I expect the SNP to gain a small majority but not convinced about the mandate for indyref2
I think it is too close to call
The fun and games are just getting started.
What do you think's going to happen if the Welsh polls are anything close to accurate and Plaid ends up controlling the balance of power again - especially now that Labour has started actively promoting pro-independence candidates?
Yep, we're going to have both the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments demanding votes on secession, loudly and continuously, at the same time. For five interminable years. Joy.
Wales doesn't want indy, they want attention
As for Scotland, Canada coped with Quebec, and Canada remains united. Hold your nerve, under fire, Sergeant Rook
A lot of people probably said the same kind of thing about Scotland two decades ago. Look where they are now.
The central issue I have with the maintenance of the Union is this: nearly half of Scotland voted to jack it in a few years back, and a substantial fraction of them loathe us. Why are we therefore expected to spend enormous amounts of time and enormous sums of money holding it all together. Why not just let them go?
I'm by no means certain that Wales will go the same way, but it has to be counted as a decent chance. If Labour doesn't think there's a lot of mileage to be made out of nationalism then why does it select openly pro-independence candidates.
If the UK disintegrates then we get England back as an irreducible core. We can then have a quiet life. Why shouldn't we?
Because we are an island nation, and putting borders down the middle is nuts (I accept the argument in Ireland is different). We share so much, we have been British for thousands of years (longer than we have been English Scottish or Welsh, indeed). It is madness to throw all that away in a spasm of resentment. We are arguably the most successful political union in history, shaping the world far in advance of our geographic or demographic salience
Nationalism is riding a wave, it does not mean it is always victorious. But, all four nations have desires that need addressing. Boris really should call a Grand National Convention to honestly discuss every alternative, to unitary government to outright separatism.
What must not happen is a vote-in-the-dark Sindyref 2 where the SNP get to say Oh indy, without actually offering concrete plans on currency, borders, army, bank, debt, EU membership, etc etc
On the other hand, the Union has to come up with positive reasons why we are all better as a united kingdom, Project Fear 2.0 will not work when the 2nd referendum comes around (which it will, eventually, just not anytime soon)
I'm English. I'm perfectly happy to be British too. I can see the strategic advantages to the UK. But not at any price, which, it increasingly seems, is what the English are being asked to pay, both financially and constitutionally. And quite honestly, it's embarrassing being in a country run like Scotland is run.
I sympathise, and I too have felt a reflexive dismay at the obvious one-party-state corruption in Scotland. It's not that Scots are different or mad, it's just that it is a small country, which makes it easier for one nationalist party to weaponise national identity in an extremely toxic form: that scares enemies, and makes cowards cower.
Occasionally I too have thought, oh FFS let them go. This is rank.
But we are all British and we are all better than this. We will endure. And this too shall pass.
And with these non-innovative but apposite thoughts I say goodnight, PB, goodnight
I just can't see any pub doing it. What pub that has been closed off and on for nearly a year is going to turn down business, and that's before the issue of trying to tell the public who are gagging to get back down the pub, sorry lad, your names not down your not coming in. There will be riots.
The only ones I can imagine doing it are small ones with lots of reliable elderly regulars who don't want someone taking the piss and risking their safety. But if that's what the landlord and the regulars want that should be their free choice, the others will choose differently.
According to thr Guardian, the trade-off Johnson is considering is that pubs that insist will be allowed to waive social distancing, while it would remain legally required in pubs open to all. Would that be acceptable to you, or do you feel that indoor crowding is fine regardless?
I can't really see many pubs making social distancing work - round here you could only get about 20 punters in 2 metres apart.
You keep promoting this policy. What are you going to do with the twentysomethings who won’t get their jabs until June or even July? Lock them up at home with Zoom while you go down the pub? The young have already made huge sacrifices and the vulnerable will have been vaccinated by the time indoor pubs open in May.
So not a "voluntary" scheme at all. Basically co-ercion and blackmail. I sense court challenges...
Nick seems fully behind the policy. He’s not explained why, or how he expects it to work though.
Out of interest, how often does Nick even go into a pub? Perhaps he can tell us.
My guess .... rather rarely.
A policy of excluding lots of (unvaccinated) young people from pubs so that an elderly & nervous 71 year old can get a drink once a month is the most stupid policy I have heard for some time.
If Nick doesn't want to mingle with the unvaccinated, fine. That is his choice.
But, to suggest the entire rules are re-written to accommodate him is completely wrong.
I expect the SNP to gain a small majority but not convinced about the mandate for indyref2
I think it is too close to call
The fun and games are just getting started.
What do you think's going to happen if the Welsh polls are anything close to accurate and Plaid ends up controlling the balance of power again - especially now that Labour has started actively promoting pro-independence candidates?
Yep, we're going to have both the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments demanding votes on secession, loudly and continuously, at the same time. For five interminable years. Joy.
You have a strange idea Wales has the same direction as Scotland
Please take it from me Welsh Independence is not on the agenda anytime soon and not with the help of labour either
Do you think that Welsh independence would get a boost IF Scotland left the Union?
Yes, big time.
Depends - it would be a bumpy ole ride. Wales may look on and think “nah”
If you are suggesting Wales is an economic desert you would be right.
However sometimes the heart rules the head, and if Scotland jumps ship, don't be surprised that Wales MIGHT follow.
I’d like to think folk would put a bit of thought into why their country was an economic desert..
Current thinking is Labour and the EU, but Scottish Independence would focus Welsh minds (like in Scotland} on their serfdom, and a break from their English feudal landlords is thus almost inevitable.
Scotland at least can leave the UK for the EU which it voted to remain in, Wales voted Leave so if it left the UK too it would be completely alone
I expect the SNP to gain a small majority but not convinced about the mandate for indyref2
I think it is too close to call
The fun and games are just getting started.
What do you think's going to happen if the Welsh polls are anything close to accurate and Plaid ends up controlling the balance of power again - especially now that Labour has started actively promoting pro-independence candidates?
Yep, we're going to have both the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments demanding votes on secession, loudly and continuously, at the same time. For five interminable years. Joy.
You have a strange idea Wales has the same direction as Scotland
Please take it from me Welsh Independence is not on the agenda anytime soon and not with the help of labour either
Do you think that Welsh independence would get a boost IF Scotland left the Union?
Yes, big time.
Depends - it would be a bumpy ole ride. Wales may look on and think “nah”
If you are suggesting Wales is an economic desert you would be right.
However sometimes the heart rules the head, and if Scotland jumps ship, don't be surprised that Wales MIGHT follow.
I’d like to think folk would put a bit of thought into why their country was an economic desert..
Current thinking is Labour and the EU, but Scottish Independence would focus Welsh minds (like in Scotland} on their serfdom, and a break from their English feudal landlords is thus almost inevitable.
Have the Welsh found a way to go from north to south of their country without going via England yet?
Well, a colony is run for the benefit of its master ... so I would not expect the transport system in Wales to have been developed with the Welsh in mind.
Seeing as how it appears Queen Elizabeth's top personal governmental priority, has been establishing the monarch as focus and rally-point for the Commonwealth, this survey can NOT be good news for the Palace.
Methinks the way HM's no-brains twit-trust has mishandled the Meghan situation from the get-go, is seriously undermining the Queen's life work.
55% of voters thinking the royal family is not racist, only 20% thinking it is racist is a pretty solid result.
Most of the Commonwealth nations are now republics anyway and the Commonwealth has a separate Secretary General, the monarch is merely titular head, the largest Commonwealth nations which continue to retain the Queen as Head of State, Australia, Canada, New Zealand etc, tend to be white majority still
I just can't see any pub doing it. What pub that has been closed off and on for nearly a year is going to turn down business, and that's before the issue of trying to tell the public who are gagging to get back down the pub, sorry lad, your names not down your not coming in. There will be riots.
I just can't see any pub doing it. What pub that has been closed off and on for nearly a year is going to turn down business, and that's before the issue of trying to tell the public who are gagging to get back down the pub, sorry lad, your names not down your not coming in. There will be riots.
The only ones I can imagine doing it are small ones with lots of reliable elderly regulars who don't want someone taking the piss and risking their safety. But if that's what the landlord and the regulars want that should be their free choice, the others will choose differently.
According to thr Guardian, the trade-off Johnson is considering is that pubs that insist will be allowed to waive social distancing, while it would remain legally required in pubs open to all. Would that be acceptable to you, or do you feel that indoor crowding is fine regardless?
I can't really see many pubs making social distancing work - round here you could only get about 20 punters in 2 metres apart.
No, absolutely not to this utterly stupid suggestion.
Daughter completely opposed to this. Neither her nor any of her employees will be vaccinated by then. If you don't need a vaccination to work in a pub you don't need one to drink in it. She cannot afford the staff to go round doing tests, demanding certificates or anything else. And people want to go to pubs to enjoy themselves not be treated as if they're at some out patients clinic.
Lift the restrictions and allow publicans to run their businesses as they see fit. This endless micro-managing by people who have no understanding of this - or any other - business has got to stop.
We were told that once deaths and cases were down restrictions would be lifted. They are down and will be even lower by May let alone by the end of June. So enough with the restrictions.
It feels - and has for some time - felt that somewhere in government they are deliberately targeting pubs so as to make them unviable, regardless of Covid. Look at the nonsense re not allowing them to sell takeaway alcohol, even now, for instance, and the pitiful support given to wet led pubs.
If this sort of nonsense continues Daughter is simply going to close her business. There is no point continuing if the government makes it impossible for her to trade profitably. It's been in the balance for a while. She's been holding on and on and on. But stuff like this being canvassed - let alone introduced - is just another kick in the teeth.
I agree. However, there's a pub near me in a beauty spot that sells takeaway pints (and food) – but you can buy a pint without buying food. It's great on a sunny Saturday.
I would be interested what the same groups think about in general...I suspect a similar percentage of youngsters would say all sorts of groups are racist, Brexiteers, Tories, the police, ...
Could be. BUT reckon that the % has gone up sharply for Royals recently.
No, even before this the polls showed a strong age split:
Seeing as how it appears Queen Elizabeth's top personal governmental priority, has been establishing the monarch as focus and rally-point for the Commonwealth, this survey can NOT be good news for the Palace.
Methinks the way HM's no-brains twit-trust has mishandled the Meghan situation from the get-go, is seriously undermining the Queen's life work.
Mishandled it how? By allowing Meghan within five miles of the Royal Family in the first place?
They are two for two on Americans coming in and trying to ruin it.
IF your were charitable (admittedly NOT a major PB virtue) then you might argue that Wallis SAVED the monarchy, by ensuring that her boy-toy got the heave-ho BEFORE he could inflict serious damage.
As for Meghan, happen to agree with you re; the 5-mile limit.
BUT fact is, she & Harry got hitched despite the angst of family & ire of flunkies (or visa versa). AND the Palace did NOT deal with this reality at all well. Instead, just about as badly as they could.
Replicating in the process many of the same mistakes they made re: Diana.
Blaming the Duch of Sux over and over and over and over is no doubt emotionally satisfying. But useless as plan or policy.
We don't actually know that the Palace dealt with it as badly as they possibly could. Because we simply don't have all the facts merely a very carefully curated and edited version of Harry's version, a version which he admitted was untrue in one respect - the claim that they married 3 days before the actual wedding.
The belief that the fault is all on the Palace's side rests on the assumption that Harry and Meghan intended to make things work and tried their best and did absolutely nothing wrong. That is an assumption which needs testing not accepting without more.
Incidentally, he is now joining some commission to deal with misinformation in the media. While he is to be praised for his work on mental health, he would do well to think about what he says to the media before telling others off about misinformation. There are any number of things which he said in his recent and earlier interviews which would fall very clearly fall within any reasonable definition of misinformation. Stones and glasshouses .......
I am wonder how we got from the military police kicking the doors down of a vaccine factory in the morning, the afternoon the EC agreeing new rules that basically singled out the UK for blocking vaccine exports, to this evening "peace deal"....
I just can't see any pub doing it. What pub that has been closed off and on for nearly a year is going to turn down business, and that's before the issue of trying to tell the public who are gagging to get back down the pub, sorry lad, your names not down your not coming in. There will be riots.
The only ones I can imagine doing it are small ones with lots of reliable elderly regulars who don't want someone taking the piss and risking their safety. But if that's what the landlord and the regulars want that should be their free choice, the others will choose differently.
According to thr Guardian, the trade-off Johnson is considering is that pubs that insist will be allowed to waive social distancing, while it would remain legally required in pubs open to all. Would that be acceptable to you, or do you feel that indoor crowding is fine regardless?
I can't really see many pubs making social distancing work - round here you could only get about 20 punters in 2 metres apart.
You keep promoting this policy. What are you going to do with the twentysomethings who won’t get their jabs until June or even July? Lock them up at home with Zoom while you go down the pub? The young have already made huge sacrifices and the vulnerable will have been vaccinated by the time indoor pubs open in May.
So not a "voluntary" scheme at all. Basically co-ercion and blackmail. I sense court challenges...
Nick seems fully behind the policy. He’s not explained why, or how he expects it to work though.
Out of interest, how often does Nick even go into a pub? Perhaps he can tell us.
My guess .... rather rarely.
A policy of excluding lots of (unvaccinated) young people from pubs so that an elderly & nervous 71 year old can get a drink once a month is the most stupid policy I have heard for some time.
If Nick doesn't want to mingle with the unvaccinated, fine. That is his choice.
But, to suggest the entire rules are re-written to accommodate him is completely wrong.
And at some point the Government has to start re-engaging directly with businesses about what makes them viable, and what THEY need to drive the economic recovery in this country. And start asking hard questions of themselves (and if necessary the scientists) whether they can justify destroying otherwise healthy businesses (and not withstanding that Covid has put them on the back foot) through retaining restrictions of varying levels through "an abundance of caution".
It was scary reading the comments of the "expert" on Marr on Sunday, stating blithely that we, and indeed business(!), had "learned to live" with various low level restrictions and therefore there were little consequences from retaining them for a length period. If continuing restrictions are necessary in her eyes then fair enough. But don't let yourself off the hook by pretending (outside of your area of expertise) that there are no consequences of such a position.
I am wonder how we got from the military police kicking the doors down of a vaccine factory in the morning, the afternoon the EC agreeing new rules that basically singled out the UK for blocking vaccine exports, to this evening "peace deal"....
I am wonder how we got from the military police kicking the doors down of a vaccine factory in the morning, the afternoon the EC agreeing new rules that basically singled out the UK for blocking vaccine exports, to this evening "peace deal"....
I just can't see any pub doing it. What pub that has been closed off and on for nearly a year is going to turn down business, and that's before the issue of trying to tell the public who are gagging to get back down the pub, sorry lad, your names not down your not coming in. There will be riots.
The only ones I can imagine doing it are small ones with lots of reliable elderly regulars who don't want someone taking the piss and risking their safety. But if that's what the landlord and the regulars want that should be their free choice, the others will choose differently.
According to thr Guardian, the trade-off Johnson is considering is that pubs that insist will be allowed to waive social distancing, while it would remain legally required in pubs open to all. Would that be acceptable to you, or do you feel that indoor crowding is fine regardless?
I can't really see many pubs making social distancing work - round here you could only get about 20 punters in 2 metres apart.
You keep promoting this policy. What are you going to do with the twentysomethings who won’t get their jabs until June or even July? Lock them up at home with Zoom while you go down the pub? The young have already made huge sacrifices and the vulnerable will have been vaccinated by the time indoor pubs open in May.
So not a "voluntary" scheme at all. Basically co-ercion and blackmail. I sense court challenges...
Nick seems fully behind the policy. He’s not explained why, or how he expects it to work though.
Out of interest, how often does Nick even go into a pub? Perhaps he can tell us.
My guess .... rather rarely.
A policy of excluding lots of (unvaccinated) young people from pubs so that an elderly & nervous 71 year old can get a drink once a month is the most stupid policy I have heard for some time.
If Nick doesn't want to mingle with the unvaccinated, fine. That is his choice.
But, to suggest the entire rules are re-written to accommodate him is completely wrong.
Small sample size, but 100% of the times I have met Nick it was in a pub. To put it another way, I have never seen Nick Palmer outside of a boozer
Seeing as how it appears Queen Elizabeth's top personal governmental priority, has been establishing the monarch as focus and rally-point for the Commonwealth, this survey can NOT be good news for the Palace.
Methinks the way HM's no-brains twit-trust has mishandled the Meghan situation from the get-go, is seriously undermining the Queen's life work.
Mishandled it how? By allowing Meghan within five miles of the Royal Family in the first place?
They are two for two on Americans coming in and trying to ruin it.
IF your were charitable (admittedly NOT a major PB virtue) then you might argue that Wallis SAVED the monarchy, by ensuring that her boy-toy got the heave-ho BEFORE he could inflict serious damage.
As for Meghan, happen to agree with you re; the 5-mile limit.
BUT fact is, she & Harry got hitched despite the angst of family & ire of flunkies (or visa versa). AND the Palace did NOT deal with this reality at all well. Instead, just about as badly as they could.
Replicating in the process many of the same mistakes they made re: Diana.
Blaming the Duch of Sux over and over and over and over is no doubt emotionally satisfying. But useless as plan or policy.
We don't actually know that the Palace dealt with it as badly as they possibly could. Because we simply don't have all the facts merely a very carefully curated and edited version of Harry's version, a version which he admitted was untrue in one respect - the claim that they married 3 days before the actual wedding.
The belief that the fault is all on the Palace's side rests on the assumption that Harry and Meghan intended to make things work and tried their best and did absolutely nothing wrong. That is an assumption which needs testing not accepting without more.
Incidentally, he is now joining some commission to deal with misinformation in the media. While he is to be praised for his work on mental health, he would do well to think about what he says to the media before telling others off about misinformation. There are any number of things which he said in his recent and earlier interviews which would fall very clearly fall within any reasonable definition of misinformation. Stones and glasshouses .......
Never said it was "all" the Palace's fault. Just that they've dealt with it most stupidly.
Whatever the rights & wrongs, pros & cons, it's clear that Meghan as been running rings around the Palace.
Admittedly NOT among geezers, traditionalists & suchlike.
However, it would be BETTER for the Royals IF they did a bit LESS well with these groups, and a damn sight better with younger folks. And NOT just in UK, but world wide.
My guess is that the Buck House no-Brains Trust is trying to figure out how to deploy Will & Kate to good advantage. Say a major post-COVID royal tour of the Commonwealth?
I expect the SNP to gain a small majority but not convinced about the mandate for indyref2
I think it is too close to call
The fun and games are just getting started.
What do you think's going to happen if the Welsh polls are anything close to accurate and Plaid ends up controlling the balance of power again - especially now that Labour has started actively promoting pro-independence candidates?
Yep, we're going to have both the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments demanding votes on secession, loudly and continuously, at the same time. For five interminable years. Joy.
You have a strange idea Wales has the same direction as Scotland
Please take it from me Welsh Independence is not on the agenda anytime soon and not with the help of labour either
Do you think that Welsh independence would get a boost IF Scotland left the Union?
Yes, big time.
Depends - it would be a bumpy ole ride. Wales may look on and think “nah”
If you are suggesting Wales is an economic desert you would be right.
However sometimes the heart rules the head, and if Scotland jumps ship, don't be surprised that Wales MIGHT follow.
I’d like to think folk would put a bit of thought into why their country was an economic desert..
Current thinking is Labour and the EU, but Scottish Independence would focus Welsh minds (like in Scotland} on their serfdom, and a break from their English feudal landlords is thus almost inevitable.
Have the Welsh found a way to go from north to south of their country without going via England yet?
Could fly, or go by boat. Seriously though it is possible but the a470 is seriously hard work. Wales's geography just does not lend itself to a motorway through the middle, or even a train line. Will never happen.
I am wonder how we got from the military police kicking the doors down of a vaccine factory in the morning, the afternoon the EC agreeing new rules that basically singled out the UK for blocking vaccine exports, to this evening "peace deal"....
I just can't see any pub doing it. What pub that has been closed off and on for nearly a year is going to turn down business, and that's before the issue of trying to tell the public who are gagging to get back down the pub, sorry lad, your names not down your not coming in. There will be riots.
The only ones I can imagine doing it are small ones with lots of reliable elderly regulars who don't want someone taking the piss and risking their safety. But if that's what the landlord and the regulars want that should be their free choice, the others will choose differently.
According to thr Guardian, the trade-off Johnson is considering is that pubs that insist will be allowed to waive social distancing, while it would remain legally required in pubs open to all. Would that be acceptable to you, or do you feel that indoor crowding is fine regardless?
I can't really see many pubs making social distancing work - round here you could only get about 20 punters in 2 metres apart.
You keep promoting this policy. What are you going to do with the twentysomethings who won’t get their jabs until June or even July? Lock them up at home with Zoom while you go down the pub? The young have already made huge sacrifices and the vulnerable will have been vaccinated by the time indoor pubs open in May.
So not a "voluntary" scheme at all. Basically co-ercion and blackmail. I sense court challenges...
Nick seems fully behind the policy. He’s not explained why, or how he expects it to work though.
Out of interest, how often does Nick even go into a pub? Perhaps he can tell us.
My guess .... rather rarely.
A policy of excluding lots of (unvaccinated) young people from pubs so that an elderly & nervous 71 year old can get a drink once a month is the most stupid policy I have heard for some time.
If Nick doesn't want to mingle with the unvaccinated, fine. That is his choice.
But, to suggest the entire rules are re-written to accommodate him is completely wrong.
I have no idea about the regularity of his pub-going, but nevertheless, the policy doesn't stack up on any level. Regardless of the moral arguments, which we've covered, the practicalities render the policy absurd.
I just can't see any pub doing it. What pub that has been closed off and on for nearly a year is going to turn down business, and that's before the issue of trying to tell the public who are gagging to get back down the pub, sorry lad, your names not down your not coming in. There will be riots.
The only ones I can imagine doing it are small ones with lots of reliable elderly regulars who don't want someone taking the piss and risking their safety. But if that's what the landlord and the regulars want that should be their free choice, the others will choose differently.
According to thr Guardian, the trade-off Johnson is considering is that pubs that insist will be allowed to waive social distancing, while it would remain legally required in pubs open to all. Would that be acceptable to you, or do you feel that indoor crowding is fine regardless?
I can't really see many pubs making social distancing work - round here you could only get about 20 punters in 2 metres apart.
You keep promoting this policy. What are you going to do with the twentysomethings who won’t get their jabs until June or even July? Lock them up at home with Zoom while you go down the pub? The young have already made huge sacrifices and the vulnerable will have been vaccinated by the time indoor pubs open in May.
So not a "voluntary" scheme at all. Basically co-ercion and blackmail. I sense court challenges...
Nick seems fully behind the policy. He’s not explained why, or how he expects it to work though.
Out of interest, how often does Nick even go into a pub? Perhaps he can tell us.
My guess .... rather rarely.
A policy of excluding lots of (unvaccinated) young people from pubs so that an elderly & nervous 71 year old can get a drink once a month is the most stupid policy I have heard for some time.
If Nick doesn't want to mingle with the unvaccinated, fine. That is his choice.
But, to suggest the entire rules are re-written to accommodate him is completely wrong.
Small sample size, but 100% of the times I have met Nick it was in a pub. To put it another way, I have never seen Nick Palmer outside of a boozer
Out of interest, how often does Nick even go into a pub? Perhaps he can tell us.
My guess .... rather rarely.
A policy of excluding lots of (unvaccinated) young people from pubs so that an elderly & nervous 71 year old can get a drink once a month is the most stupid policy I have heard for some time.
If Nick doesn't want to mingle with the unvaccinated, fine. That is his choice.
But, to suggest the entire rules are re-written to accommodate him is completely wrong.
You're missing the point. I'm not thinking of myself, or anyone in the older generation. The point is that we've all worked through more than a year of difficulty in order to FINALLY get the pandemic down to a low level., so risking a resurgence at the very tailend of that and finding ourselves all locked down again next winter seems bonkers for everyone. The point is not vaccinated people, or the death rate, but whether we should be perpetuating the pandemic just when we've got it down.
It's summer coming. Loads of people will be fine with drinking outside the pub. Give it a few months so we get the infection rate down to a few dozen a day, and then we can loosen up as the darker evenings approach. Remember that the scientists are predicting a new wave anyway - why would we deliberately set out to make that worse at exactly the time of year when indoor crowds are least needed?
One big - and unresolved - problem for The Firm, is Andrew.
Whose name was NOT mentioned (I think) in The Interview. BUT his malign stench hangs over this whole sorry business.
The difference between the Palace's approach to his Foul Lowness is is MARKED contrast, to their treatment of his nephew & niece-in-law.
For example, WHY is Andrew still HRH? When other royals have been stripped of THEIR titles for far, far less.
Without meaning to denigrate your opinions unduly, but can you remind me (i genuinely am not sure) of your background? Are you commenting on this as an American, with standard American views on things like the Royal Family, albeit perhaps with a greater interest than many in UK affairs.
Or as somebody with a strong British background who now lives in America?
Because looking at US commentary on things like the Royal Family from afar, it seems to be that they generally attribute far more importance to minor Royals outside of the direct main line of succession than is justified by the reality. And exaggerate the importance of the soap opera type aspects that sometimes come out, particularly from those slightly detached from the main family, to its ongoing position and popularity in the UK.
Just as traditionally (Trump undermined this) Americans have fiercely defended their Presidents as Head of state under criticism from abroad, even when they don't belong to their chosen party, so in the UK the vast majority of the population will rally around the institution of the monarchy when it is under attack.
People in the UK aren't averse to having a joke about the Royals, but they dislike it when people do from abroad.
I just can't see any pub doing it. What pub that has been closed off and on for nearly a year is going to turn down business, and that's before the issue of trying to tell the public who are gagging to get back down the pub, sorry lad, your names not down your not coming in. There will be riots.
The only ones I can imagine doing it are small ones with lots of reliable elderly regulars who don't want someone taking the piss and risking their safety. But if that's what the landlord and the regulars want that should be their free choice, the others will choose differently.
According to thr Guardian, the trade-off Johnson is considering is that pubs that insist will be allowed to waive social distancing, while it would remain legally required in pubs open to all. Would that be acceptable to you, or do you feel that indoor crowding is fine regardless?
I can't really see many pubs making social distancing work - round here you could only get about 20 punters in 2 metres apart.
You keep promoting this policy. What are you going to do with the twentysomethings who won’t get their jabs until June or even July? Lock them up at home with Zoom while you go down the pub? The young have already made huge sacrifices and the vulnerable will have been vaccinated by the time indoor pubs open in May.
So not a "voluntary" scheme at all. Basically co-ercion and blackmail. I sense court challenges...
Nick seems fully behind the policy. He’s not explained why, or how he expects it to work though.
Out of interest, how often does Nick even go into a pub? Perhaps he can tell us.
My guess .... rather rarely.
A policy of excluding lots of (unvaccinated) young people from pubs so that an elderly & nervous 71 year old can get a drink once a month is the most stupid policy I have heard for some time.
If Nick doesn't want to mingle with the unvaccinated, fine. That is his choice.
But, to suggest the entire rules are re-written to accommodate him is completely wrong.
And at some point the Government has to start re-engaging directly with businesses about what makes them viable, and what THEY need to drive the economic recovery in this country. And start asking hard questions of themselves (and if necessary the scientists) whether they can justify destroying otherwise healthy businesses (and not withstanding that Covid has put them on the back foot) through retaining restrictions of varying levels through "an abundance of caution".
It was scary reading the comments of the "expert" on Marr on Sunday, stating blithely that we, and indeed business(!), had "learned to live" with various low level restrictions and therefore there were little consequences from retaining them for a length period. If continuing restrictions are necessary in her eyes then fair enough. But don't let yourself off the hook by pretending (outside of your area of expertise) that there are no consequences of such a position.
That "expert" is an ignorant idiot.
Businesses have not learnt to live with restrictions. They have been shut down and stopped from doing business, kept on inadequate support, have in many cases closed down and their staff have been expected to live on 80% of their previous income, paid for by the government. Many have built up debts which will never be repaid.
The NHS has not been overwhelmed. Deaths and cases are down significantly and continuing to fall further. There is a good vaccination programme underway. Enough with the restrictions.
If the government goes back on its word (I know, I know) there will be anger and despair. Rightly so. The micro-managing bossy boots need to be told to take a running jump.
One big - and unresolved - problem for The Firm, is Andrew.
Whose name was NOT mentioned (I think) in The Interview. BUT his malign stench hangs over this whole sorry business.
The difference between the Palace's approach to his Foul Lowness is is MARKED contrast, to their treatment of his nephew & niece-in-law.
For example, WHY is Andrew still HRH? When other royals have been stripped of THEIR titles for far, far less.
A malign stench which is simply barely mentioned over here. To do so would be unseemly, verging on the unpatriotic, when one could be putting the boot into Harry and Meg. Or fawning over "Kate's Cuties".
If you are suggesting Wales is an economic desert you would be right.
However sometimes the heart rules the head, and if Scotland jumps ship, don't be surprised that Wales MIGHT follow.
I’d like to think folk would put a bit of thought into why their country was an economic desert..
It is a good question. It certainly is one that hasn't troubled any Welsh politician for a very long time.
Wales suffers from systemic problems in public services, rampant corruption & cronyism, poor education & health services and a fragile, unstable economy.
But, worst of all — and so unlike Scotland — there is no sign of competent, inspiring political leadership plotting a way forward for the country out of the morass.
Wales seemingly cannot change its current trajectory. Any better option for Wales requires much better leadership, which is not available in any of the major parties.
It is hard to be positive for Wales.
In the short term, the removal of the Labour Party (who have governed Wales forever and done so very little) would be a start, but it is idle to pretend there is a much better option waiting in the wings.
If you are suggesting Wales is an economic desert you would be right.
However sometimes the heart rules the head, and if Scotland jumps ship, don't be surprised that Wales MIGHT follow.
I’d like to think folk would put a bit of thought into why their country was an economic desert..
It is a good question. It certainly is one that hasn't troubled any Welsh politician for a very long time.
Wales suffers from systemic problems in public services, rampant corruption & cronyism, poor education & health services and a fragile, unstable economy.
But, worst of all — and so unlike Scotland — there is no sign of competent, inspiring political leadership plotting a way forward for the country out of the morass.
Wales seemingly cannot change its current trajectory. Any better option for Wales requires much better leadership, which is not available in any of the major parties.
It is hard to be positive for Wales.
In the short term, the removal of the Labour Party (who have governed Wales forever and done so very little) would be a start, but it is idle to pretend there is a much better option waiting in the wings.
Maybe a Tory/PC coalition would flush the system? Oh..."precious Union". Forgot about that.
I am wonder how we got from the military police kicking the doors down of a vaccine factory in the morning, the afternoon the EC agreeing new rules that basically singled out the UK for blocking vaccine exports, to this evening "peace deal"....
One big - and unresolved - problem for The Firm, is Andrew.
Whose name was NOT mentioned (I think) in The Interview. BUT his malign stench hangs over this whole sorry business.
The difference between the Palace's approach to his Foul Lowness is is MARKED contrast, to their treatment of his nephew & niece-in-law.
For example, WHY is Andrew still HRH? When other royals have been stripped of THEIR titles for far, far less.
Without meaning to denigrate your opinions unduly, but can you remind me (i genuinely am not sure) of your background? Are you commenting on this as an American, with standard American views on things like the Royal Family, albeit perhaps with a greater interest than many in UK affairs.
Or as somebody with a strong British background who now lives in America?
Because looking at US commentary on things like the Royal Family from afar, it seems to be that they generally attribute far more importance to minor Royals outside of the direct main line of succession than is justified by the reality. And exaggerate the importance of the soap opera type aspects that sometimes come out, particularly from those slightly detached from the main family, to its ongoing position and popularity in the UK.
Just as traditionally (Trump undermined this) Americans have fiercely defended their Presidents as Head of state under criticism from abroad, even when they don't belong to their chosen party, so in the UK the vast majority of the population will rally around the institution of the monarchy when it is under attack.
People in the UK aren't averse to having a joke about the Royals, but they dislike it when people do from abroad.
Am an American, with just a smidgen of English in me, mostly Irish (hence the moniker), Scots Irish & German.
My views are based on fairly wide historical study. AND my point is NOT to attack the Queen in particular, or the monarchy in general.
Instead, my point is that they are VERY POORLY SERVED by their alleged servants.
Think you are correct re: minor royals. However, note that, unlike continental monarchies, The Firm has been HIGHLY resistant to downgrading the swarm of ne'er do wells and no accounts clustered around the Windsor honeypot.
Seeing as how it appears Queen Elizabeth's top personal governmental priority, has been establishing the monarch as focus and rally-point for the Commonwealth, this survey can NOT be good news for the Palace.
Methinks the way HM's no-brains twit-trust has mishandled the Meghan situation from the get-go, is seriously undermining the Queen's life work.
Mishandled it how? By allowing Meghan within five miles of the Royal Family in the first place?
They are two for two on Americans coming in and trying to ruin it.
IF your were charitable (admittedly NOT a major PB virtue) then you might argue that Wallis SAVED the monarchy, by ensuring that her boy-toy got the heave-ho BEFORE he could inflict serious damage.
As for Meghan, happen to agree with you re; the 5-mile limit.
BUT fact is, she & Harry got hitched despite the angst of family & ire of flunkies (or visa versa). AND the Palace did NOT deal with this reality at all well. Instead, just about as badly as they could.
Replicating in the process many of the same mistakes they made re: Diana.
Blaming the Duch of Sux over and over and over and over is no doubt emotionally satisfying. But useless as plan or policy.
We don't actually know that the Palace dealt with it as badly as they possibly could. Because we simply don't have all the facts merely a very carefully curated and edited version of Harry's version, a version which he admitted was untrue in one respect - the claim that they married 3 days before the actual wedding.
The belief that the fault is all on the Palace's side rests on the assumption that Harry and Meghan intended to make things work and tried their best and did absolutely nothing wrong. That is an assumption which needs testing not accepting without more.
Incidentally, he is now joining some commission to deal with misinformation in the media. While he is to be praised for his work on mental health, he would do well to think about what he says to the media before telling others off about misinformation. There are any number of things which he said in his recent and earlier interviews which would fall very clearly fall within any reasonable definition of misinformation. Stones and glasshouses .......
Never said it was "all" the Palace's fault. Just that they've dealt with it most stupidly.
Whatever the rights & wrongs, pros & cons, it's clear that Meghan as been running rings around the Palace.
Admittedly NOT among geezers, traditionalists & suchlike.
However, it would be BETTER for the Royals IF they did a bit LESS well with these groups, and a damn sight better with younger folks. And NOT just in UK, but world wide.
My guess is that the Buck House no-Brains Trust is trying to figure out how to deploy Will & Kate to good advantage. Say a major post-COVID royal tour of the Commonwealth?
I'm not at all sure H&M have run rings round the Palace at all. I was a bit of a fan of Meghan when she came on the scene. Now I feel as if I am being played by them. I particularly dislike the way private conversations are plastered across the media as well as vague accusations against unspecified people. The first seems to me to be untrustworthy; the latter dishonourable. I will be interested to learn the results of the legal firm's investigation.
I rather wish they just got on with their new - and apparently interesting - lives than endlessly sniping at the people they have left behind. That seems to me to be both sad and unkind. People who are contented in the choices they have made - especially when they involve a break with a previous life - don't usually spend their time constantly harping on about the past.
If you are suggesting Wales is an economic desert you would be right.
However sometimes the heart rules the head, and if Scotland jumps ship, don't be surprised that Wales MIGHT follow.
I’d like to think folk would put a bit of thought into why their country was an economic desert..
It is a good question. It certainly is one that hasn't troubled any Welsh politician for a very long time.
Wales suffers from systemic problems in public services, rampant corruption & cronyism, poor education & health services and a fragile, unstable economy.
But, worst of all — and so unlike Scotland — there is no sign of competent, inspiring political leadership plotting a way forward for the country out of the morass.
Wales seemingly cannot change its current trajectory. Any better option for Wales requires much better leadership, which is not available in any of the major parties.
It is hard to be positive for Wales.
In the short term, the removal of the Labour Party (who have governed Wales forever and done so very little) would be a start, but it is idle to pretend there is a much better option waiting in the wings.
If you are suggesting Wales is an economic desert you would be right.
However sometimes the heart rules the head, and if Scotland jumps ship, don't be surprised that Wales MIGHT follow.
I’d like to think folk would put a bit of thought into why their country was an economic desert..
It is a good question. It certainly is one that hasn't troubled any Welsh politician for a very long time.
Wales suffers from systemic problems in public services, rampant corruption & cronyism, poor education & health services and a fragile, unstable economy.
But, worst of all — and so unlike Scotland — there is no sign of competent, inspiring political leadership plotting a way forward for the country out of the morass.
Wales seemingly cannot change its current trajectory. Any better option for Wales requires much better leadership, which is not available in any of the major parties.
It is hard to be positive for Wales.
In the short term, the removal of the Labour Party (who have governed Wales forever and done so very little) would be a start, but it is idle to pretend there is a much better option waiting in the wings.
An unfortunate consequence of FPTP electoral system is that once areas en masse, cease to become politically competitive, or at least largely irrelevant to the purpose of securing a governing majority then they will lose influence at the highest level. Interestingly Wales have flirted in recent years with making themselves a far more relevant factor at Westminster - both by encouraging the Conservatives to invest in the country for political gain and forcing Labour to re-evaluate how the approach what they traditionally saw as their private fiefdom, but have not quite made the final step. I think they are in a very different position to Scotland, where post referendum, the independence question dominates everything.
Seeing as how it appears Queen Elizabeth's top personal governmental priority, has been establishing the monarch as focus and rally-point for the Commonwealth, this survey can NOT be good news for the Palace.
Methinks the way HM's no-brains twit-trust has mishandled the Meghan situation from the get-go, is seriously undermining the Queen's life work.
Mishandled it how? By allowing Meghan within five miles of the Royal Family in the first place?
They are two for two on Americans coming in and trying to ruin it.
IF your were charitable (admittedly NOT a major PB virtue) then you might argue that Wallis SAVED the monarchy, by ensuring that her boy-toy got the heave-ho BEFORE he could inflict serious damage.
As for Meghan, happen to agree with you re; the 5-mile limit.
BUT fact is, she & Harry got hitched despite the angst of family & ire of flunkies (or visa versa). AND the Palace did NOT deal with this reality at all well. Instead, just about as badly as they could.
Replicating in the process many of the same mistakes they made re: Diana.
Blaming the Duch of Sux over and over and over and over is no doubt emotionally satisfying. But useless as plan or policy.
We don't actually know that the Palace dealt with it as badly as they possibly could. Because we simply don't have all the facts merely a very carefully curated and edited version of Harry's version, a version which he admitted was untrue in one respect - the claim that they married 3 days before the actual wedding.
The belief that the fault is all on the Palace's side rests on the assumption that Harry and Meghan intended to make things work and tried their best and did absolutely nothing wrong. That is an assumption which needs testing not accepting without more.
Incidentally, he is now joining some commission to deal with misinformation in the media. While he is to be praised for his work on mental health, he would do well to think about what he says to the media before telling others off about misinformation. There are any number of things which he said in his recent and earlier interviews which would fall very clearly fall within any reasonable definition of misinformation. Stones and glasshouses .......
Never said it was "all" the Palace's fault. Just that they've dealt with it most stupidly.
Whatever the rights & wrongs, pros & cons, it's clear that Meghan as been running rings around the Palace.
Admittedly NOT among geezers, traditionalists & suchlike.
However, it would be BETTER for the Royals IF they did a bit LESS well with these groups, and a damn sight better with younger folks. And NOT just in UK, but world wide.
My guess is that the Buck House no-Brains Trust is trying to figure out how to deploy Will & Kate to good advantage. Say a major post-COVID royal tour of the Commonwealth?
I'm not at all sure H&M have run rings round the Palace at all. I was a bit of a fan of Meghan when she came on the scene. Now I feel as if I am being played by them. I particularly dislike the way private conversations are plastered across the media as well as vague accusations against unspecified people. The first seems to me to be untrustworthy; the latter dishonourable. I will be interested to learn the results of the legal firm's investigation.
I rather wish they just got on with their new - and apparently interesting - lives than endlessly sniping at the people they have left behind. That seems to me to be both sad and unkind. People who are contented in the choices they have made - especially when they involve a break with a previous life - don't usually spend their time constantly harping on about the past.
Spin-doctoring is a form of disinformation, if not downright misinformation. And has been a part of politics since before Brutus murdered the noble (or was it dispatched the tyrannical?) Caesar.
From international (and commonwealth) perspective, seems clear that Meghan has indeed been besting her foes in the PR game. AND she's had an impact with UK youth and people of color.
AND do you think the Palace has NOT been guilty of spinning like a top on this subject?
For example, am personally prepared to believe that Meghan can be (and was) a bully. However, has the Palace offered any actually evidence for this?
So Bucks House and H&M are both spinning their webs. Just seems to me that Meghan is WAY better at it. Just like Diana was.
Again, I do NOT like Meghan. Never have, thought she was bad news pretty much from the get-go.
Though at the time of the wedding, thought things would be ok, even a plus for The Firm.
Until they (with M's help no doubt) screwed up . . . ahem . . . royally.
One big - and unresolved - problem for The Firm, is Andrew.
Whose name was NOT mentioned (I think) in The Interview. BUT his malign stench hangs over this whole sorry business.
The difference between the Palace's approach to his Foul Lowness is is MARKED contrast, to their treatment of his nephew & niece-in-law.
For example, WHY is Andrew still HRH? When other royals have been stripped of THEIR titles for far, far less.
Without meaning to denigrate your opinions unduly, but can you remind me (i genuinely am not sure) of your background? Are you commenting on this as an American, with standard American views on things like the Royal Family, albeit perhaps with a greater interest than many in UK affairs.
Or as somebody with a strong British background who now lives in America?
Because looking at US commentary on things like the Royal Family from afar, it seems to be that they generally attribute far more importance to minor Royals outside of the direct main line of succession than is justified by the reality. And exaggerate the importance of the soap opera type aspects that sometimes come out, particularly from those slightly detached from the main family, to its ongoing position and popularity in the UK.
Just as traditionally (Trump undermined this) Americans have fiercely defended their Presidents as Head of state under criticism from abroad, even when they don't belong to their chosen party, so in the UK the vast majority of the population will rally around the institution of the monarchy when it is under attack.
People in the UK aren't averse to having a joke about the Royals, but they dislike it when people do from abroad.
Am an American, with just a smidgen of English in me, mostly Irish (hence the moniker), Scots Irish & German.
My views are based on fairly wide historical study. AND my point is NOT to attack the Queen in particular, or the monarchy in general.
Instead, my point is that they are VERY POORLY SERVED by their alleged servants.
Think you are correct re: minor royals. However, note that, unlike continental monarchies, The Firm has been HIGHLY resistant to downgrading the swarm of ne'er do wells and no accounts clustered around the Windsor honeypot.
So don't blame Americans for THAT!
Well it's a view. I'm not sure it's an accurate one. And i really think your views about Harry and Meghan (as per your discussion with Cyclefree) are being massively filtered through an American lens. Possibly (no doubt you'll put me right) this is partly influenced by the absurd sight of defence of the Royal Family apparently becoming a new Trumpian/Foxian/Republican cause celebre. I'm sure the Royal family appreciate the "help". Not. But there we are. The Royal family and the institution of the monarchy has been through far far worse.
Out of interest, how often does Nick even go into a pub? Perhaps he can tell us.
My guess .... rather rarely.
A policy of excluding lots of (unvaccinated) young people from pubs so that an elderly & nervous 71 year old can get a drink once a month is the most stupid policy I have heard for some time.
If Nick doesn't want to mingle with the unvaccinated, fine. That is his choice.
But, to suggest the entire rules are re-written to accommodate him is completely wrong.
You're missing the point. I'm not thinking of myself, or anyone in the older generation. The point is that we've all worked through more than a year of difficulty in order to FINALLY get the pandemic down to a low level., so risking a resurgence at the very tailend of that and finding ourselves all locked down again next winter seems bonkers for everyone. The point is not vaccinated people, or the death rate, but whether we should be perpetuating the pandemic just when we've got it down.
It's summer coming. Loads of people will be fine with drinking outside the pub. Give it a few months so we get the infection rate down to a few dozen a day, and then we can loosen up as the darker evenings approach. Remember that the scientists are predicting a new wave anyway - why would we deliberately set out to make that worse at exactly the time of year when indoor crowds are least needed?
The point is any activity comes with some risk.
You need to provide some evidence that the risk of allowing unvaccinated young people into pubs is a significant one.
I have no problem with you -- or other elderly people -- living a hermetic life in which you stay in your capacious property & have everything delivered. That is your choice. Fine.
Other people have different perspectives. Before you ban lots of activities for others, you do need to show that the risk you have identified is a real and substantial one.
FWIW, most young people I know are certainly flouting many of the existing rules. They have not cocooned themselves indoors in cotton-wool for months, waiting for Waitrose deliveries left on the steps in front of closed front-doors.
I think the suggestion that only vaccinated 50+ year old people can go to pubs is unfair and, yes, selfish.
One big - and unresolved - problem for The Firm, is Andrew.
Whose name was NOT mentioned (I think) in The Interview. BUT his malign stench hangs over this whole sorry business.
The difference between the Palace's approach to his Foul Lowness is is MARKED contrast, to their treatment of his nephew & niece-in-law.
For example, WHY is Andrew still HRH? When other royals have been stripped of THEIR titles for far, far less.
Without meaning to denigrate your opinions unduly, but can you remind me (i genuinely am not sure) of your background? Are you commenting on this as an American, with standard American views on things like the Royal Family, albeit perhaps with a greater interest than many in UK affairs.
Or as somebody with a strong British background who now lives in America?
Because looking at US commentary on things like the Royal Family from afar, it seems to be that they generally attribute far more importance to minor Royals outside of the direct main line of succession than is justified by the reality. And exaggerate the importance of the soap opera type aspects that sometimes come out, particularly from those slightly detached from the main family, to its ongoing position and popularity in the UK.
Just as traditionally (Trump undermined this) Americans have fiercely defended their Presidents as Head of state under criticism from abroad, even when they don't belong to their chosen party, so in the UK the vast majority of the population will rally around the institution of the monarchy when it is under attack.
People in the UK aren't averse to having a joke about the Royals, but they dislike it when people do from abroad.
Am an American, with just a smidgen of English in me, mostly Irish (hence the moniker), Scots Irish & German.
My views are based on fairly wide historical study. AND my point is NOT to attack the Queen in particular, or the monarchy in general.
Instead, my point is that they are VERY POORLY SERVED by their alleged servants.
Think you are correct re: minor royals. However, note that, unlike continental monarchies, The Firm has been HIGHLY resistant to downgrading the swarm of ne'er do wells and no accounts clustered around the Windsor honeypot.
So don't blame Americans for THAT!
Well it's a view. I'm not sure it's an accurate one. And i really think your views about Harry and Meghan (as per your discussion with Cyclefree) are being massively filtered through an American lens. Possibly (no doubt you'll put me right) this is partly influenced by the absurd sight of defence of the Royal Family apparently becoming a new Trumpian/Foxian/Republican cause celebre. I'm sure the Royal family appreciate the "help". Not. But there we are. The Royal family and the institution of the monarchy has been through far far worse.
So...
I'm a Brit in America, and I must admit the US coverage is that H&M have been appallingly treated by HM.
One big - and unresolved - problem for The Firm, is Andrew.
Whose name was NOT mentioned (I think) in The Interview. BUT his malign stench hangs over this whole sorry business.
The difference between the Palace's approach to his Foul Lowness is is MARKED contrast, to their treatment of his nephew & niece-in-law.
For example, WHY is Andrew still HRH? When other royals have been stripped of THEIR titles for far, far less.
Without meaning to denigrate your opinions unduly, but can you remind me (i genuinely am not sure) of your background? Are you commenting on this as an American, with standard American views on things like the Royal Family, albeit perhaps with a greater interest than many in UK affairs.
Or as somebody with a strong British background who now lives in America?
Because looking at US commentary on things like the Royal Family from afar, it seems to be that they generally attribute far more importance to minor Royals outside of the direct main line of succession than is justified by the reality. And exaggerate the importance of the soap opera type aspects that sometimes come out, particularly from those slightly detached from the main family, to its ongoing position and popularity in the UK.
Just as traditionally (Trump undermined this) Americans have fiercely defended their Presidents as Head of state under criticism from abroad, even when they don't belong to their chosen party, so in the UK the vast majority of the population will rally around the institution of the monarchy when it is under attack.
People in the UK aren't averse to having a joke about the Royals, but they dislike it when people do from abroad.
Am an American, with just a smidgen of English in me, mostly Irish (hence the moniker), Scots Irish & German.
My views are based on fairly wide historical study. AND my point is NOT to attack the Queen in particular, or the monarchy in general.
Instead, my point is that they are VERY POORLY SERVED by their alleged servants.
Think you are correct re: minor royals. However, note that, unlike continental monarchies, The Firm has been HIGHLY resistant to downgrading the swarm of ne'er do wells and no accounts clustered around the Windsor honeypot.
So don't blame Americans for THAT!
A problem has been how the royal family has grown.
Fifty years ago it consisted of:
Elizabeth Philip Queen Mother Margaret Charles Anne Andrew Edward
Now only Margaret and the Queen Mother are no longer around but the four children have married and divorced multiple times, had children and their children have married and had children.
One big - and unresolved - problem for The Firm, is Andrew.
Whose name was NOT mentioned (I think) in The Interview. BUT his malign stench hangs over this whole sorry business.
The difference between the Palace's approach to his Foul Lowness is is MARKED contrast, to their treatment of his nephew & niece-in-law.
For example, WHY is Andrew still HRH? When other royals have been stripped of THEIR titles for far, far less.
Without meaning to denigrate your opinions unduly, but can you remind me (i genuinely am not sure) of your background? Are you commenting on this as an American, with standard American views on things like the Royal Family, albeit perhaps with a greater interest than many in UK affairs.
Or as somebody with a strong British background who now lives in America?
Because looking at US commentary on things like the Royal Family from afar, it seems to be that they generally attribute far more importance to minor Royals outside of the direct main line of succession than is justified by the reality. And exaggerate the importance of the soap opera type aspects that sometimes come out, particularly from those slightly detached from the main family, to its ongoing position and popularity in the UK.
Just as traditionally (Trump undermined this) Americans have fiercely defended their Presidents as Head of state under criticism from abroad, even when they don't belong to their chosen party, so in the UK the vast majority of the population will rally around the institution of the monarchy when it is under attack.
People in the UK aren't averse to having a joke about the Royals, but they dislike it when people do from abroad.
Am an American, with just a smidgen of English in me, mostly Irish (hence the moniker), Scots Irish & German.
My views are based on fairly wide historical study. AND my point is NOT to attack the Queen in particular, or the monarchy in general.
Instead, my point is that they are VERY POORLY SERVED by their alleged servants.
Think you are correct re: minor royals. However, note that, unlike continental monarchies, The Firm has been HIGHLY resistant to downgrading the swarm of ne'er do wells and no accounts clustered around the Windsor honeypot.
So don't blame Americans for THAT!
Well it's a view. I'm not sure it's an accurate one. And i really think your views about Harry and Meghan (as per your discussion with Cyclefree) are being massively filtered through an American lens. Possibly (no doubt you'll put me right) this is partly influenced by the absurd sight of defence of the Royal Family apparently becoming a new Trumpian/Foxian/Republican cause celebre. I'm sure the Royal family appreciate the "help". Not. But there we are. The Royal family and the institution of the monarchy has been through far far worse.
My perspective on royal family has zero to do with Trumpsky. His embrace of the royals, mimicked by his MAGA loyalists, has much more to do with their racism than veneration for monarchy.
As for "been though far worse" well, that's what the Habsburgs & Hohenzollerns & Romanovs & etc., etc. used to say!
Though personally think the House of Windor-Mountbatten-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Hanover-What-Have-You will in fact endure.
One big - and unresolved - problem for The Firm, is Andrew.
Whose name was NOT mentioned (I think) in The Interview. BUT his malign stench hangs over this whole sorry business.
The difference between the Palace's approach to his Foul Lowness is is MARKED contrast, to their treatment of his nephew & niece-in-law.
For example, WHY is Andrew still HRH? When other royals have been stripped of THEIR titles for far, far less.
Without meaning to denigrate your opinions unduly, but can you remind me (i genuinely am not sure) of your background? Are you commenting on this as an American, with standard American views on things like the Royal Family, albeit perhaps with a greater interest than many in UK affairs.
Or as somebody with a strong British background who now lives in America?
Because looking at US commentary on things like the Royal Family from afar, it seems to be that they generally attribute far more importance to minor Royals outside of the direct main line of succession than is justified by the reality. And exaggerate the importance of the soap opera type aspects that sometimes come out, particularly from those slightly detached from the main family, to its ongoing position and popularity in the UK.
Just as traditionally (Trump undermined this) Americans have fiercely defended their Presidents as Head of state under criticism from abroad, even when they don't belong to their chosen party, so in the UK the vast majority of the population will rally around the institution of the monarchy when it is under attack.
People in the UK aren't averse to having a joke about the Royals, but they dislike it when people do from abroad.
Am an American, with just a smidgen of English in me, mostly Irish (hence the moniker), Scots Irish & German.
My views are based on fairly wide historical study. AND my point is NOT to attack the Queen in particular, or the monarchy in general.
Instead, my point is that they are VERY POORLY SERVED by their alleged servants.
Think you are correct re: minor royals. However, note that, unlike continental monarchies, The Firm has been HIGHLY resistant to downgrading the swarm of ne'er do wells and no accounts clustered around the Windsor honeypot.
So don't blame Americans for THAT!
Well it's a view. I'm not sure it's an accurate one. And i really think your views about Harry and Meghan (as per your discussion with Cyclefree) are being massively filtered through an American lens. Possibly (no doubt you'll put me right) this is partly influenced by the absurd sight of defence of the Royal Family apparently becoming a new Trumpian/Foxian/Republican cause celebre. I'm sure the Royal family appreciate the "help". Not. But there we are. The Royal family and the institution of the monarchy has been through far far worse.
My perspective on royal family has zero to do with Trumpsky. His embrace of the royals, mimicked by his MAGA loyalists, has much more to do with their racism than veneration for monarchy.
As for "been though far worse" well, that's what the Habsburgs & Hohenzollerns & Romanovs & etc., etc. used to say!
Though personally think the House of Windor-Mountbatten-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Hanover-What-Have-You will in fact endure.
Trump's embrace of the royals has more to do with their racism? What the hell are you on about?
If you are suggesting Wales is an economic desert you would be right.
However sometimes the heart rules the head, and if Scotland jumps ship, don't be surprised that Wales MIGHT follow.
I’d like to think folk would put a bit of thought into why their country was an economic desert..
It is a good question. It certainly is one that hasn't troubled any Welsh politician for a very long time.
Wales suffers from systemic problems in public services, rampant corruption & cronyism, poor education & health services and a fragile, unstable economy.
But, worst of all — and so unlike Scotland — there is no sign of competent, inspiring political leadership plotting a way forward for the country out of the morass.
Wales seemingly cannot change its current trajectory. Any better option for Wales requires much better leadership, which is not available in any of the major parties.
It is hard to be positive for Wales.
In the short term, the removal of the Labour Party (who have governed Wales forever and done so very little) would be a start, but it is idle to pretend there is a much better option waiting in the wings.
An unfortunate consequence of FPTP electoral system is that once areas en masse, cease to become politically competitive, or at least largely irrelevant to the purpose of securing a governing majority then they will lose influence at the highest level. Interestingly Wales have flirted in recent years with making themselves a far more relevant factor at Westminster - both by encouraging the Conservatives to invest in the country for political gain and forcing Labour to re-evaluate how the approach what they traditionally saw as their private fiefdom, but have not quite made the final step. I think they are in a very different position to Scotland, where post referendum, the independence question dominates everything.
I would agree that Wales has been very loyal to Labour, and has been forgotten about in return.
That is indeed a malign consequence of the FPTP system. There is no reason for Labour to do anything for Wales, if it always delivers docile Labour MPs and a Labour dominated Senedd. The political attention & resources go to where the marginal seats are.
The Central Belt and Red Wall finally learnt this -- you have much more leverage if you are disloyal to Labour.
One big - and unresolved - problem for The Firm, is Andrew.
Whose name was NOT mentioned (I think) in The Interview. BUT his malign stench hangs over this whole sorry business.
The difference between the Palace's approach to his Foul Lowness is is MARKED contrast, to their treatment of his nephew & niece-in-law.
For example, WHY is Andrew still HRH? When other royals have been stripped of THEIR titles for far, far less.
Without meaning to denigrate your opinions unduly, but can you remind me (i genuinely am not sure) of your background? Are you commenting on this as an American, with standard American views on things like the Royal Family, albeit perhaps with a greater interest than many in UK affairs.
Or as somebody with a strong British background who now lives in America?
Because looking at US commentary on things like the Royal Family from afar, it seems to be that they generally attribute far more importance to minor Royals outside of the direct main line of succession than is justified by the reality. And exaggerate the importance of the soap opera type aspects that sometimes come out, particularly from those slightly detached from the main family, to its ongoing position and popularity in the UK.
Just as traditionally (Trump undermined this) Americans have fiercely defended their Presidents as Head of state under criticism from abroad, even when they don't belong to their chosen party, so in the UK the vast majority of the population will rally around the institution of the monarchy when it is under attack.
People in the UK aren't averse to having a joke about the Royals, but they dislike it when people do from abroad.
Am an American, with just a smidgen of English in me, mostly Irish (hence the moniker), Scots Irish & German.
My views are based on fairly wide historical study. AND my point is NOT to attack the Queen in particular, or the monarchy in general.
Instead, my point is that they are VERY POORLY SERVED by their alleged servants.
Think you are correct re: minor royals. However, note that, unlike continental monarchies, The Firm has been HIGHLY resistant to downgrading the swarm of ne'er do wells and no accounts clustered around the Windsor honeypot.
So don't blame Americans for THAT!
A problem has been how the royal family has grown.
Fifty years ago it consisted of:
Elizabeth Philip Queen Mother Margaret Charles Anne Andrew Edward
Now only Margaret and the Queen Mother are no longer around but the four children have married and divorced multiple times, had children and their children have married and had children.
One big - and unresolved - problem for The Firm, is Andrew.
Whose name was NOT mentioned (I think) in The Interview. BUT his malign stench hangs over this whole sorry business.
The difference between the Palace's approach to his Foul Lowness is is MARKED contrast, to their treatment of his nephew & niece-in-law.
For example, WHY is Andrew still HRH? When other royals have been stripped of THEIR titles for far, far less.
Without meaning to denigrate your opinions unduly, but can you remind me (i genuinely am not sure) of your background? Are you commenting on this as an American, with standard American views on things like the Royal Family, albeit perhaps with a greater interest than many in UK affairs.
Or as somebody with a strong British background who now lives in America?
Because looking at US commentary on things like the Royal Family from afar, it seems to be that they generally attribute far more importance to minor Royals outside of the direct main line of succession than is justified by the reality. And exaggerate the importance of the soap opera type aspects that sometimes come out, particularly from those slightly detached from the main family, to its ongoing position and popularity in the UK.
Just as traditionally (Trump undermined this) Americans have fiercely defended their Presidents as Head of state under criticism from abroad, even when they don't belong to their chosen party, so in the UK the vast majority of the population will rally around the institution of the monarchy when it is under attack.
People in the UK aren't averse to having a joke about the Royals, but they dislike it when people do from abroad.
Am an American, with just a smidgen of English in me, mostly Irish (hence the moniker), Scots Irish & German.
My views are based on fairly wide historical study. AND my point is NOT to attack the Queen in particular, or the monarchy in general.
Instead, my point is that they are VERY POORLY SERVED by their alleged servants.
Think you are correct re: minor royals. However, note that, unlike continental monarchies, The Firm has been HIGHLY resistant to downgrading the swarm of ne'er do wells and no accounts clustered around the Windsor honeypot.
So don't blame Americans for THAT!
Well it's a view. I'm not sure it's an accurate one. And i really think your views about Harry and Meghan (as per your discussion with Cyclefree) are being massively filtered through an American lens. Possibly (no doubt you'll put me right) this is partly influenced by the absurd sight of defence of the Royal Family apparently becoming a new Trumpian/Foxian/Republican cause celebre. I'm sure the Royal family appreciate the "help". Not. But there we are. The Royal family and the institution of the monarchy has been through far far worse.
My perspective on royal family has zero to do with Trumpsky. His embrace of the royals, mimicked by his MAGA loyalists, has much more to do with their racism than veneration for monarchy.
As for "been though far worse" well, that's what the Habsburgs & Hohenzollerns & Romanovs & etc., etc. used to say!
Though personally think the House of Windor-Mountbatten-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Hanover-What-Have-You will in fact endure.
Trump's embrace of the royals has more to do with their racism? What the hell are you on about?
Meaghan is mixed race. Just like Obama. OR did you miss that?
Trumpsky's "defense" of Royals versus Meaghan is just another one of this infamous dog whistles.
Another way for him to play his (and Bannon's) favorite card - the race card.
Not their (the royals) racism, which personally think is WAY overblown. But Trumpsky's racism, which is not debatable.
Seeing as how it appears Queen Elizabeth's top personal governmental priority, has been establishing the monarch as focus and rally-point for the Commonwealth, this survey can NOT be good news for the Palace.
Methinks the way HM's no-brains twit-trust has mishandled the Meghan situation from the get-go, is seriously undermining the Queen's life work.
Mishandled it how? By allowing Meghan within five miles of the Royal Family in the first place?
They are two for two on Americans coming in and trying to ruin it.
IF your were charitable (admittedly NOT a major PB virtue) then you might argue that Wallis SAVED the monarchy, by ensuring that her boy-toy got the heave-ho BEFORE he could inflict serious damage.
As for Meghan, happen to agree with you re; the 5-mile limit.
BUT fact is, she & Harry got hitched despite the angst of family & ire of flunkies (or visa versa). AND the Palace did NOT deal with this reality at all well. Instead, just about as badly as they could.
Replicating in the process many of the same mistakes they made re: Diana.
Blaming the Duch of Sux over and over and over and over is no doubt emotionally satisfying. But useless as plan or policy.
We don't actually know that the Palace dealt with it as badly as they possibly could. Because we simply don't have all the facts merely a very carefully curated and edited version of Harry's version, a version which he admitted was untrue in one respect - the claim that they married 3 days before the actual wedding.
The belief that the fault is all on the Palace's side rests on the assumption that Harry and Meghan intended to make things work and tried their best and did absolutely nothing wrong. That is an assumption which needs testing not accepting without more.
Incidentally, he is now joining some commission to deal with misinformation in the media. While he is to be praised for his work on mental health, he would do well to think about what he says to the media before telling others off about misinformation. There are any number of things which he said in his recent and earlier interviews which would fall very clearly fall within any reasonable definition of misinformation. Stones and glasshouses .......
Never said it was "all" the Palace's fault. Just that they've dealt with it most stupidly.
Whatever the rights & wrongs, pros & cons, it's clear that Meghan as been running rings around the Palace.
Admittedly NOT among geezers, traditionalists & suchlike.
However, it would be BETTER for the Royals IF they did a bit LESS well with these groups, and a damn sight better with younger folks. And NOT just in UK, but world wide.
My guess is that the Buck House no-Brains Trust is trying to figure out how to deploy Will & Kate to good advantage. Say a major post-COVID royal tour of the Commonwealth?
I'm not at all sure H&M have run rings round the Palace at all. I was a bit of a fan of Meghan when she came on the scene. Now I feel as if I am being played by them. I particularly dislike the way private conversations are plastered across the media as well as vague accusations against unspecified people. The first seems to me to be untrustworthy; the latter dishonourable. I will be interested to learn the results of the legal firm's investigation.
I rather wish they just got on with their new - and apparently interesting - lives than endlessly sniping at the people they have left behind. That seems to me to be both sad and unkind. People who are contented in the choices they have made - especially when they involve a break with a previous life - don't usually spend their time constantly harping on about the past.
Spin-doctoring is a form of disinformation, if not downright misinformation. And has been a part of politics since before Brutus murdered the noble (or was it dispatched the tyrannical?) Caesar.
From international (and commonwealth) perspective, seems clear that Meghan has indeed been besting her foes in the PR game. AND she's had an impact with UK youth and people of color.
AND do you think the Palace has NOT been guilty of spinning like a top on this subject?
For example, am personally prepared to believe that Meghan can be (and was) a bully. However, has the Palace offered any actually evidence for this?
So Bucks House and H&M are both spinning their webs. Just seems to me that Meghan is WAY better at it. Just like Diana was.
Again, I do NOT like Meghan. Never have, thought she was bad news pretty much from the get-go.
Though at the time of the wedding, thought things would be ok, even a plus for The Firm.
Until they (with M's help no doubt) screwed up . . . ahem . . . royally.
Oh I'm sure the Palace do spin.
Re the bullying allegations, there is apparently going to be an independent investigation by a law firm so we will see what that says.
There is some evidence that H&M were perhaps not the best of bosses. Lots of their staff left, there was a big turnover and that has continued since they left the UK. When people cannot keep staff for any length of time, not even staff they've recently hired, it does suggest that there may be an issue with their man-management.
The Palace has said - rightly in my view - that this should be dealt with privately. Then we get to hear from friends of the couple about their private calls with Charles and William. Frankly, if that happened to me I would not have any call or letter because I would not be able to trust them.
When a person apparently falls out with their own family and their spouse's family and a number of friends and a lot of their staff, it just might be worth asking themselves whether they might be a teensy amount at fault rather than apparently claiming that everyone else is.
1. Since #45 is no longer president, therefore GOP governors like Hogan (Maryland), Baker (Mass) and Scott (Vermont) can no longer score points with Dems just by bashing You-Know-Who.
2. Less-than-stellar performance re: anti-COVID vaccinations in their states.
In context of first point, note that in WA State, the only Republican to win statewide office in 2020, incumbent Secretary of State Kim Wyman, was greatly helped with Democratic voters thanks to her opposition to Trumpsky's attacks on free & fair elections, especially her defense of mail voting.
IF she runs again in 2024, she will NOT have this going for her, not to same degree.
If you are suggesting Wales is an economic desert you would be right.
However sometimes the heart rules the head, and if Scotland jumps ship, don't be surprised that Wales MIGHT follow.
I’d like to think folk would put a bit of thought into why their country was an economic desert..
It is a good question. It certainly is one that hasn't troubled any Welsh politician for a very long time.
Wales suffers from systemic problems in public services, rampant corruption & cronyism, poor education & health services and a fragile, unstable economy.
But, worst of all — and so unlike Scotland — there is no sign of competent, inspiring political leadership plotting a way forward for the country out of the morass.
Wales seemingly cannot change its current trajectory. Any better option for Wales requires much better leadership, which is not available in any of the major parties.
It is hard to be positive for Wales.
In the short term, the removal of the Labour Party (who have governed Wales forever and done so very little) would be a start, but it is idle to pretend there is a much better option waiting in the wings.
An unfortunate consequence of FPTP electoral system is that once areas en masse, cease to become politically competitive, or at least largely irrelevant to the purpose of securing a governing majority then they will lose influence at the highest level. Interestingly Wales have flirted in recent years with making themselves a far more relevant factor at Westminster - both by encouraging the Conservatives to invest in the country for political gain and forcing Labour to re-evaluate how the approach what they traditionally saw as their private fiefdom, but have not quite made the final step. I think they are in a very different position to Scotland, where post referendum, the independence question dominates everything.
I would agree that Wales has been very loyal to Labour, and has been forgotten about in return.
That is indeed a malign consequence of the FPTP system. There is no reason for Labour to do anything for Wales, if it always delivers docile Labour MPs and a Labour dominated Senedd. The political attention & resources go to where the marginal seats are.
The Central Belt and Red Wall finally learnt this -- you have much more leverage if you are disloyal to Labour.
Who knows? Perhaps Wales will eventually.
I am hoping that events in Liverpool City Council with Joe Anderson's (ahem) "deals" will lead to a shake up - its solidly red though only 11 years ago was a LD stronghold with a sprinkling of old school liberals and Greens.... the corruption scandal may lead to a shake up...
Seeing as how it appears Queen Elizabeth's top personal governmental priority, has been establishing the monarch as focus and rally-point for the Commonwealth, this survey can NOT be good news for the Palace.
Methinks the way HM's no-brains twit-trust has mishandled the Meghan situation from the get-go, is seriously undermining the Queen's life work.
Mishandled it how? By allowing Meghan within five miles of the Royal Family in the first place?
They are two for two on Americans coming in and trying to ruin it.
IF your were charitable (admittedly NOT a major PB virtue) then you might argue that Wallis SAVED the monarchy, by ensuring that her boy-toy got the heave-ho BEFORE he could inflict serious damage.
As for Meghan, happen to agree with you re; the 5-mile limit.
BUT fact is, she & Harry got hitched despite the angst of family & ire of flunkies (or visa versa). AND the Palace did NOT deal with this reality at all well. Instead, just about as badly as they could.
Replicating in the process many of the same mistakes they made re: Diana.
Blaming the Duch of Sux over and over and over and over is no doubt emotionally satisfying. But useless as plan or policy.
We don't actually know that the Palace dealt with it as badly as they possibly could. Because we simply don't have all the facts merely a very carefully curated and edited version of Harry's version, a version which he admitted was untrue in one respect - the claim that they married 3 days before the actual wedding.
The belief that the fault is all on the Palace's side rests on the assumption that Harry and Meghan intended to make things work and tried their best and did absolutely nothing wrong. That is an assumption which needs testing not accepting without more.
Incidentally, he is now joining some commission to deal with misinformation in the media. While he is to be praised for his work on mental health, he would do well to think about what he says to the media before telling others off about misinformation. There are any number of things which he said in his recent and earlier interviews which would fall very clearly fall within any reasonable definition of misinformation. Stones and glasshouses .......
Never said it was "all" the Palace's fault. Just that they've dealt with it most stupidly.
Whatever the rights & wrongs, pros & cons, it's clear that Meghan as been running rings around the Palace.
Admittedly NOT among geezers, traditionalists & suchlike.
However, it would be BETTER for the Royals IF they did a bit LESS well with these groups, and a damn sight better with younger folks. And NOT just in UK, but world wide.
My guess is that the Buck House no-Brains Trust is trying to figure out how to deploy Will & Kate to good advantage. Say a major post-COVID royal tour of the Commonwealth?
I'm not at all sure H&M have run rings round the Palace at all. I was a bit of a fan of Meghan when she came on the scene. Now I feel as if I am being played by them. I particularly dislike the way private conversations are plastered across the media as well as vague accusations against unspecified people. The first seems to me to be untrustworthy; the latter dishonourable. I will be interested to learn the results of the legal firm's investigation.
I rather wish they just got on with their new - and apparently interesting - lives than endlessly sniping at the people they have left behind. That seems to me to be both sad and unkind. People who are contented in the choices they have made - especially when they involve a break with a previous life - don't usually spend their time constantly harping on about the past.
Spin-doctoring is a form of disinformation, if not downright misinformation. And has been a part of politics since before Brutus murdered the noble (or was it dispatched the tyrannical?) Caesar.
From international (and commonwealth) perspective, seems clear that Meghan has indeed been besting her foes in the PR game. AND she's had an impact with UK youth and people of color.
AND do you think the Palace has NOT been guilty of spinning like a top on this subject?
For example, am personally prepared to believe that Meghan can be (and was) a bully. However, has the Palace offered any actually evidence for this?
So Bucks House and H&M are both spinning their webs. Just seems to me that Meghan is WAY better at it. Just like Diana was.
Again, I do NOT like Meghan. Never have, thought she was bad news pretty much from the get-go.
Though at the time of the wedding, thought things would be ok, even a plus for The Firm.
Until they (with M's help no doubt) screwed up . . . ahem . . . royally.
Oh I'm sure the Palace do spin.
Re the bullying allegations, there is apparently going to be an independent investigation by a law firm so we will see what that says.
There is some evidence that H&M were perhaps not the best of bosses. Lots of their staff left, there was a big turnover and that has continued since they left the UK. When people cannot keep staff for any length of time, not even staff they've recently hired, it does suggest that there may be an issue with their man-management.
The Palace has said - rightly in my view - that this should be dealt with privately. Then we get to hear from friends of the couple about their private calls with Charles and William. Frankly, if that happened to me I would not have any call or letter because I would not be able to trust them.
When a person apparently falls out with their own family and their spouse's family and a number of friends and a lot of their staff, it just might be worth asking themselves whether they might be a teensy amount at fault rather than apparently claiming that everyone else is.
Anyway goodnight all.
That reminds me of my time at Goldman, where my two bosses were complaining about how they couldn't get good secretarial help: people were either terrible at the job, or they quit, and why couldn't Goldman HR just find someone great...
And I said... "hmmm... after 14 assistants in less than a year, you do have to start asking if it's the assistants that are the problem here..."
76% effective rather than 79, but still not fully analysed. So the figures are pretty well consistent with what they previously reported. The massive dump on them in the last day or so by regulators and commentators seems greatly overdone to me, even though I acknowledge they could and should have worded the PR more cautiously.
76% effective rather than 79, but still not fully analysed. So the figures are pretty well consistent with what they previously reported. The massive dump on them in the last day or so by regulators and commentators seems greatly overdone to me, even though I acknowledge they could and should have worded the PR more cautiously.
Did US regulators suspect that AZ's PR dept was trying to pull a fast one, playing fast & lose with data? That they were deliberately cherry-picking?
Realize that it is the duty of all good Brits to come to the aid of your pharma. And certainly think preponderance of evidence appears to be on AZ's side, in sense that, if it was offered to me (before I got Pfizered) I would take it for sure.
But wonder IF the company is indeed responsible for some of its own problems right now?
76% effective rather than 79, but still not fully analysed. So the figures are pretty well consistent with what they previously reported. The massive dump on them in the last day or so by regulators and commentators seems greatly overdone to me, even though I acknowledge they could and should have worded the PR more cautiously.
Did US regulators suspect that AZ's PR dept was trying to pull a fast one, playing fast & lose with data? That they were deliberately cherry-picking?
Realize that it is the duty of all good Brits to come to the aid of your pharma. And certainly think preponderance of evidence appears to be on AZ's side, in sense that, if it was offered to me (before I got Pfizered) I would take it for sure.
But wonder IF the company is indeed responsible for some of its own problems right now?
No question, as I acknowledged in my comment above.
But the idea that they were “trying to pull a fast one”, and the amount of blowback they have taken on this, are absurd. They are still analysing the data, a process which necessarily takes time, and any submission to the FDA for approval will include all the data. The effect of the earlier, slightly optimistic PR on that will be zero.
And when they said that emerging data was ‘consistent’ with the fully analysed interim results, they were not lying, and it is a stretch to describe it as more than marginally misleading.
If AZN’s PR has been poor, then so has that of regulators and medical professionals whose gross overreaction has provided significant ammunition for antivaxers. Responsibility cuts both ways.
76% effective rather than 79, but still not fully analysed. So the figures are pretty well consistent with what they previously reported. The massive dump on them in the last day or so by regulators and commentators seems greatly overdone to me, even though I acknowledge they could and should have worded the PR more cautiously.
Of course it's overdone.
AZN is safe and effective.
*However*, AZN management has done an appalling job of managing the process: from the initial fuck ups with dosing, to being rejected for authorization in Switzerland, to threatening to sue a trial member in India, to Macron's comments, to being withdrawn from use in South Africa.
The problem is that AZ/Oxford has an image problem. And when you have an image problem, you suffer from people (particularly journalists and the like) seeking confirmation bias. Image problems cause image problems cause image problems. It will only
76% effective rather than 79, but still not fully analysed. So the figures are pretty well consistent with what they previously reported. The massive dump on them in the last day or so by regulators and commentators seems greatly overdone to me, even though I acknowledge they could and should have worded the PR more cautiously.
Of course it's overdone.
AZN is safe and effective.
*However*, AZN management has done an appalling job of managing the process: from the initial fuck ups with dosing, to being rejected for authorization in Switzerland, to threatening to sue a trial member in India, to Macron's comments, to being withdrawn from use in South Africa.
The problem is that AZ/Oxford has an image problem. And when you have an image problem, you suffer from people (particularly journalists and the like) seeking confirmation bias. Image problems cause image problems cause image problems. It will only
Again, of course. But I am pushing back at a narrative which is false. And which regulators and medical professionals have publicly contributed to.
I just can't see any pub doing it. What pub that has been closed off and on for nearly a year is going to turn down business, and that's before the issue of trying to tell the public who are gagging to get back down the pub, sorry lad, your names not down your not coming in. There will be riots.
I just can't see any pub doing it. What pub that has been closed off and on for nearly a year is going to turn down business, and that's before the issue of trying to tell the public who are gagging to get back down the pub, sorry lad, your names not down your not coming in. There will be riots.
The only ones I can imagine doing it are small ones with lots of reliable elderly regulars who don't want someone taking the piss and risking their safety. But if that's what the landlord and the regulars want that should be their free choice, the others will choose differently.
According to thr Guardian, the trade-off Johnson is considering is that pubs that insist will be allowed to waive social distancing, while it would remain legally required in pubs open to all. Would that be acceptable to you, or do you feel that indoor crowding is fine regardless?
I can't really see many pubs making social distancing work - round here you could only get about 20 punters in 2 metres apart.
No, absolutely not to this utterly stupid suggestion.
Daughter completely opposed to this. Neither her nor any of her employees will be vaccinated by then. If you don't need a vaccination to work in a pub you don't need one to drink in it. She cannot afford the staff to go round doing tests, demanding certificates or anything else. And people want to go to pubs to enjoy themselves not be treated as if they're at some out patients clinic.
Lift the restrictions and allow publicans to run their businesses as they see fit. This endless micro-managing by people who have no understanding of this - or any other - business has got to stop.
We were told that once deaths and cases were down restrictions would be lifted. They are down and will be even lower by May let alone by the end of June. So enough with the restrictions.
It feels - and has for some time - felt that somewhere in government they are deliberately targeting pubs so as to make them unviable, regardless of Covid. Look at the nonsense re not allowing them to sell takeaway alcohol, even now, for instance, and the pitiful support given to wet led pubs.
If this sort of nonsense continues Daughter is simply going to close her business. There is no point continuing if the government makes it impossible for her to trade profitably. It's been in the balance for a while.She's been holding on and on and on. But stuff like this being canvassed - let alone introduced - is just another kick in the teeth.
For what it's worth, personally think that hospitality workers SHOULD get priority for vaccination.
Note that in WA State (and no doubt other places) similar priority now for grocery store workers. Who are clearly essentially workers, at least for the 99.46% of us who like to eat semi-regularly.
Bar & restaurant workers may NOT be as essential (though you & daughter may disagree) but IF bars & etc. are going to open on a significant basis, then staff should be protected the best way possible.
And that's with a jab or two.
The USA seems to have tonnes of "priority" groups, and loads of even youngish people I follow on twitter are getting vaxxed there. But yet your vaccination rates are behind the UK. The collorary is there must be vast swathes of people who aren't bothering in a scale that simply isn't happening in the UK
76% effective rather than 79, but still not fully analysed. So the figures are pretty well consistent with what they previously reported. The massive dump on them in the last day or so by regulators and commentators seems greatly overdone to me, even though I acknowledge they could and should have worded the PR more cautiously.
Of course it's overdone.
AZN is safe and effective.
*However*, AZN management has done an appalling job of managing the process: from the initial fuck ups with dosing, to being rejected for authorization in Switzerland, to threatening to sue a trial member in India, to Macron's comments, to being withdrawn from use in South Africa.
The problem is that AZ/Oxford has an image problem. And when you have an image problem, you suffer from people (particularly journalists and the like) seeking confirmation bias. Image problems cause image problems cause image problems. It will only
AZN has a problem. It is not just taking on the problems we are aware of, but the American capitalist model. A Vaccine or any medical treatment, that is not for profit, is far more dangerous than Covid and must be stopped at any cost. We are just observing the lengths that big pharma is prepared to go to to protect their profits.
On topic I have a sense, just a sense, that we may have passed peak Boris and trough Nicola.
Nicola appears to have weathered the storm and, by heck, she's a survivor isn't she? A very very tough politician. Formidable.
Boris, meanwhile, seems to me to have lost some of his vaccine lustre. Why so? Well, there's no point vaccinating the population only to move the goalposts on easing of restrictions. We were promised a green light back to normality but now, unlike Israel, all we're getting is scaremongering and the early signs (again) of promises to be reneged on. Foreign holidays is one. Vaccine passports to have a pub pint another.
The row with the EU and vaccine supply drop has also turned ugly. It's all very well crowing about our own stunning success story but this is suddenly looking a little less clever. To be fair to Boris, he has been measured in his dealings with the EU over this. But it's still a mess, with our semi-British AZN project shining a little less brightly. A lot of this is Europe's fault but not all.
Then there's the NHS pay offer. Whatever the sound reasons, a 1% rise looked and sounded like a kick in the teeth. And, lo and behold, NHS Scotland have just been offered 4%.
I sense peak Boris has passed. And so has trough Nicola.
Now is the time to flutter on the SNP ... and independence.
On topic I have a sense, just a sense, that we may have passed peak Boris and trough Nicola.
Nicola appears to have weathered the storm and, by heck, she's a survivor isn't she? A very very tough politician. Formidable.
Boris, meanwhile, seems to me to have lost some of his vaccine lustre. Why so? Well, there's no point vaccinating the population only to move the goalposts on easing of restrictions. We were promised a green light back to normality but now, unlike Israel, all we're getting is scaremongering and the early signs (again) of promises to be reneged on. Foreign holidays is one. Vaccine passports to have a pub pint another.
The row with the EU and vaccine supply drop has also turned ugly. It's all very well crowing about our own stunning success story but this is suddenly looking a little less clever. To be fair to Boris, he has been measured in his dealings with the EU over this. But it's still a mess, with our semi-British AZN project shining a little less brightly. A lot of this is Europe's fault but not all.
Then there's the NHS pay offer. Whatever the sound reasons, a 1% rise looked and sounded like a kick in the teeth. And, lo and behold, NHS Scotland have just been offered 4%.
I sense peak Boris has passed. And so has trough Nicola.
Now is the time to flutter on the SNP ... and independence.
Peak Boris will be when the benefit of the vaccine programme delivers on the promise of a normal life. When people are back in pubs and restaurants with friends and family - and no worries that we will have to go through a shitty year like 2020-1 again.
When people can sleep properly again.
There will be plenty who have had their eyes opened to the real Nicola Sturgeon. And the Scotland that she represents is not all milk and honey.
One big - and unresolved - problem for The Firm, is Andrew.
Whose name was NOT mentioned (I think) in The Interview. BUT his malign stench hangs over this whole sorry business.
The difference between the Palace's approach to his Foul Lowness is is MARKED contrast, to their treatment of his nephew & niece-in-law.
For example, WHY is Andrew still HRH? When other royals have been stripped of THEIR titles for far, far less.
Without meaning to denigrate your opinions unduly, but can you remind me (i genuinely am not sure) of your background? Are you commenting on this as an American, with standard American views on things like the Royal Family, albeit perhaps with a greater interest than many in UK affairs.
Or as somebody with a strong British background who now lives in America?
Because looking at US commentary on things like the Royal Family from afar, it seems to be that they generally attribute far more importance to minor Royals outside of the direct main line of succession than is justified by the reality. And exaggerate the importance of the soap opera type aspects that sometimes come out, particularly from those slightly detached from the main family, to its ongoing position and popularity in the UK.
Just as traditionally (Trump undermined this) Americans have fiercely defended their Presidents as Head of state under criticism from abroad, even when they don't belong to their chosen party, so in the UK the vast majority of the population will rally around the institution of the monarchy when it is under attack.
People in the UK aren't averse to having a joke about the Royals, but they dislike it when people do from abroad.
Am an American, with just a smidgen of English in me, mostly Irish (hence the moniker), Scots Irish & German.
My views are based on fairly wide historical study. AND my point is NOT to attack the Queen in particular, or the monarchy in general.
Instead, my point is that they are VERY POORLY SERVED by their alleged servants.
Think you are correct re: minor royals. However, note that, unlike continental monarchies, The Firm has been HIGHLY resistant to downgrading the swarm of ne'er do wells and no accounts clustered around the Windsor honeypot.
So don't blame Americans for THAT!
A problem has been how the royal family has grown.
Fifty years ago it consisted of:
Elizabeth Philip Queen Mother Margaret Charles Anne Andrew Edward
Now only Margaret and the Queen Mother are no longer around but the four children have married and divorced multiple times, had children and their children have married and had children.
On topic I have a sense, just a sense, that we may have passed peak Boris and trough Nicola.
Nicola appears to have weathered the storm and, by heck, she's a survivor isn't she? A very very tough politician. Formidable.
Boris, meanwhile, seems to me to have lost some of his vaccine lustre. Why so? Well, there's no point vaccinating the population only to move the goalposts on easing of restrictions. We were promised a green light back to normality but now, unlike Israel, all we're getting is scaremongering and the early signs (again) of promises to be reneged on. Foreign holidays is one. Vaccine passports to have a pub pint another.
The row with the EU and vaccine supply drop has also turned ugly. It's all very well crowing about our own stunning success story but this is suddenly looking a little less clever. To be fair to Boris, he has been measured in his dealings with the EU over this. But it's still a mess, with our semi-British AZN project shining a little less brightly. A lot of this is Europe's fault but not all.
Then there's the NHS pay offer. Whatever the sound reasons, a 1% rise looked and sounded like a kick in the teeth. And, lo and behold, NHS Scotland have just been offered 4%.
I sense peak Boris has passed. And so has trough Nicola.
Now is the time to flutter on the SNP ... and independence.
Peak Boris will be when the benefit of the vaccine programme delivers on the promise of a normal life. When people are back in pubs and restaurants with friends and family - and no worries that we will have to go through a shitty year like 2020-1 again.
.
I think that misses my point. Your utopian vision may never happen. That's why I'm suggesting we may have just passed peak Boris.
On topic I have a sense, just a sense, that we may have passed peak Boris and trough Nicola.
Nicola appears to have weathered the storm and, by heck, she's a survivor isn't she? A very very tough politician. Formidable.
Boris, meanwhile, seems to me to have lost some of his vaccine lustre. Why so? Well, there's no point vaccinating the population only to move the goalposts on easing of restrictions. We were promised a green light back to normality but now, unlike Israel, all we're getting is scaremongering and the early signs (again) of promises to be reneged on. Foreign holidays is one. Vaccine passports to have a pub pint another.
The row with the EU and vaccine supply drop has also turned ugly. It's all very well crowing about our own stunning success story but this is suddenly looking a little less clever. To be fair to Boris, he has been measured in his dealings with the EU over this. But it's still a mess, with our semi-British AZN project shining a little less brightly. A lot of this is Europe's fault but not all.
Then there's the NHS pay offer. Whatever the sound reasons, a 1% rise looked and sounded like a kick in the teeth. And, lo and behold, NHS Scotland have just been offered 4%.
I sense peak Boris has passed. And so has trough Nicola.
Now is the time to flutter on the SNP ... and independence.
Peak Boris will be when the benefit of the vaccine programme delivers on the promise of a normal life. When people are back in pubs and restaurants with friends and family - and no worries that we will have to go through a shitty year like 2020-1 again.
.
I think that misses my point. Your utopian vision may never happen. That's why I'm suggesting we may have just passed peak Boris.
Hardly utopian. Everyone being jabbed is a great thing in of itself, but it hasn't yet brought about change. It's the change that will feed into polling change. Not so much until.
And Sturgeon is chaining herself to the anchor of the EU. Leaving the UK for that? Hardly a "utopian vision" they have laid out: prepared to kill your elderly, your infirm, in the name of The Project not losing face...
Interest-free government loans should be made available to help up to a million households buy electric cars over the next two years, the shadow business secretary, Ed Miliband, is to argue.
Focussing on the wrong thing, as ever. If government want to get a million electric cars on the road, what they should be investing in is electric vehicle infrastructure.
On topic I have a sense, just a sense, that we may have passed peak Boris and trough Nicola.
Nicola appears to have weathered the storm and, by heck, she's a survivor isn't she? A very very tough politician. Formidable.
Boris, meanwhile, seems to me to have lost some of his vaccine lustre. Why so? Well, there's no point vaccinating the population only to move the goalposts on easing of restrictions. We were promised a green light back to normality but now, unlike Israel, all we're getting is scaremongering and the early signs (again) of promises to be reneged on. Foreign holidays is one. Vaccine passports to have a pub pint another.
The row with the EU and vaccine supply drop has also turned ugly. It's all very well crowing about our own stunning success story but this is suddenly looking a little less clever. To be fair to Boris, he has been measured in his dealings with the EU over this. But it's still a mess, with our semi-British AZN project shining a little less brightly. A lot of this is Europe's fault but not all.
Then there's the NHS pay offer. Whatever the sound reasons, a 1% rise looked and sounded like a kick in the teeth. And, lo and behold, NHS Scotland have just been offered 4%.
I sense peak Boris has passed. And so has trough Nicola.
Now is the time to flutter on the SNP ... and independence.
Peak Boris will be when the benefit of the vaccine programme delivers on the promise of a normal life. When people are back in pubs and restaurants with friends and family - and no worries that we will have to go through a shitty year like 2020-1 again.
.
I think that misses my point. Your utopian vision may never happen. That's why I'm suggesting we may have just passed peak Boris.
Hardly utopian. Everyone being jabbed is a great thing in of itself, but it hasn't yet brought about change. It's the change that will feed into polling change. Not so much until.
.
The Tories led by 13% two weeks ago in the aftermath of the budget. Even if that was an outlier they were pushing to around 10%.
My point is, I am wondering if that may have been the peak. I'm not entirely convinced they will again attain those dizzy heights in this Parliament.
Incidentally, your hyperbole about the EU may have resonance but I'm also sensing over the last few days that the EU are equipping themselves better. There are some good articles about it on the BBC and Sky today.
So I also think trough EU may have passed.
I'll spell it out again, because I think this has betting implications, I sense things have changed in the political landscape.
I'm not at the moment a particularly great fan of the EU but there are some good points in those pieces. Mark's hyperbole is not entirely fair or appropriate.
I also think it's undeniable that the UK could have done its own thing on vaccines whilst still being in the EU. We would have been in a true Win-Win had we done so: inside the EU and thus vetoing any nonsense from von der Leyen, whilst going our own way on procurements. Germany has struck its own deal with Pfizer which is strictly speaking not permitted.
I don't think we ever quite got it that the best thing to do with the EU instead of railing against it was to be as independent as we liked whilst reaping all the considerable benefits. That's what France and Germany do when it suits them.
Seeing as how it appears Queen Elizabeth's top personal governmental priority, has been establishing the monarch as focus and rally-point for the Commonwealth, this survey can NOT be good news for the Palace.
Methinks the way HM's no-brains twit-trust has mishandled the Meghan situation from the get-go, is seriously undermining the Queen's life work.
Mishandled it how? By allowing Meghan within five miles of the Royal Family in the first place?
They are two for two on Americans coming in and trying to ruin it.
IF your were charitable (admittedly NOT a major PB virtue) then you might argue that Wallis SAVED the monarchy, by ensuring that her boy-toy got the heave-ho BEFORE he could inflict serious damage.
As for Meghan, happen to agree with you re; the 5-mile limit.
BUT fact is, she & Harry got hitched despite the angst of family & ire of flunkies (or visa versa). AND the Palace did NOT deal with this reality at all well. Instead, just about as badly as they could.
Replicating in the process many of the same mistakes they made re: Diana.
Blaming the Duch of Sux over and over and over and over is no doubt emotionally satisfying. But useless as plan or policy.
We don't actually know that the Palace dealt with it as badly as they possibly could. Because we simply don't have all the facts merely a very carefully curated and edited version of Harry's version, a version which he admitted was untrue in one respect - the claim that they married 3 days before the actual wedding.
The belief that the fault is all on the Palace's side rests on the assumption that Harry and Meghan intended to make things work and tried their best and did absolutely nothing wrong. That is an assumption which needs testing not accepting without more.
Incidentally, he is now joining some commission to deal with misinformation in the media. While he is to be praised for his work on mental health, he would do well to think about what he says to the media before telling others off about misinformation. There are any number of things which he said in his recent and earlier interviews which would fall very clearly fall within any reasonable definition of misinformation. Stones and glasshouses .......
Never said it was "all" the Palace's fault. Just that they've dealt with it most stupidly.
Whatever the rights & wrongs, pros & cons, it's clear that Meghan as been running rings around the Palace.
Admittedly NOT among geezers, traditionalists & suchlike.
However, it would be BETTER for the Royals IF they did a bit LESS well with these groups, and a damn sight better with younger folks. And NOT just in UK, but world wide.
My guess is that the Buck House no-Brains Trust is trying to figure out how to deploy Will & Kate to good advantage. Say a major post-COVID royal tour of the Commonwealth?
I'm not at all sure H&M have run rings round the Palace at all. I was a bit of a fan of Meghan when she came on the scene. Now I feel as if I am being played by them. I particularly dislike the way private conversations are plastered across the media as well as vague accusations against unspecified people. The first seems to me to be untrustworthy; the latter dishonourable. I will be interested to learn the results of the legal firm's investigation.
I rather wish they just got on with their new - and apparently interesting - lives than endlessly sniping at the people they have left behind. That seems to me to be both sad and unkind. People who are contented in the choices they have made - especially when they involve a break with a previous life - don't usually spend their time constantly harping on about the past.
Spin-doctoring is a form of disinformation, if not downright misinformation. And has been a part of politics since before Brutus murdered the noble (or was it dispatched the tyrannical?) Caesar.
From international (and commonwealth) perspective, seems clear that Meghan has indeed been besting her foes in the PR game. AND she's had an impact with UK youth and people of color.
AND do you think the Palace has NOT been guilty of spinning like a top on this subject?
For example, am personally prepared to believe that Meghan can be (and was) a bully. However, has the Palace offered any actually evidence for this?
So Bucks House and H&M are both spinning their webs. Just seems to me that Meghan is WAY better at it. Just like Diana was.
Again, I do NOT like Meghan. Never have, thought she was bad news pretty much from the get-go.
Though at the time of the wedding, thought things would be ok, even a plus for The Firm.
Until they (with M's help no doubt) screwed up . . . ahem . . . royally.
Oh I'm sure the Palace do spin.
Re the bullying allegations, there is apparently going to be an independent investigation by a law firm so we will see what that says.
There is some evidence that H&M were perhaps not the best of bosses. Lots of their staff left, there was a big turnover and that has continued since they left the UK. When people cannot keep staff for any length of time, not even staff they've recently hired, it does suggest that there may be an issue with their man-management.
The Palace has said - rightly in my view - that this should be dealt with privately. Then we get to hear from friends of the couple about their private calls with Charles and William. Frankly, if that happened to me I would not have any call or letter because I would not be able to trust them.
When a person apparently falls out with their own family and their spouse's family and a number of friends and a lot of their staff, it just might be worth asking themselves whether they might be a teensy amount at fault rather than apparently claiming that everyone else is.
Anyway goodnight all.
That reminds me of my time at Goldman, where my two bosses were complaining about how they couldn't get good secretarial help: people were either terrible at the job, or they quit, and why couldn't Goldman HR just find someone great...
And I said... "hmmm... after 14 assistants in less than a year, you do have to start asking if it's the assistants that are the problem here..."
Then they found one who stayed for a bit, and when they went through the annual budgets realised she was getting paid £100k a year, and asked HR why they were spending so much on a damn secretary?
One big - and unresolved - problem for The Firm, is Andrew.
Whose name was NOT mentioned (I think) in The Interview. BUT his malign stench hangs over this whole sorry business.
The difference between the Palace's approach to his Foul Lowness is is MARKED contrast, to their treatment of his nephew & niece-in-law.
For example, WHY is Andrew still HRH? When other royals have been stripped of THEIR titles for far, far less.
Without meaning to denigrate your opinions unduly, but can you remind me (i genuinely am not sure) of your background? Are you commenting on this as an American, with standard American views on things like the Royal Family, albeit perhaps with a greater interest than many in UK affairs.
Or as somebody with a strong British background who now lives in America?
Because looking at US commentary on things like the Royal Family from afar, it seems to be that they generally attribute far more importance to minor Royals outside of the direct main line of succession than is justified by the reality. And exaggerate the importance of the soap opera type aspects that sometimes come out, particularly from those slightly detached from the main family, to its ongoing position and popularity in the UK.
Just as traditionally (Trump undermined this) Americans have fiercely defended their Presidents as Head of state under criticism from abroad, even when they don't belong to their chosen party, so in the UK the vast majority of the population will rally around the institution of the monarchy when it is under attack.
People in the UK aren't averse to having a joke about the Royals, but they dislike it when people do from abroad.
Am an American, with just a smidgen of English in me, mostly Irish (hence the moniker), Scots Irish & German.
My views are based on fairly wide historical study. AND my point is NOT to attack the Queen in particular, or the monarchy in general.
Instead, my point is that they are VERY POORLY SERVED by their alleged servants.
Think you are correct re: minor royals. However, note that, unlike continental monarchies, The Firm has been HIGHLY resistant to downgrading the swarm of ne'er do wells and no accounts clustered around the Windsor honeypot.
So don't blame Americans for THAT!
A problem has been how the royal family has grown.
Fifty years ago it consisted of:
Elizabeth Philip Queen Mother Margaret Charles Anne Andrew Edward
Now only Margaret and the Queen Mother are no longer around but the four children have married and divorced multiple times, had children and their children have married and had children.
I'm not at the moment a particularly great fan of the EU but there are some good points in those pieces. Mark's hyperbole is not entirely fair or appropriate.
I also think it's undeniable that the UK could have done its own thing on vaccines whilst still being in the EU. We would have been in a true Win-Win had we done so: inside the EU and thus vetoing any nonsense from von der Leyen, whilst going our own way on procurements. Germany has struck its own deal with Pfizer which is strictly speaking not permitted.
I don't think we ever quite got it that the best thing to do with the EU instead of railing against it was to be as independent as we liked whilst reaping all the considerable benefits. That's what France and Germany do when it suits them.
How's that going for France and Germany right now?
On topic I have a sense, just a sense, that we may have passed peak Boris and trough Nicola.
Nicola appears to have weathered the storm and, by heck, she's a survivor isn't she? A very very tough politician. Formidable.
Boris, meanwhile, seems to me to have lost some of his vaccine lustre. Why so? Well, there's no point vaccinating the population only to move the goalposts on easing of restrictions. We were promised a green light back to normality but now, unlike Israel, all we're getting is scaremongering and the early signs (again) of promises to be reneged on. Foreign holidays is one. Vaccine passports to have a pub pint another.
The row with the EU and vaccine supply drop has also turned ugly. It's all very well crowing about our own stunning success story but this is suddenly looking a little less clever. To be fair to Boris, he has been measured in his dealings with the EU over this. But it's still a mess, with our semi-British AZN project shining a little less brightly. A lot of this is Europe's fault but not all.
Then there's the NHS pay offer. Whatever the sound reasons, a 1% rise looked and sounded like a kick in the teeth. And, lo and behold, NHS Scotland have just been offered 4%.
I sense peak Boris has passed. And so has trough Nicola.
Now is the time to flutter on the SNP ... and independence.
Peak Boris will be when the benefit of the vaccine programme delivers on the promise of a normal life. When people are back in pubs and restaurants with friends and family - and no worries that we will have to go through a shitty year like 2020-1 again.
.
I think that misses my point. Your utopian vision may never happen. That's why I'm suggesting we may have just passed peak Boris.
I think Johnson will ride the vaccination wave for a good while yet, but I do agree with you about Sturgeon having passed her trough - added to which, the Scottish Tories have badly overplayed their hand.
Let's hope they have taken the Scotty approach to engineering timescale estimates so that they can look like miracle workers.
Let’s hope so. But sadly I doubt it.
Here’s the issue, and it what you can’t see in photos. The bow and stern sections are both very much beached, at the front there’s 60-70m of bank higher than the 16m draught of the ship. https://twitter.com/marcelvandenber/status/1374821546225762308
They’re going to have to dredge a lot of bank out of the way, lose a lot of weight from the ship and get a lot of tugs to it. They had 7 or 8 tugs on it yesterday, and they didn’t come close to shifting it.
It’s 400m long and 59m wide, much bigger than most people can conceive - for any journalists reading, thats four Wembley football pitches laid end to end.
Let's hope they have taken the Scotty approach to engineering timescale estimates so that they can look like miracle workers.
...and justify their now massive fees!
Salvage teams when there’s a ship blocking the Suez Canal, are a bit like vaccine manufacturing plants during a global pandemic.
No matter what the price, it’s infinitely cheaper than any possible alternative. (There will be lots of marine salvage guys with no mortgages by next month!)
Interest-free government loans should be made available to help up to a million households buy electric cars over the next two years, the shadow business secretary, Ed Miliband, is to argue.
Focussing on the wrong thing, as ever. If government want to get a million electric cars on the road, what they should be investing in is electric vehicle infrastructure.
Yes, I think battery and car prices will continue to drop. What we need is a system of chargers that are universal, cheap and easy to use in places where houses and flats are. If restricted to houses with driveways, urban residents will find it difficult to adopt.
Interest-free government loans should be made available to help up to a million households buy electric cars over the next two years, the shadow business secretary, Ed Miliband, is to argue.
Focussing on the wrong thing, as ever. If government want to get a million electric cars on the road, what they should be investing in is electric vehicle infrastructure.
Yes, I think battery and car prices will continue to drop. What we need is a system of chargers that are universal, cheap and easy to use in places where houses and flats are. If restricted to houses with driveways, urban residents will find it difficult to adopt.
Which would be a bit unfortunate given it’s in urban driving that electric vehicles really score over ICE.
Out of interest, how often does Nick even go into a pub? Perhaps he can tell us.
My guess .... rather rarely.
A policy of excluding lots of (unvaccinated) young people from pubs so that an elderly & nervous 71 year old can get a drink once a month is the most stupid policy I have heard for some time.
If Nick doesn't want to mingle with the unvaccinated, fine. That is his choice.
But, to suggest the entire rules are re-written to accommodate him is completely wrong.
You're missing the point. I'm not thinking of myself, or anyone in the older generation. The point is that we've all worked through more than a year of difficulty in order to FINALLY get the pandemic down to a low level., so risking a resurgence at the very tailend of that and finding ourselves all locked down again next winter seems bonkers for everyone. The point is not vaccinated people, or the death rate, but whether we should be perpetuating the pandemic just when we've got it down.
It's summer coming. Loads of people will be fine with drinking outside the pub. Give it a few months so we get the infection rate down to a few dozen a day, and then we can loosen up as the darker evenings approach. Remember that the scientists are predicting a new wave anyway - why would we deliberately set out to make that worse at exactly the time of year when indoor crowds are least needed?
Loosen up as the dark evenings approach? Stuff that.
The idea indoor crowds are not needed in the summer is madness. Yes it can be nice to drink outside in a summer's afternoon, but what happens when it starts raining? Or as it becomes night-time? People still want the option of going indoors, then going back outside when the weather allows.
Out of interest, how often does Nick even go into a pub? Perhaps he can tell us.
My guess .... rather rarely.
A policy of excluding lots of (unvaccinated) young people from pubs so that an elderly & nervous 71 year old can get a drink once a month is the most stupid policy I have heard for some time.
If Nick doesn't want to mingle with the unvaccinated, fine. That is his choice.
But, to suggest the entire rules are re-written to accommodate him is completely wrong.
You're missing the point. I'm not thinking of myself, or anyone in the older generation. The point is that we've all worked through more than a year of difficulty in order to FINALLY get the pandemic down to a low level., so risking a resurgence at the very tailend of that and finding ourselves all locked down again next winter seems bonkers for everyone. The point is not vaccinated people, or the death rate, but whether we should be perpetuating the pandemic just when we've got it down.
It's summer coming. Loads of people will be fine with drinking outside the pub. Give it a few months so we get the infection rate down to a few dozen a day, and then we can loosen up as the darker evenings approach. Remember that the scientists are predicting a new wave anyway - why would we deliberately set out to make that worse at exactly the time of year when indoor crowds are least needed?
Loosen up as the dark evenings approach? Stuff that.
The idea indoor crowds are not needed in the summer is madness. Yes it can be nice to drink outside in a summer's afternoon, but what happens when it starts raining? Or as it becomes night-time? People still want the option of going indoors, then going back outside when the weather allows.
Personal choice and freedom to decide.
If we can reopen schools without a huge surge in hospitalisations and deaths - and it looks as though we now can - there is no good reason to keep pubs shut.
On topic I have a sense, just a sense, that we may have passed peak Boris and trough Nicola.
Nicola appears to have weathered the storm and, by heck, she's a survivor isn't she? A very very tough politician. Formidable.
Boris, meanwhile, seems to me to have lost some of his vaccine lustre. Why so? Well, there's no point vaccinating the population only to move the goalposts on easing of restrictions. We were promised a green light back to normality but now, unlike Israel, all we're getting is scaremongering and the early signs (again) of promises to be reneged on. Foreign holidays is one. Vaccine passports to have a pub pint another.
The row with the EU and vaccine supply drop has also turned ugly. It's all very well crowing about our own stunning success story but this is suddenly looking a little less clever. To be fair to Boris, he has been measured in his dealings with the EU over this. But it's still a mess, with our semi-British AZN project shining a little less brightly. A lot of this is Europe's fault but not all.
Then there's the NHS pay offer. Whatever the sound reasons, a 1% rise looked and sounded like a kick in the teeth. And, lo and behold, NHS Scotland have just been offered 4%.
I sense peak Boris has passed. And so has trough Nicola.
Now is the time to flutter on the SNP ... and independence.
Peak Boris will be when the benefit of the vaccine programme delivers on the promise of a normal life. When people are back in pubs and restaurants with friends and family - and no worries that we will have to go through a shitty year like 2020-1 again.
.
I think that misses my point. Your utopian vision may never happen. That's why I'm suggesting we may have just passed peak Boris.
I think Johnson will ride the vaccination wave for a good while yet, but I do agree with you about Sturgeon having passed her trough - added to which, the Scottish Tories have badly overplayed their hand.
Yes, it looks as if Sturgeon is staying, and it's hard to see what more Salmond and his Tory allies can do to damage her. Worth looking again at those odds on an SNP overall majority?
One big - and unresolved - problem for The Firm, is Andrew.
Whose name was NOT mentioned (I think) in The Interview. BUT his malign stench hangs over this whole sorry business.
The difference between the Palace's approach to his Foul Lowness is is MARKED contrast, to their treatment of his nephew & niece-in-law.
For example, WHY is Andrew still HRH? When other royals have been stripped of THEIR titles for far, far less.
Without meaning to denigrate your opinions unduly, but can you remind me (i genuinely am not sure) of your background? Are you commenting on this as an American, with standard American views on things like the Royal Family, albeit perhaps with a greater interest than many in UK affairs.
Or as somebody with a strong British background who now lives in America?
Because looking at US commentary on things like the Royal Family from afar, it seems to be that they generally attribute far more importance to minor Royals outside of the direct main line of succession than is justified by the reality. And exaggerate the importance of the soap opera type aspects that sometimes come out, particularly from those slightly detached from the main family, to its ongoing position and popularity in the UK.
Just as traditionally (Trump undermined this) Americans have fiercely defended their Presidents as Head of state under criticism from abroad, even when they don't belong to their chosen party, so in the UK the vast majority of the population will rally around the institution of the monarchy when it is under attack.
People in the UK aren't averse to having a joke about the Royals, but they dislike it when people do from abroad.
Am an American, with just a smidgen of English in me, mostly Irish (hence the moniker), Scots Irish & German.
My views are based on fairly wide historical study. AND my point is NOT to attack the Queen in particular, or the monarchy in general.
Instead, my point is that they are VERY POORLY SERVED by their alleged servants.
Think you are correct re: minor royals. However, note that, unlike continental monarchies, The Firm has been HIGHLY resistant to downgrading the swarm of ne'er do wells and no accounts clustered around the Windsor honeypot.
So don't blame Americans for THAT!
A problem has been how the royal family has grown.
Fifty years ago it consisted of:
Elizabeth Philip Queen Mother Margaret Charles Anne Andrew Edward
Now only Margaret and the Queen Mother are no longer around but the four children have married and divorced multiple times, had children and their children have married and had children.
Seeing as how it appears Queen Elizabeth's top personal governmental priority, has been establishing the monarch as focus and rally-point for the Commonwealth, this survey can NOT be good news for the Palace.
Methinks the way HM's no-brains twit-trust has mishandled the Meghan situation from the get-go, is seriously undermining the Queen's life work.
Meghan is a toxic self-interested liar with an agenda and an inflated sense of victimhood
I expect the SNP to gain a small majority but not convinced about the mandate for indyref2
I think it is too close to call
The fun and games are just getting started.
What do you think's going to happen if the Welsh polls are anything close to accurate and Plaid ends up controlling the balance of power again - especially now that Labour has started actively promoting pro-independence candidates?
Yep, we're going to have both the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments demanding votes on secession, loudly and continuously, at the same time. For five interminable years. Joy.
Wales doesn't want indy, they want attention
As for Scotland, Canada coped with Quebec, and Canada remains united. Hold your nerve, under fire, Sergeant Rook
A lot of people probably said the same kind of thing about Scotland two decades ago. Look where they are now.
The central issue I have with the maintenance of the Union is this: nearly half of Scotland voted to jack it in a few years back, and a substantial fraction of them loathe us. Why are we therefore expected to spend enormous amounts of time and enormous sums of money holding it all together. Why not just let them go?
I'm by no means certain that Wales will go the same way, but it has to be counted as a decent chance. If Labour doesn't think there's a lot of mileage to be made out of nationalism then why does it select openly pro-independence candidates?
If the UK disintegrates then we get England back as an irreducible core. We can then have a quiet life. Why shouldn't we?
deluded thinking yet again, the reason they are clinging on to Scotland is fact they are ,milking us, your deluded hafwittery that England subsidises Scotland says it all, keep the English dumb and happy with lies that they actually finance Scotland. What utter bollox, if you lot are so great why are you crapping it re a referendum.
Seeing as how it appears Queen Elizabeth's top personal governmental priority, has been establishing the monarch as focus and rally-point for the Commonwealth, this survey can NOT be good news for the Palace.
Methinks the way HM's no-brains twit-trust has mishandled the Meghan situation from the get-go, is seriously undermining the Queen's life work.
Meghan is a toxic self-interested liar with an agenda and an inflated sense of victimhood
There’s nothing the Palace could have done
Do I get the feeling you are not altogether a fan of the Duchess of Sussex?
Seeing as how it appears Queen Elizabeth's top personal governmental priority, has been establishing the monarch as focus and rally-point for the Commonwealth, this survey can NOT be good news for the Palace.
Methinks the way HM's no-brains twit-trust has mishandled the Meghan situation from the get-go, is seriously undermining the Queen's life work.
Meghan is a toxic self-interested liar with an agenda and an inflated sense of victimhood
I expect the SNP to gain a small majority but not convinced about the mandate for indyref2
I think it is too close to call
The fun and games are just getting started.
What do you think's going to happen if the Welsh polls are anything close to accurate and Plaid ends up controlling the balance of power again - especially now that Labour has started actively promoting pro-independence candidates?
Yep, we're going to have both the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments demanding votes on secession, loudly and continuously, at the same time. For five interminable years. Joy.
Wales doesn't want indy, they want attention
As for Scotland, Canada coped with Quebec, and Canada remains united. Hold your nerve, under fire, Sergeant Rook
A lot of people probably said the same kind of thing about Scotland two decades ago. Look where they are now.
The central issue I have with the maintenance of the Union is this: nearly half of Scotland voted to jack it in a few years back, and a substantial fraction of them loathe us. Why are we therefore expected to spend enormous amounts of time and enormous sums of money holding it all together. Why not just let them go?
I'm by no means certain that Wales will go the same way, but it has to be counted as a decent chance. If Labour doesn't think there's a lot of mileage to be made out of nationalism then why does it select openly pro-independence candidates?
If the UK disintegrates then we get England back as an irreducible core. We can then have a quiet life. Why shouldn't we?
deluded thinking yet again, the reason they are clinging on to Scotland is fact they are ,milking us, your deluded hafwittery that England subsidises Scotland says it all, keep the English dumb and happy with lies that they actually finance Scotland. What utter bollox, if you lot are so great why are you crapping it re a referendum.
Morning Malc, glad to see you are in such a sunny and upbeat mood this morning.
I expect the SNP to gain a small majority but not convinced about the mandate for indyref2
I think it is too close to call
The fun and games are just getting started.
What do you think's going to happen if the Welsh polls are anything close to accurate and Plaid ends up controlling the balance of power again - especially now that Labour has started actively promoting pro-independence candidates?
Yep, we're going to have both the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments demanding votes on secession, loudly and continuously, at the same time. For five interminable years. Joy.
Wales doesn't want indy, they want attention
As for Scotland, Canada coped with Quebec, and Canada remains united. Hold your nerve, under fire, Sergeant Rook
A lot of people probably said the same kind of thing about Scotland two decades ago. Look where they are now.
The central issue I have with the maintenance of the Union is this: nearly half of Scotland voted to jack it in a few years back, and a substantial fraction of them loathe us. Why are we therefore expected to spend enormous amounts of time and enormous sums of money holding it all together. Why not just let them go?
I'm by no means certain that Wales will go the same way, but it has to be counted as a decent chance. If Labour doesn't think there's a lot of mileage to be made out of nationalism then why does it select openly pro-independence candidates.
If the UK disintegrates then we get England back as an irreducible core. We can then have a quiet life. Why shouldn't we?
Because we are an island nation, and putting borders down the middle is nuts (I accept the argument in Ireland is different). We share so much, we have been British for thousands of years (longer than we have been English Scottish or Welsh, indeed). It is madness to throw all that away in a spasm of resentment. We are arguably the most successful political union in history, shaping the world far in advance of our geographic or demographic salience
Nationalism is riding a wave, it does not mean it is always victorious. But, all four nations have desires that need addressing. Boris really should call a Grand National Convention to honestly discuss every alternative, to unitary government to outright separatism.
What must not happen is a vote-in-the-dark Sindyref 2 where the SNP get to say Oh indy, without actually offering concrete plans on currency, borders, army, bank, debt, EU membership, etc etc
On the other hand, the Union has to come up with positive reasons why we are all better as a united kingdom, Project Fear 2.0 will not work when the 2nd referendum comes around (which it will, eventually, just not anytime soon)
I'm English. I'm perfectly happy to be British too. I can see the strategic advantages to the UK. But not at any price, which, it increasingly seems, is what the English are being asked to pay, both financially and constitutionally. And quite honestly, it's embarrassing being in a country run like Scotland is run.
Another deluded halfwit that thinks he pays for Scotland rather than other way round. You would have been back living in caves if you had not robbed Scotland for the last 50 years.
Let's hope they have taken the Scotty approach to engineering timescale estimates so that they can look like miracle workers.
Let’s hope so. But sadly I doubt it.
Here’s the issue, and it what you can’t see in photos. The bow and stern sections are both very much beached, at the front there’s 60-70m of bank higher than the 16m draught of the ship. https://twitter.com/marcelvandenber/status/1374821546225762308
They’re going to have to dredge a lot of bank out of the way, lose a lot of weight from the ship and get a lot of tugs to it. They had 7 or 8 tugs on it yesterday, and they didn’t come close to shifting it.
It’s 400m long and 59m wide, much bigger than most people can conceive - for any journalists reading, thats four Wembley football pitches laid end to end.
Interest-free government loans should be made available to help up to a million households buy electric cars over the next two years, the shadow business secretary, Ed Miliband, is to argue.
Focussing on the wrong thing, as ever. If government want to get a million electric cars on the road, what they should be investing in is electric vehicle infrastructure.
Yes, I think battery and car prices will continue to drop. What we need is a system of chargers that are universal, cheap and easy to use in places where houses and flats are. If restricted to houses with driveways, urban residents will find it difficult to adopt.
Which would be a bit unfortunate given it’s in urban driving that electric vehicles really score over ICE.
Yes; that's my concern about an electric car. 10 or so months of the year it would be fine; maximum round trip, to eldest son's about 120 miles. However, every so often we go to Preston, or North Wales, and we want to visit the North East again, all of which are 200 miles plus. That's in normal times of course!!!!!! If I were to spend money on an electric car, would I be better off renting something for those odd journeys or relying on what I gather is an erratically available network of charging points.
On topic I have a sense, just a sense, that we may have passed peak Boris and trough Nicola.
Nicola appears to have weathered the storm and, by heck, she's a survivor isn't she? A very very tough politician. Formidable.
Boris, meanwhile, seems to me to have lost some of his vaccine lustre. Why so? Well, there's no point vaccinating the population only to move the goalposts on easing of restrictions. We were promised a green light back to normality but now, unlike Israel, all we're getting is scaremongering and the early signs (again) of promises to be reneged on. Foreign holidays is one. Vaccine passports to have a pub pint another.
The row with the EU and vaccine supply drop has also turned ugly. It's all very well crowing about our own stunning success story but this is suddenly looking a little less clever. To be fair to Boris, he has been measured in his dealings with the EU over this. But it's still a mess, with our semi-British AZN project shining a little less brightly. A lot of this is Europe's fault but not all.
Then there's the NHS pay offer. Whatever the sound reasons, a 1% rise looked and sounded like a kick in the teeth. And, lo and behold, NHS Scotland have just been offered 4%.
I sense peak Boris has passed. And so has trough Nicola.
Now is the time to flutter on the SNP ... and independence.
Sturgeon does not want independence, she is happy being cock of the walk, independence means she will be out on her arse. However there will be independence despite her best efforts.
I expect the SNP to gain a small majority but not convinced about the mandate for indyref2
I think it is too close to call
The fun and games are just getting started.
What do you think's going to happen if the Welsh polls are anything close to accurate and Plaid ends up controlling the balance of power again - especially now that Labour has started actively promoting pro-independence candidates?
Yep, we're going to have both the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments demanding votes on secession, loudly and continuously, at the same time. For five interminable years. Joy.
Wales doesn't want indy, they want attention
As for Scotland, Canada coped with Quebec, and Canada remains united. Hold your nerve, under fire, Sergeant Rook
A lot of people probably said the same kind of thing about Scotland two decades ago. Look where they are now.
The central issue I have with the maintenance of the Union is this: nearly half of Scotland voted to jack it in a few years back, and a substantial fraction of them loathe us. Why are we therefore expected to spend enormous amounts of time and enormous sums of money holding it all together. Why not just let them go?
I'm by no means certain that Wales will go the same way, but it has to be counted as a decent chance. If Labour doesn't think there's a lot of mileage to be made out of nationalism then why does it select openly pro-independence candidates?
If the UK disintegrates then we get England back as an irreducible core. We can then have a quiet life. Why shouldn't we?
deluded thinking yet again, the reason they are clinging on to Scotland is fact they are ,milking us, your deluded hafwittery that England subsidises Scotland says it all, keep the English dumb and happy with lies that they actually finance Scotland. What utter bollox, if you lot are so great why are you crapping it re a referendum.
We're not. Why do you feel the need to insult the English who are on your side about Scottish independence?
I expect the SNP to gain a small majority but not convinced about the mandate for indyref2
I think it is too close to call
The fun and games are just getting started.
What do you think's going to happen if the Welsh polls are anything close to accurate and Plaid ends up controlling the balance of power again - especially now that Labour has started actively promoting pro-independence candidates?
Yep, we're going to have both the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments demanding votes on secession, loudly and continuously, at the same time. For five interminable years. Joy.
Wales doesn't want indy, they want attention
As for Scotland, Canada coped with Quebec, and Canada remains united. Hold your nerve, under fire, Sergeant Rook
A lot of people probably said the same kind of thing about Scotland two decades ago. Look where they are now.
The central issue I have with the maintenance of the Union is this: nearly half of Scotland voted to jack it in a few years back, and a substantial fraction of them loathe us. Why are we therefore expected to spend enormous amounts of time and enormous sums of money holding it all together. Why not just let them go?
I'm by no means certain that Wales will go the same way, but it has to be counted as a decent chance. If Labour doesn't think there's a lot of mileage to be made out of nationalism then why does it select openly pro-independence candidates?
If the UK disintegrates then we get England back as an irreducible core. We can then have a quiet life. Why shouldn't we?
deluded thinking yet again, the reason they are clinging on to Scotland is fact they are ,milking us, your deluded hafwittery that England subsidises Scotland says it all, keep the English dumb and happy with lies that they actually finance Scotland. What utter bollox, if you lot are so great why are you crapping it re a referendum.
Morning Malc, glad to see you are in such a sunny and upbeat mood this morning.
Top of the morning ydoethur, nothing to beat getting up and reading pure bollox from a few halfwits before my first cup of tea.
Seeing as how it appears Queen Elizabeth's top personal governmental priority, has been establishing the monarch as focus and rally-point for the Commonwealth, this survey can NOT be good news for the Palace.
Methinks the way HM's no-brains twit-trust has mishandled the Meghan situation from the get-go, is seriously undermining the Queen's life work.
Meghan is a toxic self-interested liar with an agenda and an inflated sense of victimhood
Let's hope they have taken the Scotty approach to engineering timescale estimates so that they can look like miracle workers.
Let’s hope so. But sadly I doubt it.
Here’s the issue, and it what you can’t see in photos. The bow and stern sections are both very much beached, at the front there’s 60-70m of bank higher than the 16m draught of the ship. https://twitter.com/marcelvandenber/status/1374821546225762308
They’re going to have to dredge a lot of bank out of the way, lose a lot of weight from the ship and get a lot of tugs to it. They had 7 or 8 tugs on it yesterday, and they didn’t come close to shifting it.
It’s 400m long and 59m wide, much bigger than most people can conceive - for any journalists reading, thats four Wembley football pitches laid end to end.
Or, 1/880,000 the size of Wales.
make a good bet - how many days till traffic restored to normal. I'm thinking 5 days minimum
On topic I have a sense, just a sense, that we may have passed peak Boris and trough Nicola.
Nicola appears to have weathered the storm and, by heck, she's a survivor isn't she? A very very tough politician. Formidable.
Boris, meanwhile, seems to me to have lost some of his vaccine lustre. Why so? Well, there's no point vaccinating the population only to move the goalposts on easing of restrictions. We were promised a green light back to normality but now, unlike Israel, all we're getting is scaremongering and the early signs (again) of promises to be reneged on. Foreign holidays is one. Vaccine passports to have a pub pint another.
The row with the EU and vaccine supply drop has also turned ugly. It's all very well crowing about our own stunning success story but this is suddenly looking a little less clever. To be fair to Boris, he has been measured in his dealings with the EU over this. But it's still a mess, with our semi-British AZN project shining a little less brightly. A lot of this is Europe's fault but not all.
Then there's the NHS pay offer. Whatever the sound reasons, a 1% rise looked and sounded like a kick in the teeth. And, lo and behold, NHS Scotland have just been offered 4%.
I sense peak Boris has passed. And so has trough Nicola.
Now is the time to flutter on the SNP ... and independence.
Peak Boris will be when the benefit of the vaccine programme delivers on the promise of a normal life. When people are back in pubs and restaurants with friends and family - and no worries that we will have to go through a shitty year like 2020-1 again.
.
I think that misses my point. Your utopian vision may never happen. That's why I'm suggesting we may have just passed peak Boris.
I think Johnson will ride the vaccination wave for a good while yet, but I do agree with you about Sturgeon having passed her trough - added to which, the Scottish Tories have badly overplayed their hand.
Yes, it looks as if Sturgeon is staying, and it's hard to see what more Salmond and his Tory allies can do to damage her. Worth looking again at those odds on an SNP overall majority?
Be interesting to see if Evans goes tamely or makes Sturgeon pay for her to be dragged through the courts. Also if the leaker is nabbed by police it will not be good for Sturgeon given who it is.
Comments
Occasionally I too have thought, oh FFS let them go. This is rank.
But we are all British and we are all better than this. We will endure. And this too shall pass.
And with these non-innovative but apposite thoughts I say goodnight, PB, goodnight
My guess .... rather rarely.
A policy of excluding lots of (unvaccinated) young people from pubs so that an elderly & nervous 71 year old can get a drink once a month is the most stupid policy I have heard for some time.
If Nick doesn't want to mingle with the unvaccinated, fine. That is his choice.
But, to suggest the entire rules are re-written to accommodate him is completely wrong.
Most of the Commonwealth nations are now republics anyway and the Commonwealth has a separate Secretary General, the monarch is merely titular head, the largest Commonwealth nations which continue to retain the Queen as Head of State, Australia, Canada, New Zealand etc, tend to be white majority still
Just not seeing it - literally!
Certainly nothing new about younger voters being more down on major institutions than older ones, including monarchy.
But still think that The Interview MUST have risen the numbers, esp. of young, who think that Royals are more racist than not.
The belief that the fault is all on the Palace's side rests on the assumption that Harry and Meghan intended to make things work and tried their best and did absolutely nothing wrong. That is an assumption which needs testing not accepting without more.
Incidentally, he is now joining some commission to deal with misinformation in the media. While he is to be praised for his work on mental health, he would do well to think about what he says to the media before telling others off about misinformation. There are any number of things which he said in his recent and earlier interviews which would fall very clearly fall within any reasonable definition of misinformation. Stones and glasshouses .......
It was scary reading the comments of the "expert" on Marr on Sunday, stating blithely that we, and indeed business(!), had "learned to live" with various low level restrictions and therefore there were little consequences from retaining them for a length period. If continuing restrictions are necessary in her eyes then fair enough. But don't let yourself off the hook by pretending (outside of your area of expertise) that there are no consequences of such a position.
Whose name was NOT mentioned (I think) in The Interview. BUT his malign stench hangs over this whole sorry business.
The difference between the Palace's approach to his Foul Lowness is is MARKED contrast, to their treatment of his nephew & niece-in-law.
For example, WHY is Andrew still HRH? When other royals have been stripped of THEIR titles for far, far less.
What I have said, since Monday, is that much vaunted EUROPEAN export ban won't happen and never was going to happen. And it won't happen.
Whatever the rights & wrongs, pros & cons, it's clear that Meghan as been running rings around the Palace.
Admittedly NOT among geezers, traditionalists & suchlike.
However, it would be BETTER for the Royals IF they did a bit LESS well with these groups, and a damn sight better with younger folks. And NOT just in UK, but world wide.
My guess is that the Buck House no-Brains Trust is trying to figure out how to deploy Will & Kate to good advantage. Say a major post-COVID royal tour of the Commonwealth?
Seriously though it is possible but the a470 is seriously hard work. Wales's geography just does not lend itself to a motorway through the middle, or even a train line. Will never happen.
Maybe he is there 100% of the time.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56512691
Hope everyone is stoked for the Newfoundland and Labrador Provincial Election?
Thought so.
It's summer coming. Loads of people will be fine with drinking outside the pub. Give it a few months so we get the infection rate down to a few dozen a day, and then we can loosen up as the darker evenings approach. Remember that the scientists are predicting a new wave anyway - why would we deliberately set out to make that worse at exactly the time of year when indoor crowds are least needed?
Or as somebody with a strong British background who now lives in America?
Because looking at US commentary on things like the Royal Family from afar, it seems to be that they generally attribute far more importance to minor Royals outside of the direct main line of succession than is justified by the reality. And exaggerate the importance of the soap opera type aspects that sometimes come out, particularly from those slightly detached from the main family, to its ongoing position and popularity in the UK.
Just as traditionally (Trump undermined this) Americans have fiercely defended their Presidents as Head of state under criticism from abroad, even when they don't belong to their chosen party, so in the UK the vast majority of the population will rally around the institution of the monarchy when it is under attack.
People in the UK aren't averse to having a joke about the Royals, but they dislike it when people do from abroad.
Businesses have not learnt to live with restrictions. They have been shut down and stopped from doing business, kept on inadequate support, have in many cases closed down and their staff have been expected to live on 80% of their previous income, paid for by the government. Many have built up debts which will never be repaid.
The NHS has not been overwhelmed. Deaths and cases are down significantly and continuing to fall further. There is a good vaccination programme underway. Enough with the restrictions.
If the government goes back on its word (I know, I know) there will be anger and despair. Rightly so. The micro-managing bossy boots need to be told to take a running jump.
https://twitter.com/darranmarshall/status/1374869123495161856?s=21
To do so would be unseemly, verging on the unpatriotic, when one could be putting the boot into Harry and Meg.
Or fawning over "Kate's Cuties".
Not sure you can say the same for US Dept of Justice . . .
Wales suffers from systemic problems in public services, rampant corruption & cronyism, poor education & health services and a fragile, unstable economy.
But, worst of all — and so unlike Scotland — there is no sign of competent, inspiring political leadership plotting a way forward for the country out of the morass.
Wales seemingly cannot change its current trajectory. Any better option for Wales requires much better leadership, which is not available in any of the major parties.
It is hard to be positive for Wales.
In the short term, the removal of the Labour Party (who have governed Wales forever and done so very little) would be a start, but it is idle to pretend there is a much better option waiting in the wings.
Oh..."precious Union".
Forgot about that.
My views are based on fairly wide historical study. AND my point is NOT to attack the Queen in particular, or the monarchy in general.
Instead, my point is that they are VERY POORLY SERVED by their alleged servants.
Think you are correct re: minor royals. However, note that, unlike continental monarchies, The Firm has been HIGHLY resistant to downgrading the swarm of ne'er do wells and no accounts clustered around the Windsor honeypot.
So don't blame Americans for THAT!
I rather wish they just got on with their new - and apparently interesting - lives than endlessly sniping at the people they have left behind. That seems to me to be both sad and unkind. People who are contented in the choices they have made - especially when they involve a break with a previous life - don't usually spend their time constantly harping on about the past.
From international (and commonwealth) perspective, seems clear that Meghan has indeed been besting her foes in the PR game. AND she's had an impact with UK youth and people of color.
AND do you think the Palace has NOT been guilty of spinning like a top on this subject?
For example, am personally prepared to believe that Meghan can be (and was) a bully. However, has the Palace offered any actually evidence for this?
So Bucks House and H&M are both spinning their webs. Just seems to me that Meghan is WAY better at it. Just like Diana was.
Again, I do NOT like Meghan. Never have, thought she was bad news pretty much from the get-go.
Though at the time of the wedding, thought things would be ok, even a plus for The Firm.
Until they (with M's help no doubt) screwed up . . . ahem . . . royally.
You need to provide some evidence that the risk of allowing unvaccinated young people into pubs is a significant one.
I have no problem with you -- or other elderly people -- living a hermetic life in which you stay in your capacious property & have everything delivered. That is your choice. Fine.
Other people have different perspectives. Before you ban lots of activities for others, you do need to show that the risk you have identified is a real and substantial one.
FWIW, most young people I know are certainly flouting many of the existing rules. They have not cocooned themselves indoors in cotton-wool for months, waiting for Waitrose deliveries left on the steps in front of closed front-doors.
I think the suggestion that only vaccinated 50+ year old people can go to pubs is unfair and, yes, selfish.
I'm a Brit in America, and I must admit the US coverage is that H&M have been appallingly treated by HM.
By contrast, the UK coverage is the inverse.
I'm following the principle of not giving a shit.
Fifty years ago it consisted of:
Elizabeth
Philip
Queen Mother
Margaret
Charles
Anne
Andrew
Edward
Now only Margaret and the Queen Mother are no longer around but the four children have married and divorced multiple times, had children and their children have married and had children.
With yet another one today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eXsYVwSajQ
As for "been though far worse" well, that's what the Habsburgs & Hohenzollerns & Romanovs & etc., etc. used to say!
Though personally think the House of Windor-Mountbatten-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Hanover-What-Have-You will in fact endure.
That is indeed a malign consequence of the FPTP system. There is no reason for Labour to do anything for Wales, if it always delivers docile Labour MPs and a Labour dominated Senedd. The political attention & resources go to where the marginal seats are.
The Central Belt and Red Wall finally learnt this -- you have much more leverage if you are disloyal to Labour.
Who knows? Perhaps Wales will eventually.
Trumpsky's "defense" of Royals versus Meaghan is just another one of this infamous dog whistles.
Another way for him to play his (and Bannon's) favorite card - the race card.
Not their (the royals) racism, which personally think is WAY overblown. But Trumpsky's racism, which is not debatable.
Re the bullying allegations, there is apparently going to be an independent investigation by a law firm so we will see what that says.
There is some evidence that H&M were perhaps not the best of bosses. Lots of their staff left, there was a big turnover and that has continued since they left the UK. When people cannot keep staff for any length of time, not even staff they've recently hired, it does suggest that there may be an issue with their man-management.
The Palace has said - rightly in my view - that this should be dealt with privately. Then we get to hear from friends of the couple about their private calls with Charles and William. Frankly, if that happened to me I would not have any call or letter because I would not be able to trust them.
When a person apparently falls out with their own family and their spouse's family and a number of friends and a lot of their staff, it just might be worth asking themselves whether they might be a teensy amount at fault rather than apparently claiming that everyone else is.
Anyway goodnight all.
Some of the nation’s most popular governors have been knocked off their pedestals.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/24/trump-gop-governors-baker-hogan-scott-477718
For two reasons mostly
1. Since #45 is no longer president, therefore GOP governors like Hogan (Maryland), Baker (Mass) and Scott (Vermont) can no longer score points with Dems just by bashing You-Know-Who.
2. Less-than-stellar performance re: anti-COVID vaccinations in their states.
In context of first point, note that in WA State, the only Republican to win statewide office in 2020, incumbent Secretary of State Kim Wyman, was greatly helped with Democratic voters thanks to her opposition to Trumpsky's attacks on free & fair elections, especially her defense of mail voting.
IF she runs again in 2024, she will NOT have this going for her, not to same degree.
And I said... "hmmm... after 14 assistants in less than a year, you do have to start asking if it's the assistants that are the problem here..."
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/24/astrazeneca-vaccine-477946
76% effective rather than 79, but still not fully analysed. So the figures are pretty well consistent with what they previously reported.
The massive dump on them in the last day or so by regulators and commentators seems greatly overdone to me, even though I acknowledge they could and should have worded the PR more cautiously.
Realize that it is the duty of all good Brits to come to the aid of your pharma. And certainly think preponderance of evidence appears to be on AZ's side, in sense that, if it was offered to me (before I got Pfizered) I would take it for sure.
But wonder IF the company is indeed responsible for some of its own problems right now?
But the idea that they were “trying to pull a fast one”, and the amount of blowback they have taken on this, are absurd.
They are still analysing the data, a process which necessarily takes time, and any submission to the FDA for approval will include all the data. The effect of the earlier, slightly optimistic PR on that will be zero.
And when they said that emerging data was ‘consistent’ with the fully analysed interim results, they were not lying, and it is a stretch to describe it as more than marginally misleading.
If AZN’s PR has been poor, then so has that of regulators and medical professionals whose gross overreaction has provided significant ammunition for antivaxers.
Responsibility cuts both ways.
AZN is safe and effective.
*However*, AZN management has done an appalling job of managing the process: from the initial fuck ups with dosing, to being rejected for authorization in Switzerland, to threatening to sue a trial member in India, to Macron's comments, to being withdrawn from use in South Africa.
The problem is that AZ/Oxford has an image problem. And when you have an image problem, you suffer from people (particularly journalists and the like) seeking confirmation bias. Image problems cause image problems cause image problems. It will only
But I am pushing back at a narrative which is false. And which regulators and medical professionals have publicly contributed to.
But yet your vaccination rates are behind the UK.
The collorary is there must be vast swathes of people who aren't bothering in a scale that simply isn't happening in the UK
2. What has Andrew been convicted of?
Nicola appears to have weathered the storm and, by heck, she's a survivor isn't she? A very very tough politician. Formidable.
Boris, meanwhile, seems to me to have lost some of his vaccine lustre. Why so? Well, there's no point vaccinating the population only to move the goalposts on easing of restrictions. We were promised a green light back to normality but now, unlike Israel, all we're getting is scaremongering and the early signs (again) of promises to be reneged on. Foreign holidays is one. Vaccine passports to have a pub pint another.
The row with the EU and vaccine supply drop has also turned ugly. It's all very well crowing about our own stunning success story but this is suddenly looking a little less clever. To be fair to Boris, he has been measured in his dealings with the EU over this. But it's still a mess, with our semi-British AZN project shining a little less brightly. A lot of this is Europe's fault but not all.
Then there's the NHS pay offer. Whatever the sound reasons, a 1% rise looked and sounded like a kick in the teeth. And, lo and behold, NHS Scotland have just been offered 4%.
I sense peak Boris has passed. And so has trough Nicola.
Now is the time to flutter on the SNP ... and independence.
When people can sleep properly again.
There will be plenty who have had their eyes opened to the real Nicola Sturgeon. And the Scotland that she represents is not all milk and honey.
And Sturgeon is chaining herself to the anchor of the EU. Leaving the UK for that? Hardly a "utopian vision" they have laid out: prepared to kill your elderly, your infirm, in the name of The Project not losing face...
If government want to get a million electric cars on the road, what they should be investing in is electric vehicle infrastructure.
My point is, I am wondering if that may have been the peak. I'm not entirely convinced they will again attain those dizzy heights in this Parliament.
Incidentally, your hyperbole about the EU may have resonance but I'm also sensing over the last few days that the EU are equipping themselves better. There are some good articles about it on the BBC and Sky today.
So I also think trough EU may have passed.
I'll spell it out again, because I think this has betting implications, I sense things have changed in the political landscape.
https://news.sky.com/story/they-have-played-god-with-peoples-lives-the-story-behind-europes-astrazeneca-blame-game-12255905
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-52380823
I'm not at the moment a particularly great fan of the EU but there are some good points in those pieces. Mark's hyperbole is not entirely fair or appropriate.
I also think it's undeniable that the UK could have done its own thing on vaccines whilst still being in the EU. We would have been in a true Win-Win had we done so: inside the EU and thus vetoing any nonsense from von der Leyen, whilst going our own way on procurements. Germany has struck its own deal with Pfizer which is strictly speaking not permitted.
I don't think we ever quite got it that the best thing to do with the EU instead of railing against it was to be as independent as we liked whilst reaping all the considerable benefits. That's what France and Germany do when it suits them.
Smart chap, that Cameron guy.
Very few actually receive public funds.
One of the kerfuffles around H&M is that they are not having access to public money any more, which is quite right given their decision to walk away.
Very nice fascinator in the pic.
Dutch marine salvage team are on the way, but experts reckon it could be at least days if not weeks.
If you didn’t fill your tank with petrol yesterday, today’s probably a good time to do it.
https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1374942502684405761
Here’s the issue, and it what you can’t see in photos. The bow and stern sections are both very much beached, at the front there’s 60-70m of bank higher than the 16m draught of the ship.
https://twitter.com/marcelvandenber/status/1374821546225762308
They’re going to have to dredge a lot of bank out of the way, lose a lot of weight from the ship and get a lot of tugs to it. They had 7 or 8 tugs on it yesterday, and they didn’t come close to shifting it.
It’s 400m long and 59m wide, much bigger than most people can conceive - for any journalists reading, thats four Wembley football pitches laid end to end.
No matter what the price, it’s infinitely cheaper than any possible alternative.
(There will be lots of marine salvage guys with no mortgages by next month!)
The idea indoor crowds are not needed in the summer is madness. Yes it can be nice to drink outside in a summer's afternoon, but what happens when it starts raining? Or as it becomes night-time? People still want the option of going indoors, then going back outside when the weather allows.
Personal choice and freedom to decide.
There’s nothing the Palace could have done
It shows the lead continuing to widen.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election
That's in normal times of course!!!!!!
If I were to spend money on an electric car, would I be better off renting something for those odd journeys or relying on what I gather is an erratically available network of charging points.
Prevents infection
Overall: 79/76
65+ 80/85
Serious illness: 100/100
Death: 100/100
Which rather makes one wonder why the US authorities got so upset?