Observer says that 'Wales sets up its own Erasmus programme. The Exchange scheme will ‘fill the gaps’ left by Boris Johnson’s Turing programme, which ‘lacks key benefits’
Pulling out of Erasmus appears to be pure pique, coupled with a failure to negotiate sensibly.
The UK has branded its scheme the Turing scheme. The EU has branded its scheme ERASMUS. The Scottish scheme -- when it comes -- will surely be branded the Hume or the Maxwell.
And the Great Drakeford's catchy name for the Welsh scheme is .... the International Learning Exchange Programme
I think that this can be exaggerated. They will be 3-4 months behind us, 6 maximum. That means low hundreds of thousand extra deaths across the EU and probably another quarter in recession, maybe a little more. In the longer term that will not be that significant and I don't see any great pressure on the Euro atm, unlike in 2008.
And thats if the summer weather doesnt bring relief as it did last year. Its a weird and unpredictable disease but Im still expecting a big dip in Europe over the summer in line with other historic coronaviruses.
I think that this can be exaggerated. They will be 3-4 months behind us, 6 maximum. That means low hundreds of thousand extra deaths across the EU and probably another quarter in recession, maybe a little more. In the longer term that will not be that significant and I don't see any great pressure on the Euro atm, unlike in 2008.
I think the ECB is running out of monetary firepower, that's the issue that no one wants to address. The Fed and the BoE still have some chambers loaded and some ammunition left, the ECB has already fired all of its shots, it's already got negative overnight rates, it's already got 60% of EMU GDP on its balance sheet, it's already got direct bank bond buying schemes, it's already used traditional and non-traditional monetary measures and the EMU economy still looks shite.
It will be interesting to see how the 1.8 trillion covid recovery fund goes
No - if the Government wants this data , it can provide the form as has been the case in the past. Apparently in Wales households have been sent them. The onus should not be on the individual to be proactive in carrying out this survey.
What a contrarian. Just request the paper form if it bothers you that much.
You've misunderstood. It's the paper form he's waiting for!
Given he is complaining about being proactive are you sure he's requested it?
Fair point - but i was assuming he wasn't being totally dense.
You misunderstand. I am waiting for the form to land on my doormat - as in the past. Why should I go to the trouble of going online or calling their Freephone line? If they want the data, they can send me the form and I will complete it. Beyond that, I am not really bothered whether it arrives or not.
There's a pandemic going on. Having thousands of volunteers going around knocking in doors with paper forms isn't happening this time.
Ok - then post it to me as apparently happened in Wales!
I am fully aware of the link thanks. In Wales, forms have been sent without having been requested.
And in England they haven't been, so you have to request it.
I think all you need is your address. Are you really that stubborn that you won't even enter your address to request a form? There's a phone number also, or is that too modern for you also?
I am going to sit tight and wait. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for a form to arrive - if it ever does.
£10000 fine incoming
But I am not refusing to complete the form. I doubt that a fine can be imposed for failing to use my PC and/or telephone - indeed a fair number of people have neither readily available.
No - if the Government wants this data , it can provide the form as has been the case in the past. Apparently in Wales households have been sent them. The onus should not be on the individual to be proactive in carrying out this survey.
It takes literally 10 minutes online and you don’t need to faff around with pens and posting. You are a very odd individual. Extremely old fashioned.
If they do it, we should never forget. I, for one, would overnight cease having any interest in protecting their frontier from Russia with British boots on the ground, for example.
That would mean withdrawing from NATO.
Or, splitting NATO. I doubt the Americans will look kindly on the EU seizing vaccines made by an American company.
NATO would split into its Anglophone and European elements. Turkey would finally say goodbye. The end of the Western Alliance
This is inevitable anyway. European and American strategic interests are too divergent now.
Quite possibly true.
In a few years we may realise that the UK-in-the-EU was the keystone holding the entire edifice together. The crucial link in a chain, with opposing forces at either end
The chain perhaps snapped, as we left. Now Europe moves closer to Russia, under German leadership. The Anglosphere builds its own barricades
The whole process accelerated greatly by Covid
The UK will join the new US - China cold war in the Pacific from a distance like one of those cockneys who support Man Utd.
We will join it, but it won't be at an easy distance. It will hurt us, the way it is already hurting Australia
The UK has a big deficit with China while Australia has a surplus, and China trade is a smaller part of our GDP anyway. So I'm not sure that's right.
Yes maybe. But China is now so powerful they could make our lives less comfortable in ways other than trade.
Hopefully, if the West - or at least the English speaking West - unites into a common position, China will realise it is dealing with an enemy easily of equal size (esp if we can get India on board as well) and see the sense of compromise rather than confrontation
This is another area where the CANZUK concept actually makes sense
The Wokeness could tear CANZUK apart at birth. The statues of Victoria, the common institutions, the monarchy etc. All "racist" and "imperial oppression".. you know the drill.
It's why Russia and China fund it. And it gets results.
Yup, there's a meme I remember with the US and USSR playing chess with the US winning on the board and the Soviet Union winning in the US's mind. The communists won the culture war, they infected western people with self doubt over our history when there shouldn't be any.
Yup. If I were Mi5 and GCHQ I'd have a file on all these activities and would be tracing the troll farms through into their far-Left fronts, like SWP and the Marxist wing of BLM.
The Government need to introduce denouncement of this into their public policy, and start pushing back against the EDI extremists in the public sector and naive corporations who lap it up in the belief it'll protect their profits.
I think that this can be exaggerated. They will be 3-4 months behind us, 6 maximum. That means low hundreds of thousand extra deaths across the EU and probably another quarter in recession, maybe a little more. In the longer term that will not be that significant and I don't see any great pressure on the Euro atm, unlike in 2008.
I think the ECB is running out of monetary firepower, that's the issue that no one wants to address. The Fed and the BoE still have some chambers loaded and some ammunition left, the ECB has already fired all of its shots, it's already got negative overnight rates, it's already got 60% of EMU GDP on its balance sheet, it's already got direct bank bond buying schemes, it's already used traditional and non-traditional monetary measures and the EMU economy still looks shite.
The problem, as I said down thread, is that at the moment there is a lack of coordination between monetary and fiscal policy in the EZ. What needs to do the heavy lifting now is large scale fiscal deficits in EZ countries (just like ourselves and the US) backed with the ECB being a buyer of last resort for those bonds (like the BoE). The Germans won't like this but options are becoming limited and I suspect they will cave eventually.
I think that this can be exaggerated. They will be 3-4 months behind us, 6 maximum. That means low hundreds of thousand extra deaths across the EU and probably another quarter in recession, maybe a little more. In the longer term that will not be that significant and I don't see any great pressure on the Euro atm, unlike in 2008.
I think the ECB is running out of monetary firepower, that's the issue that no one wants to address. The Fed and the BoE still have some chambers loaded and some ammunition left, the ECB has already fired all of its shots, it's already got negative overnight rates, it's already got 60% of EMU GDP on its balance sheet, it's already got direct bank bond buying schemes, it's already used traditional and non-traditional monetary measures and the EMU economy still looks shite.
It will be interesting to see how the 1.8 trillion covid recovery fund goes
No - if the Government wants this data , it can provide the form as has been the case in the past. Apparently in Wales households have been sent them. The onus should not be on the individual to be proactive in carrying out this survey.
What a contrarian. Just request the paper form if it bothers you that much.
You've misunderstood. It's the paper form he's waiting for!
Given he is complaining about being proactive are you sure he's requested it?
Fair point - but i was assuming he wasn't being totally dense.
You misunderstand. I am waiting for the form to land on my doormat - as in the past. Why should I go to the trouble of going online or calling their Freephone line? If they want the data, they can send me the form and I will complete it. Beyond that, I am not really bothered whether it arrives or not.
There's a pandemic going on. Having thousands of volunteers going around knocking in doors with paper forms isn't happening this time.
Ok - then post it to me as apparently happened in Wales!
I am fully aware of the link thanks. In Wales, forms have been sent without having been requested.
And in England they haven't been, so you have to request it.
I think all you need is your address. Are you really that stubborn that you won't even enter your address to request a form? There's a phone number also, or is that too modern for you also?
I am going to sit tight and wait. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for a form to arrive - if it ever does.
£10000 fine incoming
But I am not refusing to complete the form. I doubt that a fine can be imposed for failing to use my PC and/or telephone - indeed a fair number of people have neither readily available.
Yet you do have them available.
You are being pig headed. It’s really way easier to do it online rather than bother with pens and paper.
I think that this can be exaggerated. They will be 3-4 months behind us, 6 maximum. That means low hundreds of thousand extra deaths across the EU and probably another quarter in recession, maybe a little more. In the longer term that will not be that significant and I don't see any great pressure on the Euro atm, unlike in 2008.
I think the ECB is running out of monetary firepower, that's the issue that no one wants to address. The Fed and the BoE still have some chambers loaded and some ammunition left, the ECB has already fired all of its shots, it's already got negative overnight rates, it's already got 60% of EMU GDP on its balance sheet, it's already got direct bank bond buying schemes, it's already used traditional and non-traditional monetary measures and the EMU economy still looks shite.
It will be interesting to see how the 1.8 trillion covid recovery fund goes
Quote The EU’s long-term budget, coupled with NextGenerationEU, the temporary instrument designed to boost the recovery, will be the largest stimulus package ever financed through the EU budget. A total of €1.8 trillion will help rebuild a post-COVID-19 Europe. It will be a greener, more digital and more resilient Europe.
If they do it, we should never forget. I, for one, would overnight cease having any interest in protecting their frontier from Russia with British boots on the ground, for example.
That would mean withdrawing from NATO.
Or, splitting NATO. I doubt the Americans will look kindly on the EU seizing vaccines made by an American company.
NATO would split into its Anglophone and European elements. Turkey would finally say goodbye. The end of the Western Alliance
This is inevitable anyway. European and American strategic interests are too divergent now.
Quite possibly true.
In a few years we may realise that the UK-in-the-EU was the keystone holding the entire edifice together. The crucial link in a chain, with opposing forces at either end
The chain perhaps snapped, as we left. Now Europe moves closer to Russia, under German leadership. The Anglosphere builds its own barricades
The whole process accelerated greatly by Covid
The UK will join the new US - China cold war in the Pacific from a distance like one of those cockneys who support Man Utd.
We will join it, but it won't be at an easy distance. It will hurt us, the way it is already hurting Australia
The UK has a big deficit with China while Australia has a surplus, and China trade is a smaller part of our GDP anyway. So I'm not sure that's right.
Yes maybe. But China is now so powerful they could make our lives less comfortable in ways other than trade.
Hopefully, if the West - or at least the English speaking West - unites into a common position, China will realise it is dealing with an enemy easily of equal size (esp if we can get India on board as well) and see the sense of compromise rather than confrontation
This is another area where the CANZUK concept actually makes sense
The Wokeness could tear CANZUK apart at birth. The statues of Victoria, the common institutions, the monarchy etc. All "racist" and "imperial oppression".. you know the drill.
It's why Russia and China fund it. And it gets results.
Yup, there's a meme I remember with the US and USSR playing chess with the US winning on the board and the Soviet Union winning in the US's mind. The communists won the culture war, they infected western people with self doubt over our history when there shouldn't be any.
Yup. If I were Mi5 and GCHQ I'd have a file on all these activities and would be tracing the troll farms through into their far-Left fronts, like SWP and the Marxist wing of BLM.
The Government need to introduce denouncement of this into their public policy, and start pushing back against the EDI extremists in the public sector and naive corporations who lap it up in the belief it'll protect their profits.
Hang on, are you the same Casino Royale who used to chastise anyone for saying Putin would be delighted with Brexit?
On our walk this morning we passed a house which had a big "two votes for SNP" banner on it. It made me reflect that this message hints at some lack of confidence. A confident SNP expected to scoop up so many constituency seats that it was much smarter and more effective to vote for the Greens on the list to maximise the independence majority in Parliament. That is why we are where we are. This campaign for 2 votes for SNP suggests that they are worried the constituencies will not be quite the same procession as the last time.
Except don't they always do that?
The SNP has nothing to worry about. Its polling numbers may have declined from the stratospheric to the merely hugely popular, but that'll cost if few if any constituency seats. Any softening on the list vote will only be to the benefit of the sock puppets, so the end result of a slight reduction in SNP support could well be a slight increase in the size of the overall nationalist majority.
Any scandals that may or may not have taken place prior to the election will then be sterilised by the renewed support of the people, and they can go ahead and bang on about independence for another four years.
On our walk this morning we passed a house which had a big "two votes for SNP" banner on it. It made me reflect that this message hints at some lack of confidence. A confident SNP expected to scoop up so many constituency seats that it was much smarter and more effective to vote for the Greens on the list to maximise the independence majority in Parliament. That is why we are where we are. This campaign for 2 votes for SNP suggests that they are worried the constituencies will not be quite the same procession as the last time.
The "both votes SNP" thing was a thing last time as well, at least certainly in the indy blogosphere.
But I think this time a lot more pro-indy people will think twice before giving the SNP both votes.
I think that this can be exaggerated. They will be 3-4 months behind us, 6 maximum. That means low hundreds of thousand extra deaths across the EU and probably another quarter in recession, maybe a little more. In the longer term that will not be that significant and I don't see any great pressure on the Euro atm, unlike in 2008.
I think the ECB is running out of monetary firepower, that's the issue that no one wants to address. The Fed and the BoE still have some chambers loaded and some ammunition left, the ECB has already fired all of its shots, it's already got negative overnight rates, it's already got 60% of EMU GDP on its balance sheet, it's already got direct bank bond buying schemes, it's already used traditional and non-traditional monetary measures and the EMU economy still looks shite.
It will be interesting to see how the 1.8 trillion covid recovery fund goes
Quote The EU’s long-term budget, coupled with NextGenerationEU, the temporary instrument designed to boost the recovery, will be the largest stimulus package ever financed through the EU budget. A total of €1.8 trillion will help rebuild a post-COVID-19 Europe. It will be a greener, more digital and more resilient Europe.
No - if the Government wants this data , it can provide the form as has been the case in the past. Apparently in Wales households have been sent them. The onus should not be on the individual to be proactive in carrying out this survey.
What a contrarian. Just request the paper form if it bothers you that much.
You've misunderstood. It's the paper form he's waiting for!
Given he is complaining about being proactive are you sure he's requested it?
Fair point - but i was assuming he wasn't being totally dense.
You misunderstand. I am waiting for the form to land on my doormat - as in the past. Why should I go to the trouble of going online or calling their Freephone line? If they want the data, they can send me the form and I will complete it. Beyond that, I am not really bothered whether it arrives or not.
There's a pandemic going on. Having thousands of volunteers going around knocking in doors with paper forms isn't happening this time.
Ok - then post it to me as apparently happened in Wales!
I am fully aware of the link thanks. In Wales, forms have been sent without having been requested.
And in England they haven't been, so you have to request it.
I think all you need is your address. Are you really that stubborn that you won't even enter your address to request a form? There's a phone number also, or is that too modern for you also?
I am going to sit tight and wait. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for a form to arrive - if it ever does.
£10000 fine incoming
But I am not refusing to complete the form. I doubt that a fine can be imposed for failing to use my PC and/or telephone - indeed a fair number of people have neither readily available.
People without access to a computer or phone must be an extremely small number. I'm sure walk in centers such as the citizen advice bureau or council office, or even the post office, would be able to help. For almost all other people, they'd just request the form if they didn't want to do it online. But no, you think by refusing to even request a form you are sending the government a message. They'll just think you forgot.
On our walk this morning we passed a house which had a big "two votes for SNP" banner on it. It made me reflect that this message hints at some lack of confidence. A confident SNP expected to scoop up so many constituency seats that it was much smarter and more effective to vote for the Greens on the list to maximise the independence majority in Parliament. That is why we are where we are. This campaign for 2 votes for SNP suggests that they are worried the constituencies will not be quite the same procession as the last time.
The "both votes SNP" thing was a thing last time as well, at least certainly in the indy blogosphere.
But I think this time a lot more pro-indy people will think twice before giving the SNP both votes.
Indeed. The need for showers afterwards could cause a serious water shortage.
Calling all Leavers and non-Remoaner Remainers - if you want a book recommendation I can thoroughly recommend Robert Tombs: This Sovereign Isle - Britain in and out of Europe.
It's a bestseller, has rave reviews and is only 162 pages so you can get through it in a couple of evenings.
It's bang up to date too (even has Covid-19 covered in it) and has some fascinating insight and analysis. Very very good, even if you don't agree with all of it.
Go buy.
Thanks Casino, I might give that a try. Contrarian views are not to be valued for their own sake but when intelligently and authoritatively argued they are priceless.
He's not the only distinguished academic historian on the Brexit side though. I believe Peter Frankopan of Silk Roads fame is something of an EU-sceptc too. He is certainly critical of its failure to produce audited account. (I agree.) He is also sceptical of the claim that it has helped keep the peace in Europe for sixty years. (Not so sure about that one but it's certainly a view.)
Anyway I look forward to a good read and if I don't like it I promise not to ask you for my money back.
No - if the Government wants this data , it can provide the form as has been the case in the past. Apparently in Wales households have been sent them. The onus should not be on the individual to be proactive in carrying out this survey.
What a contrarian. Just request the paper form if it bothers you that much.
You've misunderstood. It's the paper form he's waiting for!
Given he is complaining about being proactive are you sure he's requested it?
Fair point - but i was assuming he wasn't being totally dense.
You misunderstand. I am waiting for the form to land on my doormat - as in the past. Why should I go to the trouble of going online or calling their Freephone line? If they want the data, they can send me the form and I will complete it. Beyond that, I am not really bothered whether it arrives or not.
So you basically haven't asked for the form? Is there any other activity that has now gone fully online (except where as small number of people are asked to pro-actively request alternatives) because the authorities don't think living permanently in the last century is a good use of time or resources, which you "refuse to do" out of damn stubborness?
So you think that rather than pursue the enormous cost savings from making this a primarily online survey (a paper form has a cost of being mailed out, a cost of being returned, and then a further cost of entering the information completed onto a central database - all with the additional complication of people not making their answers clear in line with the given instructions), the government should be carrying on as they have always done it?
I do indeed. I decide whether and/or when to use my PC. Ditto my telephone. I object to the authorities presuming that people wish to use their own resources in the way they so direct.
"Use their own resources" - you mean, like your fingers and a pen, which you would use to do the paper form, or your fingers and some laptop keys, with which you do the form online? Also your legs, for taking the paper form to the post, or for, er, sitting down at a desk. And your arse. You use your arse there too.
How DARE the government ask you to use your arse for sitting down
The government will also need to provide him with a desk, and a centrally heated house in which to put it. It’s not reasonable to expect him to use his own desk, in his own house, with his own heating.
If they do it, we should never forget. I, for one, would overnight cease having any interest in protecting their frontier from Russia with British boots on the ground, for example.
That would mean withdrawing from NATO.
Or, splitting NATO. I doubt the Americans will look kindly on the EU seizing vaccines made by an American company.
NATO would split into its Anglophone and European elements. Turkey would finally say goodbye. The end of the Western Alliance
This is inevitable anyway. European and American strategic interests are too divergent now.
Quite possibly true.
In a few years we may realise that the UK-in-the-EU was the keystone holding the entire edifice together. The crucial link in a chain, with opposing forces at either end
The chain perhaps snapped, as we left. Now Europe moves closer to Russia, under German leadership. The Anglosphere builds its own barricades
The whole process accelerated greatly by Covid
The UK will join the new US - China cold war in the Pacific from a distance like one of those cockneys who support Man Utd.
We will join it, but it won't be at an easy distance. It will hurt us, the way it is already hurting Australia
The UK has a big deficit with China while Australia has a surplus, and China trade is a smaller part of our GDP anyway. So I'm not sure that's right. If they could do anything against us they would have over the HK citizens. They threatened it, but have done nothing.
One thing that will be interesting to watch with China is that many Western firms, especially in areas such as technology and media, have given up on China as a potential major market. Now, it could be argued that China doesn't need them anymore but I don't think that's the case. I suspect the next few years, combined with the effects of the US blocking Chinese students from coming to its universities, is going to be a detrimental effect.
With the Sturgeon fiasco and the EU with its individual leaders committing 'hari kari', Boris looks the sane one
Looks like those who sold out their flakey principles to support BJ when he was clearly a lying, incompetent self server (characteristics that he's temporarily managed to conceal on a wave of vaccine populism) have at least got something out of it.
If they do it, we should never forget. I, for one, would overnight cease having any interest in protecting their frontier from Russia with British boots on the ground, for example.
That would mean withdrawing from NATO.
Or, splitting NATO. I doubt the Americans will look kindly on the EU seizing vaccines made by an American company.
NATO would split into its Anglophone and European elements. Turkey would finally say goodbye. The end of the Western Alliance
This is inevitable anyway. European and American strategic interests are too divergent now.
Quite possibly true.
In a few years we may realise that the UK-in-the-EU was the keystone holding the entire edifice together. The crucial link in a chain, with opposing forces at either end
The chain perhaps snapped, as we left. Now Europe moves closer to Russia, under German leadership. The Anglosphere builds its own barricades
The whole process accelerated greatly by Covid
The UK will join the new US - China cold war in the Pacific from a distance like one of those cockneys who support Man Utd.
We will join it, but it won't be at an easy distance. It will hurt us, the way it is already hurting Australia
The UK has a big deficit with China while Australia has a surplus, and China trade is a smaller part of our GDP anyway. So I'm not sure that's right.
Yes maybe. But China is now so powerful they could make our lives less comfortable in ways other than trade.
Hopefully, if the West - or at least the English speaking West - unites into a common position, China will realise it is dealing with an enemy easily of equal size (esp if we can get India on board as well) and see the sense of compromise rather than confrontation
This is another area where the CANZUK concept actually makes sense
The Wokeness could tear CANZUK apart at birth. The statues of Victoria, the common institutions, the monarchy etc. All "racist" and "imperial oppression".. you know the drill.
It's why Russia and China fund it. And it gets results.
Yup, there's a meme I remember with the US and USSR playing chess with the US winning on the board and the Soviet Union winning in the US's mind. The communists won the culture war, they infected western people with self doubt over our history when there shouldn't be any.
You could argue that's only half the story The West, particularly the US, won the culture war in Eastern Europe despite the overwhelming military and political power of the USSR.
No - if the Government wants this data , it can provide the form as has been the case in the past. Apparently in Wales households have been sent them. The onus should not be on the individual to be proactive in carrying out this survey.
What a contrarian. Just request the paper form if it bothers you that much.
You've misunderstood. It's the paper form he's waiting for!
Given he is complaining about being proactive are you sure he's requested it?
Fair point - but i was assuming he wasn't being totally dense.
You misunderstand. I am waiting for the form to land on my doormat - as in the past. Why should I go to the trouble of going online or calling their Freephone line? If they want the data, they can send me the form and I will complete it. Beyond that, I am not really bothered whether it arrives or not.
There's a pandemic going on. Having thousands of volunteers going around knocking in doors with paper forms isn't happening this time.
Ok - then post it to me as apparently happened in Wales!
I am fully aware of the link thanks. In Wales, forms have been sent without having been requested.
And in England they haven't been, so you have to request it.
I think all you need is your address. Are you really that stubborn that you won't even enter your address to request a form? There's a phone number also, or is that too modern for you also?
I am going to sit tight and wait. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for a form to arrive - if it ever does.
£10000 fine incoming
But I am not refusing to complete the form. I doubt that a fine can be imposed for failing to use my PC and/or telephone - indeed a fair number of people have neither readily available.
People without access to a computer or phone must be an extremely small number. I'm sure walk in centers such as the citizen advice bureau or council office, or even the post office, would be able to help. For almost all other people, they'd just request the form if they didn't want to do it online. But no, you think by refusing to even request a form you are sending the government a message. They'll just think you forgot.
I think that this can be exaggerated. They will be 3-4 months behind us, 6 maximum. That means low hundreds of thousand extra deaths across the EU and probably another quarter in recession, maybe a little more. In the longer term that will not be that significant and I don't see any great pressure on the Euro atm, unlike in 2008.
I think the ECB is running out of monetary firepower, that's the issue that no one wants to address. The Fed and the BoE still have some chambers loaded and some ammunition left, the ECB has already fired all of its shots, it's already got negative overnight rates, it's already got 60% of EMU GDP on its balance sheet, it's already got direct bank bond buying schemes, it's already used traditional and non-traditional monetary measures and the EMU economy still looks shite.
It will be interesting to see how the 1.8 trillion covid recovery fund goes
Quote The EU’s long-term budget, coupled with NextGenerationEU, the temporary instrument designed to boost the recovery, will be the largest stimulus package ever financed through the EU budget. A total of €1.8 trillion will help rebuild a post-COVID-19 Europe. It will be a greener, more digital and more resilient Europe.
I think that this can be exaggerated. They will be 3-4 months behind us, 6 maximum. That means low hundreds of thousand extra deaths across the EU and probably another quarter in recession, maybe a little more. In the longer term that will not be that significant and I don't see any great pressure on the Euro atm, unlike in 2008.
I think the ECB is running out of monetary firepower, that's the issue that no one wants to address. The Fed and the BoE still have some chambers loaded and some ammunition left, the ECB has already fired all of its shots, it's already got negative overnight rates, it's already got 60% of EMU GDP on its balance sheet, it's already got direct bank bond buying schemes, it's already used traditional and non-traditional monetary measures and the EMU economy still looks shite.
It will be interesting to see how the 1.8 trillion covid recovery fund goes
Quote The EU’s long-term budget, coupled with NextGenerationEU, the temporary instrument designed to boost the recovery, will be the largest stimulus package ever financed through the EU budget. A total of €1.8 trillion will help rebuild a post-COVID-19 Europe. It will be a greener, more digital and more resilient Europe.
Not all of that is new money though.
Maybe not but I can only quote what they say. It is still going to be a big wodge of money whichever way you slice it and its still going to have to be financed somehow. The cracks from 2008 still exist they merely papered them over and this is going to put even more strain there.
I think that this can be exaggerated. They will be 3-4 months behind us, 6 maximum. That means low hundreds of thousand extra deaths across the EU and probably another quarter in recession, maybe a little more. In the longer term that will not be that significant and I don't see any great pressure on the Euro atm, unlike in 2008.
I think the ECB is running out of monetary firepower, that's the issue that no one wants to address. The Fed and the BoE still have some chambers loaded and some ammunition left, the ECB has already fired all of its shots, it's already got negative overnight rates, it's already got 60% of EMU GDP on its balance sheet, it's already got direct bank bond buying schemes, it's already used traditional and non-traditional monetary measures and the EMU economy still looks shite.
The problem, as I said down thread, is that at the moment there is a lack of coordination between monetary and fiscal policy in the EZ. What needs to do the heavy lifting now is large scale fiscal deficits in EZ countries (just like ourselves and the US) backed with the ECB being a buyer of last resort for those bonds (like the BoE). The Germans won't like this but options are becoming limited and I suspect they will cave eventually.
But the question is, how far can the member states go before coming up against very difficult political barriers? In particular, how long and to what extent will Germany be able to keep authorising this kind of debt financing before Germany has to change its constitution in order to permit it?
On our walk this morning we passed a house which had a big "two votes for SNP" banner on it. It made me reflect that this message hints at some lack of confidence. A confident SNP expected to scoop up so many constituency seats that it was much smarter and more effective to vote for the Greens on the list to maximise the independence majority in Parliament. That is why we are where we are. This campaign for 2 votes for SNP suggests that they are worried the constituencies will not be quite the same procession as the last time.
Except don't they always do that?
The SNP has nothing to worry about. Its polling numbers may have declined from the stratospheric to the merely hugely popular, but that'll cost if few if any constituency seats. Any softening on the list vote will only be to the benefit of the sock puppets, so the end result of a slight reduction in SNP support could well be a slight increase in the size of the overall nationalist majority.
Any scandals that may or may not have taken place prior to the election will then be sterilised by the renewed support of the people, and they can go ahead and bang on about independence for another four years.
Maybe worth recalling that in both 2016 - and 2017 - the polling did overstate the SNP.Moreover, there is now much more of a stench of corruption regarding the party and its leaders.
Compared to 2016 there are very small swings from Tory to SNP and from SNP to Labour in the constituencies. No seats changing hands on UNS, with Edinburgh Central being most at risk of doing so (which would be an SNP gain from Tory).
On the list the SNP are down 2.7pp, I'm not sure how close that would put them to losing regional seats - but they don't have many anyway. The Greens, though, are up 3.4pp, so I'd expect them to pick up several MSPs, and the pro-Independence majority would be larger, even if the SNP were down a seat or two.
Do we know if they are doing TV debates this time? With people more stuck at home they could be more important - and the questions over Salmond could get a wider hearing.
If they do it, we should never forget. I, for one, would overnight cease having any interest in protecting their frontier from Russia with British boots on the ground, for example.
That would mean withdrawing from NATO.
Or, splitting NATO. I doubt the Americans will look kindly on the EU seizing vaccines made by an American company.
NATO would split into its Anglophone and European elements. Turkey would finally say goodbye. The end of the Western Alliance
This is inevitable anyway. European and American strategic interests are too divergent now.
Quite possibly true.
In a few years we may realise that the UK-in-the-EU was the keystone holding the entire edifice together. The crucial link in a chain, with opposing forces at either end
The chain perhaps snapped, as we left. Now Europe moves closer to Russia, under German leadership. The Anglosphere builds its own barricades
The whole process accelerated greatly by Covid
The UK will join the new US - China cold war in the Pacific from a distance like one of those cockneys who support Man Utd.
We will join it, but it won't be at an easy distance. It will hurt us, the way it is already hurting Australia
The UK has a big deficit with China while Australia has a surplus, and China trade is a smaller part of our GDP anyway. So I'm not sure that's right.
Yes maybe. But China is now so powerful they could make our lives less comfortable in ways other than trade.
Hopefully, if the West - or at least the English speaking West - unites into a common position, China will realise it is dealing with an enemy easily of equal size (esp if we can get India on board as well) and see the sense of compromise rather than confrontation
This is another area where the CANZUK concept actually makes sense
The Wokeness could tear CANZUK apart at birth. The statues of Victoria, the common institutions, the monarchy etc. All "racist" and "imperial oppression".. you know the drill.
It's why Russia and China fund it. And it gets results.
Yup, there's a meme I remember with the US and USSR playing chess with the US winning on the board and the Soviet Union winning in the US's mind. The communists won the culture war, they infected western people with self doubt over our history when there shouldn't be any.
You could argue that's only half the story The West, particularly the US, won the culture war in Eastern Europe despite the overwhelming military and political power of the USSR.
And that self-doubt - even with all the concommitant costs - is a more developed national psyche which enables faster learning and adaptation to new challenges. It may be that the loony left and the loony right are the new price we have to pay for the benefits of the speed of data.
No - if the Government wants this data , it can provide the form as has been the case in the past. Apparently in Wales households have been sent them. The onus should not be on the individual to be proactive in carrying out this survey.
What a contrarian. Just request the paper form if it bothers you that much.
You've misunderstood. It's the paper form he's waiting for!
Given he is complaining about being proactive are you sure he's requested it?
Fair point - but i was assuming he wasn't being totally dense.
I think he is refusing to ask for it because he believed that it should have been sent automatically to everyone rather than just assuming people have internet access
Again, I'm going to point this out. The AZ supply chain in the UK isn't dependent on the EU. Their threat to block AZ exports to the UK is completely empty, UK AZ vaccine substance is supplied by Cobra Biologics and Oxford Biomedica and they are filled and finished by Wockhart in Wales.
We also have importation of finished vaccine from the Serum Institute of India.
Initially around 10m doses of drug substance was shipped from Halix in the Netherlands as the UK supply hadn't fully ramped up. It has now and we don't import from Halix now, it has dropped out of the UK supply chain since around the end of January.
I think both sides know this and the EU can claim "victory" over nasty brexit Britain and really it makes no difference to anything we're doing.
Blocking Pfizer exports now looks to be completely off the table after the call between Boris and the Belgian PM and the EU rhetoric reflects that as they've moved onto blocking non-existant AZ exports to the UK.
I hope this is correct. In any event, should the EU take unilateral action to set aside contacted obligations to deliver to the UK, direct retaliatory action (blocking supplies of precursor chemicals, for instance) is likely to be counterproductive in accessing vaccine supplies. We would be better to remain principled in our dealings and reap the benefits later. Revenge is usually best taken cold, rather than tit for tat.
On our walk this morning we passed a house which had a big "two votes for SNP" banner on it. It made me reflect that this message hints at some lack of confidence. A confident SNP expected to scoop up so many constituency seats that it was much smarter and more effective to vote for the Greens on the list to maximise the independence majority in Parliament. That is why we are where we are. This campaign for 2 votes for SNP suggests that they are worried the constituencies will not be quite the same procession as the last time.
Except don't they always do that?
The SNP has nothing to worry about. Its polling numbers may have declined from the stratospheric to the merely hugely popular, but that'll cost if few if any constituency seats. Any softening on the list vote will only be to the benefit of the sock puppets, so the end result of a slight reduction in SNP support could well be a slight increase in the size of the overall nationalist majority.
Any scandals that may or may not have taken place prior to the election will then be sterilised by the renewed support of the people, and they can go ahead and bang on about independence for another four years.
Maybe worth recalling that in both 2016 - and 2017 - the polling did overstate the SNP.Moreover, there is now much more of a stench of corruption regarding the party and its leaders.
Scotland has been Ulsterized. Most of the electorate doesn't care about how corrupt their team is, they only care about supporting their team.
If they do it, we should never forget. I, for one, would overnight cease having any interest in protecting their frontier from Russia with British boots on the ground, for example.
That would mean withdrawing from NATO.
Or, splitting NATO. I doubt the Americans will look kindly on the EU seizing vaccines made by an American company.
NATO would split into its Anglophone and European elements. Turkey would finally say goodbye. The end of the Western Alliance
This is inevitable anyway. European and American strategic interests are too divergent now.
Quite possibly true.
In a few years we may realise that the UK-in-the-EU was the keystone holding the entire edifice together. The crucial link in a chain, with opposing forces at either end
The chain perhaps snapped, as we left. Now Europe moves closer to Russia, under German leadership. The Anglosphere builds its own barricades
The whole process accelerated greatly by Covid
The UK will join the new US - China cold war in the Pacific from a distance like one of those cockneys who support Man Utd.
We will join it, but it won't be at an easy distance. It will hurt us, the way it is already hurting Australia
The UK has a big deficit with China while Australia has a surplus, and China trade is a smaller part of our GDP anyway. So I'm not sure that's right.
Yes maybe. But China is now so powerful they could make our lives less comfortable in ways other than trade.
Hopefully, if the West - or at least the English speaking West - unites into a common position, China will realise it is dealing with an enemy easily of equal size (esp if we can get India on board as well) and see the sense of compromise rather than confrontation
This is another area where the CANZUK concept actually makes sense
The Wokeness could tear CANZUK apart at birth. The statues of Victoria, the common institutions, the monarchy etc. All "racist" and "imperial oppression".. you know the drill.
It's why Russia and China fund it. And it gets results.
Yup, there's a meme I remember with the US and USSR playing chess with the US winning on the board and the Soviet Union winning in the US's mind. The communists won the culture war, they infected western people with self doubt over our history when there shouldn't be any.
Yup. If I were Mi5 and GCHQ I'd have a file on all these activities and would be tracing the troll farms through into their far-Left fronts, like SWP and the Marxist wing of BLM.
The Government need to introduce denouncement of this into their public policy, and start pushing back against the EDI extremists in the public sector and naive corporations who lap it up in the belief it'll protect their profits.
On the list the SNP are down 2.7pp, I'm not sure how close that would put them to losing regional seats - but they don't have many anyway. The Greens, though, are up 3.4pp, so I'd expect them to pick up several MSPs, and the pro-Independence majority would be larger, even if the SNP were down a seat or two.
It's exactly that sort of point that made the "both votes SNP" messaging/argument the football that it was last time round.
No - if the Government wants this data , it can provide the form as has been the case in the past. Apparently in Wales households have been sent them. The onus should not be on the individual to be proactive in carrying out this survey.
What a contrarian. Just request the paper form if it bothers you that much.
You've misunderstood. It's the paper form he's waiting for!
Given he is complaining about being proactive are you sure he's requested it?
Fair point - but i was assuming he wasn't being totally dense.
You misunderstand. I am waiting for the form to land on my doormat - as in the past. Why should I go to the trouble of going online or calling their Freephone line? If they want the data, they can send me the form and I will complete it. Beyond that, I am not really bothered whether it arrives or not.
There's a pandemic going on. Having thousands of volunteers going around knocking in doors with paper forms isn't happening this time.
Ok - then post it to me as apparently happened in Wales!
I am fully aware of the link thanks. In Wales, forms have been sent without having been requested.
And in England they haven't been, so you have to request it.
I think all you need is your address. Are you really that stubborn that you won't even enter your address to request a form? There's a phone number also, or is that too modern for you also?
I am going to sit tight and wait. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for a form to arrive - if it ever does.
I don’t know why anyone is continuing this ridiculous conversation, but I don’t understand if you are being deliberately obtuse, or is you somehow expect one to turn up for some reason - when there is absolutely zero reason to think it will.
Again, I'm going to point this out. The AZ supply chain in the UK isn't dependent on the EU. Their threat to block AZ exports to the UK is completely empty, UK AZ vaccine substance is supplied by Cobra Biologics and Oxford Biomedica and they are filled and finished by Wockhart in Wales.
We also have importation of finished vaccine from the Serum Institute of India.
Initially around 10m doses of drug substance was shipped from Halix in the Netherlands as the UK supply hadn't fully ramped up. It has now and we don't import from Halix now, it has dropped out of the UK supply chain since around the end of January.
I think both sides know this and the EU can claim "victory" over nasty brexit Britain and really it makes no difference to anything we're doing.
Blocking Pfizer exports now looks to be completely off the table after the call between Boris and the Belgian PM and the EU rhetoric reflects that as they've moved onto blocking non-existant AZ exports to the UK.
I hope this is correct. In any event, should the EU take unilateral action to set aside contacted obligations to deliver to the UK, direct retaliatory action (blocking supplies of precursor chemicals, for instance) is likely to be counterproductive in accessing vaccine supplies. We would be better to remain principled in our dealings and reap the benefits later. Revenge is usually best taken cold, rather than tit for tat.
Revenge in the form of, with Switzerland, cleaning up with new pharma investments in Europe
If they do it, we should never forget. I, for one, would overnight cease having any interest in protecting their frontier from Russia with British boots on the ground, for example.
That would mean withdrawing from NATO.
Or, splitting NATO. I doubt the Americans will look kindly on the EU seizing vaccines made by an American company.
NATO would split into its Anglophone and European elements. Turkey would finally say goodbye. The end of the Western Alliance
This is inevitable anyway. European and American strategic interests are too divergent now.
Quite possibly true.
In a few years we may realise that the UK-in-the-EU was the keystone holding the entire edifice together. The crucial link in a chain, with opposing forces at either end
The chain perhaps snapped, as we left. Now Europe moves closer to Russia, under German leadership. The Anglosphere builds its own barricades
The whole process accelerated greatly by Covid
The UK will join the new US - China cold war in the Pacific from a distance like one of those cockneys who support Man Utd.
We will join it, but it won't be at an easy distance. It will hurt us, the way it is already hurting Australia
The UK has a big deficit with China while Australia has a surplus, and China trade is a smaller part of our GDP anyway. So I'm not sure that's right.
Yes maybe. But China is now so powerful they could make our lives less comfortable in ways other than trade.
Hopefully, if the West - or at least the English speaking West - unites into a common position, China will realise it is dealing with an enemy easily of equal size (esp if we can get India on board as well) and see the sense of compromise rather than confrontation
This is another area where the CANZUK concept actually makes sense
The Wokeness could tear CANZUK apart at birth. The statues of Victoria, the common institutions, the monarchy etc. All "racist" and "imperial oppression".. you know the drill.
It's why Russia and China fund it. And it gets results.
Yup, there's a meme I remember with the US and USSR playing chess with the US winning on the board and the Soviet Union winning in the US's mind. The communists won the culture war, they infected western people with self doubt over our history when there shouldn't be any.
Yup. If I were Mi5 and GCHQ I'd have a file on all these activities and would be tracing the troll farms through into their far-Left fronts, like SWP and the Marxist wing of BLM.
The Government need to introduce denouncement of this into their public policy, and start pushing back against the EDI extremists in the public sector and naive corporations who lap it up in the belief it'll protect their profits.
In the time Justin has been moaning about the census on here, he could have filled in the census.
Funny old world.
As a serious aside however, the only reason I even know there is a census on is because it has been mentioned on here. If I wasn't reading here I would know nothing about it as I don't get broadcast tv or catchup and I don't read any papers except for articles linked here.
Difficult to see how the government is meant to get the message out reliably to people like me except via post.
No - if the Government wants this data , it can provide the form as has been the case in the past. Apparently in Wales households have been sent them. The onus should not be on the individual to be proactive in carrying out this survey.
What a contrarian. Just request the paper form if it bothers you that much.
You've misunderstood. It's the paper form he's waiting for!
Given he is complaining about being proactive are you sure he's requested it?
Fair point - but i was assuming he wasn't being totally dense.
You misunderstand. I am waiting for the form to land on my doormat - as in the past. Why should I go to the trouble of going online or calling their Freephone line? If they want the data, they can send me the form and I will complete it. Beyond that, I am not really bothered whether it arrives or not.
There's a pandemic going on. Having thousands of volunteers going around knocking in doors with paper forms isn't happening this time.
Ok - then post it to me as apparently happened in Wales!
I am fully aware of the link thanks. In Wales, forms have been sent without having been requested.
And in England they haven't been, so you have to request it.
I think all you need is your address. Are you really that stubborn that you won't even enter your address to request a form? There's a phone number also, or is that too modern for you also?
I am going to sit tight and wait. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for a form to arrive - if it ever does.
I don’t know why anyone is continuing this ridiculous conversation, but I don’t understand if you are being deliberately obtuse, or is you somehow expect one to turn up for some reason - when there is absolutely zero reason to think it will.
I don't get the point.
A letter was sent out that asks you to fill in the census online and says that you can request a paper form if you prefer.
Failure to fill in the form is a £1000 fine so that is what justin124 is looking at for being awkward.
In the time Justin has been moaning about the census on here, he could have filled in the census.
Funny old world.
As a serious aside however, the only reason I even know there is a census on is because it has been mentioned on here. If I wasn't reading here I would know nothing about it as I don't get broadcast tv or catchup and I don't read any papers except for articles linked here.
Difficult to see how the government is meant to get the message out reliably to people like me except via post.
I’ve also seen plenty of social media adverts - big permanent post at the top of my Facebook feed this weekend for instance.
If they do it, we should never forget. I, for one, would overnight cease having any interest in protecting their frontier from Russia with British boots on the ground, for example.
That would mean withdrawing from NATO.
Or, splitting NATO. I doubt the Americans will look kindly on the EU seizing vaccines made by an American company.
NATO would split into its Anglophone and European elements. Turkey would finally say goodbye. The end of the Western Alliance
This is inevitable anyway. European and American strategic interests are too divergent now.
Quite possibly true.
In a few years we may realise that the UK-in-the-EU was the keystone holding the entire edifice together. The crucial link in a chain, with opposing forces at either end
The chain perhaps snapped, as we left. Now Europe moves closer to Russia, under German leadership. The Anglosphere builds its own barricades
The whole process accelerated greatly by Covid
The UK will join the new US - China cold war in the Pacific from a distance like one of those cockneys who support Man Utd.
We will join it, but it won't be at an easy distance. It will hurt us, the way it is already hurting Australia
The UK has a big deficit with China while Australia has a surplus, and China trade is a smaller part of our GDP anyway. So I'm not sure that's right.
Yes maybe. But China is now so powerful they could make our lives less comfortable in ways other than trade.
Hopefully, if the West - or at least the English speaking West - unites into a common position, China will realise it is dealing with an enemy easily of equal size (esp if we can get India on board as well) and see the sense of compromise rather than confrontation
This is another area where the CANZUK concept actually makes sense
The Wokeness could tear CANZUK apart at birth. The statues of Victoria, the common institutions, the monarchy etc. All "racist" and "imperial oppression".. you know the drill.
It's why Russia and China fund it. And it gets results.
Yup, there's a meme I remember with the US and USSR playing chess with the US winning on the board and the Soviet Union winning in the US's mind. The communists won the culture war, they infected western people with self doubt over our history when there shouldn't be any.
Yup. If I were Mi5 and GCHQ I'd have a file on all these activities and would be tracing the troll farms through into their far-Left fronts, like SWP and the Marxist wing of BLM.
The Government need to introduce denouncement of this into their public policy, and start pushing back against the EDI extremists in the public sector and naive corporations who lap it up in the belief it'll protect their profits.
What about the RCP?
House of Lords for them?
'Don't call me' Baroness Ruth will sort them out, if she has any spare time from reforming the HoL.
In the time Justin has been moaning about the census on here, he could have filled in the census.
Funny old world.
As a serious aside however, the only reason I even know there is a census on is because it has been mentioned on here. If I wasn't reading here I would know nothing about it as I don't get broadcast tv or catchup and I don't read any papers except for articles linked here.
Difficult to see how the government is meant to get the message out reliably to people like me except via post.
I’ve also seen plenty of social media adverts - big permanent post at the top of my Facebook feed this weekend for instance.
I dont have a facebook/twitter or linkedin account either
Again, I'm going to point this out. The AZ supply chain in the UK isn't dependent on the EU. Their threat to block AZ exports to the UK is completely empty, UK AZ vaccine substance is supplied by Cobra Biologics and Oxford Biomedica and they are filled and finished by Wockhart in Wales.
We also have importation of finished vaccine from the Serum Institute of India.
Initially around 10m doses of drug substance was shipped from Halix in the Netherlands as the UK supply hadn't fully ramped up. It has now and we don't import from Halix now, it has dropped out of the UK supply chain since around the end of January.
I think both sides know this and the EU can claim "victory" over nasty brexit Britain and really it makes no difference to anything we're doing.
Blocking Pfizer exports now looks to be completely off the table after the call between Boris and the Belgian PM and the EU rhetoric reflects that as they've moved onto blocking non-existant AZ exports to the UK.
I hope this is correct. In any event, should the EU take unilateral action to set aside contacted obligations to deliver to the UK, direct retaliatory action (blocking supplies of precursor chemicals, for instance) is likely to be counterproductive in accessing vaccine supplies. We would be better to remain principled in our dealings and reap the benefits later. Revenge is usually best taken cold, rather than tit for tat.
I think of the EU acts to block AZ exports we'll just shrug and keep on keeping on, it doesn't change anything for our roll out. The worry is Pfizer but I seriously, seriously doubt the Belgians will block exports. It would end their pharma industry which is hugely dependent on Pfizer, GSK, AZ and J&J, none of whom are Belgian or even EU domiciled now. They have no specific ties to Belgium or the EU.
Calling all Leavers and non-Remoaner Remainers - if you want a book recommendation I can thoroughly recommend Robert Tombs: This Sovereign Isle - Britain in and out of Europe.
It's a bestseller, has rave reviews and is only 162 pages so you can get through it in a couple of evenings.
It's bang up to date too (even has Covid-19 covered in it) and has some fascinating insight and analysis. Very very good, even if you don't agree with all of it.
Go buy.
He is notorious for being rabidly pro-Brexit, so hardly a neutral source.
On our walk this morning we passed a house which had a big "two votes for SNP" banner on it. It made me reflect that this message hints at some lack of confidence. A confident SNP expected to scoop up so many constituency seats that it was much smarter and more effective to vote for the Greens on the list to maximise the independence majority in Parliament. That is why we are where we are. This campaign for 2 votes for SNP suggests that they are worried the constituencies will not be quite the same procession as the last time.
Except don't they always do that?
The SNP has nothing to worry about. Its polling numbers may have declined from the stratospheric to the merely hugely popular, but that'll cost if few if any constituency seats. Any softening on the list vote will only be to the benefit of the sock puppets, so the end result of a slight reduction in SNP support could well be a slight increase in the size of the overall nationalist majority.
Any scandals that may or may not have taken place prior to the election will then be sterilised by the renewed support of the people, and they can go ahead and bang on about independence for another four years.
Maybe worth recalling that in both 2016 - and 2017 - the polling did overstate the SNP.Moreover, there is now much more of a stench of corruption regarding the party and its leaders.
Scotland has been Ulsterized. Most of the electorate doesn't care about how corrupt their team is, they only care about supporting their team.
How is that any different to England. The Tories are openly corrupt and nobody cares.
Again, I'm going to point this out. The AZ supply chain in the UK isn't dependent on the EU. Their threat to block AZ exports to the UK is completely empty, UK AZ vaccine substance is supplied by Cobra Biologics and Oxford Biomedica and they are filled and finished by Wockhart in Wales.
We also have importation of finished vaccine from the Serum Institute of India.
Initially around 10m doses of drug substance was shipped from Halix in the Netherlands as the UK supply hadn't fully ramped up. It has now and we don't import from Halix now, it has dropped out of the UK supply chain since around the end of January.
I think both sides know this and the EU can claim "victory" over nasty brexit Britain and really it makes no difference to anything we're doing.
Blocking Pfizer exports now looks to be completely off the table after the call between Boris and the Belgian PM and the EU rhetoric reflects that as they've moved onto blocking non-existant AZ exports to the UK.
I hope this is correct. In any event, should the EU take unilateral action to set aside contacted obligations to deliver to the UK, direct retaliatory action (blocking supplies of precursor chemicals, for instance) is likely to be counterproductive in accessing vaccine supplies. We would be better to remain principled in our dealings and reap the benefits later. Revenge is usually best taken cold, rather than tit for tat.
I think of the EU acts to block AZ exports we'll just shrug and keep on keeping on, it doesn't change anything for our roll out. The worry is Pfizer but I seriously, seriously doubt the Belgians will block exports. It would end their pharma industry which is hugely dependent on Pfizer, GSK, AZ and J&J, none of whom are Belgian or even EU domiciled now. They have no specific ties to Belgium or the EU.
Time to point out the 130% tax relief on investment maybe?
In the time Justin has been moaning about the census on here, he could have filled in the census.
Funny old world.
As a serious aside however, the only reason I even know there is a census on is because it has been mentioned on here. If I wasn't reading here I would know nothing about it as I don't get broadcast tv or catchup and I don't read any papers except for articles linked here.
Difficult to see how the government is meant to get the message out reliably to people like me except via post.
I’ve also seen plenty of social media adverts - big permanent post at the top of my Facebook feed this weekend for instance.
I dont have a facebook/twitter or linkedin account either
I suppose if you refuse to open mail that states clearly on the front
In the time Justin has been moaning about the census on here, he could have filled in the census.
Funny old world.
As a serious aside however, the only reason I even know there is a census on is because it has been mentioned on here. If I wasn't reading here I would know nothing about it as I don't get broadcast tv or catchup and I don't read any papers except for articles linked here.
Difficult to see how the government is meant to get the message out reliably to people like me except via post.
I’ve also seen plenty of social media adverts - big permanent post at the top of my Facebook feed this weekend for instance.
I dont have a facebook/twitter or linkedin account either
I suppose if you refuse to open mail that states clearly on the front
"your response to this letter is required by law"
then you might not know about it.
I haven't had such a letter so my point stands unless I had heard about it here I wouldn't have known it was even happening
On our walk this morning we passed a house which had a big "two votes for SNP" banner on it. It made me reflect that this message hints at some lack of confidence. A confident SNP expected to scoop up so many constituency seats that it was much smarter and more effective to vote for the Greens on the list to maximise the independence majority in Parliament. That is why we are where we are. This campaign for 2 votes for SNP suggests that they are worried the constituencies will not be quite the same procession as the last time.
Except don't they always do that?
The SNP has nothing to worry about. Its polling numbers may have declined from the stratospheric to the merely hugely popular, but that'll cost if few if any constituency seats. Any softening on the list vote will only be to the benefit of the sock puppets, so the end result of a slight reduction in SNP support could well be a slight increase in the size of the overall nationalist majority.
Any scandals that may or may not have taken place prior to the election will then be sterilised by the renewed support of the people, and they can go ahead and bang on about independence for another four years.
Maybe worth recalling that in both 2016 - and 2017 - the polling did overstate the SNP.Moreover, there is now much more of a stench of corruption regarding the party and its leaders.
Scotland has been Ulsterized. Most of the electorate doesn't care about how corrupt their team is, they only care about supporting their team.
Why should that have changed since 2016/2017? The key years were surely 2014/2015.
On our walk this morning we passed a house which had a big "two votes for SNP" banner on it. It made me reflect that this message hints at some lack of confidence. A confident SNP expected to scoop up so many constituency seats that it was much smarter and more effective to vote for the Greens on the list to maximise the independence majority in Parliament. That is why we are where we are. This campaign for 2 votes for SNP suggests that they are worried the constituencies will not be quite the same procession as the last time.
Except don't they always do that?
The SNP has nothing to worry about. Its polling numbers may have declined from the stratospheric to the merely hugely popular, but that'll cost if few if any constituency seats. Any softening on the list vote will only be to the benefit of the sock puppets, so the end result of a slight reduction in SNP support could well be a slight increase in the size of the overall nationalist majority.
Any scandals that may or may not have taken place prior to the election will then be sterilised by the renewed support of the people, and they can go ahead and bang on about independence for another four years.
Maybe worth recalling that in both 2016 - and 2017 - the polling did overstate the SNP.Moreover, there is now much more of a stench of corruption regarding the party and its leaders.
Scotland has been Ulsterized. Most of the electorate doesn't care about how corrupt their team is, they only care about supporting their team.
How is that any different to England. The Tories are openly corrupt and nobody cares.
Not the same at all. The Government gets a free pass largely because the Opposition is weak. Labour has a successful image makeover and jettisons its loonies, it's right back in the game.
Scotland's split right down the middle on secession and always will be until it happens.
The brutal truth about FPTP is that in broad swathes of the country there is very little point in turning out to vote. The boundaries have been carefully cultivated over many years to deliver safe seats.
As a good loyal Bootle lad, could I ask your opinion on who I should vote for next time?
Observer says that 'Wales sets up its own Erasmus programme. The Exchange scheme will ‘fill the gaps’ left by Boris Johnson’s Turing programme, which ‘lacks key benefits’
Pulling out of Erasmus appears to be pure pique, coupled with a failure to negotiate sensibly.
The UK has branded its scheme the Turing scheme. The EU has branded its scheme ERASMUS. The Scottish scheme -- when it comes -- will surely be branded the Hume or the Maxwell.
And the Great Drakeford's catchy name for the Welsh scheme is .... the International Learning Exchange Programme
His preternatural modesty prevented his calling it the Drakeford.
No - if the Government wants this data , it can provide the form as has been the case in the past. Apparently in Wales households have been sent them. The onus should not be on the individual to be proactive in carrying out this survey.
What a contrarian. Just request the paper form if it bothers you that much.
You've misunderstood. It's the paper form he's waiting for!
Given he is complaining about being proactive are you sure he's requested it?
Fair point - but i was assuming he wasn't being totally dense.
You misunderstand. I am waiting for the form to land on my doormat - as in the past. Why should I go to the trouble of going online or calling their Freephone line? If they want the data, they can send me the form and I will complete it. Beyond that, I am not really bothered whether it arrives or not.
There's a pandemic going on. Having thousands of volunteers going around knocking in doors with paper forms isn't happening this time.
Ok - then post it to me as apparently happened in Wales!
I am fully aware of the link thanks. In Wales, forms have been sent without having been requested.
And in England they haven't been, so you have to request it.
I think all you need is your address. Are you really that stubborn that you won't even enter your address to request a form? There's a phone number also, or is that too modern for you also?
I am going to sit tight and wait. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for a form to arrive - if it ever does.
I don’t know why anyone is continuing this ridiculous conversation, but I don’t understand if you are being deliberately obtuse, or is you somehow expect one to turn up for some reason - when there is absolutely zero reason to think it will.
Someone will knock on the door, and when you tell them you need a paper copy they will give you one. That's what happened to a friend who wasn't sent a paper copy last time.
Again, I'm going to point this out. The AZ supply chain in the UK isn't dependent on the EU. Their threat to block AZ exports to the UK is completely empty, UK AZ vaccine substance is supplied by Cobra Biologics and Oxford Biomedica and they are filled and finished by Wockhart in Wales.
We also have importation of finished vaccine from the Serum Institute of India.
Initially around 10m doses of drug substance was shipped from Halix in the Netherlands as the UK supply hadn't fully ramped up. It has now and we don't import from Halix now, it has dropped out of the UK supply chain since around the end of January.
I think both sides know this and the EU can claim "victory" over nasty brexit Britain and really it makes no difference to anything we're doing.
Blocking Pfizer exports now looks to be completely off the table after the call between Boris and the Belgian PM and the EU rhetoric reflects that as they've moved onto blocking non-existant AZ exports to the UK.
I hope this is correct. In any event, should the EU take unilateral action to set aside contacted obligations to deliver to the UK, direct retaliatory action (blocking supplies of precursor chemicals, for instance) is likely to be counterproductive in accessing vaccine supplies. We would be better to remain principled in our dealings and reap the benefits later. Revenge is usually best taken cold, rather than tit for tat.
I think of the EU acts to block AZ exports we'll just shrug and keep on keeping on, it doesn't change anything for our roll out. The worry is Pfizer but I seriously, seriously doubt the Belgians will block exports. It would end their pharma industry which is hugely dependent on Pfizer, GSK, AZ and J&J, none of whom are Belgian or even EU domiciled now. They have no specific ties to Belgium or the EU.
The thing about this whole 'dispute' is that the EU appear to be utilising the headlines in the UK media, as a way to claim that the UK Government is being underhand. Whereas i've actually seen very little evidence of the Government getting involved, or even "gloating" about our vaccination programme - as it is often accused (this was also apparent separately (nothing to do with the EU) in the complaints in the Guardian the other day about the Government taking all the credit for the vaccine rollout and ignoring the efforts of NHS staff.
People may be giving the Government credit, as evidenced by polling, but i'm not sure the Government is actively going after it.
In the time Justin has been moaning about the census on here, he could have filled in the census.
Funny old world.
As a serious aside however, the only reason I even know there is a census on is because it has been mentioned on here. If I wasn't reading here I would know nothing about it as I don't get broadcast tv or catchup and I don't read any papers except for articles linked here.
Difficult to see how the government is meant to get the message out reliably to people like me except via post.
I’ve also seen plenty of social media adverts - big permanent post at the top of my Facebook feed this weekend for instance.
I'm more or less with Pagan on this. I use social media moderately but never look at the ads. Had a look just now to check and there's nothing about the census there. I did get the leaflet eventually, but only a few days ago - my landlady alerted me earlier, as she was fretting that she'd not registered me. I suspect a fair number of people will miss it all.
If they do it, we should never forget. I, for one, would overnight cease having any interest in protecting their frontier from Russia with British boots on the ground, for example.
That would mean withdrawing from NATO.
Or, splitting NATO. I doubt the Americans will look kindly on the EU seizing vaccines made by an American company.
NATO would split into its Anglophone and European elements. Turkey would finally say goodbye. The end of the Western Alliance
This is inevitable anyway. European and American strategic interests are too divergent now.
Quite possibly true.
In a few years we may realise that the UK-in-the-EU was the keystone holding the entire edifice together. The crucial link in a chain, with opposing forces at either end
The chain perhaps snapped, as we left. Now Europe moves closer to Russia, under German leadership. The Anglosphere builds its own barricades
The whole process accelerated greatly by Covid
The UK will join the new US - China cold war in the Pacific from a distance like one of those cockneys who support Man Utd.
We will join it, but it won't be at an easy distance. It will hurt us, the way it is already hurting Australia
The UK has a big deficit with China while Australia has a surplus, and China trade is a smaller part of our GDP anyway. So I'm not sure that's right.
Yes maybe. But China is now so powerful they could make our lives less comfortable in ways other than trade.
Hopefully, if the West - or at least the English speaking West - unites into a common position, China will realise it is dealing with an enemy easily of equal size (esp if we can get India on board as well) and see the sense of compromise rather than confrontation
This is another area where the CANZUK concept actually makes sense
The Wokeness could tear CANZUK apart at birth. The statues of Victoria, the common institutions, the monarchy etc. All "racist" and "imperial oppression".. you know the drill.
It's why Russia and China fund it. And it gets results.
Yup, there's a meme I remember with the US and USSR playing chess with the US winning on the board and the Soviet Union winning in the US's mind. The communists won the culture war, they infected western people with self doubt over our history when there shouldn't be any.
Yup. If I were Mi5 and GCHQ I'd have a file on all these activities and would be tracing the troll farms through into their far-Left fronts, like SWP and the Marxist wing of BLM.
The Government need to introduce denouncement of this into their public policy, and start pushing back against the EDI extremists in the public sector and naive corporations who lap it up in the belief it'll protect their profits.
What about the RCP?
As if it isn't the Vote Leave mob that have had their mind warped by fighting against cancel culture fictions.
No - if the Government wants this data , it can provide the form as has been the case in the past. Apparently in Wales households have been sent them. The onus should not be on the individual to be proactive in carrying out this survey.
What a contrarian. Just request the paper form if it bothers you that much.
You've misunderstood. It's the paper form he's waiting for!
Given he is complaining about being proactive are you sure he's requested it?
Fair point - but i was assuming he wasn't being totally dense.
You misunderstand. I am waiting for the form to land on my doormat - as in the past. Why should I go to the trouble of going online or calling their Freephone line? If they want the data, they can send me the form and I will complete it. Beyond that, I am not really bothered whether it arrives or not.
There's a pandemic going on. Having thousands of volunteers going around knocking in doors with paper forms isn't happening this time.
Ok - then post it to me as apparently happened in Wales!
I am fully aware of the link thanks. In Wales, forms have been sent without having been requested.
And in England they haven't been, so you have to request it.
I think all you need is your address. Are you really that stubborn that you won't even enter your address to request a form? There's a phone number also, or is that too modern for you also?
I am going to sit tight and wait. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for a form to arrive - if it ever does.
£10000 fine incoming
But I am not refusing to complete the form. I doubt that a fine can be imposed for failing to use my PC and/or telephone - indeed a fair number of people have neither readily available.
I found the online version well designed, a breath of fresh air, and much quicker than filling in a form. But that’s me.
No - if the Government wants this data , it can provide the form as has been the case in the past. Apparently in Wales households have been sent them. The onus should not be on the individual to be proactive in carrying out this survey.
What a contrarian. Just request the paper form if it bothers you that much.
You've misunderstood. It's the paper form he's waiting for!
Given he is complaining about being proactive are you sure he's requested it?
Fair point - but i was assuming he wasn't being totally dense.
You misunderstand. I am waiting for the form to land on my doormat - as in the past. Why should I go to the trouble of going online or calling their Freephone line? If they want the data, they can send me the form and I will complete it. Beyond that, I am not really bothered whether it arrives or not.
There's a pandemic going on. Having thousands of volunteers going around knocking in doors with paper forms isn't happening this time.
Ok - then post it to me as apparently happened in Wales!
I am fully aware of the link thanks. In Wales, forms have been sent without having been requested.
And in England they haven't been, so you have to request it.
I think all you need is your address. Are you really that stubborn that you won't even enter your address to request a form? There's a phone number also, or is that too modern for you also?
I am going to sit tight and wait. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for a form to arrive - if it ever does.
I don’t know why anyone is continuing this ridiculous conversation, but I don’t understand if you are being deliberately obtuse, or is you somehow expect one to turn up for some reason - when there is absolutely zero reason to think it will.
Someone will knock on the door, and when you tell them you need a paper copy they will give you one. That's what happened to a friend who wasn't sent a paper copy last time.
Sadly not a sure fire anyway. I live in a little studio appartment that backs onto a shop. The flats have egress through a backdoor but the address is the shop front. All our mail and doorknockers go to the shop because that's the address. The backdoor isn't marked and empties into a completely different street and has a coded doorlock but no doorbells.
It is quite possible one of these mythical letters is sitting in the shop awaiting passing through to me I guess but as with many shops it is currently shut.
On the list the SNP are down 2.7pp, I'm not sure how close that would put them to losing regional seats - but they don't have many anyway. The Greens, though, are up 3.4pp, so I'd expect them to pick up several MSPs, and the pro-Independence majority would be larger, even if the SNP were down a seat or two.
It's exactly that sort of point that made the "both votes SNP" messaging/argument the football that it was last time round.
Yes. The list vote for the SNP is mostly pointless, but it acts as insurance in case there's a bigger than expected swing against them in the constituencies and they start to lose some of those.
If, say, they get pushed down to 40% in the constituency vote, then I think they could lose several constituencies to Labour and the Conservatives. If their list vote is then a lot lower than that, they won't pick up any compensating seats on the list.
On our walk this morning we passed a house which had a big "two votes for SNP" banner on it. It made me reflect that this message hints at some lack of confidence. A confident SNP expected to scoop up so many constituency seats that it was much smarter and more effective to vote for the Greens on the list to maximise the independence majority in Parliament. That is why we are where we are. This campaign for 2 votes for SNP suggests that they are worried the constituencies will not be quite the same procession as the last time.
Except don't they always do that?
The SNP has nothing to worry about. Its polling numbers may have declined from the stratospheric to the merely hugely popular, but that'll cost if few if any constituency seats. Any softening on the list vote will only be to the benefit of the sock puppets, so the end result of a slight reduction in SNP support could well be a slight increase in the size of the overall nationalist majority.
Any scandals that may or may not have taken place prior to the election will then be sterilised by the renewed support of the people, and they can go ahead and bang on about independence for another four years.
Maybe worth recalling that in both 2016 - and 2017 - the polling did overstate the SNP.Moreover, there is now much more of a stench of corruption regarding the party and its leaders.
Scotland has been Ulsterized. Most of the electorate doesn't care about how corrupt their team is, they only care about supporting their team.
How is that any different to England. The Tories are openly corrupt and nobody cares.
They (the EU) are corrupt and the enemy You (Scotland) are corrupt and suspiciously tolerant of the enemy We (England) have had to act quickly in unprecedented times
In the time Justin has been moaning about the census on here, he could have filled in the census.
Funny old world.
As a serious aside however, the only reason I even know there is a census on is because it has been mentioned on here. If I wasn't reading here I would know nothing about it as I don't get broadcast tv or catchup and I don't read any papers except for articles linked here.
Difficult to see how the government is meant to get the message out reliably to people like me except via post.
I’ve also seen plenty of social media adverts - big permanent post at the top of my Facebook feed this weekend for instance.
I'm more or less with Pagan on this. I use social media moderately but never look at the ads. Had a look just now to check and there's nothing about the census there. I did get the leaflet eventually, but only a few days ago - my landlady alerted me earlier, as she was fretting that she'd not registered me. I suspect a fair number of people will miss it all.
I find it extremely surprising how little advertising there appears to have been. Perhaps it's been all over big billboards that many of us haven't had cause to look at for months. Maybe the (probably faulty) arguments that nobody watches mainstream television in any numbers have had an impact.
Maybe they just think that in today's society, the more the Government makes an issue of it, the greater the resistance to completing it. Who knows?
Compared to 2016 there are very small swings from Tory to SNP and from SNP to Labour in the constituencies. No seats changing hands on UNS, with Edinburgh Central being most at risk of doing so (which would be an SNP gain from Tory).
On the list the SNP are down 2.7pp, I'm not sure how close that would put them to losing regional seats - but they don't have many anyway. The Greens, though, are up 3.4pp, so I'd expect them to pick up several MSPs, and the pro-Independence majority would be larger, even if the SNP were down a seat or two.
Do we know if they are doing TV debates this time? With people more stuck at home they could be more important - and the questions over Salmond could get a wider hearing.
Those figures (if repeated) would more than halve the SNP lead in the Airdrie & Shotts by-election. With the byelection win in Glasgow last week, it does look as though Scottish Labour is showing some signs of life. If they put on a few more points, several seats come into play.
No - if the Government wants this data , it can provide the form as has been the case in the past. Apparently in Wales households have been sent them. The onus should not be on the individual to be proactive in carrying out this survey.
What a contrarian. Just request the paper form if it bothers you that much.
You've misunderstood. It's the paper form he's waiting for!
Given he is complaining about being proactive are you sure he's requested it?
Fair point - but i was assuming he wasn't being totally dense.
You misunderstand. I am waiting for the form to land on my doormat - as in the past. Why should I go to the trouble of going online or calling their Freephone line? If they want the data, they can send me the form and I will complete it. Beyond that, I am not really bothered whether it arrives or not.
There's a pandemic going on. Having thousands of volunteers going around knocking in doors with paper forms isn't happening this time.
Ok - then post it to me as apparently happened in Wales!
I am fully aware of the link thanks. In Wales, forms have been sent without having been requested.
And in England they haven't been, so you have to request it.
I think all you need is your address. Are you really that stubborn that you won't even enter your address to request a form? There's a phone number also, or is that too modern for you also?
I am going to sit tight and wait. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for a form to arrive - if it ever does.
I don’t know why anyone is continuing this ridiculous conversation, but I don’t understand if you are being deliberately obtuse, or is you somehow expect one to turn up for some reason - when there is absolutely zero reason to think it will.
Someone will knock on the door, and when you tell them you need a paper copy they will give you one. That's what happened to a friend who wasn't sent a paper copy last time.
Sadly not a sure fire anyway. I live in a little studio appartment that backs onto a shop. The flats have egress through a backdoor but the address is the shop front. All our mail and doorknockers go to the shop because that's the address. The backdoor isn't marked and empties into a completely different street and has a coded doorlock but no doorbells.
It is quite possible one of these mythical letters is sitting in the shop awaiting passing through to me I guess but as with many shops it is currently shut.
I expect there'll be a mopping up operation that will deal with these wrinkles.
In the time Justin has been moaning about the census on here, he could have filled in the census.
Funny old world.
As a serious aside however, the only reason I even know there is a census on is because it has been mentioned on here. If I wasn't reading here I would know nothing about it as I don't get broadcast tv or catchup and I don't read any papers except for articles linked here.
Difficult to see how the government is meant to get the message out reliably to people like me except via post.
I’ve also seen plenty of social media adverts - big permanent post at the top of my Facebook feed this weekend for instance.
I'm more or less with Pagan on this. I use social media moderately but never look at the ads. Had a look just now to check and there's nothing about the census there. I did get the leaflet eventually, but only a few days ago - my landlady alerted me earlier, as she was fretting that she'd not registered me. I suspect a fair number of people will miss it all.
I find it extremely surprising how little advertising there appears to have been. Perhaps it's been all over big billboards that many of us haven't had cause to look at for months. Maybe the (probably faulty) arguments that nobody watches mainstream television in any numbers have had an impact.
Maybe they just think that in today's society, the more the Government makes an issue of it, the greater the resistance to completing it. Who knows?
It has a wider implication than the census however. There is really no one way of reaching the entire population any more. As an aside I am always amused as to why so many social media users thinks everyone must be on it. Its like thinking I read the daily mail so everyone else probably does too
People without access to a computer or phone must be an extremely small number. I'm sure walk in centers such as the citizen advice bureau or council office, or even the post office, would be able to help. For almost all other people, they'd just request the form if they didn't want to do it online. But no, you think by refusing to even request a form you are sending the government a message. They'll just think you forgot.
And issue that £1000 fine.
Those of us who spend most of our waking hours online (me included) tend to assume everyone's like that, but...
No - if the Government wants this data , it can provide the form as has been the case in the past. Apparently in Wales households have been sent them. The onus should not be on the individual to be proactive in carrying out this survey.
What a contrarian. Just request the paper form if it bothers you that much.
You've misunderstood. It's the paper form he's waiting for!
Given he is complaining about being proactive are you sure he's requested it?
Fair point - but i was assuming he wasn't being totally dense.
You misunderstand. I am waiting for the form to land on my doormat - as in the past. Why should I go to the trouble of going online or calling their Freephone line? If they want the data, they can send me the form and I will complete it. Beyond that, I am not really bothered whether it arrives or not.
There's a pandemic going on. Having thousands of volunteers going around knocking in doors with paper forms isn't happening this time.
Ok - then post it to me as apparently happened in Wales!
I am fully aware of the link thanks. In Wales, forms have been sent without having been requested.
And in England they haven't been, so you have to request it.
I think all you need is your address. Are you really that stubborn that you won't even enter your address to request a form? There's a phone number also, or is that too modern for you also?
I am going to sit tight and wait. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for a form to arrive - if it ever does.
Mine arrived on Friday - a full form, not a brief notification of how to fill it in online - and that is all I have had.
I filled it in online anyway but given the muddle they have had my feedback was - acid.
Again, I'm going to point this out. The AZ supply chain in the UK isn't dependent on the EU. Their threat to block AZ exports to the UK is completely empty, UK AZ vaccine substance is supplied by Cobra Biologics and Oxford Biomedica and they are filled and finished by Wockhart in Wales.
We also have importation of finished vaccine from the Serum Institute of India.
Initially around 10m doses of drug substance was shipped from Halix in the Netherlands as the UK supply hadn't fully ramped up. It has now and we don't import from Halix now, it has dropped out of the UK supply chain since around the end of January.
I think both sides know this and the EU can claim "victory" over nasty brexit Britain and really it makes no difference to anything we're doing.
Blocking Pfizer exports now looks to be completely off the table after the call between Boris and the Belgian PM and the EU rhetoric reflects that as they've moved onto blocking non-existant AZ exports to the UK.
I hope this is correct. In any event, should the EU take unilateral action to set aside contacted obligations to deliver to the UK, direct retaliatory action (blocking supplies of precursor chemicals, for instance) is likely to be counterproductive in accessing vaccine supplies. We would be better to remain principled in our dealings and reap the benefits later. Revenge is usually best taken cold, rather than tit for tat.
Revenge in the form of, with Switzerland, cleaning up with new pharma investments in Europe
Amongst other thing, yes. The EU does seem to be doing its best to help us sort out the mess we’d made of Brexit. However inadvertently.
Again, I'm going to point this out. The AZ supply chain in the UK isn't dependent on the EU. Their threat to block AZ exports to the UK is completely empty, UK AZ vaccine substance is supplied by Cobra Biologics and Oxford Biomedica and they are filled and finished by Wockhart in Wales.
We also have importation of finished vaccine from the Serum Institute of India.
Initially around 10m doses of drug substance was shipped from Halix in the Netherlands as the UK supply hadn't fully ramped up. It has now and we don't import from Halix now, it has dropped out of the UK supply chain since around the end of January.
I think both sides know this and the EU can claim "victory" over nasty brexit Britain and really it makes no difference to anything we're doing.
Blocking Pfizer exports now looks to be completely off the table after the call between Boris and the Belgian PM and the EU rhetoric reflects that as they've moved onto blocking non-existant AZ exports to the UK.
I hope this is correct. In any event, should the EU take unilateral action to set aside contacted obligations to deliver to the UK, direct retaliatory action (blocking supplies of precursor chemicals, for instance) is likely to be counterproductive in accessing vaccine supplies. We would be better to remain principled in our dealings and reap the benefits later. Revenge is usually best taken cold, rather than tit for tat.
I think of the EU acts to block AZ exports we'll just shrug and keep on keeping on, it doesn't change anything for our roll out. The worry is Pfizer but I seriously, seriously doubt the Belgians will block exports. It would end their pharma industry which is hugely dependent on Pfizer, GSK, AZ and J&J, none of whom are Belgian or even EU domiciled now. They have no specific ties to Belgium or the EU.
J&J is deeply embedded in Belgium - outside of the US their Pharma business is even called Janssen after the Belgian business they bought many years ago.
If they do it, we should never forget. I, for one, would overnight cease having any interest in protecting their frontier from Russia with British boots on the ground, for example.
That would mean withdrawing from NATO.
Or, splitting NATO. I doubt the Americans will look kindly on the EU seizing vaccines made by an American company.
NATO would split into its Anglophone and European elements. Turkey would finally say goodbye. The end of the Western Alliance
This is inevitable anyway. European and American strategic interests are too divergent now.
Quite possibly true.
In a few years we may realise that the UK-in-the-EU was the keystone holding the entire edifice together. The crucial link in a chain, with opposing forces at either end
The chain perhaps snapped, as we left. Now Europe moves closer to Russia, under German leadership. The Anglosphere builds its own barricades
The whole process accelerated greatly by Covid
The UK will join the new US - China cold war in the Pacific from a distance like one of those cockneys who support Man Utd.
We will join it, but it won't be at an easy distance. It will hurt us, the way it is already hurting Australia
The UK has a big deficit with China while Australia has a surplus, and China trade is a smaller part of our GDP anyway. So I'm not sure that's right.
Yes maybe. But China is now so powerful they could make our lives less comfortable in ways other than trade.
Hopefully, if the West - or at least the English speaking West - unites into a common position, China will realise it is dealing with an enemy easily of equal size (esp if we can get India on board as well) and see the sense of compromise rather than confrontation
This is another area where the CANZUK concept actually makes sense
The Wokeness could tear CANZUK apart at birth. The statues of Victoria, the common institutions, the monarchy etc. All "racist" and "imperial oppression".. you know the drill.
It's why Russia and China fund it. And it gets results.
Yup, there's a meme I remember with the US and USSR playing chess with the US winning on the board and the Soviet Union winning in the US's mind. The communists won the culture war, they infected western people with self doubt over our history when there shouldn't be any.
Yup. If I were Mi5 and GCHQ I'd have a file on all these activities and would be tracing the troll farms through into their far-Left fronts, like SWP and the Marxist wing of BLM.
The Government need to introduce denouncement of this into their public policy, and start pushing back against the EDI extremists in the public sector and naive corporations who lap it up in the belief it'll protect their profits.
Observer says that 'Wales sets up its own Erasmus programme. The Exchange scheme will ‘fill the gaps’ left by Boris Johnson’s Turing programme, which ‘lacks key benefits’
Pulling out of Erasmus appears to be pure pique, coupled with a failure to negotiate sensibly.
The UK has branded its scheme the Turing scheme. The EU has branded its scheme ERASMUS. The Scottish scheme -- when it comes -- will surely be branded the Hume or the Maxwell.
And the Great Drakeford's catchy name for the Welsh scheme is .... the International Learning Exchange Programme
His preternatural modesty prevented his calling it the Drakeford.
I'm delighted that Wales has set up it's own supplementary scheme. All power to their elbow.
In the time Justin has been moaning about the census on here, he could have filled in the census.
Funny old world.
As a serious aside however, the only reason I even know there is a census on is because it has been mentioned on here. If I wasn't reading here I would know nothing about it as I don't get broadcast tv or catchup and I don't read any papers except for articles linked here.
Difficult to see how the government is meant to get the message out reliably to people like me except via post.
I’ve also seen plenty of social media adverts - big permanent post at the top of my Facebook feed this weekend for instance.
I'm more or less with Pagan on this. I use social media moderately but never look at the ads. Had a look just now to check and there's nothing about the census there. I did get the leaflet eventually, but only a few days ago - my landlady alerted me earlier, as she was fretting that she'd not registered me. I suspect a fair number of people will miss it all.
I find it extremely surprising how little advertising there appears to have been. Perhaps it's been all over big billboards that many of us haven't had cause to look at for months. Maybe the (probably faulty) arguments that nobody watches mainstream television in any numbers have had an impact.
Maybe they just think that in today's society, the more the Government makes an issue of it, the greater the resistance to completing it. Who knows?
Sputnik have started putting paid-for tweets in the Twitter Stream of Comical Dave.
Presumably all that ranting about AZ is a flag for a potential market,
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/mar/21/rising-from-the-rubble-london-pub-rebuilt-brick-by-brick-after-bulldozing
The EU has branded its scheme ERASMUS.
The Scottish scheme -- when it comes -- will surely be branded the Hume or the Maxwell.
And the Great Drakeford's catchy name for the Welsh scheme is .... the International Learning Exchange Programme
1. They don't get a majority
and/or
2. There might be a Unionist majority?
I know Holyrood is designed to produce coalitions...
The Government need to introduce denouncement of this into their public policy, and start pushing back against the EDI extremists in the public sector and naive corporations who lap it up in the belief it'll protect their profits.
You are being pig headed. It’s really way easier to do it online rather than bother with pens and paper.
Quote
The EU’s long-term budget, coupled with NextGenerationEU, the temporary instrument designed to boost the recovery, will be the largest stimulus package ever financed through the EU budget. A total of €1.8 trillion will help rebuild a post-COVID-19 Europe. It will be a greener, more digital and more resilient Europe.
The SNP has nothing to worry about. Its polling numbers may have declined from the stratospheric to the merely hugely popular, but that'll cost if few if any constituency seats. Any softening on the list vote will only be to the benefit of the sock puppets, so the end result of a slight reduction in SNP support could well be a slight increase in the size of the overall nationalist majority.
Any scandals that may or may not have taken place prior to the election will then be sterilised by the renewed support of the people, and they can go ahead and bang on about independence for another four years.
But I think this time a lot more pro-indy people will think twice before giving the SNP both votes.
He's not the only distinguished academic historian on the Brexit side though. I believe Peter Frankopan of Silk Roads fame is something of an EU-sceptc too. He is certainly critical of its failure to produce audited account. (I agree.) He is also sceptical of the claim that it has helped keep the peace in Europe for sixty years. (Not so sure about that one but it's certainly a view.)
Anyway I look forward to a good read and if I don't like it I promise not to ask you for my money back.
Quote
The EU’s long-term budget, coupled with NextGenerationEU, the temporary instrument designed to boost the recovery, will be the largest stimulus package ever financed through the EU budget. A total of €1.8 trillion will help rebuild a post-COVID-19 Europe. It will be a greener, more digital and more resilient Europe. Maybe not but I can only quote what they say. It is still going to be a big wodge of money whichever way you slice it and its still going to have to be financed somehow. The cracks from 2008 still exist they merely papered them over and this is going to put even more strain there.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52542993
On the list the SNP are down 2.7pp, I'm not sure how close that would put them to losing regional seats - but they don't have many anyway. The Greens, though, are up 3.4pp, so I'd expect them to pick up several MSPs, and the pro-Independence majority would be larger, even if the SNP were down a seat or two.
Do we know if they are doing TV debates this time? With people more stuck at home they could be more important - and the questions over Salmond could get a wider hearing.
Funny old world.
In any event, should the EU take unilateral action to set aside contacted obligations to deliver to the UK, direct retaliatory action (blocking supplies of precursor chemicals, for instance) is likely to be counterproductive in accessing vaccine supplies.
We would be better to remain principled in our dealings and reap the benefits later. Revenge is usually best taken cold, rather than tit for tat.
Difficult to see how the government is meant to get the message out reliably to people like me except via post.
A letter was sent out that asks you to fill in the census online and says that you can request a paper form if you prefer.
Failure to fill in the form is a £1000 fine so that is what justin124 is looking at for being awkward.
You should read it. You might learn something.
1st 686,424
2nd 70,449
Total 756,873
"your response to this letter is required by law"
then you might not know about it.
Pity. One of the questions could be to ask if you believe Alex or Nicola or neither...
Scotland's split right down the middle on secession and always will be until it happens.
People may be giving the Government credit, as evidenced by polling, but i'm not sure the Government is actively going after it.
NEW THREAD
It is quite possible one of these mythical letters is sitting in the shop awaiting passing through to me I guess but as with many shops it is currently shut.
If, say, they get pushed down to 40% in the constituency vote, then I think they could lose several constituencies to Labour and the Conservatives. If their list vote is then a lot lower than that, they won't pick up any compensating seats on the list.
You (Scotland) are corrupt and suspiciously tolerant of the enemy
We (England) have had to act quickly in unprecedented times
Maybe they just think that in today's society, the more the Government makes an issue of it, the greater the resistance to completing it. Who knows?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/internet-use-uk-national-how-many-people-a8806806.html
I filled it in online anyway but given the muddle they have had my feedback was - acid.
The EU does seem to be doing its best to help us sort out the mess we’d made of Brexit. However inadvertently.
Presumably all that ranting about AZ is a flag for a potential market,