My view is that obsession over race is a phase that we need to go through before everyone starts mixing (lots of James Cleverly, Jessica Ennis-Hills, Chukas, Archies, Sunders etc.) and identifying with a common British heritage again.
The question is whether we can get through it without blowing ourselves up in the meantime, aggravated by the far-Left and state actors like China and Russia.
I see it more as a reckoning than an obsession, I think it's necessary and we'll emerge stronger and more at peace from it, and I think 'white privilege' and 'white fragility' are perfectly serviceable and insightful concepts and terms, but nevertheless I do see some dangers and downsides. We don't want to disappear down a rabbit hole and get endlessly introspective and angsty. And the West beats the totalitarian East as a place to live - any day of the week - so let's not forget that.
We don't need to do it because it already happened in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Such a waste of time.
Ok. Done deal then for you. But why do so many still think it's an issue?
Yet, the roll-out has inflicted enormous reputational damage on the EU, even if much of that damage has been fanned by a triumphalist UK press. Indeed, during this week’s summit, the Taoiseach reminded leaders about how exposed Ireland is to the anti-EU odium being pumped out of Fleet Street, and how demoralising it is.
There will be a long and painful inquest into how things might have been done differently, and it may well be that member states will need to grant more powers to Brussels as a result.
So it's all really our fault again, for writing things that Irish people choose to read
Anglophobia always goes down a storm in Ireland.
To be fair to the Irish any Anglophobia there maybe is understandable.
It's not so long since Tory politicians were quite relaxed at the thought of starving the Irish. And I#m not thinking of the 1840s famine.
The Irish were pretty relaxed about the Nazis destroying us, iirc. And the Soviets a few decades later for that matter.
The Irish were pretty relaxed about Irish people going over to Britain to blow up British children, until a few years ago. They are famously chilled in these matters.
Their government also did its best to frustrate our democratic decision of five years ago.
Their government also managed to be neutral on the greatest threat to civilisation and force of evil of the 20th century.
The royal family is racist, according to a poll of non-white voters that found many do not want the monarchy to continue.
The YouGov survey found many adults from ethnic minorities share the concerns voiced by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in their recent interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Ethnic minority Britons believe the royal family is racist by a margin of 43 per cent to 27 per cent.
The population as a whole thinks they are not racist by 55 per cent to 20 per cent.
In the interview, Meghan claimed a member of the royal family expressed “concerns” about what skin colour her son, Archie, would have.
When asked by Winfrey if the couple left the UK because of racism, Prince Harry said that “was a large part of it”. A few days after the interview, Prince William denied racism allegations, telling reporters: “We are very much not a racist family.”
But courtiers have revealed that efforts are already under way to improve the diversity of the royal household, which began before the interview.
Asked if Britain should “continue to have a monarchy in the future”, 43 per cent said it should, while 40 per cent would prefer an elected head of state, according to the poll of 504 people from ethnic minorities conducted a few days after the Winfrey interview.
Nearly half of interviewees — 49 per cent — said Harry and Meghan had been treated “unfairly” by the royal family, compared with less than a quarter — 24 per cent — who said “fairly”.
Anthony Wells, a director of YouGov, said: “Our polling of ethnic-minority attitudes suggests the royal family need to mend some fences.
“More optimistically, while ethnic-minority Britons have a generally negative perception of Charles and Camilla, the Queen herself, Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge all have strongly positive ratings.”
Overall, YouGov found 67 per cent felt positively towards the Queen.
Yet, the roll-out has inflicted enormous reputational damage on the EU, even if much of that damage has been fanned by a triumphalist UK press. Indeed, during this week’s summit, the Taoiseach reminded leaders about how exposed Ireland is to the anti-EU odium being pumped out of Fleet Street, and how demoralising it is.
There will be a long and painful inquest into how things might have been done differently, and it may well be that member states will need to grant more powers to Brussels as a result.
So it's all really our fault again, for writing things that Irish people choose to read
Anglophobia always goes down a storm in Ireland.
To be fair to the Irish any Anglophobia there maybe is understandable.
It's not so long since Tory politicians were quite relaxed at the thought of starving the Irish. And I#m not thinking of the 1840s famine.
The Irish were pretty relaxed about the Nazis destroying us, iirc. And the Soviets a few decades later for that matter.
The Irish were pretty relaxed about Irish people going over to Britain to blow up British children, until a few years ago. They are famously chilled in these matters.
Their government also did its best to frustrate our democratic decision of five years ago.
Their government also managed to be neutral on the greatest threat to civilisation and force of evil of the 20th century.
To be fair, there are very few governments that take a strong stance on pineapple pizzas.
My view is that obsession over race is a phase that we need to go through before everyone starts mixing (lots of James Cleverly, Jessica Ennis-Hills, Chukas, Archies, Sunders etc.) and identifying with a common British heritage again.
The question is whether we can get through it without blowing ourselves up in the meantime, aggravated by the far-Left and state actors like China and Russia.
I see it more as a reckoning than an obsession, I think it's necessary and we'll emerge stronger and more at peace from it, and I think 'white privilege' and 'white fragility' are perfectly serviceable and insightful concepts and terms, but nevertheless I do see some dangers and downsides. We don't want to disappear down a rabbit hole and get endlessly introspective and angsty. And the West beats the totalitarian East as a place to live - any day of the week - so let's not forget that.
The one glaring inequality of which very little discussion or calls for radical measures is, of course, class. Do we really think a very poor white person is inherently more privilege than a wealthy black person?
Bingo. It's almost universally very privileged university educated (of whatever race) who shout the loudest about the evils of wypipo.
CRT is going to cause monumental damage to relations in the UK. It imports wholesale an american culture war fight when it doesnt apply.
US has gone bonkers....women makes crazy statement that Piers Morgan is a definitely racist, not because he said anything racist, but because she felt his tone was racist. Another woman says hold on there, that's crazy, I know this person, he isn't racist..... klaxon goes off, your fired.
It's a blow to the cause of freedom of expression in the western world to not only lose Morgan, but now Osbourne too, but to me "racism" is just a cypher was what has actually driven this one. She was fired for the same reason she was hired - being Sharon Osbourne. It was an asset (for the show), now it's a liability. That's how it goes sometimes.
Never fear. Freedom of expression is alive and well ... for some:
https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1374385601504440331 To be clear, it’s not that most or even many of my interactions with white people are “bad”; it’s that I’m able to choose when to expose myself to interactions with potentially bad white people. That choice is a privilege I’ve never really had until this past year. Going out into white society for me is a little bit like a beekeeper going to get honey. I know what I’m doing: If I put on the right protection and blow enough smoke, most of the bees will leave me alone and the ones who don’t won’t really cause me that much pain. But I’ve got to put on the suit and the hat with the mesh and carry the smoke machine and be careful every time I want some goddamn honey. This year, it’s been like somebody said, “You know the honey comes in bottles now, right? You don’t have to risk being stung every time you want some food.”
"I want some goddamn honey". Very good!
Of course there are people - and sadly lots of them - whose perspective on racism in western post-colonial societies is so noddy and one dimensional that whenever they see something like this they go, "If a white person said that about black people, there'd be hell to pay! Why is this different?"
But as most on here know, I'm not one of those people.
We know, you don't believe in the equal and non-contingent application of universal principles. But some of us do.
You just refuse to engage with this issue on any level beyond the stupifyingly superficial. For a (very) bright bloke, I find it bizarre. For example, picking up on where we left off before, in a white majority dominant western country with a history of colonialism, imagine both of the following -
(i) A black person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be black.
(ii) A white person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be white.
Are these exact equivalents? Or is (ii) a rather different thing to (i) and more indicative of a racism problem?
To me, the answer is blindingly obvious. It's the latter. And tbh, if somebody can't see this, I don't think there is any chance of a productive conversation on the subject. All we can do is throw rocks.
They are exact equivalents if you believe in logic, reason and rational thinking.
Believing in rational thinking is good, I agree. And it's even better if you apply it.
You may be operating with a different definition of racism, but the definition was always judging someone solely based on the colour of their skin.
If a black person (the term to me is itself racist by the way) says he/she is proud to be black it implies that he/she thinks being black is better than being white. Therefore to that person every white person is judged inferior and therefore the person is being racist. Ditto the other example.
Again, this is assuming equivalent power within society. The reason that Anglo-Americans don't have a St George's Day parade down 5th Avenue is that they have always been at the top of the power structure.
The reason that it is not inherently racist for a Black or a Puerto Rican to be proud of their heritage is that, in the past, that might have been seen as some badge of shame, or lower social status.
It is interesting that most of those who feel a need to express their pride in being white are precisely those who do not feel themselves to be at the top of society's pecking order.
I don't share that view.
My view is that you can't change the colour of your skin - no matter what race you are - and discriminating on it is wrong in the absolute because otherwise you create injustice for individuals based on sociological views.
The royal family is racist, according to a poll of non-white voters that found many do not want the monarchy to continue.
The YouGov survey found many adults from ethnic minorities share the concerns voiced by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in their recent interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Ethnic minority Britons believe the royal family is racist by a margin of 43 per cent to 27 per cent.
The population as a whole thinks they are not racist by 55 per cent to 20 per cent.
In the interview, Meghan claimed a member of the royal family expressed “concerns” about what skin colour her son, Archie, would have.
When asked by Winfrey if the couple left the UK because of racism, Prince Harry said that “was a large part of it”. A few days after the interview, Prince William denied racism allegations, telling reporters: “We are very much not a racist family.”
But courtiers have revealed that efforts are already under way to improve the diversity of the royal household, which began before the interview.
Asked if Britain should “continue to have a monarchy in the future”, 43 per cent said it should, while 40 per cent would prefer an elected head of state, according to the poll of 504 people from ethnic minorities conducted a few days after the Winfrey interview.
Nearly half of interviewees — 49 per cent — said Harry and Meghan had been treated “unfairly” by the royal family, compared with less than a quarter — 24 per cent — who said “fairly”.
Anthony Wells, a director of YouGov, said: “Our polling of ethnic-minority attitudes suggests the royal family need to mend some fences.
“More optimistically, while ethnic-minority Britons have a generally negative perception of Charles and Camilla, the Queen herself, Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge all have strongly positive ratings.”
Overall, YouGov found 67 per cent felt positively towards the Queen.
US has gone bonkers....women makes crazy statement that Piers Morgan is a definitely racist, not because he said anything racist, but because she felt his tone was racist. Another woman says hold on there, that's crazy, I know this person, he isn't racist..... klaxon goes off, your fired.
It's a blow to the cause of freedom of expression in the western world to not only lose Morgan, but now Osbourne too, but to me "racism" is just a cypher was what has actually driven this one. She was fired for the same reason she was hired - being Sharon Osbourne. It was an asset (for the show), now it's a liability. That's how it goes sometimes.
Never fear. Freedom of expression is alive and well ... for some:
https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1374385601504440331 To be clear, it’s not that most or even many of my interactions with white people are “bad”; it’s that I’m able to choose when to expose myself to interactions with potentially bad white people. That choice is a privilege I’ve never really had until this past year. Going out into white society for me is a little bit like a beekeeper going to get honey. I know what I’m doing: If I put on the right protection and blow enough smoke, most of the bees will leave me alone and the ones who don’t won’t really cause me that much pain. But I’ve got to put on the suit and the hat with the mesh and carry the smoke machine and be careful every time I want some goddamn honey. This year, it’s been like somebody said, “You know the honey comes in bottles now, right? You don’t have to risk being stung every time you want some food.”
"I want some goddamn honey". Very good!
Of course there are people - and sadly lots of them - whose perspective on racism in western post-colonial societies is so noddy and one dimensional that whenever they see something like this they go, "If a white person said that about black people, there'd be hell to pay! Why is this different?"
But as most on here know, I'm not one of those people.
We know, you don't believe in the equal and non-contingent application of universal principles. But some of us do.
You just refuse to engage with this issue on any level beyond the stupifyingly superficial. For a (very) bright bloke, I find it bizarre. For example, picking up on where we left off before, in a white majority dominant western country with a history of colonialism, imagine both of the following -
(i) A black person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be black.
(ii) A white person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be white.
Are these exact equivalents? Or is (ii) a rather different thing to (i) and more indicative of a racism problem?
To me, the answer is blindingly obvious. It's the latter. And tbh, if somebody can't see this, I don't think there is any chance of a productive conversation on the subject. All we can do is throw rocks.
They are exact equivalents if you believe in logic, reason and rational thinking.
Believing in rational thinking is good, I agree. And it's even better if you apply it.
You may be operating with a different definition of racism, but the definition was always judging someone solely based on the colour of their skin.
If a black person (the term to me is itself racist by the way) says he/she is proud to be black it implies that he/she thinks being black is better than being white. Therefore to that person every white person is judged inferior and therefore the person is being racist. Ditto the other example.
No, Stocky, I think that's way too reductive and literal. You need some Captain Kirk as well as Mr Spock on this to get something meaningful.
I have to pop - but @IshmaelZ and @TimT have argued it very well imo. So I'd point you to their posts.
Yet, the roll-out has inflicted enormous reputational damage on the EU, even if much of that damage has been fanned by a triumphalist UK press. Indeed, during this week’s summit, the Taoiseach reminded leaders about how exposed Ireland is to the anti-EU odium being pumped out of Fleet Street, and how demoralising it is.
There will be a long and painful inquest into how things might have been done differently, and it may well be that member states will need to grant more powers to Brussels as a result.
So it's all really our fault again, for writing things that Irish people choose to read
Anglophobia always goes down a storm in Ireland.
To be fair to the Irish any Anglophobia there maybe is understandable.
It's not so long since Tory politicians were quite relaxed at the thought of starving the Irish. And I#m not thinking of the 1840s famine.
The Irish were pretty relaxed about the Nazis destroying us, iirc. And the Soviets a few decades later for that matter.
The Irish were pretty relaxed about Irish people going over to Britain to blow up British children, until a few years ago. They are famously chilled in these matters.
Their government also did its best to frustrate our democratic decision of five years ago.
Their government also managed to be neutral on the greatest threat to civilisation and force of evil of the 20th century.
To be fair, there are very few governments that take a strong stance on pineapple pizzas.
I once asked for sweetcorn on a pizza in the USA, many years ago as a young boy. The server was horrified.
US has gone bonkers....women makes crazy statement that Piers Morgan is a definitely racist, not because he said anything racist, but because she felt his tone was racist. Another woman says hold on there, that's crazy, I know this person, he isn't racist..... klaxon goes off, your fired.
It's a blow to the cause of freedom of expression in the western world to not only lose Morgan, but now Osbourne too, but to me "racism" is just a cypher was what has actually driven this one. She was fired for the same reason she was hired - being Sharon Osbourne. It was an asset (for the show), now it's a liability. That's how it goes sometimes.
Never fear. Freedom of expression is alive and well ... for some:
https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1374385601504440331 To be clear, it’s not that most or even many of my interactions with white people are “bad”; it’s that I’m able to choose when to expose myself to interactions with potentially bad white people. That choice is a privilege I’ve never really had until this past year. Going out into white society for me is a little bit like a beekeeper going to get honey. I know what I’m doing: If I put on the right protection and blow enough smoke, most of the bees will leave me alone and the ones who don’t won’t really cause me that much pain. But I’ve got to put on the suit and the hat with the mesh and carry the smoke machine and be careful every time I want some goddamn honey. This year, it’s been like somebody said, “You know the honey comes in bottles now, right? You don’t have to risk being stung every time you want some food.”
"I want some goddamn honey". Very good!
Of course there are people - and sadly lots of them - whose perspective on racism in western post-colonial societies is so noddy and one dimensional that whenever they see something like this they go, "If a white person said that about black people, there'd be hell to pay! Why is this different?"
But as most on here know, I'm not one of those people.
We know, you don't believe in the equal and non-contingent application of universal principles. But some of us do.
You just refuse to engage with this issue on any level beyond the stupifyingly superficial. For a (very) bright bloke, I find it bizarre. For example, picking up on where we left off before, in a white majority dominant western country with a history of colonialism, imagine both of the following -
(i) A black person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be black.
(ii) A white person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be white.
Are these exact equivalents? Or is (ii) a rather different thing to (i) and more indicative of a racism problem?
To me, the answer is blindingly obvious. It's the latter. And tbh, if somebody can't see this, I don't think there is any chance of a productive conversation on the subject. All we can do is throw rocks.
They are exact equivalents if you believe in logic, reason and rational thinking.
Believing in rational thinking is good, I agree. And it's even better if you apply it.
You may be operating with a different definition of racism, but the definition was always judging someone solely based on the colour of their skin.
If a black person (the term to me is itself racist by the way) says he/she is proud to be black it implies that he/she thinks being black is better than being white. Therefore to that person every white person is judged inferior and therefore the person is being racist. Ditto the other example.
Again, this is assuming equivalent power within society. The reason that Anglo-Americans don't have a St George's Day parade down 5th Avenue is that they have always been at the top of the power structure.
The reason that it is not inherently racist for a Black or a Puerto Rican to be proud of their heritage is that, in the past, that might have been seen as some badge of shame, or lower social status.
It is interesting that most of those who feel a need to express their pride in being white are precisely those who do not feel themselves to be at the top of society's pecking order.
I've never felt a need to express a pride in being White and the thought repels me.
I have felt a desire to express pride in being English on St. George's Day, and would welcome Englishmen (and women) of any race joining me in doing so.
The two are not related, and I would find it offensive if someone suggested they were.
The royal family is racist, according to a poll of non-white voters that found many do not want the monarchy to continue.
The YouGov survey found many adults from ethnic minorities share the concerns voiced by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in their recent interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Ethnic minority Britons believe the royal family is racist by a margin of 43 per cent to 27 per cent.
The population as a whole thinks they are not racist by 55 per cent to 20 per cent.
In the interview, Meghan claimed a member of the royal family expressed “concerns” about what skin colour her son, Archie, would have.
When asked by Winfrey if the couple left the UK because of racism, Prince Harry said that “was a large part of it”. A few days after the interview, Prince William denied racism allegations, telling reporters: “We are very much not a racist family.”
But courtiers have revealed that efforts are already under way to improve the diversity of the royal household, which began before the interview.
Asked if Britain should “continue to have a monarchy in the future”, 43 per cent said it should, while 40 per cent would prefer an elected head of state, according to the poll of 504 people from ethnic minorities conducted a few days after the Winfrey interview.
Nearly half of interviewees — 49 per cent — said Harry and Meghan had been treated “unfairly” by the royal family, compared with less than a quarter — 24 per cent — who said “fairly”.
Anthony Wells, a director of YouGov, said: “Our polling of ethnic-minority attitudes suggests the royal family need to mend some fences.
“More optimistically, while ethnic-minority Britons have a generally negative perception of Charles and Camilla, the Queen herself, Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge all have strongly positive ratings.”
Overall, YouGov found 67 per cent felt positively towards the Queen.
US has gone bonkers....women makes crazy statement that Piers Morgan is a definitely racist, not because he said anything racist, but because she felt his tone was racist. Another woman says hold on there, that's crazy, I know this person, he isn't racist..... klaxon goes off, your fired.
It's a blow to the cause of freedom of expression in the western world to not only lose Morgan, but now Osbourne too, but to me "racism" is just a cypher was what has actually driven this one. She was fired for the same reason she was hired - being Sharon Osbourne. It was an asset (for the show), now it's a liability. That's how it goes sometimes.
Never fear. Freedom of expression is alive and well ... for some:
https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1374385601504440331 To be clear, it’s not that most or even many of my interactions with white people are “bad”; it’s that I’m able to choose when to expose myself to interactions with potentially bad white people. That choice is a privilege I’ve never really had until this past year. Going out into white society for me is a little bit like a beekeeper going to get honey. I know what I’m doing: If I put on the right protection and blow enough smoke, most of the bees will leave me alone and the ones who don’t won’t really cause me that much pain. But I’ve got to put on the suit and the hat with the mesh and carry the smoke machine and be careful every time I want some goddamn honey. This year, it’s been like somebody said, “You know the honey comes in bottles now, right? You don’t have to risk being stung every time you want some food.”
"I want some goddamn honey". Very good!
Of course there are people - and sadly lots of them - whose perspective on racism in western post-colonial societies is so noddy and one dimensional that whenever they see something like this they go, "If a white person said that about black people, there'd be hell to pay! Why is this different?"
But as most on here know, I'm not one of those people.
We know, you don't believe in the equal and non-contingent application of universal principles. But some of us do.
You just refuse to engage with this issue on any level beyond the stupifyingly superficial. For a (very) bright bloke, I find it bizarre. For example, picking up on where we left off before, in a white majority dominant western country with a history of colonialism, imagine both of the following -
(i) A black person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be black.
(ii) A white person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be white.
Are these exact equivalents? Or is (ii) a rather different thing to (i) and more indicative of a racism problem?
To me, the answer is blindingly obvious. It's the latter. And tbh, if somebody can't see this, I don't think there is any chance of a productive conversation on the subject. All we can do is throw rocks.
They are exact equivalents if you believe in logic, reason and rational thinking.
Believing in rational thinking is good, I agree. And it's even better if you apply it.
Kinbalu, you're a ceaselessly reasonable poster, but I strongly disagree with you in this subject. Which appears to boil down to if you're white and English, you're irredeemably guilty and had better start apologising. Especially if you're alsi straight and male. Your rules don't appear to hold any other sub-groups to thhe same standard that you hold mine. As you say, let's not throw rocks about it. But I'd at least point out that your position is far from being as self-evident and widely accepted as you appear to think.
No, you've taken what I wrote - my specific example - and projected wildly from it. I was just trying to get people to see the nuance in this topic.
The royal family is racist, according to a poll of non-white voters that found many do not want the monarchy to continue.
The YouGov survey found many adults from ethnic minorities share the concerns voiced by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in their recent interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Ethnic minority Britons believe the royal family is racist by a margin of 43 per cent to 27 per cent.
The population as a whole thinks they are not racist by 55 per cent to 20 per cent.
In the interview, Meghan claimed a member of the royal family expressed “concerns” about what skin colour her son, Archie, would have.
When asked by Winfrey if the couple left the UK because of racism, Prince Harry said that “was a large part of it”. A few days after the interview, Prince William denied racism allegations, telling reporters: “We are very much not a racist family.”
But courtiers have revealed that efforts are already under way to improve the diversity of the royal household, which began before the interview.
Asked if Britain should “continue to have a monarchy in the future”, 43 per cent said it should, while 40 per cent would prefer an elected head of state, according to the poll of 504 people from ethnic minorities conducted a few days after the Winfrey interview.
Nearly half of interviewees — 49 per cent — said Harry and Meghan had been treated “unfairly” by the royal family, compared with less than a quarter — 24 per cent — who said “fairly”.
Anthony Wells, a director of YouGov, said: “Our polling of ethnic-minority attitudes suggests the royal family need to mend some fences.
“More optimistically, while ethnic-minority Britons have a generally negative perception of Charles and Camilla, the Queen herself, Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge all have strongly positive ratings.”
Overall, YouGov found 67 per cent felt positively towards the Queen.
Ancient history was never my strong point, but did Meghan actually say which member of the Royals was racist towards Archie? And if not, why not?
No and more to the point, when Harry was asked about it his answer suggested the comment was made when he first got together with Meghan rather than during the pregnancy.
Yet, the roll-out has inflicted enormous reputational damage on the EU, even if much of that damage has been fanned by a triumphalist UK press. Indeed, during this week’s summit, the Taoiseach reminded leaders about how exposed Ireland is to the anti-EU odium being pumped out of Fleet Street, and how demoralising it is.
There will be a long and painful inquest into how things might have been done differently, and it may well be that member states will need to grant more powers to Brussels as a result.
So it's all really our fault again, for writing things that Irish people choose to read
Anglophobia always goes down a storm in Ireland.
To be fair to the Irish any Anglophobia there maybe is understandable.
It's not so long since Tory politicians were quite relaxed at the thought of starving the Irish. And I#m not thinking of the 1840s famine.
The Irish were pretty relaxed about the Nazis destroying us, iirc. And the Soviets a few decades later for that matter.
The Irish were pretty relaxed about Irish people going over to Britain to blow up British children, until a few years ago. They are famously chilled in these matters.
Their government also did its best to frustrate our democratic decision of five years ago.
Their government also managed to be neutral on the greatest threat to civilisation and force of evil of the 20th century.
To be fair, there are very few governments that take a strong stance on pineapple pizzas.
I once asked for sweetcorn on a pizza in the USA, many years ago as a young boy. The server was horrified.
Could have been worse. There was a pizza takeaway in Aber that served all its Hawaiian pizzas with added sweetcorn.
My view is that obsession over race is a phase that we need to go through before everyone starts mixing (lots of James Cleverly, Jessica Ennis-Hills, Chukas, Archies, Sunders etc.) and identifying with a common British heritage again.
The question is whether we can get through it without blowing ourselves up in the meantime, aggravated by the far-Left and state actors like China and Russia.
I see it more as a reckoning than an obsession, I think it's necessary and we'll emerge stronger and more at peace from it, and I think 'white privilege' and 'white fragility' are perfectly serviceable and insightful concepts and terms, but nevertheless I do see some dangers and downsides. We don't want to disappear down a rabbit hole and get endlessly introspective and angsty. And the West beats the totalitarian East as a place to live - any day of the week - so let's not forget that.
The one glaring inequality of which very little discussion or calls for radical measures is, of course, class. Do we really think a very poor white person is inherently more privilege than a wealthy black person?
Bingo. It's almost universally very privileged university educated (of whatever race) who shout the loudest about the evils of wypipo.
CRT is going to cause monumental damage to relations in the UK. It imports wholesale an american culture war fight when it doesnt apply.
I think the only way to contest CRT is for the Government to tell public sector bodies and institutions not to do it, and resort to the law to stop them doing it in the extreme. Otherwise, they will carry on doing it. Sure, they'll get accused of "starting a Culture War" but that's the objection of those who don't want to be challenged.
One reason I've warmed (slightly) to this administration is that they've shown steel on this issue, whereas I think May/Cameron's administrations would have equivocated and/or largely rolled with it.
US has gone bonkers....women makes crazy statement that Piers Morgan is a definitely racist, not because he said anything racist, but because she felt his tone was racist. Another woman says hold on there, that's crazy, I know this person, he isn't racist..... klaxon goes off, your fired.
It's a blow to the cause of freedom of expression in the western world to not only lose Morgan, but now Osbourne too, but to me "racism" is just a cypher was what has actually driven this one. She was fired for the same reason she was hired - being Sharon Osbourne. It was an asset (for the show), now it's a liability. That's how it goes sometimes.
Never fear. Freedom of expression is alive and well ... for some:
https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1374385601504440331 To be clear, it’s not that most or even many of my interactions with white people are “bad”; it’s that I’m able to choose when to expose myself to interactions with potentially bad white people. That choice is a privilege I’ve never really had until this past year. Going out into white society for me is a little bit like a beekeeper going to get honey. I know what I’m doing: If I put on the right protection and blow enough smoke, most of the bees will leave me alone and the ones who don’t won’t really cause me that much pain. But I’ve got to put on the suit and the hat with the mesh and carry the smoke machine and be careful every time I want some goddamn honey. This year, it’s been like somebody said, “You know the honey comes in bottles now, right? You don’t have to risk being stung every time you want some food.”
"I want some goddamn honey". Very good!
Of course there are people - and sadly lots of them - whose perspective on racism in western post-colonial societies is so noddy and one dimensional that whenever they see something like this they go, "If a white person said that about black people, there'd be hell to pay! Why is this different?"
But as most on here know, I'm not one of those people.
We know, you don't believe in the equal and non-contingent application of universal principles. But some of us do.
You just refuse to engage with this issue on any level beyond the stupifyingly superficial. For a (very) bright bloke, I find it bizarre. For example, picking up on where we left off before, in a white majority dominant western country with a history of colonialism, imagine both of the following -
(i) A black person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be black.
(ii) A white person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be white.
Are these exact equivalents? Or is (ii) a rather different thing to (i) and more indicative of a racism problem?
To me, the answer is blindingly obvious. It's the latter. And tbh, if somebody can't see this, I don't think there is any chance of a productive conversation on the subject. All we can do is throw rocks.
Ok, instead of rocks, how about some elenchus? To start us off, could you explain the exact reason why you and I and civilized people the world over consider racism to be wrong in principle?
My question first. Do you truly and honestly see those things as equally indicative of racism*? Or do agree with me that (ii) is more so.
Because if you actually can see the difference we don't need to write a screed from first principles.
The two examples are identical in principle; the only difference between them is historical context. The question is whether it's worth sacrificing the former - which provides the fundamental moral basis for all anti-racism - for the sake of the latter. I happen to think that that is a trade that prioritizes a short-term potential gain at the price of a certain long-term loss.
They are only identical in principle if each group is equally represented in society, if each group has equal power in society, and if each person in each group receives equal personal respect.
None of these conditions for equivalence are met.
There is absolutely no need to sacrifice fundamental principles of respect for the individual and equality before the law/god/whatever in order to either recognize or address the very evident racial inequality issues we face.
We're not all Foucauldians, Tim. There's never going to be a perfectly equal distribution of power within society in any case, so the consequence of that argument is an eternal mechanism of social engineering that adjusts what particular groups of people are allowed to say and do based on past or present inequalities. The problem with that position - all too common today - is that once you declare that a moral principle no longer applies to a particular group because of historical or social context, then it ceases to be a moral principle at all. In building your house higher, you have dug up the foundations on which it stands.
Are the Welsh still leading the vaccination league table?
I assume so and out and about yesterday and today everywhere is teaming with people and cars and little compliance
IF infections and more importantly deaths and hospitalisations stay low that might be a positive thing
It could be
I have just watched a report from Tenby with locals upset with people driving 100 miles, and scared it will all start again
And of course that 100 miles would have to be within Wales, also the local businesses saying they cannot survive without the English visitors
Covid panic in seaside resorts exists and is doubtless genuine, but it's also baseless. We must remember at this juncture that we have been previously reassured, contrary to fears expressed during Spring and Summer last year, that there have been no recorded instances anywhere on Earth of Covid clusters being traced back to beach sunbathing, and I would imagine the same is true of people using parks, walking along promenades or up and down streets. Outdoor activity is, broadly speaking, safe.
The main thing I would be concerned with in these circumstances was so many people turning up at once that the roads, litter bins and public toilets proved unable to meet demand. Not about the Plague.
Local authorities and police might have to think about trying to restrict access/marshal people away from very busy areas for these reasons, but the irrational germ phobia that some people have should not be overindulged, or we shall never get out of the present mess.
If some residents of these honeypots are still shit scared of other people then they can always stay at home in the middle of the day themselves, and venture forth when it's quieter.
Their government also managed to be neutral on the greatest threat to civilisation and force of evil of the 20th century.
The Cranborne Report
Viscount Cranborne, the British Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, wrote a letter on 21 February 1945 to the British War Cabinet regarding Irish-British collaboration during 1939–1945:[59]
They agreed to our use of Lough Foyle for naval and air purposes. The ownership of the Lough is disputed, but the Southern Irish authorities are tacitly not pressing their claim in present conditions and are also ignoring any flying by our aircraft over the Donegal shore of the Lough, which is necessary in certain wind conditions to enable flying boats to take off from the Lough. They have agreed to use by our aircraft based on Lough Erne of a corridor over Southern Irish territory and territorial waters for the purpose of flying out to the Atlantic. They have arranged for the immediate transmission to the United Kingdom Representative's Office in Dublin of reports of submarine activity received from their coast watching service. They arranged for the broadening of reports by their Air observation Corps of aircraft sighted over or approaching Southern Irish territory. (This does not include our aircraft using the corridor referred to in (b) above.) They arranged for the extinction of trade and business lighting in coastal towns where such lighting was alleged to afford a useful landmark for German aircraft. They have continued to supply us with meteorological reports. They have agreed to the use by our ships and aircraft of two wireless direction-finding stations at Malin Head. They have supplied particulars of German crashed aircraft and personnel crashed or washed ashore or arrested on land. They arranged for staff talks on the question of co-operation against a possible German invasion of Southern Ireland, and close contact has since been maintained between the respective military authorities. They continue to intern all German fighting personnel reaching Southern Ireland. On the other hand, though after protracted negotiations, Allied service personnel are now allowed to depart freely and full assistance is given in recovering damaged aircraft. Recently, in connection with the establishment of prisoner of war camps in Northern Ireland, they have agreed to return or at least intern any German prisoners who may escape from Northern Ireland across the border to Southern Ireland. They have throughout offered no objection to the departure from Southern Ireland of persons wishing to serve in the United Kingdom Forces nor to the journey on leave of such persons to and from Southern Ireland (in plain clothes). They have continued to exchange information with our security authorities regarding all aliens (including Germans) in Southern Ireland. They have (within the last few days) agreed to our establishing a radar station in Southern Ireland for use against the latest form of submarine activity.
Quick calculation - we need to do 45m doses over the next 70 days to offer every eligible adult one or both doses before the final reopening step to allow for the final recipients some level of immunity. That works out to around 650k doses per day on average. I expect April will fall under that level by 3-4m (19.5m doses required) but May will be over the target by the same amount.
If we manage to do this then we could conceivably ensure 100% of adults have been offered it, 90-95% of people have had it and only 6 weeks of jabbing necessary after the June reopening taking us to the end of July for the programme to complete and for phase 3 to start (kids) over the summer with a single AZ dose and then phase 4 in September with booster doses to combat variantsfor at least 15m but more likely 32m in groups 1-9.
The royal family is racist, according to a poll of non-white voters that found many do not want the monarchy to continue.
The YouGov survey found many adults from ethnic minorities share the concerns voiced by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in their recent interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Ethnic minority Britons believe the royal family is racist by a margin of 43 per cent to 27 per cent.
The population as a whole thinks they are not racist by 55 per cent to 20 per cent.
In the interview, Meghan claimed a member of the royal family expressed “concerns” about what skin colour her son, Archie, would have.
When asked by Winfrey if the couple left the UK because of racism, Prince Harry said that “was a large part of it”. A few days after the interview, Prince William denied racism allegations, telling reporters: “We are very much not a racist family.”
But courtiers have revealed that efforts are already under way to improve the diversity of the royal household, which began before the interview.
Asked if Britain should “continue to have a monarchy in the future”, 43 per cent said it should, while 40 per cent would prefer an elected head of state, according to the poll of 504 people from ethnic minorities conducted a few days after the Winfrey interview.
Nearly half of interviewees — 49 per cent — said Harry and Meghan had been treated “unfairly” by the royal family, compared with less than a quarter — 24 per cent — who said “fairly”.
Anthony Wells, a director of YouGov, said: “Our polling of ethnic-minority attitudes suggests the royal family need to mend some fences.
“More optimistically, while ethnic-minority Britons have a generally negative perception of Charles and Camilla, the Queen herself, Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge all have strongly positive ratings.”
Overall, YouGov found 67 per cent felt positively towards the Queen.
My view is that obsession over race is a phase that we need to go through before everyone starts mixing (lots of James Cleverly, Jessica Ennis-Hills, Chukas, Archies, Sunders etc.) and identifying with a common British heritage again.
The question is whether we can get through it without blowing ourselves up in the meantime, aggravated by the far-Left and state actors like China and Russia.
I see it more as a reckoning than an obsession, I think it's necessary and we'll emerge stronger and more at peace from it, and I think 'white privilege' and 'white fragility' are perfectly serviceable and insightful concepts and terms, but nevertheless I do see some dangers and downsides. We don't want to disappear down a rabbit hole and get endlessly introspective and angsty. And the West beats the totalitarian East as a place to live - any day of the week - so let's not forget that.
The one glaring inequality of which very little discussion or calls for radical measures is, of course, class. Do we really think a very poor white person is inherently more privilege than a wealthy black person?
There's no reason - other than for Right Wing Populists to win votes - to set these things up as being in implacable opposition. I am just as supportive of reducing class inequality as I am of reducing racial inequality. There's no conflict there for me.
Are the Welsh still leading the vaccination league table?
I assume so and out and about yesterday and today everywhere is teaming with people and cars and little compliance
IF infections and more importantly deaths and hospitalisations stay low that might be a positive thing
It could be
I have just watched a report from Tenby with locals upset with people driving 100 miles, and scared it will all start again
And of course that 100 miles would have to be within Wales, also the local businesses saying they cannot survive without the English visitors
Covid panic in seaside resorts exists and is doubtless genuine, but it's also baseless. We must remember at this juncture that we have been previously reassured, contrary to fears expressed during Spring and Summer last year, that there have been no recorded instances anywhere on Earth of Covid clusters being traced back to beach sunbathing, and I would imagine the same is true of people using parks, walking along promenades or up and down streets. Outdoor activity is, broadly speaking, safe.
The main thing I would be concerned with in these circumstances was so many people turning up at once that the roads, litter bins and public toilets proved unable to meet demand. Not about the Plague.
Local authorities and police might have to think about trying to restrict access/marshal people away from very busy areas for these reasons, but the irrational germ phobia that some people have should not be overindulged, or we shall never get out of the present mess.
If some residents of these honeypots are still shit scared of other people then they can always stay at home in the middle of the day themselves, and venture forth when it's quieter.
Your last sentence is insulting to people and their local community and may I say, unnecessary
The royal family is racist, according to a poll of non-white voters that found many do not want the monarchy to continue.
The YouGov survey found many adults from ethnic minorities share the concerns voiced by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in their recent interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Ethnic minority Britons believe the royal family is racist by a margin of 43 per cent to 27 per cent.
The population as a whole thinks they are not racist by 55 per cent to 20 per cent.
In the interview, Meghan claimed a member of the royal family expressed “concerns” about what skin colour her son, Archie, would have.
When asked by Winfrey if the couple left the UK because of racism, Prince Harry said that “was a large part of it”. A few days after the interview, Prince William denied racism allegations, telling reporters: “We are very much not a racist family.”
But courtiers have revealed that efforts are already under way to improve the diversity of the royal household, which began before the interview.
Asked if Britain should “continue to have a monarchy in the future”, 43 per cent said it should, while 40 per cent would prefer an elected head of state, according to the poll of 504 people from ethnic minorities conducted a few days after the Winfrey interview.
Nearly half of interviewees — 49 per cent — said Harry and Meghan had been treated “unfairly” by the royal family, compared with less than a quarter — 24 per cent — who said “fairly”.
Anthony Wells, a director of YouGov, said: “Our polling of ethnic-minority attitudes suggests the royal family need to mend some fences.
“More optimistically, while ethnic-minority Britons have a generally negative perception of Charles and Camilla, the Queen herself, Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge all have strongly positive ratings.”
Overall, YouGov found 67 per cent felt positively towards the Queen.
As the royal family includes Harry and Meghan by what measure are they excluded from the criticisms implied by these meaningless replies to meaningless questions?
Quick calculation - we need to do 45m doses over the next 70 days to offer every eligible adult one or both doses before the final reopening step to allow for the final recipients some level of immunity. That works out to around 650k doses per day on average. I expect April will fall under that level by 3-4m (19.5m doses required) but May will be over the target by the same amount.
If we manage to do this then we could conceivably ensure 100% of adults have been offered it, 90-95% of people have had it and only 6 weeks of jabbing necessary after the June reopening taking us to the end of July for the programme to complete and for phase 3 to start (kids) over the summer with a single AZ dose and then phase 4 in September with booster doses to combat variantsfor at least 15m but more likely 32m in groups 1-9.
Quick calculation - we need to do 45m doses over the next 70 days to offer every eligible adult one or both doses before the final repointing step to allow for the final recipients some level of immunity. That works out to around 650k doses per day on average. I expect April will fall under that level by 3-4m (19.5m doses required) but May will be over the target by the same amount.
If we manage to do this then we could conceivably ensure 100% of adults have been offered it, 90-95% of people have had it and only 6 weeks of jabbing necessary after the June reopening taking us to the end of July for the programme to complete and for phase 3 to start (kids) over the summer with a single AZ dose and then phase 4 in September with booster doses to combat variantsfor at least 15m but more likely 32m in groups 1-9.
MHRA guidance is going to have to be updated for all adults to be offered it.
Are the Welsh still leading the vaccination league table?
I assume so and out and about yesterday and today everywhere is teaming with people and cars and little compliance
IF infections and more importantly deaths and hospitalisations stay low that might be a positive thing
It could be
I have just watched a report from Tenby with locals upset with people driving 100 miles, and scared it will all start again
And of course that 100 miles would have to be within Wales, also the local businesses saying they cannot survive without the English visitors
Covid panic in seaside resorts exists and is doubtless genuine, but it's also baseless. We must remember at this juncture that we have been previously reassured, contrary to fears expressed during Spring and Summer last year, that there have been no recorded instances anywhere on Earth of Covid clusters being traced back to beach sunbathing, and I would imagine the same is true of people using parks, walking along promenades or up and down streets. Outdoor activity is, broadly speaking, safe.
The main thing I would be concerned with in these circumstances was so many people turning up at once that the roads, litter bins and public toilets proved unable to meet demand. Not about the Plague.
Local authorities and police might have to think about trying to restrict access/marshal people away from very busy areas for these reasons, but the irrational germ phobia that some people have should not be overindulged, or we shall never get out of the present mess.
If some residents of these honeypots are still shit scared of other people then they can always stay at home in the middle of the day themselves, and venture forth when it's quieter.
Bang on.
The tension between visitors and residents has always been here for seaside resorts - but making day trips necessary doesn't help. In the old days people came for days or weeks and spent money in the towns. Now the norm for many is to arrive in the morning, clogging up the roads, with bags of supermarket shopping, park on pavements, depart at sundown, leave the wrappings, beer cans and the temporary bbqs on the beach. Will be interesting to see if that is different this year
I think this graph shows why COVID remains a serious disease for some, even after vaccination. We can perhaps hope that 2nd doses drop the CFR further, but I'd be surprised if that effect is very large.
Quick calculation - we need to do 45m doses over the next 70 days to offer every eligible adult one or both doses before the final reopening step to allow for the final recipients some level of immunity. That works out to around 650k doses per day on average. I expect April will fall under that level by 3-4m (19.5m doses required) but May will be over the target by the same amount.
If we manage to do this then we could conceivably ensure 100% of adults have been offered it, 90-95% of people have had it and only 6 weeks of jabbing necessary after the June reopening taking us to the end of July for the programme to complete and for phase 3 to start (kids) over the summer with a single AZ dose and then phase 4 in September with booster doses to combat variantsfor at least 15m but more likely 32m in groups 1-9.
Their government also managed to be neutral on the greatest threat to civilisation and force of evil of the 20th century.
The Cranborne Report
Viscount Cranborne, the British Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, wrote a letter on 21 February 1945 to the British War Cabinet regarding Irish-British collaboration during 1939–1945:[59]
They agreed to our use of Lough Foyle for naval and air purposes. The ownership of the Lough is disputed, but the Southern Irish authorities are tacitly not pressing their claim in present conditions and are also ignoring any flying by our aircraft over the Donegal shore of the Lough, which is necessary in certain wind conditions to enable flying boats to take off from the Lough. They have agreed to use by our aircraft based on Lough Erne of a corridor over Southern Irish territory and territorial waters for the purpose of flying out to the Atlantic. They have arranged for the immediate transmission to the United Kingdom Representative's Office in Dublin of reports of submarine activity received from their coast watching service. They arranged for the broadening of reports by their Air observation Corps of aircraft sighted over or approaching Southern Irish territory. (This does not include our aircraft using the corridor referred to in (b) above.) They arranged for the extinction of trade and business lighting in coastal towns where such lighting was alleged to afford a useful landmark for German aircraft. They have continued to supply us with meteorological reports. They have agreed to the use by our ships and aircraft of two wireless direction-finding stations at Malin Head. They have supplied particulars of German crashed aircraft and personnel crashed or washed ashore or arrested on land. They arranged for staff talks on the question of co-operation against a possible German invasion of Southern Ireland, and close contact has since been maintained between the respective military authorities. They continue to intern all German fighting personnel reaching Southern Ireland. On the other hand, though after protracted negotiations, Allied service personnel are now allowed to depart freely and full assistance is given in recovering damaged aircraft. Recently, in connection with the establishment of prisoner of war camps in Northern Ireland, they have agreed to return or at least intern any German prisoners who may escape from Northern Ireland across the border to Southern Ireland. They have throughout offered no objection to the departure from Southern Ireland of persons wishing to serve in the United Kingdom Forces nor to the journey on leave of such persons to and from Southern Ireland (in plain clothes). They have continued to exchange information with our security authorities regarding all aliens (including Germans) in Southern Ireland. They have (within the last few days) agreed to our establishing a radar station in Southern Ireland for use against the latest form of submarine activity.
And that doesn’t even mention the fact that the Irish Fire Brigade and Ambulance Service went to assist at the Belfast Blitz. Twice. The second time they weren’t even asked, they just turned up. And precious little thanks they ever got for it.
The royal family is racist, according to a poll of non-white voters that found many do not want the monarchy to continue.
The YouGov survey found many adults from ethnic minorities share the concerns voiced by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in their recent interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Ethnic minority Britons believe the royal family is racist by a margin of 43 per cent to 27 per cent.
The population as a whole thinks they are not racist by 55 per cent to 20 per cent.
In the interview, Meghan claimed a member of the royal family expressed “concerns” about what skin colour her son, Archie, would have.
When asked by Winfrey if the couple left the UK because of racism, Prince Harry said that “was a large part of it”. A few days after the interview, Prince William denied racism allegations, telling reporters: “We are very much not a racist family.”
But courtiers have revealed that efforts are already under way to improve the diversity of the royal household, which began before the interview.
Asked if Britain should “continue to have a monarchy in the future”, 43 per cent said it should, while 40 per cent would prefer an elected head of state, according to the poll of 504 people from ethnic minorities conducted a few days after the Winfrey interview.
Nearly half of interviewees — 49 per cent — said Harry and Meghan had been treated “unfairly” by the royal family, compared with less than a quarter — 24 per cent — who said “fairly”.
Anthony Wells, a director of YouGov, said: “Our polling of ethnic-minority attitudes suggests the royal family need to mend some fences.
“More optimistically, while ethnic-minority Britons have a generally negative perception of Charles and Camilla, the Queen herself, Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge all have strongly positive ratings.”
Overall, YouGov found 67 per cent felt positively towards the Queen.
I think this graph shows why COVID remains a serious disease for some, even after vaccination. We can perhaps hope that 2nd doses drop the CFR further, but I'd be surprised if that effect is very large.
--AS
Don't forget that this is an aggregated CFR which doesn't split out the unvaccinated, those small number of unvaccinated people will now be accounting for more and more of the total number so I actually expect the CFR to start rising soon.
Quick calculation - we need to do 45m doses over the next 70 days to offer every eligible adult one or both doses before the final reopening step to allow for the final recipients some level of immunity. That works out to around 650k doses per day on average. I expect April will fall under that level by 3-4m (19.5m doses required) but May will be over the target by the same amount.
If we manage to do this then we could conceivably ensure 100% of adults have been offered it, 90-95% of people have had it and only 6 weeks of jabbing necessary after the June reopening taking us to the end of July for the programme to complete and for phase 3 to start (kids) over the summer with a single AZ dose and then phase 4 in September with booster doses to combat variantsfor at least 15m but more likely 32m in groups 1-9.
Any news on the J&J jab?
Nothing specific, what do you want to know?
When/whether it’s likely to be green lit by the MHRA!
Quick calculation - we need to do 45m doses over the next 70 days to offer every eligible adult one or both doses before the final repointing step to allow for the final recipients some level of immunity. That works out to around 650k doses per day on average. I expect April will fall under that level by 3-4m (19.5m doses required) but May will be over the target by the same amount.
If we manage to do this then we could conceivably ensure 100% of adults have been offered it, 90-95% of people have had it and only 6 weeks of jabbing necessary after the June reopening taking us to the end of July for the programme to complete and for phase 3 to start (kids) over the summer with a single AZ dose and then phase 4 in September with booster doses to combat variantsfor at least 15m but more likely 32m in groups 1-9.
MHRA guidance is going to have to be updated for all adults to be offered it.
One imagines it will be for phase 2. I'm expecting the official guidance on the gap to be reduced from 12 weeks to 8 weeks or even less. I think the reason the government is very relaxed about not getting AZ from Halix is that we have got a whole load of Novavax coming from domestic manufacturing and that doesn't require 12 weeks between doses for maximum efficacy. Oddly, not getting the Halix doses may actually result in a faster overall vaccine programme for the UK.
My view is that obsession over race is a phase that we need to go through before everyone starts mixing (lots of James Cleverly, Jessica Ennis-Hills, Chukas, Archies, Sunders etc.) and identifying with a common British heritage again.
The question is whether we can get through it without blowing ourselves up in the meantime, aggravated by the far-Left and state actors like China and Russia.
I see it more as a reckoning than an obsession, I think it's necessary and we'll emerge stronger and more at peace from it, and I think 'white privilege' and 'white fragility' are perfectly serviceable and insightful concepts and terms, but nevertheless I do see some dangers and downsides. We don't want to disappear down a rabbit hole and get endlessly introspective and angsty. And the West beats the totalitarian East as a place to live - any day of the week - so let's not forget that.
We don't need to do it because it already happened in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Such a waste of time.
Ok. Done deal then for you. But why do so many still think it's an issue?
For a few because there is an issue.
For many because there's some people so privileged that they don't have anything better to worry about.
The royal family is racist, according to a poll of non-white voters that found many do not want the monarchy to continue.
The YouGov survey found many adults from ethnic minorities share the concerns voiced by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in their recent interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Ethnic minority Britons believe the royal family is racist by a margin of 43 per cent to 27 per cent.
The population as a whole thinks they are not racist by 55 per cent to 20 per cent.
In the interview, Meghan claimed a member of the royal family expressed “concerns” about what skin colour her son, Archie, would have.
When asked by Winfrey if the couple left the UK because of racism, Prince Harry said that “was a large part of it”. A few days after the interview, Prince William denied racism allegations, telling reporters: “We are very much not a racist family.”
But courtiers have revealed that efforts are already under way to improve the diversity of the royal household, which began before the interview.
Asked if Britain should “continue to have a monarchy in the future”, 43 per cent said it should, while 40 per cent would prefer an elected head of state, according to the poll of 504 people from ethnic minorities conducted a few days after the Winfrey interview.
Nearly half of interviewees — 49 per cent — said Harry and Meghan had been treated “unfairly” by the royal family, compared with less than a quarter — 24 per cent — who said “fairly”.
Anthony Wells, a director of YouGov, said: “Our polling of ethnic-minority attitudes suggests the royal family need to mend some fences.
“More optimistically, while ethnic-minority Britons have a generally negative perception of Charles and Camilla, the Queen herself, Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge all have strongly positive ratings.”
Overall, YouGov found 67 per cent felt positively towards the Queen.
US has gone bonkers....women makes crazy statement that Piers Morgan is a definitely racist, not because he said anything racist, but because she felt his tone was racist. Another woman says hold on there, that's crazy, I know this person, he isn't racist..... klaxon goes off, your fired.
It's a blow to the cause of freedom of expression in the western world to not only lose Morgan, but now Osbourne too, but to me "racism" is just a cypher was what has actually driven this one. She was fired for the same reason she was hired - being Sharon Osbourne. It was an asset (for the show), now it's a liability. That's how it goes sometimes.
Never fear. Freedom of expression is alive and well ... for some:
https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1374385601504440331 To be clear, it’s not that most or even many of my interactions with white people are “bad”; it’s that I’m able to choose when to expose myself to interactions with potentially bad white people. That choice is a privilege I’ve never really had until this past year. Going out into white society for me is a little bit like a beekeeper going to get honey. I know what I’m doing: If I put on the right protection and blow enough smoke, most of the bees will leave me alone and the ones who don’t won’t really cause me that much pain. But I’ve got to put on the suit and the hat with the mesh and carry the smoke machine and be careful every time I want some goddamn honey. This year, it’s been like somebody said, “You know the honey comes in bottles now, right? You don’t have to risk being stung every time you want some food.”
"I want some goddamn honey". Very good!
Of course there are people - and sadly lots of them - whose perspective on racism in western post-colonial societies is so noddy and one dimensional that whenever they see something like this they go, "If a white person said that about black people, there'd be hell to pay! Why is this different?"
But as most on here know, I'm not one of those people.
We know, you don't believe in the equal and non-contingent application of universal principles. But some of us do.
You just refuse to engage with this issue on any level beyond the stupifyingly superficial. For a (very) bright bloke, I find it bizarre. For example, picking up on where we left off before, in a white majority dominant western country with a history of colonialism, imagine both of the following -
(i) A black person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be black.
(ii) A white person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be white.
Are these exact equivalents? Or is (ii) a rather different thing to (i) and more indicative of a racism problem?
To me, the answer is blindingly obvious. It's the latter. And tbh, if somebody can't see this, I don't think there is any chance of a productive conversation on the subject. All we can do is throw rocks.
Ok, instead of rocks, how about some elenchus? To start us off, could you explain the exact reason why you and I and civilized people the world over consider racism to be wrong in principle?
My question first. Do you truly and honestly see those things as equally indicative of racism*? Or do agree with me that (ii) is more so.
Because if you actually can see the difference we don't need to write a screed from first principles.
The two examples are identical in principle; the only difference between them is historical context. The question is whether it's worth sacrificing the former - which provides the fundamental moral basis for all anti-racism - for the sake of the latter. I happen to think that that is a trade that prioritizes a short-term potential gain at the price of a certain long-term loss.
But that "only" difference is the size of all the tea in China. It's absolutely key. And to recognize this does not throw out the general principle that "racism = bad". It just adds nuance and context to it. It applies the principle to the real world. There's nothing special about racism that should exclude it from this good and necessary universal practice.
US has gone bonkers....women makes crazy statement that Piers Morgan is a definitely racist, not because he said anything racist, but because she felt his tone was racist. Another woman says hold on there, that's crazy, I know this person, he isn't racist..... klaxon goes off, your fired.
It's a blow to the cause of freedom of expression in the western world to not only lose Morgan, but now Osbourne too, but to me "racism" is just a cypher was what has actually driven this one. She was fired for the same reason she was hired - being Sharon Osbourne. It was an asset (for the show), now it's a liability. That's how it goes sometimes.
Never fear. Freedom of expression is alive and well ... for some:
https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1374385601504440331 To be clear, it’s not that most or even many of my interactions with white people are “bad”; it’s that I’m able to choose when to expose myself to interactions with potentially bad white people. That choice is a privilege I’ve never really had until this past year. Going out into white society for me is a little bit like a beekeeper going to get honey. I know what I’m doing: If I put on the right protection and blow enough smoke, most of the bees will leave me alone and the ones who don’t won’t really cause me that much pain. But I’ve got to put on the suit and the hat with the mesh and carry the smoke machine and be careful every time I want some goddamn honey. This year, it’s been like somebody said, “You know the honey comes in bottles now, right? You don’t have to risk being stung every time you want some food.”
"I want some goddamn honey". Very good!
Of course there are people - and sadly lots of them - whose perspective on racism in western post-colonial societies is so noddy and one dimensional that whenever they see something like this they go, "If a white person said that about black people, there'd be hell to pay! Why is this different?"
But as most on here know, I'm not one of those people.
We know, you don't believe in the equal and non-contingent application of universal principles. But some of us do.
You just refuse to engage with this issue on any level beyond the stupifyingly superficial. For a (very) bright bloke, I find it bizarre. For example, picking up on where we left off before, in a white majority dominant western country with a history of colonialism, imagine both of the following -
(i) A black person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be black.
(ii) A white person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be white.
Are these exact equivalents? Or is (ii) a rather different thing to (i) and more indicative of a racism problem?
To me, the answer is blindingly obvious. It's the latter. And tbh, if somebody can't see this, I don't think there is any chance of a productive conversation on the subject. All we can do is throw rocks.
They are exact equivalents if you believe in logic, reason and rational thinking.
Believing in rational thinking is good, I agree. And it's even better if you apply it.
Kinbalu, you're a ceaselessly reasonable poster, but I strongly disagree with you in this subject. Which appears to boil down to if you're white and English, you're irredeemably guilty and had better start apologising. Especially if you're alsi straight and male. Your rules don't appear to hold any other sub-groups to thhe same standard that you hold mine. As you say, let's not throw rocks about it. But I'd at least point out that your position is far from being as self-evident and widely accepted as you appear to think.
It's not about apologising. It's about recognising and acknowledging that you are playing the game of life on the easy setting.
Their government also managed to be neutral on the greatest threat to civilisation and force of evil of the 20th century.
The Cranborne Report
Viscount Cranborne, the British Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, wrote a letter on 21 February 1945 to the British War Cabinet regarding Irish-British collaboration during 1939–1945:[59]
They agreed to our use of Lough Foyle for naval and air purposes. The ownership of the Lough is disputed, but the Southern Irish authorities are tacitly not pressing their claim in present conditions and are also ignoring any flying by our aircraft over the Donegal shore of the Lough, which is necessary in certain wind conditions to enable flying boats to take off from the Lough. They have agreed to use by our aircraft based on Lough Erne of a corridor over Southern Irish territory and territorial waters for the purpose of flying out to the Atlantic. They have arranged for the immediate transmission to the United Kingdom Representative's Office in Dublin of reports of submarine activity received from their coast watching service. They arranged for the broadening of reports by their Air observation Corps of aircraft sighted over or approaching Southern Irish territory. (This does not include our aircraft using the corridor referred to in (b) above.) They arranged for the extinction of trade and business lighting in coastal towns where such lighting was alleged to afford a useful landmark for German aircraft. They have continued to supply us with meteorological reports. They have agreed to the use by our ships and aircraft of two wireless direction-finding stations at Malin Head. They have supplied particulars of German crashed aircraft and personnel crashed or washed ashore or arrested on land. They arranged for staff talks on the question of co-operation against a possible German invasion of Southern Ireland, and close contact has since been maintained between the respective military authorities. They continue to intern all German fighting personnel reaching Southern Ireland. On the other hand, though after protracted negotiations, Allied service personnel are now allowed to depart freely and full assistance is given in recovering damaged aircraft. Recently, in connection with the establishment of prisoner of war camps in Northern Ireland, they have agreed to return or at least intern any German prisoners who may escape from Northern Ireland across the border to Southern Ireland. They have throughout offered no objection to the departure from Southern Ireland of persons wishing to serve in the United Kingdom Forces nor to the journey on leave of such persons to and from Southern Ireland (in plain clothes). They have continued to exchange information with our security authorities regarding all aliens (including Germans) in Southern Ireland. They have (within the last few days) agreed to our establishing a radar station in Southern Ireland for use against the latest form of submarine activity.
The royal family is racist, according to a poll of non-white voters that found many do not want the monarchy to continue.
The YouGov survey found many adults from ethnic minorities share the concerns voiced by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in their recent interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Ethnic minority Britons believe the royal family is racist by a margin of 43 per cent to 27 per cent.
The population as a whole thinks they are not racist by 55 per cent to 20 per cent.
In the interview, Meghan claimed a member of the royal family expressed “concerns” about what skin colour her son, Archie, would have.
When asked by Winfrey if the couple left the UK because of racism, Prince Harry said that “was a large part of it”. A few days after the interview, Prince William denied racism allegations, telling reporters: “We are very much not a racist family.”
But courtiers have revealed that efforts are already under way to improve the diversity of the royal household, which began before the interview.
Asked if Britain should “continue to have a monarchy in the future”, 43 per cent said it should, while 40 per cent would prefer an elected head of state, according to the poll of 504 people from ethnic minorities conducted a few days after the Winfrey interview.
Nearly half of interviewees — 49 per cent — said Harry and Meghan had been treated “unfairly” by the royal family, compared with less than a quarter — 24 per cent — who said “fairly”.
Anthony Wells, a director of YouGov, said: “Our polling of ethnic-minority attitudes suggests the royal family need to mend some fences.
“More optimistically, while ethnic-minority Britons have a generally negative perception of Charles and Camilla, the Queen herself, Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge all have strongly positive ratings.”
Overall, YouGov found 67 per cent felt positively towards the Queen.
I think this graph shows why COVID remains a serious disease for some, even after vaccination. We can perhaps hope that 2nd doses drop the CFR further, but I'd be surprised if that effect is very large.
--AS
Don't forget that this is an aggregated CFR which doesn't split out the unvaccinated, those small number of unvaccinated people will now be accounting for more and more of the total number so I actually expect the CFR to start rising soon.
Do you mean that you think that the reducing number of cases in the higher age groups will be more and more the unvaccinated - hence more likely to die?
I think this graph shows why COVID remains a serious disease for some, even after vaccination. We can perhaps hope that 2nd doses drop the CFR further, but I'd be surprised if that effect is very large.
--AS
Don't forget that this is an aggregated CFR which doesn't split out the unvaccinated, those small number of unvaccinated people will now be accounting for more and more of the total number so I actually expect the CFR to start rising soon.
Do you mean that you think that the reducing number of cases in the higher age groups will be more and more the unvaccinated - hence more likely to die?
Yes, exactly that. Especially as we get through the second dose programme for over 80s in the next week or so, the number of cases being registered from double jabbed over 80s will be absolutely tiny given what we know about the reduction in symptomatic COVID for double jabbed Pfizer and AZ patients.
US has gone bonkers....women makes crazy statement that Piers Morgan is a definitely racist, not because he said anything racist, but because she felt his tone was racist. Another woman says hold on there, that's crazy, I know this person, he isn't racist..... klaxon goes off, your fired.
It's a blow to the cause of freedom of expression in the western world to not only lose Morgan, but now Osbourne too, but to me "racism" is just a cypher was what has actually driven this one. She was fired for the same reason she was hired - being Sharon Osbourne. It was an asset (for the show), now it's a liability. That's how it goes sometimes.
Never fear. Freedom of expression is alive and well ... for some:
https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1374385601504440331 To be clear, it’s not that most or even many of my interactions with white people are “bad”; it’s that I’m able to choose when to expose myself to interactions with potentially bad white people. That choice is a privilege I’ve never really had until this past year. Going out into white society for me is a little bit like a beekeeper going to get honey. I know what I’m doing: If I put on the right protection and blow enough smoke, most of the bees will leave me alone and the ones who don’t won’t really cause me that much pain. But I’ve got to put on the suit and the hat with the mesh and carry the smoke machine and be careful every time I want some goddamn honey. This year, it’s been like somebody said, “You know the honey comes in bottles now, right? You don’t have to risk being stung every time you want some food.”
"I want some goddamn honey". Very good!
Of course there are people - and sadly lots of them - whose perspective on racism in western post-colonial societies is so noddy and one dimensional that whenever they see something like this they go, "If a white person said that about black people, there'd be hell to pay! Why is this different?"
But as most on here know, I'm not one of those people.
We know, you don't believe in the equal and non-contingent application of universal principles. But some of us do.
You just refuse to engage with this issue on any level beyond the stupifyingly superficial. For a (very) bright bloke, I find it bizarre. For example, picking up on where we left off before, in a white majority dominant western country with a history of colonialism, imagine both of the following -
(i) A black person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be black.
(ii) A white person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be white.
Are these exact equivalents? Or is (ii) a rather different thing to (i) and more indicative of a racism problem?
To me, the answer is blindingly obvious. It's the latter. And tbh, if somebody can't see this, I don't think there is any chance of a productive conversation on the subject. All we can do is throw rocks.
They are exact equivalents if you believe in logic, reason and rational thinking.
Believing in rational thinking is good, I agree. And it's even better if you apply it.
You may be operating with a different definition of racism, but the definition was always judging someone solely based on the colour of their skin.
If a black person (the term to me is itself racist by the way) says he/she is proud to be black it implies that he/she thinks being black is better than being white. Therefore to that person every white person is judged inferior and therefore the person is being racist. Ditto the other example.
Again, this is assuming equivalent power within society. The reason that Anglo-Americans don't have a St George's Day parade down 5th Avenue is that they have always been at the top of the power structure.
The reason that it is not inherently racist for a Black or a Puerto Rican to be proud of their heritage is that, in the past, that might have been seen as some badge of shame, or lower social status.
It is interesting that most of those who feel a need to express their pride in being white are precisely those who do not feel themselves to be at the top of society's pecking order.
Equivocation. I was merely helping Andy JS out with the logic. You have changed the terms of the argument. Kinabalu was purely talking about skin colour, you have smuggled heritage and bags of other stuff into it.
Quick calculation - we need to do 45m doses over the next 70 days to offer every eligible adult one or both doses before the final reopening step to allow for the final recipients some level of immunity. That works out to around 650k doses per day on average. I expect April will fall under that level by 3-4m (19.5m doses required) but May will be over the target by the same amount.
If we manage to do this then we could conceivably ensure 100% of adults have been offered it, 90-95% of people have had it and only 6 weeks of jabbing necessary after the June reopening taking us to the end of July for the programme to complete and for phase 3 to start (kids) over the summer with a single AZ dose and then phase 4 in September with booster doses to combat variantsfor at least 15m but more likely 32m in groups 1-9.
Any news on the J&J jab?
Nothing specific, what do you want to know?
When/whether it’s likely to be green lit by the MHRA!
Soon, same as Novavax. I think the processes are a bit slower becuase of the necessary variant analysis that didn't exist for Pfizer, AZ and Moderna.
I think this graph shows why COVID remains a serious disease for some, even after vaccination. We can perhaps hope that 2nd doses drop the CFR further, but I'd be surprised if that effect is very large.
--AS
Absolutely, and also the news I heard from a friend of a friend (I know...) who is a radiographer. Apparently about half of the Covid deaths last week had had the vaccine. Not surprising, but not something the general public would hear with total equanimity.
My view is that obsession over race is a phase that we need to go through before everyone starts mixing (lots of James Cleverly, Jessica Ennis-Hills, Chukas, Archies, Sunders etc.) and identifying with a common British heritage again.
The question is whether we can get through it without blowing ourselves up in the meantime, aggravated by the far-Left and state actors like China and Russia.
Bit like saying we need Covid before we can be healthy again. What we need to do is all (whatever colour or creed) move away from those who would attempt to drive us apart and spread their pernicious disease of victimhood.
US has gone bonkers....women makes crazy statement that Piers Morgan is a definitely racist, not because he said anything racist, but because she felt his tone was racist. Another woman says hold on there, that's crazy, I know this person, he isn't racist..... klaxon goes off, your fired.
It's a blow to the cause of freedom of expression in the western world to not only lose Morgan, but now Osbourne too, but to me "racism" is just a cypher was what has actually driven this one. She was fired for the same reason she was hired - being Sharon Osbourne. It was an asset (for the show), now it's a liability. That's how it goes sometimes.
Never fear. Freedom of expression is alive and well ... for some:
https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1374385601504440331 To be clear, it’s not that most or even many of my interactions with white people are “bad”; it’s that I’m able to choose when to expose myself to interactions with potentially bad white people. That choice is a privilege I’ve never really had until this past year. Going out into white society for me is a little bit like a beekeeper going to get honey. I know what I’m doing: If I put on the right protection and blow enough smoke, most of the bees will leave me alone and the ones who don’t won’t really cause me that much pain. But I’ve got to put on the suit and the hat with the mesh and carry the smoke machine and be careful every time I want some goddamn honey. This year, it’s been like somebody said, “You know the honey comes in bottles now, right? You don’t have to risk being stung every time you want some food.”
"I want some goddamn honey". Very good!
Of course there are people - and sadly lots of them - whose perspective on racism in western post-colonial societies is so noddy and one dimensional that whenever they see something like this they go, "If a white person said that about black people, there'd be hell to pay! Why is this different?"
But as most on here know, I'm not one of those people.
We know, you don't believe in the equal and non-contingent application of universal principles. But some of us do.
You just refuse to engage with this issue on any level beyond the stupifyingly superficial. For a (very) bright bloke, I find it bizarre. For example, picking up on where we left off before, in a white majority dominant western country with a history of colonialism, imagine both of the following -
(i) A black person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be black.
(ii) A white person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be white.
Are these exact equivalents? Or is (ii) a rather different thing to (i) and more indicative of a racism problem?
To me, the answer is blindingly obvious. It's the latter. And tbh, if somebody can't see this, I don't think there is any chance of a productive conversation on the subject. All we can do is throw rocks.
They are exact equivalents if you believe in logic, reason and rational thinking.
Believing in rational thinking is good, I agree. And it's even better if you apply it.
You may be operating with a different definition of racism, but the definition was always judging someone solely based on the colour of their skin.
If a black person (the term to me is itself racist by the way) says he/she is proud to be black it implies that he/she thinks being black is better than being white. Therefore to that person every white person is judged inferior and therefore the person is being racist. Ditto the other example.
Again, this is assuming equivalent power within society. The reason that Anglo-Americans don't have a St George's Day parade down 5th Avenue is that they have always been at the top of the power structure.
The reason that it is not inherently racist for a Black or a Puerto Rican to be proud of their heritage is that, in the past, that might have been seen as some badge of shame, or lower social status.
It is interesting that most of those who feel a need to express their pride in being white are precisely those who do not feel themselves to be at the top of society's pecking order.
Equivocation. I was merely helping Andy JS out with the logic. You have changed the terms of the argument. Kinabalu was purely talking about skin colour, you have smuggled heritage and bags of other stuff into it.
Incidentally, I thought in America, 4th July parades etc were standard. And what about Thanksgiving?
Malcom X - "We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us."
I think this graph shows why COVID remains a serious disease for some, even after vaccination. We can perhaps hope that 2nd doses drop the CFR further, but I'd be surprised if that effect is very large.
--AS
Don't forget that this is an aggregated CFR which doesn't split out the unvaccinated, those small number of unvaccinated people will now be accounting for more and more of the total number so I actually expect the CFR to start rising soon.
That doesn't feel right to me. Data seems to show that the vaccines are c.80% effective against symptomatic disease, and c.95% of the top age group has been vaccinated. It follows that probably only c.25% of cases in the top age group are amongst unvaccinated. I suppose it's possible that those are the cases who disproportionately go on to die, but I think this contradicts data from Israel. Mind you, I've seen fairly contradictory data from Israel and it's still early days relatively.
Nothing is certain, but I'm not seeing any reason to think that vaccination reduces COVID risk to as low as (unvaccinated) flu risk, say, in the elderly. (Though I hope it does.)
On 27 March 2021, 850 historic cases were removed from the dashboard. Due to a laboratory processing error these tests were reported as positive when they should have been recorded as void. This affected specimen dates between 23 and 25 March in local authorities primarily in the North East and Yorkshire. The cumulative total number of people tested positive was revised down on 27 March 2021. Historic published date totals have not been changed.
I know it is serious but an expert on the Suez canal has just said
'The problem is the bow is in Asia and the stern in Africa'
Well they’re not wrong!
Let’s hope they can find a way of making her float soon, next high tide there is on Monday, otherwise this is going to take an awful long time.
It was in the context of maritime insurance if that makes sense
The insurance is different, depending on which continent the ship gets stuck?
(Goes off to research maritime insurance, gets the feeling this is a massive wormhole).
My friend is an expert in maritime/business interruption insurance, he's won the Uncle Albert award three years out of the last eight amongst his team of 20 underwriters.
The person with the most ships requiring a payout in one fiscal year.
Once he checked he wasn't the underwriter for this ship he could enjoy and laugh at the events in the Suez
US has gone bonkers....women makes crazy statement that Piers Morgan is a definitely racist, not because he said anything racist, but because she felt his tone was racist. Another woman says hold on there, that's crazy, I know this person, he isn't racist..... klaxon goes off, your fired.
It's a blow to the cause of freedom of expression in the western world to not only lose Morgan, but now Osbourne too, but to me "racism" is just a cypher was what has actually driven this one. She was fired for the same reason she was hired - being Sharon Osbourne. It was an asset (for the show), now it's a liability. That's how it goes sometimes.
Never fear. Freedom of expression is alive and well ... for some:
https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1374385601504440331 To be clear, it’s not that most or even many of my interactions with white people are “bad”; it’s that I’m able to choose when to expose myself to interactions with potentially bad white people. That choice is a privilege I’ve never really had until this past year. Going out into white society for me is a little bit like a beekeeper going to get honey. I know what I’m doing: If I put on the right protection and blow enough smoke, most of the bees will leave me alone and the ones who don’t won’t really cause me that much pain. But I’ve got to put on the suit and the hat with the mesh and carry the smoke machine and be careful every time I want some goddamn honey. This year, it’s been like somebody said, “You know the honey comes in bottles now, right? You don’t have to risk being stung every time you want some food.”
"I want some goddamn honey". Very good!
Of course there are people - and sadly lots of them - whose perspective on racism in western post-colonial societies is so noddy and one dimensional that whenever they see something like this they go, "If a white person said that about black people, there'd be hell to pay! Why is this different?"
But as most on here know, I'm not one of those people.
We know, you don't believe in the equal and non-contingent application of universal principles. But some of us do.
You just refuse to engage with this issue on any level beyond the stupifyingly superficial. For a (very) bright bloke, I find it bizarre. For example, picking up on where we left off before, in a white majority dominant western country with a history of colonialism, imagine both of the following -
(i) A black person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be black.
(ii) A white person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be white.
Are these exact equivalents? Or is (ii) a rather different thing to (i) and more indicative of a racism problem?
To me, the answer is blindingly obvious. It's the latter. And tbh, if somebody can't see this, I don't think there is any chance of a productive conversation on the subject. All we can do is throw rocks.
They are exact equivalents if you believe in logic, reason and rational thinking.
Believing in rational thinking is good, I agree. And it's even better if you apply it.
Kinbalu, you're a ceaselessly reasonable poster, but I strongly disagree with you in this subject. Which appears to boil down to if you're white and English, you're irredeemably guilty and had better start apologising. Especially if you're alsi straight and male. Your rules don't appear to hold any other sub-groups to thhe same standard that you hold mine. As you say, let's not throw rocks about it. But I'd at least point out that your position is far from being as self-evident and widely accepted as you appear to think.
It's not about apologising. It's about recognising and acknowledging that you are playing the game of life on the easy setting.
I was born in a homeless shelter that my mum escaped to when my father battered her, then brought up on a rough housing estate, none of my family ever had money passed down to them or owned their own home. First generation of anyone in my family going to university. My (now ex) wife was from africa, her father was a university professor, with multiple estates, not having a at least a Masters in her family was a sign of you being a disappointment.
In that situation who was the one who played their life on easy setting?
I think this graph shows why COVID remains a serious disease for some, even after vaccination. We can perhaps hope that 2nd doses drop the CFR further, but I'd be surprised if that effect is very large.
--AS
Absolutely, and also the news I heard from a friend of a friend (I know...) who is a radiographer. Apparently about half of the Covid deaths last week had had the vaccine. Not surprising, but not something the general public would hear with total equanimity.
We know that the CFR goes down from about 40% to about 7% after a single vaccine dose for the over 80s, that means 7% of vaccinated over 80s will still die, even if only a few hundred per week are getting it that's still 7% it that number dying and it might still be a big number in absolute terms depending on the infection rate. What's going to be interesting is what happens to it after the second doses are all done a week or so from now.
Quick calculation - we need to do 45m doses over the next 70 days to offer every eligible adult one or both doses before the final reopening step to allow for the final recipients some level of immunity. That works out to around 650k doses per day on average. I expect April will fall under that level by 3-4m (19.5m doses required) but May will be over the target by the same amount.
If we manage to do this then we could conceivably ensure 100% of adults have been offered it, 90-95% of people have had it and only 6 weeks of jabbing necessary after the June reopening taking us to the end of July for the programme to complete and for phase 3 to start (kids) over the summer with a single AZ dose and then phase 4 in September with booster doses to combat variantsfor at least 15m but more likely 32m in groups 1-9.
Any news on the J&J jab?
Nothing specific, what do you want to know?
When/whether it’s likely to be green lit by the MHRA!
Soon, same as Novavax. I think the processes are a bit slower becuase of the necessary variant analysis that didn't exist for Pfizer, AZ and Moderna.
Do you think J&J and Novavax may be usable by some point in April? Or more likely May or later now?
Incidentally, given that we are a forward looking, data driven lot on PB, shouldn't we get the April vaccination panic started now?
A surprising number of people have failed to realise that there will be lots of second vaccinations in April. 400K a day or near that. Which will mean that, of course, 1st vaccinations will be reduced.
As usual, the press etc will be trailing far behind.
So if we have days when 1st vaccinations fall below 100K (I think they will)... what kind of biscuits should we serve at the panic, and what kind of tea? Pizza for the kids?
Are the Welsh still leading the vaccination league table?
I assume so and out and about yesterday and today everywhere is teaming with people and cars and little compliance
IF infections and more importantly deaths and hospitalisations stay low that might be a positive thing
It could be
I have just watched a report from Tenby with locals upset with people driving 100 miles, and scared it will all start again
And of course that 100 miles would have to be within Wales, also the local businesses saying they cannot survive without the English visitors
Covid panic in seaside resorts exists and is doubtless genuine, but it's also baseless. We must remember at this juncture that we have been previously reassured, contrary to fears expressed during Spring and Summer last year, that there have been no recorded instances anywhere on Earth of Covid clusters being traced back to beach sunbathing, and I would imagine the same is true of people using parks, walking along promenades or up and down streets. Outdoor activity is, broadly speaking, safe.
The main thing I would be concerned with in these circumstances was so many people turning up at once that the roads, litter bins and public toilets proved unable to meet demand. Not about the Plague.
Local authorities and police might have to think about trying to restrict access/marshal people away from very busy areas for these reasons, but the irrational germ phobia that some people have should not be overindulged, or we shall never get out of the present mess.
If some residents of these honeypots are still shit scared of other people then they can always stay at home in the middle of the day themselves, and venture forth when it's quieter.
There are other, more practical, considerations for tourist areas. Are buses still going to be running at 50% capacity? Locals who need the bus to get to/from the shops will find life very difficult if so, unless all our visitors decide that they themselves will be safer in their own private vehicles. Are shops still going to be imposing a max no of customers in the store? Queueing outside on the pavement when the pavement is thronging with people - who's in the queue and, come to that, how to identify the queue? Or which shop are you queueing for?
Still, no doubt it will all settle down - or it won't, and we will learn to live with it.
Point is that tourist areas depend on tourists. We have to learn to live with it.
I think this graph shows why COVID remains a serious disease for some, even after vaccination. We can perhaps hope that 2nd doses drop the CFR further, but I'd be surprised if that effect is very large.
--AS
Don't forget that this is an aggregated CFR which doesn't split out the unvaccinated, those small number of unvaccinated people will now be accounting for more and more of the total number so I actually expect the CFR to start rising soon.
That doesn't feel right to me. Data seems to show that the vaccines are c.80% effective against symptomatic disease, and c.95% of the top age group has been vaccinated. It follows that probably only c.25% of cases in the top age group are amongst unvaccinated. I suppose it's possible that those are the cases who disproportionately go on to die, but I think this contradicts data from Israel. Mind you, I've seen fairly contradictory data from Israel and it's still early days relatively.
Nothing is certain, but I'm not seeing any reason to think that vaccination reduces COVID risk to as low as (unvaccinated) flu risk, say, in the elderly. (Though I hope it does.)
--AS
No, the point is that the case rate for vaccinated people will drop to zero because our testing system is built around waiting for people to get symptoms and then confirming those symptoms with a test. After two doses 95% of people won't get any symptoms so they won't get tested.
The royal family is racist, according to a poll of non-white voters that found many do not want the monarchy to continue.
The YouGov survey found many adults from ethnic minorities share the concerns voiced by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in their recent interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Ethnic minority Britons believe the royal family is racist by a margin of 43 per cent to 27 per cent.
The population as a whole thinks they are not racist by 55 per cent to 20 per cent.
In the interview, Meghan claimed a member of the royal family expressed “concerns” about what skin colour her son, Archie, would have.
When asked by Winfrey if the couple left the UK because of racism, Prince Harry said that “was a large part of it”. A few days after the interview, Prince William denied racism allegations, telling reporters: “We are very much not a racist family.”
But courtiers have revealed that efforts are already under way to improve the diversity of the royal household, which began before the interview.
Asked if Britain should “continue to have a monarchy in the future”, 43 per cent said it should, while 40 per cent would prefer an elected head of state, according to the poll of 504 people from ethnic minorities conducted a few days after the Winfrey interview.
Nearly half of interviewees — 49 per cent — said Harry and Meghan had been treated “unfairly” by the royal family, compared with less than a quarter — 24 per cent — who said “fairly”.
Anthony Wells, a director of YouGov, said: “Our polling of ethnic-minority attitudes suggests the royal family need to mend some fences.
“More optimistically, while ethnic-minority Britons have a generally negative perception of Charles and Camilla, the Queen herself, Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge all have strongly positive ratings.”
Overall, YouGov found 67 per cent felt positively towards the Queen.
Ancient history was never my strong point, but did Meghan actually say which member of the Royals was racist towards Archie? And if not, why not?
No, and because she fears it wouldn't stand up to scrutiny. I suspect she secretly knows Harry can be full of shit.
Besides which, it does far more damage to the Royal Family in the general than in the particular, and I suspect that's convenient right now.
Any other firm would have a reasonable case for slander, IMHO.
And.. I'll be controversial, the shade of colour of a black or mixed race child is always a source of conversation amongst black people, and a curiosity from white family members also. I'm sure there is an unpleasant way of expressing this curiosity. But being curious in itself is not unusual r a the least bit racist.
US has gone bonkers....women makes crazy statement that Piers Morgan is a definitely racist, not because he said anything racist, but because she felt his tone was racist. Another woman says hold on there, that's crazy, I know this person, he isn't racist..... klaxon goes off, your fired.
It's a blow to the cause of freedom of expression in the western world to not only lose Morgan, but now Osbourne too, but to me "racism" is just a cypher was what has actually driven this one. She was fired for the same reason she was hired - being Sharon Osbourne. It was an asset (for the show), now it's a liability. That's how it goes sometimes.
Never fear. Freedom of expression is alive and well ... for some:
https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1374385601504440331 To be clear, it’s not that most or even many of my interactions with white people are “bad”; it’s that I’m able to choose when to expose myself to interactions with potentially bad white people. That choice is a privilege I’ve never really had until this past year. Going out into white society for me is a little bit like a beekeeper going to get honey. I know what I’m doing: If I put on the right protection and blow enough smoke, most of the bees will leave me alone and the ones who don’t won’t really cause me that much pain. But I’ve got to put on the suit and the hat with the mesh and carry the smoke machine and be careful every time I want some goddamn honey. This year, it’s been like somebody said, “You know the honey comes in bottles now, right? You don’t have to risk being stung every time you want some food.”
"I want some goddamn honey". Very good!
Of course there are people - and sadly lots of them - whose perspective on racism in western post-colonial societies is so noddy and one dimensional that whenever they see something like this they go, "If a white person said that about black people, there'd be hell to pay! Why is this different?"
But as most on here know, I'm not one of those people.
We know, you don't believe in the equal and non-contingent application of universal principles. But some of us do.
You just refuse to engage with this issue on any level beyond the stupifyingly superficial. For a (very) bright bloke, I find it bizarre. For example, picking up on where we left off before, in a white majority dominant western country with a history of colonialism, imagine both of the following -
(i) A black person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be black.
(ii) A white person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be white.
Are these exact equivalents? Or is (ii) a rather different thing to (i) and more indicative of a racism problem?
To me, the answer is blindingly obvious. It's the latter. And tbh, if somebody can't see this, I don't think there is any chance of a productive conversation on the subject. All we can do is throw rocks.
They are exact equivalents if you believe in logic, reason and rational thinking.
Believing in rational thinking is good, I agree. And it's even better if you apply it.
Kinbalu, you're a ceaselessly reasonable poster, but I strongly disagree with you in this subject. Which appears to boil down to if you're white and English, you're irredeemably guilty and had better start apologising. Especially if you're alsi straight and male. Your rules don't appear to hold any other sub-groups to thhe same standard that you hold mine. As you say, let's not throw rocks about it. But I'd at least point out that your position is far from being as self-evident and widely accepted as you appear to think.
It's not about apologising. It's about recognising and acknowledging that you are playing the game of life on the easy setting.
I was born in a homeless shelter that my mum escaped to when my father battered her, then brought up on a rough housing estate, none of my family ever had money passed down to them or owned their own home. First generation of anyone in my family going to university. My (now ex) wife was from africa, her father was a university professor, with multiple estates, not having a at least a Masters in her family was a sign of you being a disappointment.
In that situation who was the one who played their life on easy setting?
It's clearly complicated and everyone's personal situations are different. My boss grew up in Africa, in a similar type of environment. She tells me she never had an experience of what racism was like until she came to the UK to study.
Quick calculation - we need to do 45m doses over the next 70 days to offer every eligible adult one or both doses before the final reopening step to allow for the final recipients some level of immunity. That works out to around 650k doses per day on average. I expect April will fall under that level by 3-4m (19.5m doses required) but May will be over the target by the same amount.
If we manage to do this then we could conceivably ensure 100% of adults have been offered it, 90-95% of people have had it and only 6 weeks of jabbing necessary after the June reopening taking us to the end of July for the programme to complete and for phase 3 to start (kids) over the summer with a single AZ dose and then phase 4 in September with booster doses to combat variantsfor at least 15m but more likely 32m in groups 1-9.
Any news on the J&J jab?
Nothing specific, what do you want to know?
When/whether it’s likely to be green lit by the MHRA!
Soon, same as Novavax. I think the processes are a bit slower becuase of the necessary variant analysis that didn't exist for Pfizer, AZ and Moderna.
Do you think J&J and Novavax may be usable by some point in April? Or more likely May or later now?
Novavax should be, not sure about the delivery timeframe for J&J. Word has it they are shorting the whole European delivery and backloading it to June but I don't know how secure our delivery timeframe is with them and how much leeway they have to delay once approval has been granted.
The royal family is racist, according to a poll of non-white voters that found many do not want the monarchy to continue.
The YouGov survey found many adults from ethnic minorities share the concerns voiced by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in their recent interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Ethnic minority Britons believe the royal family is racist by a margin of 43 per cent to 27 per cent.
The population as a whole thinks they are not racist by 55 per cent to 20 per cent.
In the interview, Meghan claimed a member of the royal family expressed “concerns” about what skin colour her son, Archie, would have.
When asked by Winfrey if the couple left the UK because of racism, Prince Harry said that “was a large part of it”. A few days after the interview, Prince William denied racism allegations, telling reporters: “We are very much not a racist family.”
But courtiers have revealed that efforts are already under way to improve the diversity of the royal household, which began before the interview.
Asked if Britain should “continue to have a monarchy in the future”, 43 per cent said it should, while 40 per cent would prefer an elected head of state, according to the poll of 504 people from ethnic minorities conducted a few days after the Winfrey interview.
Nearly half of interviewees — 49 per cent — said Harry and Meghan had been treated “unfairly” by the royal family, compared with less than a quarter — 24 per cent — who said “fairly”.
Anthony Wells, a director of YouGov, said: “Our polling of ethnic-minority attitudes suggests the royal family need to mend some fences.
“More optimistically, while ethnic-minority Britons have a generally negative perception of Charles and Camilla, the Queen herself, Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge all have strongly positive ratings.”
Overall, YouGov found 67 per cent felt positively towards the Queen.
Yes, I've seen a lot of people post that as if it's a killer piece of evidence.
I don’t buy it. Harry and Meghan got great coverage when Meghan joined the royal family, and for their wedding day in 2018. The Sun even ran an editorial hoping she would bring modernisation. Even the Mail was positive.
It fell off a cliff during 2018 and 2019 as their behaviour became better know, and the tabloids went for exposing the hypocritical angle (and I suspect they were following public opinion as much as leading it) and then the lawsuits were launched by H&M in late 2019, and then they ended all co-operation with them in early 2020. If you look at those headlines they are *all* in the same 18-month period (Oct 2018 - April 2020) right about the same time all the controversy about their behaviour behind the scenes in the royal household became well-known.
Simplified, exaggerated and uncompromising? Sure. Groundless and evidence of a racist witch-hunt? No.
I think this graph shows why COVID remains a serious disease for some, even after vaccination. We can perhaps hope that 2nd doses drop the CFR further, but I'd be surprised if that effect is very large.
--AS
Don't forget that this is an aggregated CFR which doesn't split out the unvaccinated, those small number of unvaccinated people will now be accounting for more and more of the total number so I actually expect the CFR to start rising soon.
That doesn't feel right to me. Data seems to show that the vaccines are c.80% effective against symptomatic disease, and c.95% of the top age group has been vaccinated. It follows that probably only c.25% of cases in the top age group are amongst unvaccinated. I suppose it's possible that those are the cases who disproportionately go on to die, but I think this contradicts data from Israel. Mind you, I've seen fairly contradictory data from Israel and it's still early days relatively.
Nothing is certain, but I'm not seeing any reason to think that vaccination reduces COVID risk to as low as (unvaccinated) flu risk, say, in the elderly. (Though I hope it does.)
--AS
No, the point is that the case rate for vaccinated people will drop to zero because our testing system is built around waiting for people to get symptoms and then confirming those symptoms with a test. After two doses 95% of people won't get any symptoms so they won't get tested.
Really? 95% in the elderly (which is the case at hand)? I'd be extremely surprised. And with new variants around it's very unlikely to be 95% in any cohort.
US has gone bonkers....women makes crazy statement that Piers Morgan is a definitely racist, not because he said anything racist, but because she felt his tone was racist. Another woman says hold on there, that's crazy, I know this person, he isn't racist..... klaxon goes off, your fired.
It's a blow to the cause of freedom of expression in the western world to not only lose Morgan, but now Osbourne too, but to me "racism" is just a cypher was what has actually driven this one. She was fired for the same reason she was hired - being Sharon Osbourne. It was an asset (for the show), now it's a liability. That's how it goes sometimes.
Never fear. Freedom of expression is alive and well ... for some:
https://twitter.com/ElieNYC/status/1374385601504440331 To be clear, it’s not that most or even many of my interactions with white people are “bad”; it’s that I’m able to choose when to expose myself to interactions with potentially bad white people. That choice is a privilege I’ve never really had until this past year. Going out into white society for me is a little bit like a beekeeper going to get honey. I know what I’m doing: If I put on the right protection and blow enough smoke, most of the bees will leave me alone and the ones who don’t won’t really cause me that much pain. But I’ve got to put on the suit and the hat with the mesh and carry the smoke machine and be careful every time I want some goddamn honey. This year, it’s been like somebody said, “You know the honey comes in bottles now, right? You don’t have to risk being stung every time you want some food.”
"I want some goddamn honey". Very good!
Of course there are people - and sadly lots of them - whose perspective on racism in western post-colonial societies is so noddy and one dimensional that whenever they see something like this they go, "If a white person said that about black people, there'd be hell to pay! Why is this different?"
But as most on here know, I'm not one of those people.
We know, you don't believe in the equal and non-contingent application of universal principles. But some of us do.
You just refuse to engage with this issue on any level beyond the stupifyingly superficial. For a (very) bright bloke, I find it bizarre. For example, picking up on where we left off before, in a white majority dominant western country with a history of colonialism, imagine both of the following -
(i) A black person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be black.
(ii) A white person makes a big deal of proclaiming they are proud to be white.
Are these exact equivalents? Or is (ii) a rather different thing to (i) and more indicative of a racism problem?
To me, the answer is blindingly obvious. It's the latter. And tbh, if somebody can't see this, I don't think there is any chance of a productive conversation on the subject. All we can do is throw rocks.
Ok, instead of rocks, how about some elenchus? To start us off, could you explain the exact reason why you and I and civilized people the world over consider racism to be wrong in principle?
My question first. Do you truly and honestly see those things as equally indicative of racism*? Or do agree with me that (ii) is more so.
Because if you actually can see the difference we don't need to write a screed from first principles.
The two examples are identical in principle; the only difference between them is historical context. The question is whether it's worth sacrificing the former - which provides the fundamental moral basis for all anti-racism - for the sake of the latter. I happen to think that that is a trade that prioritizes a short-term potential gain at the price of a certain long-term loss.
But that "only" difference is the size of all the tea in China. It's absolutely key. And to recognize this does not throw out the general principle that "racism = bad". It just adds nuance and context to it. It applies the principle to the real world. There's nothing special about racism that should exclude it from this good and necessary universal practice.
I can see why people who take your point of view would like to add in (their version of) historical context - it creates a virtually unchallengeable system that automatically grants privilege to those you consider oppressed and removes it from those you do not. But I'm afraid the logical damage it does (not to mention the practical harm) cannot be waved away, as you'll discover if you answer my question - why do we all consider racism * to be wrong in principle?
*There is indeed nothing special about it as a category - these arguments apply to all other related concepts.
My view is that obsession over race is a phase that we need to go through before everyone starts mixing (lots of James Cleverly, Jessica Ennis-Hills, Chukas, Archies, Sunders etc.) and identifying with a common British heritage again.
The question is whether we can get through it without blowing ourselves up in the meantime, aggravated by the far-Left and state actors like China and Russia.
Bit like saying we need Covid before we can be healthy again. What we need to do is all (whatever colour or creed) move away from those who would attempt to drive us apart and spread their pernicious disease of victimhood.
I don't agree with much of it (particularly CRT, past-shaming, and teaching history on grounds of race, gender and sexuality) but I can see a way through it to unity at the end.
However, it won't happen automatically: it has to be led by taking genuine on-board concerns about racial inequality and unfairness, but ditching the cultural marxism.
Are the Welsh still leading the vaccination league table?
I assume so and out and about yesterday and today everywhere is teaming with people and cars and little compliance
IF infections and more importantly deaths and hospitalisations stay low that might be a positive thing
It could be
I have just watched a report from Tenby with locals upset with people driving 100 miles, and scared it will all start again
And of course that 100 miles would have to be within Wales, also the local businesses saying they cannot survive without the English visitors
Covid panic in seaside resorts exists and is doubtless genuine, but it's also baseless. We must remember at this juncture that we have been previously reassured, contrary to fears expressed during Spring and Summer last year, that there have been no recorded instances anywhere on Earth of Covid clusters being traced back to beach sunbathing, and I would imagine the same is true of people using parks, walking along promenades or up and down streets. Outdoor activity is, broadly speaking, safe.
The main thing I would be concerned with in these circumstances was so many people turning up at once that the roads, litter bins and public toilets proved unable to meet demand. Not about the Plague.
Local authorities and police might have to think about trying to restrict access/marshal people away from very busy areas for these reasons, but the irrational germ phobia that some people have should not be overindulged, or we shall never get out of the present mess.
If some residents of these honeypots are still shit scared of other people then they can always stay at home in the middle of the day themselves, and venture forth when it's quieter.
Your last sentence is insulting to people and their local community and may I say, unnecessary
Once again, I'm sure that the fear is genuine but it has no basis in fact and should not, therefore, be indulged.
There is nothing controversial (or at least there shouldn't be) in stating that people should be able to go where they like with sensible exceptions, such as those required by due respect for privacy and private property, the conservation of sensitive environments, the alleviation of unacceptable nuisance to local communities, and public safety.
Within reason, there is no harm in outsiders coming to visit seaside resorts - indeed, if you so happen to live in a seaside resort then you are to expect to share it with a certain number of visitors. Objections to visitors that are rooted in slim-to-non-existent threats are not, therefore, defensible.
Thus, if some of the locals are frightened of visitors, but the visitors are doing nothing wrong, then the onus is on the locals to stay away from the visitors and not the other way around. I fail to see what is contentious about this.
I know it is serious but an expert on the Suez canal has just said
'The problem is the bow is in Asia and the stern in Africa'
Well they’re not wrong!
Let’s hope they can find a way of making her float soon, next high tide there is on Monday, otherwise this is going to take an awful long time.
It was in the context of maritime insurance if that makes sense
The insurance is different, depending on which continent the ship gets stuck?
(Goes off to research maritime insurance, gets the feeling this is a massive wormhole).
My friend is an expert in maritime/business interruption insurance, he's won the Uncle Albert award three years out of the last eight amongst his team of 20 underwriters.
The person with the most ships requiring a payout in one fiscal year.
Once he checked he wasn't the underwriter for this ship he could enjoy and laugh at the events in the Suez
Lawyers will be rubbing their hands together.Lots of ships cases come to London. And the High Court has a sub division dealing only with ship matters. Once upon a time it was the wonderfully named 'Probate, Divorce and Admiralty' division.
I think this graph shows why COVID remains a serious disease for some, even after vaccination. We can perhaps hope that 2nd doses drop the CFR further, but I'd be surprised if that effect is very large.
--AS
Don't forget that this is an aggregated CFR which doesn't split out the unvaccinated, those small number of unvaccinated people will now be accounting for more and more of the total number so I actually expect the CFR to start rising soon.
That doesn't feel right to me. Data seems to show that the vaccines are c.80% effective against symptomatic disease, and c.95% of the top age group has been vaccinated. It follows that probably only c.25% of cases in the top age group are amongst unvaccinated. I suppose it's possible that those are the cases who disproportionately go on to die, but I think this contradicts data from Israel. Mind you, I've seen fairly contradictory data from Israel and it's still early days relatively.
Nothing is certain, but I'm not seeing any reason to think that vaccination reduces COVID risk to as low as (unvaccinated) flu risk, say, in the elderly. (Though I hope it does.)
--AS
No, the point is that the case rate for vaccinated people will drop to zero because our testing system is built around waiting for people to get symptoms and then confirming those symptoms with a test. After two doses 95% of people won't get any symptoms so they won't get tested.
Really? 95% in the elderly (which is the case at hand)? I'd be extremely surprised. And with new variants around it's very unlikely to be 95% in any cohort.
--AS
I think it was 93% in Israel, our dosing strategy is probably going to result in better immunity.
Ultimately though we have to be grown ups about it, people die of diseases everyday. We can't really treat COVID any differently once there is no real danger of overloading the NHS. That day is coming very soon.
My view is that obsession over race is a phase that we need to go through before everyone starts mixing (lots of James Cleverly, Jessica Ennis-Hills, Chukas, Archies, Sunders etc.) and identifying with a common British heritage again.
The question is whether we can get through it without blowing ourselves up in the meantime, aggravated by the far-Left and state actors like China and Russia.
I see it more as a reckoning than an obsession, I think it's necessary and we'll emerge stronger and more at peace from it, and I think 'white privilege' and 'white fragility' are perfectly serviceable and insightful concepts and terms, but nevertheless I do see some dangers and downsides. We don't want to disappear down a rabbit hole and get endlessly introspective and angsty. And the West beats the totalitarian East as a place to live - any day of the week - so let's not forget that.
The one glaring inequality of which very little discussion or calls for radical measures is, of course, class. Do we really think a very poor white person is inherently more privilege than a wealthy black person?
That very scenario - or something approaching it - was at the heart of Jim Crow in the Old South.
Principle was that even the lowest-status, most poverty-stricken White person, was superior to ANY Black person, regardless of economic or other assets (such as education).
For example, a "respectable" White farmer or professional man would probably NOT welcome no-account White trash to their table BUT it might happen, for a variety of reasons.
But same guy would NEVER sit down to eat a meal with ANY Black person.
Which is why Theodore Roosevelt had a HUGE political problem with White Southerners, when he invited Booker T. Washington to lunch at the White House. When BTW was the most eminent & highly-respected Black man in the USA.
Are the Welsh still leading the vaccination league table?
I assume so and out and about yesterday and today everywhere is teaming with people and cars and little compliance
IF infections and more importantly deaths and hospitalisations stay low that might be a positive thing
It could be
I have just watched a report from Tenby with locals upset with people driving 100 miles, and scared it will all start again
And of course that 100 miles would have to be within Wales, also the local businesses saying they cannot survive without the English visitors
Covid panic in seaside resorts exists and is doubtless genuine, but it's also baseless. We must remember at this juncture that we have been previously reassured, contrary to fears expressed during Spring and Summer last year, that there have been no recorded instances anywhere on Earth of Covid clusters being traced back to beach sunbathing, and I would imagine the same is true of people using parks, walking along promenades or up and down streets. Outdoor activity is, broadly speaking, safe.
The main thing I would be concerned with in these circumstances was so many people turning up at once that the roads, litter bins and public toilets proved unable to meet demand. Not about the Plague.
Local authorities and police might have to think about trying to restrict access/marshal people away from very busy areas for these reasons, but the irrational germ phobia that some people have should not be overindulged, or we shall never get out of the present mess.
If some residents of these honeypots are still shit scared of other people then they can always stay at home in the middle of the day themselves, and venture forth when it's quieter.
Your last sentence is insulting to people and their local community and may I say, unnecessary
Once again, I'm sure that the fear is genuine but it has no basis in fact and should not, therefore, be indulged.
There is nothing controversial (or at least there shouldn't be) in stating that people should be able to go where they like with sensible exceptions, such as those required by due respect for privacy and private property, the conservation of sensitive environments, the alleviation of unacceptable nuisance to local communities, and public safety.
Within reason, there is no harm in outsiders coming to visit seaside resorts - indeed, if you so happen to live in a seaside resort then you are to expect to share it with a certain number of visitors. Objections to visitors that are rooted in slim-to-non-existent threats are not, therefore, defensible.
Thus, if some of the locals are frightened of visitors, but the visitors are doing nothing wrong, then the onus is on the locals to stay away from the visitors and not the other way around. I fail to see what is contentious about this.
I live in Llandudno that entirely depends on tourism and has been devastated by covid
Of course we welcome tourists but suggesting locals concerns should result in them hiding away is hardly diplomatic
I know it is serious but an expert on the Suez canal has just said
'The problem is the bow is in Asia and the stern in Africa'
Well they’re not wrong!
Let’s hope they can find a way of making her float soon, next high tide there is on Monday, otherwise this is going to take an awful long time.
It was in the context of maritime insurance if that makes sense
The insurance is different, depending on which continent the ship gets stuck?
(Goes off to research maritime insurance, gets the feeling this is a massive wormhole).
My friend is an expert in maritime/business interruption insurance, he's won the Uncle Albert award three years out of the last eight amongst his team of 20 underwriters.
The person with the most ships requiring a payout in one fiscal year.
Once he checked he wasn't the underwriter for this ship he could enjoy and laugh at the events in the Suez
Lawyers will be rubbing their hands together.Lots of ships cases come to London. And the High Court has a sub division dealing only with ship matters. Once upon a time it was the wonderfully named 'Probate, Divorce and Admiralty' division.
Comments
https://onewayroadtobeer.com/
The YouGov survey found many adults from ethnic minorities share the concerns voiced by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in their recent interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Ethnic minority Britons believe the royal family is racist by a margin of 43 per cent to 27 per cent.
The population as a whole thinks they are not racist by 55 per cent to 20 per cent.
In the interview, Meghan claimed a member of the royal family expressed “concerns” about what skin colour her son, Archie, would have.
When asked by Winfrey if the couple left the UK because of racism, Prince Harry said that “was a large part of it”. A few days after the interview, Prince William denied racism allegations, telling reporters: “We are very much not a racist family.”
But courtiers have revealed that efforts are already under way to improve the diversity of the royal household, which began before the interview.
Asked if Britain should “continue to have a monarchy in the future”, 43 per cent said it should, while 40 per cent would prefer an elected head of state, according to the poll of 504 people from ethnic minorities conducted a few days after the Winfrey interview.
Nearly half of interviewees — 49 per cent — said Harry and Meghan had been treated “unfairly” by the royal family, compared with less than a quarter — 24 per cent — who said “fairly”.
Anthony Wells, a director of YouGov, said: “Our polling of ethnic-minority attitudes suggests the royal family need to mend some fences.
“More optimistically, while ethnic-minority Britons have a generally negative perception of Charles and Camilla, the Queen herself, Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge all have strongly positive ratings.”
Overall, YouGov found 67 per cent felt positively towards the Queen.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/royal-family-is-racist-but-we-like-the-queen-say-ethnic-minority-voters-lfpw3c6d5
I have just watched a report from Tenby with locals upset with people driving 100 miles, and scared it will all start again
And of course that 100 miles would have to be within Wales, also the local businesses saying they cannot survive without the English visitors
The guest slot on Countdown perhaps?
CRT is going to cause monumental damage to relations in the UK. It imports wholesale an american culture war fight when it doesnt apply.
My view is that you can't change the colour of your skin - no matter what race you are - and discriminating on it is wrong in the absolute because otherwise you create injustice for individuals based on sociological views.
I have to pop - but @IshmaelZ and @TimT have argued it very well imo. So I'd point you to their posts.
Now Labour and the Greens get 87% between them. (There have been boundary changes since 1997).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_West_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s
I have felt a desire to express pride in being English on St. George's Day, and would welcome Englishmen (and women) of any race joining me in doing so.
The two are not related, and I would find it offensive if someone suggested they were.
And today is the first day staying local has been lifted
One reason I've warmed (slightly) to this administration is that they've shown steel on this issue, whereas I think May/Cameron's administrations would have equivocated and/or largely rolled with it.
The main thing I would be concerned with in these circumstances was so many people turning up at once that the roads, litter bins and public toilets proved unable to meet demand. Not about the Plague.
Local authorities and police might have to think about trying to restrict access/marshal people away from very busy areas for these reasons, but the irrational germ phobia that some people have should not be overindulged, or we shall never get out of the present mess.
If some residents of these honeypots are still shit scared of other people then they can always stay at home in the middle of the day themselves, and venture forth when it's quieter.
Viscount Cranborne, the British Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, wrote a letter on 21 February 1945 to the British War Cabinet regarding Irish-British collaboration during 1939–1945:[59]
They agreed to our use of Lough Foyle for naval and air purposes. The ownership of the Lough is disputed, but the Southern Irish authorities are tacitly not pressing their claim in present conditions and are also ignoring any flying by our aircraft over the Donegal shore of the Lough, which is necessary in certain wind conditions to enable flying boats to take off from the Lough.
They have agreed to use by our aircraft based on Lough Erne of a corridor over Southern Irish territory and territorial waters for the purpose of flying out to the Atlantic.
They have arranged for the immediate transmission to the United Kingdom Representative's Office in Dublin of reports of submarine activity received from their coast watching service.
They arranged for the broadening of reports by their Air observation Corps of aircraft sighted over or approaching Southern Irish territory. (This does not include our aircraft using the corridor referred to in (b) above.)
They arranged for the extinction of trade and business lighting in coastal towns where such lighting was alleged to afford a useful landmark for German aircraft.
They have continued to supply us with meteorological reports.
They have agreed to the use by our ships and aircraft of two wireless direction-finding stations at Malin Head.
They have supplied particulars of German crashed aircraft and personnel crashed or washed ashore or arrested on land.
They arranged for staff talks on the question of co-operation against a possible German invasion of Southern Ireland, and close contact has since been maintained between the respective military authorities.
They continue to intern all German fighting personnel reaching Southern Ireland. On the other hand, though after protracted negotiations, Allied service personnel are now allowed to depart freely and full assistance is given in recovering damaged aircraft.
Recently, in connection with the establishment of prisoner of war camps in Northern Ireland, they have agreed to return or at least intern any German prisoners who may escape from Northern Ireland across the border to Southern Ireland.
They have throughout offered no objection to the departure from Southern Ireland of persons wishing to serve in the United Kingdom Forces nor to the journey on leave of such persons to and from Southern Ireland (in plain clothes).
They have continued to exchange information with our security authorities regarding all aliens (including Germans) in Southern Ireland.
They have (within the last few days) agreed to our establishing a radar station in Southern Ireland for use against the latest form of submarine activity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_neutrality_during_World_War_II#The_Cranborne_Report
If we manage to do this then we could conceivably ensure 100% of adults have been offered it, 90-95% of people have had it and only 6 weeks of jabbing necessary after the June reopening taking us to the end of July for the programme to complete and for phase 3 to start (kids) over the summer with a single AZ dose and then phase 4 in September with booster doses to combat variantsfor at least 15m but more likely 32m in groups 1-9.
Let’s hope they can find a way of making her float soon, next high tide there is on Monday, otherwise this is going to take an awful long time.
The tension between visitors and residents has always been here for seaside resorts - but making day trips necessary doesn't help. In the old days people came for days or weeks and spent money in the towns. Now the norm for many is to arrive in the morning, clogging up the roads, with bags of supermarket shopping, park on pavements, depart at sundown, leave the wrappings, beer cans and the temporary bbqs on the beach. Will be interesting to see if that is different this year
--AS
Meghan and Harry are a symptom and not a cause.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/meghan-markle-kate-middleton-double-standards-royal
For many because there's some people so privileged that they don't have anything better to worry about.
Besides which, it does far more damage to the Royal Family in the general than in the particular, and I suspect that's convenient right now.
Any other firm would have a reasonable case for slander, IMHO.
(Goes off to research maritime insurance, gets the feeling this is a massive wormhole).
Malcom X - "We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us."
etc.
Nothing is certain, but I'm not seeing any reason to think that vaccination reduces COVID risk to as low as (unvaccinated) flu risk, say, in the elderly. (Though I hope it does.)
--AS
The person with the most ships requiring a payout in one fiscal year.
Once he checked he wasn't the underwriter for this ship he could enjoy and laugh at the events in the Suez
In that situation who was the one who played their life on easy setting?
From the pics I’ve seen, the the water seems to be almost up to the top of the banks. I’m not sure high tide can get high enough.
It looks to me like they need to properly dig down at the banks on either side, then make a channel.
Just simply dredging a bit, waiting for high tide, hoping and tugging harder seems... unlikely to work.
/amateuranalysis
A surprising number of people have failed to realise that there will be lots of second vaccinations in April. 400K a day or near that. Which will mean that, of course, 1st vaccinations will be reduced.
As usual, the press etc will be trailing far behind.
So if we have days when 1st vaccinations fall below 100K (I think they will)... what kind of biscuits should we serve at the panic, and what kind of tea? Pizza for the kids?
https://twitter.com/Political_AlanS/status/1375787714394652676
Still, no doubt it will all settle down - or it won't, and we will learn to live with it.
Point is that tourist areas depend on tourists. We have to learn to live with it.
I don’t buy it. Harry and Meghan got great coverage when Meghan joined the royal family, and for their wedding day in 2018. The Sun even ran an editorial hoping she would bring modernisation. Even the Mail was positive.
It fell off a cliff during 2018 and 2019 as their behaviour became better know, and the tabloids went for exposing the hypocritical angle (and I suspect they were following public opinion as much as leading it) and then the lawsuits were launched by H&M in late 2019, and then they ended all co-operation with them in early 2020. If you look at those headlines they are *all* in the same 18-month period (Oct 2018 - April 2020) right about the same time all the controversy about their behaviour behind the scenes in the royal household became well-known.
Simplified, exaggerated and uncompromising? Sure. Groundless and evidence of a racist witch-hunt? No.
I spent half of Thursday looking at engineering drawings of the Suez Canal
Edit: this is a useful thread, from a maritime lawyer.
https://twitter.com/PeterHuggler/status/1375843766981029892
Edit2: Looks like they might have moved her slightly in the past few minutes, but she's still hard aground.
--AS
*There is indeed nothing special about it as a category - these arguments apply to all other related concepts.
However, it won't happen automatically: it has to be led by taking genuine on-board concerns about racial inequality and unfairness, but ditching the cultural marxism.
There is nothing controversial (or at least there shouldn't be) in stating that people should be able to go where they like with sensible exceptions, such as those required by due respect for privacy and private property, the conservation of sensitive environments, the alleviation of unacceptable nuisance to local communities, and public safety.
Within reason, there is no harm in outsiders coming to visit seaside resorts - indeed, if you so happen to live in a seaside resort then you are to expect to share it with a certain number of visitors. Objections to visitors that are rooted in slim-to-non-existent threats are not, therefore, defensible.
Thus, if some of the locals are frightened of visitors, but the visitors are doing nothing wrong, then the onus is on the locals to stay away from the visitors and not the other way around. I fail to see what is contentious about this.
Ultimately though we have to be grown ups about it, people die of diseases everyday. We can't really treat COVID any differently once there is no real danger of overloading the NHS. That day is coming very soon.
My coat? Why thanks.
Principle was that even the lowest-status, most poverty-stricken White person, was superior to ANY Black person, regardless of economic or other assets (such as education).
For example, a "respectable" White farmer or professional man would probably NOT welcome no-account White trash to their table BUT it might happen, for a variety of reasons.
But same guy would NEVER sit down to eat a meal with ANY Black person.
Which is why Theodore Roosevelt had a HUGE political problem with White Southerners, when he invited Booker T. Washington to lunch at the White House. When BTW was the most eminent & highly-respected Black man in the USA.
Of course we welcome tourists but suggesting locals concerns should result in them hiding away is hardly diplomatic