I'm pretty distrustful of a lot of data privacy issues e.g. I've deleted WhatsApp, Facebook messenger and switched to Telegram (yes yes yes I know about End to End) and am about to delete Facebook itself.
I also think the Gov't are increasingly authoritarian and eroding civil liberties.
But I do think there is a degree of ridiculous paranoia from some on here.
Most of the British public are, apparently, pretty cool with vaccination certificates and I think I am too.
You could have said that consistently for the past year, but each time the public has no choice to accept the reality of the situation. This pandemic has a few twists and turns yet, depsite what we all might hope.
Is it fair to say if you live in London, travel using an oyster, and pay for your drinks by card, you’re pretty much being tracked when you go to a pub? Would a vaccine passport make any difference? The govt could find out where you’ve been anyway
I'm pretty distrustful of a lot of data privacy issues e.g. I've deleted WhatsApp, Facebook messenger and switched to Telegram (yes yes yes I know about End to End) and am about to delete Facebook itself.
Is it fair to say if you live in London, travel using an oyster, and pay for your drinks by card, you’re pretty much being tracked when you go to a pub? Would a vaccine passport make any difference? The govt could find out where you’ve been anyway
Possibly not to Londoners. What about the 90% of us who live elsewhere?
For example, the Tories won Streatham even more recently than Hartlepool, at the 1987 GE, but at GE2019 they came third on 16% of the vote. I rather think that Streatham is currently beyond the Tories reach, but they won it 28 years more recently than Hartlepool. I will hazard a guess that other factors are of greater importance than whether the seat changed hands in the 50s.
Edmonton and Walthamstow were Tory in 1987 and/or 1992, something which is difficult to believe.
Ilford North was Tory in 2010. Utterly gone, now.
Ilford South was Conservative from 1979 to 1992 - now a 24,000 Labour majority. The former Conservative MP, Neil Thorne, is, I believe, still alive.
The other thing about the way the vaccine passport proposals are headed (ie. govt mandated not business optional) is that they only have any Covid linked rationality if harsh restrictions are maintained in non regulated (ie. private) environments. Otherwise their use is not linked to situational risk, but purely to areas that the Govt can control.
Going to a pub? Require a vaccine passport and pub must enforce compliance.
You could have said that consistently for the past year, but each time the public has no choice to accept the reality of the situation. This pandemic has a few twists and turns yet, depsite what we all might hope.
Whitty says "I don't think though this should be seen as an indefinite posture" and he added that technology can "turn around a vaccine to a new variant incredibly fast, compared to how historically we've been able to do it".
He does not rule out it lasting indefinitely, or think it an unlikely event that it indefinite. What changes in 2 years time? Nothing.
The UK is going to end up a very authoritarian, puritanical, gerontocracy where having fun is something to be controlled and limited, because further control of the young is undoubtedly popular with the voters.
On topic, I’m willing in principle to consider ID cards that replace all current forms of ID and contain a driving licence, passport, and my entitlement to divers government services.
However, in order for that to be the case the following four criteria must be met:
1] I must have access to the data the government holds about me, and the power to edit ALL of it so any information I don’t want them to have, they can’t keep.
2) I must have access to the complete list of people who have accessed my database, and be able to take instant action against anyone who has accessed it for no good reason, including a reporting button for disciplinary measures and the right to prosecute free of charge where I am dissatisfied.
3) This must replace all other forms of ID so no more censuses, DBS, registrations with professional organisations etc.
4) I must have the absolute right to refuse to produce it on demand.
And since those four criteria will never be met while a single Civil Servant breathes air, I am opposed to ID cards.
Is it fair to say if you live in London, travel using an oyster, and pay for your drinks by card, you’re pretty much being tracked when you go to a pub? Would a vaccine passport make any difference? The govt could find out where you’ve been anyway
Possibly not to Londoners. What about the 90% of us who live elsewhere?
Well the bit about paying by card is still there. So even if the vaccine passports are not given the go ahead, if the state want to find out who has been going to pubs unvaccinated they still can - we are under surveillance as it stands, unless you pay by cash and don’t use Uber or Oyster I guess, which would be quite a few people
I’m not saying I think VP’s are a good idea and people should just accept them, just that the horror of being tracked is already happening
Is it fair to say if you live in London, travel using an oyster, and pay for your drinks by card, you’re pretty much being tracked when you go to a pub? Would a vaccine passport make any difference? The govt could find out where you’ve been anyway
What if you don't like the government? You might be comfortable making it easier for this lot to track you for this use case because you trust them, but what if a precedent is set for a more authoriatiran regime a few years down the line. Do you trust future governments?
Is it fair to say if you live in London, travel using an oyster, and pay for your drinks by card, you’re pretty much being tracked when you go to a pub? Would a vaccine passport make any difference? The govt could find out where you’ve been anyway
Possibly not to Londoners. What about the 90% of us who live elsewhere?
Well the bit about paying by card is still there. So even if the vaccine passports are not given the go ahead, if the state want to find out who has been going to pubs unvaccinated they still can - we are under surveillance as it stands, unless you pay by cash and don’t use Uber or Oyster I guess, which would be quite a few people
I'm sure there will be some on here who will assert if a measure is being opposed by Jeremy Corbyn, Iain Duncan-Smith and Ed Davey, it must be worth supporting.
I'm not one of them - I have huge political differences with both Corbyn and IDS but on this issue I support them both.
Maybe Johnson thinks he's right because the public support him - if that's the only criterion for public policy, fine. Sometimes Governments and Prime Ministers have to take measures which are the right thing to do, not the popular thing.
I realise after the last year, Johnson wants to go back to being an upbeat, eternally optimistic populist.
On thread... So the embittered, late middle aged, male keyboard warriors who are the biggest fan boys of wee Eck turn out to be a vanishingly small demographic Perhaps if they are so comprehensively whipped, then they might take their ned-ish aggression and intimidation back into to the public bar
Some hope!
Obviously cheered that Willie Rennie is getting a bit of momentum in Scotland, perhaps May might be a good month for Ed Davey after all. .
Is it fair to say if you live in London, travel using an oyster, and pay for your drinks by card, you’re pretty much being tracked when you go to a pub? Would a vaccine passport make any difference? The govt could find out where you’ve been anyway
What if you don't like the government? You might be comfortable making it easier for this lot to track you for this use case because you trust them, but what if a precedent is set for a more authoriatiran regime a few years down the line. Do you trust future governments?
I don’t know if I am happy about it or not. Probably not, but I don’t worry about using oyster, Uber and debit cards when I go out, which means I am tracked anyway really
If you are worried about govt surveillance, who would you rather kept all of your data - Facebook, Google, GCHQ, Huawei or the Chinese Govt Every time you buy something, download music, buy a ticket, shop and what you look at on line or TV is recorded. Every selfie you take builds up a bigger profile which can be used for AI facial recognition. If you don't like it, you just have to throw your mobile away. Whether you have had the vaccine or not will be recorded with your NHS profile when it eventually goes on line. Do you want to use the Chinese traffic light system which gives you a red orange or green signal whenever you want to use a public facility - shop, bank, train?. Vaccine passports are the thin end of the wedge, and what's needed is to clamp down on all the data gatherers without throwing out the good - NHS records - with the bad - social surveillance.
You could have said that consistently for the past year, but each time the public has no choice to accept the reality of the situation. This pandemic has a few twists and turns yet, depsite what we all might hope.
Whitty says "I don't think though this should be seen as an indefinite posture" and he added that technology can "turn around a vaccine to a new variant incredibly fast, compared to how historically we've been able to do it".
He does not rule out it lasting indefinitely, or think it an unlikely event that it indefinite. What changes in 2 years time? Nothing.
The UK is going to end up a very authoritarian, puritanical, gerontocracy where having fun is something to be controlled and limited, because further control of the young is undoubtedly popular with the voters.
Meanwhile the vast range of ongoing “precautionary” measures build up greater and greater problems for wider society, be it business failures and ongoing lack of viability, massive backlogs in the justice system, uncertainty and ongoing disruption for our education system, and, well, deteriorating health outcomes due to what is going on in the wider health service. The scientists needs to acknowledge that this isn’t a one way street, with the risks all on one side.
I can see this coming. “The passport has been a success, Why not add a bit more information to the card that could save lives. Let’s include diabetes and blood pressure, so that publicans might help the clientele stay healthy”.
Is it fair to say if you live in London, travel using an oyster, and pay for your drinks by card, you’re pretty much being tracked when you go to a pub? Would a vaccine passport make any difference? The govt could find out where you’ve been anyway
What if you don't like the government? You might be comfortable making it easier for this lot to track you for this use case because you trust them, but what if a precedent is set for a more authoriatiran regime a few years down the line. Do you trust future governments?
I don’t know if I am happy about it or not. Probably not, but I don’t worry about using oyster, Uber and debit cards when I go out, which means I am tracked anyway really
You *could* be tracked, which is not quite the same thing.
Is it fair to say if you live in London, travel using an oyster, and pay for your drinks by card, you’re pretty much being tracked when you go to a pub? Would a vaccine passport make any difference? The govt could find out where you’ve been anyway
What if you don't like the government? You might be comfortable making it easier for this lot to track you for this use case because you trust them, but what if a precedent is set for a more authoriatiran regime a few years down the line. Do you trust future governments?
I don’t know if I am happy about it or not. Probably not, but I don’t worry about using oyster, Uber and debit cards when I go out, which means I am tracked anyway really
I am thoroughly traceable via phone, contact less payments, social media, Internet usage etc etc.
The difference perhaps is that I use all these for my own convenience, not for the government's.
I can see this coming. “The passport has been a success, Why not add a bit more information to the card that could save lives. Let’s include diabetes and blood pressure, so that publicans might help the clientele stay healthy”.
We should all refuse to carry it unless it displays, boldly, on the front of it, the total number of children one person has.
At which point Boris Johnson will suddenly lose enthusiasm.
Is it fair to say if you live in London, travel using an oyster, and pay for your drinks by card, you’re pretty much being tracked when you go to a pub? Would a vaccine passport make any difference? The govt could find out where you’ve been anyway
What if you don't like the government? You might be comfortable making it easier for this lot to track you for this use case because you trust them, but what if a precedent is set for a more authoriatiran regime a few years down the line. Do you trust future governments?
I don’t know if I am happy about it or not. Probably not, but I don’t worry about using oyster, Uber and debit cards when I go out, which means I am tracked anyway really
I am thoroughly traceable via phone, contact less payments, social media, Internet usage etc etc.
The difference perhaps is that I use all these for my own convenience, not for the government's.
Maybe you are all right, maybe I might agree, but I don’t think, rightly or wrongly, people are all that bothered.
Is it fair to say if you live in London, travel using an oyster, and pay for your drinks by card, you’re pretty much being tracked when you go to a pub? Would a vaccine passport make any difference? The govt could find out where you’ve been anyway
What if you don't like the government? You might be comfortable making it easier for this lot to track you for this use case because you trust them, but what if a precedent is set for a more authoriatiran regime a few years down the line. Do you trust future governments?
I don’t know if I am happy about it or not. Probably not, but I don’t worry about using oyster, Uber and debit cards when I go out, which means I am tracked anyway really
The difference is that the state needs to get a warrant to access that information. We have judicial and other protections against state intrusion on those aspects of our digital lives. This would simply remove that and hand the state mass population surveillance data under the guise of "saving the NHS".
Is it fair to say if you live in London, travel using an oyster, and pay for your drinks by card, you’re pretty much being tracked when you go to a pub? Would a vaccine passport make any difference? The govt could find out where you’ve been anyway
Possibly not to Londoners. What about the 90% of us who live elsewhere?
Well the bit about paying by card is still there. So even if the vaccine passports are not given the go ahead, if the state want to find out who has been going to pubs unvaccinated they still can - we are under surveillance as it stands, unless you pay by cash and don’t use Uber or Oyster I guess, which would be quite a few people
I’m not saying I think VP’s are a good idea and people should just accept them, just that the horror of being tracked is already happening
If you were dating the wife of the head of the NHSx IT department, you could walk to the venue and pay cash instead of getting caught by the vaccine passport.
Is it fair to say if you live in London, travel using an oyster, and pay for your drinks by card, you’re pretty much being tracked when you go to a pub? Would a vaccine passport make any difference? The govt could find out where you’ve been anyway
What if you don't like the government? You might be comfortable making it easier for this lot to track you for this use case because you trust them, but what if a precedent is set for a more authoriatiran regime a few years down the line. Do you trust future governments?
I don’t know if I am happy about it or not. Probably not, but I don’t worry about using oyster, Uber and debit cards when I go out, which means I am tracked anyway really
The difference is that the state needs to get a warrant to access that information. We have judicial and other protections against state intrusion on those aspects of our digital lives. This would simply remove that and hand the state mass population surveillance data under the guise of "saving the NHS".
I think most people will just think of it as “If I want to go to down the pub I have to prove I’ve had the jab” and not worry about it
Is it fair to say if you live in London, travel using an oyster, and pay for your drinks by card, you’re pretty much being tracked when you go to a pub? Would a vaccine passport make any difference? The govt could find out where you’ve been anyway
What if you don't like the government? You might be comfortable making it easier for this lot to track you for this use case because you trust them, but what if a precedent is set for a more authoriatiran regime a few years down the line. Do you trust future governments?
I don’t know if I am happy about it or not. Probably not, but I don’t worry about using oyster, Uber and debit cards when I go out, which means I am tracked anyway really
I am thoroughly traceable via phone, contact less payments, social media, Internet usage etc etc.
The difference perhaps is that I use all these for my own convenience, not for the government's.
Maybe you are all right, maybe I might agree, but I don’t think, rightly or wrongly, people are all that bothered.
I don't think people are that bothered by traceability, as long as they feel that they get something of value in return. Ours is not a freedom loving country, it has always rather liked a crackdown.
"Or it may be that the Conservatives have simply gone back to a pre-Thatcher formula for Tory government. From 1951, the party ruled for more than a decade, using four different prime ministers, surviving a Brexit-sized foreign policy catastrophe, the 1956 Suez crisis, fatally mishandling the 1957 flu pandemic, and all the while cleverly manipulating the timing of elections to build a bigger and bigger majority. Meanwhile, the Labour left and right fought each other. Some predicted Labour would never govern again."
Let's hope cash comes back in fashion after having been rubbished as a fomite. Becoming a cashless society is a greater threat to civil liberties than vaccine certificates aka "passports".
Personally I think people often focus on the wrong things in the “civil liberties/tracking” discussions. Yes the Govt can track most people (who don’t actively take steps to avoid it). But obviously that isn’t the issue for most people.
What absolutely is the issue is where Government backs up this ability to track you with criminal sanctions for evasion. When the Govt makes things criminal that gives them enormous power over those who might come into conflict with them. Especially when these crimes have a built in level of likely non-compliance that most people will fall foul of at some time or another. It means that the Govt/police have a hold over every single individual in the population if they step too far out of line on a (potentially completely unrelated) issue that causes them difficulty.
Think Conservative party whips office and their “little black book of potential sex scandals” of Tory MPs.
If we're looking to the past, we had a discussion yesterday about the possibility of snow over Easter, an according to the BBC's weather page (bbc.co.uk) the chance of light snow round here on Easter Monday morning has slightly increased.
Let's hope cash comes back in fashion after having been rubbished as a fomite. Becoming a cashless society is a greater threat to civil liberties than vaccine certificates aka "passports".
The Lizard People have been working towards a cashless society as a long term goal. No more black (or even grey) economy. Complete control of money - well, apart from the scammers who are patently smarter than the Lizard People's techies.
If you are worried about govt surveillance, who would you rather kept all of your data - Facebook, Google, GCHQ, Huawei or the Chinese Govt Every time you buy something, download music, buy a ticket, shop and what you look at on line or TV is recorded. Every selfie you take builds up a bigger profile which can be used for AI facial recognition. If you don't like it, you just have to throw your mobile away. Whether you have had the vaccine or not will be recorded with your NHS profile when it eventually goes on line. Do you want to use the Chinese traffic light system which gives you a red orange or green signal whenever you want to use a public facility - shop, bank, train?. Vaccine passports are the thin end of the wedge, and what's needed is to clamp down on all the data gatherers without throwing out the good - NHS records - with the bad - social surveillance.
I'm not a fan of private companies gathering data on me but I think it's important to note that there's a huge difference when the government does so.
It's the government that has the power to put me in prison, to tax me, to seize my assets, to strip me of my citizenship and my right to live in this country.
I'm actually less concerned about them gathering data about what I do, then that they will balls the whole thing up and have my data confused with someone else's - potentially resulting in me losing my right to work, etc, because the database is a mess, and the computer is trusted above all.
Let's hope cash comes back in fashion after having been rubbished as a fomite. Becoming a cashless society is a greater threat to civil liberties than vaccine certificates aka "passports".
I did my first car purchase in ₿ last month. They seller was very excited about it and spread his cheeks on the price to get it. Cash isn't coming back.
Let's hope cash comes back in fashion after having been rubbished as a fomite. Becoming a cashless society is a greater threat to civil liberties than vaccine certificates aka "passports".
I did my first car purchase in ₿ last month. They seller was very excited about it and spread his cheeks on the price to get it. Cash isn't coming back.
Bitcoin is akin to cash in its anonymity. But it will never catch on for ordinary folk.
Let's hope cash comes back in fashion after having been rubbished as a fomite. Becoming a cashless society is a greater threat to civil liberties than vaccine certificates aka "passports".
I did my first car purchase in ₿ last month. They seller was very excited about it and spread his cheeks on the price to get it. Cash isn't coming back.
Bitcoin is akin to cash in its anonymity. But it will never catch on for ordinary folk.
Why? It's very easy with Exodus or a similar app. Even easier with a crypto debit card.
"Or it may be that the Conservatives have simply gone back to a pre-Thatcher formula for Tory government. From 1951, the party ruled for more than a decade, using four different prime ministers, surviving a Brexit-sized foreign policy catastrophe, the 1956 Suez crisis, fatally mishandling the 1957 flu pandemic, and all the while cleverly manipulating the timing of elections to build a bigger and bigger majority. Meanwhile, the Labour left and right fought each other. Some predicted Labour would never govern again."
The "many wasted years" argument could be a powerful one against the Tories, assuming they continue merely to look after their pensioners and fail to deliver significant change after the pandemic subsides.
Clearly a vaxpass of some type is going to be required to travel internationally. Fair enough, as long as it's use is confined to the crossing of international borders for those countries that require it.
Vaxpass as an internal passport to be able to access events, businesses and public spaces. Get out of it. What is the problem it is trying to solve when the vast majority of the population will be vaccinated?
Illiberal, authoritarian nonsense on stilts that is beyond the pale.
Surely it's going to be dead on arrival though. Even in Wales, the prophet if doom Drakeford is aiming to open hospitality indoors by the late May bank holiday
Can't see Vax passes being rolled out by then, and looks difficult once things have already opened up to crack down and make them mandatory surely.
Let's hope cash comes back in fashion after having been rubbished as a fomite. Becoming a cashless society is a greater threat to civil liberties than vaccine certificates aka "passports".
I did my first car purchase in ₿ last month. They seller was very excited about it and spread his cheeks on the price to get it. Cash isn't coming back.
Bitcoin is akin to cash in its anonymity. But it will never catch on for ordinary folk.
Why? It's very easy with Exodus or a similar app. Even easier with a crypto debit card.
Because of all the nouns in those two sentences, the only one I vaguely understand is 'app'; and that instinctively raises my hackles.
(I know what a card is. But when you qualify it with 'crypto debit' I'm lost.)
PARIS – Europe didn't invest enough in the development of COVID-19 vaccines or in expanding production capacities, according to French Junior Minister for Europe Clément Beaune.
"On the European level, what we didn't do well is investment in the last phase of the development of the vaccines and the anticipation of production capacities," Beaune said Thursday at a hearing before the French Senate's Economic Affairs Commission.
EU countries have lagged behind the likes of the U.K., U.S. and Israel in their vaccination rollouts, and suffered from supply delays, at the same time as the EU has become a major exporter of vaccine.
Let's hope cash comes back in fashion after having been rubbished as a fomite. Becoming a cashless society is a greater threat to civil liberties than vaccine certificates aka "passports".
I did my first car purchase in ₿ last month. They seller was very excited about it and spread his cheeks on the price to get it. Cash isn't coming back.
Bitcoin is akin to cash in its anonymity. But it will never catch on for ordinary folk.
Why? It's very easy with Exodus or a similar app. Even easier with a crypto debit card.
You make my point. Cash is a simply brilliant invention (if that's the word), and can even be produced privately if it can be trusted. I'm told that between the wars the Jewish community in Glasgow, which covered virtually all the professions and services, simply used signed IOUs as promissory notes which circulated amongst them as cash. Within that society they were all known to each other which engendered trust in using those instruments. Another example of private cash currency is the beans babysitting circles of the 60s and 70s. Also cigarettes in PoW camps.
GLASGOW — To the outsider, Scotland’s rival political camps may look as deeply entrenched as ever. But the sands have been shifting.
The broad dividing lines remain the same. On one side, proponents of independence, their sights set firmly on a second referendum and the promise of self-rule. Opposite, supporters of the status quo: a union with England, Wales, and Northern Ireland dating back over 300 years.
However, a labyrinth of new divisions lurks below. Brexit, coronavirus, the Scottish National Party (SNP)’s internal meltdown over its handling of sexual abuse allegations against former First Minister Alex Salmond; all are new considerations since Scots rejected independence in 2014.
Not the least improvement resulting from Biden entering the White House is the massive Increase in quality of the press officer-ing. Quick Glasgow translation: ram it ya fud.
RE: tracking and the NHS app. Did people realise that it (I think?) contained a massive "flaw" for those prepared to use it? Which was that you could enter a pub, scan the app and check in, sit at your table... and then check out and pretend you'd left. At which point you'd only be at risk of being contacted for the very brief time that you were at the venue. (track and trace used the information sent through the app, not, i presume, satellite data on actual physical location).
Basically I think because there was a great deal of conflict about whether the idea of track and trace was to alert people who should be "eager" to know when they were at risk to protect friends, family and colleagues, or whether it whether it was mandated by the Govt to know when people were at risk, regardless of personal preference. On the basis of the former, there would be no reason for people to want to try and evade the system, therefore they, er, wouldn't. It's similar to its precursor of the "name taking" on entry. But as has been mentioned, Boris Johnson sure hit a lot of pubs over the period.
Let's hope cash comes back in fashion after having been rubbished as a fomite. Becoming a cashless society is a greater threat to civil liberties than vaccine certificates aka "passports".
I did my first car purchase in ₿ last month. They seller was very excited about it and spread his cheeks on the price to get it. Cash isn't coming back.
Bitcoin is akin to cash in its anonymity. But it will never catch on for ordinary folk.
Why? It's very easy with Exodus or a similar app. Even easier with a crypto debit card.
Because of all the nouns in those two sentences, the only one I vaguely understand is 'app'; and that instinctively raises my hackles.
(I know what a card is. But when you qualify it with 'crypto debit' I'm lost.)
How do you use bitcoin, without getting involved in the bitcoin market and all that involves. I presume there's a simple answer to that, but the fact it doesn't sound (to me) like a stupid question, is evidence enough that it wouldn't catch on.
Most people think of bitcoin as gambling for speculators, not an actual method of currency for day to day transactions.
In the 70s and early 80s microwaves came out and were promoted as the a universal solution, you could roast a chicken or bake a cake in one.
Similarly any popular new technology is stretched to all sorts of use cases to see what sticks, but ultimately in most cases the existing solution was actually better or more convenient.
Is Bitcoin to cash, what a microwave was to a roast chicken?
For example, the Tories won Streatham even more recently than Hartlepool, at the 1987 GE, but at GE2019 they came third on 16% of the vote. I rather think that Streatham is currently beyond the Tories reach, but they won it 28 years more recently than Hartlepool. I will hazard a guess that other factors are of greater importance than whether the seat changed hands in the 50s.
Edmonton and Walthamstow were Tory in 1987 and/or 1992, something which is difficult to believe.
Ilford North was Tory in 2010. Utterly gone, now.
Ilford South was Conservative from 1979 to 1992 - now a 24,000 Labour majority. The former Conservative MP, Neil Thorne, is, I believe, still alive.
Of course bad for demoicracy but hugely disadvantageous to Labour hording up masses of votes where they aren't needed while losing marginals elsewhere. Identity politics dosen't work.
In the 70s and early 80s microwaves came out and were promoted as the a universal solution, you could roast a chicken or bake a cake in one.
Similarly any popular new technology is stretched to all sorts of use cases to see what sticks, but ultimately in most cases the existing solution was actually better or more convenient.
Is Bitcoin to cash, what a microwave was to a roast chicken?
Bitcoin no, contactless may well be. Over a year ago I took out £200 cash at Gatwick airport - I still have the last of those £20 notes.
I'd be really interested to know if these were people already susceptible to clotting issues e.g. those on HRT or those who are, well let's not beat around the bush, fat.
Anyway 30 out of 30 million, or 20 million if we stick to just AZN, is not a lot. A one in a million chance of getting a blood clot doesn't seem to render the jab dodgy.
Actually, it is quite a lot if we are vaccinating those at a low risk of Covid. I've just run the NHS risk calculator on my details, I apparently have a 1 in 142,857 chance of death from Covid if we got 90 days exposure at a level equivalent to the first peak.
Our levels of Covid now are at least 10 times lower than the peak - therefore I'm looking at a risk of Covid death in the range of 1 in 1.5 million risk. That's less risky than having a jab with a 1 in 750k dangerous side effect. I suspect that these numbers are even less favourable for a jab if I were female (even lower Covid risk, probably the adverse events skew female).
In the 70s and early 80s microwaves came out and were promoted as the a universal solution, you could roast a chicken or bake a cake in one.
Similarly any popular new technology is stretched to all sorts of use cases to see what sticks, but ultimately in most cases the existing solution was actually better or more convenient.
Is Bitcoin to cash, what a microwave was to a roast chicken?
Bitcoin no, contactless may well be. Over a year ago I took out £200 cash at Gatwick airport - I still have the last of those £20 notes.
As expected Alba is a damp squib. I predicted as much.
It is REALLY hard to get over 5% as a new party, especially when your leader is a known (but legally unblemished) sex pest.
What is disappointing from a Unionist perspective is no obvious “bounce” for Anas Sarwar and little damage to the SNP. And the Greens appear completely unscathed.
In the 70s and early 80s microwaves came out and were promoted as the a universal solution, you could roast a chicken or bake a cake in one.
Similarly any popular new technology is stretched to all sorts of use cases to see what sticks, but ultimately in most cases the existing solution was actually better or more convenient.
Is Bitcoin to cash, what a microwave was to a roast chicken?
I know people who do use a microwave to roast chicken.
"Or it may be that the Conservatives have simply gone back to a pre-Thatcher formula for Tory government. From 1951, the party ruled for more than a decade, using four different prime ministers, surviving a Brexit-sized foreign policy catastrophe, the 1956 Suez crisis, fatally mishandling the 1957 flu pandemic, and all the while cleverly manipulating the timing of elections to build a bigger and bigger majority. Meanwhile, the Labour left and right fought each other. Some predicted Labour would never govern again."
I'm sure there will be some on here who will assert if a measure is being opposed by Jeremy Corbyn, Iain Duncan-Smith and Ed Davey, it must be worth supporting.
I'm not one of them - I have huge political differences with both Corbyn and IDS but on this issue I support them both.
Maybe Johnson thinks he's right because the public support him - if that's the only criterion for public policy, fine. Sometimes Governments and Prime Ministers have to take measures which are the right thing to do, not the popular thing.
I realise after the last year, Johnson wants to go back to being an upbeat, eternally optimistic populist.
Politics doesn't work that way.
I don't think it's that - I think it's pressure from the security services which I suppose ultimately is driven by the USA. It always seems to be Lockheed Martin for some reason who handle all our data whilst of course solemnly promising not to share it with anyone.
My feeling is it won't happen; there will be a fudge. Which is good. Starmer signalling that there may not be cross party support will cause Boris to back off.
"Or it may be that the Conservatives have simply gone back to a pre-Thatcher formula for Tory government. From 1951, the party ruled for more than a decade, using four different prime ministers, surviving a Brexit-sized foreign policy catastrophe, the 1956 Suez crisis, fatally mishandling the 1957 flu pandemic, and all the while cleverly manipulating the timing of elections to build a bigger and bigger majority. Meanwhile, the Labour left and right fought each other. Some predicted Labour would never govern again."
Some of them think "Bugger they stole our budgie-smugglers" and some others think "Oh My God it's A Fascist State".
How to unify?
Sir Keith should draw on the answer to the old Beano question: "Why do you pull a sausage on a lead along from the front?", Answer "Cos you can't push it from behind."
Comments
I also think the Gov't are increasingly authoritarian and eroding civil liberties.
But I do think there is a degree of ridiculous paranoia from some on here.
Most of the British public are, apparently, pretty cool with vaccination certificates and I think I am too.
Chill.
http://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-chris-whitty-warns-virus-measures-needed-for-another-two-years-to-combat-threat-of-variants-12263319
Korea to adopt 'vaccine passport' showing person's COVID-19 vaccination status: PM
http://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=306449
Way behind in the vaccination stakes, though.
And their President’s approval rating is at 32% - due largely to an unpopular housing policy (?) ...
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/apr/01/uk-pledges-extra-250m-for-hi-tech-research-collaboration-with-eu
Going to a pub? Require a vaccine passport and pub must enforce compliance.
Going to a student houseparty...?
He does not rule out it lasting indefinitely, or think it an unlikely event that it indefinite. What changes in 2 years time? Nothing.
The waiting for a wider of range of vaccines makes little sense, Pfizer was developed in a day (https://www.businessinsider.com/pfizer-biontech-vaccine-designed-in-hours-one-weekend-2020-12?r=US&IR=T), regulators have said that vaccines wont need to start from scratch to get approval for vaccines adapted to target new variants. How can faster than 1 days development make any difference?
The UK is going to end up a very authoritarian, puritanical, gerontocracy where having fun is something to be controlled and limited, because further control of the young is undoubtedly popular with the voters.
However, in order for that to be the case the following four criteria must be met:
1] I must have access to the data the government holds about me, and the power to edit ALL of it so any information I don’t want them to have, they can’t keep.
2) I must have access to the complete list of people who have accessed my database, and be able to take instant action against anyone who has accessed it for no good reason, including a reporting button for disciplinary measures and the right to prosecute free of charge where I am dissatisfied.
3) This must replace all other forms of ID so no more censuses, DBS, registrations with professional organisations etc.
4) I must have the absolute right to refuse to produce it on demand.
And since those four criteria will never be met while a single Civil Servant breathes air, I am opposed to ID cards.
I’m not saying I think VP’s are a good idea and people should just accept them, just that the horror of being tracked is already happening
I'm sure there will be some on here who will assert if a measure is being opposed by Jeremy Corbyn, Iain Duncan-Smith and Ed Davey, it must be worth supporting.
I'm not one of them - I have huge political differences with both Corbyn and IDS but on this issue I support them both.
Maybe Johnson thinks he's right because the public support him - if that's the only criterion for public policy, fine. Sometimes Governments and Prime Ministers have to take measures which are the right thing to do, not the popular thing.
I realise after the last year, Johnson wants to go back to being an upbeat, eternally optimistic populist.
Politics doesn't work that way.
Suppose Brown had brought in ID cards, and a few thousand votes different had made Corbyn PM.
Not thrilled about the incumbent dimwit, for that matter.
Some hope!
Obviously cheered that Willie Rennie is getting a bit of momentum in Scotland, perhaps May might be a good month for Ed Davey after all. .
The difference perhaps is that I use all these for my own convenience, not for the government's.
At which point Boris Johnson will suddenly lose enthusiasm.
And regulation, banning stuff, etc etc
https://twitter.com/stewartmcdonald/status/1377868144853856258?s=21
"Or it may be that the Conservatives have simply gone back to a pre-Thatcher formula for Tory government. From 1951, the party ruled for more than a decade, using four different prime ministers, surviving a Brexit-sized foreign policy catastrophe, the 1956 Suez crisis, fatally mishandling the 1957 flu pandemic, and all the while cleverly manipulating the timing of elections to build a bigger and bigger majority. Meanwhile, the Labour left and right fought each other. Some predicted Labour would never govern again."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/01/tories-decade-in-power-hollowness-vision-keir-starmer
What absolutely is the issue is where Government backs up this ability to track you with criminal sanctions for evasion. When the Govt makes things criminal that gives them enormous power over those who might come into conflict with them. Especially when these crimes have a built in level of likely non-compliance that most people will fall foul of at some time or another. It means that the Govt/police have a hold over every single individual in the population if they step too far out of line on a (potentially completely unrelated) issue that causes them difficulty.
Think Conservative party whips office and their “little black book of potential sex scandals” of Tory MPs.
It's the government that has the power to put me in prison, to tax me, to seize my assets, to strip me of my citizenship and my right to live in this country.
I'm actually less concerned about them gathering data about what I do, then that they will balls the whole thing up and have my data confused with someone else's - potentially resulting in me losing my right to work, etc, because the database is a mess, and the computer is trusted above all.
https://twitter.com/AlbaParty/status/1377888062814978050?s=20
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/01/opinion/covid-vaccine.html
Vaxpass as an internal passport to be able to access events, businesses and public spaces. Get out of it. What is the problem it is trying to solve when the vast majority of the population will be vaccinated?
Illiberal, authoritarian nonsense on stilts that is beyond the pale.
Surely it's going to be dead on arrival though. Even in Wales, the prophet if doom Drakeford is aiming to open hospitality indoors by the late May bank holiday
Can't see Vax passes being rolled out by then, and looks difficult once things have already opened up to crack down and make them mandatory surely.
(I know what a card is. But when you qualify it with 'crypto debit' I'm lost.)
PARIS – Europe didn't invest enough in the development of COVID-19 vaccines or in expanding production capacities, according to French Junior Minister for Europe Clément Beaune.
"On the European level, what we didn't do well is investment in the last phase of the development of the vaccines and the anticipation of production capacities," Beaune said Thursday at a hearing before the French Senate's Economic Affairs Commission.
EU countries have lagged behind the likes of the U.K., U.S. and Israel in their vaccination rollouts, and suffered from supply delays, at the same time as the EU has become a major exporter of vaccine.
https://www.politico.eu/article/clement-beaune-europe-coronavirus-vaccines-investment/
GLASGOW — To the outsider, Scotland’s rival political camps may look as deeply entrenched as ever. But the sands have been shifting.
The broad dividing lines remain the same. On one side, proponents of independence, their sights set firmly on a second referendum and the promise of self-rule. Opposite, supporters of the status quo: a union with England, Wales, and Northern Ireland dating back over 300 years.
However, a labyrinth of new divisions lurks below. Brexit, coronavirus, the Scottish National Party (SNP)’s internal meltdown over its handling of sexual abuse allegations against former First Minister Alex Salmond; all are new considerations since Scots rejected independence in 2014.
https://www.politico.eu/article/division-scottish-independence-alex-salmond-nicola-sturgeon-snp/
https://twitter.com/shannonrwatts/status/1377747334189051907?s=21
Basically I think because there was a great deal of conflict about whether the idea of track and trace was to alert people who should be "eager" to know when they were at risk to protect friends, family and colleagues, or whether it whether it was mandated by the Govt to know when people were at risk, regardless of personal preference. On the basis of the former, there would be no reason for people to want to try and evade the system, therefore they, er, wouldn't. It's similar to its precursor of the "name taking" on entry. But as has been mentioned, Boris Johnson sure hit a lot of pubs over the period.
Most people think of bitcoin as gambling for speculators, not an actual method of currency for day to day transactions.
Similarly any popular new technology is stretched to all sorts of use cases to see what sticks, but ultimately in most cases the existing solution was actually better or more convenient.
Is Bitcoin to cash, what a microwave was to a roast chicken?
Our levels of Covid now are at least 10 times lower than the peak - therefore I'm looking at a risk of Covid death in the range of 1 in 1.5 million risk. That's less risky than having a jab with a 1 in 750k dangerous side effect.
I suspect that these numbers are even less favourable for a jab if I were female (even lower Covid risk, probably the adverse events skew female).
My feeling is it won't happen; there will be a fudge. Which is good. Starmer signalling that there may not be cross party support will cause Boris to back off.
Some of them think "Bugger they stole our budgie-smugglers" and some others think "Oh My God it's A Fascist State".
How to unify?
Sir Keith should draw on the answer to the old Beano question: "Why do you pull a sausage on a lead along from the front?",
Answer "Cos you can't push it from behind."
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