I wonder if this may be what we have coming tomorrow (on top of formal confirmation of April 12th): a sunshine holiday free-for-all - but only for anybody who has been jabbed twice?
Confinement for the young, playtime for the old - and yet, absolutely no mass importation of Plague variants. Because, although Covid is so fucking lethal that the vaccinated daren't have a cup of tea indoors together, jetting off to the Algarve creates (by means yet to be explained) a miraculous forcefield that renders the virus completely inert.
We are ruled over by imbeciles.
Aren't we supposed to be using a single dose vaccine pretty soon? Maybe young people could be jabbed with it.
At some as yet to be determined point in the future, but most of us won't be getting that one.
I wonder if this may be what we have coming tomorrow (on top of formal confirmation of April 12th): a sunshine holiday free-for-all - but only for anybody who has been jabbed twice?
Confinement for the young, playtime for the old - and yet, absolutely no mass importation of Plague variants. Because, although Covid is so fucking lethal that the vaccinated daren't have a cup of tea indoors together, jetting off to the Algarve creates (by means yet to be explained) a miraculous forcefield that renders the virus completely inert.
We are ruled over by imbeciles.
We seem to have made a mess of travel restrictions at each stage up to now, so I expect we will keep doing so.
It's just nuts. They are all over the place. Earlier we were told by Johnson that vaccinated people could not meet indoors as vaccines are "not 100% efficient". Which begs the question as to when we will ever be allowed to meet indoors and also why they are bothering with a vaccine passport for meeting people indoors at pubs and theatres?
Now we are told that vaccinated people can go abroad. And come back.
And does anyone remember "data not dates" as the we look at the plummeting case numbers?
How much of the this is actual fact as opposed to newspaper reports?
I recall that we were told by "people in the know" that Rishi was going to do nothing for business or the employed, a few hours before he announced the furlough scheme...
That's a fair point. I guess it just sounds plausible because we know from past experience how slow they were to do anything about border measures before, how obsessed they appear to be with sunshine holidays and how much of the electorate would like to be free to go on them.
It also implies extra privileges for old people which is very Tory.
Whether or not anything is 'wrong' with it, it is our national flag, and I'm surprised that teachers who are paid by our state have so much to say about flying the flag of that state on their place of work. I don't really think I want kids to be taught by people who hate their own country.
The school - Pimlico? - that has caved to its kids burning the Union flag, is a disgrace
My taxes pay for that school, those kids, their teachers. It is not a private enterprise.
Fly the damn flag, sack any teacher that objects, and expel any kids that, after a warning, still try to burn the flag. End of.
Quite.
Tbf the Tories are doing a genius job of making Labour fall the wrong side of all these inflammatory culture war debates.
The "traveller incursions" thing. Jeez
Cf this Marina Hyde article in the Guardian. Perhaps the worst she has ever written, in terms of dull, witless misunderstanding (and she can be a genius writer). They don't know what to do or how to react
Whether or not anything is 'wrong' with it, it is our national flag, and I'm surprised that teachers who are paid by our state have so much to say about flying the flag of that state on their place of work. I don't really think I want kids to be taught by people who hate their own country.
The school - Pimlico? - that has caved to its kids burning the Union flag, is a disgrace
My taxes pay for that school, those kids, their teachers. It is not a private enterprise.
Fly the damn flag, sack any teacher that objects, and expel any kids that, after a warning, still try to burn the flag. End of.
Quite.
Tbf the Tories are doing a genius job of making Labour fall the wrong side of all these inflammatory culture war debates.
The "traveller incursions" thing. Jeez
Cf this Marina Hyde article in the Guardian. Perhaps the worst she has ever written, in terms of dull, witless misunderstanding (and she can be a genius writer). They don't know what to do or how to react
Re the Asylum seeker who killed the girl in Exeter - Asylum seekers are here because they are escaping from war zones generally, they have seen things and had experiences that will have seriously messed them up - they probably have a rate of PTSD in comparable with front line military veterans. Shouldn’t they be given therapy or kept an eye on somehow as a matter of course? Not letting anyone off with excuses, but they’re not just everyday people who go bad
They should. But, like almost everything to do with mental health they won't. MH costs money. And the public don't see anyone mentally ill as "worthy". We'd rather close our eyes to it then clutch our pearls when summat like this happens.
Whether or not anything is 'wrong' with it, it is our national flag, and I'm surprised that teachers who are paid by our state have so much to say about flying the flag of that state on their place of work. I don't really think I want kids to be taught by people who hate their own country.
The school - Pimlico? - that has caved to its kids burning the Union flag, is a disgrace
My taxes pay for that school, those kids, their teachers. It is not a private enterprise.
Fly the damn flag, sack any teacher that objects, and expel any kids that, after a warning, still try to burn the flag. End of.
Quite.
Tbf the Tories are doing a genius job of making Labour fall the wrong side of all these inflammatory culture war debates.
The "traveller incursions" thing. Jeez
Cf this Marina Hyde article in the Guardian. Perhaps the worst she has ever written, in terms of dull, witless misunderstanding (and she can be a genius writer). They don't know what to do or how to react
Keir/Kier Starmer would make a pleasant neighbour. He’d bring his wheelie bin in the very day it’s emptied. He’d smile and say hello if we crossed paths on our morning rounds. I doubt he’d annoy me with gangster rap at 3am or throw used jonnies in my garden, as previous neighbours have done.
But he’s not leader of the neighbourhood watch material. And not that I assume to speak for her, but I don’t imagine my wife getting weak at the knees if she saw him jogging up the hill either. In short, he’s stuffed. Next!
Well, it's always good to read such serious, informed, impartial and expert analysis.
Back in the real world, there's what I think and what I think is going on. From a personal perspective (and I would consider myself centre-left in outlook), Starmer has made a decent start. Cleaning the Augean stables of post-Corbyn Labour is and was never going to be easy and it's still very much a work in progress. How it will work in 2024 is hard to know and as Starmer extends his personal influence and control over policy, we'll see what kind of programme Labour puts forward.
The data so persistently put up by @isam tells a story - it doesn't tell the story. These have been unprecedented times and until now it's been easy to counter criticism of the Government and its actions. To paraphrase the American quiz show Jeopardy if the answer is "Labour would have done exactly the same" you can probably work out the question. I struggle to know what Starmer would have done differently had he been Prime Minister - he'd have hidden behind the "science" as adroitly as Johnson and would no doubt have dolled out the cash as enthusiastically as Sunak.
Only now are we starting to see some flickers of deviation from the general "let's get behind the Government" meme. The crisis is easing and normal service is returning and, to be fair, those speculating on the divide between authoritarian and liberal as the new political divide were doing so pre-Covid as well.
I've never voted Labour because they are an authoritarian, centralising party which believes any problem can be solved by enough State and Government (as you can see, I see Starmer and Johnson as two cheeks of the same posterior in that regard). In essence, therefore, why do we need a Labour Government when we already have one?
To be fair, that's just my serious, informed, partial and inexpert analysis but there you go...
I am 47 in December and in my lifetime only 3 LOTOs have become PM - Maggie, Blair and Cameron. It is a very rare occurrence. Those three all had something about them that Foot, Kinnock, Hague, IDS, Howard, Miliband, & Corbyn didn’t. I happen to think Sir Keir fits into the latter group more easily, and there is nothing in any data to persuade me otherwise. The eye test and the numbers concur. I post about it a lot because if you only read the headers you’d think the incumbent who leads the polls in almost every measure is the one who is struggling, and I think that is ridiculous
I am no Corbynite but- unlike Attlee and Thatcher - he appears to be the only Opposition Leader who succeeded in moving the Overton Window without achieving office as PM. Johnson and the Tories have - in essence - copied much of his economic policy!
‘Vote for me. My policies are so extreme they are the right response to a once in a century public health emergency.’
Hmmm...doesn’t quite do it for me as a slogan.
Also true in wartime - ie 'when the chips are down!'
AKA War Socialism.
"The people are going to get one kind of bomber. And it will only come in green."
The B-24 Liberator in the picture was the most mass-produced 4-engine heavy bomber, c. 19,000 built.
Slightly surprisingly, also the most widely produced of all US warplanes.
I wonder if this may be what we have coming tomorrow (on top of formal confirmation of April 12th): a sunshine holiday free-for-all - but only for anybody who has been jabbed twice?
Confinement for the young, playtime for the old - and yet, absolutely no mass importation of Plague variants. Because, although Covid is so fucking lethal that the vaccinated daren't have a cup of tea indoors together, jetting off to the Algarve creates (by means yet to be explained) a miraculous forcefield that renders the virus completely inert.
We are ruled over by imbeciles.
A holiday in the Med is now a right, a necessity even, because its only 10C in London today.
The 'stop all international travel because of killer variants' talk is very fragile when exposed to a drop in temperature,
Whether or not anything is 'wrong' with it, it is our national flag, and I'm surprised that teachers who are paid by our state have so much to say about flying the flag of that state on their place of work. I don't really think I want kids to be taught by people who hate their own country.
The school - Pimlico? - that has caved to its kids burning the Union flag, is a disgrace
My taxes pay for that school, those kids, their teachers. It is not a private enterprise.
Fly the damn flag, sack any teacher that objects, and expel any kids that, after a warning, still try to burn the flag. End of.
Quite.
Tbf the Tories are doing a genius job of making Labour fall the wrong side of all these inflammatory culture war debates.
The "traveller incursions" thing. Jeez
Cf this Marina Hyde article in the Guardian. Perhaps the worst she has ever written, in terms of dull, witless misunderstanding (and she can be a genius writer). They don't know what to do or how to react
Not a spoof. It is incredible. They are self-immolating
God damn those RACIST FLOWERS. And those Nazi TREES. And shrubs! Always knew those evil SHRUBS were BIGOTS: like all white people.
Ideally, we should concrete over Kew Gardens and build a seventeen million metre high memorial to Winnie Mandela
Mostly it was a placque by the sugar cane, pointing out its place in the eighteenth century slave economy. A not unreasonable bit of background.
You are rather over egging it.
Perhaps such efforts could simply be labelled as 'including historical information and trivia to exhibits' rather than rather oversell it as 'confronting colonialism and racism'?
However true the latter might, and however much tackling them may be important, saying you are tacking the colonialism and racism of exhibits of plants practically invites derision. Most people, pro and con any measure, are not going to get past a headline of 'decolonise X'.
And how people describe these things matters, it's why absolutely moronic slogans which don't mean what they seem to mean should not be persisted with either. If the goal is to bring people along to reflect on and address issues, then toning down the moralising crusading language may well help the mass of people actually confront these issues more effectively.
Its easiest to sell something radical if it doesn't seem radical, and even then this doesn't even sound radical. If its common sense and context being sold, sell that, it's not difficult.
I find these types of things utterly ridiculous, as while it is true that there will always be a conservative reactionary, er, reaction, proponent sof measures don't need to make the job of reactionaries so damn easy!
I wonder if this may be what we have coming tomorrow (on top of formal confirmation of April 12th): a sunshine holiday free-for-all - but only for anybody who has been jabbed twice?
Confinement for the young, playtime for the old - and yet, absolutely no mass importation of Plague variants. Because, although Covid is so fucking lethal that the vaccinated daren't have a cup of tea indoors together, jetting off to the Algarve creates (by means yet to be explained) a miraculous forcefield that renders the virus completely inert.
We are ruled over by imbeciles.
A holiday in the Med is now a right, a necessity even, because its only 10C in London today.
The 'stop all international travel because of killer variants' talk is very fragile when exposed to a drop in temperature,
This that overstates Alan Duncan’s significance somewhat...
Whether it does or not I'm not clear how Duncan hating Boris is notable. Yes, a new memoir will no doubt give some fresh examples to chuckle over, but it's not like Duncan has not been on record with his view of Boris before, it's not like if it were, say, Javid suddenly releasing a memoir saying the same thing.
Keir/Kier Starmer would make a pleasant neighbour. He’d bring his wheelie bin in the very day it’s emptied. He’d smile and say hello if we crossed paths on our morning rounds. I doubt he’d annoy me with gangster rap at 3am or throw used jonnies in my garden, as previous neighbours have done.
But he’s not leader of the neighbourhood watch material. And not that I assume to speak for her, but I don’t imagine my wife getting weak at the knees if she saw him jogging up the hill either. In short, he’s stuffed. Next!
Well, it's always good to read such serious, informed, impartial and expert analysis.
Back in the real world, there's what I think and what I think is going on. From a personal perspective (and I would consider myself centre-left in outlook), Starmer has made a decent start. Cleaning the Augean stables of post-Corbyn Labour is and was never going to be easy and it's still very much a work in progress. How it will work in 2024 is hard to know and as Starmer extends his personal influence and control over policy, we'll see what kind of programme Labour puts forward.
The data so persistently put up by @isam tells a story - it doesn't tell the story. These have been unprecedented times and until now it's been easy to counter criticism of the Government and its actions. To paraphrase the American quiz show Jeopardy if the answer is "Labour would have done exactly the same" you can probably work out the question. I struggle to know what Starmer would have done differently had he been Prime Minister - he'd have hidden behind the "science" as adroitly as Johnson and would no doubt have dolled out the cash as enthusiastically as Sunak.
Only now are we starting to see some flickers of deviation from the general "let's get behind the Government" meme. The crisis is easing and normal service is returning and, to be fair, those speculating on the divide between authoritarian and liberal as the new political divide were doing so pre-Covid as well.
I've never voted Labour because they are an authoritarian, centralising party which believes any problem can be solved by enough State and Government (as you can see, I see Starmer and Johnson as two cheeks of the same posterior in that regard). In essence, therefore, why do we need a Labour Government when we already have one?
To be fair, that's just my serious, informed, partial and inexpert analysis but there you go...
I am 47 in December and in my lifetime only 3 LOTOs have become PM - Maggie, Blair and Cameron. It is a very rare occurrence. Those three all had something about them that Foot, Kinnock, Hague, IDS, Howard, Miliband, & Corbyn didn’t. I happen to think Sir Keir fits into the latter group more easily, and there is nothing in any data to persuade me otherwise. The eye test and the numbers concur. I post about it a lot because if you only read the headers you’d think the incumbent who leads the polls in almost every measure is the one who is struggling, and I think that is ridiculous
I am no Corbynite but- unlike Attlee and Thatcher - he appears to be the only Opposition Leader who succeeded in moving the Overton Window without achieving office as PM. Johnson and the Tories have - in essence - copied much of his economic policy!
‘Vote for me. My policies are so extreme they are the right response to a once in a century public health emergency.’
Hmmm...doesn’t quite do it for me as a slogan.
Also true in wartime - ie 'when the chips are down!'
AKA War Socialism.
"The people are going to get one kind of bomber. And it will only come in green."
The B-24 Liberator in the picture was the most mass-produced 4-engine heavy bomber, c. 19,000 built.
Slightly surprisingly, also the most widely produced of all US warplanes.
Curious its lack of impact in popular memory and imagination compared to the Flying Fortress and Mitchell.
I wonder if this may be what we have coming tomorrow (on top of formal confirmation of April 12th): a sunshine holiday free-for-all - but only for anybody who has been jabbed twice?
Confinement for the young, playtime for the old - and yet, absolutely no mass importation of Plague variants. Because, although Covid is so fucking lethal that the vaccinated daren't have a cup of tea indoors together, jetting off to the Algarve creates (by means yet to be explained) a miraculous forcefield that renders the virus completely inert.
We are ruled over by imbeciles.
Aren't we supposed to be using a single dose vaccine pretty soon? Maybe young people could be jabbed with it.
At some as yet to be determined point in the future, but most of us won't be getting that one.
I wonder if this may be what we have coming tomorrow (on top of formal confirmation of April 12th): a sunshine holiday free-for-all - but only for anybody who has been jabbed twice?
Confinement for the young, playtime for the old - and yet, absolutely no mass importation of Plague variants. Because, although Covid is so fucking lethal that the vaccinated daren't have a cup of tea indoors together, jetting off to the Algarve creates (by means yet to be explained) a miraculous forcefield that renders the virus completely inert.
We are ruled over by imbeciles.
We seem to have made a mess of travel restrictions at each stage up to now, so I expect we will keep doing so.
It's just nuts. They are all over the place. Earlier we were told by Johnson that vaccinated people could not meet indoors as vaccines are "not 100% efficient". Which begs the question as to when we will ever be allowed to meet indoors and also why they are bothering with a vaccine passport for meeting people indoors at pubs and theatres?
Now we are told that vaccinated people can go abroad. And come back.
And does anyone remember "data not dates" as the we look at the plummeting case numbers?
How much of the this is actual fact as opposed to newspaper reports?
I recall that we were told by "people in the know" that Rishi was going to do nothing for business or the employed, a few hours before he announced the furlough scheme...
That's a fair point. I guess it just sounds plausible because we know from past experience how slow they were to do anything about border measures before, how obsessed they appear to be with sunshine holidays and how much of the electorate would like to be free to go on them.
It also implies extra privileges for old people which is very Tory.
The permutations of potential policies are almost infinite - does this refers to holidays before 21st June, after, some other date?
There are 2 strands of argument
- People fully vaccinated should be FREEEEEEEEE!* - Everyone should have exactly the same right to do things at the same time.
When you add in the fact that the number of people in a population who are vaccinated has an effect as well (aka Herd Immunity)....
I suspect the timing on all of this will be actual answer.....
*Presumably charged a vast sum by a racist Australian to paint half their faces blue. Copyright etc.
I wonder if this may be what we have coming tomorrow (on top of formal confirmation of April 12th): a sunshine holiday free-for-all - but only for anybody who has been jabbed twice?
Confinement for the young, playtime for the old - and yet, absolutely no mass importation of Plague variants. Because, although Covid is so fucking lethal that the vaccinated daren't have a cup of tea indoors together, jetting off to the Algarve creates (by means yet to be explained) a miraculous forcefield that renders the virus completely inert.
We are ruled over by imbeciles.
A holiday in the Med is now a right, a necessity even, because its only 10C in London today.
The 'stop all international travel because of killer variants' talk is very fragile when exposed to a drop in temperature,
As someone about to have the second vaccine, this does seem unreasonable to me as Black Rook suggests. Either we're expecting a third wave and therefore being ultra-caautious (last week's position, no?) or we think it's all over bar the shouting and can relax. I'd like to be able to travel as I've a lot of friends abroad, but it doesn't seem sensible, as it more or less guarantees that we'll get some new variants coming back in and restart the whole cycle.
I wonder if this may be what we have coming tomorrow (on top of formal confirmation of April 12th): a sunshine holiday free-for-all - but only for anybody who has been jabbed twice?
Confinement for the young, playtime for the old - and yet, absolutely no mass importation of Plague variants. Because, although Covid is so fucking lethal that the vaccinated daren't have a cup of tea indoors together, jetting off to the Algarve creates (by means yet to be explained) a miraculous forcefield that renders the virus completely inert.
We are ruled over by imbeciles.
I imagine there will be very few countries that allow you in without a vaccine. Or if they do, you'll be spending the first two weeks of your holiday in quarantine.
There are three points here.
Firstly, at the end of all this misery, giving special privileges to the old that are denied to the young is evil.
Secondly, do we really want people going abroad in huge numbers and seeding the country with imported Plague variants when they come back? This plan sounds like an excuse to let holidaymakers go to countries with high or medium disease prevalence just because it will disappoint them not to let them go - yet the Government has already wet itself over the vaccines being less than 100% effective, to the extent that the Prime Minister is pleading with people who have all been vaccinated still not meeting up with one another indoors.
Thirdly, there's the total inconsistency, indeed the sheer stupidity, of approach: if it's perfectly safe for the vaccinated to go abroad then it's certainly safe for them to have the aforementioned tea parties. And. once everyone has been vaccinated, it's also safe to get rid of all the restrictions and not be dicking about with these wretched vaccine passports ID cards. I mean, honestly...
On your three points.
There is no privilege. Both vaccinated and unvaccinated people will be able to travel. People without vaccination will have more rigorous testing/quarantine, but that simply reflects the fact that vaccinations protect against acquiring the disease.
I agree that travel shouldn't be encouraged, hopefully people will use common sense (I know).
It's not inconsistent because you aren't tested while going to someone's tea party as you are when entering another country, or returning to the UK.
Quarantine is an effective prohibition on travel for practically anybody who has to work for a living, and doubly so for families with children. Once again, it privileges those who have finished their course of vaccination, who are primarily the old. Twentysomethings are highly likely to be left waiting for shot one until June and then again for another twelve weeks until September for shot two. Assuming that beach holidays in various Plague-ravaged Mediterranean resorts are decriminalised according to the pre-announced schedule, then playtime for everyone over 65 will get underway on May 17th.
And there is a complete inconsistency of approach here. Testing doesn't stop you catching the Plague and passing it around. The message at the moment appears to be "don't you dare meet anyone in your home, even if you are both vaccinated, because you could spread the Plague around." Yet we are meant to believe that there's nothing wrong with vaccinated people jetting across Europe to mingle with largely unvaccinated complete strangers and then coming back again, because it will be of null effect. Which is nonsense. Even if you attempt to test every single one of the millions of tourists coming back into the country at the airport, which will be a total logistical nightmare and may even be impossible, then you're going to have to let all the positive cases go home to isolate (there will never be enough hotel space to deal with them all) and most of them won't bother.
Therefore, if it's safe enough to allow foreign holidays then why can't we bin a load of other pettyfogging rules? And if it's not safe enough to allow foreign holidays then why measures like this be under consideration? If the Government is serious in its panic about people meeting indoors because the vaccines aren't effective enough then it ought already to have tightened controls on incoming travellers and told people to forget about holidays abroad for the medium term - because if we can't have our freedom back at home until the virus has been thoroughly crushed then it makes no sense to let people travel to places where it hasn't been, and that definition presently encompasses almost the entire globe.
I wonder if this may be what we have coming tomorrow (on top of formal confirmation of April 12th): a sunshine holiday free-for-all - but only for anybody who has been jabbed twice?
Confinement for the young, playtime for the old - and yet, absolutely no mass importation of Plague variants. Because, although Covid is so fucking lethal that the vaccinated daren't have a cup of tea indoors together, jetting off to the Algarve creates (by means yet to be explained) a miraculous forcefield that renders the virus completely inert.
We are ruled over by imbeciles.
I imagine there will be very few countries that allow you in without a vaccine. Or if they do, you'll be spending the first two weeks of your holiday in quarantine.
There are three points here.
Firstly, at the end of all this misery, giving special privileges to the old that are denied to the young is evil.
Secondly, do we really want people going abroad in huge numbers and seeding the country with imported Plague variants when they come back? This plan sounds like an excuse to let holidaymakers go to countries with high or medium disease prevalence just because it will disappoint them not to let them go - yet the Government has already wet itself over the vaccines being less than 100% effective, to the extent that the Prime Minister is pleading with people who have all been vaccinated still not meeting up with one another indoors.
Thirdly, there's the total inconsistency, indeed the sheer stupidity, of approach: if it's perfectly safe for the vaccinated to go abroad then it's certainly safe for them to have the aforementioned tea parties. And. once everyone has been vaccinated, it's also safe to get rid of all the restrictions and not be dicking about with these wretched vaccine passports ID cards. I mean, honestly...
On your three points.
There is no privilege. Both vaccinated and unvaccinated people will be able to travel. People without vaccination will have more rigorous testing/quarantine, but that simply reflects the fact that vaccinations protect against acquiring the disease.
I agree that travel shouldn't be encouraged, hopefully people will use common sense (I know).
It's not inconsistent because you aren't tested while going to someone's tea party as you are when entering another country, or returning to the UK.
Quarantine is an effective prohibition on travel for practically anybody who has to work for a living, and doubly so for families with children. Once again, it privileges those who have finished their course of vaccination, who are primarily the old. Twentysomethings are highly likely to be left waiting for shot one until June and then again for another twelve weeks until September for shot two. Assuming that beach holidays in various Plague-ravaged Mediterranean resorts are decriminalised according to the pre-announced schedule, then playtime for everyone over 65 will get underway on May 17th.
And there is a complete inconsistency of approach here. Testing doesn't stop you catching the Plague and passing it around. The message at the moment appears to be "don't you dare meet anyone in your home, even if you are both vaccinated, because you could spread the Plague around." Yet we are meant to believe that there's nothing wrong with vaccinated people jetting across Europe to mingle with largely unvaccinated complete strangers and then coming back again, because it will be of null effect. Which is nonsense. Even if you attempt to test every single one of the millions of tourists coming back into the country at the airport, which will be a total logistical nightmare and may even be impossible, then you're going to have to let all the positive cases go home to isolate (there will never be enough hotel space to deal with them all) and most of them won't bother.
Therefore, if it's safe enough to allow foreign holidays then why can't we bin a load of other pettyfogging rules? And if it's not safe enough to allow foreign holidays then why measures like this be under consideration? If the Government is serious in its panic about people meeting indoors because the vaccines aren't effective enough then it ought already to have tightened controls on incoming travellers and told people to forget about holidays abroad for the medium term - because if we can't have our freedom back at home until the virus has been thoroughly crushed then it makes no sense to let people travel to places where it hasn't been, and that definition presently encompasses almost the entire globe.
Even if the UK government waived quarantine for non-vaccinated people, the country on the other side isn't. Travelling without a vaccine is going to be inconvenient, nothing the UK government does is going to change that.
As for the mixed messaging. I think the timescales are different. The headlines are about summer holidays (aren't they always?), whereas the government advice regarding social gatherings is for now. They are planning on implementing these changes to the travel at the end of May.
And do you really think there are going to be millions of tourists going and coming back in a short timescale? I very much doubt that.
I wonder if this may be what we have coming tomorrow (on top of formal confirmation of April 12th): a sunshine holiday free-for-all - but only for anybody who has been jabbed twice?
Confinement for the young, playtime for the old - and yet, absolutely no mass importation of Plague variants. Because, although Covid is so fucking lethal that the vaccinated daren't have a cup of tea indoors together, jetting off to the Algarve creates (by means yet to be explained) a miraculous forcefield that renders the virus completely inert.
We are ruled over by imbeciles.
A holiday in the Med is now a right, a necessity even, because its only 10C in London today.
The 'stop all international travel because of killer variants' talk is very fragile when exposed to a drop in temperature,
As someone about to have the second vaccine, this does seem unreasonable to me as Black Rook suggests. Either we're expecting a third wave and therefore being ultra-caautious (last week's position, no?) or we think it's all over bar the shouting and can relax. I'd like to be able to travel as I've a lot of friends abroad, but it doesn't seem sensible, as it more or less guarantees that we'll get some new variants coming back in and restart the whole cycle.
I'm not so concerned at the moment about the prospect of a genuine vaccine-escaping variant, although it's probably wise to minimise incoming travel for the time being - my real problem with trying to jump start mass tourism for British holidaymakers is the potential to seed to country with something like the Saffer Plague, which at the moment is being dealt with through a combination of the Kent variant competing with it and being swatted by contact tracing and surge testing efforts. It's not worth the risk. It would be better to wait until other countries have caught up with us in terms of viral suppression, and then opening air bridges with them.
Beyond that it's simply the fact that we are told that it's desperately important that two vaccinated people from two different households don't hug each other or sit down in one of their houses for a cup of coffee and a natter, whereas it's being implied from these reports that it'll be absolutely fine for a vaccinated holidaymaker to board a plane and go the Majorca for a fortnight. If true then it's nuts: either both things are safe or both are to be avoided - although frankly, using common sense and based on the data that the Government claims to be following, you would've actually thought that it would be safer to dump all the restrictions here and try to keep the Plague out at the borders, then start opening the aforementioned air bridges to popular holiday destinations as and when they've caught us up.
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
One of my colleagues is vaccinated. Her husband might be getting a first dose shortly. Her kids aren't. How does that work for vaccine passports. Does she jet off without them ?
Whether or not anything is 'wrong' with it, it is our national flag, and I'm surprised that teachers who are paid by our state have so much to say about flying the flag of that state on their place of work. I don't really think I want kids to be taught by people who hate their own country.
The school - Pimlico? - that has caved to its kids burning the Union flag, is a disgrace
My taxes pay for that school, those kids, their teachers. It is not a private enterprise.
Fly the damn flag, sack any teacher that objects, and expel any kids that, after a warning, still try to burn the flag. End of.
Quite.
Tbf the Tories are doing a genius job of making Labour fall the wrong side of all these inflammatory culture war debates.
The "traveller incursions" thing. Jeez
Cf this Marina Hyde article in the Guardian. Perhaps the worst she has ever written, in terms of dull, witless misunderstanding (and she can be a genius writer). They don't know what to do or how to react
Not a spoof. It is incredible. They are self-immolating
God damn those RACIST FLOWERS. And those Nazi TREES. And shrubs! Always knew those evil SHRUBS were BIGOTS: like all white people.
Ideally, we should concrete over Kew Gardens and build a seventeen million metre high memorial to Winnie Mandela
Mostly it was a placque by the sugar cane, pointing out its place in the eighteenth century slave economy. A not unreasonable bit of background.
You are rather over egging it.
Perhaps such efforts could simply be labelled as 'including historical information and trivia to exhibits' rather than rather oversell it as 'confronting colonialism and racism'?
However true the latter might, and however much tackling them may be important, saying you are tacking the colonialism and racism of exhibits of plants practically invites derision. Most people, pro and con any measure, are not going to get past a headline of 'decolonise X'.
And how people describe these things matters, it's why absolutely moronic slogans which don't mean what they seem to mean should not be persisted with either. If the goal is to bring people along to reflect on and address issues, then toning down the moralising crusading language may well help the mass of people actually confront these issues more effectively.
Its easiest to sell something radical if it doesn't seem radical, and even then this doesn't even sound radical. If its common sense and context being sold, sell that, it's not difficult.
I find these types of things utterly ridiculous, as while it is true that there will always be a conservative reactionary, er, reaction, proponent sof measures don't need to make the job of reactionaries so damn easy!
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Most employers are not good employers. Ultimately it's surely up to employers to set the terms for employment with them, within the law, and if they are able to fill vacancies to their satisfaction, well, it is what it is. Politicians in government and opposition love to sound off on what they would encourage employers to do, but unless it comes with legislative action all such comments can be entirely ignored, the ones we like and the ones we do not like. Since the gov won't take up pulpstar's suggestion, we can at least ignore the willy waving anyway.
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
The cases are unusual because, despite the thrombocytopenia, there is progressive thrombosis, primarily venous, with a high preponderance of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis. Some arterial thrombotic events have also been noted. Testing typically reveals low fibrinogen and very raised D-Dimer levels above the level typically expected in venous thromboembolism. Antibodies to platelet factor 4 (PF4) have been identified, hence there are similarities to heparin-induced thrombocytopenia despite the absence of prior exposure to heparin treatment. The anti PF4 antibodies can be detected by the ELISA HIT assay but not always by the AccuStar assay.
It is important that the correct management is applied to prevent the progression of thrombosis. Of critical note, platelet transfusions should be avoided...
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
I think my question is why is Rishi doing back to the office pieces whilst official advice is wfh ? If its changing then ok, but is it ?
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
One of my colleagues is vaccinated. Her husband might be getting a first dose shortly. Her kids aren't. How does that work for vaccine passports. Does she jet off without them ?
Maybe people could be tested before travelling. I don't know whether that type of test is available yet.
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
I think my question is why is Rishi doing back to the office pieces whilst official advice is wfh ? If its changing then ok, but is it ?
Is official advice wfh? I thought it was "wfh if your employer thinks its viable and that's up to them"?
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
Keir/Kier Starmer would make a pleasant neighbour. He’d bring his wheelie bin in the very day it’s emptied. He’d smile and say hello if we crossed paths on our morning rounds. I doubt he’d annoy me with gangster rap at 3am or throw used jonnies in my garden, as previous neighbours have done.
But he’s not leader of the neighbourhood watch material. And not that I assume to speak for her, but I don’t imagine my wife getting weak at the knees if she saw him jogging up the hill either. In short, he’s stuffed. Next!
Well, it's always good to read such serious, informed, impartial and expert analysis.
Back in the real world, there's what I think and what I think is going on. From a personal perspective (and I would consider myself centre-left in outlook), Starmer has made a decent start. Cleaning the Augean stables of post-Corbyn Labour is and was never going to be easy and it's still very much a work in progress. How it will work in 2024 is hard to know and as Starmer extends his personal influence and control over policy, we'll see what kind of programme Labour puts forward.
The data so persistently put up by @isam tells a story - it doesn't tell the story. These have been unprecedented times and until now it's been easy to counter criticism of the Government and its actions. To paraphrase the American quiz show Jeopardy if the answer is "Labour would have done exactly the same" you can probably work out the question. I struggle to know what Starmer would have done differently had he been Prime Minister - he'd have hidden behind the "science" as adroitly as Johnson and would no doubt have dolled out the cash as enthusiastically as Sunak.
Only now are we starting to see some flickers of deviation from the general "let's get behind the Government" meme. The crisis is easing and normal service is returning and, to be fair, those speculating on the divide between authoritarian and liberal as the new political divide were doing so pre-Covid as well.
I've never voted Labour because they are an authoritarian, centralising party which believes any problem can be solved by enough State and Government (as you can see, I see Starmer and Johnson as two cheeks of the same posterior in that regard). In essence, therefore, why do we need a Labour Government when we already have one?
To be fair, that's just my serious, informed, partial and inexpert analysis but there you go...
I am 47 in December and in my lifetime only 3 LOTOs have become PM - Maggie, Blair and Cameron. It is a very rare occurrence. Those three all had something about them that Foot, Kinnock, Hague, IDS, Howard, Miliband, & Corbyn didn’t. I happen to think Sir Keir fits into the latter group more easily, and there is nothing in any data to persuade me otherwise. The eye test and the numbers concur. I post about it a lot because if you only read the headers you’d think the incumbent who leads the polls in almost every measure is the one who is struggling, and I think that is ridiculous
I am no Corbynite but- unlike Attlee and Thatcher - he appears to be the only Opposition Leader who succeeded in moving the Overton Window without achieving office as PM. Johnson and the Tories have - in essence - copied much of his economic policy!
‘Vote for me. My policies are so extreme they are the right response to a once in a century public health emergency.’
Hmmm...doesn’t quite do it for me as a slogan.
Also true in wartime - ie 'when the chips are down!'
AKA War Socialism.
"The people are going to get one kind of bomber. And it will only come in green."
The B-24 Liberator in the picture was the most mass-produced 4-engine heavy bomber, c. 19,000 built.
Slightly surprisingly, also the most widely produced of all US warplanes.
Curious its lack of impact in popular memory and imagination compared to the Flying Fortress and Mitchell.
Mitchell designed the iconic Spitfire which was crucial in the Battle of Britain on which turned not only our survival but also the whole war in Europe.
The Liberator was most notable for its use in winning the Battle of the Atlantic by closing the mid-Atlantic gap in which U-boats could not be reached by air, for it was aircraft and not ship-borne depth charges that destroyed most U-boats by the end of the war. It is a shame Coastal Command never got its hands on the Lancaster because Churchill was too keen on blowing up French turnips and cows in a hugely inaccurate and ineffective campaign of area bombing. The RAF rejected the Liberator as a heavy bomber.
What probably is under-appreciated is the sheer scale of American (and by the end of the war, also Soviet) military production: tanks, aircraft, ships and even code-breaking bombe machines. There ought to be a statue commemorating the Detroit production lines.
Remarkably frank article by Republican former Speaker John Boehner.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/04/02/john-boehner-book-memoir-excerpt-478506 .... At some point after the 2008 election, something changed with my friend Roger Ailes. I once met him in New York during the Obama years to plead with him to put a leash on some of the crazies he was putting on the air. It was making my job trying to accomplish anything conservative that much harder. I didn’t expect this meeting to change anything, but I still thought it was bullshit, and I wanted Roger to know it.
When I put it to him like that, he didn’t have much to say. But he did go on and on about the terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, which he thought was part of a grand conspiracy that led back to Hillary Clinton. Then he outlined elaborate plots by which George Soros and the Clintons and Obama (and whoever else came to mind) were trying to destroy him....
...Under the new rules of Crazytown, I may have been Speaker, but I didn’t hold all the power. By 2013 the chaos caucus in the House had built up their own power base thanks to fawning right-wing media and outrage-driven fundraising cash. And now they had a new head lunatic leading the way, who wasn’t even a House member. There is nothing more dangerous than a reckless asshole who thinks he is smarter than everyone else. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Senator Ted Cruz....
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
We have a bunch of new hires who have started remotely in India, they've all been trained remotely and it's been fine.
Is it ideal? No, can it be done? Absolutely.
The word balance is there again, if you're going to WFH I am fully supportive of a couple of weeks in-person training.
It can be done, absolutely if employers are willing to.
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
We've done it in our organisation - there are staff working well (in my opinion) who have never met any of us in the flesh. As we're global, that was true even before the pandemic - I've never met most of my US colleagues, and most of them work in different cities and rarely meet each other either. It's hard to think of many office jobs where it really matters, except for the nebulous benefits ascribed to meeting by the water-cooler/tea kettle. In 20 years, I suspect that most office jobs will be entirely distant, and regional differences will diminish as a result, since there will no longer be a reason to live near your job. It's just that most people are used to the office model, so it feels alien now.
The rule should be that an employer who insists without a demonstrable reason on someone working in the office while the infection is still widespread is behaving badly, but if they can plausibly argue that face-to-face training is needed, fair enough.
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
I think my question is why is Rishi doing back to the office pieces whilst official advice is wfh ? If its changing then ok, but is it ?
Is official advice wfh? I thought it was "wfh if your employer thinks its viable and that's up to them"?
It's wfh if possible at the moment. Last year it was employer's choice for a while but got changed back.
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
We've done it in our organisation - there are staff working well (in my opinion) who have never met any of us in the flesh. As we're global, that was true even before the pandemic - I've never met most of my US colleagues, and most of them work in different cities and rarely meet each other either. It's hard to think of many office jobs where it really matters, except for the nebulous benefits ascribed to meeting by the water-cooler/tea kettle. In 20 years, I suspect that most office jobs will be entirely distant, and regional differences will diminish as a result, since there will no longer be a reason to live near your job. It's just that most people are used to the office model, so it feels alien now.
The rule should be that an employer who insists without a demonstrable reason on someone working in the office while the infection is still widespread is behaving badly, but if they can plausibly argue that face-to-face training is needed, fair enough.
Creative jobs need bases, they need offices. Ditto those that want to meet clients. The idea that 100% remote working is a substitute for some in-person days is for the birds. Do 3,4,5 day fortnights in the office, that’s probably fine for most companies. But 100% remote? Nope. Many have stress tested that over the year - and are desperate to see colleagues again.
You and Tom think it would be a good use our tanks and soldiers to defend Ukraine against the Russians? Not saying it isn't, just asking.
The answer is obvious. It IS in our interest the Russian speaking peoples inside Ukraine started speaking something European instead, like Ukrainian.
Ukrainian is not more European than Russian. It's essentially a dialect of the same language.
Both Russian and Ukrainian are East Slavic languages. Ukrainian has a lot of Polish influences, eg dyakuyu instead of spasibo for thank you, snidanok instead of zavtrak for breakfast. What is best is that Russia stops thinking that Eastern European people who speak Russian are necessarily Russians. Just as English-speaking people who live on an island west of Great Britain are not English, they are Irish
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
We've done it in our organisation - there are staff working well (in my opinion) who have never met any of us in the flesh. As we're global, that was true even before the pandemic - I've never met most of my US colleagues, and most of them work in different cities and rarely meet each other either. It's hard to think of many office jobs where it really matters, except for the nebulous benefits ascribed to meeting by the water-cooler/tea kettle. In 20 years, I suspect that most office jobs will be entirely distant, and regional differences will diminish as a result, since there will no longer be a reason to live near your job. It's just that most people are used to the office model, so it feels alien now.
The rule should be that an employer who insists without a demonstrable reason on someone working in the office while the infection is still widespread is behaving badly, but if they can plausibly argue that face-to-face training is needed, fair enough.
Creative jobs need bases, they need offices. Ditto those that want to meet clients. The idea that 100% remote working is a substitute for some in-person days is for the birds. Do 3,4,5 day fortnights in the office, that’s probably fine for most companies. But 100% remote? Nope. Many have stress tested that over the year - and are desperate to see colleagues again.
In person does absolutely bugger all but act as a distraction for most people. You just claim it does because you like being in the office and want other people to be there too. That is the real problem those that want to return to office working have realised that though they want to be in the office and can do so at their choice have realised that most of the office wont be joining them so they are trying to make out we also need to be in the office so they aren't lonely.
Get over it, the majority of jobs coming through my email these days from agents are advertising 100% from home because they realise its a selling point.
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
We've done it in our organisation - there are staff working well (in my opinion) who have never met any of us in the flesh. As we're global, that was true even before the pandemic - I've never met most of my US colleagues, and most of them work in different cities and rarely meet each other either. It's hard to think of many office jobs where it really matters, except for the nebulous benefits ascribed to meeting by the water-cooler/tea kettle. In 20 years, I suspect that most office jobs will be entirely distant, and regional differences will diminish as a result, since there will no longer be a reason to live near your job. It's just that most people are used to the office model, so it feels alien now.
The rule should be that an employer who insists without a demonstrable reason on someone working in the office while the infection is still widespread is behaving badly, but if they can plausibly argue that face-to-face training is needed, fair enough.
Creative jobs need bases, they need offices. Ditto those that want to meet clients. The idea that 100% remote working is a substitute for some in-person days is for the birds. Do 3,4,5 day fortnights in the office, that’s probably fine for most companies. But 100% remote? Nope. Many have stress tested that over the year - and are desperate to see colleagues again.
Trouble is, the 3 out of 10 days at the office, or whatever ratio you choose, will not lead to a reduction in office space requirements if everyone needs to be there at the same time, and if they do not then what is the point of mandating attendance in the first place?
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
We've done it in our organisation - there are staff working well (in my opinion) who have never met any of us in the flesh. As we're global, that was true even before the pandemic - I've never met most of my US colleagues, and most of them work in different cities and rarely meet each other either. It's hard to think of many office jobs where it really matters, except for the nebulous benefits ascribed to meeting by the water-cooler/tea kettle. In 20 years, I suspect that most office jobs will be entirely distant, and regional differences will diminish as a result, since there will no longer be a reason to live near your job. It's just that most people are used to the office model, so it feels alien now.
The rule should be that an employer who insists without a demonstrable reason on someone working in the office while the infection is still widespread is behaving badly, but if they can plausibly argue that face-to-face training is needed, fair enough.
Creative jobs need bases, they need offices. Ditto those that want to meet clients. The idea that 100% remote working is a substitute for some in-person days is for the birds. Do 3,4,5 day fortnights in the office, that’s probably fine for most companies. But 100% remote? Nope. Many have stress tested that over the year - and are desperate to see colleagues again.
Trouble is, the 3 out of 10 days at the office, or whatever ratio you choose, will not lead to a reduction in office space requirements if everyone needs to be there at the same time, and if they do not then what is the point of mandating attendance in the first place?
A lot of companies are moving to 100% working from home judging by the emails I get from agents. Anobazaina loves being in the office is all and wants other people to be there so he isn't on his own.
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
yes
As someone who spent a decade working from home in remote (and often international) teams, I'd say team-building is made harder by distance; training too but so much training is online now anyway even for teams that are based at the office.
I wonder if this may be what we have coming tomorrow (on top of formal confirmation of April 12th): a sunshine holiday free-for-all - but only for anybody who has been jabbed twice?
Confinement for the young, playtime for the old - and yet, absolutely no mass importation of Plague variants. Because, although Covid is so fucking lethal that the vaccinated daren't have a cup of tea indoors together, jetting off to the Algarve creates (by means yet to be explained) a miraculous forcefield that renders the virus completely inert.
We are ruled over by imbeciles.
I imagine there will be very few countries that allow you in without a vaccine. Or if they do, you'll be spending the first two weeks of your holiday in quarantine.
There are three points here.
Firstly, at the end of all this misery, giving special privileges to the old that are denied to the young is evil.
Secondly, do we really want people going abroad in huge numbers and seeding the country with imported Plague variants when they come back? This plan sounds like an excuse to let holidaymakers go to countries with high or medium disease prevalence just because it will disappoint them not to let them go - yet the Government has already wet itself over the vaccines being less than 100% effective, to the extent that the Prime Minister is pleading with people who have all been vaccinated still not meeting up with one another indoors.
Thirdly, there's the total inconsistency, indeed the sheer stupidity, of approach: if it's perfectly safe for the vaccinated to go abroad then it's certainly safe for them to have the aforementioned tea parties. And. once everyone has been vaccinated, it's also safe to get rid of all the restrictions and not be dicking about with these wretched vaccine passports ID cards. I mean, honestly...
Cf America, allowing travel and society for the vaccinated
They have a point. How can you disallow these things for people who are jabbed and safe?
The message you are sending is, either the vaccines DO work and you can return to normal life, or no, they don't work, stay indoors and at home, until we are all jabbed (but if the jabs don't work why is that any better?)
It's a dilemma for any government. And in terms of the economy and logic they surely have to err on the side of liberty for the jabbed, I reckon - then just hope that everyone gets jabbed so fast it makes no odds, and, also, the young will disobey anyway
There is a middle message - the vaccines work well against strains common in the UK, therefore double vaxxed people are safe in the UK, but most of the world can't be arsed to sequence properly. Consequently going on foreign holidays increase the risk of importing a more vaccine resistant strain of rona, hence foreign travel may need to be limited.
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
yes
As someone who spent a decade working from home in remote (and often international) teams, I'd say team-building is made harder by distance; training too but so much training is online now anyway even for teams that are based at the office.
All our training over the last few years has been online courses. Mentoring can easily be done as well remotely because mostly you are looking at screens anyway and explaining stuff. Just means you have to make an effort to ask them explain it back to me to see if they understood mostly.
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
We've done it in our organisation - there are staff working well (in my opinion) who have never met any of us in the flesh. As we're global, that was true even before the pandemic - I've never met most of my US colleagues, and most of them work in different cities and rarely meet each other either. It's hard to think of many office jobs where it really matters, except for the nebulous benefits ascribed to meeting by the water-cooler/tea kettle. In 20 years, I suspect that most office jobs will be entirely distant, and regional differences will diminish as a result, since there will no longer be a reason to live near your job. It's just that most people are used to the office model, so it feels alien now.
The rule should be that an employer who insists without a demonstrable reason on someone working in the office while the infection is still widespread is behaving badly, but if they can plausibly argue that face-to-face training is needed, fair enough.
Creative jobs need bases, they need offices. Ditto those that want to meet clients. The idea that 100% remote working is a substitute for some in-person days is for the birds. Do 3,4,5 day fortnights in the office, that’s probably fine for most companies. But 100% remote? Nope. Many have stress tested that over the year - and are desperate to see colleagues again.
Trouble is, the 3 out of 10 days at the office, or whatever ratio you choose, will not lead to a reduction in office space requirements if everyone needs to be there at the same time, and if they do not then what is the point of mandating attendance in the first place?
A lot of companies are moving to 100% working from home judging by the emails I get from agents. Anobazaina loves being in the office is all and wants other people to be there so he isn't on his own.
We shall see. I expect first generation WFH teams will, in general, love it. Their successors, who are no longer paid London salaries for WFH in Ipswich, might be slightly less impressed. I gather America is leading the way here.
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
We've done it in our organisation - there are staff working well (in my opinion) who have never met any of us in the flesh. As we're global, that was true even before the pandemic - I've never met most of my US colleagues, and most of them work in different cities and rarely meet each other either. It's hard to think of many office jobs where it really matters, except for the nebulous benefits ascribed to meeting by the water-cooler/tea kettle. In 20 years, I suspect that most office jobs will be entirely distant, and regional differences will diminish as a result, since there will no longer be a reason to live near your job. It's just that most people are used to the office model, so it feels alien now.
The rule should be that an employer who insists without a demonstrable reason on someone working in the office while the infection is still widespread is behaving badly, but if they can plausibly argue that face-to-face training is needed, fair enough.
Creative jobs need bases, they need offices. Ditto those that want to meet clients. The idea that 100% remote working is a substitute for some in-person days is for the birds. Do 3,4,5 day fortnights in the office, that’s probably fine for most companies. But 100% remote? Nope. Many have stress tested that over the year - and are desperate to see colleagues again.
Trouble is, the 3 out of 10 days at the office, or whatever ratio you choose, will not lead to a reduction in office space requirements if everyone needs to be there at the same time, and if they do not then what is the point of mandating attendance in the first place?
A lot of companies are moving to 100% working from home judging by the emails I get from agents. Anobazaina loves being in the office is all and wants other people to be there so he isn't on his own.
We shall see. I expect first generation WFH teams will, in general, love it. Their successors, who are no longer paid London salaries for WFH in Ipswich, might be slightly less impressed. I gather America is leading the way here.
I don't get london weighting anyway nor do most of the country the number that do is so small as to be largely irrelevant
Creative jobs need bases, they need offices. Ditto those that want to meet clients. The idea that 100% remote working is a substitute for some in-person days is for the birds. Do 3,4,5 day fortnights in the office, that’s probably fine for most companies. But 100% remote? Nope. Many have stress tested that over the year - and are desperate to see colleagues again.
From my experience I don't think that's always right - but we're talking about two different things, what people want to do and what employers want. I know a number of people who have creative jobs with constant interaction with a wide range of people who do them very well remotely. After all, many creative jobs are almost entirely remote - I believe Leon is acquainted with a writer and can perhaps confirm whether he needs company to write.
I agree that most people like seeing their colleagues, but I wonder if that's because we're used to it. Being able to see friends and family is crucial for happiness for nearly everyone. Being able to see the guy at the next desk, probably doing something different to you? Not so much, perhaps? It really depends on the nature of the office and on the individuals - we can't generalise successfully.
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
We've done it in our organisation - there are staff working well (in my opinion) who have never met any of us in the flesh. As we're global, that was true even before the pandemic - I've never met most of my US colleagues, and most of them work in different cities and rarely meet each other either. It's hard to think of many office jobs where it really matters, except for the nebulous benefits ascribed to meeting by the water-cooler/tea kettle. In 20 years, I suspect that most office jobs will be entirely distant, and regional differences will diminish as a result, since there will no longer be a reason to live near your job. It's just that most people are used to the office model, so it feels alien now.
The rule should be that an employer who insists without a demonstrable reason on someone working in the office while the infection is still widespread is behaving badly, but if they can plausibly argue that face-to-face training is needed, fair enough.
Creative jobs need bases, they need offices. Ditto those that want to meet clients. The idea that 100% remote working is a substitute for some in-person days is for the birds. Do 3,4,5 day fortnights in the office, that’s probably fine for most companies. But 100% remote? Nope. Many have stress tested that over the year - and are desperate to see colleagues again.
Trouble is, the 3 out of 10 days at the office, or whatever ratio you choose, will not lead to a reduction in office space requirements if everyone needs to be there at the same time, and if they do not then what is the point of mandating attendance in the first place?
A lot of companies are moving to 100% working from home judging by the emails I get from agents. Anobazaina loves being in the office is all and wants other people to be there so he isn't on his own.
We shall see. I expect first generation WFH teams will, in general, love it. Their successors, who are no longer paid London salaries for WFH in Ipswich, might be slightly less impressed. I gather America is leading the way here.
I don't get london weighting anyway nor do most of the country the number that do is so small as to be largely irrelevant
We shall see. Look, I spent the last decade WFH for multi-national companies so am by no means opposed to it -- merely pointing out there are downsides as well as advantages.
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
We've done it in our organisation - there are staff working well (in my opinion) who have never met any of us in the flesh. As we're global, that was true even before the pandemic - I've never met most of my US colleagues, and most of them work in different cities and rarely meet each other either. It's hard to think of many office jobs where it really matters, except for the nebulous benefits ascribed to meeting by the water-cooler/tea kettle. In 20 years, I suspect that most office jobs will be entirely distant, and regional differences will diminish as a result, since there will no longer be a reason to live near your job. It's just that most people are used to the office model, so it feels alien now.
The rule should be that an employer who insists without a demonstrable reason on someone working in the office while the infection is still widespread is behaving badly, but if they can plausibly argue that face-to-face training is needed, fair enough.
Creative jobs need bases, they need offices. Ditto those that want to meet clients. The idea that 100% remote working is a substitute for some in-person days is for the birds. Do 3,4,5 day fortnights in the office, that’s probably fine for most companies. But 100% remote? Nope. Many have stress tested that over the year - and are desperate to see colleagues again.
Trouble is, the 3 out of 10 days at the office, or whatever ratio you choose, will not lead to a reduction in office space requirements if everyone needs to be there at the same time, and if they do not then what is the point of mandating attendance in the first place?
A lot of companies are moving to 100% working from home judging by the emails I get from agents. Anobazaina loves being in the office is all and wants other people to be there so he isn't on his own.
We shall see. I expect first generation WFH teams will, in general, love it. Their successors, who are no longer paid London salaries for WFH in Ipswich, might be slightly less impressed. I gather America is leading the way here.
I don't get london weighting anyway nor do most of the country the number that do is so small as to be largely irrelevant
We shall see. Look, I spent the last decade WFH so am not opposed to it -- merely pointing out there are downsides as well as advantages.
Balance is the key, good employers should offer balance.
My employer currently does - in software engineering they are not unique in that respect.
In-person is far better for many tasks; solitary is far better for other tasks. Hybrid working is the way forward.
Disagree on the first part for my job at least. I can just as easily get the information I need over skype, zoom teams etc. If you can't manage without a whiteboard then that is your failing and frankly anyone that wants me in the office even 1 day a week I am from now on assuming is a micro manager. All our directors have noticed that output of code has risen by at least 50% now we don't have to put up with middle management calling sodding uselsess meetings and the work has ended up more true to what customers actually asked for now we don't have middle managers translating what customers actually asked for to what those middle managers think they should have asked for.
WFH will be hugely bad I suspect for a lot of middle managers because they will be shown to have added nothing apart from roadblocks
In my view a decent employer in 2021 is one that has allows balance, between those that want to work from home and those that want to work from the office. The idea you should be sacked or worse off because you work from home is ridiculous and no good employer should be encouraging such rubbish
Depends on the job
Well I can only speak for my experience of software engineering, employees have lots of choices
I ask one question: can you effectively train new staff if everyone is working remotely?
We've done it in our organisation - there are staff working well (in my opinion) who have never met any of us in the flesh. As we're global, that was true even before the pandemic - I've never met most of my US colleagues, and most of them work in different cities and rarely meet each other either. It's hard to think of many office jobs where it really matters, except for the nebulous benefits ascribed to meeting by the water-cooler/tea kettle. In 20 years, I suspect that most office jobs will be entirely distant, and regional differences will diminish as a result, since there will no longer be a reason to live near your job. It's just that most people are used to the office model, so it feels alien now.
The rule should be that an employer who insists without a demonstrable reason on someone working in the office while the infection is still widespread is behaving badly, but if they can plausibly argue that face-to-face training is needed, fair enough.
Creative jobs need bases, they need offices. Ditto those that want to meet clients. The idea that 100% remote working is a substitute for some in-person days is for the birds. Do 3,4,5 day fortnights in the office, that’s probably fine for most companies. But 100% remote? Nope. Many have stress tested that over the year - and are desperate to see colleagues again.
In person does absolutely bugger all but act as a distraction for most people. You just claim it does because you like being in the office and want other people to be there too. That is the real problem those that want to return to office working have realised that though they want to be in the office and can do so at their choice have realised that most of the office wont be joining them so they are trying to make out we also need to be in the office so they aren't lonely.
Get over it, the majority of jobs coming through my email these days from agents are advertising 100% from home because they realise its a selling point.
Wrong. I like being with people when the task is better done in person. I like being alone when the task is better done in solitude. It’s horses for courses. I used to WFH 6-7 days a fortnight before this shitshow began and I found that balance about right. WFH ten days a fortnight is dire because creative and collaborative work is far better in person.
Can't think of a single task I have done in the last 30 years that I couldn't do as well if I only talked to someone on skype. Care to suggest one that won't get blown apart in seconds for a software engineer.....frankly most tasks could have been done quicker and better if it was just me talking to the customer without getting managers involved.
Can't think of a single task I have done in the last 30 years that I couldn't do as well if I only talked to someone on skype. Care to suggest one that won't get blown apart in seconds for a software engineer.....frankly most tasks could have been done quicker and better if it was just me talking to the customer without getting managers involved.
Three potential problems with direct customer/techie contact are, first, the risk of under-developed social skills, and I can point to a couple of occasions, admittedly 30 years apart, when offence was taken and business lost; secondly, the risk of inadvertently rewriting contracts and making commitments not paid for; and thirdly, just wasting experts' time.
It is a shame Coastal Command never got its hands on the Lancaster because Churchill was too keen on blowing up French turnips and cows in a hugely inaccurate and ineffective campaign of area bombing. The RAF rejected the Liberator as a heavy bomber.
I remember reading, way back in the 80s, a book written by an ex-Costal chap who was of the opinion that it was a good thing they got Sunderlands and Liberators and not Lancasters, because the Lanc was so cramped and uncomfortable for the crew that a 14-hour patrol would have been unbearable. The Halifax was also apparently quite bad in that respect, and it had a lot more room than the Lancaster.
"Whether frightening the public was a deliberate – or honest – tactic has become the subject of intense debate, and dozens of psychologists have now accused ministers of using “covert psychological strategies” to manipulate the public’s behaviour.
They are so concerned that the British public has been the subject of a mass experiment in the use of strategies that operate “below their level of awareness” that they have made a formal complaint to their professional body, which will now rule on whether government advisers have been guilty of a breach of ethics.
"One regular Sage attendee said: “The British people have been subjected to an unevaluated psychological experiment without being told that is what’s happening.
“All of this is about trying to steer behaviour in the direction an elite has decided, rather than deciding if it is the right thing or the ethical thing to do.”"
Keir/Kier Starmer would make a pleasant neighbour. He’d bring his wheelie bin in the very day it’s emptied. He’d smile and say hello if we crossed paths on our morning rounds. I doubt he’d annoy me with gangster rap at 3am or throw used jonnies in my garden, as previous neighbours have done.
But he’s not leader of the neighbourhood watch material. And not that I assume to speak for her, but I don’t imagine my wife getting weak at the knees if she saw him jogging up the hill either. In short, he’s stuffed. Next!
Well, it's always good to read such serious, informed, impartial and expert analysis.
Back in the real world, there's what I think and what I think is going on. From a personal perspective (and I would consider myself centre-left in outlook), Starmer has made a decent start. Cleaning the Augean stables of post-Corbyn Labour is and was never going to be easy and it's still very much a work in progress. How it will work in 2024 is hard to know and as Starmer extends his personal influence and control over policy, we'll see what kind of programme Labour puts forward.
The data so persistently put up by @isam tells a story - it doesn't tell the story. These have been unprecedented times and until now it's been easy to counter criticism of the Government and its actions. To paraphrase the American quiz show Jeopardy if the answer is "Labour would have done exactly the same" you can probably work out the question. I struggle to know what Starmer would have done differently had he been Prime Minister - he'd have hidden behind the "science" as adroitly as Johnson and would no doubt have dolled out the cash as enthusiastically as Sunak.
Only now are we starting to see some flickers of deviation from the general "let's get behind the Government" meme. The crisis is easing and normal service is returning and, to be fair, those speculating on the divide between authoritarian and liberal as the new political divide were doing so pre-Covid as well.
I've never voted Labour because they are an authoritarian, centralising party which believes any problem can be solved by enough State and Government (as you can see, I see Starmer and Johnson as two cheeks of the same posterior in that regard). In essence, therefore, why do we need a Labour Government when we already have one?
To be fair, that's just my serious, informed, partial and inexpert analysis but there you go...
I am 47 in December and in my lifetime only 3 LOTOs have become PM - Maggie, Blair and Cameron. It is a very rare occurrence. Those three all had something about them that Foot, Kinnock, Hague, IDS, Howard, Miliband, & Corbyn didn’t. I happen to think Sir Keir fits into the latter group more easily, and there is nothing in any data to persuade me otherwise. The eye test and the numbers concur. I post about it a lot because if you only read the headers you’d think the incumbent who leads the polls in almost every measure is the one who is struggling, and I think that is ridiculous
I am no Corbynite but- unlike Attlee and Thatcher - he appears to be the only Opposition Leader who succeeded in moving the Overton Window without achieving office as PM. Johnson and the Tories have - in essence - copied much of his economic policy!
I would be interested to see a header arguing that, particularly how *Corbyn* (as opposed to anything else) did it.
"Whether frightening the public was a deliberate – or honest – tactic has become the subject of intense debate, and dozens of psychologists have now accused ministers of using “covert psychological strategies” to manipulate the public’s behaviour.
They are so concerned that the British public has been the subject of a mass experiment in the use of strategies that operate “below their level of awareness” that they have made a formal complaint to their professional body, which will now rule on whether government advisers have been guilty of a breach of ethics.
"One regular Sage attendee said: “The British people have been subjected to an unevaluated psychological experiment without being told that is what’s happening.
“All of this is about trying to steer behaviour in the direction an elite has decided, rather than deciding if it is the right thing or the ethical thing to do.”"
"Whether frightening the public was a deliberate – or honest – tactic has become the subject of intense debate, and dozens of psychologists have now accused ministers of using “covert psychological strategies” to manipulate the public’s behaviour.
They are so concerned that the British public has been the subject of a mass experiment in the use of strategies that operate “below their level of awareness” that they have made a formal complaint to their professional body, which will now rule on whether government advisers have been guilty of a breach of ethics.
"One regular Sage attendee said: “The British people have been subjected to an unevaluated psychological experiment without being told that is what’s happening.
“All of this is about trying to steer behaviour in the direction an elite has decided, rather than deciding if it is the right thing or the ethical thing to do.”"
I would put money on that is Susan Michie.
Whoever it is, that should be the end of their involvement with SAGE. You can't both advise the government and then try to coerce it if your advice is not adopted. (Also, if they think that this merits a professional ethics complaint, wait until they see an election campaign. Or indeed an advertising campaign.)
Do we know who this Tory MP is? The fact they aren't named in the report suggest they are a nobody (i.e.. "Senior Tory").
Did schools in 1930s Germany have to fly the swastika?
I think they did, as pretty much everyone had to if they didn’t want the SA to pay them unwelcome attention.
But the main act of Nazi propaganda in schools was a large photo of Hitler in every classroom to which children would give a Nazi salute at the start of the day.
Nothing too sinister then!
Well, nobody is proposing that we get anyone to salute photos of the egregious mop head.
Not yet, anyway.
And hopefully not during my career in teaching.
I hope and believe your career will outlive his by some way.
Then, unless something dramatic changes - by which I mean the entirety of the DfE, OFQUAL, OFSTED and the QCA are stood against a wall and not replaced - you’re betting on him being gone in the next twelve to eighteen months.
Comments
It also implies extra privileges for old people which is very Tory.
But, like almost everything to do with mental health they won't.
MH costs money. And the public don't see anyone mentally ill as "worthy".
We'd rather close our eyes to it then clutch our pearls when summat like this happens.
The 'stop all international travel because of killer variants' talk is very fragile when exposed to a drop in temperature,
However true the latter might, and however much tackling them may be important, saying you are tacking the colonialism and racism of exhibits of plants practically invites derision. Most people, pro and con any measure, are not going to get past a headline of 'decolonise X'.
And how people describe these things matters, it's why absolutely moronic slogans which don't mean what they seem to mean should not be persisted with either. If the goal is to bring people along to reflect on and address issues, then toning down the moralising crusading language may well help the mass of people actually confront these issues more effectively.
Its easiest to sell something radical if it doesn't seem radical, and even then this doesn't even sound radical. If its common sense and context being sold, sell that, it's not difficult.
I find these types of things utterly ridiculous, as while it is true that there will always be a conservative reactionary, er, reaction, proponent sof measures don't need to make the job of reactionaries so damn easy!
There are 2 strands of argument
- People fully vaccinated should be FREEEEEEEEE!*
- Everyone should have exactly the same right to do things at the same time.
When you add in the fact that the number of people in a population who are vaccinated has an effect as well (aka Herd Immunity)....
I suspect the timing on all of this will be actual answer.....
*Presumably charged a vast sum by a racist Australian to paint half their faces blue. Copyright etc.
And there is a complete inconsistency of approach here. Testing doesn't stop you catching the Plague and passing it around. The message at the moment appears to be "don't you dare meet anyone in your home, even if you are both vaccinated, because you could spread the Plague around." Yet we are meant to believe that there's nothing wrong with vaccinated people jetting across Europe to mingle with largely unvaccinated complete strangers and then coming back again, because it will be of null effect. Which is nonsense. Even if you attempt to test every single one of the millions of tourists coming back into the country at the airport, which will be a total logistical nightmare and may even be impossible, then you're going to have to let all the positive cases go home to isolate (there will never be enough hotel space to deal with them all) and most of them won't bother.
Therefore, if it's safe enough to allow foreign holidays then why can't we bin a load of other pettyfogging rules? And if it's not safe enough to allow foreign holidays then why measures like this be under consideration? If the Government is serious in its panic about people meeting indoors because the vaccines aren't effective enough then it ought already to have tightened controls on incoming travellers and told people to forget about holidays abroad for the medium term - because if we can't have our freedom back at home until the virus has been thoroughly crushed then it makes no sense to let people travel to places where it hasn't been, and that definition presently encompasses almost the entire globe.
As for the mixed messaging. I think the timescales are different. The headlines are about summer holidays (aren't they always?), whereas the government advice regarding social gatherings is for now. They are planning on implementing these changes to the travel at the end of May.
And do you really think there are going to be millions of tourists going and coming back in a short timescale? I very much doubt that.
In fact, the largest european nation by both population and area.
Beyond that it's simply the fact that we are told that it's desperately important that two vaccinated people from two different households don't hug each other or sit down in one of their houses for a cup of coffee and a natter, whereas it's being implied from these reports that it'll be absolutely fine for a vaccinated holidaymaker to board a plane and go the Majorca for a fortnight. If true then it's nuts: either both things are safe or both are to be avoided - although frankly, using common sense and based on the data that the Government claims to be following, you would've actually thought that it would be safer to dump all the restrictions here and try to keep the Plague out at the borders, then start opening the aforementioned air bridges to popular holiday destinations as and when they've caught us up.
The link is here:
https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/time-to-decolonise-botanical-collections
https://b-s-h.org.uk/about-us/news/guidance-produced-from-the-expert-haematology-panel-ehp-focussed-on-syndrome-of-thrombosis-and-thrombocytopenia-occurring-after-coronavirus-vaccination/
An expert team of our peers have recently been involved in diagnosing and managing a rare syndrome of thrombosis associated with low platelets which have been reported in a few cases. At the moment, any causal association with coronavirus vaccination has not been established. However, if you identify patients with this syndrome in proximity to coronavirus vaccination, it is very important that you complete the online yellow card - this will trigger a request from MHRA for further details.
The cases are unusual because, despite the thrombocytopenia, there is progressive thrombosis, primarily venous, with a high preponderance of cerebral venous sinus thrombosis. Some arterial thrombotic events have also been noted. Testing typically reveals low fibrinogen and very raised D-Dimer levels above the level typically expected in venous thromboembolism. Antibodies to platelet factor 4 (PF4) have been identified, hence there are similarities to heparin-induced thrombocytopenia despite the absence of prior exposure to heparin treatment. The anti PF4 antibodies can be detected by the ELISA HIT assay but not always by the AccuStar assay.
It is important that the correct management is applied to prevent the progression of thrombosis. Of critical note, platelet transfusions should be avoided...
If its changing then ok, but is it ?
(Yes, I am joking)
The Liberator was most notable for its use in winning the Battle of the Atlantic by closing the mid-Atlantic gap in which U-boats could not be reached by air, for it was aircraft and not ship-borne depth charges that destroyed most U-boats by the end of the war. It is a shame Coastal Command never got its hands on the Lancaster because Churchill was too keen on blowing up French turnips and cows in a hugely inaccurate and ineffective campaign of area bombing. The RAF rejected the Liberator as a heavy bomber.
What probably is under-appreciated is the sheer scale of American (and by the end of the war, also Soviet) military production: tanks, aircraft, ships and even code-breaking bombe machines. There ought to be a statue commemorating the Detroit production lines.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/04/02/john-boehner-book-memoir-excerpt-478506
.... At some point after the 2008 election, something changed with my friend Roger Ailes. I once met him in New York during the Obama years to plead with him to put a leash on some of the crazies he was putting on the air. It was making my job trying to accomplish anything conservative that much harder. I didn’t expect this meeting to change anything, but I still thought it was bullshit, and I wanted Roger to know it.
When I put it to him like that, he didn’t have much to say. But he did go on and on about the terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, which he thought was part of a grand conspiracy that led back to Hillary Clinton. Then he outlined elaborate plots by which George Soros and the Clintons and Obama (and whoever else came to mind) were trying to destroy him....
...Under the new rules of Crazytown, I may have been Speaker, but I didn’t hold all the power. By 2013 the chaos caucus in the House had built up their own power base thanks to fawning right-wing media and outrage-driven fundraising cash. And now they had a new head lunatic leading the way, who wasn’t even a House member. There is nothing more dangerous than a reckless asshole who thinks he is smarter than everyone else. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Senator Ted Cruz....
Is it ideal? No, can it be done? Absolutely.
The word balance is there again, if you're going to WFH I am fully supportive of a couple of weeks in-person training.
It can be done, absolutely if employers are willing to.
The rule should be that an employer who insists without a demonstrable reason on someone working in the office while the infection is still widespread is behaving badly, but if they can plausibly argue that face-to-face training is needed, fair enough.
Get over it, the majority of jobs coming through my email these days from agents are advertising 100% from home because they realise its a selling point.
I agree that most people like seeing their colleagues, but I wonder if that's because we're used to it. Being able to see friends and family is crucial for happiness for nearly everyone. Being able to see the guy at the next desk, probably doing something different to you? Not so much, perhaps? It really depends on the nature of the office and on the individuals - we can't generalise successfully.
My employer currently does - in software engineering they are not unique in that respect.
WFH will be hugely bad I suspect for a lot of middle managers because they will be shown to have added nothing apart from roadblocks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_All_Night_(radio_show)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwkkvpJLV2nnjAbXaj-4L2Q
Boris Johnson offers to set a time limit on Covid certificates for theatres, sports events and concerts to answer critics' civil liberties fears"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9431459/Boris-Johnson-offers-set-time-limit-vaccine-certificates-answer-critics-fears.html
"Whether frightening the public was a deliberate – or honest – tactic has become the subject of intense debate, and dozens of psychologists have now accused ministers of using “covert psychological strategies” to manipulate the public’s behaviour.
They are so concerned that the British public has been the subject of a mass experiment in the use of strategies that operate “below their level of awareness” that they have made a formal complaint to their professional body, which will now rule on whether government advisers have been guilty of a breach of ethics.
"One regular Sage attendee said: “The British people have been subjected to an unevaluated psychological experiment without being told that is what’s happening.
“All of this is about trying to steer behaviour in the direction an elite has decided, rather than deciding if it is the right thing or the ethical thing to do.”"
Did he? Really?
The reactions to the suggestion that we do something similar to Sweden are quite funny.
--AS
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