by "winter". I presume that this does not include the awful month of January because it talks of deaths up to December. I suspect quite a few countries in Europe are going to catch us up again in the next 3-4 months, unfortunately.
Foxy. I saw those reports of the SA paper on AZN efficacy. It does not appear to jibe with other initial read outs that AZN still provided protection against the SA variant.
Do we have any read out on the quality of the SA paper cited? I know it appears under the NEJM aegis, but one of the big problems I have had throughout this crisis is assessing which papers to believe when there is conflicting data.
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
The percentage of non-white people will almost certainly be higher in Australia, NZ, UK and Canada compared to the EU. In NZ 17% of the population are Maori for example.
Some Kiwi once told me that the numbers of people identifying as Maori jumped a couple of decades ago once the government instituted positive discrimination.
Baffling, that.
Same in Oz. Huge increase in "Aboriginal" population, because of poz discrimination
Yes allowing positive discrimination is an amazingly effective way of setting groups in a society against one another. We're heading the same way, of course.
No, positive discrimination, or affirmative action as it is called in US is completely illegal in UK. Personally I think it should be allowed within reason and it doesn't need to be divisive. If a company wishes to have it's workforce more accurately reflect the society it serves it should be allowed to take action on that in an open way.
I just don't understand this 'suspend while we investigate' business. I know doctors work on the 'first, do no harm' rule, but in this case every day of suspension is condemning people to die from covid in case one or two people get a blood clot (possibly linked, almost certainly not linked). Investigate. Number crunch. Whatever. But keep vaccinating until you get some more evidence.
It must be doing enormous damage to confidence in vaccines, and perhaps not just the AZ one.
Priti Patel wanted police to stop people gathering at Sarah Everard vigil
Exclusive: some police chiefs feel ‘hung out to dry’ as memo reveals home secretary’s enforcement call
For a few hours at least last Sunday, the Metropolitan police and their embattled commissioner appeared on the brink. Assailed from all sides over their handling of the Sarah Everard vigil on Clapham Common, there seemed every chance Dame Cressida Dick would have to quit the force she has been in charge of since 2017.
Instead she survived, as the Home Office and then Downing Street eventually signalled they retained confidence in her, despite the disturbing scenes of her officers manhandling women.
But the support she received from the home secretary, Priti Patel, raised questions about what role, if any, Patel played behind the scenes before the vigil on Saturday evening. A memo leaked to the Guardian offers some clues.
On Friday as the police and the vigil’s organisers were heading to court over the legality of such an event, a message was sent to all police chiefs making Patel’s position clear. She wanted them to stop people gathering at vigils. She also promised she would personally urge people not to gather – but she never did.
Though the police are operationally independent, the home secretary had made her views clear, which made her criticisms of the way officers broke up the Clapham event particularly galling, according to some police chiefs who spoke to the Guardian.
As a result, some chiefs feel policing was “hung out to dry” when Patel criticised pictures of officers manhandling women at the vigil, rebuked the Met commissioner and ordered an inquiry.
One chief constable said the message from Patel and the government before the vigil had been clear, that a ban on gatherings had to be enforced.
Tensions are now running high between police and ministers.
Paging BigG. How does Priti survive this revelation?
Answer, because Johnsonian Ministers are not obliged to resign...ever.
And because the underestimated opinion of many ordinary people is that in the Covid crisis the campaigners should never have acted in this way, placing the police in an impossible position. When people with a cause do that to the police it is rarely because they want them affirmed. Ordinary provincial opinion (about which the left has a tin ear, and Boris has a sure touch) is pro police and anti public demonstration in almost every case. Even this one. And they will have noticed that the victim's family and friends have not lent the cause their vocal support.
Which means nothing. They are probably far too close to the event to want to be involved in such controversy.
Besides the Patel issue is not about whether the demonstration should or should not have gone ahead. It is about her being a two faced f*ckwit who encouraged the police to take a particular line and then left them to take the heat - and actually joined in the criticism - when opinion seemed to be swinging against them. The issue is not so much she is an extreme authoritarian - although that makes her beyond the pale in my view - it is that she is a dishonest coward.
Doubt it. Even AZ protects against more severe illness and death with the SA variant, and, of course, any vaccine is better than none. If Cameroon has AZ they should get it in arms pronto
It's antivaxxery, and much of it comes from Europe. Tragic
Half the top 20 have been supplied by the UK vaccine task force.
The list is chock full of UK crown dependencies and overseas territories, including the new leaders, Gibraltar.
Strip out all the microstates, of course, and a more familiar pattern exerts itself - except that Chile is now past both the US and the UK on this metric. What both Chile and Serbia have successfully managed to do is extract large quantities of vaccines out of China; Chile has then done an heroic job of getting them distributed, substantially quicker than the NHS. Logically you'd think that Israel will still be the first country of any size to get its whole adult population inoculated twice, but Chile looks good for second place.
One of the issues Serbia is facing is that it got the shit Chinese vaccine that only showed under 50% efficacy against infection after both doses. The Chinese are unloading these at scale to unsuspecting smaller nations locked out of direct supply deals with AZ or Pfizer the only two other companies manufacturing at any kind of scale.
It's really awful and now Serbia has gone back into lockdown becuase those Chinese vaccines weren't good enough despite the really decent vaccine programme.
I thought SputnikV was now delivering large amounts? Not true?
LOL. That is a bollocks poll! So you go to some blokes's house and see he's got the flag of St George billowing from the roof - and OVER HALF of people say they APPROVE of that?
Come off it. You get out of there pronto, wondering what's down in the cellar.
No, that's people not answering honestly for fear of coming over as snobby and judgemental.
Whereas you are happy to be seen as such
I'm just being honest. I can't be doing with all this PC crap. You'd love it if your neighbour started draping his house in UJ flags, would you? I bet you wouldn't. I bet you'd feel the same as me. "Oh dear," you'd go, sighing, rolling your eyes.
It's the 'Canzuk' shield but the red stars of the NZ Southern Cross appear to have been slightly bleached by DG's tears.
A sneaky nod to White Power? Or less viscerally, the "chaps we can trust"?
You're a strange one.
Do you think the European Union is a nod to White Power?
Do you think CANZUK has more, less or similar level of "whiteness" to the European Union?
You're being too reductive and literal. These mindsets don't work like that. You have to ask why somebody like Grimes is flying the CANZUK shield. I'm sure you don't (do you?) so WTF is he and ilk doing it? I suggest it's for similar reasons that people in the States fly the Dixie flag. This is not to advertise a desire to refight the Civil War. It's to show support for a set of values. A set of values that encompass a high degree of nostalgia for a bygone age and the old ways. A set of values that in many cases are at the very least tinged with racism. It could be, I'm musing here but at the same time it's a little more than musing, that the CANZUK shield is becoming our version of the Confederate flag for our version of those Americans who choose to fly it. In which case, good, because it is a "tell". It's better to know than to not know.
Kinabalu, the Sinfinder General. Pricking the victims, to see if they bleed. Drooling as they strip
It's simply that I lack the peculiar mindset required to assume that anything short of KKK white sheets and hanging trees is not racist. And I note no substantive counter-argument yet offered by anybody as to why somebody like Darren Grimes would be flying this flag. He's from Durham.
Why would half the members of the Labour Party be flying the Palestinian flag when they're from Islington?
Great question and the answer supports my insight. For many (although not all) it is a general values statement rather than being specific to Palestine. It says to the world, "I am an anti-imperialist. I hate the west." Ditto with many symbols. The Dixie flag. The CANZUK shield. Which is where we came in. If you think everyone who flies that flag is simply and only campaigning for free movement in the White Commonwealth with no hinterland of nostalgia tinged with racism, I have a bridge to sell you.
Well, interesting to see you speak so frankly about the British left's 'Free Palestine' contingent. But whereas in that context the Palestinian flag symbolizes the West's antipole, the CANZUK flag represents the revival and deepening of an old Western alliance that is to this day still strongly linked by ties of history, language, culture, trade, and defence. Its use in the UK implies no disparagement of its opposite - for that, you'd have to imagine, if you would, the ridiculous spectacle of a Palestinian political party flying the British flag at its conferences - and so it's not the same thing at all.
A devastating report from Compass exposes the near-impossibility of Labour winning alone at the next election. We divide, they conquer, by Grace Barnett and Neal Lawson, shows Labour now needs at least a 10.52% swing, greater than in 1945 and 1997.
I see that report is repeating tired old canards about progressive alliances and changing the voting system.
When is Labour going to actually engage with the electorate as it is to, you know, win votes?
I will get round to finishing the header I'm working on, but Hartlepool will likely add to Labour's woes on just how and where to fight the next election. Essentially, if you say the Tories and Labour are each going to put resources into 100 seats, the Tories can put that into 80 on defence and 20 on offence. Labour has to put it into 100 on attack - and even then, they have to leapfrog some of their low-hanging fruit and go for medium-difficult targets. And unless fortunes change dramatically for the SNP, it won't be in Scotland.
Labour has to hope that the political tide goes so far in their favour that it swamps the Tory defences.
Or accept that they will not win power in less than 2 attempts.
Hartlepool coming into play is absolutely fascinating but it's unlikely to damage Labour. The balance of risk is the other way. It's Brexit Central, stuffed full of white working class patriots, each and every one of them imbued with love of country and good old-fashioned commonsense, and the timing could not be better for the government. Brexit is done and looking inspired due to the EU vaccine shambles. By contrast our own vaccine efforts are paying off in spades, motoring us out of lockdown before other countries, liberties taken about to be restored. If the Tories, the party of hard leave, can't win in Hartlepool, the capital of hard leave, at this time, in these circumstances, it will be telling us the tide is turning and opposition beckons before too long. They need to win it (and convincingly) to retain control of the narrative. By this analysis, which imo is the right one, the pressure is all on them. It's something of a free hit for Labour.
Nice try. But an opposition party losing a seat to the governing party is still rarer than rocking-horse shit.
But if another dozen Red Wall Labour MPs would like to resign to give Labour some "free hits" - they know where the Chiltern Hundreds are....
Sure, but this is a very particular scenario and the result has potentially huge ramifications for where our domestic politics is heading.
If Labour win here, the most Brexity of seats, so soon after Brexit and with it looking to the untrained eye to be a great decision, it will mean Europe is losing its salience as an issue driving votes and that by the time of the next GE it will barely feature. Plus Corbyn has gone, remember, and will be a distant memory by then. Labour now has a leader that, dull or not, most people can envisage as PM. This hasn't happened since 2010.
It will leave just one of the 3 key factors from the "BBC" election of Dec 19 still in play. "Boris". Can he carry that load? Can this political magician do it again, even after 5 years in power and with the economy in the toilet? I yield to no-one in my recognition of his powers, the guy's a vote magnet in the places that count, but I'm not so sure he can.
So that's the big story. A Labour win. If the Cons take it, it's a shrug and business as usual.
Total bollocks. If Starmer can’t win back a northern, traditionally Labour seat like Hartlepool, after seven zillion years of Tory government, then his leadership is in trouble. Simply the case. People won’t just ‘shrug’.
Yes there are complicating factors that make it somewhat harder. But, he should still win it
FWIW I think Labour will succeed
This is the traditional analysis but it's no longer applicable in the new politics forged by the 2016 EU Referendum and its aftermath. If the Tories can't win here, a triumphant Brexit just pocketed, they are losing their grip on what won them their GE majority - their consolidation and ownership of the Leave political identity, transcending class. Which means big trouble for them, since they offer little else except the "Boris" act. If Labour win this seat in May, Starmer will not quite be measuring up the curtains for number 10, but he will be immensely heartened, trust me.
Lol. Holding one of their own seats 11 years into Opposition that even Corbyn managed not to lose would be 'immensely heartening'? How Labour's ambitions have been etiolated by defeat - I remember when they used to be a national party. Now they're barely a regional one...
I've explained why I'm viewing it the way I am. We have a new politics now. The Cons have merged with Leave and they need to retain ownership of it. If they don't it's hard to see where they go. What are the Cons without Leave? That's a rhetorical question because I know you can't answer it. Nobody can. They'll still be "Boris", yes, but that's no basis for the future. Imagine having your fortunes dependent on him. Talk about precarious. No, tough times ahead for the party, methinks, if they lose their Leave USP. Like the GOP without MAGA, they'll be faced with a long and arduous rebuilding process from the bottom up.
Actually, I'd say atm that the Cons are the only UK party of genuine optimism. SNP, maybe, but in a very dour way. Optimism and hope are good for political parties, at least until self-belief in the vision is lost.
That comes from the 2 Bs in the BBC election. "Boris" has a 'sunny side up' persona but that's all that is - a persona. And then Brexit. For Remainers, it's damage limitation. Only true beLeavers see a great future coming from it. By the next GE, both of these Bs could be losing lustre. I think they will be. There's a fine line between optimism and simple-minded delusion.
I think it is truly sad for you if you believe your last sentence without any form of qualification. Human life is only bearable with hope and optimism. They can be sustaining in truly dark times, when all others believe the optimists to be delusional. Who best survived Auschwitz - the optimists or the pessimists?
Not the greatest comparison for Boris's Britain.
My point is that I'd rather be an optimist who is wrong much of the time than a pessimist who is right all the time. And that optimism is a powerful weapon for good.
Where do scientific innovation and social progress come from - the optimists or the pessimists? Where does grit and perseverance come from - the optimists or the pessimists? In both good times and bad, it is far better to be an optimist.
I don't think optimism has had a very good showing over the last year. And Boris's brand of it is doing worse than most.
I will leave you to your pessimism or cynicism or whatever else you identify with.
I'm sorry I didn't mean to be so snarky. Its just my limited experience of scientific breakthroughs are that most successful scientists are not either or. They demonstrate realist like qualities.
Suffering the thousands of micro-failures over the course of the project does not engender great optimism but a stolid diligence to get the damn thing done.
LOL. That is a bollocks poll! So you go to some blokes's house and see he's got the flag of St George billowing from the roof - and OVER HALF of people say they APPROVE of that?
Come off it. You get out of there pronto, wondering what's down in the cellar.
No, that's people not answering honestly for fear of coming over as snobby and judgemental.
Are you sure you're not Emily Thornberry stuck in 2014?
My parents used to do this during the World Cup, and while it's not something I would do, I wouldn't prejudge someone based on that alone.
During the World Cup is totally different. I wear an England shirt during the World Cup. But to fly a massive great flag of St George on your roof all the time? Of course I'd make some sort of judgement, based on that, of the sort of people who reside within. Obviously I wouldn't allow this to override my personal knowledge of them if I knew them - although that would be unlikely.
You wear an England shirt during the World Cup? That can only be because you're playing - what position? You disguise your prowess well.
For what it's worth, my wife would leave me if I ever wore an England shirt (or any football shirt). She regards such things as only tolerable for those under 14.
I just don't understand this 'suspend while we investigate' business. I know doctors work on the 'first, do no harm' rule, but in this case every day of suspension is condemning people to die from covid in case one or two people get a blood clot (possibly linked, almost certainly not linked). Investigate. Number crunch. Whatever. But keep vaccinating until you get some more evidence.
It's 100% insane. No logic at all. But this is what the first over-reaction has caused, now every govt (apart from the UK, USA, Israel, etc) is overly terrified of side-effects
Klusterficken
And then the reputation of the AZ vaccine at least is so badly damaged, what with the Macronesque smears and the regulatory hokey-cokey over its use, that the authorities have to resort to threats to try to force people to accept it. From the Graun, on the situation in Italy:
Regional leaders are mulling measures against those who snub the vaccine. “Those who don’t take it will have to go to the back of the queue,” said Luca Zaia, the president of Veneto.
Since last Saturday, Zaia said that half the number of people who were booked in for the vaccine had cancelled.
Other regions, including Emilia-Romagna, Puglia, Friuli Venezia-Giulia and Lombardy, are considering similar action. “Nobody can choose for themselves which vaccine they take,” said Raffaele Donini, the health councillor for Emilia-Romagna. “Those who reject it [AstraZeneca] will end up at the end of list.”
I just went for a cone-beam scan at a private clinic.
I was asked (new thing, they said, come in this month) whether there was any possibility I was pregnant - they told me they now have to ask - and whether I had any preferred pronouns.
I said absolutely not and I couldn't care less what people call me. I didn't want to grace the question with a response so left it blank on the consent form and ignored it.
She was clearly embarrassed to ask, and said it was a sign of the times. I said hopefully the madness will end one day, and then we both laughed.
Isn't he new thing, the Russian, the Russian, the Russian run everything?
Talking of census, I filled mine in the other day, is there really any need for it in todays world? I can't imagine anything I put on there, the government doesn't already know / can't easily find out.
I just don't understand this 'suspend while we investigate' business. I know doctors work on the 'first, do no harm' rule, but in this case every day of suspension is condemning people to die from covid in case one or two people get a blood clot (possibly linked, almost certainly not linked). Investigate. Number crunch. Whatever. But keep vaccinating until you get some more evidence.
It's 100% insane. No logic at all. But this is what the first over-reaction has caused, now every govt (apart from the UK, USA, Israel, etc) is overly terrified of side-effects
Klusterficken
And then the reputation of the AZ vaccine at least is so badly damaged, what with the Macronesque smears and the regulatory hokey-cokey over its use, that the authorities have to resort to threats to try to force people to accept it. From the Graun, on the situation in Italy:
Regional leaders are mulling measures against those who snub the vaccine. “Those who don’t take it will have to go to the back of the queue,” said Luca Zaia, the president of Veneto.
Since last Saturday, Zaia said that half the number of people who were booked in for the vaccine had cancelled.
Other regions, including Emilia-Romagna, Puglia, Friuli Venezia-Giulia and Lombardy, are considering similar action. “Nobody can choose for themselves which vaccine they take,” said Raffaele Donini, the health councillor for Emilia-Romagna. “Those who reject it [AstraZeneca] will end up at the end of list.”
Comments
Here it is from the organisation:
https://twitter.com/CANZUK/status/1323973847142617090
So I just had a..... really interesting Zoom call with, amongst other people, a billionaire in Switzerland who is paying scientists to do research into the afterlife. Fascinating.
Zoom is brilliant. Bringing people together. I love Zoom, me
https://twitter.com/ReutersUK/status/1372927146360995844?s=20
He said he was curious but not scared
He is absolutely convinced something awaits us after death.
If so that is bad news for the SNP.
The Nats' support might be unwavering but if their enemies organise, bye bye majority
https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak/status/1372928364512706561?s=20
Texas museum removes wax Trump figure after visitors kept punching it
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/543971-texas-museum-removes-wax-trump-figure-after-visitors-kept-punching-it
When policymakers are averse to the wrong risks.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/opinion/coronavirus-vaccine-europe.html?smid=tw-share
Now who was it that said that a single day's figure didn't necessarily amount to a sustained trend?
We have nine days until first dose supply runs out; let's make the most of them.
Like it! Straight on the promo material. Might even change the company name
(He's also invited me to stay in one of his enormous mansions in Ibiza, so he is quite a useful client)
Baffling, that.
Using your logic anyone flying the White EU flag is a racist. Oh well.
I'd imagine luck, one's physical genetic inheritance and a certain selfishness when it came to feeding oneself might have had more to do with it.
Answer, because Johnsonian Ministers are not obliged to resign...ever.
Klusterficken
Just actually looked at what I was quoting......
its the distribution by age.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/321065/uk-england-home-owners-age-groups/
Where do scientific innovation and social progress come from - the optimists or the pessimists? Where does grit and perseverance come from - the optimists or the pessimists? In both good times and bad, it is far better to be an optimist.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/15/covid-19-patients-recover-icu-mental-health-counselling
Despite the devastating events of the last 12 months and the resulting decline in mental health in a number of destinations, there's been no change at the top spot when it comes to ranking the happiest country in the world.
For the fourth year running, Finland has come out on top in the annual list powered by data from the Gallup World Poll, with Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland, and the Netherlands following in second, third, fourth and fifth position respectively.
While the United States moved up from 18th to 14th place and the United Kingdom dropped from 13th to 18th, Australia held its 12th place position.
Finland has suspended the use of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine while it investigates two possible cases of blood clots, the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare has said.
The institute said it estimated that the investigation would take at least one week, meaning jabs will not resume until at least 29 March."
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-news-live-uk-study-suggests-how-lockdown-should-be-eased-as-vaccine-makers-warn-of-price-hikes-12250277
Strip out all the microstates, of course, and a more familiar pattern exerts itself - except that Chile is now past both the US and the UK on this metric. What both Chile and Serbia have successfully managed to do is extract large quantities of vaccines out of China; Chile has then done an heroic job of getting them distributed, substantially quicker than the NHS. Logically you'd think that Israel will still be the first country of any size to get its whole adult population inoculated twice, but Chile looks good for second place.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2102214?query=featured_home
The police v. Priti Patel is a bit Alien v. Predator but still she shouldn't have done that.
The Finnish decision is moronic.
It's really awful and now Serbia has gone back into lockdown becuase those Chinese vaccines weren't good enough despite the really decent vaccine programme.
An absolute inspiration to amateur cricketers everywhere.
We apparently had the worst death rate in Europe by June last year but were only in the top 10 by "winter". I presume that this does not include the awful month of January because it talks of deaths up to December. I suspect quite a few countries in Europe are going to catch us up again in the next 3-4 months, unfortunately.
Do we have any read out on the quality of the SA paper cited? I know it appears under the NEJM aegis, but one of the big problems I have had throughout this crisis is assessing which papers to believe when there is conflicting data.
Besides the Patel issue is not about whether the demonstration should or should not have gone ahead. It is about her being a two faced f*ckwit who encouraged the police to take a particular line and then left them to take the heat - and actually joined in the criticism - when opinion seemed to be swinging against them. The issue is not so much she is an extreme authoritarian - although that makes her beyond the pale in my view - it is that she is a dishonest coward.
I don't know which variety is most common in the Cameroon.
It's antivaxxery, and much of it comes from Europe. Tragic
He is still crazy.
Now he is "boycotting the census"
Strasbourg Syndrome, terminal stage V.
https://twitter.com/snb19692/status/1372118589059252227?s=20
1.4 thousand retweets. The Syndrome attacks many
Suffering the thousands of micro-failures over the course of the project does not engender great optimism but a stolid diligence to get the damn thing done.
For what it's worth, my wife would leave me if I ever wore an England shirt (or any football shirt). She regards such things as only tolerable for those under 14.
Regional leaders are mulling measures against those who snub the vaccine. “Those who don’t take it will have to go to the back of the queue,” said Luca Zaia, the president of Veneto.
Since last Saturday, Zaia said that half the number of people who were booked in for the vaccine had cancelled.
Other regions, including Emilia-Romagna, Puglia, Friuli Venezia-Giulia and Lombardy, are considering similar action. “Nobody can choose for themselves which vaccine they take,” said Raffaele Donini, the health councillor for Emilia-Romagna. “Those who reject it [AstraZeneca] will end up at the end of list.”
I was asked (new thing, they said, come in this month) whether there was any possibility I was pregnant - they told me they now have to ask - and whether I had any preferred pronouns.
I said absolutely not and I couldn't care less what people call me. I didn't want to grace the question with a response so left it blank on the consent form and ignored it.
She was clearly embarrassed to ask, and said it was a sign of the times. I said hopefully the madness will end one day, and then we both laughed.
Talking of census, I filled mine in the other day, is there really any need for it in todays world? I can't imagine anything I put on there, the government doesn't already know / can't easily find out.