Utterly disgraceful amount of litter in Endcliffe park this morning, I expect other parks around the country will be similar.
I walked through a country park yesterday evening - no litter to be seen.
However at the weekend I walked down a footpath that runs alongside it and there was loads there - I can only assume people were lobbing their crap over the fence into the bushes.
A lot of it was cans, mainly beer cans tbh.
This was where I saw a volunteer way off the paths in the park picking stuff up - much respect to the guy.
A lot of roadside litter round here is from the usual drive through suspects. It seems to take only about 1 mile for the packaging from Maccy D's to get launched.
The companies themselves ought to take more responsibility for this but nothing ever happens.
Politico: The Biden administration is rethinking a costly system of government-run mass vaccination sites after data revealed the program is lagging well behind a much cheaper federal effort to distribute doses via retail pharmacies.
The government has shipped millions of doses to the 21 mass vaccination hubs, or “pilot” community centers, in states such as California, Florida, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and Texas. The hubs are part of a $4 billion federal system that funds more than 1,000 smaller vaccination locations across the country and provides other vaccination support — such as supplies — to states across the country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency did not respond to repeated questions about how much the pilot sites cost.
Despite the money the federal government has spent on the mass-vaccination pilot sites, they are administering just a fraction of the shots given across the country each day. Federal data show the retail pharmacy program — which has signed up 21 chains and 17,000 stores — can reach far more Americans in a shorter time, according to four senior officials with direct knowledge of the matter. The bottom line, those sources said, is that more Americans seem to be willing to walk to their local pharmacist to get the vaccine than to travel to a federal vaccination site for the shot.
Several studies have shown that the British public, and I believe, the American has at least as much trust in pharmacists ....... generally community ones, in shops ...... as they do in GP's. My (long-ago, now) experience was that being asked for advice could be a 'many times a day' experience, especially where the same pharmacist had ben visible in the pharmacy for several years.
Here in Spain they are really good. They are heavily linked in via the prescription system and ultra helpful.
Unfortunately in Germany a doctor has to be involved in every vaccination, so it would need a change in the law to allow pharmacies to offer jabs.
Seriously? I had a three year course of cancer treatment delivered entirely by NHS nurses. No wonder vaccinations are taking so long in Germany.
Having said that, most other big European countries seem to be moving at the same speed, so it can’t be the only reason unless doctors are required in the same way in those countries as well.
At the moment, supply is the bottleneck. Even the Great AZ Pause has mostly been caught up. Most of the stories about millions of doses lying around are pretty bad faith- you do the calculation immediately after a huge delivery and bingo!
(https://covidtracker.fr/vaccintracker/ is a pretty good source for the French data; as you noted, the pace is now pretty much of a muchness for most big European countries.)
What remains to be seen is how they cope over the next month or two, as the taps open more fully.
Does anybody have any updates on the trials of that inhaler device that kills Covid whilst it's in its hibernation stage at the back of the throat? That looks extremely promising and could be a game changer.
If you look at the 2005 and 2010 results, you would conclude that to win a majority, Labour would need Nuneaton.
Currently held by the Conservatives on a 29% majority.
There's all sorts of quirks out there now Mansfield being a safer Tory seat than say Esher and Walton.
Possibly quirks. Or possibly a new normal. In the early 1980s you wouldn't have guessed that 40 years in the future West Virginia would have become one of the Republicans safest bets in a presidential election. Maybe this is the same thing happening here, in both directions?
Before 2010 some of us predicted a 'West Virginia' trend while the Cameroons were putting their efforts into Hammersmith and Tooting.
Though even I didn't expect what happened in Mansfield and Bolsover.
Shaun Bailey - Conservative Party Candidate Kam Balayev - Renew Sian Berry - Green Party Count Binface - Count Binface for Mayor of London Valerie Brown - The Burning Pink Party Piers Corbyn - Let London Live Max Fosh - Independent Laurence Fox - The Reclaim Party Peter Gammons - UKIP Richard Hewison - Rejoin EU Vanessa Hudson - Animal Welfare Party - People, Animals, Environment Steve Kelleher - Social Democratic Party Sadiq Khan - Labour Party David Kurten - Heritage Party Farah London - Independent Nims Obunge - Independent Niko Omilana - Independent Luisa Porritt - Liberal Democrats Mandu Reid - Vote Women's Equality Party on Orange Brian Rose - London Real Party
Actress Seyi Omooba has been ordered to pay full costs after losing her tribunal against Leicester Curve and agency Global Artists last month.
Omooba was dismissed from the cast of the Curve's production of The Color Purple in 2019, and subsequently dropped by her agent, when anti-gay comments she had made on Facebook were reported after she was cast to play the lead role of Celie, a gay character.
She subsequently launched an employment tribunal against both organisations for religious discrimination and breach of contract. The final costs could amount to over £300,000.
In a joint statement, Curve chief executive Chris Stafford and artistic director Nikolai Foster said: "We have always felt the case lacked any merit from the outset, but Seyi Omooba and her legal team continued to disregard our pleadings and chose to take our theatre to court irrespective of the facts."
They said the tribunal had been "used as part of a wider campaign orchestrated by Christian Concern," which resulted in "significant human and financial cost".
The statement continues: "Whilst we welcome this news, we would like to reiterate we do not condone any negativity aimed at Seyi Omooba and we respectfully ask anyone in support of Curve to remain kind and respectful."
For PB's Royal Gossip Enthusiasts, the Archbishop speaks:
In an interview with the Italian newspaper la Repubblica, Welby was asked about what happened. He said the legal wedding took place on the Saturday, adding: “But I won’t say what happened at any other meetings.”
The archbishop told the paper: “If any of you ever talk to a priest, you expect them to keep that talk confidential. It doesn’t matter who I’m talking to. I had a number of private and pastoral meetings with the duke and duchess before the wedding.
“The legal wedding was on the Saturday. I signed the wedding certificate, which is a legal document, and I would have committed a serious criminal offence if I signed it knowing it was false.”
During the interview, Meghan had told Winfrey: “You know, three days before our wedding we got married. No one knows that, but we called the archbishop and we just said, ‘Look, this thing, this spectacle, is for the world, but we want our union between us.’”
Who could have guessed that the Archbishop of Canterbury knows what he is doing, takes marriage very seriously, and is scrupulous about obeying the law?
I think I may have said at the time that if Welby had done what they claimed that would have been the end of his time in office. It was obvious that Harry and Meghan were wrong.
Would get really fun if H&M now come back and say "but he told us we were married!"
"Recollections may vary" will be the line in that case.
It does seem as though their story is falling apart at the seams a bit. Not shocked.
Shaun Bailey - Conservative Party Candidate Kam Balayev - Renew Sian Berry - Green Party Count Binface - Count Binface for Mayor of London Valerie Brown - The Burning Pink Party Piers Corbyn - Let London Live Max Fosh - Independent Laurence Fox - The Reclaim Party Peter Gammons - UKIP Richard Hewison - Rejoin EU Vanessa Hudson - Animal Welfare Party - People, Animals, Environment Steve Kelleher - Social Democratic Party Sadiq Khan - Labour Party David Kurten - Heritage Party Farah London - Independent Nims Obunge - Independent Niko Omilana - Independent Luisa Porritt - Liberal Democrats Mandu Reid - Vote Women's Equality Party on Orange Brian Rose - London Real Party
If Sadiq Khan gets over 50% on the first ballot, there are going to be quite few on penny numbers.
As I've commented on before - the reason why I suspect a land value tax will be implemented is that it would be less politically painful and less work than doing a council tax rebanding exercise
Politico: The Biden administration is rethinking a costly system of government-run mass vaccination sites after data revealed the program is lagging well behind a much cheaper federal effort to distribute doses via retail pharmacies.
The government has shipped millions of doses to the 21 mass vaccination hubs, or “pilot” community centers, in states such as California, Florida, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and Texas. The hubs are part of a $4 billion federal system that funds more than 1,000 smaller vaccination locations across the country and provides other vaccination support — such as supplies — to states across the country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency did not respond to repeated questions about how much the pilot sites cost.
Despite the money the federal government has spent on the mass-vaccination pilot sites, they are administering just a fraction of the shots given across the country each day. Federal data show the retail pharmacy program — which has signed up 21 chains and 17,000 stores — can reach far more Americans in a shorter time, according to four senior officials with direct knowledge of the matter. The bottom line, those sources said, is that more Americans seem to be willing to walk to their local pharmacist to get the vaccine than to travel to a federal vaccination site for the shot.
Several studies have shown that the British public, and I believe, the American has at least as much trust in pharmacists ....... generally community ones, in shops ...... as they do in GP's. My (long-ago, now) experience was that being asked for advice could be a 'many times a day' experience, especially where the same pharmacist had ben visible in the pharmacy for several years.
Here in Spain they are really good. They are heavily linked in via the prescription system and ultra helpful.
Unfortunately in Germany a doctor has to be involved in every vaccination, so it would need a change in the law to allow pharmacies to offer jabs.
Seriously? I had a three year course of cancer treatment delivered entirely by NHS nurses. No wonder vaccinations are taking so long in Germany.
Having said that, most other big European countries seem to be moving at the same speed, so it can’t be the only reason unless doctors are required in the same way in those countries as well.
At the moment, supply is the bottleneck. Even the Great AZ Pause has mostly been caught up. Most of the stories about millions of doses lying around are pretty bad faith- you do the calculation immediately after a huge delivery and bingo!
(https://covidtracker.fr/vaccintracker/ is a pretty good source for the French data; as you noted, the pace is now pretty much of a muchness for most big European countries.)
What remains to be seen is how they cope over the next month or two, as the taps open more fully.
There are doses lying around in Germany, but it's because of the policy of reserving second doses.
13.5 million doses administered out of 15.9 million delivered. True, some will be recent deliveries still on their way to vaccination centres etc. But others are reserved second doses, which is in turn partly because of German inflexibility about the timing of the second dose, and wanting to guarantee people's upcoming second dose appointments.
Shaun Bailey - Conservative Party Candidate Kam Balayev - Renew Sian Berry - Green Party Count Binface - Count Binface for Mayor of London Valerie Brown - The Burning Pink Party Piers Corbyn - Let London Live Max Fosh - Independent Laurence Fox - The Reclaim Party Peter Gammons - UKIP Richard Hewison - Rejoin EU Vanessa Hudson - Animal Welfare Party - People, Animals, Environment Steve Kelleher - Social Democratic Party Sadiq Khan - Labour Party David Kurten - Heritage Party Farah London - Independent Nims Obunge - Independent Niko Omilana - Independent Luisa Porritt - Liberal Democrats Mandu Reid - Vote Women's Equality Party on Orange Brian Rose - London Real Party
If Sadiq Khan gets over 50% on the first ballot, there are going to be quite few on penny numbers.
Has Brian Rose realised he's going to be at the bottom of the ballot paper? AFAIK in a lot of places in the US they randomise the surnames and he might have assumed that would happen here.
Utterly disgraceful amount of litter in Endcliffe park this morning, I expect other parks around the country will be similar.
I walked through a country park yesterday evening - no litter to be seen.
However at the weekend I walked down a footpath that runs alongside it and there was loads there - I can only assume people were lobbing their crap over the fence into the bushes.
A lot of it was cans, mainly beer cans tbh.
This was where I saw a volunteer way off the paths in the park picking stuff up - much respect to the guy.
A lot of roadside litter round here is from the usual drive through suspects. It seems to take only about 1 mile for the packaging from Maccy D's to get launched.
The companies themselves ought to take more responsibility for this but nothing ever happens.
They opened a McDonalds back in Thornaby - litter from it was *everywhere* and once the odd complaint was made they would make a tentative effort and then ignore it afterwards.
TBH I don't blame the fast food places. There are plenty of bins available. I blame adults who both don't care about their own environment and who raise their kids to similarly not care. Its pig ignorance.
Politico: The Biden administration is rethinking a costly system of government-run mass vaccination sites after data revealed the program is lagging well behind a much cheaper federal effort to distribute doses via retail pharmacies.
The government has shipped millions of doses to the 21 mass vaccination hubs, or “pilot” community centers, in states such as California, Florida, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and Texas. The hubs are part of a $4 billion federal system that funds more than 1,000 smaller vaccination locations across the country and provides other vaccination support — such as supplies — to states across the country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency did not respond to repeated questions about how much the pilot sites cost.
Despite the money the federal government has spent on the mass-vaccination pilot sites, they are administering just a fraction of the shots given across the country each day. Federal data show the retail pharmacy program — which has signed up 21 chains and 17,000 stores — can reach far more Americans in a shorter time, according to four senior officials with direct knowledge of the matter. The bottom line, those sources said, is that more Americans seem to be willing to walk to their local pharmacist to get the vaccine than to travel to a federal vaccination site for the shot.
Several studies have shown that the British public, and I believe, the American has at least as much trust in pharmacists ....... generally community ones, in shops ...... as they do in GP's. My (long-ago, now) experience was that being asked for advice could be a 'many times a day' experience, especially where the same pharmacist had ben visible in the pharmacy for several years.
Here in Spain they are really good. They are heavily linked in via the prescription system and ultra helpful.
Unfortunately in Germany a doctor has to be involved in every vaccination, so it would need a change in the law to allow pharmacies to offer jabs.
Seriously? I had a three year course of cancer treatment delivered entirely by NHS nurses. No wonder vaccinations are taking so long in Germany.
Having said that, most other big European countries seem to be moving at the same speed, so it can’t be the only reason unless doctors are required in the same way in those countries as well.
At the moment, supply is the bottleneck. Even the Great AZ Pause has mostly been caught up. Most of the stories about millions of doses lying around are pretty bad faith- you do the calculation immediately after a huge delivery and bingo!
(https://covidtracker.fr/vaccintracker/ is a pretty good source for the French data; as you noted, the pace is now pretty much of a muchness for most big European countries.)
What remains to be seen is how they cope over the next month or two, as the taps open more fully.
There are doses lying around in Germany, but it's because of the policy of reserving second doses.
13.5 million doses administered out of 15.9 million delivered. True, some will be recent deliveries still on their way to vaccination centres etc. But others are reserved second doses, which is in turn partly because of German inflexibility about the timing of the second dose, and wanting to guarantee people's upcoming second dose appointments.
What will they do about younger women who’ve had one dose of AZ who now reject the 2nd, because of the 1/100,000 chance of a blood clot?
Shaun Bailey - Conservative Party Candidate Kam Balayev - Renew Sian Berry - Green Party Count Binface - Count Binface for Mayor of London Valerie Brown - The Burning Pink Party Piers Corbyn - Let London Live Max Fosh - Independent Laurence Fox - The Reclaim Party Peter Gammons - UKIP Richard Hewison - Rejoin EU Vanessa Hudson - Animal Welfare Party - People, Animals, Environment Steve Kelleher - Social Democratic Party Sadiq Khan - Labour Party David Kurten - Heritage Party Farah London - Independent Nims Obunge - Independent Niko Omilana - Independent Luisa Porritt - Liberal Democrats Mandu Reid - Vote Women's Equality Party on Orange Brian Rose - London Real Party
Blimey! How much dollah for a deposit to make it onto the ballot paper? Some people have got money to burn clearly.
Shaun Bailey - Conservative Party Candidate Kam Balayev - Renew Sian Berry - Green Party Count Binface - Count Binface for Mayor of London Valerie Brown - The Burning Pink Party Piers Corbyn - Let London Live Max Fosh - Independent Laurence Fox - The Reclaim Party Peter Gammons - UKIP Richard Hewison - Rejoin EU Vanessa Hudson - Animal Welfare Party - People, Animals, Environment Steve Kelleher - Social Democratic Party Sadiq Khan - Labour Party David Kurten - Heritage Party Farah London - Independent Nims Obunge - Independent Niko Omilana - Independent Luisa Porritt - Liberal Democrats Mandu Reid - Vote Women's Equality Party on Orange Brian Rose - London Real Party
If Sadiq Khan gets over 50% on the first ballot, there are going to be quite few on penny numbers.
Has Brian Rose realised he's going to be at the bottom of the ballot paper? AFAIK in a lot of places in the US they randomise the surnames and he might have assumed that would happen here.
Not going to be that good for the LD either. About the only advantage Shaun Bailey's got!
Tory in 2010, not Tory in 2019 (* denotes Lib Dem seat, the rest are now Labour):
Seat: majority 2010, deficit 2019
Putney: 24.6%, -9.5% Enfield, Southgate: 17.2%, -9.4% Reading East: 15.2%, -10.6% Battersea: 12.3%, -9.5% Canterbury: 12.3%, -3.1% Ilford North: 11.5%, -10.4% Ealing Central and Acton: 7.9%, -24.3% Warwick and Leamington: 7.2%, -1.5% Richmond Park*: 6.9%, -11.9% Bristol North West: 6.5%, -10.2% Wirral West: 6.2%, -7% Croydon Central: 6%, -11% City of Chester: 5.5%, -11.3% St Albans*: 4.4%, -10.9% Enfield North: 3.8%, -14.4% Hove: 3.8%, -30.2% Brentford and Isleworth: 3.6%, -18% Brighton, Kemptown: 3.1%, -16.6% Bedford: 3%, -0.3% Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport: 2.6%, -8.9% Weaver Vale: 2.3%, -1.1% Lancaster and Fleetwood: 0.8%, -5.3% Cardiff North: 0.4%, -13.3% Oxford West and Abingdon*: 0.3%, -15.2%
Four categories: London; London exurbs; far outer Liverpool; university towns.
Looking just at seats which have changed hands blinds us to big swings which haopen without the seats changing hands. So when the Mansfields and Bolsovers happen it's seismic because we haven't been looking at the big swings whuch have been going on in those seats turning a safe seat into a marginal. The same process is happening in reverse in seats like Esher and Walton and Chingford and Wood Green.
Shaun Bailey - Conservative Party Candidate Kam Balayev - Renew Sian Berry - Green Party Count Binface - Count Binface for Mayor of London Valerie Brown - The Burning Pink Party Piers Corbyn - Let London Live Max Fosh - Independent Laurence Fox - The Reclaim Party Peter Gammons - UKIP Richard Hewison - Rejoin EU Vanessa Hudson - Animal Welfare Party - People, Animals, Environment Steve Kelleher - Social Democratic Party Sadiq Khan - Labour Party David Kurten - Heritage Party Farah London - Independent Nims Obunge - Independent Niko Omilana - Independent Luisa Porritt - Liberal Democrats Mandu Reid - Vote Women's Equality Party on Orange Brian Rose - London Real Party
Blimey! How much dollah for a deposit to make it onto the ballot paper? Some people have got money to burn clearly.
The deposit is £10,000. A lot of people are saying it should be higher to deter frivolous candidates.
Politico: The Biden administration is rethinking a costly system of government-run mass vaccination sites after data revealed the program is lagging well behind a much cheaper federal effort to distribute doses via retail pharmacies.
The government has shipped millions of doses to the 21 mass vaccination hubs, or “pilot” community centers, in states such as California, Florida, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and Texas. The hubs are part of a $4 billion federal system that funds more than 1,000 smaller vaccination locations across the country and provides other vaccination support — such as supplies — to states across the country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency did not respond to repeated questions about how much the pilot sites cost.
Despite the money the federal government has spent on the mass-vaccination pilot sites, they are administering just a fraction of the shots given across the country each day. Federal data show the retail pharmacy program — which has signed up 21 chains and 17,000 stores — can reach far more Americans in a shorter time, according to four senior officials with direct knowledge of the matter. The bottom line, those sources said, is that more Americans seem to be willing to walk to their local pharmacist to get the vaccine than to travel to a federal vaccination site for the shot.
Several studies have shown that the British public, and I believe, the American has at least as much trust in pharmacists ....... generally community ones, in shops ...... as they do in GP's. My (long-ago, now) experience was that being asked for advice could be a 'many times a day' experience, especially where the same pharmacist had ben visible in the pharmacy for several years.
Here in Spain they are really good. They are heavily linked in via the prescription system and ultra helpful.
Unfortunately in Germany a doctor has to be involved in every vaccination, so it would need a change in the law to allow pharmacies to offer jabs.
Seriously? I had a three year course of cancer treatment delivered entirely by NHS nurses. No wonder vaccinations are taking so long in Germany.
Having said that, most other big European countries seem to be moving at the same speed, so it can’t be the only reason unless doctors are required in the same way in those countries as well.
At the moment, supply is the bottleneck. Even the Great AZ Pause has mostly been caught up. Most of the stories about millions of doses lying around are pretty bad faith- you do the calculation immediately after a huge delivery and bingo!
(https://covidtracker.fr/vaccintracker/ is a pretty good source for the French data; as you noted, the pace is now pretty much of a muchness for most big European countries.)
What remains to be seen is how they cope over the next month or two, as the taps open more fully.
There are doses lying around in Germany, but it's because of the policy of reserving second doses.
13.5 million doses administered out of 15.9 million delivered. True, some will be recent deliveries still on their way to vaccination centres etc. But others are reserved second doses, which is in turn partly because of German inflexibility about the timing of the second dose, and wanting to guarantee people's upcoming second dose appointments.
What will they do about younger women who’ve had one dose of AZ who now reject the 2nd, because of the 1/100,000 chance of a blood clot?
That's still not conclusive either. The background rate for women of childbearing age is about the same as what has been observed post vaccination in Germany. As it stands I'd want MHRA or WHO confirmation of this issue before accepting it.
Shaun Bailey - Conservative Party Candidate Kam Balayev - Renew Sian Berry - Green Party Count Binface - Count Binface for Mayor of London Valerie Brown - The Burning Pink Party Piers Corbyn - Let London Live Max Fosh - Independent Laurence Fox - The Reclaim Party Peter Gammons - UKIP Richard Hewison - Rejoin EU Vanessa Hudson - Animal Welfare Party - People, Animals, Environment Steve Kelleher - Social Democratic Party Sadiq Khan - Labour Party David Kurten - Heritage Party Farah London - Independent Nims Obunge - Independent Niko Omilana - Independent Luisa Porritt - Liberal Democrats Mandu Reid - Vote Women's Equality Party on Orange Brian Rose - London Real Party
Blimey! How much dollah for a deposit to make it onto the ballot paper? Some people have got money to burn clearly.
The deposit is £10,000. A lot of people are saying it should be higher to deter frivolous candidates.
How much to get it back? Posting as an agent who once asked about the possibility of a recount to save a deposit.
Apologies if this has already been mentioned but between 2010 and 2015 Martin's model said the Blue Meanies needed a lead of over 10% just for a majority of 2 seats.
Sometimes where and how the votes are distributed can be key.
And also how determined the other lot are to kick you out.
One of my favourite bits of electoral statistical gubbins is how stable the Conservative share of the vote was between 1979 and 1992. Always between 42% and 44%. And lower in 1983 than in 1979. But that covered everything from a landslide to a just-about-working majority. The difference in 1992 was that the non-Conservative forces implicitly worked out that kicking the government was the important thing and so plenty of people were prepared to vote for best-placed challengers. In 1983 and 2019, people weren't.
And in 1997, the enthusiasm to vote however was necessary to kick Conservatives out turned a defeat into a rout.
Which takes us back to those YouGov polls with the Greens on 7% or so. Are there really that many disgruntled lefties who are more concerned with sending a message to Starmer than to Johnson? Quite possibly yes. In which case, heaven help us all.
Yes, I think there are. Corbynites who won’t vote Labour now.
I wonder how many of them voted Labour prior to Corbyn being in control - it can't have been many.
Although it's also highly likely that a lot of those Green voters are younger and may not have been eligible to vote in prior elections.
Labour has lost the young vote. Lost votes of those who voted for a radical reset
As for Centrists not being Corbyn will not be enough to offset IMO
2017 was the peak for LAB IMO you dont get 12.9m votes with
“And then I saw Tim jet washing his Rover and then I said to Tim as I walked past Tim *You can wash mine next!* Tim was in hysterics, I have to say.”
This is becoming a prominent issue. It may seem trivial but it distresses many people, and a party that promised to sort it would prosper. Labour, if they were clever, could build a platform out of this.
Fix Britain. Clean Our Country. Make Our Cities Beautiful
Another even tinier issue that bugs me. Phone boxes. They are now repulsive and no one uses them. Get rid.
String together a load of these little campaigns and suddenly Labour has a compelling narrative. Clean Our Country
It's not so simple as assuming a Lab-SNP coalition would see them over the line, for at least two reasons.
1. The British press will scaremonger massively at the prospect of Sturgeon holding the reins of Westminster power. This will work. It will frighten decent ordinary English and Welsh citizens to vote for anyone but Labour.
2. The price of SNP coalition would be indyref2, probably leading to the break up of the Union and (ironically) the loss of all Labour seats north of the border anyway.
Unless Labour win back their Scottish Westminster MPs, as far as I can see they're totally screwed.
Am I the only one who sees a switch in support? Labour need a reset. If they supported independence for Scotland it would probably guarantee it but it is almost inevitable now anyway. Once independence has gone away there will be a vacancy for competent centre left governance which Labour should be able to take advantage of.
There would also be less if an issue in traditional labour supporting areas of England outside Metros. Whilst people might not want a Corbyn government in hock to SNP there would be an option for Centre left Government which would be enhanced in my view if they can vote as leader someone based outside of North London.
In a way we already have a "centre-left" government. Blair understood that people wanted to see both "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and cash for services. Sunak is hosing money about in ways never before conceived, is chucking money at the NHS and recruiting more coppers. Patel is cracking down on crime and scroungers.
Yes there are significant differences between the Blair and Johnson governments. The things that most aggrieve Labour supporters - corruption, incompetence, a "fuck you" mentality to the poor - aren't really a concern of the majority of voters. Look at Patel's "hostility to forrin and woke" bill - has got the left foaming at the mouth in Outrage but is largely approved of by the people who supposedly should be supporting Labour and not the Tories.
Blair understood the so-called working class vote far more than he ever got credit for...
Tory in 2010, not Tory in 2019 (* denotes Lib Dem seat, the rest are now Labour):
Seat: majority 2010, deficit 2019
Putney: 24.6%, -9.5% Enfield, Southgate: 17.2%, -9.4% Reading East: 15.2%, -10.6% Battersea: 12.3%, -9.5% Canterbury: 12.3%, -3.1% Ilford North: 11.5%, -10.4% Ealing Central and Acton: 7.9%, -24.3% Warwick and Leamington: 7.2%, -1.5% Richmond Park*: 6.9%, -11.9% Bristol North West: 6.5%, -10.2% Wirral West: 6.2%, -7% Croydon Central: 6%, -11% City of Chester: 5.5%, -11.3% St Albans*: 4.4%, -10.9% Enfield North: 3.8%, -14.4% Hove: 3.8%, -30.2% Brentford and Isleworth: 3.6%, -18% Brighton, Kemptown: 3.1%, -16.6% Bedford: 3%, -0.3% Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport: 2.6%, -8.9% Weaver Vale: 2.3%, -1.1% Lancaster and Fleetwood: 0.8%, -5.3% Cardiff North: 0.4%, -13.3% Oxford West and Abingdon*: 0.3%, -15.2%
Four categories: London; London exurbs; far outer Liverpool; university towns.
Looking just at seats which have changed hands blinds us to big swings which haopen without the seats changing hands. So when the Mansfields and Bolsovers happen it's seismic because we haven't been looking at the big swings whuch have been going on in those seats turning a safe seat into a marginal. The same process is happening in reverse in seats like Esher and Walton and Chingford and Wood Green.
Esher and Walton is interesting. The Tory vote did fall by 9.2 pp last time, but what made it close was the Lib Dems hoovering up almost all of the other votes (the Greens didn't stand).
The problem for the Lib Dems are seats like Woking where the Labour vote is quite sticky.
Does anybody have any updates on the trials of that inhaler device that kills Covid whilst it's in its hibernation stage at the back of the throat? That looks extremely promising and could be a game changer.
Edit: They seem to be using NEWS as a secondary outcome, which makes me a bit queasy - NEWS has only been validated for imminent adverse outcomes (death, cardiac arrest, ICU within 24 hours). It's not a general purpose measure of health status, although it increasingly seems to be used as such.
Politico: The Biden administration is rethinking a costly system of government-run mass vaccination sites after data revealed the program is lagging well behind a much cheaper federal effort to distribute doses via retail pharmacies.
The government has shipped millions of doses to the 21 mass vaccination hubs, or “pilot” community centers, in states such as California, Florida, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and Texas. The hubs are part of a $4 billion federal system that funds more than 1,000 smaller vaccination locations across the country and provides other vaccination support — such as supplies — to states across the country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency did not respond to repeated questions about how much the pilot sites cost.
Despite the money the federal government has spent on the mass-vaccination pilot sites, they are administering just a fraction of the shots given across the country each day. Federal data show the retail pharmacy program — which has signed up 21 chains and 17,000 stores — can reach far more Americans in a shorter time, according to four senior officials with direct knowledge of the matter. The bottom line, those sources said, is that more Americans seem to be willing to walk to their local pharmacist to get the vaccine than to travel to a federal vaccination site for the shot.
Several studies have shown that the British public, and I believe, the American has at least as much trust in pharmacists ....... generally community ones, in shops ...... as they do in GP's. My (long-ago, now) experience was that being asked for advice could be a 'many times a day' experience, especially where the same pharmacist had ben visible in the pharmacy for several years.
Here in Spain they are really good. They are heavily linked in via the prescription system and ultra helpful.
Unfortunately in Germany a doctor has to be involved in every vaccination, so it would need a change in the law to allow pharmacies to offer jabs.
Seriously? I had a three year course of cancer treatment delivered entirely by NHS nurses. No wonder vaccinations are taking so long in Germany.
Having said that, most other big European countries seem to be moving at the same speed, so it can’t be the only reason unless doctors are required in the same way in those countries as well.
At the moment, supply is the bottleneck. Even the Great AZ Pause has mostly been caught up. Most of the stories about millions of doses lying around are pretty bad faith- you do the calculation immediately after a huge delivery and bingo!
(https://covidtracker.fr/vaccintracker/ is a pretty good source for the French data; as you noted, the pace is now pretty much of a muchness for most big European countries.)
What remains to be seen is how they cope over the next month or two, as the taps open more fully.
There are doses lying around in Germany, but it's because of the policy of reserving second doses.
13.5 million doses administered out of 15.9 million delivered. True, some will be recent deliveries still on their way to vaccination centres etc. But others are reserved second doses, which is in turn partly because of German inflexibility about the timing of the second dose, and wanting to guarantee people's upcoming second dose appointments.
What will they do about younger women who’ve had one dose of AZ who now reject the 2nd, because of the 1/100,000 chance of a blood clot?
That's still not conclusive either. The background rate for women of childbearing age is about the same as what has been observed post vaccination in Germany. As it stands I'd want MHRA or WHO confirmation of this issue before accepting it.
Indeed. And even if it is conclusive your chances of catching Covid and suffering badly, or even dying, are higher by orders of magnitude. And every infected person can pass it on, or engender a horrible mutation, etc
Their risk-aversion is not logical. I always thought Germans were logical
Shaun Bailey - Conservative Party Candidate Kam Balayev - Renew Sian Berry - Green Party Count Binface - Count Binface for Mayor of London Valerie Brown - The Burning Pink Party Piers Corbyn - Let London Live Max Fosh - Independent Laurence Fox - The Reclaim Party Peter Gammons - UKIP Richard Hewison - Rejoin EU Vanessa Hudson - Animal Welfare Party - People, Animals, Environment Steve Kelleher - Social Democratic Party Sadiq Khan - Labour Party David Kurten - Heritage Party Farah London - Independent Nims Obunge - Independent Niko Omilana - Independent Luisa Porritt - Liberal Democrats Mandu Reid - Vote Women's Equality Party on Orange Brian Rose - London Real Party
If Sadiq Khan gets over 50% on the first ballot, there are going to be quite few on penny numbers.
The deposit is £10,000 / 5% too, so that’s one way of raising a few quid to cover the costs of the election.
This is becoming a prominent issue. It may seem trivial but it distresses many people, and a party that promised to sort it would prosper. Labour, if they were clever, could build a platform out of this.
Fix Britain. Clean Our Country. Make Our Cities Beautiful
Another even tinier issue that bugs me. Phone boxes. They are now repulsive and no one uses them. Get rid.
String together a load of these little campaigns and suddenly Labour has a compelling narrative. Clean Our Country
You could also link it in with the tories percieved cronyism - 'Clean Politics. Clean Country'
It's not so simple as assuming a Lab-SNP coalition would see them over the line, for at least two reasons.
1. The British press will scaremonger massively at the prospect of Sturgeon holding the reins of Westminster power. This will work. It will frighten decent ordinary English and Welsh citizens to vote for anyone but Labour.
2. The price of SNP coalition would be indyref2, probably leading to the break up of the Union and (ironically) the loss of all Labour seats north of the border anyway.
Unless Labour win back their Scottish Westminster MPs, as far as I can see they're totally screwed.
Am I the only one who sees a switch in support? Labour need a reset. If they supported independence for Scotland it would probably guarantee it but it is almost inevitable now anyway. Once independence has gone away there will be a vacancy for competent centre left governance which Labour should be able to take advantage of.
There would also be less if an issue in traditional labour supporting areas of England outside Metros. Whilst people might not want a Corbyn government in hock to SNP there would be an option for Centre left Government which would be enhanced in my view if they can vote as leader someone based outside of North London.
In a way we already have a "centre-left" government. Blair understood that people wanted to see both "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and cash for services. Sunak is hosing money about in ways never before conceived, is chucking money at the NHS and recruiting more coppers. Patel is cracking down on crime and scroungers.
Yes there are significant differences between the Blair and Johnson governments. The things that most aggrieve Labour supporters - corruption, incompetence, a "fuck you" mentality to the poor - aren't really a concern of the majority of voters. Look at Patel's "hostility to forrin and woke" bill - has got the left foaming at the mouth in Outrage but is largely approved of by the people who supposedly should be supporting Labour and not the Tories.
Blair understood the so-called working class vote far more than he ever got credit for...
Shaun Bailey - Conservative Party Candidate Kam Balayev - Renew Sian Berry - Green Party Count Binface - Count Binface for Mayor of London Valerie Brown - The Burning Pink Party Piers Corbyn - Let London Live Max Fosh - Independent Laurence Fox - The Reclaim Party Peter Gammons - UKIP Richard Hewison - Rejoin EU Vanessa Hudson - Animal Welfare Party - People, Animals, Environment Steve Kelleher - Social Democratic Party Sadiq Khan - Labour Party David Kurten - Heritage Party Farah London - Independent Nims Obunge - Independent Niko Omilana - Independent Luisa Porritt - Liberal Democrats Mandu Reid - Vote Women's Equality Party on Orange Brian Rose - London Real Party
If Sadiq Khan gets over 50% on the first ballot, there are going to be quite few on penny numbers.
Has Brian Rose realised he's going to be at the bottom of the ballot paper? AFAIK in a lot of places in the US they randomise the surnames and he might have assumed that would happen here.
On a related point, how much do we think Brian Rose has spent on this election?
Online ads aren't that expensive, but he's also got billboards, etc.
This is becoming a prominent issue. It may seem trivial but it distresses many people, and a party that promised to sort it would prosper. Labour, if they were clever, could build a platform out of this.
Fix Britain. Clean Our Country. Make Our Cities Beautiful
Another even tinier issue that bugs me. Phone boxes. They are now repulsive and no one uses them. Get rid.
String together a load of these little campaigns and suddenly Labour has a compelling narrative. Clean Our Country
You could also link it in with the tories percieved cronyism - 'Clean Politics. Clean Country'
Yes. Exactly. Britain needs a Deep Clean from the crud on street corners to our rusty constitution to our grubby crony politics. That’s a narrative, right there. Would appeal to many
This is becoming a prominent issue. It may seem trivial but it distresses many people, and a party that promised to sort it would prosper. Labour, if they were clever, could build a platform out of this.
Fix Britain. Clean Our Country. Make Our Cities Beautiful
Another even tinier issue that bugs me. Phone boxes. They are now repulsive and no one uses them. Get rid.
String together a load of these little campaigns and suddenly Labour has a compelling narrative. Clean Our Country
Not a bad idea.
A commitment to filling in the potholes, and sending dog-owners who don't clean up to Wormwood Scrubs for a spell, should guarantee a super-majority.
On this morning's GDP figures. Sometimes it really does feel as though the UK makes life more difficult for itself. The headline measure is based on the GDP index which shows a fall of 9.8% and that's what the government uses in all of its official communication. The actual YoY GDP change is -7.3%, a number that, while bad, isn't really as big of a deal as we constantly get told and the whole "worst in the G7" stuff. Other countries use the simple YoY calculation rather than a convoluted GVA to GDP index comparison that the ONS uses.
I know it seems like moaning into the ether but it really is one of those inconsistencies that bugs me about how we have decided to do things differently just for the sake of it.
Politico: The Biden administration is rethinking a costly system of government-run mass vaccination sites after data revealed the program is lagging well behind a much cheaper federal effort to distribute doses via retail pharmacies.
The government has shipped millions of doses to the 21 mass vaccination hubs, or “pilot” community centers, in states such as California, Florida, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and Texas. The hubs are part of a $4 billion federal system that funds more than 1,000 smaller vaccination locations across the country and provides other vaccination support — such as supplies — to states across the country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency did not respond to repeated questions about how much the pilot sites cost.
Despite the money the federal government has spent on the mass-vaccination pilot sites, they are administering just a fraction of the shots given across the country each day. Federal data show the retail pharmacy program — which has signed up 21 chains and 17,000 stores — can reach far more Americans in a shorter time, according to four senior officials with direct knowledge of the matter. The bottom line, those sources said, is that more Americans seem to be willing to walk to their local pharmacist to get the vaccine than to travel to a federal vaccination site for the shot.
Several studies have shown that the British public, and I believe, the American has at least as much trust in pharmacists ....... generally community ones, in shops ...... as they do in GP's. My (long-ago, now) experience was that being asked for advice could be a 'many times a day' experience, especially where the same pharmacist had ben visible in the pharmacy for several years.
Here in Spain they are really good. They are heavily linked in via the prescription system and ultra helpful.
Unfortunately in Germany a doctor has to be involved in every vaccination, so it would need a change in the law to allow pharmacies to offer jabs.
Seriously? I had a three year course of cancer treatment delivered entirely by NHS nurses. No wonder vaccinations are taking so long in Germany.
Having said that, most other big European countries seem to be moving at the same speed, so it can’t be the only reason unless doctors are required in the same way in those countries as well.
At the moment, supply is the bottleneck. Even the Great AZ Pause has mostly been caught up. Most of the stories about millions of doses lying around are pretty bad faith- you do the calculation immediately after a huge delivery and bingo!
(https://covidtracker.fr/vaccintracker/ is a pretty good source for the French data; as you noted, the pace is now pretty much of a muchness for most big European countries.)
What remains to be seen is how they cope over the next month or two, as the taps open more fully.
There are doses lying around in Germany, but it's because of the policy of reserving second doses.
13.5 million doses administered out of 15.9 million delivered. True, some will be recent deliveries still on their way to vaccination centres etc. But others are reserved second doses, which is in turn partly because of German inflexibility about the timing of the second dose, and wanting to guarantee people's upcoming second dose appointments.
What will they do about younger women who’ve had one dose of AZ who now reject the 2nd, because of the 1/100,000 chance of a blood clot?
That's still not conclusive either. The background rate for women of childbearing age is about the same as what has been observed post vaccination in Germany. As it stands I'd want MHRA or WHO confirmation of this issue before accepting it.
Indeed. And even if it is conclusive your chances of catching Covid and suffering badly, or even dying, are higher by orders of magnitude. And every infected person can pass it on, or engender a horrible mutation, etc
Their risk-aversion is not logical. I always thought Germans were logical
To answer the earlier question: people who have had a first dose of AZ can get a second dose. Younger people can also still get a first dose of AZ, though it's not recommended.
Germans are not especially more or less logical than anyone else. But I would point out that when you have many millions of over 60s still waiting for a first vaccination, and you have very limited quantities of AZ, it's not really "illogical" to limit AZ to over-60s when you see a serious, if rare, side-effect in younger people. If anything, it's too "logical".
That is logical, but logic has long since departed most PB posters as soon as "Germany" is mentioned.
This is becoming a prominent issue. It may seem trivial but it distresses many people, and a party that promised to sort it would prosper. Labour, if they were clever, could build a platform out of this.
Fix Britain. Clean Our Country. Make Our Cities Beautiful
Another even tinier issue that bugs me. Phone boxes. They are now repulsive and no one uses them. Get rid.
String together a load of these little campaigns and suddenly Labour has a compelling narrative. Clean Our Country
You could also link it in with the tories percieved cronyism - 'Clean Politics. Clean Country'
Except that one or two of the Trade Unions aren't that 'clean". And what about Liverpool?
Phone boxes, (see the earlier post in this thread) are often used for 'good' social purposes; locally, for example, they're used as book exchanges and defibrillator sites.
This is becoming a prominent issue. It may seem trivial but it distresses many people, and a party that promised to sort it would prosper. Labour, if they were clever, could build a platform out of this.
Fix Britain. Clean Our Country. Make Our Cities Beautiful
Another even tinier issue that bugs me. Phone boxes. They are now repulsive and no one uses them. Get rid.
String together a load of these little campaigns and suddenly Labour has a compelling narrative. Clean Our Country
I noticed something interesting about phone boxes. In Boston, MA they seem to have got rid of them completely. In Sydney, Australia they decided to keep some of them (this was in 2016 so they might have changed their mind since), and they decided to keep them in good condition, as if they had only just been installed. I was surprised by this, given that smartphones are probably just as popular in Australia as elsewhere. The problem with the UK is we still have most of them but haven't kept them in good condition, which is the worse possible combination, apart from the ones that have been turned into mini-libraries.
Politico: The Biden administration is rethinking a costly system of government-run mass vaccination sites after data revealed the program is lagging well behind a much cheaper federal effort to distribute doses via retail pharmacies.
The government has shipped millions of doses to the 21 mass vaccination hubs, or “pilot” community centers, in states such as California, Florida, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and Texas. The hubs are part of a $4 billion federal system that funds more than 1,000 smaller vaccination locations across the country and provides other vaccination support — such as supplies — to states across the country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency did not respond to repeated questions about how much the pilot sites cost.
Despite the money the federal government has spent on the mass-vaccination pilot sites, they are administering just a fraction of the shots given across the country each day. Federal data show the retail pharmacy program — which has signed up 21 chains and 17,000 stores — can reach far more Americans in a shorter time, according to four senior officials with direct knowledge of the matter. The bottom line, those sources said, is that more Americans seem to be willing to walk to their local pharmacist to get the vaccine than to travel to a federal vaccination site for the shot.
Several studies have shown that the British public, and I believe, the American has at least as much trust in pharmacists ....... generally community ones, in shops ...... as they do in GP's. My (long-ago, now) experience was that being asked for advice could be a 'many times a day' experience, especially where the same pharmacist had ben visible in the pharmacy for several years.
Here in Spain they are really good. They are heavily linked in via the prescription system and ultra helpful.
Unfortunately in Germany a doctor has to be involved in every vaccination, so it would need a change in the law to allow pharmacies to offer jabs.
Seriously? I had a three year course of cancer treatment delivered entirely by NHS nurses. No wonder vaccinations are taking so long in Germany.
Having said that, most other big European countries seem to be moving at the same speed, so it can’t be the only reason unless doctors are required in the same way in those countries as well.
At the moment, supply is the bottleneck. Even the Great AZ Pause has mostly been caught up. Most of the stories about millions of doses lying around are pretty bad faith- you do the calculation immediately after a huge delivery and bingo!
(https://covidtracker.fr/vaccintracker/ is a pretty good source for the French data; as you noted, the pace is now pretty much of a muchness for most big European countries.)
What remains to be seen is how they cope over the next month or two, as the taps open more fully.
There are doses lying around in Germany, but it's because of the policy of reserving second doses.
13.5 million doses administered out of 15.9 million delivered. True, some will be recent deliveries still on their way to vaccination centres etc. But others are reserved second doses, which is in turn partly because of German inflexibility about the timing of the second dose, and wanting to guarantee people's upcoming second dose appointments.
What will they do about younger women who’ve had one dose of AZ who now reject the 2nd, because of the 1/100,000 chance of a blood clot?
Is there any data yet on whether a significant number of those who have suffered the blood clots were taking other meds that might have contributed?
I've been wondering whether the UK tends to prescribe a different contraceptive, for example.
This is becoming a prominent issue. It may seem trivial but it distresses many people, and a party that promised to sort it would prosper. Labour, if they were clever, could build a platform out of this.
Fix Britain. Clean Our Country. Make Our Cities Beautiful
Another even tinier issue that bugs me. Phone boxes. They are now repulsive and no one uses them. Get rid.
String together a load of these little campaigns and suddenly Labour has a compelling narrative. Clean Our Country
That sounds much more like the Lib Dems, Mr Leon. They "do" small issues as well as important principles. The Labour Party is interested only in categorising people and dealing with them accordingy.
Shaun Bailey - Conservative Party Candidate Kam Balayev - Renew Sian Berry - Green Party Count Binface - Count Binface for Mayor of London Valerie Brown - The Burning Pink Party Piers Corbyn - Let London Live Max Fosh - Independent Laurence Fox - The Reclaim Party Peter Gammons - UKIP Richard Hewison - Rejoin EU Vanessa Hudson - Animal Welfare Party - People, Animals, Environment Steve Kelleher - Social Democratic Party Sadiq Khan - Labour Party David Kurten - Heritage Party Farah London - Independent Nims Obunge - Independent Niko Omilana - Independent Luisa Porritt - Liberal Democrats Mandu Reid - Vote Women's Equality Party on Orange Brian Rose - London Real Party
Blimey! How much dollah for a deposit to make it onto the ballot paper? Some people have got money to burn clearly.
The deposit is £10,000. A lot of people are saying it should be higher to deter frivolous candidates.
How much to get it back? Posting as an agent who once asked about the possibility of a recount to save a deposit.
This is becoming a prominent issue. It may seem trivial but it distresses many people, and a party that promised to sort it would prosper. Labour, if they were clever, could build a platform out of this.
Fix Britain. Clean Our Country. Make Our Cities Beautiful
Another even tinier issue that bugs me. Phone boxes. They are now repulsive and no one uses them. Get rid.
String together a load of these little campaigns and suddenly Labour has a compelling narrative. Clean Our Country
Not a bad idea.
A commitment to filling in the potholes, and sending dog-owners who don't clean up to Wormwood Scrubs for a spell, should guarantee a super-majority.
Pot holes! Maddening. Some in London are car-breakers, literally
There must be a dozen relatively minor issues like this that nonetheless drive many people quietly crazy. Daily irritants.
Labour is fruitlessly searching for big killer policies, maybe they should focus on the smaller stuff, but as part of a grander narrative
You can imagine persuasive TV ads. The camera pans over scenes of horrible litter. Voiceover: ‘After 14 years of Tory government, this is what Britain looks like. Don’t you yearn for a clean country, clean politics?’
As I've commented on before - the reason why I suspect a land value tax will be implemented is that it would be less politically painful and less work than doing a council tax rebanding exercise
May be I am being dense but why would a council tax revaluation achieve anything?
I get that relative value of some properties may have changed so it could have an impact on individuals (although I’m not sure that there will have been that many radical relative shifts within a council area). But unless the total amount of council tax levied increases then it’s just about distribution. If my house was worth 2x 3x or 4x what it was in 1992 it makes no difference unless someone else’s house has only gone up 1x.
Unless the value of property somehow impacts how central government allocates their grants?
Wonder what the explanation is. I presume the Labour vote was suppressed by the LibDems who held the seat for several elections, but who have now collapsed, leading to a rebound for the Reds. Decline of the military vote? Are there a lot more students there now?
Politico: The Biden administration is rethinking a costly system of government-run mass vaccination sites after data revealed the program is lagging well behind a much cheaper federal effort to distribute doses via retail pharmacies.
The government has shipped millions of doses to the 21 mass vaccination hubs, or “pilot” community centers, in states such as California, Florida, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and Texas. The hubs are part of a $4 billion federal system that funds more than 1,000 smaller vaccination locations across the country and provides other vaccination support — such as supplies — to states across the country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency did not respond to repeated questions about how much the pilot sites cost.
Despite the money the federal government has spent on the mass-vaccination pilot sites, they are administering just a fraction of the shots given across the country each day. Federal data show the retail pharmacy program — which has signed up 21 chains and 17,000 stores — can reach far more Americans in a shorter time, according to four senior officials with direct knowledge of the matter. The bottom line, those sources said, is that more Americans seem to be willing to walk to their local pharmacist to get the vaccine than to travel to a federal vaccination site for the shot.
Several studies have shown that the British public, and I believe, the American has at least as much trust in pharmacists ....... generally community ones, in shops ...... as they do in GP's. My (long-ago, now) experience was that being asked for advice could be a 'many times a day' experience, especially where the same pharmacist had ben visible in the pharmacy for several years.
Here in Spain they are really good. They are heavily linked in via the prescription system and ultra helpful.
Unfortunately in Germany a doctor has to be involved in every vaccination, so it would need a change in the law to allow pharmacies to offer jabs.
Seriously? I had a three year course of cancer treatment delivered entirely by NHS nurses. No wonder vaccinations are taking so long in Germany.
Having said that, most other big European countries seem to be moving at the same speed, so it can’t be the only reason unless doctors are required in the same way in those countries as well.
At the moment, supply is the bottleneck. Even the Great AZ Pause has mostly been caught up. Most of the stories about millions of doses lying around are pretty bad faith- you do the calculation immediately after a huge delivery and bingo!
(https://covidtracker.fr/vaccintracker/ is a pretty good source for the French data; as you noted, the pace is now pretty much of a muchness for most big European countries.)
What remains to be seen is how they cope over the next month or two, as the taps open more fully.
There are doses lying around in Germany, but it's because of the policy of reserving second doses.
13.5 million doses administered out of 15.9 million delivered. True, some will be recent deliveries still on their way to vaccination centres etc. But others are reserved second doses, which is in turn partly because of German inflexibility about the timing of the second dose, and wanting to guarantee people's upcoming second dose appointments.
What will they do about younger women who’ve had one dose of AZ who now reject the 2nd, because of the 1/100,000 chance of a blood clot?
That's still not conclusive either. The background rate for women of childbearing age is about the same as what has been observed post vaccination in Germany. As it stands I'd want MHRA or WHO confirmation of this issue before accepting it.
Indeed. And even if it is conclusive your chances of catching Covid and suffering badly, or even dying, are higher by orders of magnitude. And every infected person can pass it on, or engender a horrible mutation, etc
Their risk-aversion is not logical. I always thought Germans were logical
To answer the earlier question: people who have had a first dose of AZ can get a second dose. Younger people can also still get a first dose of AZ, though it's not recommended.
Germans are not especially more or less logical than anyone else. But I would point out that when you have many millions of over 60s still waiting for a first vaccination, and you have very limited quantities of AZ, it's not really "illogical" to limit AZ to over-60s when you see a serious, if rare, side-effect in younger people. If anything, it's too "logical".
That is logical, but logic has long since departed most PB posters as soon as "Germany" is mentioned.
But by suspending use for under 60s (or whatever) and thus changing your AZ policy for, what, the fifth time? - you’ve successfully scared the shit out of everyone, AGAIN. And Germany already has a vaccine hesitancy problem.
Utterly disgraceful amount of litter in Endcliffe park this morning, I expect other parks around the country will be similar.
It's mainly the fault of the litterers of course, but why can't the authorities provide extra bins when they must know huge crowds are likely? I was walking round a large park recently which had one litter bin for thousands of visitors and it was overflowing in all directions with paper coffee cups.
Sorry Andy, its not mainly the fault, it is TOTALLY the fault of the litterers. We blanch in the country at large penalties for litter (I recall at some point there was an attempt to link to the fine to income which prompted outrage). Go to Singapore and try to find litter.
It's not so simple as assuming a Lab-SNP coalition would see them over the line, for at least two reasons.
1. The British press will scaremonger massively at the prospect of Sturgeon holding the reins of Westminster power. This will work. It will frighten decent ordinary English and Welsh citizens to vote for anyone but Labour.
2. The price of SNP coalition would be indyref2, probably leading to the break up of the Union and (ironically) the loss of all Labour seats north of the border anyway.
Unless Labour win back their Scottish Westminster MPs, as far as I can see they're totally screwed.
Am I the only one who sees a switch in support? Labour need a reset. If they supported independence for Scotland it would probably guarantee it but it is almost inevitable now anyway. Once independence has gone away there will be a vacancy for competent centre left governance which Labour should be able to take advantage of.
There would also be less if an issue in traditional labour supporting areas of England outside Metros. Whilst people might not want a Corbyn government in hock to SNP there would be an option for Centre left Government which would be enhanced in my view if they can vote as leader someone based outside of North London.
In a way we already have a "centre-left" government. Blair understood that people wanted to see both "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and cash for services. Sunak is hosing money about in ways never before conceived, is chucking money at the NHS and recruiting more coppers. Patel is cracking down on crime and scroungers.
Yes there are significant differences between the Blair and Johnson governments. The things that most aggrieve Labour supporters - corruption, incompetence, a "fuck you" mentality to the poor - aren't really a concern of the majority of voters. Look at Patel's "hostility to forrin and woke" bill - has got the left foaming at the mouth in Outrage but is largely approved of by the people who supposedly should be supporting Labour and not the Tories.
Blair understood the so-called working class vote far more than he ever got credit for...
What’s the problem then?
The sneering indifference of so many Tories to human suffering in this country. Often as a result of gross idiocy in the application of policy rather than by design. Universal Credit a prime example. Bring back the basic compassion they used to have and there would be less of a problem.
Shaun Bailey - Conservative Party Candidate Kam Balayev - Renew Sian Berry - Green Party Count Binface - Count Binface for Mayor of London Valerie Brown - The Burning Pink Party Piers Corbyn - Let London Live Max Fosh - Independent Laurence Fox - The Reclaim Party Peter Gammons - UKIP Richard Hewison - Rejoin EU Vanessa Hudson - Animal Welfare Party - People, Animals, Environment Steve Kelleher - Social Democratic Party Sadiq Khan - Labour Party David Kurten - Heritage Party Farah London - Independent Nims Obunge - Independent Niko Omilana - Independent Luisa Porritt - Liberal Democrats Mandu Reid - Vote Women's Equality Party on Orange Brian Rose - London Real Party
Blimey! How much dollah for a deposit to make it onto the ballot paper? Some people have got money to burn clearly.
The deposit is £10,000. A lot of people are saying it should be higher to deter frivolous candidates.
How much to get it back? Posting as an agent who once asked about the possibility of a recount to save a deposit.
5%.
And last time there were 12 candidates and 9 of them, (including the LibDem, although only just) lost their deposits. Nice little earner!
Utterly disgraceful amount of litter in Endcliffe park this morning, I expect other parks around the country will be similar.
It's mainly the fault of the litterers of course, but why can't the authorities provide extra bins when they must know huge crowds are likely? I was walking round a large park recently which had one litter bin for thousands of visitors and it was overflowing in all directions with paper coffee cups.
Sorry Andy, its not mainly the fault, it is TOTALLY the fault of the litterers. We blanch in the country at large penalties for litter (I recall at some point there was an attempt to link to the fine to income which prompted outrage). Go to Singapore and try to find litter.
Yes, it’s time for much stiffer penalties. Which are imposed. You’d solve the problem in a year or two
Politico: The Biden administration is rethinking a costly system of government-run mass vaccination sites after data revealed the program is lagging well behind a much cheaper federal effort to distribute doses via retail pharmacies.
The government has shipped millions of doses to the 21 mass vaccination hubs, or “pilot” community centers, in states such as California, Florida, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and Texas. The hubs are part of a $4 billion federal system that funds more than 1,000 smaller vaccination locations across the country and provides other vaccination support — such as supplies — to states across the country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency did not respond to repeated questions about how much the pilot sites cost.
Despite the money the federal government has spent on the mass-vaccination pilot sites, they are administering just a fraction of the shots given across the country each day. Federal data show the retail pharmacy program — which has signed up 21 chains and 17,000 stores — can reach far more Americans in a shorter time, according to four senior officials with direct knowledge of the matter. The bottom line, those sources said, is that more Americans seem to be willing to walk to their local pharmacist to get the vaccine than to travel to a federal vaccination site for the shot.
Several studies have shown that the British public, and I believe, the American has at least as much trust in pharmacists ....... generally community ones, in shops ...... as they do in GP's. My (long-ago, now) experience was that being asked for advice could be a 'many times a day' experience, especially where the same pharmacist had ben visible in the pharmacy for several years.
Here in Spain they are really good. They are heavily linked in via the prescription system and ultra helpful.
Unfortunately in Germany a doctor has to be involved in every vaccination, so it would need a change in the law to allow pharmacies to offer jabs.
Seriously? I had a three year course of cancer treatment delivered entirely by NHS nurses. No wonder vaccinations are taking so long in Germany.
Having said that, most other big European countries seem to be moving at the same speed, so it can’t be the only reason unless doctors are required in the same way in those countries as well.
At the moment, supply is the bottleneck. Even the Great AZ Pause has mostly been caught up. Most of the stories about millions of doses lying around are pretty bad faith- you do the calculation immediately after a huge delivery and bingo!
(https://covidtracker.fr/vaccintracker/ is a pretty good source for the French data; as you noted, the pace is now pretty much of a muchness for most big European countries.)
What remains to be seen is how they cope over the next month or two, as the taps open more fully.
It's interesting, and worrying, that the Israeli vaccination campaign appears to have topped out at ~60%.
Some EU countries might end up effectively ending their vaccination campaigns at the same time as us, but with only ~40% vaccinated rather than 80+%.
Utterly disgraceful amount of litter in Endcliffe park this morning, I expect other parks around the country will be similar.
It's mainly the fault of the litterers of course, but why can't the authorities provide extra bins when they must know huge crowds are likely? I was walking round a large park recently which had one litter bin for thousands of visitors and it was overflowing in all directions with paper coffee cups.
Sorry Andy, its not mainly the fault, it is TOTALLY the fault of the litterers. We blanch in the country at large penalties for litter (I recall at some point there was an attempt to link to the fine to income which prompted outrage). Go to Singapore and try to find litter.
Yes, it’s time for much stiffer penalties. Which are imposed. You’d solve the problem in a year or two
On a guided tour of Singapore some years ago one of our party dropped a sweet wrapper. "Pick it up" the guide said, sternly. No please. A command.
Utterly disgraceful amount of litter in Endcliffe park this morning, I expect other parks around the country will be similar.
It's mainly the fault of the litterers of course, but why can't the authorities provide extra bins when they must know huge crowds are likely? I was walking round a large park recently which had one litter bin for thousands of visitors and it was overflowing in all directions with paper coffee cups.
Sorry Andy, its not mainly the fault, it is TOTALLY the fault of the litterers. We blanch in the country at large penalties for litter (I recall at some point there was an attempt to link to the fine to income which prompted outrage). Go to Singapore and try to find litter.
I agree but I also think the authorities should provide plenty of litter bins in places like parks.
This is becoming a prominent issue. It may seem trivial but it distresses many people, and a party that promised to sort it would prosper. Labour, if they were clever, could build a platform out of this.
Fix Britain. Clean Our Country. Make Our Cities Beautiful
Another even tinier issue that bugs me. Phone boxes. They are now repulsive and no one uses them. Get rid.
String together a load of these little campaigns and suddenly Labour has a compelling narrative. Clean Our Country
That sounds much more like the Lib Dems, Mr Leon. They "do" small issues as well as important principles. The Labour Party is interested only in categorising people and dealing with them accordingy.
Well they need to start talking about these issues then. Last election they devoted almost their entire campaign to trying to outbid Labour for the hardcore Remainer vote and talking about transsexual rights.
What is remarkable is the lack of opposition, perhaps, rather than the support. Only 25% oppose vaxports for domestic public transport.
Basically Brits are happy to use them anywhere, any place
Because the government are pitching them as necessary to "save the NHS". They've realised how powerful that political message is and now everything that was previously impossible will be pushed with it.
We used to have an Upper Ten Thousand, who were the aristocracy and their scions.
We now have an Upper Ten Thousand who believe in themselves as the sacred tribe, anointed by God to their position.
I sometimes find it hard to detect the difference.
The difference is today's elite believes it is there entirely through its own efforts instead of by accident and therefore doesn't care as much about everyone else.
Politico: The Biden administration is rethinking a costly system of government-run mass vaccination sites after data revealed the program is lagging well behind a much cheaper federal effort to distribute doses via retail pharmacies.
The government has shipped millions of doses to the 21 mass vaccination hubs, or “pilot” community centers, in states such as California, Florida, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and Texas. The hubs are part of a $4 billion federal system that funds more than 1,000 smaller vaccination locations across the country and provides other vaccination support — such as supplies — to states across the country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency did not respond to repeated questions about how much the pilot sites cost.
Despite the money the federal government has spent on the mass-vaccination pilot sites, they are administering just a fraction of the shots given across the country each day. Federal data show the retail pharmacy program — which has signed up 21 chains and 17,000 stores — can reach far more Americans in a shorter time, according to four senior officials with direct knowledge of the matter. The bottom line, those sources said, is that more Americans seem to be willing to walk to their local pharmacist to get the vaccine than to travel to a federal vaccination site for the shot.
Several studies have shown that the British public, and I believe, the American has at least as much trust in pharmacists ....... generally community ones, in shops ...... as they do in GP's. My (long-ago, now) experience was that being asked for advice could be a 'many times a day' experience, especially where the same pharmacist had ben visible in the pharmacy for several years.
Here in Spain they are really good. They are heavily linked in via the prescription system and ultra helpful.
Unfortunately in Germany a doctor has to be involved in every vaccination, so it would need a change in the law to allow pharmacies to offer jabs.
Seriously? I had a three year course of cancer treatment delivered entirely by NHS nurses. No wonder vaccinations are taking so long in Germany.
Having said that, most other big European countries seem to be moving at the same speed, so it can’t be the only reason unless doctors are required in the same way in those countries as well.
At the moment, supply is the bottleneck. Even the Great AZ Pause has mostly been caught up. Most of the stories about millions of doses lying around are pretty bad faith- you do the calculation immediately after a huge delivery and bingo!
(https://covidtracker.fr/vaccintracker/ is a pretty good source for the French data; as you noted, the pace is now pretty much of a muchness for most big European countries.)
What remains to be seen is how they cope over the next month or two, as the taps open more fully.
There are doses lying around in Germany, but it's because of the policy of reserving second doses.
13.5 million doses administered out of 15.9 million delivered. True, some will be recent deliveries still on their way to vaccination centres etc. But others are reserved second doses, which is in turn partly because of German inflexibility about the timing of the second dose, and wanting to guarantee people's upcoming second dose appointments.
What will they do about younger women who’ve had one dose of AZ who now reject the 2nd, because of the 1/100,000 chance of a blood clot?
That's still not conclusive either. The background rate for women of childbearing age is about the same as what has been observed post vaccination in Germany. As it stands I'd want MHRA or WHO confirmation of this issue before accepting it.
Indeed. And even if it is conclusive your chances of catching Covid and suffering badly, or even dying, are higher by orders of magnitude. And every infected person can pass it on, or engender a horrible mutation, etc
Their risk-aversion is not logical. I always thought Germans were logical
To answer the earlier question: people who have had a first dose of AZ can get a second dose. Younger people can also still get a first dose of AZ, though it's not recommended.
Germans are not especially more or less logical than anyone else. But I would point out that when you have many millions of over 60s still waiting for a first vaccination, and you have very limited quantities of AZ, it's not really "illogical" to limit AZ to over-60s when you see a serious, if rare, side-effect in younger people. If anything, it's too "logical".
That is logical, but logic has long since departed most PB posters as soon as "Germany" is mentioned.
But by suspending use for under 60s (or whatever) and thus changing your AZ policy for, what, the fifth time? - you’ve successfully scared the shit out of everyone, AGAIN. And Germany already has a vaccine hesitancy problem.
No, this is not logical
It's not really that simple though is it? The alternative, of doing nothing when you have evidence of a problem in younger people, and you don't need to use AZ on younger people because you have so few doses, is also not going to reassure. And you can't really tell regulators to make decisions based entirely on what will worry people the least, unless you want hesitant people to totally lose all faith in the regulators.
Utterly disgraceful amount of litter in Endcliffe park this morning, I expect other parks around the country will be similar.
It's mainly the fault of the litterers of course, but why can't the authorities provide extra bins when they must know huge crowds are likely? I was walking round a large park recently which had one litter bin for thousands of visitors and it was overflowing in all directions with paper coffee cups.
Sorry Andy, its not mainly the fault, it is TOTALLY the fault of the litterers. We blanch in the country at large penalties for litter (I recall at some point there was an attempt to link to the fine to income which prompted outrage). Go to Singapore and try to find litter.
Yes, it’s time for much stiffer penalties. Which are imposed. You’d solve the problem in a year or two
On a guided tour of Singapore some years ago one of our party dropped a sweet wrapper. "Pick it up" the guide said, sternly. No please. A command.
I’ve long been of the opinion that 90% of people would happily live in Singapore and accept all the strict laws and surveillance - in return for clean streets, safe streets, zero crime, great healthcare, no graffiti, and so on.
This is what Labour should do. Get authoritarian and Singaporey. Forget the idiotic identity politics which is killing them
Utterly disgraceful amount of litter in Endcliffe park this morning, I expect other parks around the country will be similar.
It's mainly the fault of the litterers of course, but why can't the authorities provide extra bins when they must know huge crowds are likely? I was walking round a large park recently which had one litter bin for thousands of visitors and it was overflowing in all directions with paper coffee cups.
Sorry Andy, its not mainly the fault, it is TOTALLY the fault of the litterers. We blanch in the country at large penalties for litter (I recall at some point there was an attempt to link to the fine to income which prompted outrage). Go to Singapore and try to find litter.
I agree but I also think the authorities should provide plenty of litter bins in places like parks.
IIRC many were removed because they were held to be places where terrorists could 'safely' leave bombs.
Barry Sheerman MP @BarrySheerman Keir Starmer has made excellent progress in his first year as Labour leader. Steady as we go!
Barry thought he had scheduled his tweet for tomorrow presumably
Excellent progress seems a tad err optimistic
I'm not so sure. These are very strange times to be in opposition; plus, Sir Keir's primary task has been to reassure voters that Labour is electable after the disastrous impact of Mr Corbyn.
It may be that a softly, softly approach, not making unnecessary waves for the government on top of the pandemic woes, will turn out to have been the right approach.
Sir Keir doesn't come across as very inspiring at the moment, but perhaps once the pandemic is largely behind us and the voters also feel (hopefully) Labour is electable again, he may be able to make a stronger impact with fresh policies for the country as a whole.
We used to have an Upper Ten Thousand, who were the aristocracy and their scions.
We now have an Upper Ten Thousand who believe in themselves as the sacred tribe, anointed by God to their position.
I sometimes find it hard to detect the difference.
The difference is today's elite believes it is there entirely through its own efforts instead of by accident and therefore doesn't care as much about everyone else.
As opposed to the aristocrats who believed that they were there because of the Divine Order of things instead of by accident and therefore didn't care as much about everyone else.
This is becoming a prominent issue. It may seem trivial but it distresses many people, and a party that promised to sort it would prosper. Labour, if they were clever, could build a platform out of this.
Fix Britain. Clean Our Country. Make Our Cities Beautiful
Another even tinier issue that bugs me. Phone boxes. They are now repulsive and no one uses them. Get rid.
String together a load of these little campaigns and suddenly Labour has a compelling narrative. Clean Our Country
Not a bad idea.
A commitment to filling in the potholes, and sending dog-owners who don't clean up to Wormwood Scrubs for a spell, should guarantee a super-majority.
Pot holes! Maddening. Some in London are car-breakers, literally
There must be a dozen relatively minor issues like this that nonetheless drive many people quietly crazy. Daily irritants.
Labour is fruitlessly searching for big killer policies, maybe they should focus on the smaller stuff, but as part of a grander narrative
You can imagine persuasive TV ads. The camera pans over scenes of horrible litter. Voiceover: ‘After 14 years of Tory government, this is what Britain looks like. Don’t you yearn for a clean country, clean politics?’
Well, certainly, pavement politics is the way the Liberals built up their profile locally, and provided a base eventually to challenge in some seats.
Don't really see Sir Keir using that as a lever for ejecting Boris from No 10 though TBH. They will need other issues.
Politico: The Biden administration is rethinking a costly system of government-run mass vaccination sites after data revealed the program is lagging well behind a much cheaper federal effort to distribute doses via retail pharmacies.
The government has shipped millions of doses to the 21 mass vaccination hubs, or “pilot” community centers, in states such as California, Florida, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and Texas. The hubs are part of a $4 billion federal system that funds more than 1,000 smaller vaccination locations across the country and provides other vaccination support — such as supplies — to states across the country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency did not respond to repeated questions about how much the pilot sites cost.
Despite the money the federal government has spent on the mass-vaccination pilot sites, they are administering just a fraction of the shots given across the country each day. Federal data show the retail pharmacy program — which has signed up 21 chains and 17,000 stores — can reach far more Americans in a shorter time, according to four senior officials with direct knowledge of the matter. The bottom line, those sources said, is that more Americans seem to be willing to walk to their local pharmacist to get the vaccine than to travel to a federal vaccination site for the shot.
Several studies have shown that the British public, and I believe, the American has at least as much trust in pharmacists ....... generally community ones, in shops ...... as they do in GP's. My (long-ago, now) experience was that being asked for advice could be a 'many times a day' experience, especially where the same pharmacist had ben visible in the pharmacy for several years.
Here in Spain they are really good. They are heavily linked in via the prescription system and ultra helpful.
Unfortunately in Germany a doctor has to be involved in every vaccination, so it would need a change in the law to allow pharmacies to offer jabs.
Seriously? I had a three year course of cancer treatment delivered entirely by NHS nurses. No wonder vaccinations are taking so long in Germany.
Having said that, most other big European countries seem to be moving at the same speed, so it can’t be the only reason unless doctors are required in the same way in those countries as well.
At the moment, supply is the bottleneck. Even the Great AZ Pause has mostly been caught up. Most of the stories about millions of doses lying around are pretty bad faith- you do the calculation immediately after a huge delivery and bingo!
(https://covidtracker.fr/vaccintracker/ is a pretty good source for the French data; as you noted, the pace is now pretty much of a muchness for most big European countries.)
What remains to be seen is how they cope over the next month or two, as the taps open more fully.
There are doses lying around in Germany, but it's because of the policy of reserving second doses.
13.5 million doses administered out of 15.9 million delivered. True, some will be recent deliveries still on their way to vaccination centres etc. But others are reserved second doses, which is in turn partly because of German inflexibility about the timing of the second dose, and wanting to guarantee people's upcoming second dose appointments.
What will they do about younger women who’ve had one dose of AZ who now reject the 2nd, because of the 1/100,000 chance of a blood clot?
That's still not conclusive either. The background rate for women of childbearing age is about the same as what has been observed post vaccination in Germany. As it stands I'd want MHRA or WHO confirmation of this issue before accepting it.
Indeed. And even if it is conclusive your chances of catching Covid and suffering badly, or even dying, are higher by orders of magnitude. And every infected person can pass it on, or engender a horrible mutation, etc
Their risk-aversion is not logical. I always thought Germans were logical
To answer the earlier question: people who have had a first dose of AZ can get a second dose. Younger people can also still get a first dose of AZ, though it's not recommended.
Germans are not especially more or less logical than anyone else. But I would point out that when you have many millions of over 60s still waiting for a first vaccination, and you have very limited quantities of AZ, it's not really "illogical" to limit AZ to over-60s when you see a serious, if rare, side-effect in younger people. If anything, it's too "logical".
That is logical, but logic has long since departed most PB posters as soon as "Germany" is mentioned.
But by suspending use for under 60s (or whatever) and thus changing your AZ policy for, what, the fifth time? - you’ve successfully scared the shit out of everyone, AGAIN. And Germany already has a vaccine hesitancy problem.
No, this is not logical
It's not really that simple though is it? The alternative, of doing nothing when you have evidence of a problem in younger people, and you don't need to use AZ on younger people because you have so few doses, is also not going to reassure. And you can't really tell regulators to make decisions based entirely on what will worry people the least, unless you want hesitant people to totally lose all faith in the regulators.
So far Germany has demanded AZ, then recommended it only for the old, then claimed it is only 8% effective for the old, then suspended its use entirely, then reinstated it, then restricted it to the young, then suspended it for the young, and restricted it to the old
We used to have an Upper Ten Thousand, who were the aristocracy and their scions.
We now have an Upper Ten Thousand who believe in themselves as the sacred tribe, anointed by God to their position.
I sometimes find it hard to detect the difference.
An Upper Ten Thousand who, privately educated themselves, ensure their children get the same privileges while the masses can go f*ck themselves.
That is unfair - a portion of the New Upper Ten Thousand send their children to "State" schools. Which have the same results as private schools and are harder to get into. Unless you own a house in the right catchment area, say.
What is remarkable is the lack of opposition, perhaps, rather than the support. Only 25% oppose vaxports for domestic public transport.
Basically Brits are happy to use them anywhere, any place
I doubt whether many people perceive problems for the future. We don't really do 'eternal vigilance' here, because we take our freedoms so much for granted.
Utterly disgraceful amount of litter in Endcliffe park this morning, I expect other parks around the country will be similar.
It's mainly the fault of the litterers of course, but why can't the authorities provide extra bins when they must know huge crowds are likely? I was walking round a large park recently which had one litter bin for thousands of visitors and it was overflowing in all directions with paper coffee cups.
Sorry Andy, its not mainly the fault, it is TOTALLY the fault of the litterers. We blanch in the country at large penalties for litter (I recall at some point there was an attempt to link to the fine to income which prompted outrage). Go to Singapore and try to find litter.
Yes, it’s time for much stiffer penalties. Which are imposed. You’d solve the problem in a year or two
Bringing back dog licences (say £100 per pooch) would be a good idea too but politically impossible, sadly.
Morning all, challenging header. Just a tough read.
The problem for Labour (as others have said) is that their core support (the Enlightened) are heavily concentrated in the big cities and prestige university towns, which is ridiculously inefficient when it comes to translating votes into seats in our FPTP electoral system. The obvious answer - indeed the only answer - is for the Enlightened to start spreading themselves around the country. It's time for us to go and live in more primitive places and explain to the natives how their interests would be served by a more egalitarian society. Preach the word. Just like the missionaries of old.
A massive win/win accrues from this development. Firstly, a goodly proportion of the natives will likely be convinced by our case if we are making it casually, face to face and in situ, fellow residents who they've gotten to know and like, rather than lecturing from on high on CH4 news or in the columns of the Guardian. Imagine the natives mixing unselfconsciously with the Enlightened on a regular basis as they go about their daily lives. Down the local, in the supermarket, hanging around on street corners, they keep bumping into these progressive types, and they find people who are just nice and pleasant and normal like they are, no difference whatsoever except for being a teeny bit more intelligent and educated, which is no crime and why should it be. Imagine countless desultory and friendly conversations taking place about this & that, the football, the weather, the price of fish, but with every now and again one of the participants slipping in something thought provoking about how the country could be reformed in the economic interests of working people. It will have an effect. How could it not.
But let's say it doesn't. Let's say the natives remain impervious to logical argument and stick to their Tory voting ways. Perhaps it even backfires and they get well pissed off with the Enlightened and wish they would fuck off back to where they came from. Point is, it doesn't matter. Conversions are merely the icing on the cake. Because due to the Diaspora there is now a large contingent of progressives on the electoral roll in these godforsaken little towns and villages and they will be voting Labour, bringing lots of Conservative seats into play whilst at the same time not taking risks with Labour seats, since there will still be safe majorities in the places they have abandoned.
You might think I'm joking with this but I'm not. I'm perfectly serious. This is a demographic problem and therefore it requires a demographic solution.
Progressives of Britain Unite and log onto RightMove! You have nothing to lose but your Tory governments!
This is becoming a prominent issue. It may seem trivial but it distresses many people, and a party that promised to sort it would prosper. Labour, if they were clever, could build a platform out of this.
Fix Britain. Clean Our Country. Make Our Cities Beautiful
Another even tinier issue that bugs me. Phone boxes. They are now repulsive and no one uses them. Get rid.
String together a load of these little campaigns and suddenly Labour has a compelling narrative. Clean Our Country
Not a bad idea.
A commitment to filling in the potholes, and sending dog-owners who don't clean up to Wormwood Scrubs for a spell, should guarantee a super-majority.
Pot holes! Maddening. Some in London are car-breakers, literally
There must be a dozen relatively minor issues like this that nonetheless drive many people quietly crazy. Daily irritants.
Labour is fruitlessly searching for big killer policies, maybe they should focus on the smaller stuff, but as part of a grander narrative
You can imagine persuasive TV ads. The camera pans over scenes of horrible litter. Voiceover: ‘After 14 years of Tory government, this is what Britain looks like. Don’t you yearn for a clean country, clean politics?’
Well, certainly, pavement politics is the way the Liberals built up their profile locally, and provided a base eventually to challenge in some seats.
Don't really see Sir Keir using that as a lever for ejecting Boris from No 10 though TBH. They will need other issues.
It would have to be part of a grander narrative. And it would work
Quite frankly, I’d be tempted to vote for a party that actually seemed to care about the quality of my daily life: clean parks, safe streets, no graffiti, well behaved citizens with modest pride in their city and country.
I don’t give a fuck about transgender issues and I’m tired of the crazy obsession with race.
Utterly disgraceful amount of litter in Endcliffe park this morning, I expect other parks around the country will be similar.
It's mainly the fault of the litterers of course, but why can't the authorities provide extra bins when they must know huge crowds are likely? I was walking round a large park recently which had one litter bin for thousands of visitors and it was overflowing in all directions with paper coffee cups.
Sorry Andy, its not mainly the fault, it is TOTALLY the fault of the litterers. We blanch in the country at large penalties for litter (I recall at some point there was an attempt to link to the fine to income which prompted outrage). Go to Singapore and try to find litter.
Yes, it’s time for much stiffer penalties. Which are imposed. You’d solve the problem in a year or two
On a guided tour of Singapore some years ago one of our party dropped a sweet wrapper. "Pick it up" the guide said, sternly. No please. A command.
I’ve long been of the opinion that 90% of people would happily live in Singapore and accept all the strict laws and surveillance - in return for clean streets, safe streets, zero crime, great healthcare, no graffiti, and so on.
This is what Labour should do. Get authoritarian and Singaporey. Forget the idiotic identity politics which is killing them
I'm pretty libertarian in general. But I really lose my shit when it comes to graffiti and litter. Anyone proposing the introduction of the death penalty for graffiti would see barely a half-hearted murmur of protest raised from me.
This is becoming a prominent issue. It may seem trivial but it distresses many people, and a party that promised to sort it would prosper. Labour, if they were clever, could build a platform out of this.
Fix Britain. Clean Our Country. Make Our Cities Beautiful
Another even tinier issue that bugs me. Phone boxes. They are now repulsive and no one uses them. Get rid.
String together a load of these little campaigns and suddenly Labour has a compelling narrative. Clean Our Country
Not a bad idea.
A commitment to filling in the potholes, and sending dog-owners who don't clean up to Wormwood Scrubs for a spell, should guarantee a super-majority.
Pot holes! Maddening. Some in London are car-breakers, literally
There must be a dozen relatively minor issues like this that nonetheless drive many people quietly crazy. Daily irritants.
Labour is fruitlessly searching for big killer policies, maybe they should focus on the smaller stuff, but as part of a grander narrative
You can imagine persuasive TV ads. The camera pans over scenes of horrible litter. Voiceover: ‘After 14 years of Tory government, this is what Britain looks like. Don’t you yearn for a clean country, clean politics?’
Well, certainly, pavement politics is the way the Liberals built up their profile locally, and provided a base eventually to challenge in some seats.
Don't really see Sir Keir using that as a lever for ejecting Boris from No 10 though TBH. They will need other issues.
Though going back to Blair '97... the five pledges were pretty minor. But the sense that the public realm had got as shabby as the government's behaviour was palpable, coupled to the sense that Labour would fix it. People often mock Pavement Politics, but it works. (Hence the slush money for marginals levelling up funds.)
Politico: The Biden administration is rethinking a costly system of government-run mass vaccination sites after data revealed the program is lagging well behind a much cheaper federal effort to distribute doses via retail pharmacies.
The government has shipped millions of doses to the 21 mass vaccination hubs, or “pilot” community centers, in states such as California, Florida, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts and Texas. The hubs are part of a $4 billion federal system that funds more than 1,000 smaller vaccination locations across the country and provides other vaccination support — such as supplies — to states across the country. The Federal Emergency Management Agency did not respond to repeated questions about how much the pilot sites cost.
Despite the money the federal government has spent on the mass-vaccination pilot sites, they are administering just a fraction of the shots given across the country each day. Federal data show the retail pharmacy program — which has signed up 21 chains and 17,000 stores — can reach far more Americans in a shorter time, according to four senior officials with direct knowledge of the matter. The bottom line, those sources said, is that more Americans seem to be willing to walk to their local pharmacist to get the vaccine than to travel to a federal vaccination site for the shot.
Several studies have shown that the British public, and I believe, the American has at least as much trust in pharmacists ....... generally community ones, in shops ...... as they do in GP's. My (long-ago, now) experience was that being asked for advice could be a 'many times a day' experience, especially where the same pharmacist had ben visible in the pharmacy for several years.
Here in Spain they are really good. They are heavily linked in via the prescription system and ultra helpful.
Unfortunately in Germany a doctor has to be involved in every vaccination, so it would need a change in the law to allow pharmacies to offer jabs.
Seriously? I had a three year course of cancer treatment delivered entirely by NHS nurses. No wonder vaccinations are taking so long in Germany.
Having said that, most other big European countries seem to be moving at the same speed, so it can’t be the only reason unless doctors are required in the same way in those countries as well.
At the moment, supply is the bottleneck. Even the Great AZ Pause has mostly been caught up. Most of the stories about millions of doses lying around are pretty bad faith- you do the calculation immediately after a huge delivery and bingo!
(https://covidtracker.fr/vaccintracker/ is a pretty good source for the French data; as you noted, the pace is now pretty much of a muchness for most big European countries.)
What remains to be seen is how they cope over the next month or two, as the taps open more fully.
There are doses lying around in Germany, but it's because of the policy of reserving second doses.
13.5 million doses administered out of 15.9 million delivered. True, some will be recent deliveries still on their way to vaccination centres etc. But others are reserved second doses, which is in turn partly because of German inflexibility about the timing of the second dose, and wanting to guarantee people's upcoming second dose appointments.
What will they do about younger women who’ve had one dose of AZ who now reject the 2nd, because of the 1/100,000 chance of a blood clot?
That's still not conclusive either. The background rate for women of childbearing age is about the same as what has been observed post vaccination in Germany. As it stands I'd want MHRA or WHO confirmation of this issue before accepting it.
Indeed. And even if it is conclusive your chances of catching Covid and suffering badly, or even dying, are higher by orders of magnitude. And every infected person can pass it on, or engender a horrible mutation, etc
Their risk-aversion is not logical. I always thought Germans were logical
To answer the earlier question: people who have had a first dose of AZ can get a second dose. Younger people can also still get a first dose of AZ, though it's not recommended.
Germans are not especially more or less logical than anyone else. But I would point out that when you have many millions of over 60s still waiting for a first vaccination, and you have very limited quantities of AZ, it's not really "illogical" to limit AZ to over-60s when you see a serious, if rare, side-effect in younger people. If anything, it's too "logical".
That is logical, but logic has long since departed most PB posters as soon as "Germany" is mentioned.
But by suspending use for under 60s (or whatever) and thus changing your AZ policy for, what, the fifth time? - you’ve successfully scared the shit out of everyone, AGAIN. And Germany already has a vaccine hesitancy problem.
No, this is not logical
It's not really that simple though is it? The alternative, of doing nothing when you have evidence of a problem in younger people, and you don't need to use AZ on younger people because you have so few doses, is also not going to reassure. And you can't really tell regulators to make decisions based entirely on what will worry people the least, unless you want hesitant people to totally lose all faith in the regulators.
So far Germany has demanded AZ, then recommended it only for the old, then claimed it is only 8% effective for the old, then suspended its use entirely, then reinstated it, then restricted it to the young, then suspended it for the young, and restricted it to the old
As usual, you are not remotely accurate. German regulators first recommended it for people up to 65, then for everyone, then suspended it for 3 days, then recommended it for people over 60. The initial limit to people up to 65, and the suspension, were mistakes, as I said at the time. I'm not sure about the latest move, but it is not "illogical".
Comments
Correction (not Battersea).
The companies themselves ought to take more responsibility for this but nothing ever happens.
(https://covidtracker.fr/vaccintracker/ is a pretty good source for the French data; as you noted, the pace is now pretty much of a muchness for most big European countries.)
What remains to be seen is how they cope over the next month or two, as the taps open more fully.
https://twitter.com/HTScotPol/status/1377173467653541894?s=20
Though even I didn't expect what happened in Mansfield and Bolsover.
Shaun Bailey - Conservative Party Candidate
Kam Balayev - Renew
Sian Berry - Green Party
Count Binface - Count Binface for Mayor of London
Valerie Brown - The Burning Pink Party
Piers Corbyn - Let London Live
Max Fosh - Independent
Laurence Fox - The Reclaim Party
Peter Gammons - UKIP
Richard Hewison - Rejoin EU
Vanessa Hudson - Animal Welfare Party - People, Animals, Environment
Steve Kelleher - Social Democratic Party
Sadiq Khan - Labour Party
David Kurten - Heritage Party
Farah London - Independent
Nims Obunge - Independent
Niko Omilana - Independent
Luisa Porritt - Liberal Democrats
Mandu Reid - Vote Women's Equality Party on Orange
Brian Rose - London Real Party
What did they gain from the delay?
Omooba was dismissed from the cast of the Curve's production of The Color Purple in 2019, and subsequently dropped by her agent, when anti-gay comments she had made on Facebook were reported after she was cast to play the lead role of Celie, a gay character.
She subsequently launched an employment tribunal against both organisations for religious discrimination and breach of contract. The final costs could amount to over £300,000.
In a joint statement, Curve chief executive Chris Stafford and artistic director Nikolai Foster said: "We have always felt the case lacked any merit from the outset, but Seyi Omooba and her legal team continued to disregard our pleadings and chose to take our theatre to court irrespective of the facts."
They said the tribunal had been "used as part of a wider campaign orchestrated by Christian Concern," which resulted in "significant human and financial cost".
The statement continues: "Whilst we welcome this news, we would like to reiterate we do not condone any negativity aimed at Seyi Omooba and we respectfully ask anyone in support of Curve to remain kind and respectful."
https://www.whatsonstage.com/leicester-theatre/news/seyi-omooba-ordered-to-pay-costs-color-purple-tribunal_53691.html
It does seem as though their story is falling apart at the seams a bit. Not shocked.
Seat: majority 2010, deficit 2019
Putney: 24.6%, -9.5%
Enfield, Southgate: 17.2%, -9.4%
Reading East: 15.2%, -10.6%
Battersea: 12.3%, -9.5%
Canterbury: 12.3%, -3.1%
Ilford North: 11.5%, -10.4%
Ealing Central and Acton: 7.9%, -24.3%
Warwick and Leamington: 7.2%, -1.5%
Richmond Park*: 6.9%, -11.9%
Bristol North West: 6.5%, -10.2%
Wirral West: 6.2%, -7%
Croydon Central: 6%, -11%
City of Chester: 5.5%, -11.3%
St Albans*: 4.4%, -10.9%
Enfield North: 3.8%, -14.4%
Hove: 3.8%, -30.2%
Brentford and Isleworth: 3.6%, -18%
Brighton, Kemptown: 3.1%, -16.6%
Bedford: 3%, -0.3%
Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport: 2.6%, -8.9%
Weaver Vale: 2.3%, -1.1%
Lancaster and Fleetwood: 0.8%, -5.3%
Cardiff North: 0.4%, -13.3%
Oxford West and Abingdon*: 0.3%, -15.2%
Official data is here:
https://impfdashboard.de/
13.5 million doses administered out of 15.9 million delivered.
True, some will be recent deliveries still on their way to vaccination centres etc. But others are reserved second doses, which is in turn partly because of German inflexibility about the timing of the second dose, and wanting to guarantee people's upcoming second dose appointments.
Seat: majority 2015, deficit 2019
Richmond Park*: 38.9%, -11.9%
Putney: 23.8%, -9.5%
St Albans*: 23.4%, -10.9%
Canterbury: 18.3%, -3.1%
Oxford West and Abingdon*: 16.7%, -15.2%
Battersea: 15.6%, -9.5%
Warwick and Leamington: 13.1%, -1.5%
Reading East: 12.9%, -10.6%
Portsmouth South: 12.5%, -11.3%
Enfield, Southgate: 10.4%, -9.4%
Bristol North West: 9.5%, -10.2%
Bath*: 8.1%, -23.6%
Kingston and Surbiton*: 4.8%, -17.2%
Cardiff North: 4.2%, -13.3%
Twickenham*: 3.3%, -21.9%
Bedford: 2.4%, -0.3%
Weaver Vale: 1.7%, -1.1%
Brighton, Kemptown: 1.5%, -16.6%
Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport: 1.1%, -8.9%
Croydon Central: 0.3%, -11%
Gower: 0.1%, -4.1%
TBH I don't blame the fast food places. There are plenty of bins available. I blame adults who both don't care about their own environment and who raise their kids to similarly not care. Its pig ignorance.
Just look at the litter - arseholes
Looking just at seats which have changed hands blinds us to big swings which haopen without the seats changing hands. So when the Mansfields and Bolsovers happen it's seismic because we haven't been looking at the big swings whuch have been going on in those seats turning a safe seat into a marginal. The same process is happening in reverse in seats like Esher and Walton and Chingford and Wood Green.
Just politicians putting off difficult decisions
As for Centrists not being Corbyn will not be enough to offset IMO
2017 was the peak for LAB IMO you dont get 12.9m votes with
“And then I saw Tim jet washing his Rover and then I said to Tim as I walked past Tim *You can wash mine next!* Tim was in hysterics, I have to say.”
Fix Britain. Clean Our Country. Make Our Cities Beautiful
Another even tinier issue that bugs me. Phone boxes. They are now repulsive and no one uses them. Get rid.
String together a load of these little campaigns and suddenly Labour has a compelling narrative. Clean Our Country
https://twitter.com/donpaskini/status/1377194044649005058
Yes there are significant differences between the Blair and Johnson governments. The things that most aggrieve Labour supporters - corruption, incompetence, a "fuck you" mentality to the poor - aren't really a concern of the majority of voters. Look at Patel's "hostility to forrin and woke" bill - has got the left foaming at the mouth in Outrage but is largely approved of by the people who supposedly should be supporting Labour and not the Tories.
Blair understood the so-called working class vote far more than he ever got credit for...
The problem for the Lib Dems are seats like Woking where the Labour vote is quite sticky.
https://www.oddschecker.com/politics
Only came across that as I was looking for Con Maj price... and oddschecker only have Lab, LD or NOM! How odd
https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2020/11/interferon-trial-published.page
The phase 3 trial is ongoing:
https://www.clinicaltrialsregister.eu/ctr-search/trial/2020-004743-83/GB
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/record/NCT04385095
Seems that primary data collection should have been completed in February.
Edit: They seem to be using NEWS as a secondary outcome, which makes me a bit queasy - NEWS has only been validated for imminent adverse outcomes (death, cardiac arrest, ICU within 24 hours). It's not a general purpose measure of health status, although it increasingly seems to be used as such.
Their risk-aversion is not logical. I always thought Germans were logical
Online ads aren't that expensive, but he's also got billboards, etc.
Plus the BF money of course...
Must be £100,000s?
A commitment to filling in the potholes, and sending dog-owners who don't clean up to Wormwood Scrubs for a spell, should guarantee a super-majority.
I know it seems like moaning into the ether but it really is one of those inconsistencies that bugs me about how we have decided to do things differently just for the sake of it.
Germans are not especially more or less logical than anyone else. But I would point out that when you have many millions of over 60s still waiting for a first vaccination, and you have very limited quantities of AZ, it's not really "illogical" to limit AZ to over-60s when you see a serious, if rare, side-effect in younger people. If anything, it's too "logical".
That is logical, but logic has long since departed most PB posters as soon as "Germany" is mentioned.
Phone boxes, (see the earlier post in this thread) are often used for 'good' social purposes; locally, for example, they're used as book exchanges and defibrillator sites.
I've been wondering whether the UK tends to prescribe a different contraceptive, for example.
We now have an Upper Ten Thousand who believe in themselves as the sacred tribe, anointed by God to their position.
I sometimes find it hard to detect the difference.
There must be a dozen relatively minor issues like this that nonetheless drive many people quietly crazy. Daily irritants.
Labour is fruitlessly searching for big killer policies, maybe they should focus on the smaller stuff, but as part of a grander narrative
You can imagine persuasive TV ads. The camera pans over scenes of horrible litter. Voiceover: ‘After 14 years of Tory government, this is what Britain looks like. Don’t you yearn for a clean country, clean politics?’
I get that relative value of some properties may have changed so it could have an impact on individuals (although I’m not sure that there will have been that many radical relative shifts within a council area). But unless the total amount of council tax levied increases then it’s just about distribution. If my house was worth 2x 3x or 4x what it was in 1992 it makes no difference unless someone else’s house has only gone up 1x.
Unless the value of property somehow impacts how central government allocates their grants?
What am I missing?
Barry Sheerman MP
@BarrySheerman
Keir Starmer has made excellent progress in his first year as Labour leader. Steady as we go!
Barry thought he had scheduled his tweet for tomorrow presumably
No, this is not logical
Nice little earner!
What is remarkable is the lack of opposition, perhaps, rather than the support. Only 25% oppose vaxports for domestic public transport.
Basically Brits are happy to use them anywhere, any place
Some EU countries might end up effectively ending their vaccination campaigns at the same time as us, but with only ~40% vaccinated rather than 80+%.
"Pick it up" the guide said, sternly. No please. A command.
Also, if we're going to do it for this, why not MMR et al?
Last election they devoted almost their entire campaign to trying to outbid Labour for the hardcore Remainer vote and talking about transsexual rights.
This is what Labour should do. Get authoritarian and Singaporey. Forget the idiotic identity politics which is killing them
It may be that a softly, softly approach, not making unnecessary waves for the government on top of the pandemic woes, will turn out to have been the right approach.
Sir Keir doesn't come across as very inspiring at the moment, but perhaps once the pandemic is largely behind us and the voters also feel (hopefully) Labour is electable again, he may be able to make a stronger impact with fresh policies for the country as a whole.
Don't really see Sir Keir using that as a lever for ejecting Boris from No 10 though TBH. They will need other issues.
"That’s why the terms of the inquiry, who will conduct it and what is their remit, need as much, or more scrutiny than its final report."
I'm free. Just saying. And very experienced. I have done or managed upwards of 5000 investigations, large and small.
And I don't take any nonsense from anyone.
Plus this - https://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/06/01/the-covid-19-inquiry-a-primer/.
(Oh and am now a Red Wall woman voter - 😉).
So if there is anyone in government reading this ......
The last four polls have had leads for Con of 4,8,8 & 10. I don’t know how that relates to 4-5%
Yesterday’s YouGov was almost identical to the 2019 result and Sir Keir’s personal ratings are falling off a cliff
The problem for Labour (as others have said) is that their core support (the Enlightened) are heavily concentrated in the big cities and prestige university towns, which is ridiculously inefficient when it comes to translating votes into seats in our FPTP electoral system. The obvious answer - indeed the only answer - is for the Enlightened to start spreading themselves around the country. It's time for us to go and live in more primitive places and explain to the natives how their interests would be served by a more egalitarian society. Preach the word. Just like the missionaries of old.
A massive win/win accrues from this development. Firstly, a goodly proportion of the natives will likely be convinced by our case if we are making it casually, face to face and in situ, fellow residents who they've gotten to know and like, rather than lecturing from on high on CH4 news or in the columns of the Guardian. Imagine the natives mixing unselfconsciously with the Enlightened on a regular basis as they go about their daily lives. Down the local, in the supermarket, hanging around on street corners, they keep bumping into these progressive types, and they find people who are just nice and pleasant and normal like they are, no difference whatsoever except for being a teeny bit more intelligent and educated, which is no crime and why should it be. Imagine countless desultory and friendly conversations taking place about this & that, the football, the weather, the price of fish, but with every now and again one of the participants slipping in something thought provoking about how the country could be reformed in the economic interests of working people. It will have an effect. How could it not.
But let's say it doesn't. Let's say the natives remain impervious to logical argument and stick to their Tory voting ways. Perhaps it even backfires and they get well pissed off with the Enlightened and wish they would fuck off back to where they came from. Point is, it doesn't matter. Conversions are merely the icing on the cake. Because due to the Diaspora there is now a large contingent of progressives on the electoral roll in these godforsaken little towns and villages and they will be voting Labour, bringing lots of Conservative seats into play whilst at the same time not taking risks with Labour seats, since there will still be safe majorities in the places they have abandoned.
You might think I'm joking with this but I'm not. I'm perfectly serious. This is a demographic problem and therefore it requires a demographic solution.
Progressives of Britain Unite and log onto RightMove!
You have nothing to lose but your Tory governments!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVZVnxrcosc
Quite frankly, I’d be tempted to vote for a party that actually seemed to care about the quality of my daily life: clean parks, safe streets, no graffiti, well behaved citizens with modest pride in their city and country.
I don’t give a fuck about transgender issues and I’m tired of the crazy obsession with race.
German regulators first recommended it for people up to 65, then for everyone, then suspended it for 3 days, then recommended it for people over 60.
The initial limit to people up to 65, and the suspension, were mistakes, as I said at the time. I'm not sure about the latest move, but it is not "illogical".