That sound you hear is the ripping up of contracts and the shredding of what little reputation the EU had left
Anyone taking a betting market on the response to a vaccine export ban from the EU, directed at the UK?
I am going with withholding further payments to the EU.
It’ll be more subtle than that, like a reinforcement of travel bans and quarantines over the summer to places with low levels of vaccination and high levels of the virus. Not naming any specific countries of course...
Trigger alert - some posters might not like this parallel.
Right now we're in 1940 and we are once against standing alone. It's British Exceptionalism at its best.
Did you make that up yourself? In other words should we be embarrassed for you or is it just an inappropriate quote?
Let’s hope tigger isn’t one of those sorts who has a prolapse when anyone suggests that the English right is obsessed with WWII. Nothing worse than a self inflicted prolapse I would think.
As a number of us with a background in statistics or medicine pointed out, there were serious issues with the original AZ trial, both in terms of trial techniques and in some of the claims being prematurely issued by some of its proponents. So it's perfectly understandable that there was a lot of coverage of the issues - it was scarcely something of little public interest. That doesn't alter the fact that the vaccine has turned out to be excellent at preventing hospitalisation and death, which is the main point. But it's not a conspiracy to have reported initial doubts.
That doesn't alter that some of the stuff since has been extremely bizarre. Macron? Handelsblatt?
Hence the bizarre and contradictory ruling on who gets AZN across Europe.
I said this quite a while ago - the correct response on vaccines, is to leave such matters to actual independent regulators.
One thing that the UK government has done, that I agree with, is getting the scientists to lead on the discussions of efficacy, effectiveness etc.
Yes, that's undoubtedly right, and if everyone had stuck to that, a lot of lives would have been saved. The early UK blunders were taken despite severe scientific doubts and the recent interventions by Macron et al are inexcusable.
Obviously regulators can make mistakes too, but they beat the hell out of politicians going by gut instinct or perceived political advantage.
Incidentally, when I worked in the industry I heard of an example of a genuine regulatory mistake affecting another company that it was hard to know what to do with. There was a new drug that had been approved all over the world and had excellent efficacy and safety. It was approved in Japan too, but the Japanese regulators' report mixed up the patient group using the drug and the control group using a placebo. Consequently, the Japanese report, if you read it carefully, appeared to show that the placebo was much better. They'd misread the submission, and ignored the implication.
The problem that the company concerned had was that the Japanese regulators were thought to be averse to losing face (not sure if that's accurate or merely a stereotype). Should the company point out the error and risk a resentful response, such as a lengthy delay in getting approved in Japan, or should they let it go, seeing that the intention was clear and matched experience elsewhere?
I'm not sure what was decided. But it does show that peer review of regulatory decisions is a good idea.
In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots. Perhaps it would have taken a political decision to direct the regulators that they have to take into account the fact that this is an emergency, hundreds of people are dying every day. Unfortunately the federal government has shown a terrible lack of initiative throughout.
No it was not.
In the UK the MHRA was the regulator that evaluated and authorised the vaccine, despite still being members of the EMA at the time.
In Germany the national regulator stood back and deferred to the EMA as the relevant regulator to evaluate and authorise the vaccine. Then they overrode the EMAs advice after they did come to a decision to authorise it for all adults and to not call for a pause.
If Germany wanted its national regulator to be making the decisions then that is fair enough, but then the national regulator should have got all the evidence, done the evaluation and then made its authorisation decision like the MHRA did. Instead it deferred to the EMA then second guessed it. That is a terrible way to operate.
Like I said it was the national regulator who made those decisions.
Not the national regulator who evaluated the evidence or made the authorisation decision though. The EMA did that.
Either the German regulator should be the one evaluating the evidence, making authorisation decisions and announcing pauses - or the EMA should be. Deferring to the EMA then overriding it is no sane way to operate.
Yes, one regulator should have the authority. That is not the point I was making or answering to. Please learn to read.
I did, you wrote: "In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots"
That was wrong. "The regulator" who received the evidence, scrutinised it and made the authorisation decision was the EMA. The EMA is "the regulator" that Germany chose to do the job. The EMA did not decide that AZ should not be given to over 65s. The EMA did not decide to pause AZ.
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
Do a Google for "adverse reaction AstraZeneca covid vaccine trial". You get a whole bunch of news stories about problems with the AstraZeneca trial, from reputable sources such as Statnews, CNN and others.
Now, switch AstraZeneca for Moderna.
Suddenly there's essentially nothing. A quarter of the number of links. And no stories suggesting any negative trial issues whatsoever.
Bear in mind that this search is for the trial. This is long before the EU had even fucked up vaccine procurement.
Now, Google for "issues AstraZeneca vaccine trial". Again. Tonnes of links: NYTimes. Statnews. And a whole bunch of serious medical sites.
Now, do the same for Modera.
And there's almost nothing.
There is almost no serious anti-Moderna (or even anti-Pfizer) news.
There is tonnes of anti-AstraZeneca.
You're at risk of spoiling the Brexiters' fun..
If you think that is our idea of fun, then it is no surprise you were "beaten by a bus".
Leon isn't the only one who jumps on any anti-EU angle with palpable enthusiasm.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
So the attempt to wreck the peace on Ireland, the threats to ban exports, the 8% efficacy and Macron's smears - none of it happened?
WE are trying to wreck the peace in NI. The hardline Unionists are the threat, not the IRA, and they are up in arms about the GB - NI border which WE decided to impose.
What absolute tosh.
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
The border has to go somewhere. We knew that going into Brexit. We knew that it couldn't go onto the Island of Ireland. We offered fanciful technological solutions that we insisted were only a few months away. When offered a delay of a few months to develop and implement them, we did of course refuse - we were lying.
We had an agreement with the EU which would have avoided the Irish Sea border and chose to bin it. This was our choice. We could have then chosen to stay aligned - which we have done with every single "new" trade deal signed by Liz Truss which rolls over the status quo ante. We instead insisted on third country terms - again our choice.
Then the border should be between the EU and the UK. NI is part of the UK.
But no the border doesn't need to be somewhere. You can rely upon trust and self enforcement across the border accepting that may violate the "integrity" of the market.
So we are back to how we have both a fully open border on Ireland and a functioning external EU border. We kept offering up technology solutions like the drones that everyone was laughing at yesterday. But when offered that we wait before implementing our exit for this to be put in place we refused. Why? Because we knew that such a thing was sci-fi.
We *absolutely* could go on trust and self-enforcement. Our standards are the EU's standards. Our animal welfare is their animal welfare. We have literally handcuffed ourselves to the EU by signing all of these continuity EU trade deals. But politically the government need to keep up the pretence of having departed massively, hence our insistence on 3rd country status and all that means.
So yes. Ring the EU. Sign an enlarged alignment and co-operation deal. Reopen the UK to our biggest trading markets. Fix the NI border crisis. But we can't do that as it would be seen by Tory backbenchers as capitulation. They demand the right to have babies even though we can't have babies.
We refused because that's entirely wrong. You don't "wait" for a solution, solutions don't take time, you invent the damned solution and that takes effort and both sides to require it.
When the Government announced the furlough scheme it didn't say "we will do this, once a solution has been invented", they said "we are doing this" and told their team to get on with it. Necessity is the mother of invention.
The right solution to NI was always to say to the EU "we are leaving the EU Single Market and Customs Union on this date, now lets work together to develop as many mitigations as possible to keep the border open".
They need skin in the game and your notion that "the UK broke it, the UK can fix it" and that the EU can just stand back and wait for a solution is not how life works.
So why don't we work together? We haven't actually deviated from EEA standards. We haven't actually changed any CU practices. And we aren't going to do either for a Long Time.
Why can't we agree a deal with them where we both mutually drop our checks - the ones we are dropping anyway as we didn't bother to build customs posts or hire customs officers?
You and I both know the reason is politics. We can't admit that despite all the hooey spoken we haven't actually left the side of the dock. It would look Bad for Boris. So instead we have this charade of claiming to be sovereign and different despite having decided to use that sovereignty to keep doing what we were doing before.
We have left the Single Market and Customs Union already. If they want a deal where we both mutually drop our checks, but without us signing up to SM or CU standards, then I have no objection to that. Are they offering that?
Been a while since Lab weren’t ahead in Wales, but presumably that’s a subsample rather than someone polling Wales on UK Parliamentary voting intention?
Polling on Welsh Parliament VI might be more useful at this point
Some think Drakeford is seen as a success in Wales but it is Boris who is receiving the vaccine boost
And for those who do not live in Wales, Labour and Drakeford have been an unmitigated disaster especially in education and health
You mean not living in a place contributes to a certain cluelessness about said place? Well I never.
I have lived with Scottish nationalism for most of my 77 years and I leave you with this thought
My dear late Scots father in law, one of the most wonderful, kind, gentle and successful fisherman of his generation who voted labout all his life declared that Scottish nationalism is ugly, wrong and destructive
Been a while since Lab weren’t ahead in Wales, but presumably that’s a subsample rather than someone polling Wales on UK Parliamentary voting intention?
Polling on Welsh Parliament VI might be more useful at this point
Bailey was on 28% in London yesterday, so if the Tories are on 30% on the Welsh constituency vote they continue to do better in Wales now than in the capital.
With Khan on over 50% and Labour in the mid 30s at most in Wales we can certainly say only London is the real Labour heartland now
What about Merseyside?
Good point. There's a definite Merseyside effect with contiguous areas like the Wirral swinging dramatically to Labour over the years. For instance It's very striking that Chester City which is in the Merseyside orbit - once safely Conservative - is now comfortably in the Labour column, while Wrexham, just across the border in Wales has moved in the opposite direction and is the proud owner of a Tory MP for the first time since the war.
As a number of us with a background in statistics or medicine pointed out, there were serious issues with the original AZ trial, both in terms of trial techniques and in some of the claims being prematurely issued by some of its proponents. So it's perfectly understandable that there was a lot of coverage of the issues - it was scarcely something of little public interest. That doesn't alter the fact that the vaccine has turned out to be excellent at preventing hospitalisation and death, which is the main point. But it's not a conspiracy to have reported initial doubts.
That doesn't alter that some of the stuff since has been extremely bizarre. Macron? Handelsblatt?
Hence the bizarre and contradictory ruling on who gets AZN across Europe.
I said this quite a while ago - the correct response on vaccines, is to leave such matters to actual independent regulators.
One thing that the UK government has done, that I agree with, is getting the scientists to lead on the discussions of efficacy, effectiveness etc.
Yes, that's undoubtedly right, and if everyone had stuck to that, a lot of lives would have been saved. The early UK blunders were taken despite severe scientific doubts and the recent interventions by Macron et al are inexcusable.
Obviously regulators can make mistakes too, but they beat the hell out of politicians going by gut instinct or perceived political advantage.
Incidentally, when I worked in the industry I heard of an example of a genuine regulatory mistake affecting another company that it was hard to know what to do with. There was a new drug that had been approved all over the world and had excellent efficacy and safety. It was approved in Japan too, but the Japanese regulators' report mixed up the patient group using the drug and the control group using a placebo. Consequently, the Japanese report, if you read it carefully, appeared to show that the placebo was much better. They'd misread the submission, and ignored the implication.
The problem that the company concerned had was that the Japanese regulators were thought to be averse to losing face (not sure if that's accurate or merely a stereotype). Should the company point out the error and risk a resentful response, such as a lengthy delay in getting approved in Japan, or should they let it go, seeing that the intention was clear and matched experience elsewhere?
I'm not sure what was decided. But it does show that peer review of regulatory decisions is a good idea.
In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots. Perhaps it would have taken a political decision to direct the regulators that they have to take into account the fact that this is an emergency, hundreds of people are dying every day. Unfortunately the federal government has shown a terrible lack of initiative throughout.
No it was not.
In the UK the MHRA was the regulator that evaluated and authorised the vaccine, despite still being members of the EMA at the time.
In Germany the national regulator stood back and deferred to the EMA as the relevant regulator to evaluate and authorise the vaccine. Then they overrode the EMAs advice after they did come to a decision to authorise it for all adults and to not call for a pause.
If Germany wanted its national regulator to be making the decisions then that is fair enough, but then the national regulator should have got all the evidence, done the evaluation and then made its authorisation decision like the MHRA did. Instead it deferred to the EMA then second guessed it. That is a terrible way to operate.
Like I said it was the national regulator who made those decisions.
Not the national regulator who evaluated the evidence or made the authorisation decision though. The EMA did that.
Either the German regulator should be the one evaluating the evidence, making authorisation decisions and announcing pauses - or the EMA should be. Deferring to the EMA then overriding it is no sane way to operate.
Yes, one regulator should have the authority. That is not the point I was making or answering to. Please learn to read.
I did, you wrote: "In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots"
That was wrong. "The regulator" who received the evidence, scrutinised it and made the authorisation decision was the EMA. The EMA is "the regulator" that Germany chose to do the job. The EMA did not decide that AZ should not be given to over 65s. The EMA did not decide to pause AZ.
As a number of us with a background in statistics or medicine pointed out, there were serious issues with the original AZ trial, both in terms of trial techniques and in some of the claims being prematurely issued by some of its proponents. So it's perfectly understandable that there was a lot of coverage of the issues - it was scarcely something of little public interest. That doesn't alter the fact that the vaccine has turned out to be excellent at preventing hospitalisation and death, which is the main point. But it's not a conspiracy to have reported initial doubts.
That doesn't alter that some of the stuff since has been extremely bizarre. Macron? Handelsblatt?
Hence the bizarre and contradictory ruling on who gets AZN across Europe.
I said this quite a while ago - the correct response on vaccines, is to leave such matters to actual independent regulators.
One thing that the UK government has done, that I agree with, is getting the scientists to lead on the discussions of efficacy, effectiveness etc.
Yes, that's undoubtedly right, and if everyone had stuck to that, a lot of lives would have been saved. The early UK blunders were taken despite severe scientific doubts and the recent interventions by Macron et al are inexcusable.
Obviously regulators can make mistakes too, but they beat the hell out of politicians going by gut instinct or perceived political advantage.
Incidentally, when I worked in the industry I heard of an example of a genuine regulatory mistake affecting another company that it was hard to know what to do with. There was a new drug that had been approved all over the world and had excellent efficacy and safety. It was approved in Japan too, but the Japanese regulators' report mixed up the patient group using the drug and the control group using a placebo. Consequently, the Japanese report, if you read it carefully, appeared to show that the placebo was much better. They'd misread the submission, and ignored the implication.
The problem that the company concerned had was that the Japanese regulators were thought to be averse to losing face (not sure if that's accurate or merely a stereotype). Should the company point out the error and risk a resentful response, such as a lengthy delay in getting approved in Japan, or should they let it go, seeing that the intention was clear and matched experience elsewhere?
I'm not sure what was decided. But it does show that peer review of regulatory decisions is a good idea.
In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots. Perhaps it would have taken a political decision to direct the regulators that they have to take into account the fact that this is an emergency, hundreds of people are dying every day. Unfortunately the federal government has shown a terrible lack of initiative throughout.
No it was not.
In the UK the MHRA was the regulator that evaluated and authorised the vaccine, despite still being members of the EMA at the time.
In Germany the national regulator stood back and deferred to the EMA as the relevant regulator to evaluate and authorise the vaccine. Then they overrode the EMAs advice after they did come to a decision to authorise it for all adults and to not call for a pause.
If Germany wanted its national regulator to be making the decisions then that is fair enough, but then the national regulator should have got all the evidence, done the evaluation and then made its authorisation decision like the MHRA did. Instead it deferred to the EMA then second guessed it. That is a terrible way to operate.
Like I said it was the national regulator who made those decisions.
Not the national regulator who evaluated the evidence or made the authorisation decision though. The EMA did that.
Either the German regulator should be the one evaluating the evidence, making authorisation decisions and announcing pauses - or the EMA should be. Deferring to the EMA then overriding it is no sane way to operate.
Yes, one regulator should have the authority. That is not the point I was making or answering to. Please learn to read.
I did, you wrote: "In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots"
That was wrong. "The regulator" who received the evidence, scrutinised it and made the authorisation decision was the EMA. The EMA is "the regulator" that Germany chose to do the job. The EMA did not decide that AZ should not be given to over 65s. The EMA did not decide to pause AZ.
It is not wrong. If I say "Germany" and I refer to a decision applying to Germany, that was made in Germany, then anyone who can read and understand English will understand that I mean the German regulators. I am obviously not referring to the EMA in this case, as everyone knows the EMA did not make those decisions that I am referring to. This is pretty basic English comprehension.
But please use some ridiculous semantics to try and "prove" that you are right and get the last word, as it seems to be terribly important to you.
Been a while since Lab weren’t ahead in Wales, but presumably that’s a subsample rather than someone polling Wales on UK Parliamentary voting intention?
Polling on Welsh Parliament VI might be more useful at this point
Some think Drakeford is seen as a success in Wales but it is Boris who is receiving the vaccine boost
And for those who do not live in Wales, Labour and Drakeford have been an unmitigated disaster especially in education and health
You mean not living in a place contributes to a certain cluelessness about said place? Well I never.
I have lived with Scottish nationalism for most of my 77 years and I leave you with this thought
My dear late Scots father in law, one of the most wonderful, kind, gentle and successful fisherman of his generation who voted labout all his life declared that Scottish nationalism is ugly, wrong and destructive
Funny, my partner’s dad said that Tories were a stain on society. You pays yer money etc.
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
Do a Google for "adverse reaction AstraZeneca covid vaccine trial". You get a whole bunch of news stories about problems with the AstraZeneca trial, from reputable sources such as Statnews, CNN and others.
Now, switch AstraZeneca for Moderna.
Suddenly there's essentially nothing. A quarter of the number of links. And no stories suggesting any negative trial issues whatsoever.
Bear in mind that this search is for the trial. This is long before the EU had even fucked up vaccine procurement.
Now, Google for "issues AstraZeneca vaccine trial". Again. Tonnes of links: NYTimes. Statnews. And a whole bunch of serious medical sites.
Now, do the same for Modera.
And there's almost nothing.
There is almost no serious anti-Moderna (or even anti-Pfizer) news.
There is tonnes of anti-AstraZeneca.
You're at risk of spoiling the Brexiters' fun..
If you think that is our idea of fun, then it is no surprise you were "beaten by a bus".
Leon isn't the only one who jumps on any anti-EU angle with palpable enthusiasm.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
So the attempt to wreck the peace on Ireland, the threats to ban exports, the 8% efficacy and Macron's smears - none of it happened?
WE are trying to wreck the peace in NI. The hardline Unionists are the threat, not the IRA, and they are up in arms about the GB - NI border which WE decided to impose.
What absolute tosh.
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
The border has to go somewhere. We knew that going into Brexit. We knew that it couldn't go onto the Island of Ireland. We offered fanciful technological solutions that we insisted were only a few months away. When offered a delay of a few months to develop and implement them, we did of course refuse - we were lying.
We had an agreement with the EU which would have avoided the Irish Sea border and chose to bin it. This was our choice. We could have then chosen to stay aligned - which we have done with every single "new" trade deal signed by Liz Truss which rolls over the status quo ante. We instead insisted on third country terms - again our choice.
Then the border should be between the EU and the UK. NI is part of the UK.
But no the border doesn't need to be somewhere. You can rely upon trust and self enforcement across the border accepting that may violate the "integrity" of the market.
So we are back to how we have both a fully open border on Ireland and a functioning external EU border. We kept offering up technology solutions like the drones that everyone was laughing at yesterday. But when offered that we wait before implementing our exit for this to be put in place we refused. Why? Because we knew that such a thing was sci-fi.
We *absolutely* could go on trust and self-enforcement. Our standards are the EU's standards. Our animal welfare is their animal welfare. We have literally handcuffed ourselves to the EU by signing all of these continuity EU trade deals. But politically the government need to keep up the pretence of having departed massively, hence our insistence on 3rd country status and all that means.
So yes. Ring the EU. Sign an enlarged alignment and co-operation deal. Reopen the UK to our biggest trading markets. Fix the NI border crisis. But we can't do that as it would be seen by Tory backbenchers as capitulation. They demand the right to have babies even though we can't have babies.
We refused because that's entirely wrong. You don't "wait" for a solution, solutions don't take time, you invent the damned solution and that takes effort and both sides to require it.
When the Government announced the furlough scheme it didn't say "we will do this, once a solution has been invented", they said "we are doing this" and told their team to get on with it. Necessity is the mother of invention.
The right solution to NI was always to say to the EU "we are leaving the EU Single Market and Customs Union on this date, now lets work together to develop as many mitigations as possible to keep the border open".
They need skin in the game and your notion that "the UK broke it, the UK can fix it" and that the EU can just stand back and wait for a solution is not how life works.
So why don't we work together? We haven't actually deviated from EEA standards. We haven't actually changed any CU practices. And we aren't going to do either for a Long Time.
Why can't we agree a deal with them where we both mutually drop our checks - the ones we are dropping anyway as we didn't bother to build customs posts or hire customs officers?
You and I both know the reason is politics. We can't admit that despite all the hooey spoken we haven't actually left the side of the dock. It would look Bad for Boris. So instead we have this charade of claiming to be sovereign and different despite having decided to use that sovereignty to keep doing what we were doing before.
I have no problem agreeing a sensible compromise with the EU but it cannot impact on our ability to do trade deals independently
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
Do a Google for "adverse reaction AstraZeneca covid vaccine trial". You get a whole bunch of news stories about problems with the AstraZeneca trial, from reputable sources such as Statnews, CNN and others.
Now, switch AstraZeneca for Moderna.
Suddenly there's essentially nothing. A quarter of the number of links. And no stories suggesting any negative trial issues whatsoever.
Bear in mind that this search is for the trial. This is long before the EU had even fucked up vaccine procurement.
Now, Google for "issues AstraZeneca vaccine trial". Again. Tonnes of links: NYTimes. Statnews. And a whole bunch of serious medical sites.
Now, do the same for Modera.
And there's almost nothing.
There is almost no serious anti-Moderna (or even anti-Pfizer) news.
There is tonnes of anti-AstraZeneca.
You're at risk of spoiling the Brexiters' fun..
If you think that is our idea of fun, then it is no surprise you were "beaten by a bus".
Leon isn't the only one who jumps on any anti-EU angle with palpable enthusiasm.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
So the attempt to wreck the peace on Ireland, the threats to ban exports, the 8% efficacy and Macron's smears - none of it happened?
WE are trying to wreck the peace in NI. The hardline Unionists are the threat, not the IRA, and they are up in arms about the GB - NI border which WE decided to impose.
What absolute tosh.
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
The border has to go somewhere. We knew that going into Brexit. We knew that it couldn't go onto the Island of Ireland. We offered fanciful technological solutions that we insisted were only a few months away. When offered a delay of a few months to develop and implement them, we did of course refuse - we were lying.
We had an agreement with the EU which would have avoided the Irish Sea border and chose to bin it. This was our choice. We could have then chosen to stay aligned - which we have done with every single "new" trade deal signed by Liz Truss which rolls over the status quo ante. We instead insisted on third country terms - again our choice.
Then the border should be between the EU and the UK. NI is part of the UK.
But no the border doesn't need to be somewhere. You can rely upon trust and self enforcement across the border accepting that may violate the "integrity" of the market.
So we are back to how we have both a fully open border on Ireland and a functioning external EU border. We kept offering up technology solutions like the drones that everyone was laughing at yesterday. But when offered that we wait before implementing our exit for this to be put in place we refused. Why? Because we knew that such a thing was sci-fi.
We *absolutely* could go on trust and self-enforcement. Our standards are the EU's standards. Our animal welfare is their animal welfare. We have literally handcuffed ourselves to the EU by signing all of these continuity EU trade deals. But politically the government need to keep up the pretence of having departed massively, hence our insistence on 3rd country status and all that means.
So yes. Ring the EU. Sign an enlarged alignment and co-operation deal. Reopen the UK to our biggest trading markets. Fix the NI border crisis. But we can't do that as it would be seen by Tory backbenchers as capitulation. They demand the right to have babies even though we can't have babies.
We refused because that's entirely wrong. You don't "wait" for a solution, solutions don't take time, you invent the damned solution and that takes effort and both sides to require it.
When the Government announced the furlough scheme it didn't say "we will do this, once a solution has been invented", they said "we are doing this" and told their team to get on with it. Necessity is the mother of invention.
The right solution to NI was always to say to the EU "we are leaving the EU Single Market and Customs Union on this date, now lets work together to develop as many mitigations as possible to keep the border open".
They need skin in the game and your notion that "the UK broke it, the UK can fix it" and that the EU can just stand back and wait for a solution is not how life works.
So why don't we work together? We haven't actually deviated from EEA standards. We haven't actually changed any CU practices. And we aren't going to do either for a Long Time.
Why can't we agree a deal with them where we both mutually drop our checks - the ones we are dropping anyway as we didn't bother to build customs posts or hire customs officers?
You and I both know the reason is politics. We can't admit that despite all the hooey spoken we haven't actually left the side of the dock. It would look Bad for Boris. So instead we have this charade of claiming to be sovereign and different despite having decided to use that sovereignty to keep doing what we were doing before.
Why would the French drop their customs inspections?
It's perfect for them as it allows them to quietly (via random delays and issues) encourage anyone importing goods from the UK to find a local supplier..
As a number of us with a background in statistics or medicine pointed out, there were serious issues with the original AZ trial, both in terms of trial techniques and in some of the claims being prematurely issued by some of its proponents. So it's perfectly understandable that there was a lot of coverage of the issues - it was scarcely something of little public interest. That doesn't alter the fact that the vaccine has turned out to be excellent at preventing hospitalisation and death, which is the main point. But it's not a conspiracy to have reported initial doubts.
That doesn't alter that some of the stuff since has been extremely bizarre. Macron? Handelsblatt?
Hence the bizarre and contradictory ruling on who gets AZN across Europe.
I said this quite a while ago - the correct response on vaccines, is to leave such matters to actual independent regulators.
One thing that the UK government has done, that I agree with, is getting the scientists to lead on the discussions of efficacy, effectiveness etc.
Yes, that's undoubtedly right, and if everyone had stuck to that, a lot of lives would have been saved. The early UK blunders were taken despite severe scientific doubts and the recent interventions by Macron et al are inexcusable.
Obviously regulators can make mistakes too, but they beat the hell out of politicians going by gut instinct or perceived political advantage.
Incidentally, when I worked in the industry I heard of an example of a genuine regulatory mistake affecting another company that it was hard to know what to do with. There was a new drug that had been approved all over the world and had excellent efficacy and safety. It was approved in Japan too, but the Japanese regulators' report mixed up the patient group using the drug and the control group using a placebo. Consequently, the Japanese report, if you read it carefully, appeared to show that the placebo was much better. They'd misread the submission, and ignored the implication.
The problem that the company concerned had was that the Japanese regulators were thought to be averse to losing face (not sure if that's accurate or merely a stereotype). Should the company point out the error and risk a resentful response, such as a lengthy delay in getting approved in Japan, or should they let it go, seeing that the intention was clear and matched experience elsewhere?
I'm not sure what was decided. But it does show that peer review of regulatory decisions is a good idea.
In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots. Perhaps it would have taken a political decision to direct the regulators that they have to take into account the fact that this is an emergency, hundreds of people are dying every day. Unfortunately the federal government has shown a terrible lack of initiative throughout.
No it was not.
In the UK the MHRA was the regulator that evaluated and authorised the vaccine, despite still being members of the EMA at the time.
In Germany the national regulator stood back and deferred to the EMA as the relevant regulator to evaluate and authorise the vaccine. Then they overrode the EMAs advice after they did come to a decision to authorise it for all adults and to not call for a pause.
If Germany wanted its national regulator to be making the decisions then that is fair enough, but then the national regulator should have got all the evidence, done the evaluation and then made its authorisation decision like the MHRA did. Instead it deferred to the EMA then second guessed it. That is a terrible way to operate.
Like I said it was the national regulator who made those decisions.
Not the national regulator who evaluated the evidence or made the authorisation decision though. The EMA did that.
Either the German regulator should be the one evaluating the evidence, making authorisation decisions and announcing pauses - or the EMA should be. Deferring to the EMA then overriding it is no sane way to operate.
Yes, one regulator should have the authority. That is not the point I was making or answering to. Please learn to read.
I did, you wrote: "In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots"
That was wrong. "The regulator" who received the evidence, scrutinised it and made the authorisation decision was the EMA. The EMA is "the regulator" that Germany chose to do the job. The EMA did not decide that AZ should not be given to over 65s. The EMA did not decide to pause AZ.
As a number of us with a background in statistics or medicine pointed out, there were serious issues with the original AZ trial, both in terms of trial techniques and in some of the claims being prematurely issued by some of its proponents. So it's perfectly understandable that there was a lot of coverage of the issues - it was scarcely something of little public interest. That doesn't alter the fact that the vaccine has turned out to be excellent at preventing hospitalisation and death, which is the main point. But it's not a conspiracy to have reported initial doubts.
That doesn't alter that some of the stuff since has been extremely bizarre. Macron? Handelsblatt?
Hence the bizarre and contradictory ruling on who gets AZN across Europe.
I said this quite a while ago - the correct response on vaccines, is to leave such matters to actual independent regulators.
One thing that the UK government has done, that I agree with, is getting the scientists to lead on the discussions of efficacy, effectiveness etc.
Yes, that's undoubtedly right, and if everyone had stuck to that, a lot of lives would have been saved. The early UK blunders were taken despite severe scientific doubts and the recent interventions by Macron et al are inexcusable.
Obviously regulators can make mistakes too, but they beat the hell out of politicians going by gut instinct or perceived political advantage.
Incidentally, when I worked in the industry I heard of an example of a genuine regulatory mistake affecting another company that it was hard to know what to do with. There was a new drug that had been approved all over the world and had excellent efficacy and safety. It was approved in Japan too, but the Japanese regulators' report mixed up the patient group using the drug and the control group using a placebo. Consequently, the Japanese report, if you read it carefully, appeared to show that the placebo was much better. They'd misread the submission, and ignored the implication.
The problem that the company concerned had was that the Japanese regulators were thought to be averse to losing face (not sure if that's accurate or merely a stereotype). Should the company point out the error and risk a resentful response, such as a lengthy delay in getting approved in Japan, or should they let it go, seeing that the intention was clear and matched experience elsewhere?
I'm not sure what was decided. But it does show that peer review of regulatory decisions is a good idea.
In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots. Perhaps it would have taken a political decision to direct the regulators that they have to take into account the fact that this is an emergency, hundreds of people are dying every day. Unfortunately the federal government has shown a terrible lack of initiative throughout.
No it was not.
In the UK the MHRA was the regulator that evaluated and authorised the vaccine, despite still being members of the EMA at the time.
In Germany the national regulator stood back and deferred to the EMA as the relevant regulator to evaluate and authorise the vaccine. Then they overrode the EMAs advice after they did come to a decision to authorise it for all adults and to not call for a pause.
If Germany wanted its national regulator to be making the decisions then that is fair enough, but then the national regulator should have got all the evidence, done the evaluation and then made its authorisation decision like the MHRA did. Instead it deferred to the EMA then second guessed it. That is a terrible way to operate.
Like I said it was the national regulator who made those decisions.
Not the national regulator who evaluated the evidence or made the authorisation decision though. The EMA did that.
Either the German regulator should be the one evaluating the evidence, making authorisation decisions and announcing pauses - or the EMA should be. Deferring to the EMA then overriding it is no sane way to operate.
Yes, one regulator should have the authority. That is not the point I was making or answering to. Please learn to read.
I did, you wrote: "In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots"
That was wrong. "The regulator" who received the evidence, scrutinised it and made the authorisation decision was the EMA. The EMA is "the regulator" that Germany chose to do the job. The EMA did not decide that AZ should not be given to over 65s. The EMA did not decide to pause AZ.
It is not wrong. If I say "Germany" and I refer to a decision applying to Germany, that was made in Germany, then anyone who can read and understand English will understand that I mean the German regulators. I am obviously not referring to the EMA in this case, as everyone knows the EMA did not make those decisions that I am referring to. This is pretty basic English comprehension.
But please use some ridiculous semantics to try and "prove" that you are right and get the last word, as it seems to be terribly important to you.
That's wrong.
That's like saying if I refer to Lancashire then it should be Lancashire regulators that made the decision, rather than the MHRA. Germany is a part of the EMA. Germany could have chosen to have their own national regulators making decisions like the MHRA was given authority to do but the German government declined to let the German regulator make the decision, instead Germany decided for the EMA to do the job. Until the EMA gave a decision they didn't like.
The EMA was the relevant regulator and you're wrong to try and imply that what happened was just the regulator doing its job because it was not. The EMA was the regulator and had the evidence.
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
Do a Google for "adverse reaction AstraZeneca covid vaccine trial". You get a whole bunch of news stories about problems with the AstraZeneca trial, from reputable sources such as Statnews, CNN and others.
Now, switch AstraZeneca for Moderna.
Suddenly there's essentially nothing. A quarter of the number of links. And no stories suggesting any negative trial issues whatsoever.
Bear in mind that this search is for the trial. This is long before the EU had even fucked up vaccine procurement.
Now, Google for "issues AstraZeneca vaccine trial". Again. Tonnes of links: NYTimes. Statnews. And a whole bunch of serious medical sites.
Now, do the same for Modera.
And there's almost nothing.
There is almost no serious anti-Moderna (or even anti-Pfizer) news.
There is tonnes of anti-AstraZeneca.
You're at risk of spoiling the Brexiters' fun..
If you think that is our idea of fun, then it is no surprise you were "beaten by a bus".
Leon isn't the only one who jumps on any anti-EU angle with palpable enthusiasm.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
So the attempt to wreck the peace on Ireland, the threats to ban exports, the 8% efficacy and Macron's smears - none of it happened?
WE are trying to wreck the peace in NI. The hardline Unionists are the threat, not the IRA, and they are up in arms about the GB - NI border which WE decided to impose.
What absolute tosh.
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
The border has to go somewhere. We knew that going into Brexit. We knew that it couldn't go onto the Island of Ireland. We offered fanciful technological solutions that we insisted were only a few months away. When offered a delay of a few months to develop and implement them, we did of course refuse - we were lying.
We had an agreement with the EU which would have avoided the Irish Sea border and chose to bin it. This was our choice. We could have then chosen to stay aligned - which we have done with every single "new" trade deal signed by Liz Truss which rolls over the status quo ante. We instead insisted on third country terms - again our choice.
Then the border should be between the EU and the UK. NI is part of the UK.
But no the border doesn't need to be somewhere. You can rely upon trust and self enforcement across the border accepting that may violate the "integrity" of the market.
So we are back to how we have both a fully open border on Ireland and a functioning external EU border. We kept offering up technology solutions like the drones that everyone was laughing at yesterday. But when offered that we wait before implementing our exit for this to be put in place we refused. Why? Because we knew that such a thing was sci-fi.
We *absolutely* could go on trust and self-enforcement. Our standards are the EU's standards. Our animal welfare is their animal welfare. We have literally handcuffed ourselves to the EU by signing all of these continuity EU trade deals. But politically the government need to keep up the pretence of having departed massively, hence our insistence on 3rd country status and all that means.
So yes. Ring the EU. Sign an enlarged alignment and co-operation deal. Reopen the UK to our biggest trading markets. Fix the NI border crisis. But we can't do that as it would be seen by Tory backbenchers as capitulation. They demand the right to have babies even though we can't have babies.
We refused because that's entirely wrong. You don't "wait" for a solution, solutions don't take time, you invent the damned solution and that takes effort and both sides to require it.
When the Government announced the furlough scheme it didn't say "we will do this, once a solution has been invented", they said "we are doing this" and told their team to get on with it. Necessity is the mother of invention.
The right solution to NI was always to say to the EU "we are leaving the EU Single Market and Customs Union on this date, now lets work together to develop as many mitigations as possible to keep the border open".
They need skin in the game and your notion that "the UK broke it, the UK can fix it" and that the EU can just stand back and wait for a solution is not how life works.
So why don't we work together? We haven't actually deviated from EEA standards. We haven't actually changed any CU practices. And we aren't going to do either for a Long Time.
Why can't we agree a deal with them where we both mutually drop our checks - the ones we are dropping anyway as we didn't bother to build customs posts or hire customs officers?
You and I both know the reason is politics. We can't admit that despite all the hooey spoken we haven't actually left the side of the dock. It would look Bad for Boris. So instead we have this charade of claiming to be sovereign and different despite having decided to use that sovereignty to keep doing what we were doing before.
We have left the Single Market and Customs Union already. If they want a deal where we both mutually drop our checks, but without us signing up to SM or CU standards, then I have no objection to that. Are they offering that?
Have we asked? I would involve us stating openly that we have maintained all of the standards and customs practices we had before we left the EEA and CU. Whilst it is correct it does rather make a mockery of what Shagger and his government have been saying.
So they are simultaneously insisting on their contracts being met, at the same time as demanding other, prior contracts be breached ?
That's code for "our contract does not say what we thought it said".
There was an EU Commissioner on France24 a couple of days ago who went so far as to say the written details of contracts were not that important.
I'm by no means an expert but isn't European contract law a little different to ours? As in, they put more emphasis on what the court thinks the parties actually intended rather than what is actually written down?
I could be very wrong — it's been a while since I read comparisons of E+W Contract Law with others.
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
Do a Google for "adverse reaction AstraZeneca covid vaccine trial". You get a whole bunch of news stories about problems with the AstraZeneca trial, from reputable sources such as Statnews, CNN and others.
Now, switch AstraZeneca for Moderna.
Suddenly there's essentially nothing. A quarter of the number of links. And no stories suggesting any negative trial issues whatsoever.
Bear in mind that this search is for the trial. This is long before the EU had even fucked up vaccine procurement.
Now, Google for "issues AstraZeneca vaccine trial". Again. Tonnes of links: NYTimes. Statnews. And a whole bunch of serious medical sites.
Now, do the same for Modera.
And there's almost nothing.
There is almost no serious anti-Moderna (or even anti-Pfizer) news.
There is tonnes of anti-AstraZeneca.
You're at risk of spoiling the Brexiters' fun..
If you think that is our idea of fun, then it is no surprise you were "beaten by a bus".
Leon isn't the only one who jumps on any anti-EU angle with palpable enthusiasm.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
So the attempt to wreck the peace on Ireland, the threats to ban exports, the 8% efficacy and Macron's smears - none of it happened?
WE are trying to wreck the peace in NI. The hardline Unionists are the threat, not the IRA, and they are up in arms about the GB - NI border which WE decided to impose.
What absolute tosh.
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
The border has to go somewhere. We knew that going into Brexit. We knew that it couldn't go onto the Island of Ireland. We offered fanciful technological solutions that we insisted were only a few months away. When offered a delay of a few months to develop and implement them, we did of course refuse - we were lying.
We had an agreement with the EU which would have avoided the Irish Sea border and chose to bin it. This was our choice. We could have then chosen to stay aligned - which we have done with every single "new" trade deal signed by Liz Truss which rolls over the status quo ante. We instead insisted on third country terms - again our choice.
Then the border should be between the EU and the UK. NI is part of the UK.
But no the border doesn't need to be somewhere. You can rely upon trust and self enforcement across the border accepting that may violate the "integrity" of the market.
So we are back to how we have both a fully open border on Ireland and a functioning external EU border. We kept offering up technology solutions like the drones that everyone was laughing at yesterday. But when offered that we wait before implementing our exit for this to be put in place we refused. Why? Because we knew that such a thing was sci-fi.
We *absolutely* could go on trust and self-enforcement. Our standards are the EU's standards. Our animal welfare is their animal welfare. We have literally handcuffed ourselves to the EU by signing all of these continuity EU trade deals. But politically the government need to keep up the pretence of having departed massively, hence our insistence on 3rd country status and all that means.
So yes. Ring the EU. Sign an enlarged alignment and co-operation deal. Reopen the UK to our biggest trading markets. Fix the NI border crisis. But we can't do that as it would be seen by Tory backbenchers as capitulation. They demand the right to have babies even though we can't have babies.
We refused because that's entirely wrong. You don't "wait" for a solution, solutions don't take time, you invent the damned solution and that takes effort and both sides to require it.
When the Government announced the furlough scheme it didn't say "we will do this, once a solution has been invented", they said "we are doing this" and told their team to get on with it. Necessity is the mother of invention.
The right solution to NI was always to say to the EU "we are leaving the EU Single Market and Customs Union on this date, now lets work together to develop as many mitigations as possible to keep the border open".
They need skin in the game and your notion that "the UK broke it, the UK can fix it" and that the EU can just stand back and wait for a solution is not how life works.
So why don't we work together? We haven't actually deviated from EEA standards. We haven't actually changed any CU practices. And we aren't going to do either for a Long Time.
Why can't we agree a deal with them where we both mutually drop our checks - the ones we are dropping anyway as we didn't bother to build customs posts or hire customs officers?
You and I both know the reason is politics. We can't admit that despite all the hooey spoken we haven't actually left the side of the dock. It would look Bad for Boris. So instead we have this charade of claiming to be sovereign and different despite having decided to use that sovereignty to keep doing what we were doing before.
We have left the Single Market and Customs Union already. If they want a deal where we both mutually drop our checks, but without us signing up to SM or CU standards, then I have no objection to that. Are they offering that?
Have we asked? I would involve us stating openly that we have maintained all of the standards and customs practices we had before we left the EEA and CU. Whilst it is correct it does rather make a mockery of what Shagger and his government have been saying.
Err no it would not involve us stating that. The whole point of us leaving the EEA and CU is to diverge, what part of that are you not understanding? We've already diverged a bit and are planning to diverge much more.
Been a while since Lab weren’t ahead in Wales, but presumably that’s a subsample rather than someone polling Wales on UK Parliamentary voting intention?
Polling on Welsh Parliament VI might be more useful at this point
Bailey was on 28% in London yesterday, so if the Tories are on 30% on the Welsh constituency vote they continue to do better in Wales now than in the capital.
With Khan on over 50% and Labour in the mid 30s at most in Wales we can certainly say only London is the real Labour heartland now
What about Merseyside?
I suspect if Labour are still 50%+ in London then they are also very strong in their other hotspots - university cities etc. Largely I'd put this down to demographics - more young people here - rather than students necessarily being inherently left wing. Agree that Merseyside is the only place I can see where the Labour vote is being driven by more than age profiles. Though it will be interesting to see if this is still true in St. Helens - which is red-wallish in character as well as Merseyside-ish. Can anyone provide any examples outside of Merseyside of a labour-leaning not particularly young seat?
Been a while since Lab weren’t ahead in Wales, but presumably that’s a subsample rather than someone polling Wales on UK Parliamentary voting intention?
Polling on Welsh Parliament VI might be more useful at this point
Bailey was on 28% in London yesterday, so if the Tories are on 30% on the Welsh constituency vote they continue to do better in Wales now than in the capital.
With Khan on over 50% and Labour in the mid 30s at most in Wales we can certainly say only London is the real Labour heartland now
So they are simultaneously insisting on their contracts being met, at the same time as demanding other, prior contracts be breached ?
That's code for "our contract does not say what we thought it said".
There was an EU Commissioner on France24 a couple of days ago who went so far as to say the written details of contracts were not that important.
I'm by no means an expert but isn't European contract law a little different to ours? As in, they put more emphasis on what the court thinks the parties actually intended rather than what is actually written down?
I could be very wrong — it's been a while since I read comparisons of E+W Contract Law with others.
Let’s start with the fact that the EU has no contracts with any company currently producing vaccines in the UK.
So they are simultaneously insisting on their contracts being met, at the same time as demanding other, prior contracts be breached ?
That's code for "our contract does not say what we thought it said".
There was an EU Commissioner on France24 a couple of days ago who went so far as to say the written details of contracts were not that important.
I'm by no means an expert but isn't European contract law a little different to ours? As in, they put more emphasis on what the court thinks the parties actually intended rather than what is actually written down?
I could be very wrong — it's been a while since I read comparisons of E+W Contract Law with others.
Let’s start with the fact that the EU has no contracts with any company currently producing vaccines in the UK.
I'm not defending the EU here, I merely had an academic curiosity.
"The EU's vaccine nationalism is even more dangerous than it looks In an age of pandemics, Brussels’ bid to disrupt global supply networks sets a disastrous precedent
Been a while since Lab weren’t ahead in Wales, but presumably that’s a subsample rather than someone polling Wales on UK Parliamentary voting intention?
Polling on Welsh Parliament VI might be more useful at this point
Bailey was on 28% in London yesterday, so if the Tories are on 30% on the Welsh constituency vote they continue to do better in Wales now than in the capital.
With Khan on over 50% and Labour in the mid 30s at most in Wales we can certainly say only London is the real Labour heartland now
What about Merseyside?
I suspect if Labour are still 50%+ in London then they are also very strong in their other hotspots - university cities etc. Largely I'd put this down to demographics - more young people here - rather than students necessarily being inherently left wing. Agree that Merseyside is the only place I can see where the Labour vote is being driven by more than age profiles. Though it will be interesting to see if this is still true in St. Helens - which is red-wallish in character as well as Merseyside-ish. Can anyone provide any examples outside of Merseyside of a labour-leaning not particularly young seat?
So they are simultaneously insisting on their contracts being met, at the same time as demanding other, prior contracts be breached ?
That's code for "our contract does not say what we thought it said".
There was an EU Commissioner on France24 a couple of days ago who went so far as to say the written details of contracts were not that important.
I'm by no means an expert but isn't European contract law a little different to ours? As in, they put more emphasis on what the court thinks the parties actually intended rather than what is actually written down?
I could be very wrong — it's been a while since I read comparisons of E+W Contract Law with others.
Wouldn't really matter, though, as deliveries of an experimentally approved biological drug, contracted before it has gone into bulk manufacturing, are necessarily subject to uncertainty - uncertainty which is reflected in the wording of the contract.
I don't think there's a credible way of arguing otherwise.
So they are simultaneously insisting on their contracts being met, at the same time as demanding other, prior contracts be breached ?
That's code for "our contract does not say what we thought it said".
There was an EU Commissioner on France24 a couple of days ago who went so far as to say the written details of contracts were not that important.
I'm by no means an expert but isn't European contract law a little different to ours? As in, they put more emphasis on what the court thinks the parties actually intended rather than what is actually written down?
I could be very wrong — it's been a while since I read comparisons of E+W Contract Law with others.
Let’s start with the fact that the EU has no contracts with any company currently producing vaccines in the UK.
I'm not defending the EU here, I merely had an academic curiosity.
The EU courts are much more political than courts in the UK, and would tend to find in a way that best suits the EU in a dispute against another country.
This was a noted issue during the Brexit negotiations, with a UK red line on allowing EU courts to interpret the deal.
As a number of us with a background in statistics or medicine pointed out, there were serious issues with the original AZ trial, both in terms of trial techniques and in some of the claims being prematurely issued by some of its proponents. So it's perfectly understandable that there was a lot of coverage of the issues - it was scarcely something of little public interest. That doesn't alter the fact that the vaccine has turned out to be excellent at preventing hospitalisation and death, which is the main point. But it's not a conspiracy to have reported initial doubts.
That doesn't alter that some of the stuff since has been extremely bizarre. Macron? Handelsblatt?
Hence the bizarre and contradictory ruling on who gets AZN across Europe.
I said this quite a while ago - the correct response on vaccines, is to leave such matters to actual independent regulators.
One thing that the UK government has done, that I agree with, is getting the scientists to lead on the discussions of efficacy, effectiveness etc.
Yes, that's undoubtedly right, and if everyone had stuck to that, a lot of lives would have been saved. The early UK blunders were taken despite severe scientific doubts and the recent interventions by Macron et al are inexcusable.
Obviously regulators can make mistakes too, but they beat the hell out of politicians going by gut instinct or perceived political advantage.
Incidentally, when I worked in the industry I heard of an example of a genuine regulatory mistake affecting another company that it was hard to know what to do with. There was a new drug that had been approved all over the world and had excellent efficacy and safety. It was approved in Japan too, but the Japanese regulators' report mixed up the patient group using the drug and the control group using a placebo. Consequently, the Japanese report, if you read it carefully, appeared to show that the placebo was much better. They'd misread the submission, and ignored the implication.
The problem that the company concerned had was that the Japanese regulators were thought to be averse to losing face (not sure if that's accurate or merely a stereotype). Should the company point out the error and risk a resentful response, such as a lengthy delay in getting approved in Japan, or should they let it go, seeing that the intention was clear and matched experience elsewhere?
I'm not sure what was decided. But it does show that peer review of regulatory decisions is a good idea.
In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots. Perhaps it would have taken a political decision to direct the regulators that they have to take into account the fact that this is an emergency, hundreds of people are dying every day. Unfortunately the federal government has shown a terrible lack of initiative throughout.
No it was not.
In the UK the MHRA was the regulator that evaluated and authorised the vaccine, despite still being members of the EMA at the time.
In Germany the national regulator stood back and deferred to the EMA as the relevant regulator to evaluate and authorise the vaccine. Then they overrode the EMAs advice after they did come to a decision to authorise it for all adults and to not call for a pause.
If Germany wanted its national regulator to be making the decisions then that is fair enough, but then the national regulator should have got all the evidence, done the evaluation and then made its authorisation decision like the MHRA did. Instead it deferred to the EMA then second guessed it. That is a terrible way to operate.
Like I said it was the national regulator who made those decisions.
Not the national regulator who evaluated the evidence or made the authorisation decision though. The EMA did that.
Either the German regulator should be the one evaluating the evidence, making authorisation decisions and announcing pauses - or the EMA should be. Deferring to the EMA then overriding it is no sane way to operate.
Yes, one regulator should have the authority. That is not the point I was making or answering to. Please learn to read.
I did, you wrote: "In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots"
That was wrong. "The regulator" who received the evidence, scrutinised it and made the authorisation decision was the EMA. The EMA is "the regulator" that Germany chose to do the job. The EMA did not decide that AZ should not be given to over 65s. The EMA did not decide to pause AZ.
As a number of us with a background in statistics or medicine pointed out, there were serious issues with the original AZ trial, both in terms of trial techniques and in some of the claims being prematurely issued by some of its proponents. So it's perfectly understandable that there was a lot of coverage of the issues - it was scarcely something of little public interest. That doesn't alter the fact that the vaccine has turned out to be excellent at preventing hospitalisation and death, which is the main point. But it's not a conspiracy to have reported initial doubts.
That doesn't alter that some of the stuff since has been extremely bizarre. Macron? Handelsblatt?
Hence the bizarre and contradictory ruling on who gets AZN across Europe.
I said this quite a while ago - the correct response on vaccines, is to leave such matters to actual independent regulators.
One thing that the UK government has done, that I agree with, is getting the scientists to lead on the discussions of efficacy, effectiveness etc.
Yes, that's undoubtedly right, and if everyone had stuck to that, a lot of lives would have been saved. The early UK blunders were taken despite severe scientific doubts and the recent interventions by Macron et al are inexcusable.
Obviously regulators can make mistakes too, but they beat the hell out of politicians going by gut instinct or perceived political advantage.
Incidentally, when I worked in the industry I heard of an example of a genuine regulatory mistake affecting another company that it was hard to know what to do with. There was a new drug that had been approved all over the world and had excellent efficacy and safety. It was approved in Japan too, but the Japanese regulators' report mixed up the patient group using the drug and the control group using a placebo. Consequently, the Japanese report, if you read it carefully, appeared to show that the placebo was much better. They'd misread the submission, and ignored the implication.
The problem that the company concerned had was that the Japanese regulators were thought to be averse to losing face (not sure if that's accurate or merely a stereotype). Should the company point out the error and risk a resentful response, such as a lengthy delay in getting approved in Japan, or should they let it go, seeing that the intention was clear and matched experience elsewhere?
I'm not sure what was decided. But it does show that peer review of regulatory decisions is a good idea.
In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots. Perhaps it would have taken a political decision to direct the regulators that they have to take into account the fact that this is an emergency, hundreds of people are dying every day. Unfortunately the federal government has shown a terrible lack of initiative throughout.
No it was not.
In the UK the MHRA was the regulator that evaluated and authorised the vaccine, despite still being members of the EMA at the time.
In Germany the national regulator stood back and deferred to the EMA as the relevant regulator to evaluate and authorise the vaccine. Then they overrode the EMAs advice after they did come to a decision to authorise it for all adults and to not call for a pause.
If Germany wanted its national regulator to be making the decisions then that is fair enough, but then the national regulator should have got all the evidence, done the evaluation and then made its authorisation decision like the MHRA did. Instead it deferred to the EMA then second guessed it. That is a terrible way to operate.
Like I said it was the national regulator who made those decisions.
Not the national regulator who evaluated the evidence or made the authorisation decision though. The EMA did that.
Either the German regulator should be the one evaluating the evidence, making authorisation decisions and announcing pauses - or the EMA should be. Deferring to the EMA then overriding it is no sane way to operate.
Yes, one regulator should have the authority. That is not the point I was making or answering to. Please learn to read.
I did, you wrote: "In Germany it was the regulator who decided that AZ should not be given to over 65s, and the regulator who decided to pause AZ because of rare clots"
That was wrong. "The regulator" who received the evidence, scrutinised it and made the authorisation decision was the EMA. The EMA is "the regulator" that Germany chose to do the job. The EMA did not decide that AZ should not be given to over 65s. The EMA did not decide to pause AZ.
It is not wrong. If I say "Germany" and I refer to a decision applying to Germany, that was made in Germany, then anyone who can read and understand English will understand that I mean the German regulators. I am obviously not referring to the EMA in this case, as everyone knows the EMA did not make those decisions that I am referring to. This is pretty basic English comprehension.
But please use some ridiculous semantics to try and "prove" that you are right and get the last word, as it seems to be terribly important to you.
That's wrong.
That's like saying if I refer to Lancashire then it should be Lancashire regulators that made the decision, rather than the MHRA. Germany is a part of the EMA. Germany could have chosen to have their own national regulators making decisions like the MHRA was given authority to do but the German government declined to let the German regulator make the decision, instead Germany decided for the EMA to do the job. Until the EMA gave a decision they didn't like.
The EMA was the relevant regulator and you're wrong to try and imply that what happened was just the regulator doing its job because it was not. The EMA was the regulator and had the evidence.
Lancashire has its own drugs regulators?
"the German government declined to let the German regulator make the decision, instead Germany decided for the EMA to do the job. Until the EMA gave a decision they didn't like."
This is total crap. For example, Paul Ehrlich Institut was not some dormant institution suddenly revived by the anti-British plotters of your deluded imagination. They were making different vaccine recommendations to other EU countries prior to coronavirus. This is pretty easy to find out for yourself if you are interested in reality, rather than you own fantasies.
So they are simultaneously insisting on their contracts being met, at the same time as demanding other, prior contracts be breached ?
That's code for "our contract does not say what we thought it said".
There was an EU Commissioner on France24 a couple of days ago who went so far as to say the written details of contracts were not that important.
I'm by no means an expert but isn't European contract law a little different to ours? As in, they put more emphasis on what the court thinks the parties actually intended rather than what is actually written down?
I could be very wrong — it's been a while since I read comparisons of E+W Contract Law with others.
Let’s start with the fact that the EU has no contracts with any company currently producing vaccines in the UK.
I'm not defending the EU here, I merely had an academic curiosity.
Like you it’s been ages since I read up on this but from memory our courts do give more weight to what was actually agreed by the parties, assuming they were adults, and are less likely to want to rewrite the agreement.
The AZ vaccine narrative of Boris and the plucky Brits against the world would have been worthy of one of Johnson's semi-fictional 1990s dispatched from Brussels. As it is, Johnson's typewriter remained dormant and between them EU Commissioners and Leaders have done his bidding for him.
I am still not convinced that leaving the EU is optimal for the UK in the longer term, but the AZ debacle has demonstrated that leaving has undoubtedly saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of British lives. If Johnson and Farage had put that on the side of a bus in 2016, no one would have believed them.
I believe that the EU has behaved like absolute cockwombles over this and continue to behave thusly.
But the point needs to be made that the UK (a la Malta) could and I believe would have had no reason not to act on its own wrt vaccine procurement had we still been full members It formed the VTF under La Bingham while still nominally an EU member, after all.
Of course we will never know and expect phalanxes of Leavers to say how the UK would have behaved like pussies and not have stood up to the nasty EU but I'm not so sure.
That said - EU cockwombles 100% and counting right now.
The key is the timing - we already had our detailed agreement with AZN in May 2020; the four-nation consortium reached their heads of agreement (a one page document, I believe) in June, which was when complaints from smaller EU nations led Germany to propose that the EU take over the exercise. Even then, Hungary and more recently some other EU nations continued to progress their own side deals.
Had the EU been progressing its own scheme from the very outset, there is an argument that as a member we might have gone along with it (and, probably, played a part in making sure it was managed rather better). But the EU was invited to the party late, after the UK had already done its hard work with AZN including committing its funding as part of the alliance with Oxford University. It is stretching credibility to argue that we would have torn all that up were it not for Brexit.
Yes, it's inconceivable that we would have joined the EU scheme under any government, given how far advanced our own procurement and investment was. Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance had already set it up even before Kate Bingham was appointed, and we were investing in the Oxford vaccine in March.
So they are simultaneously insisting on their contracts being met, at the same time as demanding other, prior contracts be breached ?
That's code for "our contract does not say what we thought it said".
There was an EU Commissioner on France24 a couple of days ago who went so far as to say the written details of contracts were not that important.
I'm by no means an expert but isn't European contract law a little different to ours? As in, they put more emphasis on what the court thinks the parties actually intended rather than what is actually written down?
I could be very wrong — it's been a while since I read comparisons of E+W Contract Law with others.
It's Belgium vs UK, and UK is more determined by the literal content of the contract. Which I guess is why worldwide contracts are not under Belgian Law.
I won't try and characterise Belgian Law - you need a famous Belgian or that.
However the EU-AZ contract does not (on the couple of analyses I have read) contain a commitment to X doses.
It's been an interesting shift in the rhetoric to have more of an emphasis on "fairness" (which is one of the ultimate Humpty-Dumpty weasel-words) and "reciprocity" alongside "we want our contract fulfilled". And all this time later there is still no legal action or attempt at arbitration.
AIUI they seem to be waving bigger and bigger sticks, but all of them turn out to be made of rubber.
I wonder if there is room for a compromise? Problem is that UK bashing has benefits for EC / UVDL at present, and letting it ride may have benefits for UK.
So they are simultaneously insisting on their contracts being met, at the same time as demanding other, prior contracts be breached ?
That's code for "our contract does not say what we thought it said".
There was an EU Commissioner on France24 a couple of days ago who went so far as to say the written details of contracts were not that important.
I'm by no means an expert but isn't European contract law a little different to ours? As in, they put more emphasis on what the court thinks the parties actually intended rather than what is actually written down?
I could be very wrong — it's been a while since I read comparisons of E+W Contract Law with others.
Let’s start with the fact that the EU has no contracts with any company currently producing vaccines in the UK.
I'm not defending the EU here, I merely had an academic curiosity.
The EU courts are much more political than courts in the UK, and would tend to find in a way that best suits the EU in a dispute against another country.
This was a noted issue during the Brexit negotiations, with a UK red line on allowing EU courts to interpret the deal.
I was referring to civil law courts generally and not the CJEU.
So they are simultaneously insisting on their contracts being met, at the same time as demanding other, prior contracts be breached ?
That's code for "our contract does not say what we thought it said".
There was an EU Commissioner on France24 a couple of days ago who went so far as to say the written details of contracts were not that important.
I'm by no means an expert but isn't European contract law a little different to ours? As in, they put more emphasis on what the court thinks the parties actually intended rather than what is actually written down?
I could be very wrong — it's been a while since I read comparisons of E+W Contract Law with others.
Seems a curious legal approach. If nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, as per their political mantra, but contractually what was agreed depends on different perceptions of intention of agreement, nothing would ever count as agreed.
So they are simultaneously insisting on their contracts being met, at the same time as demanding other, prior contracts be breached ?
That's code for "our contract does not say what we thought it said".
There was an EU Commissioner on France24 a couple of days ago who went so far as to say the written details of contracts were not that important.
I'm by no means an expert but isn't European contract law a little different to ours? As in, they put more emphasis on what the court thinks the parties actually intended rather than what is actually written down?
I could be very wrong — it's been a while since I read comparisons of E+W Contract Law with others.
It's Belgium vs UK, and UK is more determined by the literal content of the contract. Which I guess is why worldwide contracts are not under Belgian Law.
I won't try and characterise Belgian Law - you need a famous Belgian or that.
However the EU-AZ contract does not (on the couple of analyses I have read) contain a commitment to X doses.
It's been an interesting shift in the rhetoric to have more of an emphasis on "fairness" (which is one of the ultimate Humpty-Dumpty weasel-words) and "reciprocity" alongside "we want our contract fulfilled". And all this time later there is still no legal action or attempt at arbitration.
AIUI they seem to be waving bigger and bigger sticks, but all of them turn out to be made of rubber.
I wonder if there is room for a compromise? Problem is that UK bashing has benefits for EU, and letting it ride may have benefits for UK.
Ultimately their entire argument is irrational based purely on the fact they haven't even used the doses they have already.
It's sabre rattling to distract and nothing else methinks.
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
Hodges is absolutely right about this. It is getting ridiculous now. The vaccine works. Confirm the roadmap dates, lockdown borders to risky countries if you have to, but end the earnest, sanctimonious "words of caution" schtick. I offer the same advice to the PB Lockdownistas – we see it daily on here. It's depressing in the extreme.
Of course we will never know and expect phalanxes of Leavers to say how the UK would have behaved like pussies and not have stood up to the nasty EU but I'm not so sure.
But this alternate reality is one where the Remainers won. It's not Boris Johnson PM making the decisions. Do you honestly think that a Remain voting UK would want to diverge from the EU on this issue? I find that not credible.
That's a good point but I will restrict myself to first degree hypotheticals. Because in your example the handling of the Giant Squid invasion was a model of EU cooperation and efficiency.
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
Hodges is absolutely right about this. It is getting ridiculous now. The vaccine works. Confirm the roadmap dates, lockdown borders to risky countries if you have to, but end the earnest, sanctimonious "words of caution" schtick. I offer the same advice to the PB Lockdownistas – we see it daily on here. It's depressing in the extreme.
Everyone keeps telling us that the government doesn't want to prolong lockdown. But look at government ratings. If it's not broke...
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
Do a Google for "adverse reaction AstraZeneca covid vaccine trial". You get a whole bunch of news stories about problems with the AstraZeneca trial, from reputable sources such as Statnews, CNN and others.
Now, switch AstraZeneca for Moderna.
Suddenly there's essentially nothing. A quarter of the number of links. And no stories suggesting any negative trial issues whatsoever.
Bear in mind that this search is for the trial. This is long before the EU had even fucked up vaccine procurement.
Now, Google for "issues AstraZeneca vaccine trial". Again. Tonnes of links: NYTimes. Statnews. And a whole bunch of serious medical sites.
Now, do the same for Modera.
And there's almost nothing.
There is almost no serious anti-Moderna (or even anti-Pfizer) news.
There is tonnes of anti-AstraZeneca.
You're at risk of spoiling the Brexiters' fun..
If you think that is our idea of fun, then it is no surprise you were "beaten by a bus".
Leon isn't the only one who jumps on any anti-EU angle with palpable enthusiasm.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
So the attempt to wreck the peace on Ireland, the threats to ban exports, the 8% efficacy and Macron's smears - none of it happened?
WE are trying to wreck the peace in NI. The hardline Unionists are the threat, not the IRA, and they are up in arms about the GB - NI border which WE decided to impose.
What absolute tosh.
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
The border has to go somewhere. We knew that going into Brexit. We knew that it couldn't go onto the Island of Ireland. We offered fanciful technological solutions that we insisted were only a few months away. When offered a delay of a few months to develop and implement them, we did of course refuse - we were lying.
We had an agreement with the EU which would have avoided the Irish Sea border and chose to bin it. This was our choice. We could have then chosen to stay aligned - which we have done with every single "new" trade deal signed by Liz Truss which rolls over the status quo ante. We instead insisted on third country terms - again our choice.
Then the border should be between the EU and the UK. NI is part of the UK.
But no the border doesn't need to be somewhere. You can rely upon trust and self enforcement across the border accepting that may violate the "integrity" of the market.
So we are back to how we have both a fully open border on Ireland and a functioning external EU border. We kept offering up technology solutions like the drones that everyone was laughing at yesterday. But when offered that we wait before implementing our exit for this to be put in place we refused. Why? Because we knew that such a thing was sci-fi.
We *absolutely* could go on trust and self-enforcement. Our standards are the EU's standards. Our animal welfare is their animal welfare. We have literally handcuffed ourselves to the EU by signing all of these continuity EU trade deals. But politically the government need to keep up the pretence of having departed massively, hence our insistence on 3rd country status and all that means.
So yes. Ring the EU. Sign an enlarged alignment and co-operation deal. Reopen the UK to our biggest trading markets. Fix the NI border crisis. But we can't do that as it would be seen by Tory backbenchers as capitulation. They demand the right to have babies even though we can't have babies.
We refused because that's entirely wrong. You don't "wait" for a solution, solutions don't take time, you invent the damned solution and that takes effort and both sides to require it.
When the Government announced the furlough scheme it didn't say "we will do this, once a solution has been invented", they said "we are doing this" and told their team to get on with it. Necessity is the mother of invention.
The right solution to NI was always to say to the EU "we are leaving the EU Single Market and Customs Union on this date, now lets work together to develop as many mitigations as possible to keep the border open".
They need skin in the game and your notion that "the UK broke it, the UK can fix it" and that the EU can just stand back and wait for a solution is not how life works.
So why don't we work together? We haven't actually deviated from EEA standards. We haven't actually changed any CU practices. And we aren't going to do either for a Long Time.
Why can't we agree a deal with them where we both mutually drop our checks - the ones we are dropping anyway as we didn't bother to build customs posts or hire customs officers?
You and I both know the reason is politics. We can't admit that despite all the hooey spoken we haven't actually left the side of the dock. It would look Bad for Boris. So instead we have this charade of claiming to be sovereign and different despite having decided to use that sovereignty to keep doing what we were doing before.
I have no problem agreeing a sensible compromise with the EU but it cannot impact on our ability to do trade deals independently
Why would it? Liz Truss is the most popular Tory minister apparently because she is going off and signing all of these new trade deals. The detail of course is that they are all continuity trade deals! We have the right to do our own thing and we're choosing to carry on doing their thing.
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
Hodges is absolutely right about this. It is getting ridiculous now. The vaccine works. Confirm the roadmap dates, lockdown borders to risky countries if you have to, but end the earnest, sanctimonious "words of caution" schtick. I offer the same advice to the PB Lockdownistas – we see it daily on here. It's depressing in the extreme.
The road map is working. However -
The opening of schools caused a massive slowdown in the decline of cases in the unvaccinated groups. No, this is not "tests" - the adults will have received PCR tests.
That opening the schools would increase R was expected and debated. What I did not expect, and am rather glad to see, is that the increase in R has not resulted in a net rise in cases.
If we open up further, cases will rise. Until we are vaccinating down to 50 (and preferably below) that means an increase in hospitalisations.
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
Do a Google for "adverse reaction AstraZeneca covid vaccine trial". You get a whole bunch of news stories about problems with the AstraZeneca trial, from reputable sources such as Statnews, CNN and others.
Now, switch AstraZeneca for Moderna.
Suddenly there's essentially nothing. A quarter of the number of links. And no stories suggesting any negative trial issues whatsoever.
Bear in mind that this search is for the trial. This is long before the EU had even fucked up vaccine procurement.
Now, Google for "issues AstraZeneca vaccine trial". Again. Tonnes of links: NYTimes. Statnews. And a whole bunch of serious medical sites.
Now, do the same for Modera.
And there's almost nothing.
There is almost no serious anti-Moderna (or even anti-Pfizer) news.
There is tonnes of anti-AstraZeneca.
You're at risk of spoiling the Brexiters' fun..
If you think that is our idea of fun, then it is no surprise you were "beaten by a bus".
Leon isn't the only one who jumps on any anti-EU angle with palpable enthusiasm.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
So the attempt to wreck the peace on Ireland, the threats to ban exports, the 8% efficacy and Macron's smears - none of it happened?
WE are trying to wreck the peace in NI. The hardline Unionists are the threat, not the IRA, and they are up in arms about the GB - NI border which WE decided to impose.
What absolute tosh.
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
The border has to go somewhere. We knew that going into Brexit. We knew that it couldn't go onto the Island of Ireland. We offered fanciful technological solutions that we insisted were only a few months away. When offered a delay of a few months to develop and implement them, we did of course refuse - we were lying.
We had an agreement with the EU which would have avoided the Irish Sea border and chose to bin it. This was our choice. We could have then chosen to stay aligned - which we have done with every single "new" trade deal signed by Liz Truss which rolls over the status quo ante. We instead insisted on third country terms - again our choice.
Then the border should be between the EU and the UK. NI is part of the UK.
But no the border doesn't need to be somewhere. You can rely upon trust and self enforcement across the border accepting that may violate the "integrity" of the market.
So we are back to how we have both a fully open border on Ireland and a functioning external EU border. We kept offering up technology solutions like the drones that everyone was laughing at yesterday. But when offered that we wait before implementing our exit for this to be put in place we refused. Why? Because we knew that such a thing was sci-fi.
We *absolutely* could go on trust and self-enforcement. Our standards are the EU's standards. Our animal welfare is their animal welfare. We have literally handcuffed ourselves to the EU by signing all of these continuity EU trade deals. But politically the government need to keep up the pretence of having departed massively, hence our insistence on 3rd country status and all that means.
So yes. Ring the EU. Sign an enlarged alignment and co-operation deal. Reopen the UK to our biggest trading markets. Fix the NI border crisis. But we can't do that as it would be seen by Tory backbenchers as capitulation. They demand the right to have babies even though we can't have babies.
We refused because that's entirely wrong. You don't "wait" for a solution, solutions don't take time, you invent the damned solution and that takes effort and both sides to require it.
When the Government announced the furlough scheme it didn't say "we will do this, once a solution has been invented", they said "we are doing this" and told their team to get on with it. Necessity is the mother of invention.
The right solution to NI was always to say to the EU "we are leaving the EU Single Market and Customs Union on this date, now lets work together to develop as many mitigations as possible to keep the border open".
They need skin in the game and your notion that "the UK broke it, the UK can fix it" and that the EU can just stand back and wait for a solution is not how life works.
So why don't we work together? We haven't actually deviated from EEA standards. We haven't actually changed any CU practices. And we aren't going to do either for a Long Time.
Why can't we agree a deal with them where we both mutually drop our checks - the ones we are dropping anyway as we didn't bother to build customs posts or hire customs officers?
You and I both know the reason is politics. We can't admit that despite all the hooey spoken we haven't actually left the side of the dock. It would look Bad for Boris. So instead we have this charade of claiming to be sovereign and different despite having decided to use that sovereignty to keep doing what we were doing before.
We have left the Single Market and Customs Union already. If they want a deal where we both mutually drop our checks, but without us signing up to SM or CU standards, then I have no objection to that. Are they offering that?
Have we asked? I would involve us stating openly that we have maintained all of the standards and customs practices we had before we left the EEA and CU. Whilst it is correct it does rather make a mockery of what Shagger and his government have been saying.
Err no it would not involve us stating that. The whole point of us leaving the EEA and CU is to diverge, what part of that are you not understanding? We've already diverged a bit and are planning to diverge much more.
If we are going to diverge a lot more then why are we signing so many deals that mean we don't diverge? We can enhance EEA standards - thats no problem. Its only if we drop our standards that we would run into trouble and ministers are insistent that no dropping of standards will happen.
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
Hodges is absolutely right about this. It is getting ridiculous now. The vaccine works. Confirm the roadmap dates, lockdown borders to risky countries if you have to, but end the earnest, sanctimonious "words of caution" schtick. I offer the same advice to the PB Lockdownistas – we see it daily on here. It's depressing in the extreme.
The road map is working. However -
The opening of schools caused a massive slowdown in the decline of cases in the unvaccinated groups. No, this is not "tests" - the adults will have received PCR tests.
That opening the schools would increase R was expected and debated. What I did not expect, and am rather glad to see, is that the increase in R has not resulted in a net rise in cases.
If we open up further, cases will rise. Until we are vaccinating down to 50 (and preferably below) that means an increase in hospitalisations.
It certainly could be tests as kids testing positive could see parents and others testing as well. Test and trace doesn't just involve the person who tested positive testing.
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
Hodges is absolutely right about this. It is getting ridiculous now. The vaccine works. Confirm the roadmap dates, lockdown borders to risky countries if you have to, but end the earnest, sanctimonious "words of caution" schtick. I offer the same advice to the PB Lockdownistas – we see it daily on here. It's depressing in the extreme.
Everyone keeps telling us that the government doesn't want to prolong lockdown. But look at government ratings. If it's not broke...
We’re all rightly nervous that rushing to reopen will just lead us back to another lockdown.
So the government will get support for the slow approach to reopening
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
Do a Google for "adverse reaction AstraZeneca covid vaccine trial". You get a whole bunch of news stories about problems with the AstraZeneca trial, from reputable sources such as Statnews, CNN and others.
Now, switch AstraZeneca for Moderna.
Suddenly there's essentially nothing. A quarter of the number of links. And no stories suggesting any negative trial issues whatsoever.
Bear in mind that this search is for the trial. This is long before the EU had even fucked up vaccine procurement.
Now, Google for "issues AstraZeneca vaccine trial". Again. Tonnes of links: NYTimes. Statnews. And a whole bunch of serious medical sites.
Now, do the same for Modera.
And there's almost nothing.
There is almost no serious anti-Moderna (or even anti-Pfizer) news.
There is tonnes of anti-AstraZeneca.
You're at risk of spoiling the Brexiters' fun..
If you think that is our idea of fun, then it is no surprise you were "beaten by a bus".
Leon isn't the only one who jumps on any anti-EU angle with palpable enthusiasm.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
So the attempt to wreck the peace on Ireland, the threats to ban exports, the 8% efficacy and Macron's smears - none of it happened?
WE are trying to wreck the peace in NI. The hardline Unionists are the threat, not the IRA, and they are up in arms about the GB - NI border which WE decided to impose.
What absolute tosh.
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
The border has to go somewhere. We knew that going into Brexit. We knew that it couldn't go onto the Island of Ireland. We offered fanciful technological solutions that we insisted were only a few months away. When offered a delay of a few months to develop and implement them, we did of course refuse - we were lying.
We had an agreement with the EU which would have avoided the Irish Sea border and chose to bin it. This was our choice. We could have then chosen to stay aligned - which we have done with every single "new" trade deal signed by Liz Truss which rolls over the status quo ante. We instead insisted on third country terms - again our choice.
Then the border should be between the EU and the UK. NI is part of the UK.
But no the border doesn't need to be somewhere. You can rely upon trust and self enforcement across the border accepting that may violate the "integrity" of the market.
So we are back to how we have both a fully open border on Ireland and a functioning external EU border. We kept offering up technology solutions like the drones that everyone was laughing at yesterday. But when offered that we wait before implementing our exit for this to be put in place we refused. Why? Because we knew that such a thing was sci-fi.
We *absolutely* could go on trust and self-enforcement. Our standards are the EU's standards. Our animal welfare is their animal welfare. We have literally handcuffed ourselves to the EU by signing all of these continuity EU trade deals. But politically the government need to keep up the pretence of having departed massively, hence our insistence on 3rd country status and all that means.
So yes. Ring the EU. Sign an enlarged alignment and co-operation deal. Reopen the UK to our biggest trading markets. Fix the NI border crisis. But we can't do that as it would be seen by Tory backbenchers as capitulation. They demand the right to have babies even though we can't have babies.
We refused because that's entirely wrong. You don't "wait" for a solution, solutions don't take time, you invent the damned solution and that takes effort and both sides to require it.
When the Government announced the furlough scheme it didn't say "we will do this, once a solution has been invented", they said "we are doing this" and told their team to get on with it. Necessity is the mother of invention.
The right solution to NI was always to say to the EU "we are leaving the EU Single Market and Customs Union on this date, now lets work together to develop as many mitigations as possible to keep the border open".
They need skin in the game and your notion that "the UK broke it, the UK can fix it" and that the EU can just stand back and wait for a solution is not how life works.
So why don't we work together? We haven't actually deviated from EEA standards. We haven't actually changed any CU practices. And we aren't going to do either for a Long Time.
Why can't we agree a deal with them where we both mutually drop our checks - the ones we are dropping anyway as we didn't bother to build customs posts or hire customs officers?
You and I both know the reason is politics. We can't admit that despite all the hooey spoken we haven't actually left the side of the dock. It would look Bad for Boris. So instead we have this charade of claiming to be sovereign and different despite having decided to use that sovereignty to keep doing what we were doing before.
We have left the Single Market and Customs Union already. If they want a deal where we both mutually drop our checks, but without us signing up to SM or CU standards, then I have no objection to that. Are they offering that?
Have we asked? I would involve us stating openly that we have maintained all of the standards and customs practices we had before we left the EEA and CU. Whilst it is correct it does rather make a mockery of what Shagger and his government have been saying.
Err no it would not involve us stating that. The whole point of us leaving the EEA and CU is to diverge, what part of that are you not understanding? We've already diverged a bit and are planning to diverge much more.
If we are going to diverge a lot more then why are we signing so many deals that mean we don't diverge? We can enhance EEA standards - thats no problem. Its only if we drop our standards that we would run into trouble and ministers are insistent that no dropping of standards will happen.
We haven't signed a single deal that means we won't diverge. Name one deal that we've signed that prevents divergence please.
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
Hodges is absolutely right about this. It is getting ridiculous now. The vaccine works. Confirm the roadmap dates, lockdown borders to risky countries if you have to, but end the earnest, sanctimonious "words of caution" schtick. I offer the same advice to the PB Lockdownistas – we see it daily on here. It's depressing in the extreme.
The road map is working. However -
The opening of schools caused a massive slowdown in the decline of cases in the unvaccinated groups. No, this is not "tests" - the adults will have received PCR tests.
That opening the schools would increase R was expected and debated. What I did not expect, and am rather glad to see, is that the increase in R has not resulted in a net rise in cases.
If we open up further, cases will rise. Until we are vaccinating down to 50 (and preferably below) that means an increase in hospitalisations.
I don't deny that the roadmap is working, indeed I support the roadmap and have said so repeatedly on here. What I don't like is the endless earnest lecturing about "caution" when the vaccines clearly work.
By the way, not sure I understand your point about cases/test. The rapid rise in the young is due to their being tested. Had they not been tested, most of them would be none the wiser as they are mostly asymptomatic surely?
So they are simultaneously insisting on their contracts being met, at the same time as demanding other, prior contracts be breached ?
That's code for "our contract does not say what we thought it said".
There was an EU Commissioner on France24 a couple of days ago who went so far as to say the written details of contracts were not that important.
I'm by no means an expert but isn't European contract law a little different to ours? As in, they put more emphasis on what the court thinks the parties actually intended rather than what is actually written down?
I could be very wrong — it's been a while since I read comparisons of E+W Contract Law with others.
Let’s start with the fact that the EU has no contracts with any company currently producing vaccines in the UK.
I'm not defending the EU here, I merely had an academic curiosity.
Like you it’s been ages since I read up on this but from memory our courts do give more weight to what was actually agreed by the parties, assuming they were adults, and are less likely to want to rewrite the agreement.
equity is pretty important in English contract law - I only did 1 term of contract law but I do remember commercial common sense being pretty important - The EU seems to want to be treated as an everyday consumer and wants to argue about 'fairness' in the terms - I would expect an English court to tell them to get knotted - equity (which of course applies to both parties) demands that they knew what they were doing and objectively speaking the terms are pretty clear. It is quite embarrassing that the EU are now talking about 'fairness' as a measure in commercial contract negotiations - thereby admitting they didn't know what they were doing.
The AZ vaccine narrative of Boris and the plucky Brits against the world would have been worthy of one of Johnson's semi-fictional 1990s dispatched from Brussels. As it is, Johnson's typewriter remained dormant and between them EU Commissioners and Leaders have done his bidding for him.
I am still not convinced that leaving the EU is optimal for the UK in the longer term, but the AZ debacle has demonstrated that leaving has undoubtedly saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of British lives. If Johnson and Farage had put that on the side of a bus in 2016, no one would have believed them.
I believe that the EU has behaved like absolute cockwombles over this and continue to behave thusly.
But the point needs to be made that the UK (a la Malta) could and I believe would have had no reason not to act on its own wrt vaccine procurement had we still been full members It formed the VTF under La Bingham while still nominally an EU member, after all.
Of course we will never know and expect phalanxes of Leavers to say how the UK would have behaved like pussies and not have stood up to the nasty EU but I'm not so sure.
That said - EU cockwombles 100% and counting right now.
The key is the timing - we already had our detailed agreement with AZN in May 2020; the four-nation consortium reached their heads of agreement (a one page document, I believe) in June, which was when complaints from smaller EU nations led Germany to propose that the EU take over the exercise. Even then, Hungary and more recently some other EU nations continued to progress their own side deals.
Had the EU been progressing its own scheme from the very outset, there is an argument that as a member we might have gone along with it (and, probably, played a part in making sure it was managed rather better). But the EU was invited to the party late, after the UK had already done its hard work with AZN including committing its funding as part of the alliance with Oxford University. It is stretching credibility to argue that we would have torn all that up were it not for Brexit.
Yes, it's inconceivable that we would have joined the EU scheme under any government, given how far advanced our own procurement and investment was. Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance had already set it up even before Kate Bingham was appointed, and we were investing in the Oxford vaccine in March.
It's genuinely embarrassing people are still pushing this line. The EU are trying to outright steal our vaccines ("fairness" criteria for allowing exports) and we're not even a member any more. What on earth do you think they would be trying if we were still in?
I am 100% sure a Labour government would have taken us into the EU scheme, regardless of where our own planning was - indeed, they probably wouldn't even have bothered starting a procurement process, preferring to wait for the EU to do it better and more efficiently, as many pro-EU types were demanding. A Cameron/Osborne-led Conservative government might also have been tempted, for the sake of scoring some favours with the EU to be cashed in later in exchange for some friendly votes on (say) financial services legislation.
The bottom line is, you can't be certain the only reason our procurement process was so far advanced was just because we were out the EU and our politicians couldn't rely on/pass the buck to them as they'd been doing for decades.
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
Hodges is absolutely right about this. It is getting ridiculous now. The vaccine works. Confirm the roadmap dates, lockdown borders to risky countries if you have to, but end the earnest, sanctimonious "words of caution" schtick. I offer the same advice to the PB Lockdownistas – we see it daily on here. It's depressing in the extreme.
The road map is working. However -
The opening of schools caused a massive slowdown in the decline of cases in the unvaccinated groups. No, this is not "tests" - the adults will have received PCR tests.
That opening the schools would increase R was expected and debated. What I did not expect, and am rather glad to see, is that the increase in R has not resulted in a net rise in cases.
If we open up further, cases will rise. Until we are vaccinating down to 50 (and preferably below) that means an increase in hospitalisations.
I don't deny that the roadmap is working, indeed I support the roadmap and have said so repeatedly on here. What I don't like is the endless earnest lecturing about "caution" when the vaccines clearly work.
By the way, not sure I understand your point about cases/test. The rapid rise in the young is due to their being tested. Had they not been tested, most of them would be none the wiser as they are mostly asymptomatic surely?
There's been a slowdown in rate of decline for eg the 44-64 group. But that surely includes many parents and guardians of kids who've tested positive, who could then take the test themselves.
What's surprising is the lack of any increase in the 15-44 group considering that many of those tested at school will be in their group, plus most parents will be too, so you'd expect that group to have seen an increase in testing.
So they are simultaneously insisting on their contracts being met, at the same time as demanding other, prior contracts be breached ?
That's code for "our contract does not say what we thought it said".
There was an EU Commissioner on France24 a couple of days ago who went so far as to say the written details of contracts were not that important.
I'm by no means an expert but isn't European contract law a little different to ours? As in, they put more emphasis on what the court thinks the parties actually intended rather than what is actually written down?
I could be very wrong — it's been a while since I read comparisons of E+W Contract Law with others.
It's Belgium vs UK, and UK is more determined by the literal content of the contract. Which I guess is why worldwide contracts are not under Belgian Law.
I won't try and characterise Belgian Law - you need a famous Belgian or that.
However the EU-AZ contract does not (on the couple of analyses I have read) contain a commitment to X doses.
It's been an interesting shift in the rhetoric to have more of an emphasis on "fairness" (which is one of the ultimate Humpty-Dumpty weasel-words) and "reciprocity" alongside "we want our contract fulfilled". And all this time later there is still no legal action or attempt at arbitration.
AIUI they seem to be waving bigger and bigger sticks, but all of them turn out to be made of rubber.
I wonder if there is room for a compromise? Problem is that UK bashing has benefits for EU, and letting it ride may have benefits for UK.
Ultimately their entire argument is irrational based purely on the fact they haven't even used the doses they have already.
It's sabre rattling to distract and nothing else methinks.
Is there an upside to this for the UK in looking like a better target for investment? If so, how big an upside? I don't fully grasp a) how bad this looks to individual countries and businesses outside the UK, and b) how bad it has to look before investment decisions are changed.
The AZ vaccine narrative of Boris and the plucky Brits against the world would have been worthy of one of Johnson's semi-fictional 1990s dispatched from Brussels. As it is, Johnson's typewriter remained dormant and between them EU Commissioners and Leaders have done his bidding for him.
I am still not convinced that leaving the EU is optimal for the UK in the longer term, but the AZ debacle has demonstrated that leaving has undoubtedly saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of British lives. If Johnson and Farage had put that on the side of a bus in 2016, no one would have believed them.
I believe that the EU has behaved like absolute cockwombles over this and continue to behave thusly.
But the point needs to be made that the UK (a la Malta) could and I believe would have had no reason not to act on its own wrt vaccine procurement had we still been full members It formed the VTF under La Bingham while still nominally an EU member, after all.
Of course we will never know and expect phalanxes of Leavers to say how the UK would have behaved like pussies and not have stood up to the nasty EU but I'm not so sure.
That said - EU cockwombles 100% and counting right now.
The key is the timing - we already had our detailed agreement with AZN in May 2020; the four-nation consortium reached their heads of agreement (a one page document, I believe) in June, which was when complaints from smaller EU nations led Germany to propose that the EU take over the exercise. Even then, Hungary and more recently some other EU nations continued to progress their own side deals.
Had the EU been progressing its own scheme from the very outset, there is an argument that as a member we might have gone along with it (and, probably, played a part in making sure it was managed rather better). But the EU was invited to the party late, after the UK had already done its hard work with AZN including committing its funding as part of the alliance with Oxford University. It is stretching credibility to argue that we would have torn all that up were it not for Brexit.
Yes, it's inconceivable that we would have joined the EU scheme under any government, given how far advanced our own procurement and investment was. Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance had already set it up even before Kate Bingham was appointed, and we were investing in the Oxford vaccine in March.
It's genuinely embarrassing people are still pushing this line. The EU are trying to outright steal our vaccines ("fairness" criteria for allowing exports) and we're not even a member any more. What on earth do you think they would be trying if we were still in?
I am 100% sure a Labour government would have taken us into the EU scheme, regardless of where our own planning was - indeed, they probably wouldn't even have bothered starting a procurement process, preferring to wait for the EU to do it better and more efficiently, as many pro-EU types were demanding. A Cameron/Osborne-led Conservative government might also have been tempted, for the sake of scoring some favours with the EU to be cashed in later in exchange for some friendly votes on (say) financial services legislation.
The bottom line is, you can't be certain the only reason our procurement process was so far advanced was just because we were out the EU and our politicians couldn't rely on/pass the buck to them as they'd been doing for decades.
Poppycock. Our procurement process was well advanced before anyone in the EU had even thought of having a joint scheme. In fact, I rather suspect that if it hadn't been for Brexit, there would not even have been a joint EU scheme, since health is not an EU competence. But because of Brexit, they were falling over themselves to display 'unity'.
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
Hodges is absolutely right about this. It is getting ridiculous now. The vaccine works. Confirm the roadmap dates, lockdown borders to risky countries if you have to, but end the earnest, sanctimonious "words of caution" schtick. I offer the same advice to the PB Lockdownistas – we see it daily on here. It's depressing in the extreme.
The road map is working. However -
The opening of schools caused a massive slowdown in the decline of cases in the unvaccinated groups. No, this is not "tests" - the adults will have received PCR tests.
That opening the schools would increase R was expected and debated. What I did not expect, and am rather glad to see, is that the increase in R has not resulted in a net rise in cases.
If we open up further, cases will rise. Until we are vaccinating down to 50 (and preferably below) that means an increase in hospitalisations.
I don't deny that the roadmap is working, indeed I support the roadmap and have said so repeatedly on here. What I don't like is the endless earnest lecturing about "caution" when the vaccines clearly work.
By the way, not sure I understand your point about cases/test. The rapid rise in the young is due to their being tested. Had they not been tested, most of them would be none the wiser as they are mostly asymptomatic surely?
Look at the other groups - *all* of them "turn" at pretty much the same time.
That schools going back would increase R was taken as a given. It was debated. A number of people said it was too early. The results so far suggest it was judged correctly.
We have given a first vaccine to most of those at risk of death from COVID. However, the hospitalisation high risk cohort goes to a younger age - down to below 50. So until we have vaccinated enough people to get that cohort protected, we need to be cautious.
At the moment. we have vaccinated, at least once, something like 40% of the whole UK population*. Herd immunity starts to kick in at about double that. Israel is at 77%...
*You need too include children when talking about herd immunity.
I've not seen all of it yet, but there was an interesting and wide-ranging discussion about a United Ireland on Claire Byrne Live on RTÉ last night. The centenary of partition and the census - expected to show an end to the Protestant majority - were hooks for the timing.
There are opportunities for Britain to build a much closer relationship with all of Ireland (if we're interested) as the Republic thinks about how to accommodate a million reluctant British Unionists.
There is a massive anti AstraZeneca vaccine campaign that goes way, way beyond the EU and Brexit.
Do a Google for "adverse reaction AstraZeneca covid vaccine trial". You get a whole bunch of news stories about problems with the AstraZeneca trial, from reputable sources such as Statnews, CNN and others.
Now, switch AstraZeneca for Moderna.
Suddenly there's essentially nothing. A quarter of the number of links. And no stories suggesting any negative trial issues whatsoever.
Bear in mind that this search is for the trial. This is long before the EU had even fucked up vaccine procurement.
Now, Google for "issues AstraZeneca vaccine trial". Again. Tonnes of links: NYTimes. Statnews. And a whole bunch of serious medical sites.
Now, do the same for Modera.
And there's almost nothing.
There is almost no serious anti-Moderna (or even anti-Pfizer) news.
There is tonnes of anti-AstraZeneca.
You're at risk of spoiling the Brexiters' fun..
If you think that is our idea of fun, then it is no surprise you were "beaten by a bus".
Leon isn't the only one who jumps on any anti-EU angle with palpable enthusiasm.
Having a go at a disinformation campaign by Big Pharma isn't nearly so satisfying.
So the attempt to wreck the peace on Ireland, the threats to ban exports, the 8% efficacy and Macron's smears - none of it happened?
WE are trying to wreck the peace in NI. The hardline Unionists are the threat, not the IRA, and they are up in arms about the GB - NI border which WE decided to impose.
What absolute tosh.
NI was used the whole way throiugh the negotiation as a ransom point and still is. This was led by the posh boys Varadkar and Coveney who kept poking the sleeping dogs despite people telling them to leave it. A generation of politicans with no understanding of the North did what they did in the hope of personal advancement and bigger jobs . They fked up and now will fk off leaving their mess behind them for others to clear up.
The border has to go somewhere. We knew that going into Brexit. We knew that it couldn't go onto the Island of Ireland. We offered fanciful technological solutions that we insisted were only a few months away. When offered a delay of a few months to develop and implement them, we did of course refuse - we were lying.
We had an agreement with the EU which would have avoided the Irish Sea border and chose to bin it. This was our choice. We could have then chosen to stay aligned - which we have done with every single "new" trade deal signed by Liz Truss which rolls over the status quo ante. We instead insisted on third country terms - again our choice.
Then the border should be between the EU and the UK. NI is part of the UK.
But no the border doesn't need to be somewhere. You can rely upon trust and self enforcement across the border accepting that may violate the "integrity" of the market.
So we are back to how we have both a fully open border on Ireland and a functioning external EU border. We kept offering up technology solutions like the drones that everyone was laughing at yesterday. But when offered that we wait before implementing our exit for this to be put in place we refused. Why? Because we knew that such a thing was sci-fi.
We *absolutely* could go on trust and self-enforcement. Our standards are the EU's standards. Our animal welfare is their animal welfare. We have literally handcuffed ourselves to the EU by signing all of these continuity EU trade deals. But politically the government need to keep up the pretence of having departed massively, hence our insistence on 3rd country status and all that means.
So yes. Ring the EU. Sign an enlarged alignment and co-operation deal. Reopen the UK to our biggest trading markets. Fix the NI border crisis. But we can't do that as it would be seen by Tory backbenchers as capitulation. They demand the right to have babies even though we can't have babies.
We refused because that's entirely wrong. You don't "wait" for a solution, solutions don't take time, you invent the damned solution and that takes effort and both sides to require it.
When the Government announced the furlough scheme it didn't say "we will do this, once a solution has been invented", they said "we are doing this" and told their team to get on with it. Necessity is the mother of invention.
The right solution to NI was always to say to the EU "we are leaving the EU Single Market and Customs Union on this date, now lets work together to develop as many mitigations as possible to keep the border open".
They need skin in the game and your notion that "the UK broke it, the UK can fix it" and that the EU can just stand back and wait for a solution is not how life works.
So why don't we work together? We haven't actually deviated from EEA standards. We haven't actually changed any CU practices. And we aren't going to do either for a Long Time.
Why can't we agree a deal with them where we both mutually drop our checks - the ones we are dropping anyway as we didn't bother to build customs posts or hire customs officers?
You and I both know the reason is politics. We can't admit that despite all the hooey spoken we haven't actually left the side of the dock. It would look Bad for Boris. So instead we have this charade of claiming to be sovereign and different despite having decided to use that sovereignty to keep doing what we were doing before.
We have left the Single Market and Customs Union already. If they want a deal where we both mutually drop our checks, but without us signing up to SM or CU standards, then I have no objection to that. Are they offering that?
Have we asked? I would involve us stating openly that we have maintained all of the standards and customs practices we had before we left the EEA and CU. Whilst it is correct it does rather make a mockery of what Shagger and his government have been saying.
Err no it would not involve us stating that. The whole point of us leaving the EEA and CU is to diverge, what part of that are you not understanding? We've already diverged a bit and are planning to diverge much more.
If we are going to diverge a lot more then why are we signing so many deals that mean we don't diverge? We can enhance EEA standards - thats no problem. Its only if we drop our standards that we would run into trouble and ministers are insistent that no dropping of standards will happen.
We haven't signed a single deal that means we won't diverge. Name one deal that we've signed that prevents divergence please.
None - that wasn't what I said. We've signed a stack of continuity deals. Which at some point in the future if we diverge we will need to replace with genuine new deals. No deal is forever, but signing continuity deals and parading them as new deals shows the slim to none likelihood of them being replaced at any time soon.
People are wary of returning rapidly to a more stringent lockdown and are currently content for things to proceed slowly.
A hard line on international travel will also be popular, I think.
I agree with this actually.
I think my issue is one of tone. The roadmap and foreign travel ban is already an extremely cautious approach. That's fair enough, for the reasons you say.
But there is an ugly moralising edge to the discourse: sure, impose the necessary restrictions now so 21 June can happen, but don't couple that with sanctimonious lecturing about "caution".
Caution is wired in. Let people look forward to the future without prejudice.
I'm somewhat less concerned about my own risk (although not totally unconcerned) than of the risk of passing it on.
And "if you actually catch it in the first place" becomes a near-certainty unless we either hit herd immunity first or maintain restrictions forever, which I don't want at all.
So in the EU where foamers insist there isn't any vaccine there is bloody stacks of it. They just aren't using it - which is down to the local health services in each country.
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
Hodges is absolutely right about this. It is getting ridiculous now. The vaccine works. Confirm the roadmap dates, lockdown borders to risky countries if you have to, but end the earnest, sanctimonious "words of caution" schtick. I offer the same advice to the PB Lockdownistas – we see it daily on here. It's depressing in the extreme.
The road map is working. However -
The opening of schools caused a massive slowdown in the decline of cases in the unvaccinated groups. No, this is not "tests" - the adults will have received PCR tests.
That opening the schools would increase R was expected and debated. What I did not expect, and am rather glad to see, is that the increase in R has not resulted in a net rise in cases.
If we open up further, cases will rise. Until we are vaccinating down to 50 (and preferably below) that means an increase in hospitalisations.
I don't deny that the roadmap is working, indeed I support the roadmap and have said so repeatedly on here. What I don't like is the endless earnest lecturing about "caution" when the vaccines clearly work.
By the way, not sure I understand your point about cases/test. The rapid rise in the young is due to their being tested. Had they not been tested, most of them would be none the wiser as they are mostly asymptomatic surely?
There's been a slowdown in rate of decline for eg the 44-64 group. But that surely includes many parents and guardians of kids who've tested positive, who could then take the test themselves.
What's surprising is the lack of any increase in the 15-44 group considering that many of those tested at school will be in their group, plus most parents will be too, so you'd expect that group to have seen an increase in testing.
Indeed. And it's worth remember that Malmesbury forecast that R would rise above 1 when the schools returned (I also assumed this would happen). It hasn't happened, at least not yet. What has happened is a skyrocket in the testing programme.
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
Hodges is absolutely right about this. It is getting ridiculous now. The vaccine works. Confirm the roadmap dates, lockdown borders to risky countries if you have to, but end the earnest, sanctimonious "words of caution" schtick. I offer the same advice to the PB Lockdownistas – we see it daily on here. It's depressing in the extreme.
The road map is working. However -
The opening of schools caused a massive slowdown in the decline of cases in the unvaccinated groups. No, this is not "tests" - the adults will have received PCR tests.
That opening the schools would increase R was expected and debated. What I did not expect, and am rather glad to see, is that the increase in R has not resulted in a net rise in cases.
If we open up further, cases will rise. Until we are vaccinating down to 50 (and preferably below) that means an increase in hospitalisations.
I don't deny that the roadmap is working, indeed I support the roadmap and have said so repeatedly on here. What I don't like is the endless earnest lecturing about "caution" when the vaccines clearly work.
By the way, not sure I understand your point about cases/test. The rapid rise in the young is due to their being tested. Had they not been tested, most of them would be none the wiser as they are mostly asymptomatic surely?
Look at the other groups - *all* of them "turn" at pretty much the same time.
That schools going back would increase R was taken as a given. It was debated. A number of people said it was too early. The results so far suggest it was judged correctly.
We have given a first vaccine to most of those at risk of death from COVID. However, the hospitalisation high risk cohort goes to a younger age - down to below 50. So until we have vaccinated enough people to get that cohort protected, we need to be cautious.
At the moment. we have vaccinated, at least once, something like 40% of the whole UK population*. Herd immunity starts to kick in at about double that. Israel is at 77%...
*You need too include children when talking about herd immunity.
Does it not depend partly on what we're aiming for? If we're aiming to eliminate the possibility of the NHS collapsing under pressure, then we might be there already. If it's about reducing the risk for any one individual to an acceptable level, well, we need to talk about what is an acceptable level.
I'm somewhat less concerned about my own risk (although not totally unconcerned) than of the risk of passing it on.
And "if you actually catch it in the first place" becomes a near-certainty unless we either hit herd immunity first or maintain restrictions forever, which I don't want at all.
A "near-certainty", is that actually true though? My understanding is that even with the most contagious diseases, a large proportion of the population avoid them, just by luck (but I could be wrong about this).
So in the EU where foamers insist there isn't any vaccine there is bloody stacks of it. They just aren't using it - which is down to the local health services in each country.
We are making them look bad - ergo we must be slowed down.
It will end up with more dead than needed - but hey ho the EU must march on
So they are simultaneously insisting on their contracts being met, at the same time as demanding other, prior contracts be breached ?
That's code for "our contract does not say what we thought it said".
There was an EU Commissioner on France24 a couple of days ago who went so far as to say the written details of contracts were not that important.
I'm by no means an expert but isn't European contract law a little different to ours? As in, they put more emphasis on what the court thinks the parties actually intended rather than what is actually written down?
I could be very wrong — it's been a while since I read comparisons of E+W Contract Law with others.
It's Belgium vs UK, and UK is more determined by the literal content of the contract. Which I guess is why worldwide contracts are not under Belgian Law.
I won't try and characterise Belgian Law - you need a famous Belgian or that.
However the EU-AZ contract does not (on the couple of analyses I have read) contain a commitment to X doses.
It's been an interesting shift in the rhetoric to have more of an emphasis on "fairness" (which is one of the ultimate Humpty-Dumpty weasel-words) and "reciprocity" alongside "we want our contract fulfilled". And all this time later there is still no legal action or attempt at arbitration.
AIUI they seem to be waving bigger and bigger sticks, but all of them turn out to be made of rubber.
I wonder if there is room for a compromise? Problem is that UK bashing has benefits for EU, and letting it ride may have benefits for UK.
Ultimately their entire argument is irrational based purely on the fact they haven't even used the doses they have already.
It's sabre rattling to distract and nothing else methinks.
Probably right. BTW, the figures for Germany show as of yesterday, approx 1.4 million delivered but not yet used AZ vaccines, 1.2 million Pfizer, and nearly 700k Moderna.
As a proportion of deliveries the unused Moderna doses are the highest. I'm not sure why this is, but guess due to differing policies on retaining doses to ensure second doses of the same vaccine can be given.
The AZ vaccine narrative of Boris and the plucky Brits against the world would have been worthy of one of Johnson's semi-fictional 1990s dispatched from Brussels. As it is, Johnson's typewriter remained dormant and between them EU Commissioners and Leaders have done his bidding for him.
I am still not convinced that leaving the EU is optimal for the UK in the longer term, but the AZ debacle has demonstrated that leaving has undoubtedly saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of British lives. If Johnson and Farage had put that on the side of a bus in 2016, no one would have believed them.
I believe that the EU has behaved like absolute cockwombles over this and continue to behave thusly.
But the point needs to be made that the UK (a la Malta) could and I believe would have had no reason not to act on its own wrt vaccine procurement had we still been full members It formed the VTF under La Bingham while still nominally an EU member, after all.
Of course we will never know and expect phalanxes of Leavers to say how the UK would have behaved like pussies and not have stood up to the nasty EU but I'm not so sure.
That said - EU cockwombles 100% and counting right now.
The key is the timing - we already had our detailed agreement with AZN in May 2020; the four-nation consortium reached their heads of agreement (a one page document, I believe) in June, which was when complaints from smaller EU nations led Germany to propose that the EU take over the exercise. Even then, Hungary and more recently some other EU nations continued to progress their own side deals.
Had the EU been progressing its own scheme from the very outset, there is an argument that as a member we might have gone along with it (and, probably, played a part in making sure it was managed rather better). But the EU was invited to the party late, after the UK had already done its hard work with AZN including committing its funding as part of the alliance with Oxford University. It is stretching credibility to argue that we would have torn all that up were it not for Brexit.
Yes, it's inconceivable that we would have joined the EU scheme under any government, given how far advanced our own procurement and investment was. Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance had already set it up even before Kate Bingham was appointed, and we were investing in the Oxford vaccine in March.
It's genuinely embarrassing people are still pushing this line. The EU are trying to outright steal our vaccines ("fairness" criteria for allowing exports) and we're not even a member any more. What on earth do you think they would be trying if we were still in?
I am 100% sure a Labour government would have taken us into the EU scheme, regardless of where our own planning was - indeed, they probably wouldn't even have bothered starting a procurement process, preferring to wait for the EU to do it better and more efficiently, as many pro-EU types were demanding. A Cameron/Osborne-led Conservative government might also have been tempted, for the sake of scoring some favours with the EU to be cashed in later in exchange for some friendly votes on (say) financial services legislation.
The bottom line is, you can't be certain the only reason our procurement process was so far advanced was just because we were out the EU and our politicians couldn't rely on/pass the buck to them as they'd been doing for decades.
Poppycock. Our procurement process was well advanced before anyone in the EU had even thought of having a joint scheme. In fact, I rather suspect that if it hadn't been for Brexit, there would not even have been a joint EU scheme, since health is not an EU competence. But because of Brexit, they were falling over themselves to display 'unity'.
And boy, did they they fall over themselves.
People may overegg how difficult it might have been for the UK to resist pressure to go through a joint scheme were it still in the EU, but as far as hypotheticals go I'm not sure extrapolating to the point it is Brexits fault they even attempted a joint scheme is a reasonable counter.
I've not seen all of it yet, but there was an interesting and wide-ranging discussion about a United Ireland on Claire Byrne Live on RTÉ last night. The centenary of partition and the census - expected to show an end to the Protestant majority - were hooks for the timing.
There are opportunities for Britain to build a much closer relationship with all of Ireland (if we're interested) as the Republic thinks about how to accommodate a million reluctant British Unionists.
Notably the Deputy PM Varadkar ruled out a border poll any time soon 'Mr Varadkar also said that while he believes in reunification, he feels that setting a date for a border poll right now would be divisive' and the Good Friday agreement needed to ensure both Unionists and Nationalists continued to be included,. Irish PM Michael Martin also said 'we need to understand people better and that there needed to be engagement with all parties on the issue and that is why he had established a shared island unit.
Mr Martin said there was an electoral agenda to Sinn Féin's calls for a border poll and accused Ms McDonald of trying to out do everyone and be "the best republican in the classroom".
He said it was not appropriate to the complexity and the challenge of the issue, and that he did not believe that putting dates on a border poll was helpful.
Mr Martin said a strong British and Irish relationship was the anchor of the Good Friday Agreement and the two countries now need to establish a strong post-Brexit relationship' in noted contrast to SF leader Mary Lou Macdonald who was much more forceful about it.
However regardless as long as Unionist parties continue to win more votes than Nationalist parties in Northern Ireland the UK Secretary of State will continue to correctly refuse a border poll, regardless of what Dublin thinks.
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
Hodges is absolutely right about this. It is getting ridiculous now. The vaccine works. Confirm the roadmap dates, lockdown borders to risky countries if you have to, but end the earnest, sanctimonious "words of caution" schtick. I offer the same advice to the PB Lockdownistas – we see it daily on here. It's depressing in the extreme.
The road map is working. However -
The opening of schools caused a massive slowdown in the decline of cases in the unvaccinated groups. No, this is not "tests" - the adults will have received PCR tests.
That opening the schools would increase R was expected and debated. What I did not expect, and am rather glad to see, is that the increase in R has not resulted in a net rise in cases.
If we open up further, cases will rise. Until we are vaccinating down to 50 (and preferably below) that means an increase in hospitalisations.
I don't deny that the roadmap is working, indeed I support the roadmap and have said so repeatedly on here. What I don't like is the endless earnest lecturing about "caution" when the vaccines clearly work.
By the way, not sure I understand your point about cases/test. The rapid rise in the young is due to their being tested. Had they not been tested, most of them would be none the wiser as they are mostly asymptomatic surely?
Look at the other groups - *all* of them "turn" at pretty much the same time.
That schools going back would increase R was taken as a given. It was debated. A number of people said it was too early. The results so far suggest it was judged correctly.
We have given a first vaccine to most of those at risk of death from COVID. However, the hospitalisation high risk cohort goes to a younger age - down to below 50. So until we have vaccinated enough people to get that cohort protected, we need to be cautious.
At the moment. we have vaccinated, at least once, something like 40% of the whole UK population*. Herd immunity starts to kick in at about double that. Israel is at 77%...
*You need too include children when talking about herd immunity.
I'm not saying you are wrong at all, I just want to understand it. Under-50s with UHC have already been vaxxed AIUI. As the Oxford app I linked to shows, the risk of healthy under-50s being hospitalised is pretty darned low. So we are now already perhaps beyond the point where high-risk people remain unvaccinated?
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
Hodges is absolutely right about this. It is getting ridiculous now. The vaccine works. Confirm the roadmap dates, lockdown borders to risky countries if you have to, but end the earnest, sanctimonious "words of caution" schtick. I offer the same advice to the PB Lockdownistas – we see it daily on here. It's depressing in the extreme.
The road map is working. However -
The opening of schools caused a massive slowdown in the decline of cases in the unvaccinated groups. No, this is not "tests" - the adults will have received PCR tests.
That opening the schools would increase R was expected and debated. What I did not expect, and am rather glad to see, is that the increase in R has not resulted in a net rise in cases.
If we open up further, cases will rise. Until we are vaccinating down to 50 (and preferably below) that means an increase in hospitalisations.
I don't deny that the roadmap is working, indeed I support the roadmap and have said so repeatedly on here. What I don't like is the endless earnest lecturing about "caution" when the vaccines clearly work.
By the way, not sure I understand your point about cases/test. The rapid rise in the young is due to their being tested. Had they not been tested, most of them would be none the wiser as they are mostly asymptomatic surely?
Look at the other groups - *all* of them "turn" at pretty much the same time.
That schools going back would increase R was taken as a given. It was debated. A number of people said it was too early. The results so far suggest it was judged correctly.
We have given a first vaccine to most of those at risk of death from COVID. However, the hospitalisation high risk cohort goes to a younger age - down to below 50. So until we have vaccinated enough people to get that cohort protected, we need to be cautious.
At the moment. we have vaccinated, at least once, something like 40% of the whole UK population*. Herd immunity starts to kick in at about double that. Israel is at 77%...
*You need too include children when talking about herd immunity.
Does it not depend partly on what we're aiming for? If we're aiming to eliminate the possibility of the NHS collapsing under pressure, then we might be there already. If it's about reducing the risk for any one individual to an acceptable level, well, we need to talk about what is an acceptable level.
Yes, I guess, this is at the heart of the matter. It's worth remembering that younger people with UHC have already been vaxxed AIUI.
"The idea of ‘zero Covid’ is an illusion I think the most likely scenario a year from now is seasonal outbreaks with lower mortality rates - but children must be vaccinated
PETER PIOT DIRECTOR OF THE LONDON SCHOOL OF HYGIENE & TROPICAL MEDICINE"
The AZ vaccine narrative of Boris and the plucky Brits against the world would have been worthy of one of Johnson's semi-fictional 1990s dispatched from Brussels. As it is, Johnson's typewriter remained dormant and between them EU Commissioners and Leaders have done his bidding for him.
I am still not convinced that leaving the EU is optimal for the UK in the longer term, but the AZ debacle has demonstrated that leaving has undoubtedly saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of British lives. If Johnson and Farage had put that on the side of a bus in 2016, no one would have believed them.
I believe that the EU has behaved like absolute cockwombles over this and continue to behave thusly.
But the point needs to be made that the UK (a la Malta) could and I believe would have had no reason not to act on its own wrt vaccine procurement had we still been full members It formed the VTF under La Bingham while still nominally an EU member, after all.
Of course we will never know and expect phalanxes of Leavers to say how the UK would have behaved like pussies and not have stood up to the nasty EU but I'm not so sure.
That said - EU cockwombles 100% and counting right now.
The key is the timing - we already had our detailed agreement with AZN in May 2020; the four-nation consortium reached their heads of agreement (a one page document, I believe) in June, which was when complaints from smaller EU nations led Germany to propose that the EU take over the exercise. Even then, Hungary and more recently some other EU nations continued to progress their own side deals.
Had the EU been progressing its own scheme from the very outset, there is an argument that as a member we might have gone along with it (and, probably, played a part in making sure it was managed rather better). But the EU was invited to the party late, after the UK had already done its hard work with AZN including committing its funding as part of the alliance with Oxford University. It is stretching credibility to argue that we would have torn all that up were it not for Brexit.
Yes, it's inconceivable that we would have joined the EU scheme under any government, given how far advanced our own procurement and investment was. Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance had already set it up even before Kate Bingham was appointed, and we were investing in the Oxford vaccine in March.
It's genuinely embarrassing people are still pushing this line. The EU are trying to outright steal our vaccines ("fairness" criteria for allowing exports) and we're not even a member any more. What on earth do you think they would be trying if we were still in?
I am 100% sure a Labour government would have taken us into the EU scheme, regardless of where our own planning was - indeed, they probably wouldn't even have bothered starting a procurement process, preferring to wait for the EU to do it better and more efficiently, as many pro-EU types were demanding. A Cameron/Osborne-led Conservative government might also have been tempted, for the sake of scoring some favours with the EU to be cashed in later in exchange for some friendly votes on (say) financial services legislation.
The bottom line is, you can't be certain the only reason our procurement process was so far advanced was just because we were out the EU and our politicians couldn't rely on/pass the buck to them as they'd been doing for decades.
That's just silly. For the first nearly six months there was no EU scheme, nor any suggestion of one, and other EU countries were off doing their own thing
The AZ vaccine narrative of Boris and the plucky Brits against the world would have been worthy of one of Johnson's semi-fictional 1990s dispatched from Brussels. As it is, Johnson's typewriter remained dormant and between them EU Commissioners and Leaders have done his bidding for him.
I am still not convinced that leaving the EU is optimal for the UK in the longer term, but the AZ debacle has demonstrated that leaving has undoubtedly saved tens if not hundreds of thousands of British lives. If Johnson and Farage had put that on the side of a bus in 2016, no one would have believed them.
I believe that the EU has behaved like absolute cockwombles over this and continue to behave thusly.
But the point needs to be made that the UK (a la Malta) could and I believe would have had no reason not to act on its own wrt vaccine procurement had we still been full members It formed the VTF under La Bingham while still nominally an EU member, after all.
Of course we will never know and expect phalanxes of Leavers to say how the UK would have behaved like pussies and not have stood up to the nasty EU but I'm not so sure.
That said - EU cockwombles 100% and counting right now.
The key is the timing - we already had our detailed agreement with AZN in May 2020; the four-nation consortium reached their heads of agreement (a one page document, I believe) in June, which was when complaints from smaller EU nations led Germany to propose that the EU take over the exercise. Even then, Hungary and more recently some other EU nations continued to progress their own side deals.
Had the EU been progressing its own scheme from the very outset, there is an argument that as a member we might have gone along with it (and, probably, played a part in making sure it was managed rather better). But the EU was invited to the party late, after the UK had already done its hard work with AZN including committing its funding as part of the alliance with Oxford University. It is stretching credibility to argue that we would have torn all that up were it not for Brexit.
Yes, it's inconceivable that we would have joined the EU scheme under any government, given how far advanced our own procurement and investment was. Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance had already set it up even before Kate Bingham was appointed, and we were investing in the Oxford vaccine in March.
It's genuinely embarrassing people are still pushing this line. The EU are trying to outright steal our vaccines ("fairness" criteria for allowing exports) and we're not even a member any more. What on earth do you think they would be trying if we were still in?
I am 100% sure a Labour government would have taken us into the EU scheme, regardless of where our own planning was - indeed, they probably wouldn't even have bothered starting a procurement process, preferring to wait for the EU to do it better and more efficiently, as many pro-EU types were demanding. A Cameron/Osborne-led Conservative government might also have been tempted, for the sake of scoring some favours with the EU to be cashed in later in exchange for some friendly votes on (say) financial services legislation.
The bottom line is, you can't be certain the only reason our procurement process was so far advanced was just because we were out the EU and our politicians couldn't rely on/pass the buck to them as they'd been doing for decades.
That's just silly. For the first nearly six months there was no EU scheme, nor any suggestion of one, and other EU countries were off doing their own thing
No, it estimates the risk of catching it and then dying from it (or being hospitalised), not the risk IF you catch it. For that, they assume that the number of people catching it and the outcome if they do are similar to the first peak. I'm not sure how useful that is, really; your absolute risk if the virus was allowed to run riot would be considerably higher.
FWIW, for me it gave 1 in 2577 for death, and 1 in 943 for hospitalisation (better than average for my age, since I'm skinny and in good general health). And that's before taking vaccination into account, which probably reduces both by a factor of ten. Pretty encouraging!
Been a while since Lab weren’t ahead in Wales, but presumably that’s a subsample rather than someone polling Wales on UK Parliamentary voting intention?
Polling on Welsh Parliament VI might be more useful at this point
Some think Drakeford is seen as a success in Wales but it is Boris who is receiving the vaccine boost
And for those who do not live in Wales, Labour and Drakeford have been an unmitigated disaster especially in education and health
You mean not living in a place contributes to a certain cluelessness about said place? Well I never.
I have lived with Scottish nationalism for most of my 77 years and I leave you with this thought
My dear late Scots father in law, one of the most wonderful, kind, gentle and successful fisherman of his generation who voted labout all his life declared that Scottish nationalism is ugly, wrong and destructive
Funny, my partner’s dad said that Tories were a stain on society. You pays yer money etc.
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
Hodges is absolutely right about this. It is getting ridiculous now. The vaccine works. Confirm the roadmap dates, lockdown borders to risky countries if you have to, but end the earnest, sanctimonious "words of caution" schtick. I offer the same advice to the PB Lockdownistas – we see it daily on here. It's depressing in the extreme.
The road map is working. However -
The opening of schools caused a massive slowdown in the decline of cases in the unvaccinated groups. No, this is not "tests" - the adults will have received PCR tests.
That opening the schools would increase R was expected and debated. What I did not expect, and am rather glad to see, is that the increase in R has not resulted in a net rise in cases.
If we open up further, cases will rise. Until we are vaccinating down to 50 (and preferably below) that means an increase in hospitalisations.
Impressive how school openings managed to slow down the fall in cases observed 3 days before schools opened, meaning based on tests taken 5 days before schools opened, and infections received 10 days before school opened. Time travelling virus.
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
Hodges is absolutely right about this. It is getting ridiculous now. The vaccine works. Confirm the roadmap dates, lockdown borders to risky countries if you have to, but end the earnest, sanctimonious "words of caution" schtick. I offer the same advice to the PB Lockdownistas – we see it daily on here. It's depressing in the extreme.
The road map is working. However -
The opening of schools caused a massive slowdown in the decline of cases in the unvaccinated groups. No, this is not "tests" - the adults will have received PCR tests.
That opening the schools would increase R was expected and debated. What I did not expect, and am rather glad to see, is that the increase in R has not resulted in a net rise in cases.
If we open up further, cases will rise. Until we are vaccinating down to 50 (and preferably below) that means an increase in hospitalisations.
Impressive how school openings managed to slow down the fall in cases observed 3 days before schools opened, meaning based on tests taken 5 days before schools opened, and infections received 10 days before school opened. Time travelling virus.
I presume you are not aware that the school testing was started *before* the schools opened in a number of areas?
Both my children got an initial test in the preceding week.
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
Hodges is absolutely right about this. It is getting ridiculous now. The vaccine works. Confirm the roadmap dates, lockdown borders to risky countries if you have to, but end the earnest, sanctimonious "words of caution" schtick. I offer the same advice to the PB Lockdownistas – we see it daily on here. It's depressing in the extreme.
The road map is working. However -
The opening of schools caused a massive slowdown in the decline of cases in the unvaccinated groups. No, this is not "tests" - the adults will have received PCR tests.
That opening the schools would increase R was expected and debated. What I did not expect, and am rather glad to see, is that the increase in R has not resulted in a net rise in cases.
If we open up further, cases will rise. Until we are vaccinating down to 50 (and preferably below) that means an increase in hospitalisations.
I don't deny that the roadmap is working, indeed I support the roadmap and have said so repeatedly on here. What I don't like is the endless earnest lecturing about "caution" when the vaccines clearly work.
By the way, not sure I understand your point about cases/test. The rapid rise in the young is due to their being tested. Had they not been tested, most of them would be none the wiser as they are mostly asymptomatic surely?
Look at the other groups - *all* of them "turn" at pretty much the same time.
That schools going back would increase R was taken as a given. It was debated. A number of people said it was too early. The results so far suggest it was judged correctly.
We have given a first vaccine to most of those at risk of death from COVID. However, the hospitalisation high risk cohort goes to a younger age - down to below 50. So until we have vaccinated enough people to get that cohort protected, we need to be cautious.
At the moment. we have vaccinated, at least once, something like 40% of the whole UK population*. Herd immunity starts to kick in at about double that. Israel is at 77%...
*You need too include children when talking about herd immunity.
Does it not depend partly on what we're aiming for? If we're aiming to eliminate the possibility of the NHS collapsing under pressure, then we might be there already. If it's about reducing the risk for any one individual to an acceptable level, well, we need to talk about what is an acceptable level.
Yes, I guess, this is at the heart of the matter. It's worth remembering that younger people with UHC have already been vaxxed AIUI.
I honestly don't know what the truth is, but there is a disconnect between the claim that the average amount of life lost being 10 years and underlying health issues counting for much. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think both can be true.
"The table shows the absolute risk of catching and dying COVID-19 over a 90-day period based on data from the first peak of the pandemic."
So it's the combined risk of catching and dying (given prevalence during the first peak). Don't know if updated for Kent Covid variant.
Indeed, you are right. In which case it's even more useful. Really brings into sharp relief just how tiny the overall risks are for healthy under-50s.
At long last we have death AND hospitalisation data that controls for UHC – that's been the critical missing factor and has led to endless arguments on here as almost all the available data stratifies for age only.
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
Hodges is absolutely right about this. It is getting ridiculous now. The vaccine works. Confirm the roadmap dates, lockdown borders to risky countries if you have to, but end the earnest, sanctimonious "words of caution" schtick. I offer the same advice to the PB Lockdownistas – we see it daily on here. It's depressing in the extreme.
The road map is working. However -
The opening of schools caused a massive slowdown in the decline of cases in the unvaccinated groups. No, this is not "tests" - the adults will have received PCR tests.
That opening the schools would increase R was expected and debated. What I did not expect, and am rather glad to see, is that the increase in R has not resulted in a net rise in cases.
If we open up further, cases will rise. Until we are vaccinating down to 50 (and preferably below) that means an increase in hospitalisations.
Impressive how school openings managed to slow down the fall in cases observed 3 days before schools opened, meaning based on tests taken 5 days before schools opened, and infections received 10 days before school opened. Time travelling virus.
I presume you are not aware that the school testing was started *before* the schools opened in a number of areas?
Both my children got an initial test in the preceding week.
You were specifically claiming that the flattening in non-school age groups was driven by this -
"The opening of schools caused a massive slowdown in the decline of cases in the unvaccinated groups. No, this is not "tests" - the adults will have received PCR tests. "
Just keen to understand why a flattening in case decline for adults which seems to have been observed in published test results from 5th of March indicating the change in infection rate happened last couple of days of Feb should be tied to school openings at all.
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
Hodges is absolutely right about this. It is getting ridiculous now. The vaccine works. Confirm the roadmap dates, lockdown borders to risky countries if you have to, but end the earnest, sanctimonious "words of caution" schtick. I offer the same advice to the PB Lockdownistas – we see it daily on here. It's depressing in the extreme.
That would be nice. My depression and loneliness is getting worse and worse now.
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
Hodges is absolutely right about this. It is getting ridiculous now. The vaccine works. Confirm the roadmap dates, lockdown borders to risky countries if you have to, but end the earnest, sanctimonious "words of caution" schtick. I offer the same advice to the PB Lockdownistas – we see it daily on here. It's depressing in the extreme.
The road map is working. However -
The opening of schools caused a massive slowdown in the decline of cases in the unvaccinated groups. No, this is not "tests" - the adults will have received PCR tests.
That opening the schools would increase R was expected and debated. What I did not expect, and am rather glad to see, is that the increase in R has not resulted in a net rise in cases.
If we open up further, cases will rise. Until we are vaccinating down to 50 (and preferably below) that means an increase in hospitalisations.
I don't deny that the roadmap is working, indeed I support the roadmap and have said so repeatedly on here. What I don't like is the endless earnest lecturing about "caution" when the vaccines clearly work.
By the way, not sure I understand your point about cases/test. The rapid rise in the young is due to their being tested. Had they not been tested, most of them would be none the wiser as they are mostly asymptomatic surely?
Look at the other groups - *all* of them "turn" at pretty much the same time.
That schools going back would increase R was taken as a given. It was debated. A number of people said it was too early. The results so far suggest it was judged correctly.
We have given a first vaccine to most of those at risk of death from COVID. However, the hospitalisation high risk cohort goes to a younger age - down to below 50. So until we have vaccinated enough people to get that cohort protected, we need to be cautious.
At the moment. we have vaccinated, at least once, something like 40% of the whole UK population*. Herd immunity starts to kick in at about double that. Israel is at 77%...
*You need too include children when talking about herd immunity.
I'm not saying you are wrong at all, I just want to understand it. Under-50s with UHC have already been vaxxed AIUI. As the Oxford app I linked to shows, the risk of healthy under-50s being hospitalised is pretty darned low. So we are now already perhaps beyond the point where high-risk people remain unvaccinated?
We haven't done first vaccinations down to 50 yet. That is what the government/NHS is concentrating on for the next month....
EDIT: from the figure for the weekly release for the 18th March -
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
Hodges is absolutely right about this. It is getting ridiculous now. The vaccine works. Confirm the roadmap dates, lockdown borders to risky countries if you have to, but end the earnest, sanctimonious "words of caution" schtick. I offer the same advice to the PB Lockdownistas – we see it daily on here. It's depressing in the extreme.
The road map is working. However -
The opening of schools caused a massive slowdown in the decline of cases in the unvaccinated groups. No, this is not "tests" - the adults will have received PCR tests.
That opening the schools would increase R was expected and debated. What I did not expect, and am rather glad to see, is that the increase in R has not resulted in a net rise in cases.
If we open up further, cases will rise. Until we are vaccinating down to 50 (and preferably below) that means an increase in hospitalisations.
I don't deny that the roadmap is working, indeed I support the roadmap and have said so repeatedly on here. What I don't like is the endless earnest lecturing about "caution" when the vaccines clearly work.
By the way, not sure I understand your point about cases/test. The rapid rise in the young is due to their being tested. Had they not been tested, most of them would be none the wiser as they are mostly asymptomatic surely?
Look at the other groups - *all* of them "turn" at pretty much the same time.
That schools going back would increase R was taken as a given. It was debated. A number of people said it was too early. The results so far suggest it was judged correctly.
We have given a first vaccine to most of those at risk of death from COVID. However, the hospitalisation high risk cohort goes to a younger age - down to below 50. So until we have vaccinated enough people to get that cohort protected, we need to be cautious.
At the moment. we have vaccinated, at least once, something like 40% of the whole UK population*. Herd immunity starts to kick in at about double that. Israel is at 77%...
*You need too include children when talking about herd immunity.
I'm not saying you are wrong at all, I just want to understand it. Under-50s with UHC have already been vaxxed AIUI. As the Oxford app I linked to shows, the risk of healthy under-50s being hospitalised is pretty darned low. So we are now already perhaps beyond the point where high-risk people remain unvaccinated?
We haven't done first vaccinations down to 50 yet. That is what the government/NHS is concentrating on for the next month....
True, very true. Agree that this is the critical period. Cheers.
Comments
That was wrong. "The regulator" who received the evidence, scrutinised it and made the authorisation decision was the EMA. The EMA is "the regulator" that Germany chose to do the job. The EMA did not decide that AZ should not be given to over 65s. The EMA did not decide to pause AZ.
https://twitter.com/carasadhbh/status/1374292529072459780?s=21
My dear late Scots father in law, one of the most wonderful, kind, gentle and successful fisherman of his generation who voted labout all his life declared that Scottish nationalism is ugly, wrong and destructive
But please use some ridiculous semantics to try and "prove" that you are right and get the last word, as it seems to be terribly important to you.
There was an EU Commissioner on France24 a couple of days ago who went so far as to say the written details of contracts were not that important.
It's perfect for them as it allows them to quietly (via random delays and issues) encourage anyone importing goods from the UK to find a local supplier..
That's like saying if I refer to Lancashire then it should be Lancashire regulators that made the decision, rather than the MHRA. Germany is a part of the EMA. Germany could have chosen to have their own national regulators making decisions like the MHRA was given authority to do but the German government declined to let the German regulator make the decision, instead Germany decided for the EMA to do the job. Until the EMA gave a decision they didn't like.
The EMA was the relevant regulator and you're wrong to try and imply that what happened was just the regulator doing its job because it was not. The EMA was the regulator and had the evidence.
https://twitter.com/itsbeats/status/1374287908186820608?s=21
I could be very wrong — it's been a while since I read comparisons of E+W Contract Law with others.
https://twitter.com/jamesowild/status/1374052717841223683
Agree that Merseyside is the only place I can see where the Labour vote is being driven by more than age profiles. Though it will be interesting to see if this is still true in St. Helens - which is red-wallish in character as well as Merseyside-ish. Can anyone provide any examples outside of Merseyside of a labour-leaning not particularly young seat?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_election_in_England
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/19179271.hundreds-jobs-created-government-trade-hub-relocated-darlington/
And they don't know what happened to the 250k vaccines they stopped going to Australia.
It's all flapping and German elections.
https://www.politico.eu/article/threats-but-few-details-as-european-commission-demands-reciprocity-in-vaccine-exports/
In an age of pandemics, Brussels’ bid to disrupt global supply networks sets a disastrous precedent
WILLIAM HAGUE"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/22/eus-vaccine-nationalism-even-dangerous-looks/
https://unherd.com/2021/03/israels-vaccine-victory-wont-save-king-bibi/
https://twitter.com/tariqnasheed/status/1374123141727883272?s=21
Except she hasn't.
Doubt this is right. Ministers and PHE officials will still be urging caution this time next year.
https://www.politico.eu/coronavirus-in-europe/
I don't think there's a credible way of arguing otherwise.
This was a noted issue during the Brexit negotiations, with a UK red line on allowing EU courts to interpret the deal.
"the German government declined to let the German regulator make the decision, instead Germany decided for the EMA to do the job. Until the EMA gave a decision they didn't like."
This is total crap. For example, Paul Ehrlich Institut was not some dormant institution suddenly revived by the anti-British plotters of your deluded imagination. They were making different vaccine recommendations to other EU countries prior to coronavirus. This is pretty easy to find out for yourself if you are interested in reality, rather than you own fantasies.
I won't try and characterise Belgian Law - you need a famous Belgian or that.
However the EU-AZ contract does not (on the couple of analyses I have read) contain a commitment to X doses.
It's been an interesting shift in the rhetoric to have more of an emphasis on "fairness" (which is one of the ultimate Humpty-Dumpty weasel-words) and "reciprocity" alongside "we want our contract fulfilled". And all this time later there is still no legal action or attempt at arbitration.
AIUI they seem to be waving bigger and bigger sticks, but all of them turn out to be made of rubber.
I wonder if there is room for a compromise? Problem is that UK bashing has benefits for EC / UVDL at present, and letting it ride may have benefits for UK.
It's sabre rattling to distract and nothing else methinks.
The opening of schools caused a massive slowdown in the decline of cases in the unvaccinated groups. No, this is not "tests" - the adults will have received PCR tests.
That opening the schools would increase R was expected and debated. What I did not expect, and am rather glad to see, is that the increase in R has not resulted in a net rise in cases.
If we open up further, cases will rise. Until we are vaccinating down to 50 (and preferably below) that means an increase in hospitalisations.
Calculate your risk from Covid (if you actually catch it in the first place).
https://www.qcovid.org/Calculation
So the government will get support for the slow approach to reopening
By the way, not sure I understand your point about cases/test. The rapid rise in the young is due to their being tested. Had they not been tested, most of them would be none the wiser as they are mostly asymptomatic surely?
I am 100% sure a Labour government would have taken us into the EU scheme, regardless of where our own planning was - indeed, they probably wouldn't even have bothered starting a procurement process, preferring to wait for the EU to do it better and more efficiently, as many pro-EU types were demanding. A Cameron/Osborne-led Conservative government might also have been tempted, for the sake of scoring some favours with the EU to be cashed in later in exchange for some friendly votes on (say) financial services legislation.
The bottom line is, you can't be certain the only reason our procurement process was so far advanced was just because we were out the EU and our politicians couldn't rely on/pass the buck to them as they'd been doing for decades.
People are wary of returning rapidly to a more stringent lockdown and are currently content for things to proceed slowly.
A hard line on international travel will also be popular, I think.
What's surprising is the lack of any increase in the 15-44 group considering that many of those tested at school will be in their group, plus most parents will be too, so you'd expect that group to have seen an increase in testing.
And boy, did they they fall over themselves.
That schools going back would increase R was taken as a given. It was debated. A number of people said it was too early. The results so far suggest it was judged correctly.
We have given a first vaccine to most of those at risk of death from COVID. However, the hospitalisation high risk cohort goes to a younger age - down to below 50. So until we have vaccinated enough people to get that cohort protected, we need to be cautious.
At the moment. we have vaccinated, at least once, something like 40% of the whole UK population*. Herd immunity starts to kick in at about double that. Israel is at 77%...
*You need too include children when talking about herd immunity.
There are opportunities for Britain to build a much closer relationship with all of Ireland (if we're interested) as the Republic thinks about how to accommodate a million reluctant British Unionists.
You can watch it from the UK (and probably worldwide) from the RTÉ player - https://www.rte.ie/player/series/claire-byrne-live/SI0000000325?epguid=IH000398316 - and there is a write-up at: https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0322/1205536-united-ireland-debate/
I think my issue is one of tone. The roadmap and foreign travel ban is already an extremely cautious approach. That's fair enough, for the reasons you say.
But there is an ugly moralising edge to the discourse: sure, impose the necessary restrictions now so 21 June can happen, but don't couple that with sanctimonious lecturing about "caution".
Caution is wired in. Let people look forward to the future without prejudice.
And "if you actually catch it in the first place" becomes a near-certainty unless we either hit herd immunity first or maintain restrictions forever, which I don't want at all.
A "near-certainty", is that actually true though? My understanding is that even with the most contagious diseases, a large proportion of the population avoid them, just by luck (but I could be wrong about this).
It will end up with more dead than needed - but hey ho the EU must march on
BTW, the figures for Germany show as of yesterday, approx 1.4 million delivered but not yet used AZ vaccines, 1.2 million Pfizer, and nearly 700k Moderna.
As a proportion of deliveries the unused Moderna doses are the highest. I'm not sure why this is, but guess due to differing policies on retaining doses to ensure second doses of the same vaccine can be given.
Mr Martin said there was an electoral agenda to Sinn Féin's calls for a border poll and accused Ms McDonald of trying to out do everyone and be "the best republican in the classroom".
He said it was not appropriate to the complexity and the challenge of the issue, and that he did not believe that putting dates on a border poll was helpful.
Mr Martin said a strong British and Irish relationship was the anchor of the Good Friday Agreement and the two countries now need to establish a strong post-Brexit relationship' in noted contrast to SF leader Mary Lou Macdonald who was much more forceful about it.
However regardless as long as Unionist parties continue to win more votes than Nationalist parties in Northern Ireland the UK Secretary of State will continue to correctly refuse a border poll, regardless of what Dublin thinks.
"The table shows the absolute risk of catching and dying COVID-19 over a 90-day period based on data from the first peak of the pandemic."
So it's the combined risk of catching and dying (given prevalence during the first peak). Don't know if updated for Kent Covid variant.
I think the most likely scenario a year from now is seasonal outbreaks with lower mortality rates - but children must be vaccinated
PETER PIOT
DIRECTOR OF THE LONDON SCHOOL OF HYGIENE & TROPICAL MEDICINE"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/mind/idea-zero-covid-illusion
Well, go on then - you have vaccine stockpiled - get on with it
FWIW, for me it gave 1 in 2577 for death, and 1 in 943 for hospitalisation (better than average for my age, since I'm skinny and in good general health). And that's before taking vaccination into account, which probably reduces both by a factor of ten. Pretty encouraging!
https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1374311480825417731?s=20
Both my children got an initial test in the preceding week.
https://twitter.com/jamiegreeneUK/status/1374308584545255426?s=20
At long last we have death AND hospitalisation data that controls for UHC – that's been the critical missing factor and has led to endless arguments on here as almost all the available data stratifies for age only.
Interesting.
"The opening of schools caused a massive slowdown in the decline of cases in the unvaccinated groups. No, this is not "tests" - the adults will have received PCR tests. "
Just keen to understand why a flattening in case decline for adults which seems to have been observed in published test results from 5th of March indicating the change in infection rate happened last couple of days of Feb should be tied to school openings at all.
One last push...
EDIT: from the figure for the weekly release for the 18th March -
Under 55 20%
55-59 49%
60-64 76%
65-69 88%
70-74 93%
75-79 94%
80+ 94%