Sturgeon's talking about the UK. She actually tried to make out that the UK procurement was a four nations thing, when in reality it was a Westminster thing. the UK without Scotland would have done it's own thing and been a success. An independent Scotland would now be in the position of the RoI.
Totally agree, thank god Jeane Freeman and her department were not in charge of our vaccine investment/procurement process.
Interesting to see a number of cruise ship operators are developing a programme of British cruises for June to August.
The pattern, stated by P&O and now being followed by Princess, MSC and Royal Caribbean is to use 1-2 ships operating out of Southampton. The voyages are wither 3-4 day trips without a stop or up to 8 nights with a stop or two in the British Isles at places like Greenock, Kirkwall, Liverpool and Falmouth.
The cruises will be for UK citizens only and any one wishing to travel will have to show evidence of either being fully vaccinated or having a second vaccination appointment at time of booking. Unvaccinated passengers will have to show evidence of a negative test 72 hours before boarding and will be tested before boarding.
I suspect these will be very popular and will cover the period through the school summer holidays - I think the cruise operators are still hoping to be able to sail to Europe from September.
They'll be popular for exactly the amount of time it takes for one person onboard to be diagnosed with Covid, after which the whole ship and everyone on it will be quarantined in port (with passengers imprisoned in their tiny cabins) for at least three weeks. Oldies will think this is playtime for them, but sounds like a tremendous gamble to me.
We have been on many cruise worldwide but cruising in this covid environment will be very restricted especially as I expect their near 24 hour buffets will have gone and goodness knows the restrictions on their theatre's and bars
I would not entertain a cruise before mid 2022 and of course if the ports visited are curtailed or restricted what is the point
The pattern, stated by P&O and now being followed by Princess, MSC and Royal Caribbean is to use 1-2 ships operating out of Southampton. The voyages are wither 3-4 day trips without a stop or up to 8 nights with a stop or two in the British Isles at places like Greenock, Kirkwall, Liverpool and Falmouth.
I've never understood why cruise ships ever call at Greenock. It's one of the worst towns in Britain, a depressing run-down dump.
Google to recall all staff to in office work with only a maximum of 14 defined WFH days allowed per year or as agreed by management.
So dies the dream of lockdown fanatics that companies will shift to a new working pattern. The rest of the tech industry will follow Google's lead and where tech goes, banking will also follow and one by one all of the other industries will fall in line.
Rishi was right all the way back in May of last year when he said remote workers and majority WFH types would find their careers curtailed.
In other news we've got the full result of our office survey back. As part of the London office culture committee (a fancy way of saying I help organise ensuring there is enough money to restock the beer fridges on Friday) I'm tasked with ensuring people are happy to come back. It's been easy. The main issues people have are that they won't come back if there is mask wearing required in office or social distancing required. We've pushed our reopening schedule back to August so we can be sure that neither of these are required.
Not a single person took issue with sharing vaccine status to ensure we can operate a full capacity office and we're expecting around 90% of people to return to in office working for 4 or 5 days per week. That number is much higher than we expected. We've also essentially said no to permanent remote working, only two people have had it approved and both have got long term family situations and they've been granted it on compassionate grounds. We're also not allowing any overseas remote working due to data concerns.
This is a predominantly under 50s office in Liverpool Street and we're a Japanese company so there is definitely some level of pushback against homeworking from senior management in Tokyo.
I get the sense a lot of people are now craving city life. Lockdown has gone on so long the charms of country walks and lavish gardens are starting to pall. It’s just a walk. It’s just a garden. It’s not a life.
Yep. In 12 months they will be returning in droves: all those Good Life people who thought they could hack it through an English winter under the pall of death-grey skies, incessant rain and mud, non-existent social life, far distant amenities: all combined with extremely pissy locals.
You'll be able to stand on a bridge over the A303 and watch them all limping back to the cities.
Then we'll have to endure a couple of years of the same Metropolitan twats writing about their experiences in the Saturday and Sunday newspapers.
Meanwhile, er, Leon, Thailand has just announced it's re-opening to the vaccinated international traveller on 01st October for six destinations providing direct entry (except Pattaya in which case you can go via BKK): Phuket, Krabi, Phangnga, Koh Samui, Chonburi (Pattaya), and Chiang Mai.
Yes, the first lockdown and then the summer were unreal. Perfect weather, for much of it. Everything was novel. It was so much better to be in the glorious countryside compared to eerie, locked down London. And even when we had some unlockdowning, london remained largely shut. No theatres. No cinemas. No clubs. Pubs demanding bookings. Yawn.
Then came lockdowns 2 and 3 and a long cold English winter. Gardens almost useless. Lonely freezing walks in fields. Hmm.
Friends of mine who moved out permanently last year are already sounding very nostalgic about bars and restaurants and urban life....
There's a huge variety of possibilities between ultra urban and ultra rural.
Outer suburbia is perhaps the best place in the spring - the bulbs and blossom of sizeable gardens plus the countryside within a short walk.
Depends on the spring. It’s quite sunny here in London today. But cold. 10C. Very different to last April. And it’s meant to get even colder next week. 7C maxima. That’s bloody winter again.
I’m so bored of cold walks in parks (or fields or beaches or anywhere)
I want my city back. And I want holidays in hot sun. Enough
Yep which is another thing. One crap British summer will soon put staycations on the back burner. We may be lucky but it doesn't take much to produce an absolute stinker on these isles.
A holiday in your own country is not a staycation.
It would be interesting to examine the mentality behind the misuse of the word staycation.
It implies that to be a 'proper' holiday you need international travel and being somewhere in your own country doesn't count.
Doubtless a mentality encouraged by the travel industry and eagerly taken up by the holiday obsessives,
"Holiday obsessives" - by which you mean people who like to have two weeks in the sun? Maybe somewhere a bit different to the UK? How very dare they.
No, people who talk endlessly about their previous and future holidays with the added feature during the last year of being more concerned about the risk covid was to their holidays than the risk covid was to either their health or employment.
Or people who say "I had a lovely week in Dorset but that was only a staycation".
Or people who rhapsodise about what they did on their week in Majorca even though there's nothing they couldn't do at home.
My parents fit into the last category - "You can go to a different restaurant every night or sit outside and have a beer" - there's all sorts of Protestant work ethic only-allowed-to-enjoy-yourself-on-holiday traditionalism involved there I suspect.
Strange, quite sad post.
And also incorrect. The islands the Ionian, Aegean and Adriatic seas have got by far the best beaches in Europe. Ours don't even come close for sand fineness, water temperature and cleanliness. Water temperature is really important for a great experience on the beach, ours tend to top out at around a pretty cold 18-20 degrees while the sea around those islands usually get to 28-30 degrees. The difference is huge and worth the expense of going there.
Plus the food in Italy or Greece is not only better, it's about half the cost of what we get here in our coastal towns. Same as hotels and villas, we're going to the Pembroke coast and our cottage works out to about £450 per night for four of us, in southern Italy or a Greek island we'd get an absolute palace for €500 per night.
Holidaying in the UK is fine, and I don't take issue with anyone that does it. However, to say it offers the same as what you get southern Europe or SE Asia is ridiculous. UK holidays are about surfing, nature walks and pub lunches, Southern European holidays about beaches, wine on a terrace and a taste of the Mediterranean diet. They aren't comparable, though each are good in their own way.
People who rave about staycations and British holidays also tend to be quite wealthy. They can afford to go to the nicest bits of the country (which, as you say, are a lot pricier than many places in the Med) or they already have second homes. Moreover, this staycation will be just one holiday out of several (the others will happen abroad)
So if the staycation gets ruined by crap British weather, hey ho, we're off to the Algarve, the Cyclades, or Tuscany, in a few weeks, anyway. No drama
If you are not wealthy and you have just one precious family holiday a year, you want guaranteed sunshine, not rain. You can't take the risk. So you fly south. Of course you do. And good luck to you.
A friend of mine who has spent most of Covid alone in his flat told me the other day that the Plague has really brought home to him the human need for holidays: in the sense of Being Somewhere Else. It's a human craving. To escape the same four walls, the same streets and houses (however nice) and just Go Somewhere Else. He's surely right. It is innate. Homo sapiens is a nomadic species, a wandering hunter gatherer, and the urge to travel or move on, is probably in our DNA as Bruce Chatwin avers, so eloquently, in Songlines
Haven't most humans throughout history lived within thirty miles from where they were born ?
Do we have a craving for 'Somewhere Else' or do we have a craving for our own patch of land ?
The same Sturgeon who would have taken Scotland out of the EU with a YES vote in 2014. Shameless lies and hypocrisy.
She has to say these things because a truly independent Scotland doesn't really work. They need to substitute UK funding with EU funding.
The EU is not in a million years going to be as nice to the Scots as the UK has been.
I have no idea why the Nationalists aren't owning up to the truth of 'now is not the time' - I think they damage themselves enormously by not doing so.
Only one song on the ScotNat jukebox. On repeat play.
"It's now or never...."
To be fair its the right attitude.
Whenever it happens there'll be disruption and it will take years to adjust. Just like Brexit.
But either its the right thing to do, or it isn't. If it is, then best to get on with it.
So, why don't we stop implementing policies that jack house prices up?
No? Okay then, just watch London go further and further to Labour
The only way to stop house prices going up is to build more houses. It isn't rocket science.
Despite your perverse obsession with the insane notion that taxing buyers more makes buying easier.
I very rarely respond to you because you post utter crap but this is embarrassing, even for you. I recall when you suggested the solution to London living was to live outside and to commute in, you recommended I cycle in three and a half hours to Central. You know nothing, yet you rattle on like you live in London - you don't, it's obvious.
You were schooled last time about why the stamp duty cut is a disaster for housing and why it makes houses more expensive and therefore harder to obtain - but here you are again spouting nonsense.
The reason I don't respond to your posts is because you don't listen.
Now I will go back to ignoring you. Bye.
*A* solution to the cost housing in London is to live further out and commute in. I know people who live as far away as Derby who commute daily.
It might not be right for you - you value aspects of London life in the evenings - but it’s certainly a viable option.
(FWiW a stamp duty cut leaves the post tax cost of a house the same but rebalances between the house price and the tax elements. This makes it marginally easier to purchase as you can borrow against the value of the house but not to make a tax payment. But it’s unbelievable inefficient as a use of taxpayers money).
The pattern, stated by P&O and now being followed by Princess, MSC and Royal Caribbean is to use 1-2 ships operating out of Southampton. The voyages are wither 3-4 day trips without a stop or up to 8 nights with a stop or two in the British Isles at places like Greenock, Kirkwall, Liverpool and Falmouth.
I've never understood why cruise ships ever call at Greenock. It's one of the worst towns in Britain, a depressing run-down dump.
It is not Greenock they are visiting, it will be for excursions to Loch Lomond, Glasgow and Edinburgh
The pattern, stated by P&O and now being followed by Princess, MSC and Royal Caribbean is to use 1-2 ships operating out of Southampton. The voyages are wither 3-4 day trips without a stop or up to 8 nights with a stop or two in the British Isles at places like Greenock, Kirkwall, Liverpool and Falmouth.
I've never understood why cruise ships ever call at Greenock. It's one of the worst towns in Britain, a depressing run-down dump.
It's so people can be bussed to Glasgow or do another excursion. The ports are basically car parks for ships and I just wonder if they've made the mooring fees quite attractive for a stop.
Google to recall all staff to in office work with only a maximum of 14 defined WFH days allowed per year or as agreed by management.
So dies the dream of lockdown fanatics that companies will shift to a new working pattern. The rest of the tech industry will follow Google's lead and where tech goes, banking will also follow and one by one all of the other industries will fall in line.
Rishi was right all the way back in May of last year when he said remote workers and majority WFH types would find their careers curtailed.
In other news we've got the full result of our office survey back. As part of the London office culture committee (a fancy way of saying I help organise ensuring there is enough money to restock the beer fridges on Friday) I'm tasked with ensuring people are happy to come back. It's been easy. The main issues people have are that they won't come back if there is mask wearing required in office or social distancing required. We've pushed our reopening schedule back to August so we can be sure that neither of these are required.
Not a single person took issue with sharing vaccine status to ensure we can operate a full capacity office and we're expecting around 90% of people to return to in office working for 4 or 5 days per week. That number is much higher than we expected. We've also essentially said no to permanent remote working, only two people have had it approved and both have got long term family situations and they've been granted it on compassionate grounds. We're also not allowing any overseas remote working due to data concerns.
This is a predominantly under 50s office in Liverpool Street and we're a Japanese company so there is definitely some level of pushback against homeworking from senior management in Tokyo.
I get the sense a lot of people are now craving city life. Lockdown has gone on so long the charms of country walks and lavish gardens are starting to pall. It’s just a walk. It’s just a garden. It’s not a life.
Yes, massively. We've got our first work post-lockdown drinks in April, sign up has been very, very strong. Enough that we've had to speak to the pub about possibly having their whole outdoor area but they said it contravenes regulations as we'd be a party of 80 rather than 14 parties of 5/6.
Can’t you book all of the tables individually as the X team or the Y team?
Interesting to see a number of cruise ship operators are developing a programme of British cruises for June to August.
The pattern, stated by P&O and now being followed by Princess, MSC and Royal Caribbean is to use 1-2 ships operating out of Southampton. The voyages are wither 3-4 day trips without a stop or up to 8 nights with a stop or two in the British Isles at places like Greenock, Kirkwall, Liverpool and Falmouth.
The cruises will be for UK citizens only and any one wishing to travel will have to show evidence of either being fully vaccinated or having a second vaccination appointment at time of booking. Unvaccinated passengers will have to show evidence of a negative test 72 hours before boarding and will be tested before boarding.
I suspect these will be very popular and will cover the period through the school summer holidays - I think the cruise operators are still hoping to be able to sail to Europe from September.
They'll be popular for exactly the amount of time it takes for one person onboard to be diagnosed with Covid, after which the whole ship and everyone on it will be quarantined in port (with passengers imprisoned in their tiny cabins) for at least three weeks. Oldies will think this is playtime for them, but sounds like a tremendous gamble to me.
Why would those who have already had two vaccinations need to be quarantined?
Sturgeon's talking about the UK. She actually tried to make out that the UK procurement was a four nations thing, when in reality it was a Westminster thing. the UK without Scotland would have done it's own thing and been a success. An independent Scotland would now be in the position of the RoI.
Totally agree, thank god Jeane Freeman and her department were not in charge of our vaccine investment/procurement process.
Unionists really getting desperate now, calling up Dad's Army members.
Interesting to see a number of cruise ship operators are developing a programme of British cruises for June to August.
The pattern, stated by P&O and now being followed by Princess, MSC and Royal Caribbean is to use 1-2 ships operating out of Southampton. The voyages are wither 3-4 day trips without a stop or up to 8 nights with a stop or two in the British Isles at places like Greenock, Kirkwall, Liverpool and Falmouth.
The cruises will be for UK citizens only and any one wishing to travel will have to show evidence of either being fully vaccinated or having a second vaccination appointment at time of booking. Unvaccinated passengers will have to show evidence of a negative test 72 hours before boarding and will be tested before boarding.
I suspect these will be very popular and will cover the period through the school summer holidays - I think the cruise operators are still hoping to be able to sail to Europe from September.
They'll be popular for exactly the amount of time it takes for one person onboard to be diagnosed with Covid, after which the whole ship and everyone on it will be quarantined in port (with passengers imprisoned in their tiny cabins) for at least three weeks. Oldies will think this is playtime for them, but sounds like a tremendous gamble to me.
We have been on many cruise worldwide but cruising in this covid environment will be very restricted especially as I expect their near 24 hour buffets will have gone and goodness knows the restrictions on their theatre's and bars
I would not entertain a cruise before mid 2022 and of course if the ports visited are curtailed or restricted what is the point
I wouldn't be so sure - I suspect it's going to be very difficult for the unvaccinated to travel in the current climate. The crew will all have been vaccinated as well so I don't quite see the risk and the usual hyperbole from @Black_Rook notwithstanding, we also don't know how many passengers will be on each sailing - I suspect the ships won't be anywhere near capacity but at least if they are sailing, they are earning some money which is more than if they stayed off-shore at Weymouth or Torquay.
The pattern, stated by P&O and now being followed by Princess, MSC and Royal Caribbean is to use 1-2 ships operating out of Southampton. The voyages are wither 3-4 day trips without a stop or up to 8 nights with a stop or two in the British Isles at places like Greenock, Kirkwall, Liverpool and Falmouth.
I've never understood why cruise ships ever call at Greenock. It's one of the worst towns in Britain, a depressing run-down dump.
Another deluded halfwitted Little Englander Scotch expert crawls out from under his rock.
Is there a set threshold, either in law or public-media policy?
Party or candidate polling at just 3% would certainly NOT qualify for most US election debates.
But then, not really sure if 3% is really accurate reflection of Alba potential for attracting list votes, on a 2nd-choice basis?
My guess is that THAT number is higher, including SNP supporters whose intention is to vote SNP on constituency side, and Alba on list side.
How much higher? Good question!
They have more members than the Lib Dems , doubt Greens have that many either and will soon pass Labour. Unionists are running scared , the gravy train may be about to hit the buffers.
So, why don't we stop implementing policies that jack house prices up?
No? Okay then, just watch London go further and further to Labour
The only way to stop house prices going up is to build more houses. It isn't rocket science.
Despite your perverse obsession with the insane notion that taxing buyers more makes buying easier.
I very rarely respond to you because you post utter crap but this is embarrassing, even for you. I recall when you suggested the solution to London living was to live outside and to commute in, you recommended I cycle in three and a half hours to Central. You know nothing, yet you rattle on like you live in London - you don't, it's obvious.
You were schooled last time about why the stamp duty cut is a disaster for housing and why it makes houses more expensive and therefore harder to obtain - but here you are again spouting nonsense.
The reason I don't respond to your posts is because you don't listen.
Now I will go back to ignoring you. Bye.
*A* solution to the cost housing in London is to live further out and commute in. I know people who live as far away as Derby who commute daily.
It might not be right for you - you value aspects of London life in the evenings - but it’s certainly a viable option.
(FWiW a stamp duty cut leaves the post tax cost of a house the same but rebalances between the house price and the tax elements. This makes it marginally easier to purchase as you can borrow against the value of the house but not to make a tax payment. But it’s unbelievable inefficient as a use of taxpayers money).
Indeed, CHB seems to have muddled up different ideas, conflating different points.
The point that had been made was that longer commutes require trains, but tend to have cheaper rents. Shorter commutes tend to mean more expensive rents, but enable alternatives like cycling. There's a balance.
The idea that people should cycle for 3.5 hours - that is an invention just of @CorrectHorseBattery 's imagination.
I wonder if the idea could be planted in the minds of the voters north of the border that the Tory leadership secretly wanted Scottish independence to reduce subsidies from England then there would then be a big swing towards the union to stymie them?
The pattern, stated by P&O and now being followed by Princess, MSC and Royal Caribbean is to use 1-2 ships operating out of Southampton. The voyages are wither 3-4 day trips without a stop or up to 8 nights with a stop or two in the British Isles at places like Greenock, Kirkwall, Liverpool and Falmouth.
I've never understood why cruise ships ever call at Greenock. It's one of the worst towns in Britain, a depressing run-down dump.
It's so people can be bussed to Glasgow or do another excursion. The ports are basically car parks for ships and I just wonder if they've made the mooring fees quite attractive for a stop.
Also I think because it's not practical to take such large ships into Glasgow proper, especially if you want to berth alongside the pier rather than use a ship to shore tender.
Is there a set threshold, either in law or public-media policy?
Party or candidate polling at just 3% would certainly NOT qualify for most US election debates.
But then, not really sure if 3% is really accurate reflection of Alba potential for attracting list votes, on a 2nd-choice basis?
My guess is that THAT number is higher, including SNP supporters whose intention is to vote SNP on constituency side, and Alba on list side.
How much higher? Good question!
They have more members than the Lib Dems , doubt Greens have that many either and will soon pass Labour. Unionists are running scared , the gravy train may be about to hit the buffers.
Independence if it happens is a few years away and in the meantime you receive a 30% uplift from rUK
Not a bad deal Malc, but then you and I will never agree on independence so we must just agree to disagree
There are reports on Twitter that, in America, some homeless white males have to admit their "white privilege" - like a kind of intrinsic guilt - to teams of affluent academic middle class Wokeist charity types, so that the homeless can be deemed worthy of assistance
if they deny their privilege, no help is forthcoming
I wonder if the idea could be planted in the minds of the voters north of the border that the Tory leadership secretly wanted Scottish independence to reduce subsidies from England then there would then be a big swing towards the union to stymie them?
there are no subsidies, we pay our way , the UK live on debt and try to pretend it is down to Scotland and halfwits like you believe it. Your village is looking for its idiot.
Interesting to see a number of cruise ship operators are developing a programme of British cruises for June to August.
The pattern, stated by P&O and now being followed by Princess, MSC and Royal Caribbean is to use 1-2 ships operating out of Southampton. The voyages are wither 3-4 day trips without a stop or up to 8 nights with a stop or two in the British Isles at places like Greenock, Kirkwall, Liverpool and Falmouth.
The cruises will be for UK citizens only and any one wishing to travel will have to show evidence of either being fully vaccinated or having a second vaccination appointment at time of booking. Unvaccinated passengers will have to show evidence of a negative test 72 hours before boarding and will be tested before boarding.
I suspect these will be very popular and will cover the period through the school summer holidays - I think the cruise operators are still hoping to be able to sail to Europe from September.
They'll be popular for exactly the amount of time it takes for one person onboard to be diagnosed with Covid, after which the whole ship and everyone on it will be quarantined in port (with passengers imprisoned in their tiny cabins) for at least three weeks. Oldies will think this is playtime for them, but sounds like a tremendous gamble to me.
We have been on many cruise worldwide but cruising in this covid environment will be very restricted especially as I expect their near 24 hour buffets will have gone and goodness knows the restrictions on their theatre's and bars
I would not entertain a cruise before mid 2022 and of course if the ports visited are curtailed or restricted what is the point
I wouldn't be so sure - I suspect it's going to be very difficult for the unvaccinated to travel in the current climate. The crew will all have been vaccinated as well so I don't quite see the risk and the usual hyperbole from @Black_Rook notwithstanding, we also don't know how many passengers will be on each sailing - I suspect the ships won't be anywhere near capacity but at least if they are sailing, they are earning some money which is more than if they stayed off-shore at Weymouth or Torquay.
I'm not so sure warning of the hazards constitutes hyperbole in this instance. We are dealing with a Government led by a man who is evangelising for a massive state surveillance system to control Covid, even as the epidemic draws to an end, and who flaps his wings in panic at the thought of two vaccinated individuals hugging each other or getting together for a cup of tea indoors. Unless or until it can be demonstrated otherwise, it is logical to assume that any cruise ship can and will morph into the Diamond Princess the first time one of the old crusties on board starts to cough. The resultant death rate might be close to zero but the imprisonment will happen regardless.
If the Conservatives are accused of weaponising culture war issues, one must ask in turn why do some left wing academics act as if they are Conservatives who are parodying left wing academics. So far we've had Tony Sewell compared to Goebels, the report accused of "glorifying slavery", and now comments about "token blacks". Who on earth do these people think they are persuading, by making such comments.
Google to recall all staff to in office work with only a maximum of 14 defined WFH days allowed per year or as agreed by management.
So dies the dream of lockdown fanatics that companies will shift to a new working pattern. The rest of the tech industry will follow Google's lead and where tech goes, banking will also follow and one by one all of the other industries will fall in line.
Rishi was right all the way back in May of last year when he said remote workers and majority WFH types would find their careers curtailed.
In other news we've got the full result of our office survey back. As part of the London office culture committee (a fancy way of saying I help organise ensuring there is enough money to restock the beer fridges on Friday) I'm tasked with ensuring people are happy to come back. It's been easy. The main issues people have are that they won't come back if there is mask wearing required in office or social distancing required. We've pushed our reopening schedule back to August so we can be sure that neither of these are required.
Not a single person took issue with sharing vaccine status to ensure we can operate a full capacity office and we're expecting around 90% of people to return to in office working for 4 or 5 days per week. That number is much higher than we expected. We've also essentially said no to permanent remote working, only two people have had it approved and both have got long term family situations and they've been granted it on compassionate grounds. We're also not allowing any overseas remote working due to data concerns.
This is a predominantly under 50s office in Liverpool Street and we're a Japanese company so there is definitely some level of pushback against homeworking from senior management in Tokyo.
I get the sense a lot of people are now craving city life. Lockdown has gone on so long the charms of country walks and lavish gardens are starting to pall. It’s just a walk. It’s just a garden. It’s not a life.
Yes, massively. We've got our first work post-lockdown drinks in April, sign up has been very, very strong. Enough that we've had to speak to the pub about possibly having their whole outdoor area but they said it contravenes regulations as we'd be a party of 80 rather than 14 parties of 5/6.
Can’t you book all of the tables individually as the X team or the Y team?
They said we'd have to go through the public booking system for that and obviously we can't get enough tables for everyone. My team is already booked, we got three tables for April 24th. We might just go to the park in May with loads of company booze and a few Deliveroo orders.
See now why Sturgeon was so crap in Leaders debate the other night.........
We were also informed last night, by a different source, that on Tuesday of this week, 30 March, officers visited the home of the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and her husband Peter Murrell in connection with their investigation, a few hours prior to the First Minister’s appearance on a BBC televised debate, at which some commentators remarked that she appeared tired and sub-par.
But when the party’s 2019 accounts were published they showed that the SNP had less than £100,000 in the bank at the end of that year, and total net assets of less than £272,000. The £600,000 from the fundraisers was nowhere to be found, and the then-party treasurer’s feeble insistence that it was “woven through” the accounts in some unspecified way satisfied only the most gullible.
This week Wings Over Scotland has been told that the matter is now officially under investigation by the police.
We have few concrete details but what we know is as follows. Wings has been given the following statement:
“On 25 March 2021 I phoned 101 to make a complaint and I received an incident number and an appointment at Barrhead Police Station.
I can confirm I then made a complaint to Police Scotland on Saturday 27th March 2021 at Barrhead Police Station, stating that following the resignation of three members of the Finance and Audit Committee of the SNP, having been refused access to the SNP accounts, I told the police that I believed that financial fraud may have occurred.
That same evening two members of the Financial Investigation Unit of Police Scotland came to my home and I gave them a formal statement under the incident number PS202103252082. In addition [REDACTED] gave donations towards the missing money and he is alleging in a civil case that this money was wrongly used. This is currently subject to a civil case at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.” https://wingsoverscotland.com/justice-stirring/#respond
Interesting to see a number of cruise ship operators are developing a programme of British cruises for June to August.
The pattern, stated by P&O and now being followed by Princess, MSC and Royal Caribbean is to use 1-2 ships operating out of Southampton. The voyages are wither 3-4 day trips without a stop or up to 8 nights with a stop or two in the British Isles at places like Greenock, Kirkwall, Liverpool and Falmouth.
The cruises will be for UK citizens only and any one wishing to travel will have to show evidence of either being fully vaccinated or having a second vaccination appointment at time of booking. Unvaccinated passengers will have to show evidence of a negative test 72 hours before boarding and will be tested before boarding.
I suspect these will be very popular and will cover the period through the school summer holidays - I think the cruise operators are still hoping to be able to sail to Europe from September.
They'll be popular for exactly the amount of time it takes for one person onboard to be diagnosed with Covid, after which the whole ship and everyone on it will be quarantined in port (with passengers imprisoned in their tiny cabins) for at least three weeks. Oldies will think this is playtime for them, but sounds like a tremendous gamble to me.
We have been on many cruise worldwide but cruising in this covid environment will be very restricted especially as I expect their near 24 hour buffets will have gone and goodness knows the restrictions on their theatre's and bars
I would not entertain a cruise before mid 2022 and of course if the ports visited are curtailed or restricted what is the point
I wouldn't be so sure - I suspect it's going to be very difficult for the unvaccinated to travel in the current climate. The crew will all have been vaccinated as well so I don't quite see the risk and the usual hyperbole from @Black_Rook notwithstanding, we also don't know how many passengers will be on each sailing - I suspect the ships won't be anywhere near capacity but at least if they are sailing, they are earning some money which is more than if they stayed off-shore at Weymouth or Torquay.
I'm not so sure warning of the hazards constitutes hyperbole in this instance. We are dealing with a Government led by a man who is evangelising for a massive state surveillance system to control Covid, even as the epidemic draws to an end, and who flaps his wings in panic at the thought of two vaccinated individuals hugging each other or getting together for a cup of tea indoors. Unless or until it can be demonstrated otherwise, it is logical to assume that any cruise ship can and will morph into the Diamond Princess the first time one of the old crusties on board starts to cough. The resultant death rate might be close to zero but the imprisonment will happen regardless.
We sailed from Vancouver to China v Alaska and Japan on Diamond Princess which I believe is now based in North America
I see the unionist cult members on here are having a seizure because Sturgeon is showing up their hero Bozo. Panic setting in.
Gone back to the SNP now you've seen how Alba are polling?
Not a chance , polling after a couple of days bears no relation to reality. Already have more members than Lib Dems. We will see on the big day what happens.
The pattern, stated by P&O and now being followed by Princess, MSC and Royal Caribbean is to use 1-2 ships operating out of Southampton. The voyages are wither 3-4 day trips without a stop or up to 8 nights with a stop or two in the British Isles at places like Greenock, Kirkwall, Liverpool and Falmouth.
I've never understood why cruise ships ever call at Greenock. It's one of the worst towns in Britain, a depressing run-down dump.
Another deluded halfwitted Little Englander Scotch expert crawls out from under his rock.
I almost mistook it for Christ the Redeemer over Rio, malcy..... 😉
Is there a set threshold, either in law or public-media policy?
Party or candidate polling at just 3% would certainly NOT qualify for most US election debates.
But then, not really sure if 3% is really accurate reflection of Alba potential for attracting list votes, on a 2nd-choice basis?
My guess is that THAT number is higher, including SNP supporters whose intention is to vote SNP on constituency side, and Alba on list side.
How much higher? Good question!
They have more members than the Lib Dems , doubt Greens have that many either and will soon pass Labour. Unionists are running scared , the gravy train may be about to hit the buffers.
Independence if it happens is a few years away and in the meantime you receive a 30% uplift from rUK
Not a bad deal Malc, but then you and I will never agree on independence so we must just agree to disagree
G we get no uplift , Westminster just keep borrowing money and beggaring us. We could do much better on our own.
There are reports on Twitter that, in America, some homeless white males have to admit their "white privilege" - like a kind of intrinsic guilt - to teams of affluent academic middle class Wokeist charity types, so that the homeless can be deemed worthy of assistance
if they deny their privilege, no help is forthcoming
Critical Race Theory is pure poison
Not my field, but I am not sure the conclusions are all that remarkable:
1. do marginalized white working class have some advantages over marginalized black or hispanic working class? Probably 2. does the advantage conferred by being white vary according to your social status? Almost certainly 3. (setting aside the capitalism jibe) are multiple factors involved in how racism manifests itself? Absolutely
Did we need a pseudo-scientific paper or critical race theory to know these things? No.
The pattern, stated by P&O and now being followed by Princess, MSC and Royal Caribbean is to use 1-2 ships operating out of Southampton. The voyages are wither 3-4 day trips without a stop or up to 8 nights with a stop or two in the British Isles at places like Greenock, Kirkwall, Liverpool and Falmouth.
I've never understood why cruise ships ever call at Greenock. It's one of the worst towns in Britain, a depressing run-down dump.
It is not Greenock they are visiting, it will be for excursions to Loch Lomond, Glasgow and Edinburgh
When I was last at Aviemore we had a tour around an estate in a land rover (highly recommended!) and the guide was talking about groups from tour ships being a revenue stream - where would those ships have docked?
See now why Sturgeon was so crap in Leaders debate the other night.........
We were also informed last night, by a different source, that on Tuesday of this week, 30 March, officers visited the home of the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and her husband Peter Murrell in connection with their investigation, a few hours prior to the First Minister’s appearance on a BBC televised debate, at which some commentators remarked that she appeared tired and sub-par.
But when the party’s 2019 accounts were published they showed that the SNP had less than £100,000 in the bank at the end of that year, and total net assets of less than £272,000. The £600,000 from the fundraisers was nowhere to be found, and the then-party treasurer’s feeble insistence that it was “woven through” the accounts in some unspecified way satisfied only the most gullible.
This week Wings Over Scotland has been told that the matter is now officially under investigation by the police.
We have few concrete details but what we know is as follows. Wings has been given the following statement:
“On 25 March 2021 I phoned 101 to make a complaint and I received an incident number and an appointment at Barrhead Police Station.
I can confirm I then made a complaint to Police Scotland on Saturday 27th March 2021 at Barrhead Police Station, stating that following the resignation of three members of the Finance and Audit Committee of the SNP, having been refused access to the SNP accounts, I told the police that I believed that financial fraud may have occurred.
That same evening two members of the Financial Investigation Unit of Police Scotland came to my home and I gave them a formal statement under the incident number PS202103252082. In addition [REDACTED] gave donations towards the missing money and he is alleging in a civil case that this money was wrongly used. This is currently subject to a civil case at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.” https://wingsoverscotland.com/justice-stirring/#respond
I had read that and it does not look good but they are allegations
If the Conservatives are accused of weaponising culture war issues, one must ask in turn why do some left wing academics act as if they are Conservatives who are parodying left wing academics. So far we've had Tony Sewell compared to Goebels, the report accused of "glorifying slavery", and now comments about "token blacks". Who on earth do these people think they are persuading, by making such comments.
Do they need to persuade anyone when preaching to the converted works ?
The pattern, stated by P&O and now being followed by Princess, MSC and Royal Caribbean is to use 1-2 ships operating out of Southampton. The voyages are wither 3-4 day trips without a stop or up to 8 nights with a stop or two in the British Isles at places like Greenock, Kirkwall, Liverpool and Falmouth.
I've never understood why cruise ships ever call at Greenock. It's one of the worst towns in Britain, a depressing run-down dump.
It is not Greenock they are visiting, it will be for excursions to Loch Lomond, Glasgow and Edinburgh
When I was last at Aviemore we had a tour around an estate in a land rover (highly recommended!) and the guide was talking about groups from tour ships being a revenue stream - where would those ships have docked?
Invergordon as indeed we did once on a cruise to Iceland
The pattern, stated by P&O and now being followed by Princess, MSC and Royal Caribbean is to use 1-2 ships operating out of Southampton. The voyages are wither 3-4 day trips without a stop or up to 8 nights with a stop or two in the British Isles at places like Greenock, Kirkwall, Liverpool and Falmouth.
I've never understood why cruise ships ever call at Greenock. It's one of the worst towns in Britain, a depressing run-down dump.
It is not Greenock they are visiting, it will be for excursions to Loch Lomond, Glasgow and Edinburgh
When I was last at Aviemore we had a tour around an estate in a land rover (highly recommended!) and the guide was talking about groups from tour ships being a revenue stream - where would those ships have docked?
Aberdeen or Dundee, I suspect - perhaps also Invergordon or Rosyth (near Forth Bridges) or even Leith.
I think they do. They certainly used to. I used to have an international certificate of some sort in with my passport, which documented my vaccination status for various tropical diseases.
The pattern, stated by P&O and now being followed by Princess, MSC and Royal Caribbean is to use 1-2 ships operating out of Southampton. The voyages are wither 3-4 day trips without a stop or up to 8 nights with a stop or two in the British Isles at places like Greenock, Kirkwall, Liverpool and Falmouth.
I've never understood why cruise ships ever call at Greenock. It's one of the worst towns in Britain, a depressing run-down dump.
It is not Greenock they are visiting, it will be for excursions to Loch Lomond, Glasgow and Edinburgh
When I was last at Aviemore we had a tour around an estate in a land rover (highly recommended!) and the guide was talking about groups from tour ships being a revenue stream - where would those ships have docked?
Invergordon as indeed we did once on a cruise to Iceland
I think they do. They certainly used to. I used to have an international certificate of some sort in with my passport, which documented my vaccination status for various tropical diseases.
I wonder if the idea could be planted in the minds of the voters north of the border that the Tory leadership secretly wanted Scottish independence to reduce subsidies from England then there would then be a big swing towards the union to stymie them?
there are no subsidies, we pay our way , the UK live on debt and try to pretend it is down to Scotland and halfwits like you believe it. Your village is looking for its idiot.
Per capita public expenditure, per capita GDP even if there is a margin of error show that funds are flowing into Scotland from the rest of the UK. They flow into some areas of England too and that is fine within sensible limits. Glad to have earned an insult. I really enjoy your posts they raise insults to a level of sublimity.
Interesting to see a number of cruise ship operators are developing a programme of British cruises for June to August.
The pattern, stated by P&O and now being followed by Princess, MSC and Royal Caribbean is to use 1-2 ships operating out of Southampton. The voyages are wither 3-4 day trips without a stop or up to 8 nights with a stop or two in the British Isles at places like Greenock, Kirkwall, Liverpool and Falmouth.
The cruises will be for UK citizens only and any one wishing to travel will have to show evidence of either being fully vaccinated or having a second vaccination appointment at time of booking. Unvaccinated passengers will have to show evidence of a negative test 72 hours before boarding and will be tested before boarding.
I suspect these will be very popular and will cover the period through the school summer holidays - I think the cruise operators are still hoping to be able to sail to Europe from September.
They'll be popular for exactly the amount of time it takes for one person onboard to be diagnosed with Covid, after which the whole ship and everyone on it will be quarantined in port (with passengers imprisoned in their tiny cabins) for at least three weeks. Oldies will think this is playtime for them, but sounds like a tremendous gamble to me.
Why would those who have already had two vaccinations need to be quarantined?
What happens at the moment if one person in a household tests positive for Covid and one of the others has been vaccinated? Are the vaccinated exempted from quarantine or does everybody still have to stay at home?
The answer:
While COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to reduce the likelihood of severe illness for those who have received them, we do not yet know for certain by how much they reduce the likelihood of a vaccinated person spreading COVID-19 to others. Therefore, even if a person has been vaccinated, there is still a risk they could catch COVID-19 and spread it to other people.
If someone in your household has symptoms of COVID-19 or has received a positive test result, your household members must still self-isolate even if they have received one or more doses of COVID-19 vaccine. Following all the guidance on this page will reduce the risk of spreading infection and help to protect other people outside of your household.
So, it doesn't matter if you've had one, two or a billion vaccinations. If someone else in your household tests positive, you're locked in with them.
There is no reason to suppose, based on what happened on cruise ships in the first wave, that everyone aboard won't be imprisoned in panic the nanosecond that an outbreak is identified.
I wonder if the idea could be planted in the minds of the voters north of the border that the Tory leadership secretly wanted Scottish independence to reduce subsidies from England then there would then be a big swing towards the union to stymie them?
there are no subsidies, we pay our way , the UK live on debt and try to pretend it is down to Scotland and halfwits like you believe it. Your village is looking for its idiot.
Per capita public expenditure, per capita GDP even if there is a margin of error show that funds are flowing into Scotland from the rest of the UK. They flow into some areas of England too and that is fine within sensible limits. Glad to have earned an insult. I really enjoy your posts they raise insults to a level of sublimity.
There was no squealing for the 40+ years when we were susidising the other way in huge numbers.
I just passed a couple of Londoners in the quiet street of Islington. I'd guess they were something like Ethiopian by heritage - quite a foreign look. Anyway the male of the party said yeah about 5 times in my hearing, the lady must have contributed about a thousand words. My guess was mother and son. Anyway it always makes me smile when people who may appear a bit different are clearly not different at all.
Somewhere in Thucydides there's a quote like 'don't tell my wife' or the like. That's two thousand years and a huge cultural gap.
You can reverse the sexes in these examples, and it's still the same.
They do, I had to have a yellow fever one when I went to Kenya a few years ago. Was a nightmare to dig it up as I had the yellow fever vaccine when I was a kid.
The same Sturgeon who would have taken Scotland out of the EU with a YES vote in 2014. Shameless lies and hypocrisy.
She has to say these things because a truly independent Scotland doesn't really work. They need to substitute UK funding with EU funding.
The EU is not in a million years going to be as nice to the Scots as the UK has been.
I have no idea why the Nationalists aren't owning up to the truth of 'now is not the time' - I think they damage themselves enormously by not doing so.
Though when the right time will be to stop pooling sovereignty with England, Wales and NI and start pooling sovereignty with Greece, Germany, Slovenia and 24 others seems opaque.
By the Nats? Yes of course, they believe all the other rubbish the SNP has fed them over the years.
LOL, that from numpties that worship Bozo
I don't worship Boris, I think he's an idiot. But I can see the cult-like behaviour of Nats towards Sturgeon, they are not much different from Kippers towards Farage.
See now why Sturgeon was so crap in Leaders debate the other night.........
We were also informed last night, by a different source, that on Tuesday of this week, 30 March, officers visited the home of the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and her husband Peter Murrell in connection with their investigation, a few hours prior to the First Minister’s appearance on a BBC televised debate, at which some commentators remarked that she appeared tired and sub-par.
But when the party’s 2019 accounts were published they showed that the SNP had less than £100,000 in the bank at the end of that year, and total net assets of less than £272,000. The £600,000 from the fundraisers was nowhere to be found, and the then-party treasurer’s feeble insistence that it was “woven through” the accounts in some unspecified way satisfied only the most gullible.
This week Wings Over Scotland has been told that the matter is now officially under investigation by the police.
We have few concrete details but what we know is as follows. Wings has been given the following statement:
“On 25 March 2021 I phoned 101 to make a complaint and I received an incident number and an appointment at Barrhead Police Station.
I can confirm I then made a complaint to Police Scotland on Saturday 27th March 2021 at Barrhead Police Station, stating that following the resignation of three members of the Finance and Audit Committee of the SNP, having been refused access to the SNP accounts, I told the police that I believed that financial fraud may have occurred.
That same evening two members of the Financial Investigation Unit of Police Scotland came to my home and I gave them a formal statement under the incident number PS202103252082. In addition [REDACTED] gave donations towards the missing money and he is alleging in a civil case that this money was wrongly used. This is currently subject to a civil case at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.” https://wingsoverscotland.com/justice-stirring/#respond
I had read that and it does not look good but they are allegations
They are allegations at this stage for sure but the published accounts do not contain the money and they will not say where it is and their financial people on NEC all resigned a few weeks ago as Murrell would not show them the books and they would be held responsible.
Google to recall all staff to in office work with only a maximum of 14 defined WFH days allowed per year or as agreed by management.
So dies the dream of lockdown fanatics that companies will shift to a new working pattern. The rest of the tech industry will follow Google's lead and where tech goes, banking will also follow and one by one all of the other industries will fall in line.
Rishi was right all the way back in May of last year when he said remote workers and majority WFH types would find their careers curtailed.
In other news we've got the full result of our office survey back. As part of the London office culture committee (a fancy way of saying I help organise ensuring there is enough money to restock the beer fridges on Friday) I'm tasked with ensuring people are happy to come back. It's been easy. The main issues people have are that they won't come back if there is mask wearing required in office or social distancing required. We've pushed our reopening schedule back to August so we can be sure that neither of these are required.
Not a single person took issue with sharing vaccine status to ensure we can operate a full capacity office and we're expecting around 90% of people to return to in office working for 4 or 5 days per week. That number is much higher than we expected. We've also essentially said no to permanent remote working, only two people have had it approved and both have got long term family situations and they've been granted it on compassionate grounds. We're also not allowing any overseas remote working due to data concerns.
This is a predominantly under 50s office in Liverpool Street and we're a Japanese company so there is definitely some level of pushback against homeworking from senior management in Tokyo.
I get the sense a lot of people are now craving city life. Lockdown has gone on so long the charms of country walks and lavish gardens are starting to pall. It’s just a walk. It’s just a garden. It’s not a life.
Yep. In 12 months they will be returning in droves: all those Good Life people who thought they could hack it through an English winter under the pall of death-grey skies, incessant rain and mud, non-existent social life, far distant amenities: all combined with extremely pissy locals.
You'll be able to stand on a bridge over the A303 and watch them all limping back to the cities.
Then we'll have to endure a couple of years of the same Metropolitan twats writing about their experiences in the Saturday and Sunday newspapers.
Meanwhile, er, Leon, Thailand has just announced it's re-opening to the vaccinated international traveller on 01st October for six destinations providing direct entry (except Pattaya in which case you can go via BKK): Phuket, Krabi, Phangnga, Koh Samui, Chonburi (Pattaya), and Chiang Mai.
Yes, the first lockdown and then the summer were unreal. Perfect weather, for much of it. Everything was novel. It was so much better to be in the glorious countryside compared to eerie, locked down London. And even when we had some unlockdowning, london remained largely shut. No theatres. No cinemas. No clubs. Pubs demanding bookings. Yawn.
Then came lockdowns 2 and 3 and a long cold English winter. Gardens almost useless. Lonely freezing walks in fields. Hmm.
Friends of mine who moved out permanently last year are already sounding very nostalgic about bars and restaurants and urban life....
There's a huge variety of possibilities between ultra urban and ultra rural.
Outer suburbia is perhaps the best place in the spring - the bulbs and blossom of sizeable gardens plus the countryside within a short walk.
Depends on the spring. It’s quite sunny here in London today. But cold. 10C. Very different to last April. And it’s meant to get even colder next week. 7C maxima. That’s bloody winter again.
I’m so bored of cold walks in parks (or fields or beaches or anywhere)
I want my city back. And I want holidays in hot sun. Enough
Yep which is another thing. One crap British summer will soon put staycations on the back burner. We may be lucky but it doesn't take much to produce an absolute stinker on these isles.
A holiday in your own country is not a staycation.
It would be interesting to examine the mentality behind the misuse of the word staycation.
It implies that to be a 'proper' holiday you need international travel and being somewhere in your own country doesn't count.
Doubtless a mentality encouraged by the travel industry and eagerly taken up by the holiday obsessives,
"Holiday obsessives" - by which you mean people who like to have two weeks in the sun? Maybe somewhere a bit different to the UK? How very dare they.
No, people who talk endlessly about their previous and future holidays with the added feature during the last year of being more concerned about the risk covid was to their holidays than the risk covid was to either their health or employment.
Or people who say "I had a lovely week in Dorset but that was only a staycation".
Or people who rhapsodise about what they did on their week in Majorca even though there's nothing they couldn't do at home.
My parents fit into the last category - "You can go to a different restaurant every night or sit outside and have a beer" - there's all sorts of Protestant work ethic only-allowed-to-enjoy-yourself-on-holiday traditionalism involved there I suspect.
Strange, quite sad post.
And also incorrect. The islands the Ionian, Aegean and Adriatic seas have got by far the best beaches in Europe. Ours don't even come close for sand fineness, water temperature and cleanliness. Water temperature is really important for a great experience on the beach, ours tend to top out at around a pretty cold 18-20 degrees while the sea around those islands usually get to 28-30 degrees. The difference is huge and worth the expense of going there.
Plus the food in Italy or Greece is not only better, it's about half the cost of what we get here in our coastal towns. Same as hotels and villas, we're going to the Pembroke coast and our cottage works out to about £450 per night for four of us, in southern Italy or a Greek island we'd get an absolute palace for €500 per night.
Holidaying in the UK is fine, and I don't take issue with anyone that does it. However, to say it offers the same as what you get southern Europe or SE Asia is ridiculous. UK holidays are about surfing, nature walks and pub lunches, Southern European holidays about beaches, wine on a terrace and a taste of the Mediterranean diet. They aren't comparable, though each are good in their own way.
People who rave about staycations and British holidays also tend to be quite wealthy. They can afford to go to the nicest bits of the country (which, as you say, are a lot pricier than many places in the Med) or they already have second homes. Moreover, this staycation will be just one holiday out of several (the others will happen abroad)
So if the staycation gets ruined by crap British weather, hey ho, we're off to the Algarve, the Cyclades, or Tuscany, in a few weeks, anyway. No drama
If you are not wealthy and you have just one precious family holiday a year, you want guaranteed sunshine, not rain. You can't take the risk. So you fly south. Of course you do. And good luck to you.
A friend of mine who has spent most of Covid alone in his flat told me the other day that the Plague has really brought home to him the human need for holidays: in the sense of Being Somewhere Else. It's a human craving. To escape the same four walls, the same streets and houses (however nice) and just Go Somewhere Else. He's surely right. It is innate. Homo sapiens is a nomadic species, a wandering hunter gatherer, and the urge to travel or move on, is probably in our DNA as Bruce Chatwin avers, so eloquently, in Songlines
Haven't most humans throughout history lived within thirty miles from where they were born ?
Do we have a craving for 'Somewhere Else' or do we have a craving for our own patch of land ?
Or is the answer somewhere in between ?
I'm wary of generalising about what other people want, but I think most people like a change now and then. Having a few days off at home like most of us are doing now is pleasant enough but not a Change. Whether going somewhere else in Britain is a change is a matter of taste and interest. I've zero interest in spending a hopliday in some other random place that doesn't happen to be home, but I wouldn't mind a post-pandemic week in London - others fancy sea, sun, museums or whatever. Without the desired element it feels completely pointless.
See now why Sturgeon was so crap in Leaders debate the other night.........
We were also informed last night, by a different source, that on Tuesday of this week, 30 March, officers visited the home of the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and her husband Peter Murrell in connection with their investigation, a few hours prior to the First Minister’s appearance on a BBC televised debate, at which some commentators remarked that she appeared tired and sub-par.
But when the party’s 2019 accounts were published they showed that the SNP had less than £100,000 in the bank at the end of that year, and total net assets of less than £272,000. The £600,000 from the fundraisers was nowhere to be found, and the then-party treasurer’s feeble insistence that it was “woven through” the accounts in some unspecified way satisfied only the most gullible.
This week Wings Over Scotland has been told that the matter is now officially under investigation by the police.
We have few concrete details but what we know is as follows. Wings has been given the following statement:
“On 25 March 2021 I phoned 101 to make a complaint and I received an incident number and an appointment at Barrhead Police Station.
I can confirm I then made a complaint to Police Scotland on Saturday 27th March 2021 at Barrhead Police Station, stating that following the resignation of three members of the Finance and Audit Committee of the SNP, having been refused access to the SNP accounts, I told the police that I believed that financial fraud may have occurred.
That same evening two members of the Financial Investigation Unit of Police Scotland came to my home and I gave them a formal statement under the incident number PS202103252082. In addition [REDACTED] gave donations towards the missing money and he is alleging in a civil case that this money was wrongly used. This is currently subject to a civil case at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.” https://wingsoverscotland.com/justice-stirring/#respond
I had read that and it does not look good but they are allegations
They are allegations at this stage for sure but the published accounts do not contain the money and they will not say where it is and their financial people on NEC all resigned a few weeks ago as Murrell would not show them the books and they would be held responsible.
Scottish Unison must be mental. Take the 4%, demand it for the staff south of the border, makes the Tories look like scrooge. Job done.
Isn't their job to get the best deal for their members? Why should they take the first offer from the government?
Give an inch and they'll ask for a mile.
Pretty much ensures opening offers should only ever be like the Westminster 1% proposal.
The 1% offer in England is such a stupid political misstep. Or it was until the Union responded with a 12.5% counter FFS. How does 12.5% work for any pay rise for any large body of staff? Its something out of the 1970s...
By the Nats? Yes of course, they believe all the other rubbish the SNP has fed them over the years.
LOL, that from numpties that worship Bozo
I don't worship Boris, I think he's an idiot. But I can see the cult-like behaviour of Nats towards Sturgeon, they are not much different from Kippers towards Farage.
So Tories are different , happy to ignore the lying and stealing etc and that is different from SNP. Selective indeed on who are cults.
They do, I had to have a yellow fever one when I went to Kenya a few years ago. Was a nightmare to dig it up as I had the yellow fever vaccine when I was a kid.
Ah.
I thought it was referring specifically to CV19 vaccination certificates.
They do, I had to have a yellow fever one when I went to Kenya a few years ago. Was a nightmare to dig it up as I had the yellow fever vaccine when I was a kid.
Most of us haven't been to African or Asian countries that require health certificates.
Interesting to see a number of cruise ship operators are developing a programme of British cruises for June to August.
The pattern, stated by P&O and now being followed by Princess, MSC and Royal Caribbean is to use 1-2 ships operating out of Southampton. The voyages are wither 3-4 day trips without a stop or up to 8 nights with a stop or two in the British Isles at places like Greenock, Kirkwall, Liverpool and Falmouth.
The cruises will be for UK citizens only and any one wishing to travel will have to show evidence of either being fully vaccinated or having a second vaccination appointment at time of booking. Unvaccinated passengers will have to show evidence of a negative test 72 hours before boarding and will be tested before boarding.
I suspect these will be very popular and will cover the period through the school summer holidays - I think the cruise operators are still hoping to be able to sail to Europe from September.
They'll be popular for exactly the amount of time it takes for one person onboard to be diagnosed with Covid, after which the whole ship and everyone on it will be quarantined in port (with passengers imprisoned in their tiny cabins) for at least three weeks. Oldies will think this is playtime for them, but sounds like a tremendous gamble to me.
Why would those who have already had two vaccinations need to be quarantined?
What happens at the moment if one person in a household tests positive for Covid and one of the others has been vaccinated? Are the vaccinated exempted from quarantine or does everybody still have to stay at home?
The answer:
While COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to reduce the likelihood of severe illness for those who have received them, we do not yet know for certain by how much they reduce the likelihood of a vaccinated person spreading COVID-19 to others. Therefore, even if a person has been vaccinated, there is still a risk they could catch COVID-19 and spread it to other people.
If someone in your household has symptoms of COVID-19 or has received a positive test result, your household members must still self-isolate even if they have received one or more doses of COVID-19 vaccine. Following all the guidance on this page will reduce the risk of spreading infection and help to protect other people outside of your household.
So, it doesn't matter if you've had one, two or a billion vaccinations. If someone else in your household tests positive, you're locked in with them.
There is no reason to suppose, based on what happened on cruise ships in the first wave, that everyone aboard won't be imprisoned in panic the nanosecond that an outbreak is identified.
While we don't know the numbers for AZ yet, it appears that Pfizer is 90+% effective at preventing any measurable CV19 infection. This, therefore, seems excessively conservative. And it's worth noting that the CDC in the US has just removed this requirement.
Scottish Unison must be mental. Take the 4%, demand it for the staff south of the border, makes the Tories look like scrooge. Job done.
Isn't their job to get the best deal for their members? Why should they take the first offer from the government?
Give an inch and they'll ask for a mile.
Pretty much ensures opening offers should only ever be like the Westminster 1% proposal.
The 1% offer in England is such a stupid political misstep. Or it was until the Union responded with a 12.5% counter FFS. How does 12.5% work for any pay rise for any large body of staff? Its something out of the 1970s...
1% was an opening suggestion.
Sturgeon opening with 4% means why not demand 12.5%? If 4% is the opening offer then why not counter with 12.5% and "settle" for 8%?
1970s here we come, but then why should we be surprised when Sturgeon etc view everything from the 1980s onwards as something horrid to be reversed.
I don't think Keir Starmer is an Iain Duncan Smith. The latter is, in my view, a complete berk. I would say a Tim Nice-But-Dim except that I don't think he's very nice.
KS is a good man in lots of ways: very worthy. He's more of a John Smith than an IDS. I think John Smith would have beaten Major but not by the same landslide that the charismatic Tony Blair achieved. Of course, John Smith was Scottish (with a lovely brogue) and would have carried the north in a way that I'm afraid Starmer never will.
I fear for Sir Keir. Unless from here Boris makes a total balls-up, which is always possible with him, the next election is probably by now lost to Labour in my view.
Boris's equals in electoral ability, luck and genius are Thatcher and Blair. When their wheels came off they were unable to recover. The party (under Major and Blair respectively) won an election after the wheels had come off (1992 and 2005) but against weak opposition.
IMHO Boris is likely to try engineering an election as soon as he decently can, knowing that when his wheels come off he will not be an electoral asset.
The moment people start laughing at him rather than with him, and by some mysterious process his moral weaknesses become impediments rather than stories about blondes rather enjoyed by Mail and Sun readers, he can't recover.
A 2022/23 election could see him to 2027/8 and 8/9 years as PM + a shot at longer. Longer already then than Asquith, Wilson and Churchill.
Ah, but does Boris want to stay in Number 10 longer than Asquith, Wilson and Churchill? It was reported he had to be strongarmed into running for a second term as London Mayor. Of course, Boris had his eye on a larger prize but also was said to be bored by the minutiae of the day job.
By the Nats? Yes of course, they believe all the other rubbish the SNP has fed them over the years.
LOL, that from numpties that worship Bozo
I don't worship Boris, I think he's an idiot. But I can see the cult-like behaviour of Nats towards Sturgeon, they are not much different from Kippers towards Farage.
So Tories are different , happy to ignore the lying and stealing etc and that is different from SNP. Selective indeed on who are cults.
Whilst the header makes some good points it is also the case that the last year is one in which we have paid a seriously unusual amount of attention to what politicians had to say because it has been impacting on our lives way more than normal. SKS's problem is that he seems to have remarkably little to say. I accept that in a normal year that might have been less of a problem but there was also an opportunity there that he has completely failed to grasp.
I think he has been risk averse and taking too much notice of the polls showing big support for restrictions.
I agree. He needs to have a clear position and some sort of vision of what he wants. At different times he has hinted that the policy in respect of airports and foreign travel was not particularly wise (as opposed to stark raving bonkers), he is now hinting that he has some reservations about Covid Passports but it is ambiguous.
It's tough being in opposition when big things are happening and the decisions are all in the government. To be heard or noticed you need to be clear, coherent and unequivocal. Blair did that brilliantly in the aftermath of Black Wednesday and Vince Cable was good in the period after the GFC. SKS has been poor and people have noticed.
Blair did not become leader until nearly two years beyond Black Wednesday - ie Summer 1994.
For goodness sake, there is a net swing to Labour in the Red Wall, Labour has got a better leader in Scotland and Labour is no longer talked about as being disbanded.
Bearing in mind 2019 and I remember the discussion here, Starmer’s performance is good
The net swing is tiny and after Corbyn it would have been near impossible to go backward. I'd say his performance so far is about average. He still has many problems withing his party - and his juggling with the various factions makes his task very difficult. There is aslo a sense that he is afradi to reveal his own beliefs because he knows they may not be popular. Labour's real problem remains it's focus on identity politics - to many groups often pulling in different directions. In recent times only Tony Blair was able to solve that conundrum - and he has never been forgiven for it!
Lab really should be well clear at the moment, in mid term. But they are not.
But if Con go for domestic vaccine passports everyone will be voting Lab and CHB will be celebrating an election victory!
It is not midterm - and conditions remain far from normal.
Whilst the header makes some good points it is also the case that the last year is one in which we have paid a seriously unusual amount of attention to what politicians had to say because it has been impacting on our lives way more than normal. SKS's problem is that he seems to have remarkably little to say. I accept that in a normal year that might have been less of a problem but there was also an opportunity there that he has completely failed to grasp.
I think he has been risk averse and taking too much notice of the polls showing big support for restrictions.
I agree. He needs to have a clear position and some sort of vision of what he wants. At different times he has hinted that the policy in respect of airports and foreign travel was not particularly wise (as opposed to stark raving bonkers), he is now hinting that he has some reservations about Covid Passports but it is ambiguous.
It's tough being in opposition when big things are happening and the decisions are all in the government. To be heard or noticed you need to be clear, coherent and unequivocal. Blair did that brilliantly in the aftermath of Black Wednesday and Vince Cable was good in the period after the GFC. SKS has been poor and people have noticed.
Blair did not become leader until nearly two years beyond Black Wednesday - ie Summer 1994.
It was positively yesterday compared to the timescales you are usually interested in.
They do, I had to have a yellow fever one when I went to Kenya a few years ago. Was a nightmare to dig it up as I had the yellow fever vaccine when I was a kid.
Had to get yellow fever to go all sorts of places as a kid. Lost that one, got another to do Latin America in 1990. Then had to get another in 2018 to get a Congo visa to go work the Ebola outbreak, as I had no idea where my 1990 certificate was. As it turns out, the first wave of the outbreak snuffed out before I got my visa, so the trip was called off. Just as well - that is when they started killing health officials working the outbreak.
Google to recall all staff to in office work with only a maximum of 14 defined WFH days allowed per year or as agreed by management.
So dies the dream of lockdown fanatics that companies will shift to a new working pattern. The rest of the tech industry will follow Google's lead and where tech goes, banking will also follow and one by one all of the other industries will fall in line.
Rishi was right all the way back in May of last year when he said remote workers and majority WFH types would find their careers curtailed.
In other news we've got the full result of our office survey back. As part of the London office culture committee (a fancy way of saying I help organise ensuring there is enough money to restock the beer fridges on Friday) I'm tasked with ensuring people are happy to come back. It's been easy. The main issues people have are that they won't come back if there is mask wearing required in office or social distancing required. We've pushed our reopening schedule back to August so we can be sure that neither of these are required.
Not a single person took issue with sharing vaccine status to ensure we can operate a full capacity office and we're expecting around 90% of people to return to in office working for 4 or 5 days per week. That number is much higher than we expected. We've also essentially said no to permanent remote working, only two people have had it approved and both have got long term family situations and they've been granted it on compassionate grounds. We're also not allowing any overseas remote working due to data concerns.
This is a predominantly under 50s office in Liverpool Street and we're a Japanese company so there is definitely some level of pushback against homeworking from senior management in Tokyo.
I get the sense a lot of people are now craving city life. Lockdown has gone on so long the charms of country walks and lavish gardens are starting to pall. It’s just a walk. It’s just a garden. It’s not a life.
Yep. In 12 months they will be returning in droves: all those Good Life people who thought they could hack it through an English winter under the pall of death-grey skies, incessant rain and mud, non-existent social life, far distant amenities: all combined with extremely pissy locals.
You'll be able to stand on a bridge over the A303 and watch them all limping back to the cities.
Then we'll have to endure a couple of years of the same Metropolitan twats writing about their experiences in the Saturday and Sunday newspapers.
Meanwhile, er, Leon, Thailand has just announced it's re-opening to the vaccinated international traveller on 01st October for six destinations providing direct entry (except Pattaya in which case you can go via BKK): Phuket, Krabi, Phangnga, Koh Samui, Chonburi (Pattaya), and Chiang Mai.
Yes, the first lockdown and then the summer were unreal. Perfect weather, for much of it. Everything was novel. It was so much better to be in the glorious countryside compared to eerie, locked down London. And even when we had some unlockdowning, london remained largely shut. No theatres. No cinemas. No clubs. Pubs demanding bookings. Yawn.
Then came lockdowns 2 and 3 and a long cold English winter. Gardens almost useless. Lonely freezing walks in fields. Hmm.
Friends of mine who moved out permanently last year are already sounding very nostalgic about bars and restaurants and urban life....
There's a huge variety of possibilities between ultra urban and ultra rural.
Outer suburbia is perhaps the best place in the spring - the bulbs and blossom of sizeable gardens plus the countryside within a short walk.
Depends on the spring. It’s quite sunny here in London today. But cold. 10C. Very different to last April. And it’s meant to get even colder next week. 7C maxima. That’s bloody winter again.
I’m so bored of cold walks in parks (or fields or beaches or anywhere)
I want my city back. And I want holidays in hot sun. Enough
Yep which is another thing. One crap British summer will soon put staycations on the back burner. We may be lucky but it doesn't take much to produce an absolute stinker on these isles.
A holiday in your own country is not a staycation.
It would be interesting to examine the mentality behind the misuse of the word staycation.
It implies that to be a 'proper' holiday you need international travel and being somewhere in your own country doesn't count.
Doubtless a mentality encouraged by the travel industry and eagerly taken up by the holiday obsessives,
"Holiday obsessives" - by which you mean people who like to have two weeks in the sun? Maybe somewhere a bit different to the UK? How very dare they.
No, people who talk endlessly about their previous and future holidays with the added feature during the last year of being more concerned about the risk covid was to their holidays than the risk covid was to either their health or employment.
Or people who say "I had a lovely week in Dorset but that was only a staycation".
Or people who rhapsodise about what they did on their week in Majorca even though there's nothing they couldn't do at home.
My parents fit into the last category - "You can go to a different restaurant every night or sit outside and have a beer" - there's all sorts of Protestant work ethic only-allowed-to-enjoy-yourself-on-holiday traditionalism involved there I suspect.
Strange, quite sad post.
No, I want people to get the maximum pleasure from life.
And I think that should be a 52 week lifestyle not a concentration on a week or two.
Holidays can be good, travel can be good.
But if they become the sole focus then that seems sad to me.
Why not let people figure out for themselves what gives them happy, satisfied lives?
They will and they do.
But how did the whole conversation start ?
People bewailing the UK weather and the misuse of the word staycation.
And if you want to do a little bit more amateur psychology you can consider why I get bored by people talking about their week in Majorca but enjoy reading SeanT style travelogues (although the food he used to describe on them usually seemed overpriced and pretentious).
It seemed to get quite proscriptive quite soon in terms of a hierarchy of holiday needs.
Edit: if it was just a lit crit thing then we don't have an argument.
Another deluded halfwitted Little Englander Scotch expert crawls out from under his rock.
I try to be polite here, but you do temp me to abandon that. I was born in Greenock and live nearby. Want to test my local knowledge to see if I'm 'Scotch' enough, Malc?
By the Nats? Yes of course, they believe all the other rubbish the SNP has fed them over the years.
LOL, that from numpties that worship Bozo
I don't worship Boris, I think he's an idiot. But I can see the cult-like behaviour of Nats towards Sturgeon, they are not much different from Kippers towards Farage.
So Tories are different , happy to ignore the lying and stealing etc and that is different from SNP. Selective indeed on who are cults.
No, the big difference between the mainstream parties and the ones that are cult-like is how much the members question or oppose the leadership. The likes of Johnson and Starmer get much more criticism from their party members and parliamentarians than the likes of a Farage or Sturgeon do, or for that matter Salmond before her. It's probably due to the nature of their politics, that is they are essentially single issue parties with an actionable goal that will solve all problems in the view of the membership. They are quite different from the mainstream UK parties in that regard.
Interesting to see a number of cruise ship operators are developing a programme of British cruises for June to August.
The pattern, stated by P&O and now being followed by Princess, MSC and Royal Caribbean is to use 1-2 ships operating out of Southampton. The voyages are wither 3-4 day trips without a stop or up to 8 nights with a stop or two in the British Isles at places like Greenock, Kirkwall, Liverpool and Falmouth.
The cruises will be for UK citizens only and any one wishing to travel will have to show evidence of either being fully vaccinated or having a second vaccination appointment at time of booking. Unvaccinated passengers will have to show evidence of a negative test 72 hours before boarding and will be tested before boarding.
I suspect these will be very popular and will cover the period through the school summer holidays - I think the cruise operators are still hoping to be able to sail to Europe from September.
They'll be popular for exactly the amount of time it takes for one person onboard to be diagnosed with Covid, after which the whole ship and everyone on it will be quarantined in port (with passengers imprisoned in their tiny cabins) for at least three weeks. Oldies will think this is playtime for them, but sounds like a tremendous gamble to me.
Why would those who have already had two vaccinations need to be quarantined?
What happens at the moment if one person in a household tests positive for Covid and one of the others has been vaccinated? Are the vaccinated exempted from quarantine or does everybody still have to stay at home?
The answer:
While COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to reduce the likelihood of severe illness for those who have received them, we do not yet know for certain by how much they reduce the likelihood of a vaccinated person spreading COVID-19 to others. Therefore, even if a person has been vaccinated, there is still a risk they could catch COVID-19 and spread it to other people.
If someone in your household has symptoms of COVID-19 or has received a positive test result, your household members must still self-isolate even if they have received one or more doses of COVID-19 vaccine. Following all the guidance on this page will reduce the risk of spreading infection and help to protect other people outside of your household.
So, it doesn't matter if you've had one, two or a billion vaccinations. If someone else in your household tests positive, you're locked in with them.
There is no reason to suppose, based on what happened on cruise ships in the first wave, that everyone aboard won't be imprisoned in panic the nanosecond that an outbreak is identified.
While we don't know the numbers for AZ yet, it appears that Pfizer is 90+% effective at preventing any measurable CV19 infection. This, therefore, seems excessively conservative. And it's worth noting that the CDC in the US has just removed this requirement.
Indeed, CDC has just cleared those fully vaccinated to travel.
So, why don't we stop implementing policies that jack house prices up?
No? Okay then, just watch London go further and further to Labour
The only way to stop house prices going up is to build more houses. It isn't rocket science.
Despite your perverse obsession with the insane notion that taxing buyers more makes buying easier.
I very rarely respond to you because you post utter crap but this is embarrassing, even for you. I recall when you suggested the solution to London living was to live outside and to commute in, you recommended I cycle in three and a half hours to Central. You know nothing, yet you rattle on like you live in London - you don't, it's obvious.
You were schooled last time about why the stamp duty cut is a disaster for housing and why it makes houses more expensive and therefore harder to obtain - but here you are again spouting nonsense.
The reason I don't respond to your posts is because you don't listen.
Now I will go back to ignoring you. Bye.
*A* solution to the cost housing in London is to live further out and commute in. I know people who live as far away as Derby who commute daily.
It might not be right for you - you value aspects of London life in the evenings - but it’s certainly a viable option.
(FWiW a stamp duty cut leaves the post tax cost of a house the same but rebalances between the house price and the tax elements. This makes it marginally easier to purchase as you can borrow against the value of the house but not to make a tax payment. But it’s unbelievable inefficient as a use of taxpayers money).
Indeed, CHB seems to have muddled up different ideas, conflating different points.
The point that had been made was that longer commutes require trains, but tend to have cheaper rents. Shorter commutes tend to mean more expensive rents, but enable alternatives like cycling. There's a balance.
The idea that people should cycle for 3.5 hours - that is an invention just of @CorrectHorseBattery 's imagination.
Someone said recently that Covid WFH restrictions were leading to falling rents for small flats in London and rising rents for houses in the commuter belt with rooms that could be used as home offices. Is this officially a thing?
Nobody should need to commute from three hours away - by bike as Philip once proposed - to get into London, unless they want to. The fact people are forced into it, is why the system is so broken.
House prices need to come down fast in London, young people are fucked buying until that happens.
I wonder if the idea could be planted in the minds of the voters north of the border that the Tory leadership secretly wanted Scottish independence to reduce subsidies from England then there would then be a big swing towards the union to stymie them?
there are no subsidies, we pay our way , the UK live on debt and try to pretend it is down to Scotland and halfwits like you believe it. Your village is looking for its idiot.
Per capita public expenditure, per capita GDP even if there is a margin of error show that funds are flowing into Scotland from the rest of the UK. They flow into some areas of England too and that is fine within sensible limits. Glad to have earned an insult. I really enjoy your posts they raise insults to a level of sublimity.
There was no squealing for the 40+ years when we were susidising the other way in huge numbers.
That was then and this is now and the SNP are proclaiming their green de-carbonisation credentials with the best of them.
Comments
I would not entertain a cruise before mid 2022 and of course if the ports visited are curtailed or restricted what is the point
Party or candidate polling at just 3% would certainly NOT qualify for most US election debates.
But then, not really sure if 3% is really accurate reflection of Alba potential for attracting list votes, on a 2nd-choice basis?
My guess is that THAT number is higher, including SNP supporters whose intention is to vote SNP on constituency side, and Alba on list side.
How much higher? Good question!
Do we have a craving for 'Somewhere Else' or do we have a craving for our own patch of land ?
Or is the answer somewhere in between ?
Whenever it happens there'll be disruption and it will take years to adjust. Just like Brexit.
But either its the right thing to do, or it isn't. If it is, then best to get on with it.
It might not be right for you - you value aspects of London life in the evenings - but it’s certainly a viable option.
(FWiW a stamp duty cut leaves the post tax cost of a house the same but rebalances between the house price and the tax elements. This makes it marginally easier to purchase as you can borrow against the value of the house but not to make a tax payment. But it’s unbelievable inefficient as a use of taxpayers money).
The point that had been made was that longer commutes require trains, but tend to have cheaper rents. Shorter commutes tend to mean more expensive rents, but enable alternatives like cycling. There's a balance.
The idea that people should cycle for 3.5 hours - that is an invention just of @CorrectHorseBattery 's imagination.
Not a bad deal Malc, but then you and I will never agree on independence so we must just agree to disagree
if they deny their privilege, no help is forthcoming
Critical Race Theory is pure poison
We were also informed last night, by a different source, that on Tuesday of this week, 30 March, officers visited the home of the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and her husband Peter Murrell in connection with their investigation, a few hours prior to the First Minister’s appearance on a BBC televised debate, at which some commentators remarked that she appeared tired and sub-par.
But when the party’s 2019 accounts were published they showed that the SNP had less than £100,000 in the bank at the end of that year, and total net assets of less than £272,000. The £600,000 from the fundraisers was nowhere to be found, and the then-party treasurer’s feeble insistence that it was “woven through” the accounts in some unspecified way satisfied only the most gullible.
This week Wings Over Scotland has been told that the matter is now officially under investigation by the police.
We have few concrete details but what we know is as follows. Wings has been given the following statement:
“On 25 March 2021 I phoned 101 to make a complaint and I received an incident number and an appointment at Barrhead Police Station.
I can confirm I then made a complaint to Police Scotland on Saturday 27th March 2021 at Barrhead Police Station, stating that following the resignation of three members of the Finance and Audit Committee of the SNP, having been refused access to the SNP accounts, I told the police that I believed that financial fraud may have occurred.
That same evening two members of the Financial Investigation Unit of Police Scotland came to my home and I gave them a formal statement under the incident number PS202103252082. In addition [REDACTED] gave donations towards the missing money and he is alleging in a civil case that this money was wrongly used. This is currently subject to a civil case at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.”
https://wingsoverscotland.com/justice-stirring/#respond
https://www.britannica.com/place/Greenock
https://twitter.com/JacquiHeinrich/status/1378032633293201410
1. do marginalized white working class have some advantages over marginalized black or hispanic working class? Probably
2. does the advantage conferred by being white vary according to your social status? Almost certainly
3. (setting aside the capitalism jibe) are multiple factors involved in how racism manifests itself? Absolutely
Did we need a pseudo-scientific paper or critical race theory to know these things? No.
Pretty much ensures opening offers should only ever be like the Westminster 1% proposal.
Vaccination certificates basically doing exist.
UK charity Oxfam says it has suspended two members of staff in the Democratic Republic of Congo over allegations of sexual exploitation and bullying.
The charity had only recently been allowed to start applying for government funding again, the Times reports.
Rotten to the core.
https://www.who.int/ihr/ports_airports/icvp/en/
The answer:
While COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to reduce the likelihood of severe illness for those who have received them, we do not yet know for certain by how much they reduce the likelihood of a vaccinated person spreading COVID-19 to others. Therefore, even if a person has been vaccinated, there is still a risk they could catch COVID-19 and spread it to other people.
If someone in your household has symptoms of COVID-19 or has received a positive test result, your household members must still self-isolate even if they have received one or more doses of COVID-19 vaccine. Following all the guidance on this page will reduce the risk of spreading infection and help to protect other people outside of your household.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-stay-at-home-guidance/stay-at-home-guidance-for-households-with-possible-coronavirus-covid-19-infection
So, it doesn't matter if you've had one, two or a billion vaccinations. If someone else in your household tests positive, you're locked in with them.
There is no reason to suppose, based on what happened on cruise ships in the first wave, that everyone aboard won't be imprisoned in panic the nanosecond that an outbreak is identified.
One day per fortnight to see colleagues for a chat will be enough for me.
That is all I had anyway, as I am based in a different office to the rest of the team.
One or two are also dotted about in other locations, so virtual working was already the norm for us.
After work socialising was maybe once every 3 months.
I might pop in to my base office if I want to print off a pile of drawings, otherwise there is just background noise and poor coffee.
I just passed a couple of Londoners in the quiet street of Islington. I'd guess they were something like Ethiopian by heritage - quite a foreign look. Anyway the male of the party said yeah about 5 times in my hearing, the lady must have contributed about a thousand words. My guess was mother and son. Anyway it always makes me smile when people who may appear a bit different are clearly not different at all.
Somewhere in Thucydides there's a quote like 'don't tell my wife' or the like. That's two thousand years and a huge cultural gap.
You can reverse the sexes in these examples, and it's still the same.
Days when you like the human race are good days.
I thought it was referring specifically to CV19 vaccination certificates.
Sturgeon opening with 4% means why not demand 12.5%? If 4% is the opening offer then why not counter with 12.5% and "settle" for 8%?
1970s here we come, but then why should we be surprised when Sturgeon etc view everything from the 1980s onwards as something horrid to be reversed.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/04/02/michel-barnier-says-au-revoir-brussels-parting-shot-ursula/
oh
From case data
From hospitalisation data
https://twitter.com/TheSun/status/1378020751194910720
Edit: if it was just a lit crit thing then we don't have an argument.
House prices need to come down fast in London, young people are fucked buying until that happens.
https://twitter.com/MediaGuido/status/1377989374873309184