I am truely amazed how the EU and the EU countries are doing this.
Making a mistake is one thing, continuing time after time to cock it up is another, and not learning from any mistakes.
It's a bit like a job I'm working on. I got given a document riddled with errors. I pointed them out. It comes back with even more errors and the errors not all removed.
You really have to lose faith at a point they have any competency.
I remember quite a few years ago hiring an Indian firm to build a website for a new business I setup...it was the most frustrating experience of my life. I would point out issues and obvious mistakes, be told yes yes we have it covered, and the next revision, not only would they not be fixed, they had managed to introduce more. I think it took 3-4 months before I had to bin them off and hire some people in Estonia, who sorted it all in a few weeks.
Quite standard - the productivity multiplier is as real as the wage multiplier.
When you put them together - the cost vs work actually done is rather interesting.
One company I work for discovered that the cheapest locations for software development were, in order
1) London and Eastern Europe tied in first place 2) US 3) Canada 4) India
London and Bulgaria / Sofia from memory.
Eastern Europe can be very expensive now as productivity isn't as great as it might be.
I would argue that nearshoring to other UK cities will easily match London and might work out cheaper.
Quite possibly - though if you pay lower wages than London, all the top talent goes there.
I've encountered a few attempts to setup up software development around the UK. The ones that have succeeded have to pay big wages to stop the drift to London. As in at least 2/3rd of the London rate...
There's a lot of great talent that really doesn't want to work on what are perceived as soul destroying projects in banks. If you look to recruit in Nottingham, Birmingham etc (especially with the ubiquity of remote working, and the ability to build local clusters of employees who can meet up socially) it can improve everyone's quality of life.
'At least two thirds of the London rate' smells about right. Surely it must be possible for businesses to make massive savings locating outsise London on that basis?
If you aren't a fuckwit manager trying to save squillions in one year, yes.
Investing heavily in a domestic manufacturing site, that didn't previously produce vaccines, to provide for a country's domestic market isn't protectionism.
The EU simply fails to grasp the simple concept that the production of vaccines in Britain only exists because the UK asked for it and invested in it. Out of fear that they wouldn't have security of supply if they didn't. It wasn't created with the intention (in the short term) for export abroad, or supplying external markets.
And AZ's manufacturing model is not based on this. Local manufacturing sites to support local supply lines. Unlike, say Pfizer who had established plants in Europe set up to provide for global supply.
They don’t grasp this because they don’t want to grasp this, because the clear inference is that the EU erred, calamitously, in comparison
There’s a striking irony here: the UK obliged Oxford to partner with AZ rather than Merck, because HMG was worried the USA under the insane Trump might block our own vaccines.
HMG was right to worry, but identified the wrong lunatic. On the wrong continent
Keir on fire today, Labour can win on the armed forces
Labour however is choosing whether to oppose based entirely on how it looks. They won’t oppose on anything Brexit related, because it would look bad, despite the fact that the government has got it wrong and is driving small businesses into bankruptcy and individuals into unemployment. Labour will oppose on the armed forces, because they think it looks good, despite the fact that we don’t need so many troops and the changes are probably sensible.
You’d expect Tories like HY who are always banging on about the Tory election manifesto to be more vocal with their criticism. But where are they?
I said on Sunday I thought this decision was appalling and I stick to that now, we made a promise to keep troop numbers as they are and we should stick to that, I know a lot of Tory members are very unhappy with this and Starmer will obviously be able to capitalise on it
He'll be able to capitalize on it ... how? What taxes will Labour raise and what services will it cut to guarantee no fall in troop levels? Most people will have noticed this little thing called the fiscal black hole caused by the global pandemic, all of which occurred after the manifesto was written.
Got it. We can't afford armed forces. A truly Tory campaign slogan.
Except that as Philip points out, spending is going up, not down.
There's no logical inconsistency in increasing spending overall, but putting more of it into the latest equipment than into maintaining troop levels. There's this thing called technology, which makes it more effective to have one man with a machine gun than a hundred with stone knives.
Oh I understand all that. Its just that your response to objections to cutting troop numbers was to demand to know how Keir would pay for it...
And that demand still stands. There's a gigantic fiscal hole, and so we clearly don't have the money to purchase all the new tech and maintain 100% of troop levels at the same time. Therefore, new cuts or new taxes or new borrowing will be needed, and Labour should state what those would be.
The nice thing about being a LibDem is that I can point to bollox on both Labour and Tory sides, knowing that our own policy platform is thin enough for us likely not to have our own position to be pulled up on.
Tories pledged not to cut troop numbers all of 2 years ago. The world and technology hasn't changed that much. They know their core vote thinks the Tories will protect the troops so tell them what they want to know. It doesn't matter that its an utter lie when the opposition are seen as being the ones who would actually cut troop numbers.
There is something genuinely funny watching some of you dancing on a pinhead trying to defend this. Its only @HYUFD on the blue side who has called it for what it is - a manifesto breech. Why not maintain troop numbers AND equip them properly?
The world has changed, which is what the integrated review was about.
The threats from Russia and China especially are much more understood now than they were. The understanding of drones and the recent war with Turkish drones is new.
The integrated review made sense. The fact that people are criticising this based on the number of jobs, not saying the integrated review was wrong, just goes to say all that needs saying.
We should be rapidly unlocking at least back to the point we were at in July last year domestically, while keeping the border sealed to protect our gains domestically. That's the trade-off.
Telling people to stay at home when nobody is dying is unforgiveable.
Given what we know about the current strains, a full unlock now would quickly fill up ICU with 30-50 year olds.
That is why the roadmap is linking levels of vaccination to reducing the levels of restrictions.
I think that's a load of bollocks sorry.
More than a fifth over 50s have been vaccinated already, the vulnerable under 50s. The majority of adults have been vaccinated now, which means they're much less likely to pass the virus on.
With our level of vaccinations, even with the new variant, there's little reason why ICUs should escalate any more than they did last July.
Hospital admissions R is around 0.8
Who are all these people being admitted to hospital - *now*?
If you let rip, it's not long before you are back at admissions R of 1.x and then we are in the same position as Europe.
Hence a phased approach.
There's a five week lag between the effect of new vaccinations on hospital admissions.
How low do you think hospital admissions will be in five weeks ?
Hopefully nice and low. Hopefully.
We have a nice 0.8 (or so) R for hospitals at the moment. The issue is that 0.8 turns into 1.05 quite easily.
I don't want to do this all over again. At this point a 5 weeks is not much to ask to get security - at that point we will (the fuckwits willing) have the over 50s done to a high level - including getting areas such as Newham to a better state....
Actually 5 weeks for an entire country is an awful lot to ask. If we say that a life spent locked down is only getting 50% of its normal value (which I don't think is unreasonable), the 5 weeks of lockdown for the country represents about ~40,000 entire birth-death lifetimes lost, or 3 million years of life lost. That's the same loss of years of life as 300,000 covid deaths. If I told you that lifting lockdown now risks another 50k deaths (but its unlikely to be that bad, and there is a better than evens chance it's less than 10k), but retaining it for 5 weeks cost 300k deaths, this should be a no brainer.
Jeez. Pretty grim. I’ve yet to hear an entirely convincing explanation why it hits BAME communities so bad. Perhaps it is a constellation of reasons. Religious devotions, multi-gen housing, more co-morbidities?
I think it relates a lot to Vitamin D. Diabetes (and other comorbidities) same reason. Darker skins are excellent at keeping the sun out, which becomes an issue if you don't get much sun, and still more if you adopt what is called modest dress. There needs to be a strategy in place to deal with it - and there should have been one a long time ago.
Having said that, we are almost all deficient. Even our RDA of vitamin D as a nation is set too low arguably, as it was set just at what we need to avoid rickets, rather than at a level optimal for health.
Under the EU's tortuous logic, if they had placed no advance orders for vaccines AT ALL, they would still be fully entitled to appropriate all vaccines produced within their borders.
Setting all humour aside - I know - you have to wonder how many more millions of vaccine doses are actually lost in various member states because they cannot persuade anyone to be vaccinated. Spain has had today to state that refusers of AZN will not be offered an alternative.
Spain did a feeble number of jabs yesterday - about 80,000. 0.19% of the populace.
Why do you think this is happening? Is it anti-vaxxery? Supply?
Before I am accused by a snowflakey German of being mean, I hasten to add this slow roll-out doesn’t ‘please’ me, it dismays me. An unvaccinated Europe is tragic on a human level - more death and suffering - it is also bad, economically, for everyone - in the UK too. Plus it gives more time and space for mutations, which is scary.
Keir on fire today, Labour can win on the armed forces
😂😂😂😂😂
You watched a different PMQs to me then. Keir was ridiculous and hasn't a leg to stand on.
Surely this is a pretty straight forward one.
Is the government going to cut troop numbers or not?
The armed forces are being modernised with record investment and increased spending, yes.
I'd rather fewer but better equipped armed forces fit for the times, than having more troops operating without the protection, equipment or weaponry that they require. Which would you prefer?
That isn't the choice though, is it? The tories have committed to this global power projection bollocks while cutting 30% of the strategic airlift capability, taking at least a two year capability gap on AWACS and cutting the new AWACS fleet by 40% before the first aircraft even arrives. Etc, etc.
It's all just empty posturing while real capabilities get cut and gapped because they cannot bring themselves to align the goals with the available funding. The government is trying to do global power projection AND have a massive land force committed to NATO on about 60% of the budget needed to do both properly.
I don't disagree that there's been cuts over the past decade, Osborne had no choice but to cut expenditure after what he inherited and that was done in the past I completely agree with you 100% on that. It was also the right thing to do as we needed to fix the black hole in the economy which is why we were able to cope with this pandemic as we went into it without the black hole that had been inherited.
The budget has been increased here - do you believe that the increase in budget would be better spent as the integrated review has advised on more modern equipment, or do you believe that the increase in budget would be better spent on more troops but without the equipment they need?
They could afford to keep force levels where they are, rebalance them toward badly needed technical specialties and properly equip if they stopped wasting money on vanity projects and pointless shit.
Why does the MoD own 19 golf courses and operate a squadron of WW2 fighters?
Why has Johnson bought a second and possibly third VVIP aircraft (A321LR) painted at vast expense in the Brexit Belle colours?
Genuine question: what right does Prince Harry have to work in the USA? Does he have a right to work by virtue of being married to an American? Does he need a visa?
I've always been curious.
It's a non-job.
Not at all. It’s very important.
He’s not just making oodles of money giving speeches to investment bankers and documentaries for Netflix.
He’s working for a *mental health* company
He’s not such a bad guy giving up his valuable time like that...
What does this company actually do? I have an interest in mental health provision because I have personal experience of what it does to people and their families.
Lots of people talk about it. It has become really quite fashionable to do so. Actual practical help is rather thin on the ground, especially afterwards. Try getting a job from companies after explaining that your patchy CV is because of mental health illness and you will find that their interest in better mental health vanishes as fast as snow in summer.
If he is going to do something practical to help with that, good on him. If it's just another talking shop or another forum for him to talk about himself, not so good.
Amazing double standards around Harry. He has set up the Invictus games which changed many peoples lives from overwhelming struggle to one of hope and achievement. That already puts him in the top 0.1% or better of people influencing and improving others lives.
Yes, there are double standards around Invictus. I remember a few years earlier Jimmy Carr made a joke that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would mean Britain would soon have a brilliant Paralympic team, and he got absolute pelters for it.
That was the classic case of people being offended on behalf of others.
The war vets, of course, appreciated the dark humour - and went on to get dozens of Paralympic medals!
All that outrage over Lee Hurst joke on twitter over the weekend...I was only thinking yesterday, it was the sort of gag Jimmy Carr would do, as a tame warm up one.
I was pretty much the only one defending that joke on here at the time.
I think the main issue is the audience. A Twitter audience is different from a TV/radio audience, which is different to a comedy club audience - with decreasing expectations of taste and decency.
Keir on fire today, Labour can win on the armed forces
Labour however is choosing whether to oppose based entirely on how it looks. They won’t oppose on anything Brexit related, because it would look bad, despite the fact that the government has got it wrong and is driving small businesses into bankruptcy and individuals into unemployment. Labour will oppose on the armed forces, because they think it looks good, despite the fact that we don’t need so many troops and the changes are probably sensible.
You’d expect Tories like HY who are always banging on about the Tory election manifesto to be more vocal with their criticism. But where are they?
I said on Sunday I thought this decision was appalling and I stick to that now, we made a promise to keep troop numbers as they are and we should stick to that, I know a lot of Tory members are very unhappy with this and Starmer will obviously be able to capitalise on it
Fair play HYUFD. Still some supine acolytes banging the somewhat reduced in size drum, mind.
We're very different types of Tories.
HYUFD wants a large military he can send in to occupy Scotland and quash independence.
I want a military fit for NATO and the modern world.
He appears to be a Tory that prefers manifesto promises (good or bad) not to to be evanescent bullshit.
Under the EU's tortuous logic, if they had placed no advance orders for vaccines AT ALL, they would still be fully entitled to appropriate all vaccines produced within their borders.
The idea of queuing......they don't believe in it.
We should be rapidly unlocking at least back to the point we were at in July last year domestically, while keeping the border sealed to protect our gains domestically. That's the trade-off.
Telling people to stay at home when nobody is dying is unforgiveable.
Given what we know about the current strains, a full unlock now would quickly fill up ICU with 30-50 year olds.
That is why the roadmap is linking levels of vaccination to reducing the levels of restrictions.
I think that's a load of bollocks sorry.
More than a fifth over 50s have been vaccinated already, the vulnerable under 50s. The majority of adults have been vaccinated now, which means they're much less likely to pass the virus on.
With our level of vaccinations, even with the new variant, there's little reason why ICUs should escalate any more than they did last July.
Hospital admissions R is around 0.8
Who are all these people being admitted to hospital - *now*?
If you let rip, it's not long before you are back at admissions R of 1.x and then we are in the same position as Europe.
Hence a phased approach.
There's a five week lag between the effect of new vaccinations on hospital admissions.
How low do you think hospital admissions will be in five weeks ?
Hopefully nice and low. Hopefully.
We have a nice 0.8 (or so) R for hospitals at the moment. The issue is that 0.8 turns into 1.05 quite easily.
I don't want to do this all over again. At this point a 5 weeks is not much to ask to get security - at that point we will (the fuckwits willing) have the over 50s done to a high level - including getting areas such as Newham to a better state....
Actually 5 weeks for an entire country is an awful lot to ask. If we say that a life spent locked down is only getting 50% of its normal value (which I don't think is unreasonable), the 5 weeks of lockdown for the country represents about ~40,000 entire birth-death lifetimes lost, or 3 million years of life lost. That's the same loss of years of life as 300,000 covid deaths. If I told you that lifting lockdown now risks another 50k deaths (but its unlikely to be that bad, and there is a better than evens chance it's less than 10k), but retaining it for 5 weeks cost 300k deaths, this should be a no brainer.
Not only that but we're losing valuable time to spend with families and loved ones who may not survive those 5 weeks. We're currently being told that seeing loved ones indoors is going to remain illegal until May, which is preposterous when nobody is currently dying.
600k people die every year on average without Covid. That's 50k deaths a month. We have no Covid excess deaths at the minute and a month of extra lockdown means 50k extra deaths of people who will lose any legal ability to see their loved ones indoors in the last month of their life.
And no telling 90 year olds to meet loved ones outdoors in April is not a valid alternative.
The nice thing about being a LibDem is that I can point to bollox on both Labour and Tory sides, knowing that our own policy platform is thin enough for us likely not to have our own position to be pulled up on.
Tories pledged not to cut troop numbers all of 2 years ago. The world and technology hasn't changed that much. They know their core vote thinks the Tories will protect the troops so tell them what they want to know. It doesn't matter that its an utter lie when the opposition are seen as being the ones who would actually cut troop numbers.
There is something genuinely funny watching some of you dancing on a pinhead trying to defend this. Its only @HYUFD on the blue side who has called it for what it is - a manifesto breech. Why not maintain troop numbers AND equip them properly?
The world has changed, which is what the integrated review was about.
The threats from Russia and China especially are much more understood now than they were. The understanding of drones and the recent war with Turkish drones is new.
The integrated review made sense. The fact that people are criticising this based on the number of jobs, not saying the integrated review was wrong, just goes to say all that needs saying.
Keir on fire today, Labour can win on the armed forces
😂😂😂😂😂
You watched a different PMQs to me then. Keir was ridiculous and hasn't a leg to stand on.
Surely this is a pretty straight forward one.
Is the government going to cut troop numbers or not?
The armed forces are being modernised with record investment and increased spending, yes.
I'd rather fewer but better equipped armed forces fit for the times, than having more troops operating without the protection, equipment or weaponry that they require. Which would you prefer?
That isn't the choice though, is it? The tories have committed to this global power projection bollocks while cutting 30% of the strategic airlift capability, taking at least a two year capability gap on AWACS and cutting the new AWACS fleet by 40% before the first aircraft even arrives. Etc, etc.
It's all just empty posturing while real capabilities get cut and gapped because they cannot bring themselves to align the goals with the available funding. The government is trying to do global power projection AND have a massive land force committed to NATO on about 60% of the budget needed to do both properly.
I don't disagree that there's been cuts over the past decade,
Forgot to say... the cuts I mentioned (AWACS, airlift and two T23 frigates) happened THIS WEEK.
The nice thing about being a LibDem is that I can point to bollox on both Labour and Tory sides, knowing that our own policy platform is thin enough for us likely not to have our own position to be pulled up on.
Tories pledged not to cut troop numbers all of 2 years ago. The world and technology hasn't changed that much. They know their core vote thinks the Tories will protect the troops so tell them what they want to know. It doesn't matter that its an utter lie when the opposition are seen as being the ones who would actually cut troop numbers.
There is something genuinely funny watching some of you dancing on a pinhead trying to defend this. Its only @HYUFD on the blue side who has called it for what it is - a manifesto breech. Why not maintain troop numbers AND equip them properly?
The world has changed, which is what the integrated review was about.
The threats from Russia and China especially are much more understood now than they were. The understanding of drones and the recent war with Turkish drones is new.
The integrated review made sense. The fact that people are criticising this based on the number of jobs, not saying the integrated review was wrong, just goes to say all that needs saying.
The people basing on the number of jobs being the Tories knowing its also the view of their voters. If it wasn't relevant they wouldn't have pledged it.
We should be rapidly unlocking at least back to the point we were at in July last year domestically, while keeping the border sealed to protect our gains domestically. That's the trade-off.
Telling people to stay at home when nobody is dying is unforgiveable.
Given what we know about the current strains, a full unlock now would quickly fill up ICU with 30-50 year olds.
That is why the roadmap is linking levels of vaccination to reducing the levels of restrictions.
I think that's a load of bollocks sorry.
More than a fifth over 50s have been vaccinated already, the vulnerable under 50s. The majority of adults have been vaccinated now, which means they're much less likely to pass the virus on.
With our level of vaccinations, even with the new variant, there's little reason why ICUs should escalate any more than they did last July.
Hospital admissions R is around 0.8
Who are all these people being admitted to hospital - *now*?
If you let rip, it's not long before you are back at admissions R of 1.x and then we are in the same position as Europe.
Hence a phased approach.
There's a five week lag between the effect of new vaccinations on hospital admissions.
How low do you think hospital admissions will be in five weeks ?
Hopefully nice and low. Hopefully.
We have a nice 0.8 (or so) R for hospitals at the moment. The issue is that 0.8 turns into 1.05 quite easily.
I don't want to do this all over again. At this point a 5 weeks is not much to ask to get security - at that point we will (the fuckwits willing) have the over 50s done to a high level - including getting areas such as Newham to a better state....
Actually 5 weeks for an entire country is an awful lot to ask. If we say that a life spent locked down is only getting 50% of its normal value (which I don't think is unreasonable), the 5 weeks of lockdown for the country represents about ~40,000 entire birth-death lifetimes lost, or 3 million years of life lost. That's the same loss of years of life as 300,000 covid deaths. If I told you that lifting lockdown now risks another 50k deaths (but its unlikely to be that bad, and there is a better than evens chance it's less than 10k), but retaining it for 5 weeks cost 300k deaths, this should be a no brainer.
You can't say lockdown life is only worth 50%... because then you'd have to admit it's been a complete and utter mistake.
500k lives saved (optimistically) with average 15 years of life left (very optimistic) gives 7.5m years of life saved.
Set against 60m people locked down for over 6 months at 50% life value is >15m years of life spent.
Keir on fire today, Labour can win on the armed forces
Labour however is choosing whether to oppose based entirely on how it looks. They won’t oppose on anything Brexit related, because it would look bad, despite the fact that the government has got it wrong and is driving small businesses into bankruptcy and individuals into unemployment. Labour will oppose on the armed forces, because they think it looks good, despite the fact that we don’t need so many troops and the changes are probably sensible.
You’d expect Tories like HY who are always banging on about the Tory election manifesto to be more vocal with their criticism. But where are they?
I said on Sunday I thought this decision was appalling and I stick to that now, we made a promise to keep troop numbers as they are and we should stick to that, I know a lot of Tory members are very unhappy with this and Starmer will obviously be able to capitalise on it
Fair play HYUFD. Still some supine acolytes banging the somewhat reduced in size drum, mind.
We're very different types of Tories.
HYUFD wants a large military he can send in to occupy Scotland and quash independence.
I want a military fit for NATO and the modern world.
He appears to be a Tory that prefers manifesto promises (good or bad) not to to be evanescent bullshit.
Keir on fire today, Labour can win on the armed forces
Labour however is choosing whether to oppose based entirely on how it looks. They won’t oppose on anything Brexit related, because it would look bad, despite the fact that the government has got it wrong and is driving small businesses into bankruptcy and individuals into unemployment. Labour will oppose on the armed forces, because they think it looks good, despite the fact that we don’t need so many troops and the changes are probably sensible.
You’d expect Tories like HY who are always banging on about the Tory election manifesto to be more vocal with their criticism. But where are they?
I said on Sunday I thought this decision was appalling and I stick to that now, we made a promise to keep troop numbers as they are and we should stick to that, I know a lot of Tory members are very unhappy with this and Starmer will obviously be able to capitalise on it
Once you’re speaking in numbers of troops and not discussing outputs, you are basically saying you don’t care about military capability, you just want pretty parades. You’re like Sadam, with dozens of Mig29s, almost none of which flew.
To recapture the Falklands, for example, we would need troops and special forces and subs and aircraft carriers, to contribute to UN peacekeeping obligations and our NATO commitments we need troops and boots on the ground.
Cyberwarfare and drones will only go so far
1) Theres a garrison, which is enough to deter. 2) Argentina currently presents no military threat to anyone.
Regarding other obligations - why should we do peacekeeping? Leave that to countries without high capabilities, and the high end capabilities are what NATO needs from us. At most, troops in Europe are a speed bump/trip wire while we decide whether to go nuclear. We’ve assumed we’d lose the ground war with Russia since the 1970s. Might as well be a battle group as a division.
Who knows what the Argentine military will be like in a few years time and obviously much of its military is much closer to the islands than ours is so we need a sizeable military garrison to deter it as well as to be able to recapture them if necessary.
We are a UN Security council permanent member, one of just 5 in that role and a key member of NATO, we have obligations as part of both roles. It makes a complete mockery of the supposed post Brexit 'global Britain' to have troop numbers which would be significantly less than the French have for example, our main comparator power within the UN Security Council and NATO
Yeah, you have no idea why you’re talking about. The clue was in your post saying this was about appeasing your idea of the core vote. It’s more important than that. If you had your way we’d still have cavalry (another point - why do we waste soldiers’ time learning to ride horses for parades?), half tracks, cannon, and pikes.
Keir on fire today, Labour can win on the armed forces
😂😂😂😂😂
You watched a different PMQs to me then. Keir was ridiculous and hasn't a leg to stand on.
Surely this is a pretty straight forward one.
Is the government going to cut troop numbers or not?
The armed forces are being modernised with record investment and increased spending, yes.
I'd rather fewer but better equipped armed forces fit for the times, than having more troops operating without the protection, equipment or weaponry that they require. Which would you prefer?
That isn't the choice though, is it? The tories have committed to this global power projection bollocks while cutting 30% of the strategic airlift capability, taking at least a two year capability gap on AWACS and cutting the new AWACS fleet by 40% before the first aircraft even arrives. Etc, etc.
It's all just empty posturing while real capabilities get cut and gapped because they cannot bring themselves to align the goals with the available funding. The government is trying to do global power projection AND have a massive land force committed to NATO on about 60% of the budget needed to do both properly.
I don't disagree that there's been cuts over the past decade, Osborne had no choice but to cut expenditure after what he inherited and that was done in the past I completely agree with you 100% on that. It was also the right thing to do as we needed to fix the black hole in the economy which is why we were able to cope with this pandemic as we went into it without the black hole that had been inherited.
The budget has been increased here - do you believe that the increase in budget would be better spent as the integrated review has advised on more modern equipment, or do you believe that the increase in budget would be better spent on more troops but without the equipment they need?
They could afford to keep force levels where they are, rebalance them toward badly needed technical specialties and properly equip if they stopped wasting money on vanity projects and pointless shit.
Why does the MoD own 19 golf courses and operate a squadron of WW2 fighters?
Why has Johnson bought a second and possibly third VVIP aircraft (A321LR) painted at vast expense in the Brexit Belle colours?
Be fair. Brexit Belle will be a fully equipped flying drone command post.
Genuine question: what right does Prince Harry have to work in the USA? Does he have a right to work by virtue of being married to an American? Does he need a visa?
I've always been curious.
It's a non-job.
Not at all. It’s very important.
He’s not just making oodles of money giving speeches to investment bankers and documentaries for Netflix.
He’s working for a *mental health* company
He’s not such a bad guy giving up his valuable time like that...
What does this company actually do? I have an interest in mental health provision because I have personal experience of what it does to people and their families.
Lots of people talk about it. It has become really quite fashionable to do so. Actual practical help is rather thin on the ground, especially afterwards. Try getting a job from companies after explaining that your patchy CV is because of mental health illness and you will find that their interest in better mental health vanishes as fast as snow in summer.
If he is going to do something practical to help with that, good on him. If it's just another talking shop or another forum for him to talk about himself, not so good.
Amazing double standards around Harry. He has set up the Invictus games which changed many peoples lives from overwhelming struggle to one of hope and achievement. That already puts him in the top 0.1% or better of people influencing and improving others lives.
Yes, there are double standards around Invictus. I remember a few years earlier Jimmy Carr made a joke that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would mean Britain would soon have a brilliant Paralympic team, and he got absolute pelters for it.
That was the classic case of people being offended on behalf of others.
The war vets, of course, appreciated the dark humour - and went on to get dozens of Paralympic medals!
All that outrage over Lee Hurst joke on twitter over the weekend...I was only thinking yesterday, it was the sort of gag Jimmy Carr would do, as a tame warm up one.
I was pretty much the only one defending that joke on here at the time.
I think the main issue is the audience. A Twitter audience is different from a TV/radio audience, which is different to a comedy club audience - with decreasing expectations of taste and decency.
I guess so, but a twitter audience must also be able to distinguish between a bloke whose chosen career is as a comedian and those that aren't. Its a bit like watching a Dave Chapelle special on Netflix and getting upset he has dropped the n bomb for the 50th time....surely you must have an idea that's part of his act and if you didn't and it really offends you, why are you still watching it.
Keir on fire today, Labour can win on the armed forces
😂😂😂😂😂
You watched a different PMQs to me then. Keir was ridiculous and hasn't a leg to stand on.
Surely this is a pretty straight forward one.
Is the government going to cut troop numbers or not?
The armed forces are being modernised with record investment and increased spending, yes.
I'd rather fewer but better equipped armed forces fit for the times, than having more troops operating without the protection, equipment or weaponry that they require. Which would you prefer?
That isn't the choice though, is it? The tories have committed to this global power projection bollocks while cutting 30% of the strategic airlift capability, taking at least a two year capability gap on AWACS and cutting the new AWACS fleet by 40% before the first aircraft even arrives. Etc, etc.
It's all just empty posturing while real capabilities get cut and gapped because they cannot bring themselves to align the goals with the available funding. The government is trying to do global power projection AND have a massive land force committed to NATO on about 60% of the budget needed to do both properly.
I don't disagree that there's been cuts over the past decade,
Forgot to say... the cuts I mentioned (AWACS, airlift and two T23 frigates) happened THIS WEEK.
As you probably know, they are cutting the two oldest T23s whilst extending the life of others coming out of refit. It will save refit costs on the oldest and overall available fleet is actually about to increase. The choices on airlift (strategic and choppers) do look a bit odd, and seem to have forgotten some lessons from Afghanistan.
Now that the EU is officially doing ‘the mad thing everyone said they wouldn’t do’, has anyone crunched the numbers to see if this will actually affect the UK vax drive?
Keir on fire today, Labour can win on the armed forces
😂😂😂😂😂
You watched a different PMQs to me then. Keir was ridiculous and hasn't a leg to stand on.
Surely this is a pretty straight forward one.
Is the government going to cut troop numbers or not?
The armed forces are being modernised with record investment and increased spending, yes.
I'd rather fewer but better equipped armed forces fit for the times, than having more troops operating without the protection, equipment or weaponry that they require. Which would you prefer?
That isn't the choice though, is it? The tories have committed to this global power projection bollocks while cutting 30% of the strategic airlift capability, taking at least a two year capability gap on AWACS and cutting the new AWACS fleet by 40% before the first aircraft even arrives. Etc, etc.
It's all just empty posturing while real capabilities get cut and gapped because they cannot bring themselves to align the goals with the available funding. The government is trying to do global power projection AND have a massive land force committed to NATO on about 60% of the budget needed to do both properly.
I don't disagree that there's been cuts over the past decade, Osborne had no choice but to cut expenditure after what he inherited and that was done in the past I completely agree with you 100% on that. It was also the right thing to do as we needed to fix the black hole in the economy which is why we were able to cope with this pandemic as we went into it without the black hole that had been inherited.
The budget has been increased here - do you believe that the increase in budget would be better spent as the integrated review has advised on more modern equipment, or do you believe that the increase in budget would be better spent on more troops but without the equipment they need?
They could afford to keep force levels where they are, rebalance them toward badly needed technical specialties and properly equip if they stopped wasting money on vanity projects and pointless shit.
Why does the MoD own 19 golf courses and operate a squadron of WW2 fighters?
Why has Johnson bought a second and possibly third VVIP aircraft (A321LR) painted at vast expense in the Brexit Belle colours?
Be fair. Brexit Belle will be a fully equipped flying drone command post.
It's official - HMG is looking for somewhere off-shore to house migrants whilst being processed.
Canvey Island? Off shore, suitably horrible, easy to blockade...
Have you been to Canvey?
Think of their human rights man
Canvey is perfect. Already has hot and cold running water. Only 3 crossing points. Surrounded by marshes and already has a perimeter wall around half of it. Easy to build watch towers and the like.
Keir on fire today, Labour can win on the armed forces
Labour however is choosing whether to oppose based entirely on how it looks. They won’t oppose on anything Brexit related, because it would look bad, despite the fact that the government has got it wrong and is driving small businesses into bankruptcy and individuals into unemployment. Labour will oppose on the armed forces, because they think it looks good, despite the fact that we don’t need so many troops and the changes are probably sensible.
You’d expect Tories like HY who are always banging on about the Tory election manifesto to be more vocal with their criticism. But where are they?
I said on Sunday I thought this decision was appalling and I stick to that now, we made a promise to keep troop numbers as they are and we should stick to that, I know a lot of Tory members are very unhappy with this and Starmer will obviously be able to capitalise on it
Once you’re speaking in numbers of troops and not discussing outputs, you are basically saying you don’t care about military capability, you just want pretty parades. You’re like Sadam, with dozens of Mig29s, almost none of which flew.
100% this.
The integrated review is about what works for the modern world and our allies and NATO have praised it. That's good enough for me.
We should never repeat the shame of Tony Blair sending underequipped troops to war. It seems from Starmer's behaviour today he views the purpose of the military to be a few jobs for the boys (and maybe a few girls) and not actually about what they need to go with it.
Starmer is playing politics just like Johnson would. He is leveraging that Johnson cant bring himself to say that yes the numbers are being cut but thats in order to improve the overall capability (despite his defence secretary making this very clear earlier in the week!), so has to bluster weakly instead.
Now that the EU is officially doing ‘the mad thing everyone said they wouldn’t do’, has anyone crunched the numbers to see if this will actually affect the UK vax drive?
Where’s Max when you need him?
Well we have no idea how much Pfizer the UK has been stockpiling and how much capacity AZN is actually producing. The second I don't think AZN even has an idea, as "lumpy" is a bit like Mrs U attempts at making macarons...she never know what's coming out the oven.
Genuine question: what right does Prince Harry have to work in the USA? Does he have a right to work by virtue of being married to an American? Does he need a visa?
I've always been curious.
It's a non-job.
Not at all. It’s very important.
He’s not just making oodles of money giving speeches to investment bankers and documentaries for Netflix.
He’s working for a *mental health* company
He’s not such a bad guy giving up his valuable time like that...
What does this company actually do? I have an interest in mental health provision because I have personal experience of what it does to people and their families.
Lots of people talk about it. It has become really quite fashionable to do so. Actual practical help is rather thin on the ground, especially afterwards. Try getting a job from companies after explaining that your patchy CV is because of mental health illness and you will find that their interest in better mental health vanishes as fast as snow in summer.
If he is going to do something practical to help with that, good on him. If it's just another talking shop or another forum for him to talk about himself, not so good.
Amazing double standards around Harry. He has set up the Invictus games which changed many peoples lives from overwhelming struggle to one of hope and achievement. That already puts him in the top 0.1% or better of people influencing and improving others lives.
Yes, there are double standards around Invictus. I remember a few years earlier Jimmy Carr made a joke that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would mean Britain would soon have a brilliant Paralympic team, and he got absolute pelters for it.
That was the classic case of people being offended on behalf of others.
The war vets, of course, appreciated the dark humour - and went on to get dozens of Paralympic medals!
All that outrage over Lee Hurst joke on twitter over the weekend...I was only thinking yesterday, it was the sort of gag Jimmy Carr would do, as a tame warm up one.
I was pretty much the only one defending that joke on here at the time.
I think the main issue is the audience. A Twitter audience is different from a TV/radio audience, which is different to a comedy club audience - with decreasing expectations of taste and decency.
Most definitely. I also think those who feigned offence had more problems with the teller of the joke than the joke itself. As has been said even in 2021 if that came out the mouth of Jimmy Carr on Channel 4 it would have got a mixture of laughs and a few groans (if there were a studio audience).
Lee Hurst was pretty funny on TTIAO. I thought Nick Hancock made that show, it's a shame much like Mark Lamarr from Buzzcocks they keep a relatively low profile these days given the dross that currently passes for comedy on the Beeb.
Keir on fire today, Labour can win on the armed forces
😂😂😂😂😂
You watched a different PMQs to me then. Keir was ridiculous and hasn't a leg to stand on.
Surely this is a pretty straight forward one.
Is the government going to cut troop numbers or not?
The armed forces are being modernised with record investment and increased spending, yes.
I'd rather fewer but better equipped armed forces fit for the times, than having more troops operating without the protection, equipment or weaponry that they require. Which would you prefer?
That isn't the choice though, is it? The tories have committed to this global power projection bollocks while cutting 30% of the strategic airlift capability, taking at least a two year capability gap on AWACS and cutting the new AWACS fleet by 40% before the first aircraft even arrives. Etc, etc.
It's all just empty posturing while real capabilities get cut and gapped because they cannot bring themselves to align the goals with the available funding. The government is trying to do global power projection AND have a massive land force committed to NATO on about 60% of the budget needed to do both properly.
I don't disagree that there's been cuts over the past decade, Osborne had no choice but to cut expenditure after what he inherited and that was done in the past I completely agree with you 100% on that. It was also the right thing to do as we needed to fix the black hole in the economy which is why we were able to cope with this pandemic as we went into it without the black hole that had been inherited.
The budget has been increased here - do you believe that the increase in budget would be better spent as the integrated review has advised on more modern equipment, or do you believe that the increase in budget would be better spent on more troops but without the equipment they need?
They could afford to keep force levels where they are, rebalance them toward badly needed technical specialties and properly equip if they stopped wasting money on vanity projects and pointless shit.
Why does the MoD own 19 golf courses and operate a squadron of WW2 fighters?
Why has Johnson bought a second and possibly third VVIP aircraft (A321LR) painted at vast expense in the Brexit Belle colours?
To 'vanity projects and pointless shit' you can add increasing our nuclear warhead stockpile from 40 to 260. Less likely to be used in an actual war than a Spitfire or a horse. Or a golf course come to that.
Genuine question: what right does Prince Harry have to work in the USA? Does he have a right to work by virtue of being married to an American? Does he need a visa?
I've always been curious.
It's a non-job.
Not at all. It’s very important.
He’s not just making oodles of money giving speeches to investment bankers and documentaries for Netflix.
He’s working for a *mental health* company
He’s not such a bad guy giving up his valuable time like that...
What does this company actually do? I have an interest in mental health provision because I have personal experience of what it does to people and their families.
Lots of people talk about it. It has become really quite fashionable to do so. Actual practical help is rather thin on the ground, especially afterwards. Try getting a job from companies after explaining that your patchy CV is because of mental health illness and you will find that their interest in better mental health vanishes as fast as snow in summer.
If he is going to do something practical to help with that, good on him. If it's just another talking shop or another forum for him to talk about himself, not so good.
Amazing double standards around Harry. He has set up the Invictus games which changed many peoples lives from overwhelming struggle to one of hope and achievement. That already puts him in the top 0.1% or better of people influencing and improving others lives.
Yes, there are double standards around Invictus. I remember a few years earlier Jimmy Carr made a joke that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would mean Britain would soon have a brilliant Paralympic team, and he got absolute pelters for it.
That was the classic case of people being offended on behalf of others.
The war vets, of course, appreciated the dark humour - and went on to get dozens of Paralympic medals!
All that outrage over Lee Hurst joke on twitter over the weekend...I was only thinking yesterday, it was the sort of gag Jimmy Carr would do, as a tame warm up one.
I was pretty much the only one defending that joke on here at the time.
I think the main issue is the audience. A Twitter audience is different from a TV/radio audience, which is different to a comedy club audience - with decreasing expectations of taste and decency.
Most definitely. I also think those who feigned offence had more problems with the teller of the joke than the joke itself. As has been said even in 2021 if that came out the mouth of Jimmy Carr on Channel 4 it would have got a mixture of laughs and a few groans (if there were a studio audience).
Lee Hurst was pretty funny on TTIAO. I thought Nick Hancock made that show, it's a shame much like Mark Lamarr from Buzzcocks they keep a relatively low profile these days given the dross that currently passes for comedy on the Beeb.
Nick Hancock...met him in real life a number of times, what a miserable git.
Jimmy Carr regular put downs are basically I've done your mum / your girlfriend is ugly....no more or less misogynistic than Lee Hurst joke.
He's missed out the best bit - COVAX is enthusiastically supported by both the EU and the Italian government.
But surely these poor countries in the developing world fail the reciprocity criterion, because they aren't exporting vaccines to the EU?
Isn't it a good idea to wait to hear from Covax, or any other reputable source, if any vaccine supplies have been delayed before jumping to conclusions?
Talking of ‘jumping to conclusions’, here’s an esteemed EU journalist. Austrian.
So no actual evidence that any Covax vaccines have been stolen? Quick let's retweet some Austrian.
Unfortunately, this site has descended into an ugly form of groupthink.
The rules are you can post anything, no matter how inaccurate, you can just make any crap up, post any irrational conspiracy theory, it's all fine, positively encouraged, so long as the target is the EU or European governments.
It's ugly and shows a worrying fanatical mindset has taken hold in lots of people.
There's plenty to severely criticise the EU for or, for example the German government, while remaining accurate and in touch with reality.
Maybe my impression is coming from a vocal minority of hate-filled posters such as Leon, but I've had enough, I just leave with a plea to people to try to be accurate, and to see how things might look to someone from a different perspective.
Sorry that you feel you have to go. Your clear eyed and often critical view of Germany and the EU were a valuable addition to this place imo.
There are a number of people with similar opinions that come here to sook each other off, a smaller number who find the spectacle queasily fascinating. I accept that if you're not in the latter category, the charms of PB wear thin pretty quickly.
"As far as we're concerned, we have no willingness, no interest in fuelling permanent controversy with Britain."
They’re doing exactly what they say they don’t want to do.
Brexit - and now our vaccine success - has sent them mad.
Having said that, I agree with iirc Fraser nelson on the spectator podcast, that there is a strong moral argument for helping out the EU vaccinate their oldies before we push ahead with our youngsters.
Seems Labour are going to be strongly arguing that those travelling across Europe to France, not claiming asylum anywhere on that journey and then coming here illegally should be protected.
Another EU journalist. Raving about 30m hidden AZ doses ‘destined for Britain’
Literally halfway through the thread he seamlessly walks away from this by saying ‘it doesn’t matter if they were going to Britain or not’, then carries on raving. 5,000 retweets. This mad shit is going viral
Keir on fire today, Labour can win on the armed forces
Labour however is choosing whether to oppose based entirely on how it looks. They won’t oppose on anything Brexit related, because it would look bad, despite the fact that the government has got it wrong and is driving small businesses into bankruptcy and individuals into unemployment. Labour will oppose on the armed forces, because they think it looks good, despite the fact that we don’t need so many troops and the changes are probably sensible.
You’d expect Tories like HY who are always banging on about the Tory election manifesto to be more vocal with their criticism. But where are they?
I said on Sunday I thought this decision was appalling and I stick to that now, we made a promise to keep troop numbers as they are and we should stick to that, I know a lot of Tory members are very unhappy with this and Starmer will obviously be able to capitalise on it
He'll be able to capitalize on it ... how? What taxes will Labour raise and what services will it cut to guarantee no fall in troop levels? Most people will have noticed this little thing called the fiscal black hole caused by the global pandemic, all of which occurred after the manifesto was written.
Got it. We can't afford armed forces. A truly Tory campaign slogan.
Except that as Philip points out, spending is going up, not down.
There's no logical inconsistency in increasing spending overall, but putting more of it into the latest equipment than into maintaining troop levels. There's this thing called technology, which makes it more effective to have one man with a machine gun than a hundred with stone knives.
Oh I understand all that. Its just that your response to objections to cutting troop numbers was to demand to know how Keir would pay for it...
And that demand still stands. There's a gigantic fiscal hole, and so we clearly don't have the money to purchase all the new tech and maintain 100% of troop levels at the same time. Therefore, new cuts or new taxes or new borrowing will be needed, and Labour should state what those would be.
Actually the question is relevant regardless of the fiscal position because it's about choices. And what will happen is that Labour will set out their choices in due course in a costed manifesto. Perhaps the Tories will condescend to do so too, although this is less certain. They are more likely to wing it.
Do you get impression there’s a load of diplomatic telegrams going round the world saying “the EU used to be sensible but has gone mental without the U.K.”?
"As far as we're concerned, we have no willingness, no interest in fuelling permanent controversy with Britain."
They’re doing exactly what they say they don’t want to do.
Brexit - and now our vaccine success - has sent them mad.
Having said that, I agree with iirc Fraser nelson on the spectator podcast, that there is a strong moral argument for helping out the EU vaccinate their oldies before we push ahead with our youngsters.
FT article on the EU vax ban. Seems it is strongly (and rightly) opposed by several northern states, but its being done on QMV, so it will probably go through, and it will hinder our vax program - ie more Brits will die
Setting all humour aside - I know - you have to wonder how many more millions of vaccine doses are actually lost in various member states because they cannot persuade anyone to be vaccinated. Spain has had today to state that refusers of AZN will not be offered an alternative.
Spain did a feeble number of jabs yesterday - about 80,000. 0.19% of the populace.
Why do you think this is happening? Is it anti-vaxxery? Supply?
Before I am accused by a snowflakey German of being mean, I hasten to add this slow roll-out doesn’t ‘please’ me, it dismays me. An unvaccinated Europe is tragic on a human level - more death and suffering - it is also bad, economically, for everyone - in the UK too. Plus it gives more time and space for mutations, which is scary.
Spain is in a mess over AZN - not offered to over 65s. Spain is in a mess with Pfizer - rigidly following the 2 dose system - hence slower. Vaccines are not done over weekends. Organisation is via the community and some are better than others. There is a lot of scepticism about vaccines in line with othe EU countries. The most recent plan goes no further than doing the over 70 cohort by the end of June along with those younger with health issues. Health workers, teachers and the Police are being offered AZN but lots are refusing.
"As far as we're concerned, we have no willingness, no interest in fuelling permanent controversy with Britain."
They’re doing exactly what they say they don’t want to do.
Brexit - and now our vaccine success - has sent them mad.
Having said that, I agree with iirc Fraser nelson on the spectator podcast, that there is a strong moral argument for helping out the EU vaccinate their oldies before we push ahead with our youngsters.
You would hope such a good will gesture would be warmly received, but not sure could we trust them then not to continue to play silly buggers over border issues over Brexit.
FT article on the EU vax ban. Seems it is strongly (and rightly) opposed by several northern states, but its being done on QMV, so it will probably go through, and it will hinder our vax program - ie more Brits will die
But the questions don't follow. Troops aren't battlefield hardware. They're battlefield hardnuts.
You gov say in the question the size of the army is to be reduced
Yep, then the follow-ups ask where the priority should be, cyber or hardware, and cyber wins. This does not show public support for cutting troop numbers. It just shows public support for prioritizing cyber over hardware.
Setting all humour aside - I know - you have to wonder how many more millions of vaccine doses are actually lost in various member states because they cannot persuade anyone to be vaccinated. Spain has had today to state that refusers of AZN will not be offered an alternative.
Spain did a feeble number of jabs yesterday - about 80,000. 0.19% of the populace.
Why do you think this is happening? Is it anti-vaxxery? Supply?
Before I am accused by a snowflakey German of being mean, I hasten to add this slow roll-out doesn’t ‘please’ me, it dismays me. An unvaccinated Europe is tragic on a human level - more death and suffering - it is also bad, economically, for everyone - in the UK too. Plus it gives more time and space for mutations, which is scary.
Spain is in a mess over AZN - not offered to over 65s. Spain is in a mess with Pfizer - rigidly following the 2 dose system - hence slower. Vaccines are not done over weekends. Organisation is via the community and some are better than others. There is a lot of scepticism about vaccines in line with othe EU countries. The most recent plan goes no further than doing the over 70 cohort by the end of June along with those younger with health issues. Health workers, teachers and the Police are being offered AZN but lots are refusing.
Gracias. Sounds a bit of a mess.
On the upside the third wave in Spain looks less serious than elsewhere. Do you know why that is? Better weather? Lockdown? Herd immunity?
Now that the EU is officially doing ‘the mad thing everyone said they wouldn’t do’, has anyone crunched the numbers to see if this will actually affect the UK vax drive?
Where’s Max when you need him?
Well we have no idea how much Pfizer the UK has been stockpiling and how much capacity AZN is actually producing. The second I don't think AZN even has an idea, as "lumpy" is a bit like Mrs U attempts at making macarons...she never know what's coming out the oven.
You nearly wrote macrons - French cuisine? For a load of hot air?
Setting all humour aside - I know - you have to wonder how many more millions of vaccine doses are actually lost in various member states because they cannot persuade anyone to be vaccinated. Spain has had today to state that refusers of AZN will not be offered an alternative.
Spain did a feeble number of jabs yesterday - about 80,000. 0.19% of the populace.
Why do you think this is happening? Is it anti-vaxxery? Supply?
Before I am accused by a snowflakey German of being mean, I hasten to add this slow roll-out doesn’t ‘please’ me, it dismays me. An unvaccinated Europe is tragic on a human level - more death and suffering - it is also bad, economically, for everyone - in the UK too. Plus it gives more time and space for mutations, which is scary.
Spain is in a mess over AZN - not offered to over 65s. Spain is in a mess with Pfizer - rigidly following the 2 dose system - hence slower. Vaccines are not done over weekends. Organisation is via the community and some are better than others. There is a lot of scepticism about vaccines in line with othe EU countries. The most recent plan goes no further than doing the over 70 cohort by the end of June along with those younger with health issues. Health workers, teachers and the Police are being offered AZN but lots are refusing.
Gracias. Sounds a bit of a mess.
On the upside the third wave in Spain looks less serious than elsewhere. Do you know why that is? Better weather? Lockdown? Herd immunity?
Or just not doing much testing and only counting deaths in hospitals
"As far as we're concerned, we have no willingness, no interest in fuelling permanent controversy with Britain."
They’re doing exactly what they say they don’t want to do.
Brexit - and now our vaccine success - has sent them mad.
Having said that, I agree with iirc Fraser nelson on the spectator podcast, that there is a strong moral argument for helping out the EU vaccinate their oldies before we push ahead with our youngsters.
You would hope such a good will gesture would be warmly received, but not sure could we trust them then not to continue to play silly buggers over border issues over Brexit.
Exactly - help the poor not those who could help themselves if they tried
Setting all humour aside - I know - you have to wonder how many more millions of vaccine doses are actually lost in various member states because they cannot persuade anyone to be vaccinated. Spain has had today to state that refusers of AZN will not be offered an alternative.
Spain did a feeble number of jabs yesterday - about 80,000. 0.19% of the populace.
Why do you think this is happening? Is it anti-vaxxery? Supply?
Before I am accused by a snowflakey German of being mean, I hasten to add this slow roll-out doesn’t ‘please’ me, it dismays me. An unvaccinated Europe is tragic on a human level - more death and suffering - it is also bad, economically, for everyone - in the UK too. Plus it gives more time and space for mutations, which is scary.
Spain is in a mess over AZN - not offered to over 65s. Spain is in a mess with Pfizer - rigidly following the 2 dose system - hence slower. Vaccines are not done over weekends. Organisation is via the community and some are better than others. There is a lot of scepticism about vaccines in line with othe EU countries. The most recent plan goes no further than doing the over 70 cohort by the end of June along with those younger with health issues. Health workers, teachers and the Police are being offered AZN but lots are refusing.
Gracias. Sounds a bit of a mess.
On the upside the third wave in Spain looks less serious than elsewhere. Do you know why that is? Better weather? Lockdown? Herd immunity?
Iberia seems to be tracking much closer to UK than rest of continental Europe - Portugal's graph looks like a copy of ours. Basically seems they've already had this wave, same as us.
FT article on the EU vax ban. Seems it is strongly (and rightly) opposed by several northern states, but its being done on QMV, so it will probably go through, and it will hinder our vax program - ie more Brits will die
If this happens - and Brits die unnecessarily - I honestly do not see how EU/UK relations will ever recover. It will be like the Cold War.
With friends like this, who needs enemies.
Imagine if you’re the PM and you have to stand up in the Commons and announce that our vaccine drive is going to slow, enormously, because our contracted, purchased supplies have been illegally seized by the EU. Then you have to say ‘as a result, lockdown will be extended’
The reaction of the British public will be explosive. Blind fury
My slender hope is that this is politicking for show. They will pass the ‘law’ but won’t apply it, because saner minds will prevail. But this is the EU in full-blown psychosis, so who knows. Look at Merkel’s madness, today
Setting all humour aside - I know - you have to wonder how many more millions of vaccine doses are actually lost in various member states because they cannot persuade anyone to be vaccinated. Spain has had today to state that refusers of AZN will not be offered an alternative.
Spain did a feeble number of jabs yesterday - about 80,000. 0.19% of the populace.
Why do you think this is happening? Is it anti-vaxxery? Supply?
Before I am accused by a snowflakey German of being mean, I hasten to add this slow roll-out doesn’t ‘please’ me, it dismays me. An unvaccinated Europe is tragic on a human level - more death and suffering - it is also bad, economically, for everyone - in the UK too. Plus it gives more time and space for mutations, which is scary.
Spain is in a mess over AZN - not offered to over 65s. Spain is in a mess with Pfizer - rigidly following the 2 dose system - hence slower. Vaccines are not done over weekends. Organisation is via the community and some are better than others. There is a lot of scepticism about vaccines in line with othe EU countries. The most recent plan goes no further than doing the over 70 cohort by the end of June along with those younger with health issues. Health workers, teachers and the Police are being offered AZN but lots are refusing.
Gracias. Sounds a bit of a mess.
On the upside the third wave in Spain looks less serious than elsewhere. Do you know why that is? Better weather? Lockdown? Herd immunity?
Or just not doing much testing and only counting deaths in hospitals
Setting all humour aside - I know - you have to wonder how many more millions of vaccine doses are actually lost in various member states because they cannot persuade anyone to be vaccinated. Spain has had today to state that refusers of AZN will not be offered an alternative.
Spain did a feeble number of jabs yesterday - about 80,000. 0.19% of the populace.
Why do you think this is happening? Is it anti-vaxxery? Supply?
Before I am accused by a snowflakey German of being mean, I hasten to add this slow roll-out doesn’t ‘please’ me, it dismays me. An unvaccinated Europe is tragic on a human level - more death and suffering - it is also bad, economically, for everyone - in the UK too. Plus it gives more time and space for mutations, which is scary.
Spain is in a mess over AZN - not offered to over 65s. Spain is in a mess with Pfizer - rigidly following the 2 dose system - hence slower. Vaccines are not done over weekends. Organisation is via the community and some are better than others. There is a lot of scepticism about vaccines in line with othe EU countries. The most recent plan goes no further than doing the over 70 cohort by the end of June along with those younger with health issues. Health workers, teachers and the Police are being offered AZN but lots are refusing.
Gracias. Sounds a bit of a mess.
On the upside the third wave in Spain looks less serious than elsewhere. Do you know why that is? Better weather? Lockdown? Herd immunity?
Iberia seems to be tracking much closer to UK than rest of continental Europe - Portugal's graph looks like a copy of ours. Basically seems they've already had this wave, same as us.
They're probably the only countries that have been locked down since Christmas.
Genuine question: what right does Prince Harry have to work in the USA? Does he have a right to work by virtue of being married to an American? Does he need a visa?
I've always been curious.
It's a non-job.
Not at all. It’s very important.
He’s not just making oodles of money giving speeches to investment bankers and documentaries for Netflix.
He’s working for a *mental health* company
He’s not such a bad guy giving up his valuable time like that...
What does this company actually do? I have an interest in mental health provision because I have personal experience of what it does to people and their families.
Lots of people talk about it. It has become really quite fashionable to do so. Actual practical help is rather thin on the ground, especially afterwards. Try getting a job from companies after explaining that your patchy CV is because of mental health illness and you will find that their interest in better mental health vanishes as fast as snow in summer.
If he is going to do something practical to help with that, good on him. If it's just another talking shop or another forum for him to talk about himself, not so good.
Amazing double standards around Harry. He has set up the Invictus games which changed many peoples lives from overwhelming struggle to one of hope and achievement. That already puts him in the top 0.1% or better of people influencing and improving others lives.
Yes, there are double standards around Invictus. I remember a few years earlier Jimmy Carr made a joke that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would mean Britain would soon have a brilliant Paralympic team, and he got absolute pelters for it.
That was the classic case of people being offended on behalf of others.
The war vets, of course, appreciated the dark humour - and went on to get dozens of Paralympic medals!
All that outrage over Lee Hurst joke on twitter over the weekend...I was only thinking yesterday, it was the sort of gag Jimmy Carr would do, as a tame warm up one.
I was pretty much the only one defending that joke on here at the time.
I think the main issue is the audience. A Twitter audience is different from a TV/radio audience, which is different to a comedy club audience - with decreasing expectations of taste and decency.
Most definitely. I also think those who feigned offence had more problems with the teller of the joke than the joke itself. As has been said even in 2021 if that came out the mouth of Jimmy Carr on Channel 4 it would have got a mixture of laughs and a few groans (if there were a studio audience).
Lee Hurst was pretty funny on TTIAO. I thought Nick Hancock made that show, it's a shame much like Mark Lamarr from Buzzcocks they keep a relatively low profile these days given the dross that currently passes for comedy on the Beeb.
Nick Hancock...met him in real life a number of times, what a miserable git.
Jimmy Carr regular put downs are basically I've done your mum / your girlfriend is ugly....no more or less misogynistic than Lee Hurst joke.
He's from Stoke so I wouldn't expect him to be upbeat.
Seems Labour are going to be strongly arguing that those travelling across Europe to France, not claiming asylum anywhere on that journey and then coming here illegally should be protected.
Not sure that plays well in the Red Wall.
We have been through this before - since conditions in France are intolerable for asylum seekers, it is clear that France is a failed state.
So we should do what we do with failed states. Invade and steal their oil.
He's missed out the best bit - COVAX is enthusiastically supported by both the EU and the Italian government.
But surely these poor countries in the developing world fail the reciprocity criterion, because they aren't exporting vaccines to the EU?
Isn't it a good idea to wait to hear from Covax, or any other reputable source, if any vaccine supplies have been delayed before jumping to conclusions?
Talking of ‘jumping to conclusions’, here’s an esteemed EU journalist. Austrian.
So no actual evidence that any Covax vaccines have been stolen? Quick let's retweet some Austrian.
Unfortunately, this site has descended into an ugly form of groupthink.
The rules are you can post anything, no matter how inaccurate, you can just make any crap up, post any irrational conspiracy theory, it's all fine, positively encouraged, so long as the target is the EU or European governments.
It's ugly and shows a worrying fanatical mindset has taken hold in lots of people.
There's plenty to severely criticise the EU for or, for example the German government, while remaining accurate and in touch with reality.
Maybe my impression is coming from a vocal minority of hate-filled posters such as Leon, but I've had enough, I just leave with a plea to people to try to be accurate, and to see how things might look to someone from a different perspective.
Sorry that you feel you have to go. Your clear eyed and often critical view of Germany and the EU were a valuable addition to this place imo.
There are a number of people with similar opinions that come here to sook each other off, a smaller number who find the spectacle queasily fascinating. I accept that if you're not in the latter category, the charms of PB wear thin pretty quickly.
There's other stuff as well of course..
You can tell yourself that you come here to stoke the nationalist fire by staring into the ugly, gammony face of Toryism, but you're fooling no-one. You come here because it's fun. There's always a lively argument and a well-informed (yes well informed) debate, and clever, interesting and sometimes amusing people, whether or not they agree with you. And consequently this is preferable as an online hangout to an echo chamber of your political comrades.
I hope that generally, @kamski finds the same thing, and although he's finding it trying at present, that he will come back and contribute his valuable viewpoint again.
Genuine question: what right does Prince Harry have to work in the USA? Does he have a right to work by virtue of being married to an American? Does he need a visa?
I've always been curious.
It's a non-job.
Not at all. It’s very important.
He’s not just making oodles of money giving speeches to investment bankers and documentaries for Netflix.
He’s working for a *mental health* company
He’s not such a bad guy giving up his valuable time like that...
What does this company actually do? I have an interest in mental health provision because I have personal experience of what it does to people and their families.
Lots of people talk about it. It has become really quite fashionable to do so. Actual practical help is rather thin on the ground, especially afterwards. Try getting a job from companies after explaining that your patchy CV is because of mental health illness and you will find that their interest in better mental health vanishes as fast as snow in summer.
If he is going to do something practical to help with that, good on him. If it's just another talking shop or another forum for him to talk about himself, not so good.
Amazing double standards around Harry. He has set up the Invictus games which changed many peoples lives from overwhelming struggle to one of hope and achievement. That already puts him in the top 0.1% or better of people influencing and improving others lives.
Yes, there are double standards around Invictus. I remember a few years earlier Jimmy Carr made a joke that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would mean Britain would soon have a brilliant Paralympic team, and he got absolute pelters for it.
That was the classic case of people being offended on behalf of others.
The war vets, of course, appreciated the dark humour - and went on to get dozens of Paralympic medals!
All that outrage over Lee Hurst joke on twitter over the weekend...I was only thinking yesterday, it was the sort of gag Jimmy Carr would do, as a tame warm up one.
I was pretty much the only one defending that joke on here at the time.
I think the main issue is the audience. A Twitter audience is different from a TV/radio audience, which is different to a comedy club audience - with decreasing expectations of taste and decency.
Most definitely. I also think those who feigned offence had more problems with the teller of the joke than the joke itself. As has been said even in 2021 if that came out the mouth of Jimmy Carr on Channel 4 it would have got a mixture of laughs and a few groans (if there were a studio audience).
Lee Hurst was pretty funny on TTIAO. I thought Nick Hancock made that show, it's a shame much like Mark Lamarr from Buzzcocks they keep a relatively low profile these days given the dross that currently passes for comedy on the Beeb.
I do miss Mark Lamarr, back in the days when he'd goad guests into walking off Buzzcocks, and didn't care who he offended. Phill Jupitus has also disappeared, and Bill Bailey sticks to his musical comedy show on stage.
The only UK 'comedy' show I regularly watch now is the late-night Countdown, and occasionally HIGNFY - apart from that it's all Youtube podcasts and Netflix specials. Network TV has pretty much lost comedy completely.
FT article on the EU vax ban. Seems it is strongly (and rightly) opposed by several northern states, but its being done on QMV, so it will probably go through, and it will hinder our vax program - ie more Brits will die
If this happens - and Brits die unnecessarily - I honestly do not see how EU/UK relations will ever recover. It will be like the Cold War.
With friends like this, who needs enemies.
Imagine if you’re the PM and you have to stand up in the Commons and announce that our vaccine drive is going to slow, enormously, because our contracted, purchased supplies have been illegally seized by the EU. Then you have to say ‘as a result, lockdown will be extended’
The reaction of the British public will be explosive. Blind fury
My slender hope is that this is politicking for show. They will pass the ‘law’ but won’t apply it, because saner minds will prevail. But this is the EU in full-blown psychosis, so who knows. Look at Merkel’s madness, today
Yes the government won’t have any choice. The public will need to see retribution, and will have no interest in compromising with the EU over anything for years.
FT article on the EU vax ban. Seems it is strongly (and rightly) opposed by several northern states, but its being done on QMV, so it will probably go through, and it will hinder our vax program - ie more Brits will die
If this happens - and Brits die unnecessarily - I honestly do not see how EU/UK relations will ever recover. It will be like the Cold War.
With friends like this, who needs enemies.
Imagine if you’re the PM and you have to stand up in the Commons and announce that our vaccine drive is going to slow, enormously, because our contracted, purchased supplies have been illegally seized by the EU. Then you have to say ‘as a result, lockdown will be extended’
The reaction of the British public will be explosive. Blind fury
My slender hope is that this is politicking for show. They will pass the ‘law’ but won’t apply it, because saner minds will prevail. But this is the EU in full-blown psychosis, so who knows. Look at Merkel’s madness, today
The obvious "fudge" the EU do is make sure just enough is allowed to be exported for 2nd doses of Pfizer and that's it. Therefore, they claim a win and they get to act like a big bully, we are still slowed down having to rely on just AZN for a few months, but not with the total disaster of Grannies dying left, right and centre because they didn't get their second dose.
But then even that might be too sane.....the way the EU are acting, they might want to show the UK 12 week strategy up as inferior to their approach, and the obviously way to do that, block Pfizer exports.
Genuine question: what right does Prince Harry have to work in the USA? Does he have a right to work by virtue of being married to an American? Does he need a visa?
I've always been curious.
It's a non-job.
Not at all. It’s very important.
He’s not just making oodles of money giving speeches to investment bankers and documentaries for Netflix.
He’s working for a *mental health* company
He’s not such a bad guy giving up his valuable time like that...
What does this company actually do? I have an interest in mental health provision because I have personal experience of what it does to people and their families.
Lots of people talk about it. It has become really quite fashionable to do so. Actual practical help is rather thin on the ground, especially afterwards. Try getting a job from companies after explaining that your patchy CV is because of mental health illness and you will find that their interest in better mental health vanishes as fast as snow in summer.
If he is going to do something practical to help with that, good on him. If it's just another talking shop or another forum for him to talk about himself, not so good.
Amazing double standards around Harry. He has set up the Invictus games which changed many peoples lives from overwhelming struggle to one of hope and achievement. That already puts him in the top 0.1% or better of people influencing and improving others lives.
Yes, there are double standards around Invictus. I remember a few years earlier Jimmy Carr made a joke that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would mean Britain would soon have a brilliant Paralympic team, and he got absolute pelters for it.
That was the classic case of people being offended on behalf of others.
The war vets, of course, appreciated the dark humour - and went on to get dozens of Paralympic medals!
All that outrage over Lee Hurst joke on twitter over the weekend...I was only thinking yesterday, it was the sort of gag Jimmy Carr would do, as a tame warm up one.
I was pretty much the only one defending that joke on here at the time.
I think the main issue is the audience. A Twitter audience is different from a TV/radio audience, which is different to a comedy club audience - with decreasing expectations of taste and decency.
Most definitely. I also think those who feigned offence had more problems with the teller of the joke than the joke itself. As has been said even in 2021 if that came out the mouth of Jimmy Carr on Channel 4 it would have got a mixture of laughs and a few groans (if there were a studio audience).
Lee Hurst was pretty funny on TTIAO. I thought Nick Hancock made that show, it's a shame much like Mark Lamarr from Buzzcocks they keep a relatively low profile these days given the dross that currently passes for comedy on the Beeb.
I do miss Mark Lamarr, back in the days when he'd goad guests into walking off Buzzcocks, and didn't care who he offended. Phill Jupitus has also disappeared, and Bill Bailey sticks to his musical comedy show on stage.
The only UK 'comedy' show I regularly watch now is the late-night Countdown, and occasionally HIGNFY - apart from that it's all Youtube podcasts and Netflix specials. Network TV has pretty much lost comedy completely.
The Last Leg on Channel 4 can be very self-righteous but actually funny at times too.
Now that the EU is officially doing ‘the mad thing everyone said they wouldn’t do’, has anyone crunched the numbers to see if this will actually affect the UK vax drive?
Where’s Max when you need him?
Well we have no idea how much Pfizer the UK has been stockpiling and how much capacity AZN is actually producing. The second I don't think AZN even has an idea, as "lumpy" is a bit like Mrs U attempts at making macarons...she never know what's coming out the oven.
You nearly wrote macrons - French cuisine? For a load of hot air?
Genuine question: what right does Prince Harry have to work in the USA? Does he have a right to work by virtue of being married to an American? Does he need a visa?
I've always been curious.
It's a non-job.
Not at all. It’s very important.
He’s not just making oodles of money giving speeches to investment bankers and documentaries for Netflix.
He’s working for a *mental health* company
He’s not such a bad guy giving up his valuable time like that...
What does this company actually do? I have an interest in mental health provision because I have personal experience of what it does to people and their families.
Lots of people talk about it. It has become really quite fashionable to do so. Actual practical help is rather thin on the ground, especially afterwards. Try getting a job from companies after explaining that your patchy CV is because of mental health illness and you will find that their interest in better mental health vanishes as fast as snow in summer.
If he is going to do something practical to help with that, good on him. If it's just another talking shop or another forum for him to talk about himself, not so good.
Amazing double standards around Harry. He has set up the Invictus games which changed many peoples lives from overwhelming struggle to one of hope and achievement. That already puts him in the top 0.1% or better of people influencing and improving others lives.
Yes, there are double standards around Invictus. I remember a few years earlier Jimmy Carr made a joke that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would mean Britain would soon have a brilliant Paralympic team, and he got absolute pelters for it.
That was the classic case of people being offended on behalf of others.
The war vets, of course, appreciated the dark humour - and went on to get dozens of Paralympic medals!
All that outrage over Lee Hurst joke on twitter over the weekend...I was only thinking yesterday, it was the sort of gag Jimmy Carr would do, as a tame warm up one.
I was pretty much the only one defending that joke on here at the time.
I think the main issue is the audience. A Twitter audience is different from a TV/radio audience, which is different to a comedy club audience - with decreasing expectations of taste and decency.
Most definitely. I also think those who feigned offence had more problems with the teller of the joke than the joke itself. As has been said even in 2021 if that came out the mouth of Jimmy Carr on Channel 4 it would have got a mixture of laughs and a few groans (if there were a studio audience).
Lee Hurst was pretty funny on TTIAO. I thought Nick Hancock made that show, it's a shame much like Mark Lamarr from Buzzcocks they keep a relatively low profile these days given the dross that currently passes for comedy on the Beeb.
Nick Hancock...met him in real life a number of times, what a miserable git.
Jimmy Carr regular put downs are basically I've done your mum / your girlfriend is ugly....no more or less misogynistic than Lee Hurst joke.
He's from Stoke so I wouldn't expect him to be upbeat.
Oi I'm from Stoke and am famed for being always cheery...but then I don't live there anymore :-)
He was proper miserable, and no it wasn't because I went up and bugged him about having a selfie or something equally annoying that people seem to want to do with anybody vaguely famous.
But the questions don't follow. Troops aren't battlefield hardware. They're battlefield hardnuts.
You gov say in the question the size of the army is to be reduced
Yep, then the follow-ups ask where the priority should be, cyber or hardware, and cyber wins. This does not show public support for cutting troop numbers. It just shows public support for prioritizing cyber over hardware.
It's also a very leading question. Hardware sounds like the contents of a junkyard, vs. the more relevant sounding 'cyber warfare'. If you said 'ships, helicopters and planes' vs. 'Minitoring of Twitter', you'd get a different outcome.
He's missed out the best bit - COVAX is enthusiastically supported by both the EU and the Italian government.
But surely these poor countries in the developing world fail the reciprocity criterion, because they aren't exporting vaccines to the EU?
Isn't it a good idea to wait to hear from Covax, or any other reputable source, if any vaccine supplies have been delayed before jumping to conclusions?
Talking of ‘jumping to conclusions’, here’s an esteemed EU journalist. Austrian.
So no actual evidence that any Covax vaccines have been stolen? Quick let's retweet some Austrian.
Unfortunately, this site has descended into an ugly form of groupthink.
The rules are you can post anything, no matter how inaccurate, you can just make any crap up, post any irrational conspiracy theory, it's all fine, positively encouraged, so long as the target is the EU or European governments.
It's ugly and shows a worrying fanatical mindset has taken hold in lots of people.
There's plenty to severely criticise the EU for or, for example the German government, while remaining accurate and in touch with reality.
Maybe my impression is coming from a vocal minority of hate-filled posters such as Leon, but I've had enough, I just leave with a plea to people to try to be accurate, and to see how things might look to someone from a different perspective.
Sorry that you feel you have to go. Your clear eyed and often critical view of Germany and the EU were a valuable addition to this place imo.
There are a number of people with similar opinions that come here to sook each other off, a smaller number who find the spectacle queasily fascinating. I accept that if you're not in the latter category, the charms of PB wear thin pretty quickly.
There's other stuff as well of course..
You can tell yourself that you come here to stoke the nationalist fire by staring into the ugly, gammony face of Toryism, but you're fooling no-one. You come here because it's fun. There's always a lively argument and a well-informed (yes well informed) debate, and clever, interesting and sometimes amusing people, whether or not they agree with you. And consequently this is preferable as an online hangout to an echo chamber of your political comrades.
I hope that generally, @kamski finds the same thing, and although he's finding it trying at present, that he will come back and contribute his valuable viewpoint again.
I think kamski is just displaying the same neurosis we see in other mainland Europeans. They all believed the EU was - for all its flaws - a logical and benign institution. Seeing that challenged so profoundly is too destabilising and painful, so it’s easier to retreat from argument, and buy into the conspiracy theories.
Or he’s just a pathetic snowflake?
I too hope he returns. He is usually good value
It would be interesting to hear from pb’s other German contributor. I forget his/her name - the one with the mortifyingly brilliant English, with an incredible knowledge of UK politics. Wo ist er?
We have an update on a story from the Italian newspaper La Stampa, which had reported that some 29 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine found at a plant near Rome may have been destined for the UK.
A UK government official has since said it was not expecting such a delivery; and the Italian government has said only that “the batches that were inspected were all aimed for Belgium”.
You can tell yourself that you come here to stoke the nationalist fire by staring into the ugly, gammony face of Toryism, but you're fooling no-one. You come here because it's fun. There's always a lively argument and a well-informed (yes well informed) debate, and clever, interesting and sometimes amusing people, whether or not they agree with you. And consequently this is preferable as an online hangout to an echo chamber of your political comrades.
I hope that generally, @kamski finds the same thing, and although he's finding it trying at present, that he will come back and contribute his valuable viewpoint again.
FT article on the EU vax ban. Seems it is strongly (and rightly) opposed by several northern states, but its being done on QMV, so it will probably go through, and it will hinder our vax program - ie more Brits will die
Now that the EU is officially doing ‘the mad thing everyone said they wouldn’t do’, has anyone crunched the numbers to see if this will actually affect the UK vax drive?
Where’s Max when you need him?
Well we have no idea how much Pfizer the UK has been stockpiling and how much capacity AZN is actually producing. The second I don't think AZN even has an idea, as "lumpy" is a bit like Mrs U attempts at making macarons...she never know what's coming out the oven.
You nearly wrote macrons - French cuisine? For a load of hot air?
Good lockdown and better weather. However, figures are on the turn back up now and the Easter prognosis is not looking good right now - the pressure to open up to tourists is likely to win out but it won't end well.
Genuine question: what right does Prince Harry have to work in the USA? Does he have a right to work by virtue of being married to an American? Does he need a visa?
I've always been curious.
It's a non-job.
Not at all. It’s very important.
He’s not just making oodles of money giving speeches to investment bankers and documentaries for Netflix.
He’s working for a *mental health* company
He’s not such a bad guy giving up his valuable time like that...
What does this company actually do? I have an interest in mental health provision because I have personal experience of what it does to people and their families.
Lots of people talk about it. It has become really quite fashionable to do so. Actual practical help is rather thin on the ground, especially afterwards. Try getting a job from companies after explaining that your patchy CV is because of mental health illness and you will find that their interest in better mental health vanishes as fast as snow in summer.
If he is going to do something practical to help with that, good on him. If it's just another talking shop or another forum for him to talk about himself, not so good.
Amazing double standards around Harry. He has set up the Invictus games which changed many peoples lives from overwhelming struggle to one of hope and achievement. That already puts him in the top 0.1% or better of people influencing and improving others lives.
Yes, there are double standards around Invictus. I remember a few years earlier Jimmy Carr made a joke that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would mean Britain would soon have a brilliant Paralympic team, and he got absolute pelters for it.
That was the classic case of people being offended on behalf of others.
The war vets, of course, appreciated the dark humour - and went on to get dozens of Paralympic medals!
All that outrage over Lee Hurst joke on twitter over the weekend...I was only thinking yesterday, it was the sort of gag Jimmy Carr would do, as a tame warm up one.
I was pretty much the only one defending that joke on here at the time.
I think the main issue is the audience. A Twitter audience is different from a TV/radio audience, which is different to a comedy club audience - with decreasing expectations of taste and decency.
Most definitely. I also think those who feigned offence had more problems with the teller of the joke than the joke itself. As has been said even in 2021 if that came out the mouth of Jimmy Carr on Channel 4 it would have got a mixture of laughs and a few groans (if there were a studio audience).
Lee Hurst was pretty funny on TTIAO. I thought Nick Hancock made that show, it's a shame much like Mark Lamarr from Buzzcocks they keep a relatively low profile these days given the dross that currently passes for comedy on the Beeb.
Nick Hancock...met him in real life a number of times, what a miserable git.
Jimmy Carr regular put downs are basically I've done your mum / your girlfriend is ugly....no more or less misogynistic than Lee Hurst joke.
Jimmy Carr to a heckler: "If you want my comeback, you'll have to scrape it from your Mum's teeth"
We have an update on a story from the Italian newspaper La Stampa, which had reported that some 29 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine found at a plant near Rome may have been destined for the UK.
A UK government official has since said it was not expecting such a delivery; and the Italian government has said only that “the batches that were inspected were all aimed for Belgium”.
Why would Belgium be getting 29 million doses?
They would be going on from there to somewhere else surely. There's no way 29 million doses were intended for Belgium?
I wonder if they've realised it was Covax being sent out from Belgium and decided its more politically sensitive to say Belgium than to say Covax.
FT article on the EU vax ban. Seems it is strongly (and rightly) opposed by several northern states, but its being done on QMV, so it will probably go through, and it will hinder our vax program - ie more Brits will die
If this happens - and Brits die unnecessarily - I honestly do not see how EU/UK relations will ever recover. It will be like the Cold War.
With friends like this, who needs enemies.
Imagine if you’re the PM and you have to stand up in the Commons and announce that our vaccine drive is going to slow, enormously, because our contracted, purchased supplies have been illegally seized by the EU. Then you have to say ‘as a result, lockdown will be extended’
The reaction of the British public will be explosive. Blind fury
My slender hope is that this is politicking for show. They will pass the ‘law’ but won’t apply it, because saner minds will prevail. But this is the EU in full-blown psychosis, so who knows. Look at Merkel’s madness, today
Yes the government won’t have any choice. The public will need to see retribution, and will have no interest in compromising with the EU over anything for years.
Still, an actual war with the EU will be a good cover for any ‘Brexit slowdown’
‘Exports out of Dover are down 87%!!’
‘Well, yes, that’s because we’re invading Calais and bombing Rotterdam’
Seems Labour are going to be strongly arguing that those travelling across Europe to France, not claiming asylum anywhere on that journey and then coming here illegally should be protected.
Genuine question: what right does Prince Harry have to work in the USA? Does he have a right to work by virtue of being married to an American? Does he need a visa?
I've always been curious.
It's a non-job.
Not at all. It’s very important.
He’s not just making oodles of money giving speeches to investment bankers and documentaries for Netflix.
He’s working for a *mental health* company
He’s not such a bad guy giving up his valuable time like that...
What does this company actually do? I have an interest in mental health provision because I have personal experience of what it does to people and their families.
Lots of people talk about it. It has become really quite fashionable to do so. Actual practical help is rather thin on the ground, especially afterwards. Try getting a job from companies after explaining that your patchy CV is because of mental health illness and you will find that their interest in better mental health vanishes as fast as snow in summer.
If he is going to do something practical to help with that, good on him. If it's just another talking shop or another forum for him to talk about himself, not so good.
Amazing double standards around Harry. He has set up the Invictus games which changed many peoples lives from overwhelming struggle to one of hope and achievement. That already puts him in the top 0.1% or better of people influencing and improving others lives.
Yes, there are double standards around Invictus. I remember a few years earlier Jimmy Carr made a joke that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would mean Britain would soon have a brilliant Paralympic team, and he got absolute pelters for it.
That was the classic case of people being offended on behalf of others.
The war vets, of course, appreciated the dark humour - and went on to get dozens of Paralympic medals!
All that outrage over Lee Hurst joke on twitter over the weekend...I was only thinking yesterday, it was the sort of gag Jimmy Carr would do, as a tame warm up one.
I was pretty much the only one defending that joke on here at the time.
I think the main issue is the audience. A Twitter audience is different from a TV/radio audience, which is different to a comedy club audience - with decreasing expectations of taste and decency.
Most definitely. I also think those who feigned offence had more problems with the teller of the joke than the joke itself. As has been said even in 2021 if that came out the mouth of Jimmy Carr on Channel 4 it would have got a mixture of laughs and a few groans (if there were a studio audience).
Lee Hurst was pretty funny on TTIAO. I thought Nick Hancock made that show, it's a shame much like Mark Lamarr from Buzzcocks they keep a relatively low profile these days given the dross that currently passes for comedy on the Beeb.
I do miss Mark Lamarr, back in the days when he'd goad guests into walking off Buzzcocks, and didn't care who he offended. Phill Jupitus has also disappeared, and Bill Bailey sticks to his musical comedy show on stage.
The only UK 'comedy' show I regularly watch now is the late-night Countdown, and occasionally HIGNFY - apart from that it's all Youtube podcasts and Netflix specials. Network TV has pretty much lost comedy completely.
It's odd how little non-political comedy there is now, especially with the long tail earning potential of the streaming services. Black Books is still out there, earning a living on five different platforms, yet the same era HIGNFY doesn’t have enough interest to even see it stuck on Britbox.
(And the early seasons of Buzzcocks do still provide entertainment).
We have an update on a story from the Italian newspaper La Stampa, which had reported that some 29 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine found at a plant near Rome may have been destined for the UK.
A UK government official has since said it was not expecting such a delivery; and the Italian government has said only that “the batches that were inspected were all aimed for Belgium”.
Why would Belgium be getting 29 million doses?
They would be going on from there to somewhere else surely. There's no way 29 million doses were intended for Belgium?
I wonder if they've realised it was Covax being sent out from Belgium and decided its more politically sensitive to say Belgium than to say Covax.
Absolutely, 30 million doses would be enough to give every adult in Belgium 3 shots.
Setting all humour aside - I know - you have to wonder how many more millions of vaccine doses are actually lost in various member states because they cannot persuade anyone to be vaccinated. Spain has had today to state that refusers of AZN will not be offered an alternative.
Spain did a feeble number of jabs yesterday - about 80,000. 0.19% of the populace.
Why do you think this is happening? Is it anti-vaxxery? Supply?
Before I am accused by a snowflakey German of being mean, I hasten to add this slow roll-out doesn’t ‘please’ me, it dismays me. An unvaccinated Europe is tragic on a human level - more death and suffering - it is also bad, economically, for everyone - in the UK too. Plus it gives more time and space for mutations, which is scary.
Spain is in a mess over AZN - not offered to over 65s. Spain is in a mess with Pfizer - rigidly following the 2 dose system - hence slower. Vaccines are not done over weekends. Organisation is via the community and some are better than others. There is a lot of scepticism about vaccines in line with othe EU countries. The most recent plan goes no further than doing the over 70 cohort by the end of June along with those younger with health issues. Health workers, teachers and the Police are being offered AZN but lots are refusing.
Gracias. Sounds a bit of a mess.
On the upside the third wave in Spain looks less serious than elsewhere. Do you know why that is? Better weather? Lockdown? Herd immunity?
Or just not doing much testing and only counting deaths in hospitals
It is generally thought that the Spanish death count underestimates by around 30%.
FT article on the EU vax ban. Seems it is strongly (and rightly) opposed by several northern states, but its being done on QMV, so it will probably go through, and it will hinder our vax program - ie more Brits will die
If this happens - and Brits die unnecessarily - I honestly do not see how EU/UK relations will ever recover. It will be like the Cold War.
With friends like this, who needs enemies.
Imagine if you’re the PM and you have to stand up in the Commons and announce that our vaccine drive is going to slow, enormously, because our contracted, purchased supplies have been illegally seized by the EU. Then you have to say ‘as a result, lockdown will be extended’
The reaction of the British public will be explosive. Blind fury
My slender hope is that this is politicking for show. They will pass the ‘law’ but won’t apply it, because saner minds will prevail. But this is the EU in full-blown psychosis, so who knows. Look at Merkel’s madness, today
Yes the government won’t have any choice. The public will need to see retribution, and will have no interest in compromising with the EU over anything for years.
Still, an actual war with the EU will be a good cover for any ‘Brexit slowdown’
‘Exports out of Dover are down 87%!!’
‘Well, yes, that’s because we’re invading Calais and bombing Rotterdam’
I HOPE I’m joking
If we were invading Calais then presumably exports would be up, just of different items? A 4000% increase in the export of depleted uranium rounds to France?
We should be rapidly unlocking at least back to the point we were at in July last year domestically, while keeping the border sealed to protect our gains domestically. That's the trade-off.
Telling people to stay at home when nobody is dying is unforgiveable.
Given what we know about the current strains, a full unlock now would quickly fill up ICU with 30-50 year olds.
That is why the roadmap is linking levels of vaccination to reducing the levels of restrictions.
I think that's a load of bollocks sorry.
More than a fifth over 50s have been vaccinated already, the vulnerable under 50s. The majority of adults have been vaccinated now, which means they're much less likely to pass the virus on.
With our level of vaccinations, even with the new variant, there's little reason why ICUs should escalate any more than they did last July.
Hospital admissions R is around 0.8
Who are all these people being admitted to hospital - *now*?
If you let rip, it's not long before you are back at admissions R of 1.x and then we are in the same position as Europe.
Hence a phased approach.
There's a five week lag between the effect of new vaccinations on hospital admissions.
How low do you think hospital admissions will be in five weeks ?
Hopefully nice and low. Hopefully.
We have a nice 0.8 (or so) R for hospitals at the moment. The issue is that 0.8 turns into 1.05 quite easily.
I don't want to do this all over again. At this point a 5 weeks is not much to ask to get security - at that point we will (the fuckwits willing) have the over 50s done to a high level - including getting areas such as Newham to a better state....
Actually 5 weeks for an entire country is an awful lot to ask. If we say that a life spent locked down is only getting 50% of its normal value (which I don't think is unreasonable), the 5 weeks of lockdown for the country represents about ~40,000 entire birth-death lifetimes lost, or 3 million years of life lost. That's the same loss of years of life as 300,000 covid deaths. If I told you that lifting lockdown now risks another 50k deaths (but its unlikely to be that bad, and there is a better than evens chance it's less than 10k), but retaining it for 5 weeks cost 300k deaths, this should be a no brainer.
You can't say lockdown life is only worth 50%... because then you'd have to admit it's been a complete and utter mistake.
500k lives saved (optimistically) with average 15 years of life left (very optimistic) gives 7.5m years of life saved.
Set against 60m people locked down for over 6 months at 50% life value is >15m years of life spent.
This analysis doesn't work because it assumes an alternative to lockdown in which, as the virus ran riot, people would have gone cheerfully about their daily lives as normal.
It's the fallacy at the heart of most of this sentiment. It denies the harsh reality of covid and hence is known as covid denialism.
Its somewhat ironic that the EC are banging on about how unfair everything is and that the UK aren't playing fair, when Germany didn't play fair under the terms of the EU own vaccine programme. I presume they will be sharing their extras with the rest of the EU right?
We have an update on a story from the Italian newspaper La Stampa, which had reported that some 29 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine found at a plant near Rome may have been destined for the UK.
A UK government official has since said it was not expecting such a delivery; and the Italian government has said only that “the batches that were inspected were all aimed for Belgium”.
Why would Belgium be getting 29 million doses?
They would be going on from there to somewhere else surely. There's no way 29 million doses were intended for Belgium?
I wonder if they've realised it was Covax being sent out from Belgium and decided its more politically sensitive to say Belgium than to say Covax.
The Italian plant, if I understand correctly, does fit & fill for a large chunk of European AZN production.
Given the length of the supply chain, it is not surprising that they have a considerable inventory there.
Comments
There’s a striking irony here: the UK obliged Oxford to partner with AZ rather than Merck, because HMG was worried the USA under the insane Trump might block our own vaccines.
HMG was right to worry, but identified the wrong lunatic. On the wrong continent
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1374329461286535172?s=19
The threats from Russia and China especially are much more understood now than they were. The understanding of drones and the recent war with Turkish drones is new.
The integrated review made sense. The fact that people are criticising this based on the number of jobs, not saying the integrated review was wrong, just goes to say all that needs saying.
If I told you that lifting lockdown now risks another 50k deaths (but its unlikely to be that bad, and there is a better than evens chance it's less than 10k), but retaining it for 5 weeks cost 300k deaths, this should be a no brainer.
Having said that, we are almost all deficient. Even our RDA of vitamin D as a nation is set too low arguably, as it was set just at what we need to avoid rickets, rather than at a level optimal for health.
Why do you think this is happening? Is it anti-vaxxery? Supply?
Before I am accused by a snowflakey German of being mean, I hasten to add this slow roll-out doesn’t ‘please’ me, it dismays me. An unvaccinated Europe is tragic on a human level - more death and suffering - it is also bad, economically, for everyone - in the UK too. Plus it gives more time and space for mutations, which is scary.
Why does the MoD own 19 golf courses and operate a squadron of WW2 fighters?
Why has Johnson bought a second and possibly third VVIP aircraft (A321LR) painted at vast expense in the Brexit Belle colours?
I think the main issue is the audience. A Twitter audience is different from a TV/radio audience, which is different to a comedy club audience - with decreasing expectations of taste and decency.
Canvey Island? Off shore, suitably horrible, easy to blockade...
600k people die every year on average without Covid. That's 50k deaths a month. We have no Covid excess deaths at the minute and a month of extra lockdown means 50k extra deaths of people who will lose any legal ability to see their loved ones indoors in the last month of their life.
And no telling 90 year olds to meet loved ones outdoors in April is not a valid alternative.
Think of their human rights man
500k lives saved (optimistically) with average 15 years of life left (very optimistic) gives 7.5m years of life saved.
Set against 60m people locked down for over 6 months at 50% life value is >15m years of life spent.
Where’s Max when you need him?
Most definitely. I also think those who feigned offence had more problems with the teller of the joke than the joke itself. As has been said even in 2021 if that came out the mouth of Jimmy Carr on Channel 4 it would have got a mixture of laughs and a few groans (if there were a studio audience).
Lee Hurst was pretty funny on TTIAO. I thought Nick Hancock made that show, it's a shame much like Mark Lamarr from Buzzcocks they keep a relatively low profile these days given the dross that currently passes for comedy on the Beeb.
Jimmy Carr regular put downs are basically I've done your mum / your girlfriend is ugly....no more or less misogynistic than Lee Hurst joke.
There are a number of people with similar opinions that come here to sook each other off, a smaller number who find the spectacle queasily fascinating. I accept that if you're not in the latter category, the charms of PB wear thin pretty quickly.
There's other stuff as well of course..
They’re doing exactly what they say they don’t want to do.
Brexit - and now our vaccine success - has sent them mad.
Having said that, I agree with iirc Fraser nelson on the spectator podcast, that there is a strong moral argument for helping out the EU vaccinate their oldies before we push ahead with our youngsters.
Not sure that plays well in the Red Wall.
No, just 'regular idiot'
https://www.ft.com/content/74e30a00-37aa-414b-8200-40ed91767089
(££)
If this happens - and Brits die unnecessarily - I honestly do not see how EU/UK relations will ever recover. It will be like the Cold War.
The most recent plan goes no further than doing the over 70 cohort by the end of June along with those younger with health issues. Health workers, teachers and the Police are being offered AZN but lots are refusing.
On the upside the third wave in Spain looks less serious than elsewhere. Do you know why that is? Better weather? Lockdown? Herd immunity?
The reaction of the British public will be explosive. Blind fury
My slender hope is that this is politicking for show. They will pass the ‘law’ but won’t apply it, because saner minds will prevail. But this is the EU in full-blown psychosis, so who knows. Look at Merkel’s madness, today
So we should do what we do with failed states. Invade and steal their oil.
I hope that generally, @kamski finds the same thing, and although he's finding it trying at present, that he will come back and contribute his valuable viewpoint again.
The only UK 'comedy' show I regularly watch now is the late-night Countdown, and occasionally HIGNFY - apart from that it's all Youtube podcasts and Netflix specials. Network TV has pretty much lost comedy completely.
But then even that might be too sane.....the way the EU are acting, they might want to show the UK 12 week strategy up as inferior to their approach, and the obviously way to do that, block Pfizer exports.
He was proper miserable, and no it wasn't because I went up and bugged him about having a selfie or something equally annoying that people seem to want to do with anybody vaguely famous.
Or he’s just a pathetic snowflake?
I too hope he returns. He is usually good value
It would be interesting to hear from pb’s other German contributor. I forget his/her name - the one with the mortifyingly brilliant English, with an incredible knowledge of UK politics. Wo ist er?
I voted Remain, and I would do so again, for the extra freedoms membership gave me, for the principle of being part of a European whole.
I certainly didn't vote Remain because I thought European politicians were better than ours. Some of them will be, and some not.
In another Scottish Independence referendum I'd be voting for the Union on the same basis - not because I had any respect for Johnson, Gove or Sunak.
We have an update on a story from the Italian newspaper La Stampa, which had reported that some 29 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine found at a plant near Rome may have been destined for the UK.
A UK government official has since said it was not expecting such a delivery; and the Italian government has said only that “the batches that were inspected were all aimed for Belgium”.
"If you want my comeback, you'll have to scrape it from your Mum's teeth"
They would be going on from there to somewhere else surely. There's no way 29 million doses were intended for Belgium?
I wonder if they've realised it was Covax being sent out from Belgium and decided its more politically sensitive to say Belgium than to say Covax.
‘Exports out of Dover are down 87%!!’
‘Well, yes, that’s because we’re invading Calais and bombing Rotterdam’
I HOPE I’m joking
(And the early seasons of Buzzcocks do still provide entertainment).
It's the fallacy at the heart of most of this sentiment. It denies the harsh reality of covid and hence is known as covid denialism.
Given the length of the supply chain, it is not surprising that they have a considerable inventory there.