Sobering. Even as the West painfully drags itself out of the third wave, big countries elsewhere are heading deeper into the darkness. The next wave (globally) might be the worst yet
Although it is presumably "possible" to reach it in the UK depending on how solid the protection is from single doses. Unless the point is that it is impossible without children.
Either way I think the Commission is making the mistake of promising things outside its control. The problem of antivax sentiment won’t be apparent initially while demand outstrips supply, but will be a big issue when they face pressure to open up with lots of unvaccinated people floating around.
While I think the EU won't get there until the beginning of September, he's not so very wrong.
Don't forget that (a) vaccine production is only growing, and (b) in about three months the US and the UK will be consuming close to zero doses. Plus, of course, an increasing proportion of available jabs will be single shot J&J ones.
Put those together, and it doesn't seem far fetched that the EU will be dosing 5m people a day come the summer. Three months of that, plus the fact that a lot of people will have already had it in the bloc, gets you there by the beginning of the Autumn.
I also think we're being a bit conservative here. More than half of UK adults have protection from at least one shot of the virus, and the most vulnerable have two. Plus there are going to be a lot of people, particularly in lower risk groups, that have already had it.
I'm no Great Barrington Declaration person, but I think you could remove lots of UK restrictions right now, especially if you prevented unvaccinated people from entering the country, without seeing cases spike.
The UK is in a very strong position, even compared to the US. The EU has 27 members to worry about and they don’t all have the same level of infrastructure to manage the rollout.
I agree with you re the US. Go look at the vaccination numbers for Alabama or Mississippi. Despite being open for all adults to get vaccinated, and there being no shortage of vaccines in the US, you are seeing the numbers vaccinated in those states dropping week-over-week. It's a combination of sceptical African-Americans and QAnon covid deniers.
We could see, and I find this astonishing, vaccine take up in these states below 35%.
The point, though, remains that the major problem the EU has is lack of vaccines. Simply, they prioritized price per dose over getting the doses quickly, which was a monumental error. But it's also a short lived one.
If you removed restrictions, cases would increase. Current hospitalisation R is a bit below 1, remember. So we have a steady decline in hospitalisations but not a collapse to zero.
Which is why we have a push to get the over 50s done and then on to the 40s.
Once the 50s are done and the 40s are first vaccinated, hospitalisations should collapse as well.
As I have said many times before. I can't see where the economy goes post pandemic. I am not sure incumbency is the place to be, here or elsewhere.
We are also seeing the emergence of a new form of "Covid denier" or Covid denial.
This is a group who don't deny Covid in terms of it being a serious virus but do deny it has caused any changes in Britain, politically, socially, economically and culturally.
It's not that they refute Covid as having the potential to make change, rather they want to deny any change. So, everyone will go back to desks in offices, everyone will go back to shopping in the High Street and it will be as if the last 12 months or so have never happened. It is a conscious effort to turn the clock back to January 1st 2020.
It's a mental and cultural "reset", a desire to forget what has happened and a frenetic return to what was.
Oddly enough, it manifests among some surprising groups but it's primarily those who liked the life they had in its entirety and want that life back.
Forget about 1st January 2020, I'd like to turn the clock back to 1st January 1990.
1987 was surely the best year ever:
- the Cold War was winding down - Mrs Thatcher won a third term - Appetite for Destruction was released.
Although it is presumably "possible" to reach it in the UK depending on how solid the protection is from single doses. Unless the point is that it is impossible without children.
Either way I think the Commission is making the mistake of promising things outside its control. The problem of antivax sentiment won’t be apparent initially while demand outstrips supply, but will be a big issue when they face pressure to open up with lots of unvaccinated people floating around.
While I think the EU won't get there until the beginning of September, he's not so very wrong.
Don't forget that (a) vaccine production is only growing, and (b) in about three months the US and the UK will be consuming close to zero doses. Plus, of course, an increasing proportion of available jabs will be single shot J&J ones.
Put those together, and it doesn't seem far fetched that the EU will be dosing 5m people a day come the summer. Three months of that, plus the fact that a lot of people will have already had it in the bloc, gets you there by the beginning of the Autumn.
I also think we're being a bit conservative here. More than half of UK adults have protection from at least one shot of the virus, and the most vulnerable have two. Plus there are going to be a lot of people, particularly in lower risk groups, that have already had it.
I'm no Great Barrington Declaration person, but I think you could remove lots of UK restrictions right now, especially if you prevented unvaccinated people from entering the country, without seeing cases spike.
The UK is in a very strong position, even compared to the US. The EU has 27 members to worry about and they don’t all have the same level of infrastructure to manage the rollout.
I agree with you re the US. Go look at the vaccination numbers for Alabama or Mississippi. Despite being open for all adults to get vaccinated, and there being no shortage of vaccines in the US, you are seeing the numbers vaccinated in those states dropping week-over-week. It's a combination of sceptical African-Americans and QAnon covid deniers.
We could see, and I find this astonishing, vaccine take up in these states below 35%.
The point, though, remains that the major problem the EU has is lack of vaccines. Simply, they prioritized price per dose over getting the doses quickly, which was a monumental error. But it's also a short lived one.
If you removed restrictions, cases would increase. Current hospitalisation R is a bit below 1, remember. So we have a steady decline in hospitalisations but not a collapse to zero.
Which is why we have a push to get the over 50s done and then on to the 40s.
Once the 50s are done and the 40s are first vaccinated, hospitalisations should collapse as well.
Need to keep the Brazilian P1 variant out though - some suggestion that it is significantly more dangerous for younger age groups?
I think its not surprising, the back to the office people that like being in the office won't like it if they go back to the office and half the people are still working from home. They regard the office as their social life and wont tolerate the socialising being cut and will try their best to argue everyone should be in the office because that makes them happy
Speaking as an introvert, the only thing worse than an extrovert is a frustrated extrovert.
After a year of forced introversion, the frustrated extroverts now want to do everything, go everywhere and see everyone seemingly at the same time.
After a year of starvation, they want to gorge on life - pointing out you don't feed a starving man a banquet cuts very little ice.
Sobering. Even as the West painfully drags itself out of the third wave, big countries elsewhere are heading deeper into the darkness. The next wave (globally) might be the worst yet
We have vaccines which has helped keep the Kent variant under control. Those countries don't, other than India, but the organisation in India is very poor from speaking to family over there.
As I have said many times before. I can't see where the economy goes post pandemic. I am not sure incumbency is the place to be, here or elsewhere.
We are also seeing the emergence of a new form of "Covid denier" or Covid denial.
This is a group who don't deny Covid in terms of it being a serious virus but do deny it has caused any changes in Britain, politically, socially, economically and culturally.
It's not that they refute Covid as having the potential to make change, rather they want to deny any change. So, everyone will go back to desks in offices, everyone will go back to shopping in the High Street and it will be as if the last 12 months or so have never happened. It is a conscious effort to turn the clock back to January 1st 2020.
It's a mental and cultural "reset", a desire to forget what has happened and a frenetic return to what was.
Oddly enough, it manifests among some surprising groups but it's primarily those who liked the life they had in its entirety and want that life back.
I think there is a middle ground of (under this classification) "Covid sceptics", who whilst not denying that change is coming, are either sceptical about the extent of it, or at least believe that in many areas those who are drawing lessons for their businesses etc for the future based on the extra-ordinary circumstances of the pandemic are possibly making serious mistakes. For example retailers with significant high street presence pivoting to a level of online market presence that may significantly dent their future brand recognition. And in many cases will change their terms of competition with the likes of Amazon that they are bound to lose. Or office based industries drawing conclusions about the attraction of home working which may work a lot better for first generation home workers in established teams, but may bode ill for future turnover and developments in their service delivery etc etc.
There are other WFH implications that most companies have probably let slide in the special circumstances of the pandemic but that will need to be addressed. Should there be a H&S inspection of your home office? Are you allowed to smoke or drink there? Will the firm need to pay for your Herman Miller office chair, laptop and printer?
What about cybersecurity? My global megacorp employers provided locked-down laptops to which external drives could not be added, and which regulated access to internal systems. For the average WFH droids on their own laptops, who else is watching their zoom calls and capturing their keystrokes? Are they downloading confidential documents or even printing them and then sending them to landfill as they have no shredder?
And when I say average WFH droids, I'm including Cabinet ministers, if you recall the screenshots of their first remote Cabinet meetings. The much vaunted National Cyber-Security Centre must have been on holiday that week.
Remote GP consultations? How do you know your GP's teenage son is not looking over mummy's shoulder as you offer up your breasts to the webcam? Mutatis mutandis for legal discussions.
Picking up on the earlier vaccines work aren't we great look at us everyone. And as written about in the NYT.
I bloody well hope they do work but for the past four months we have been and continue to be in severe lockdown.
That is what has worked. Schools back and no uptick in cases is hugely encouraging but we are far from sure about the ultimate outcome.
Which is presumably why the govt is cacking itself with vaccine passports.
Not doom mongering just pointing out logical flaws in the we got it right narrative.
Hopefully someone like @Malmesbury might come along in a little while to offer more in-depth reassurance, but AIUI the proportionate decline in cases, hospitalisations and deaths amongst the older age groups has been outstripping that in the younger ones for up to a couple of months now - and those declines have occurred sequentially in line with the order of vaccination (i.e. first amongst the over 80s, then the over 70s, and so on.) Lockdown has done some of the heavy lifting but effects like those and the current extremely low Covid death rate (this time not occuring in late Summer after months of fine weather) would also seem to have a significant vaccine effect component.
Certainly if vaccine passports were a response to some desperate need to keep suppressing what would otherwise be a rampant disease, then they'd be contemplating either enforcing them for virtually everything or keeping us stuck in lockdown. But they aren't, of course. They're an excuse to build an electronic ID card system.
The issue is this
CFR looks increasingly good
With cases, the young are doing more and more of the coughing
Admissions are heading down, but haven't collapsed (the curve down at the end of the graph is Bank Holiday Effect)
But while decreasing, the elderly are still doing much of the dying
So while things look good - how much is vaccine, and how much the lockdown? The way to know for sure would be separate data for vaccinated and unvaccinated - but we don't have that publicly available yet.
Sobering. Even as the West painfully drags itself out of the third wave, big countries elsewhere are heading deeper into the darkness. The next wave (globally) might be the worst yet
We have vaccines which has helped keep the Kent variant under control. Those countries don't, other than India, but the organisation in India is very poor from speaking to family over there.
Yes, I fear the 3rd/4th wave will hit the developing world very hard, right now, and vaccines won't arrive in time to save them. Brazil may be just the first horror show of many. Hope I am wrong, obvs
One question occurs to me. Is the turn away from Labour in Wales greater or less than in comparable areas of England?
I think it depends to a great extent on which part of Wales you’re referring to. It’s small, but it’s not homogenous. In the Valleys, it’s less. Elsewhere, my instinct is it’s much greater. Therefore, overall it’s about the same given 75% of the population live in a triangle from Swansea to Merthyr to Newport.
Edit - this is partly why Labour got more votes but fewer seats than in previous elections, of course.
Although it is presumably "possible" to reach it in the UK depending on how solid the protection is from single doses. Unless the point is that it is impossible without children.
Either way I think the Commission is making the mistake of promising things outside its control. The problem of antivax sentiment won’t be apparent initially while demand outstrips supply, but will be a big issue when they face pressure to open up with lots of unvaccinated people floating around.
While I think the EU won't get there until the beginning of September, he's not so very wrong.
Don't forget that (a) vaccine production is only growing, and (b) in about three months the US and the UK will be consuming close to zero doses. Plus, of course, an increasing proportion of available jabs will be single shot J&J ones.
Put those together, and it doesn't seem far fetched that the EU will be dosing 5m people a day come the summer. Three months of that, plus the fact that a lot of people will have already had it in the bloc, gets you there by the beginning of the Autumn.
I also think we're being a bit conservative here. More than half of UK adults have protection from at least one shot of the virus, and the most vulnerable have two. Plus there are going to be a lot of people, particularly in lower risk groups, that have already had it.
I'm no Great Barrington Declaration person, but I think you could remove lots of UK restrictions right now, especially if you prevented unvaccinated people from entering the country, without seeing cases spike.
The UK is in a very strong position, even compared to the US. The EU has 27 members to worry about and they don’t all have the same level of infrastructure to manage the rollout.
I agree with you re the US. Go look at the vaccination numbers for Alabama or Mississippi. Despite being open for all adults to get vaccinated, and there being no shortage of vaccines in the US, you are seeing the numbers vaccinated in those states dropping week-over-week. It's a combination of sceptical African-Americans and QAnon covid deniers.
We could see, and I find this astonishing, vaccine take up in these states below 35%.
The point, though, remains that the major problem the EU has is lack of vaccines. Simply, they prioritized price per dose over getting the doses quickly, which was a monumental error. But it's also a short lived one.
If you removed restrictions, cases would increase. Current hospitalisation R is a bit below 1, remember. So we have a steady decline in hospitalisations but not a collapse to zero.
Which is why we have a push to get the over 50s done and then on to the 40s.
Once the 50s are done and the 40s are first vaccinated, hospitalisations should collapse as well.
Need to keep the Brazilian P1 variant out though - some suggestion that it is significantly more dangerous for younger age groups?
As I have said many times before. I can't see where the economy goes post pandemic. I am not sure incumbency is the place to be, here or elsewhere.
We are also seeing the emergence of a new form of "Covid denier" or Covid denial.
This is a group who don't deny Covid in terms of it being a serious virus but do deny it has caused any changes in Britain, politically, socially, economically and culturally.
It's not that they refute Covid as having the potential to make change, rather they want to deny any change. So, everyone will go back to desks in offices, everyone will go back to shopping in the High Street and it will be as if the last 12 months or so have never happened. It is a conscious effort to turn the clock back to January 1st 2020.
It's a mental and cultural "reset", a desire to forget what has happened and a frenetic return to what was.
Oddly enough, it manifests among some surprising groups but it's primarily those who liked the life they had in its entirety and want that life back.
I think there is a middle ground of (under this classification) "Covid sceptics", who whilst not denying that change is coming, are either sceptical about the extent of it, or at least believe that in many areas those who are drawing lessons for their businesses etc for the future based on the extra-ordinary circumstances of the pandemic are possibly making serious mistakes. For example retailers with significant high street presence pivoting to a level of online market presence that may significantly dent their future brand recognition. And in many cases will change their terms of competition with the likes of Amazon that they are bound to lose. Or office based industries drawing conclusions about the attraction of home working which may work a lot better for first generation home workers in established teams, but may bode ill for future turnover and developments in their service delivery etc etc.
There are other WFH implications that most companies have probably let slide in the special circumstances of the pandemic but that will need to be addressed. Should there be a H&S inspection of your home office? Are you allowed to smoke or drink there? Will the firm need to pay for your Herman Miller office chair, laptop and printer?
What about cybersecurity? My global megacorp employers provided locked-down laptops to which external drives could not be added, and which regulated access to internal systems. For the average WFH droids on their own laptops, who else is watching their zoom calls and capturing their keystrokes? Are they downloading confidential documents or even printing them and then sending them to landfill as they have no shredder?
And when I say average WFH droids, I'm including Cabinet ministers, if you recall the screenshots of their first remote Cabinet meetings. The much vaunted National Cyber-Security Centre must have been on holiday that week.
Remote GP consultations? How do you know your GP's teenage son is not looking over mummy's shoulder as you offer up your breasts to the webcam? Mutatis mutandis for legal discussions.
My (public sector) employer is talking about moving to desk ratios of 3-10 (3 desks for every 10 members of staff). At that level it basically moves home working on some days of the week from being an option for those who find it attractive, to a compulsion that everyone has to follow. Of course some people simply don't have the facility to work from home. Which means "home working" becomes quite a broad definition meaning "anywhere not in the office". So public libraries, coffee houses, pubs? How much can an employer mandate what the employee chooses as their home environment?
As I have said many times before. I can't see where the economy goes post pandemic. I am not sure incumbency is the place to be, here or elsewhere.
We are also seeing the emergence of a new form of "Covid denier" or Covid denial.
This is a group who don't deny Covid in terms of it being a serious virus but do deny it has caused any changes in Britain, politically, socially, economically and culturally.
It's not that they refute Covid as having the potential to make change, rather they want to deny any change. So, everyone will go back to desks in offices, everyone will go back to shopping in the High Street and it will be as if the last 12 months or so have never happened. It is a conscious effort to turn the clock back to January 1st 2020.
It's a mental and cultural "reset", a desire to forget what has happened and a frenetic return to what was.
Oddly enough, it manifests among some surprising groups but it's primarily those who liked the life they had in its entirety and want that life back.
Forget about 1st January 2020, I'd like to turn the clock back to 1st January 1990.
1987 was surely the best year ever:
- the Cold War was winding down - Mrs Thatcher won a third term - Appetite for Destruction was released.
I was 12, I would literally give anything to be 12 again.
There's at least a hint of good government going on.
We sort of know that Boris wants to deliver great government. A couple of good things so far and a real shambles in many areas. He's not as daft as he seems, and perhaps, just perhaps he might start to deliver on his ambition.
As I have said many times before. I can't see where the economy goes post pandemic. I am not sure incumbency is the place to be, here or elsewhere.
We are also seeing the emergence of a new form of "Covid denier" or Covid denial.
This is a group who don't deny Covid in terms of it being a serious virus but do deny it has caused any changes in Britain, politically, socially, economically and culturally.
It's not that they refute Covid as having the potential to make change, rather they want to deny any change. So, everyone will go back to desks in offices, everyone will go back to shopping in the High Street and it will be as if the last 12 months or so have never happened. It is a conscious effort to turn the clock back to January 1st 2020.
It's a mental and cultural "reset", a desire to forget what has happened and a frenetic return to what was.
Oddly enough, it manifests among some surprising groups but it's primarily those who liked the life they had in its entirety and want that life back.
I think there is a middle ground of (under this classification) "Covid sceptics", who whilst not denying that change is coming, are either sceptical about the extent of it, or at least believe that in many areas those who are drawing lessons for their businesses etc for the future based on the extra-ordinary circumstances of the pandemic are possibly making serious mistakes. For example retailers with significant high street presence pivoting to a level of online market presence that may significantly dent their future brand recognition. And in many cases will change their terms of competition with the likes of Amazon that they are bound to lose. Or office based industries drawing conclusions about the attraction of home working which may work a lot better for first generation home workers in established teams, but may bode ill for future turnover and developments in their service delivery etc etc.
There are other WFH implications that most companies have probably let slide in the special circumstances of the pandemic but that will need to be addressed. Should there be a H&S inspection of your home office? Are you allowed to smoke or drink there? Will the firm need to pay for your Herman Miller office chair, laptop and printer?
What about cybersecurity? My global megacorp employers provided locked-down laptops to which external drives could not be added, and which regulated access to internal systems. For the average WFH droids on their own laptops, who else is watching their zoom calls and capturing their keystrokes? Are they downloading confidential documents or even printing them and then sending them to landfill as they have no shredder?
And when I say average WFH droids, I'm including Cabinet ministers, if you recall the screenshots of their first remote Cabinet meetings. The much vaunted National Cyber-Security Centre must have been on holiday that week.
Remote GP consultations? How do you know your GP's teenage son is not looking over mummy's shoulder as you offer up your breasts to the webcam? Mutatis mutandis for legal discussions.
Well for a start no one has ever visited my work space in the office to check h&s its all fill in a questionairre. I don't see that being any different for wfh.
Yes if working from home and in need of a suitable desk and chair they should be provided...their will be a glut from empty offices in any case.
Can't remember the last time I didn't get a laptop for work use and I havent worked for a megacorp since 97. Currently I work at home using the company laptop via vpn. It is also isolated from my home devices because its on a different subnet, company I work for has less than 150 employess so hardly a global megacorp
The return of Salmond could force these issues out into the open. The Salmondites have the advantage that they can argue the case for a new currency is at least more honest than the Sturgeonite fantasy that sterlingisation is merely a continuation of what we have now, which it absolutely is not.
Sturgeon then might finally be nudged into killing off sterlingisation. That just leaves defending the idea of a new currency being introduced within the period of the next parliament. Good luck making that case.
My (public sector) employer is talking about moving to desk ratios of 3-10 (3 desks for every 10 members of staff). At that level it basically moves home working on some days of the week from being an option for those who find it attractive, to a compulsion that everyone has to follow. Of course some people simply don't have the facility to work from home. Which means "home working" becomes quite a broad definition meaning "anywhere not in the office". So public libraries, coffee houses, pubs? How much can an employer mandate what the employee chooses as their home environment?
As far as this and other contributions are concerned - three observations:
1) Each organisation and each individual should carry out a proper Risk Assessment covering the suitability of the proposed Home Working environment from a security, ergonomic and health perspective. If the set-up at an employee's home doesn't meet the requirements of the organisation, then decisions have to be taken.
2) No one is suggesting Working from Home should be compulsory - conversely, some of the Covid Deniers are trying to force people back to desks in offices. If there are welfare or other reasons why an individual cannot or does not want to work from home, a suitable desk working environment in an office should be provided.
3) While I thought the WFH changes might lead to a collapse in the commercial property market, what I am seeing is more and more organisations looking to re-purpose or re-define existing space away from banks of desks (subject to above) toward a greater provision of networking, collaborative or meeting spaces to re-configure the office working experience. In other words, for the majority office attendance will be about collaborative working and networking while other work would be done at home or elsewhere.
Forcing people back to desks is as short-sighted and foolish as forcing people away from them. There is a balance - for each organisation and each employee that will be different.
Although not “recent months”, Priti Patel’s assertion that we could starve out the Irish if they were recalcitrant was a “keeper”.
That guy O'Brennan is weird. He's an EU academic, based in an EU country, he's Irish not British. Yet he is utterly obsessed with Britain - and not just Brexit.
About one tweet in four (of his Twitter output) is UK-related, usually in a way critical of the Tories/Boris or just the UK in general. Why? What's it got to do with him? The UK is out of the EU
Brexit has sent a certain kind of non-Briton mad, just as it has done inside Britain to Brits. See the New York Times for the same sentiment. Very peculiar
As I have said many times before. I can't see where the economy goes post pandemic. I am not sure incumbency is the place to be, here or elsewhere.
We are also seeing the emergence of a new form of "Covid denier" or Covid denial.
This is a group who don't deny Covid in terms of it being a serious virus but do deny it has caused any changes in Britain, politically, socially, economically and culturally.
It's not that they refute Covid as having the potential to make change, rather they want to deny any change. So, everyone will go back to desks in offices, everyone will go back to shopping in the High Street and it will be as if the last 12 months or so have never happened. It is a conscious effort to turn the clock back to January 1st 2020.
It's a mental and cultural "reset", a desire to forget what has happened and a frenetic return to what was.
Oddly enough, it manifests among some surprising groups but it's primarily those who liked the life they had in its entirety and want that life back.
I think there is a middle ground of (under this classification) "Covid sceptics", who whilst not denying that change is coming, are either sceptical about the extent of it, or at least believe that in many areas those who are drawing lessons for their businesses etc for the future based on the extra-ordinary circumstances of the pandemic are possibly making serious mistakes. For example retailers with significant high street presence pivoting to a level of online market presence that may significantly dent their future brand recognition. And in many cases will change their terms of competition with the likes of Amazon that they are bound to lose. Or office based industries drawing conclusions about the attraction of home working which may work a lot better for first generation home workers in established teams, but may bode ill for future turnover and developments in their service delivery etc etc.
There are other WFH implications that most companies have probably let slide in the special circumstances of the pandemic but that will need to be addressed. Should there be a H&S inspection of your home office? Are you allowed to smoke or drink there? Will the firm need to pay for your Herman Miller office chair, laptop and printer?
What about cybersecurity? My global megacorp employers provided locked-down laptops to which external drives could not be added, and which regulated access to internal systems. For the average WFH droids on their own laptops, who else is watching their zoom calls and capturing their keystrokes? Are they downloading confidential documents or even printing them and then sending them to landfill as they have no shredder?
And when I say average WFH droids, I'm including Cabinet ministers, if you recall the screenshots of their first remote Cabinet meetings. The much vaunted National Cyber-Security Centre must have been on holiday that week.
Remote GP consultations? How do you know your GP's teenage son is not looking over mummy's shoulder as you offer up your breasts to the webcam? Mutatis mutandis for legal discussions.
Well for a start no one has ever visited my work space in the office to check h&s its all fill in a questionairre. I don't see that being any different for wfh.
Yes if working from home and in need of a suitable desk and chair they should be provided...their will be a glut from empty offices in any case.
Can't remember the last time I didn't get a laptop for work use and I havent worked for a megacorp since 97. Currently I work at home using the company laptop via vpn. It is also isolated from my home devices because its on a different subnet, company I work for has less than 150 employess so hardly a global megacorp
There were organisations that were reasonably well set up for home working from day one. Others that weren't. Some very large organisations were clearly a disaster. Some pretty small ones did very well. My employer was OK, whether through luck or design. Had the pandemic come a year, or even six months earlier there would have been a major problem. But they had literally just completed a mass rollout of laptops and Microsoft teams etc weeks before we were all sent home. So at least the basics were in place.
It's an argument for never stagnating as an organisation and constantly driving change, particularly technological change, i suppose.
One question occurs to me. Is the turn away from Labour in Wales greater or less than in comparable areas of England?
I've used a helpful resource I just discovered on the parliament.uk website to compare results for Wales with those in North East England, which I thought would probably be the most appropriate English region to analyse in response to your question. Here's what I found in terms of Labour and Tory total vote shares for the last two general elections:
North East, 2017: Lab 55.4%, Con 34.4%, Lab lead: 21.0% North East, 2019: Lab 42.6%, Con 38.3%, Lab lead: 4.3%
Wales, 2017: Lab 48.9%, Con 33.6%, Lab lead: 15.3% Wales, 2019: Lab 40.9%, Con 36.1%, Lab lead: 4.8%
Thus the change in vote shares is a little less pronounced in Wales, although we must remember at this juncture that Wales also has the complicating factor of having one additional important political party that doesn't stand candidates elsewhere. If Plaid did not exist then it's probably not unreasonable to assume that the voting patterns of these two areas would be even more alike.
I have lived in Wales since 1986. Both my parents were first language Welsh speakers. The only Welsh people I have ever heard say boyo are the actors Windsor Davies and Richard Davies. Both presumably reading scripts written by English people.
You forgot about John Talfryn Thomas in Dad's Army.
As I have said many times before. I can't see where the economy goes post pandemic. I am not sure incumbency is the place to be, here or elsewhere.
We are also seeing the emergence of a new form of "Covid denier" or Covid denial.
This is a group who don't deny Covid in terms of it being a serious virus but do deny it has caused any changes in Britain, politically, socially, economically and culturally.
It's not that they refute Covid as having the potential to make change, rather they want to deny any change. So, everyone will go back to desks in offices, everyone will go back to shopping in the High Street and it will be as if the last 12 months or so have never happened. It is a conscious effort to turn the clock back to January 1st 2020.
It's a mental and cultural "reset", a desire to forget what has happened and a frenetic return to what was.
Oddly enough, it manifests among some surprising groups but it's primarily those who liked the life they had in its entirety and want that life back.
I think there is a middle ground of (under this classification) "Covid sceptics", who whilst not denying that change is coming, are either sceptical about the extent of it, or at least believe that in many areas those who are drawing lessons for their businesses etc for the future based on the extra-ordinary circumstances of the pandemic are possibly making serious mistakes. For example retailers with significant high street presence pivoting to a level of online market presence that may significantly dent their future brand recognition. And in many cases will change their terms of competition with the likes of Amazon that they are bound to lose. Or office based industries drawing conclusions about the attraction of home working which may work a lot better for first generation home workers in established teams, but may bode ill for future turnover and developments in their service delivery etc etc.
There are other WFH implications that most companies have probably let slide in the special circumstances of the pandemic but that will need to be addressed. Should there be a H&S inspection of your home office? Are you allowed to smoke or drink there? Will the firm need to pay for your Herman Miller office chair, laptop and printer?
What about cybersecurity? My global megacorp employers provided locked-down laptops to which external drives could not be added, and which regulated access to internal systems. For the average WFH droids on their own laptops, who else is watching their zoom calls and capturing their keystrokes? Are they downloading confidential documents or even printing them and then sending them to landfill as they have no shredder?
And when I say average WFH droids, I'm including Cabinet ministers, if you recall the screenshots of their first remote Cabinet meetings. The much vaunted National Cyber-Security Centre must have been on holiday that week.
Remote GP consultations? How do you know your GP's teenage son is not looking over mummy's shoulder as you offer up your breasts to the webcam? Mutatis mutandis for legal discussions.
Well for a start no one has ever visited my work space in the office to check h&s its all fill in a questionairre. I don't see that being any different for wfh.
Yes if working from home and in need of a suitable desk and chair they should be provided...their will be a glut from empty offices in any case.
Can't remember the last time I didn't get a laptop for work use and I havent worked for a megacorp since 97. Currently I work at home using the company laptop via vpn. It is also isolated from my home devices because its on a different subnet, company I work for has less than 150 employess so hardly a global megacorp
There were organisations that were reasonably well set up for home working from day one. Others that weren't. Some very large organisations were clearly a disaster. Some pretty small ones did very well. My employer was OK, whether through luck or design. Had the pandemic come a year, or even six months earlier there would have been a major problem. But they had literally just completed a mass rollout of laptops and Microsoft teams etc weeks before we were all sent home. So at least the basics were in place.
It's an argument for never stagnating as an organisation and constantly driving change, particularly technological change, i suppose.
Mine wasn't working from home was pretty much verboten before covid...want to work from home to recieve a delivery in the morning they still wanted you in the office in the afternoon. So we weren't prepared for it at all but as I said can't remember the last time I started work and the office machine wasn't a laptop
I have lived in Wales since 1986. Both my parents were first language Welsh speakers. The only Welsh people I have ever heard say boyo are the actors Windsor Davies and Richard Davies. Both presumably reading scripts written by English people.
You forgot about John Talfryn Thomas in Dad's Army.
I have lived in Wales since 1986. Both my parents were first language Welsh speakers. The only Welsh people I have ever heard say boyo are the actors Windsor Davies and Richard Davies. Both presumably reading scripts written by English people.
You forgot about John Talfryn Thomas in Dad's Army.
Sobering. Even as the West painfully drags itself out of the third wave, big countries elsewhere are heading deeper into the darkness. The next wave (globally) might be the worst yet
We have vaccines which has helped keep the Kent variant under control. Those countries don't, other than India, but the organisation in India is very poor from speaking to family over there.
Yes, I fear the 3rd/4th wave will hit the developing world very hard, right now, and vaccines won't arrive in time to save them. Brazil may be just the first horror show of many. Hope I am wrong, obvs
Although not “recent months”, Priti Patel’s assertion that we could starve out the Irish if they were recalcitrant was a “keeper”.
That guy O'Brennan is weird. He's an EU academic, based in an EU country, he's Irish not British. Yet he is utterly obsessed with Britain - and not just Brexit.
About one tweet in four (of his Twitter output) is UK-related, usually in a way critical of the Tories/Boris or just the UK in general. Why? What's it got to do with him? The UK is out of the EU
Brexit has sent a certain kind of non-Briton mad, just as it has done inside Britain to Brits. See the New York Times for the same sentiment. Very peculiar
He is at Maynooth Uni.
I paid a visit to Maynooth Uni just before GE2019. Every Maynooth academic I talked to --
1. thought Corbyn was going to win GE2019 easily,
2. thought Corbyn -- when he won -- would annul Brexit. When I pointed out Corbyn's statements on the EU, they simply replied that was a long time ago & people change.
I still remember their aghast & shocked look when they asked me what was going to happen, & I said the Tories would easily win with either a huge or super-huge majority.
There is no scientific reason for vaxports, proponents of them when asked always fail to come up with any reason dometic vaxports are ready. Its just another push for the "we need a national id card and tracking crowd"
I have lived in Wales since 1986. Both my parents were first language Welsh speakers. The only Welsh people I have ever heard say boyo are the actors Windsor Davies and Richard Davies. Both presumably reading scripts written by English people.
You forgot about John Talfryn Thomas in Dad's Army.
The other thing is, football fans are quite old. It's no longer a young man's game as the only people who can afford to go are those aged 40+. And we know take-up has been very good among those already offered a vaccine.
I have lived in Wales since 1986. Both my parents were first language Welsh speakers. The only Welsh people I have ever heard say boyo are the actors Windsor Davies and Richard Davies. Both presumably reading scripts written by English people.
You forgot about John Talfryn Thomas in Dad's Army.
Same scriptwriters, of course...
Nogood Boyo shall live forever more in Llaregub.
Llareggub.
You are right, Dylan Thomas used it in UMW.
His most dislikeable work.
And yet the one everyone knows (and seems to love).
The other thing is, football fans are quite old. It's no longer a young man's game as the only people who can afford to go are those aged 40+. And we know take-up has been very good among those already offered a vaccine.
That guy O'Brennan is weird. He's an EU academic, based in an EU country, he's Irish not British. Yet he is utterly obsessed with Britain - and not just Brexit.
About one tweet in four (of his Twitter output) is UK-related, usually in a way critical of the Tories/Boris or just the UK in general. Why? What's it got to do with him? The UK is out of the EU
Brexit has sent a certain kind of non-Briton mad, just as it has done inside Britain to Brits. See the New York Times for the same sentiment. Very peculiar
Whichever demon used to drive the maddest Kippers into a spittle-flecked rage has now possessed the Europhiles (williamglenn obviously excepted). I think we have decades of this new form of entertainment ahead of us.
So they're not paying any notice of the expert the other day arguing that such an approach could actually result in the opposite result to the intention? If people think they are being manipulated then they are more likely to become stubborn in their opposition to vaccination. And could actually tip people from the pro camp into the anti.
Although not “recent months”, Priti Patel’s assertion that we could starve out the Irish if they were recalcitrant was a “keeper”.
That guy O'Brennan is weird. He's an EU academic, based in an EU country, he's Irish not British. Yet he is utterly obsessed with Britain - and not just Brexit.
About one tweet in four (of his Twitter output) is UK-related, usually in a way critical of the Tories/Boris or just the UK in general. Why? What's it got to do with him? The UK is out of the EU
Brexit has sent a certain kind of non-Briton mad, just as it has done inside Britain to Brits. See the New York Times for the same sentiment. Very peculiar
He is at Maynooth Uni.
I paid a visit to Maynooth Uni just before GE2019. Every Maynooth academic I talked to --
1. thought Corbyn was going to win GE2019 easily,
2. thought Corbyn -- when he won -- would annul Brexit. When I pointed out Corbyn's statements on the EU, they simply replied that was a long time ago & people change.
I still remember their aghast & shocked look when they asked me what was going to happen, & I said the Tories would easily win with either a huge or super-huge majority.
Enlightening, thanks
I reckon one problem these people have - across the EU and the West in general - is that they all speak English so they are all exposed to a LOT of English-speaking British media and British social media (which tends to be quite high quality, in terms of clickbaitiness, provocativeness and general articulacy; EU media is by contrast much blander, and of course in more obscure languages). As that unnamed EU diplomat said of Ursula Von Der Leyen "the problem is she reads the Daily Mail too much"
So they all follow British politics and memes (a bit like the way we follow America)
Hence their over-interest and over-emphasis in UK arguments and debates, with the EU or elsewhere.
To be fair to Comedy Dave Keating, this is a problem he has identified. The UK looms too large in EU brains. Add in bizarrely destabilising concept of Brexit and you get something like a neurotic complex.
I have lived in Wales since 1986. Both my parents were first language Welsh speakers. The only Welsh people I have ever heard say boyo are the actors Windsor Davies and Richard Davies. Both presumably reading scripts written by English people.
You forgot about John Talfryn Thomas in Dad's Army.
Same scriptwriters, of course...
Nogood Boyo shall live forever more in Llaregub.
Llareggub.
You are right, Dylan Thomas used it in UMW.
His most dislikeable work.
And yet the one everyone knows (and seems to love).
I suspect Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night and The Force That through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower are as well known.
There are some fine bits to UMW (Captain Cat's soliloquy to the deceased Rosie), but it ends up a libel on the funny Welsh in their mad village,
One question occurs to me. Is the turn away from Labour in Wales greater or less than in comparable areas of England?
I've used a helpful resource I just discovered on the parliament.uk website to compare results for Wales with those in North East England, which I thought would probably be the most appropriate English region to analyse in response to your question. Here's what I found in terms of Labour and Tory total vote shares for the last two general elections:
North East, 2017: Lab 55.4%, Con 34.4%, Lab lead: 21.0% North East, 2019: Lab 42.6%, Con 38.3%, Lab lead: 4.3%
Wales, 2017: Lab 48.9%, Con 33.6%, Lab lead: 15.3% Wales, 2019: Lab 40.9%, Con 36.1%, Lab lead: 4.8%
Thus the change in vote shares is a little less pronounced in Wales, although we must remember at this juncture that Wales also has the complicating factor of having one additional important political party that doesn't stand candidates elsewhere. If Plaid did not exist then it's probably not unreasonable to assume that the voting patterns of these two areas would be even more alike.
Important caveat. The NE was the only region other than Scotland, to have a Lab to Con swing in 2017. Although tiny 0.1%.
Although not “recent months”, Priti Patel’s assertion that we could starve out the Irish if they were recalcitrant was a “keeper”.
That guy O'Brennan is weird. He's an EU academic, based in an EU country, he's Irish not British. Yet he is utterly obsessed with Britain - and not just Brexit.
About one tweet in four (of his Twitter output) is UK-related, usually in a way critical of the Tories/Boris or just the UK in general. Why? What's it got to do with him? The UK is out of the EU
Brexit has sent a certain kind of non-Briton mad, just as it has done inside Britain to Brits. See the New York Times for the same sentiment. Very peculiar
He is at Maynooth Uni.
I paid a visit to Maynooth Uni just before GE2019. Every Maynooth academic I talked to --
1. thought Corbyn was going to win GE2019 easily,
2. thought Corbyn -- when he won -- would annul Brexit. When I pointed out Corbyn's statements on the EU, they simply replied that was a long time ago & people change.
I still remember their aghast & shocked look when they asked me what was going to happen, & I said the Tories would easily win with either a huge or super-huge majority.
Re Maynooth: Sir Robert Peel would be rolling in his grave.
That's what most sensible folk appear to have concluded. It is not the stated position of the PM in a few statements over a period of months.
It really doesn't matter what Boris says, some huge businesses are moving to flexible working by default, and there's very little the government can do to stop it.
I see we are back, yet again, to the WFH, all-or-nothing, introvert vs extrovert, culture wars.
As usual, it won’t be one or the other for most people, but a hybrid. WFH is great for solitary tasks, in-person is better for collaborative working.
Therefore most employees will work a mixture, 3-5 days a fortnight at home, and the rest in offices or on site.
This was my feeling at first. Now I think its going to be far more back in the office.
Will be interesting to see. The big firms have already started mandating it; doesn't surprise me....
On the other hand i've heard that the Government have been giving away their office space like nobody's business. They've seriously limited their options already. Although i suppose it may be all part of the plan of shifting everything to the North. But how do you shift everything to the North if everyone's going to be spending half their time working from home!
This is what i mean about many organisations taking far reaching decisons on the basis of the unusual circumstances of the pandemic. Changes that might have taken many years have been accelerated. But they might also have committed to changes that would never have ever otherwise happened. Because they don't work.
Be interesting to see if polling still shows such a high level of agreement for vaxports and if so is this one of these things where it polls well, but among people who would never vote for the Tories, while pissing off the people who might?
I see we are back, yet again, to the WFH, all-or-nothing, introvert vs extrovert, culture wars.
As usual, it won’t be one or the other for most people, but a hybrid. WFH is great for solitary tasks, in-person is better for collaborative working.
Therefore most employees will work a mixture, 3-5 days a fortnight at home, and the rest in offices or on site.
This was my feeling at first. Now I think its going to be far more back in the office.
Will be interesting to see. The big firms have already started mandating it; doesn't surprise me....
We haven't had the argument about masks, yet. It's my red line. As long as they are mandated on public transport, I am not going to the office.
To be honest, i get that some people don't like it, but near universal mask wearing on public transport (especially the tube network) could well be the biggest public health improvement since the smoking ban. And would massively cut office sickness rates. Whether the government should mandate it is a separate debate, but it will be interesting to see how many people would do it voluntarily.
Although not “recent months”, Priti Patel’s assertion that we could starve out the Irish if they were recalcitrant was a “keeper”.
At the time she was a backbencher. Ursula von der Leyen actually tried to block the UK’s vaccine deliveries on a day when when over 1000 people died.
Who’s defending UdL?
The best that can be said for her is that she turns out well.
And she’s had an enormous number of children while building a political career which must require phenomenal powers of time management.
Oh, and Priti may have been a “backbencher” but is now holds the #4 position in the land. Her demented ravings, sadly, carry weight.
You won't like it much when she becomes PM then?
Priti Patel voted against Gay Marriage. In my opinion that tells me everything you need to know about her and what she would do if she ever became PM (God help us).
Interesting article. Following on from the Tories best performance in Wales in decades in 2019, I would expect Andrew RT Davies to lead the Tories to their best Senedd performance since 1999, in particular gaining Labour seats in North Wales as they did at the general election. I expect Plaid to make inroads on the list too.
However Labour's continued dominance in South Wales, which has the largest number of Welsh constituencies, should see it remain largest party
Be interesting to see if polling still shows such a high level of agreement for vaxports and if so is this one of these things where it polls well, but among people who would never vote for the Tories, while pissing off the people who might?
We need some polling that actually delves a bit more into the issues. At the moment it all starts with the basic assumption that the fundamental choice is between vaxports and not being able to resume otherwise 'normal' life.
Be interesting to see if polling still shows such a high level of agreement for vaxports and if so is this one of these things where it polls well, but among people who would never vote for the Tories, while pissing off the people who might?
We need some polling that actually delves a bit more into the issues. At the moment it all starts with the basic assumption that the fundamental choice is between vaxports and not being able to resume otherwise 'normal' life.
The anchor on Sky News introduced the story in precisely those terms. That somehow, there is no alternative if we want to get back to going to the theatre and to football.
On the subject of Hiraeth: I am no expert, but the Welsh language has some lovely concepts. I'm particularly fond of Gwlad (which as I understand it roughly translates as the land which one feels an emotional connection to as home) and Hiraeth, particularly in its sense as a longing for Gwlad. My own particular Gwlad is most of the North of England. For nine years I lived in Nottingham. It seems churlish to complain about being too far south when it was, what, fifty miles at most south of where I was born, but I felt Hiraeth often; and the pleaaure of arriving in my Gwlad was always tempered by the ache that it was a visit, and soon I would be leaving again. Eventually I moved back to Manchester. I remember arriving at Piccadilly station a few weeks aftwr moving, after a day at work; ten to six on a sunny September evening. There was a big screen at Piccadilly which was showing a weather map of the North of England roughly from Chester in the south west to Newcastle in the north east. Improbably, across the whole of this area the map showed nothing but sun. I felt a momentary pang of Hiraeth, before remembering that this was home once more; I had returned to my Gwlad and could put the ache of being away in the past.
I should emphasise that Nottingham was fine. It just wasn't Gwlad.
With apologies of I have misunderstood either concept!
I see we are back, yet again, to the WFH, all-or-nothing, introvert vs extrovert, culture wars.
As usual, it won’t be one or the other for most people, but a hybrid. WFH is great for solitary tasks, in-person is better for collaborative working.
Therefore most employees will work a mixture, 3-5 days a fortnight at home, and the rest in offices or on site.
This was my feeling at first. Now I think its going to be far more back in the office.
Will be interesting to see. The big firms have already started mandating it; doesn't surprise me....
We haven't had the argument about masks, yet. It's my red line. As long as they are mandated on public transport, I am not going to the office.
To be honest, i get that some people don't like it, but near universal mask wearing on public transport (especially the tube network) could well be the biggest public health improvement since the smoking ban. And would massively cut office sickness rates. Whether the government should mandate it is a separate debate, but it will be interesting to see how many people would do it voluntarily.
I suspect compulsory mask wearing on public transport will continue to be mandated beyond 21 June, through the rest of this year and into Spring 2022 minimum.
How well it will be complied with is a different story, the compliance on Transport for London buses and tubes is quite variable!
Be interesting to see if polling still shows such a high level of agreement for vaxports and if so is this one of these things where it polls well, but among people who would never vote for the Tories, while pissing off the people who might?
We need some polling that actually delves a bit more into the issues. At the moment it all starts with the basic assumption that the fundamental choice is between vaxports and not being able to resume otherwise 'normal' life.
Well also are they making the distinction between it being for your holdiays vs stuff in the UK...I don't know. I imagine people are much more comfortable with the idea of it being for foreign travel vs a night at the cinema.
Be interesting to see if polling still shows such a high level of agreement for vaxports and if so is this one of these things where it polls well, but among people who would never vote for the Tories, while pissing off the people who might?
We need some polling that actually delves a bit more into the issues. At the moment it all starts with the basic assumption that the fundamental choice is between vaxports and not being able to resume otherwise 'normal' life.
The anchor on Sky News introduced the story in precisely those terms. That somehow, there is no alternative if we want to get back to going to the theatre and to football.
Yep. Even though a month ago the government announced an unlocking roadmap concluding in the lifting of all restrictions on June 21st, without a vaccine passport in sight.
Although it is presumably "possible" to reach it in the UK depending on how solid the protection is from single doses. Unless the point is that it is impossible without children.
Either way I think the Commission is making the mistake of promising things outside its control. The problem of antivax sentiment won’t be apparent initially while demand outstrips supply, but will be a big issue when they face pressure to open up with lots of unvaccinated people floating around.
While I think the EU won't get there until the beginning of September, he's not so very wrong.
Don't forget that (a) vaccine production is only growing, and (b) in about three months the US and the UK will be consuming close to zero doses. Plus, of course, an increasing proportion of available jabs will be single shot J&J ones.
Put those together, and it doesn't seem far fetched that the EU will be dosing 5m people a day come the summer. Three months of that, plus the fact that a lot of people will have already had it in the bloc, gets you there by the beginning of the Autumn.
I also think we're being a bit conservative here. More than half of UK adults have protection from at least one shot of the virus, and the most vulnerable have two. Plus there are going to be a lot of people, particularly in lower risk groups, that have already had it.
I'm no Great Barrington Declaration person, but I think you could remove lots of UK restrictions right now, especially if you prevented unvaccinated people from entering the country, without seeing cases spike.
The UK is in a very strong position, even compared to the US. The EU has 27 members to worry about and they don’t all have the same level of infrastructure to manage the rollout.
I agree with you re the US. Go look at the vaccination numbers for Alabama or Mississippi. Despite being open for all adults to get vaccinated, and there being no shortage of vaccines in the US, you are seeing the numbers vaccinated in those states dropping week-over-week. It's a combination of sceptical African-Americans and QAnon covid deniers.
We could see, and I find this astonishing, vaccine take up in these states below 35%.
The point, though, remains that the major problem the EU has is lack of vaccines. Simply, they prioritized price per dose over getting the doses quickly, which was a monumental error. But it's also a short lived one.
If you removed restrictions, cases would increase. Current hospitalisation R is a bit below 1, remember. So we have a steady decline in hospitalisations but not a collapse to zero.
Which is why we have a push to get the over 50s done and then on to the 40s.
Once the 50s are done and the 40s are first vaccinated, hospitalisations should collapse as well.
1. You're looking at this through the rear view mirror. Firstly, the hospitalization R is based on cases three weeks ago (at least). Secondly, the AZ vaccine takes some time to be maximally effective. This means that - even if we removed all restrictions, which I'm not suggesting - then hospitalization R is going to keep falling for the next month or so, irrespective of what we do.
2. So what if the hospitalization rate ticks up a little? Given that the number of vaccinated people is only going in one direction, and any R above one would only be marginally above, then (frankly) so what?
I'm not suggesting getting rid of all restrictions, merely speeding up the place of removing them.
Although not “recent months”, Priti Patel’s assertion that we could starve out the Irish if they were recalcitrant was a “keeper”.
At the time she was a backbencher. Ursula von der Leyen actually tried to block the UK’s vaccine deliveries on a day when when over 1000 people died.
Who’s defending UdL?
The best that can be said for her is that she turns out well.
And she’s had an enormous number of children while building a political career which must require phenomenal powers of time management.
Oh, and Priti may have been a “backbencher” but is now holds the #4 position in the land. Her demented ravings, sadly, carry weight.
You won't like it much when she becomes PM then?
Priti Patel voted against Gay Marriage. In my opinion that tells me everything you need to know about her and what she would do she ever became PM (God help us).
She voted in a system whereby she accepts the decision of the majority. You'd have to ask her why she voted against, but it'd be a bad place indeed if we wanted to fail to embrace different views.
On the subject of Hiraeth: I am no expert, but the Welsh language has some lovely concepts. I'm particularly fond of Gwlad (which as I understand it roughly translates as the land which one feels an emotional connection to as home) and Hiraeth, particularly in its sense as a longing for Gwlad. My own particular Gwlad is most of the North of England. For nine years I lived in Nottingham. It seems churlish to complain about being too far south when it was, what, fifty miles at most south of where I was born, but I felt Hiraeth often; and the pleaaure of arriving in my Gwlad was always tempered by the ache that it was a visit, and soon I would be leaving again. Eventually I moved back to Manchester. I remember arriving at Piccadilly station a few weeks aftwr moving, after a day at work; ten to six on a sunny September evening. There was a big screen at Piccadilly which was showing a weather map of the North of England roughly from Chester in the south west to Newcastle in the north east. Improbably, across the whole of this area the map showed nothing but sun. I felt a momentary pang of Hiraeth, before remembering that this was home once more; I had returned to my Gwlad and could put the ache of being aw
I should emphasise that Nottingham was fine. It just wasn't Gwlad.
With apologies of I have misunderstood either concept!
is it possible to have a Hiraeth for a Gwlad where you have never lived?
I have experienced this in parts of east or southern Africa, the peculiar smell of the soil, around the dry heat of twilight, that ebbs away into marvellous darkness. It just feels right.
I guess you could argue this is a Hiraeth of the DNA. We evolved for so many 100,000s of years, on the plains and plateaux of east and south Africa. The human soul feels at home there
Yet I have also felt a Hiraeth in the Mediterranean, especially Greece. It churns some primordial yearning to come back. I don't get it in Spain or southern France or even Italy (lovely as they are). But in Greece, yes.
Strange
The only other place that evokes Hiraeth, for me, is London. Especially Regent's Park. Or Charlotte Street on a sunny day
Although not “recent months”, Priti Patel’s assertion that we could starve out the Irish if they were recalcitrant was a “keeper”.
At the time she was a backbencher. Ursula von der Leyen actually tried to block the UK’s vaccine deliveries on a day when when over 1000 people died.
Who’s defending UdL?
The best that can be said for her is that she turns out well.
And she’s had an enormous number of children while building a political career which must require phenomenal powers of time management.
Oh, and Priti may have been a “backbencher” but is now holds the #4 position in the land. Her demented ravings, sadly, carry weight.
You won't like it much when she becomes PM then?
Priti Patel voted against Gay Marriage. In my opinion that tells me everything you need to know about her and what she would do if she ever became PM (God help us).
More Tory MPs voted against gay marriage than for in 2013, it was the majority of LD and Labour MPs combined with the pro gay marriage minority of Tory MPs in the Coalition years which got it passed
I see we are back, yet again, to the WFH, all-or-nothing, introvert vs extrovert, culture wars.
As usual, it won’t be one or the other for most people, but a hybrid. WFH is great for solitary tasks, in-person is better for collaborative working.
Therefore most employees will work a mixture, 3-5 days a fortnight at home, and the rest in offices or on site.
This was my feeling at first. Now I think its going to be far more back in the office.
Will be interesting to see. The big firms have already started mandating it; doesn't surprise me....
We haven't had the argument about masks, yet. It's my red line. As long as they are mandated on public transport, I am not going to the office.
To be honest, i get that some people don't like it, but near universal mask wearing on public transport (especially the tube network) could well be the biggest public health improvement since the smoking ban. And would massively cut office sickness rates. Whether the government should mandate it is a separate debate, but it will be interesting to see how many people would do it voluntarily.
I'm not in London, but I am a regular bus user. Now I've got used to masks, I wouldn't object to wearing one on public transport. It would be a good idea especially if someone has a cold or cough.
I see we are back, yet again, to the WFH, all-or-nothing, introvert vs extrovert, culture wars.
As usual, it won’t be one or the other for most people, but a hybrid. WFH is great for solitary tasks, in-person is better for collaborative working.
Therefore most employees will work a mixture, 3-5 days a fortnight at home, and the rest in offices or on site.
This was my feeling at first. Now I think its going to be far more back in the office.
Will be interesting to see. The big firms have already started mandating it; doesn't surprise me....
We haven't had the argument about masks, yet. It's my red line. As long as they are mandated on public transport, I am not going to the office.
To be honest, i get that some people don't like it, but near universal mask wearing on public transport (especially the tube network) could well be the biggest public health improvement since the smoking ban. And would massively cut office sickness rates. Whether the government should mandate it is a separate debate, but it will be interesting to see how many people would do it voluntarily.
The best way to cut down workplace sickness rates would be to deal with the problem of presenteeism: we want to get away from a culture where folk feel obliged to turn up to work and spend the day hacking their germs up all over the place, regardless of whether some of them are caught by a flimsy mask or not.
If masks do have a place at the end of all of this, it is therefore as something that might be suggested for people with respiratory illnesses who are compelled to go out when they'd be better off staying at home (e.g. for grocery shopping or medical appointments.)
More broadly we want to move away from using them - that is, if there are some people who feel that they really want to wear them when they get on a train then let them, but I don't want us to find ourselves in a situation where the horrible things remain widespread and there is social pressure to keep using them. Going around with a piece of cloth wrapped round your face the whole time might be a choice that some conservative religious women want to make, but for wider society it's an uncomfortable, unnatural, onerous imposition that should be removed as soon as humanly possible.
Speaking more broadly, if, for arguments' sake, we were to be stuck with mask mandates again next Winter (say, if there's a panic about the accumulated effects of residual Covid infections and a major flu spike,) then I would put up with them on trains needed to get to places I wanted to go, because I would have to. However, I wouldn't visit a museum, or sit through a film, or a theatrical production if I was made to wear one the whole time. It would spoil the enjoyment so I wouldn't go.
Although it is presumably "possible" to reach it in the UK depending on how solid the protection is from single doses. Unless the point is that it is impossible without children.
Either way I think the Commission is making the mistake of promising things outside its control. The problem of antivax sentiment won’t be apparent initially while demand outstrips supply, but will be a big issue when they face pressure to open up with lots of unvaccinated people floating around.
While I think the EU won't get there until the beginning of September, he's not so very wrong.
Don't forget that (a) vaccine production is only growing, and (b) in about three months the US and the UK will be consuming close to zero doses. Plus, of course, an increasing proportion of available jabs will be single shot J&J ones.
Put those together, and it doesn't seem far fetched that the EU will be dosing 5m people a day come the summer. Three months of that, plus the fact that a lot of people will have already had it in the bloc, gets you there by the beginning of the Autumn.
I also think we're being a bit conservative here. More than half of UK adults have protection from at least one shot of the virus, and the most vulnerable have two. Plus there are going to be a lot of people, particularly in lower risk groups, that have already had it.
I'm no Great Barrington Declaration person, but I think you could remove lots of UK restrictions right now, especially if you prevented unvaccinated people from entering the country, without seeing cases spike.
The UK is in a very strong position, even compared to the US. The EU has 27 members to worry about and they don’t all have the same level of infrastructure to manage the rollout.
I agree with you re the US. Go look at the vaccination numbers for Alabama or Mississippi. Despite being open for all adults to get vaccinated, and there being no shortage of vaccines in the US, you are seeing the numbers vaccinated in those states dropping week-over-week. It's a combination of sceptical African-Americans and QAnon covid deniers.
We could see, and I find this astonishing, vaccine take up in these states below 35%.
The point, though, remains that the major problem the EU has is lack of vaccines. Simply, they prioritized price per dose over getting the doses quickly, which was a monumental error. But it's also a short lived one.
If you removed restrictions, cases would increase. Current hospitalisation R is a bit below 1, remember. So we have a steady decline in hospitalisations but not a collapse to zero.
Which is why we have a push to get the over 50s done and then on to the 40s.
Once the 50s are done and the 40s are first vaccinated, hospitalisations should collapse as well.
1. You're looking at this through the rear view mirror. Firstly, the hospitalization R is based on cases three weeks ago (at least). Secondly, the AZ vaccine takes some time to be maximally effective. This means that - even if we removed all restrictions, which I'm not suggesting - then hospitalization R is going to keep falling for the next month or so, irrespective of what we do.
2. So what if the hospitalization rate ticks up a little? Given that the number of vaccinated people is only going in one direction, and any R above one would only be marginally above, then (frankly) so what?
I'm not suggesting getting rid of all restrictions, merely speeding up the place of removing them.
For me, this is a really powerful representation of the likely impact both of removing restrictions and rolling out the vaccine on R. Since March 13th the actuals have continued to track this guy's projections very closely.
On the subject of Hiraeth: I am no expert, but the Welsh language has some lovely concepts. I'm particularly fond of Gwlad (which as I understand it roughly translates as the land which one feels an emotional connection to as home) and Hiraeth, particularly in its sense as a longing for Gwlad. My own particular Gwlad is most of the North of England. For nine years I lived in Nottingham. It seems churlish to complain about being too far south when it was, what, fifty miles at most south of where I was born, but I felt Hiraeth often; and the pleaaure of arriving in my Gwlad was always tempered by the ache that it was a visit, and soon I would be leaving again. Eventually I moved back to Manchester. I remember arriving at Piccadilly station a few weeks aftwr moving, after a day at work; ten to six on a sunny September evening. There was a big screen at Piccadilly which was showing a weather map of the North of England roughly from Chester in the south west to Newcastle in the north east. Improbably, across the whole of this area the map showed nothing but sun. I felt a momentary pang of Hiraeth, before remembering that this was home once more; I had returned to my Gwlad and could put the ache of being aw
I should emphasise that Nottingham was fine. It just wasn't Gwlad.
With apologies of I have misunderstood either concept!
is it possible to have a Hiraeth for a Gwlad where you have never lived?
I have experienced this in parts of east or southern Africa, the peculiar smell of the soil, around the dry heat of twilight, that ebbs away into marvellous darkness. It just feels right.
I guess you could argue this is a Hiraeth of the DNA. We evolved for so many 100,000s of years, on the plains and plateaux of east and south Africa. The human soul feels at home there
Yet I have also felt a Hiraeth in the Mediterranean, especially Greece. It churns some primordial yearning to come back. I don't get it in Spain or southern France or even Italy (lovely as they are). But in Greece, yes.
Strange
The only other place that evokes Hiraeth, for me, is London. Especially Regent's Park. Or Charlotte Street on a sunny day
I thought you were Cornish. I may be confusing you with someone else.
Although not “recent months”, Priti Patel’s assertion that we could starve out the Irish if they were recalcitrant was a “keeper”.
At the time she was a backbencher. Ursula von der Leyen actually tried to block the UK’s vaccine deliveries on a day when when over 1000 people died.
Who’s defending UdL?
The best that can be said for her is that she turns out well.
And she’s had an enormous number of children while building a political career which must require phenomenal powers of time management.
Oh, and Priti may have been a “backbencher” but is now holds the #4 position in the land. Her demented ravings, sadly, carry weight.
You won't like it much when she becomes PM then?
Priti Patel voted against Gay Marriage. In my opinion that tells me everything you need to know about her and what she would do if she ever became PM (God help us).
More Tory MPs voted against gay marriage than for in 2013, it was the majority of LD and Labour MPs combined with the pro gay marriage minority of Tory MPs in the Coalition years which got it passed
Yes. It is frankly amazing how quickly this has become uncontroversial. So much so, that those who voted against are regarded as beyond the Pale somehow. Shows how swiftly things can move on. And, potentially, how risky putting all eggs in a Culture War can be.
Although not “recent months”, Priti Patel’s assertion that we could starve out the Irish if they were recalcitrant was a “keeper”.
At the time she was a backbencher. Ursula von der Leyen actually tried to block the UK’s vaccine deliveries on a day when when over 1000 people died.
Who’s defending UdL?
The best that can be said for her is that she turns out well.
And she’s had an enormous number of children while building a political career which must require phenomenal powers of time management.
Oh, and Priti may have been a “backbencher” but is now holds the #4 position in the land. Her demented ravings, sadly, carry weight.
You won't like it much when she becomes PM then?
It’s hard to think of someone worse than Johnson. But Patel, I think, qualifies.
She’s clearly as thick as pig-shit, but has a sadistic sixth sense for what plays well with the “red tops”.
I think she'll do well.
Sure you do; I believe the French call it, “the English vice”.
I might be wrong of course in my expectation, but if you doubt my sincerity as to my expressed view then you're just plain wrong,
I thought better of you.
PS I still think better of you.
I don’t doubt your sincerity. I just doubt your sanity, or suspect you of masochistic tendencies. Or both.
Yeah well, sanity - who can say. Masochistic tendencies? Do explain.
Patel is an authoritarian, bullying bitch. But some guys like that.
If you say so.
Not to mention she was fired by May for freelancing her own dodgy foreign policy.
I'm not sure you can tell me where I said she was perfect.
I think she's really good, and I'd like to see her as next PM. I guess that's what matters.
I cannot see her taking over as PM as long as the Tories are in government, Sunak would almost certainly become PM if Boris went before the next general election.
If Boris lost the next election though I could see Patel as Ed Miliband to Sunak's David Miliband and becoming Leader of the Opposition to PM Starmer
Comments
https://twitter.com/EpsilonTheory/status/1378695127917559820?s=20
Which is why we have a push to get the over 50s done and then on to the 40s.
Once the 50s are done and the 40s are first vaccinated, hospitalisations should collapse as well.
- the Cold War was winding down
- Mrs Thatcher won a third term
- Appetite for Destruction was released.
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1378553377576136706
After a year of forced introversion, the frustrated extroverts now want to do everything, go everywhere and see everyone seemingly at the same time.
After a year of starvation, they want to gorge on life - pointing out you don't feed a starving man a banquet cuts very little ice.
If I am drunk the wine must be bloody strong. I’ve had one glass. And yet I’m staggering and giggling like I’m SeanT after happy hour.
What about cybersecurity? My global megacorp employers provided locked-down laptops to which external drives could not be added, and which regulated access to internal systems. For the average WFH droids on their own laptops, who else is watching their zoom calls and capturing their keystrokes? Are they downloading confidential documents or even printing them and then sending them to landfill as they have no shredder?
And when I say average WFH droids, I'm including Cabinet ministers, if you recall the screenshots of their first remote Cabinet meetings. The much vaunted National Cyber-Security Centre must have been on holiday that week.
Remote GP consultations? How do you know your GP's teenage son is not looking over mummy's shoulder as you offer up your breasts to the webcam? Mutatis mutandis for legal discussions.
One question occurs to me. Is the turn away from Labour in Wales greater or less than in comparable areas of England?
Edit - this is partly why Labour got more votes but fewer seats than in previous elections, of course.
https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1378784539884027908?s=20
One other note, NFL did daily testing rather than biosecure bubble, it failed miserably.
We sort of know that Boris wants to deliver great government. A couple of good things so far and a real shambles in many areas. He's not as daft as he seems, and perhaps, just perhaps he might start to deliver on his ambition.
Yes if working from home and in need of a suitable desk and chair they should be provided...their will be a glut from empty offices in any case.
Can't remember the last time I didn't get a laptop for work use and I havent worked for a megacorp since 97. Currently I work at home using the company laptop via vpn. It is also isolated from my home devices because its on a different subnet, company I work for has less than 150 employess so hardly a global megacorp
Sturgeon then might finally be nudged into killing off sterlingisation. That just leaves defending the idea of a new currency being introduced within the period of the next parliament. Good luck making that case.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/has-salmond-just-shattered-sturgeon-s-currency-delusion-
He needs to spend more time on PB, clearly.
A few commentators are one step away from Lance Corporal Jones declaring that they “don’t like it up ‘em”.
1) Each organisation and each individual should carry out a proper Risk Assessment covering the suitability of the proposed Home Working environment from a security, ergonomic and health perspective. If the set-up at an employee's home doesn't meet the requirements of the organisation, then decisions have to be taken.
2) No one is suggesting Working from Home should be compulsory - conversely, some of the Covid Deniers are trying to force people back to desks in offices. If there are welfare or other reasons why an individual cannot or does not want to work from home, a suitable desk working environment in an office should be provided.
3) While I thought the WFH changes might lead to a collapse in the commercial property market, what I am seeing is more and more organisations looking to re-purpose or re-define existing space away from banks of desks (subject to above) toward a greater provision of networking, collaborative or meeting spaces to re-configure the office working experience. In other words, for the majority office attendance will be about collaborative working and networking while other work would be done at home or elsewhere.
Forcing people back to desks is as short-sighted and foolish as forcing people away from them. There is a balance - for each organisation and each employee that will be different.
About one tweet in four (of his Twitter output) is UK-related, usually in a way critical of the Tories/Boris or just the UK in general. Why? What's it got to do with him? The UK is out of the EU
Brexit has sent a certain kind of non-Briton mad, just as it has done inside Britain to Brits. See the New York Times for the same sentiment. Very peculiar
It's an argument for never stagnating as an organisation and constantly driving change, particularly technological change, i suppose.
North East, 2017: Lab 55.4%, Con 34.4%, Lab lead: 21.0%
North East, 2019: Lab 42.6%, Con 38.3%, Lab lead: 4.3%
Wales, 2017: Lab 48.9%, Con 33.6%, Lab lead: 15.3%
Wales, 2019: Lab 40.9%, Con 36.1%, Lab lead: 4.8%
https://electionresults.parliament.uk/election/2019-12-12/Compare/Region/North East#1/Wales;
Thus the change in vote shares is a little less pronounced in Wales, although we must remember at this juncture that Wales also has the complicating factor of having one additional important political party that doesn't stand candidates elsewhere. If Plaid did not exist then it's probably not unreasonable to assume that the voting patterns of these two areas would be even more alike.
https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1378790052118069251
I paid a visit to Maynooth Uni just before GE2019. Every Maynooth academic I talked to --
1. thought Corbyn was going to win GE2019 easily,
2. thought Corbyn -- when he won -- would annul Brexit. When I pointed out Corbyn's statements on the EU, they simply replied that was a long time ago & people change.
I still remember their aghast & shocked look when they asked me what was going to happen, & I said the Tories would easily win with either a huge or super-huge majority.
You are right, Dylan Thomas used it in UMW.
His most dislikeable work.
The best that can be said for her is that she turns out well.
And she’s had an enormous number of children while building a political career which must require phenomenal powers of time management.
Oh, and Priti may have been a “backbencher” but is now holds the #4 position in the land. Her demented ravings, sadly, carry weight.
6K comments and rising under Gove's article. Most of them against and many v v angry that a conservative government is planning this.
I reckon one problem these people have - across the EU and the West in general - is that they all speak English so they are all exposed to a LOT of English-speaking British media and British social media (which tends to be quite high quality, in terms of clickbaitiness, provocativeness and general articulacy; EU media is by contrast much blander, and of course in more obscure languages). As that unnamed EU diplomat said of Ursula Von Der Leyen "the problem is she reads the Daily Mail too much"
So they all follow British politics and memes (a bit like the way we follow America)
Hence their over-interest and over-emphasis in UK arguments and debates, with the EU or elsewhere.
To be fair to Comedy Dave Keating, this is a problem he has identified. The UK looms too large in EU brains. Add in bizarrely destabilising concept of Brexit and you get something like a neurotic complex.
There are some fine bits to UMW (Captain Cat's soliloquy to the deceased Rosie), but it ends up a libel on the funny Welsh in their mad village,
She’s clearly as thick as pig-shit, but has a sadistic sixth sense for what plays well with the “red tops”.
As usual, it won’t be one or the other for most people, but a hybrid. WFH is great for solitary tasks, in-person is better for collaborative working.
Therefore most employees will work a mixture, 3-5 days a fortnight at home, and the rest in offices or on site.
It is not the stated position of the PM in a few statements over a period of months.
Will be interesting to see. The big firms have already started mandating it; doesn't surprise me....
I thought better of you.
PS I still think better of you.
This is what i mean about many organisations taking far reaching decisons on the basis of the unusual circumstances of the pandemic. Changes that might have taken many years have been accelerated. But they might also have committed to changes that would never have ever otherwise happened. Because they don't work.
I just doubt your sanity, or suspect you of masochistic tendencies. Or both.
The drastic change will see forecast highs of 17C in southern England on Easter Sunday drop to just 2C on Monday morning.
Sub-zero temperatures can be expected in parts of northern England, and the mercury could drop to -7C in some areas of Scotland.
I expect Plaid to make inroads on the list too.
However Labour's continued dominance in South Wales, which has the largest number of Welsh constituencies, should see it remain largest party
My own particular Gwlad is most of the North of England. For nine years I lived in Nottingham. It seems churlish to complain about being too far south when it was, what, fifty miles at most south of where I was born, but I felt Hiraeth often; and the pleaaure of arriving in my Gwlad was always tempered by the ache that it was a visit, and soon I would be leaving again.
Eventually I moved back to Manchester. I remember arriving at Piccadilly station a few weeks aftwr moving, after a day at work; ten to six on a sunny September evening. There was a big screen at Piccadilly which was showing a weather map of the North of England roughly from Chester in the south west to Newcastle in the north east. Improbably, across the whole of this area the map showed nothing but sun. I felt a momentary pang of Hiraeth, before remembering that this was home once more; I had returned to my Gwlad and could put the ache of being away in the past.
I should emphasise that Nottingham was fine. It just wasn't Gwlad.
With apologies of I have misunderstood either concept!
How well it will be complied with is a different story, the compliance on Transport for London buses and tubes is quite variable!
But some guys like that.
2. So what if the hospitalization rate ticks up a little? Given that the number of vaccinated people is only going in one direction, and any R above one would only be marginally above, then (frankly) so what?
I'm not suggesting getting rid of all restrictions, merely speeding up the place of removing them.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56634176
Sounds like government can kicking....no decision until May, after a review. Convenient way of U-turning?
I have experienced this in parts of east or southern Africa, the peculiar smell of the soil, around the dry heat of twilight, that ebbs away into marvellous darkness. It just feels right.
I guess you could argue this is a Hiraeth of the DNA. We evolved for so many 100,000s of years, on the plains and plateaux of east and south Africa. The human soul feels at home there
Yet I have also felt a Hiraeth in the Mediterranean, especially Greece. It churns some primordial yearning to come back. I don't get it in Spain or southern France or even Italy (lovely as they are). But in Greece, yes.
Strange
The only other place that evokes Hiraeth, for me, is London. Especially Regent's Park. Or Charlotte Street on a sunny day
Good evening, everyone.
If masks do have a place at the end of all of this, it is therefore as something that might be suggested for people with respiratory illnesses who are compelled to go out when they'd be better off staying at home (e.g. for grocery shopping or medical appointments.)
More broadly we want to move away from using them - that is, if there are some people who feel that they really want to wear them when they get on a train then let them, but I don't want us to find ourselves in a situation where the horrible things remain widespread and there is social pressure to keep using them. Going around with a piece of cloth wrapped round your face the whole time might be a choice that some conservative religious women want to make, but for wider society it's an uncomfortable, unnatural, onerous imposition that should be removed as soon as humanly possible.
Speaking more broadly, if, for arguments' sake, we were to be stuck with mask mandates again next Winter (say, if there's a panic about the accumulated effects of residual Covid infections and a major flu spike,) then I would put up with them on trains needed to get to places I wanted to go, because I would have to. However, I wouldn't visit a museum, or sit through a film, or a theatrical production if I was made to wear one the whole time. It would spoil the enjoyment so I wouldn't go.
https://twitter.com/goalprojection/status/1370682788496687106?s=20
I think she's really good, and I'd like to see her as next PM. I guess that's what matters.
https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1378803527615721481?s=19
I may be confusing you with someone else.
Shows how swiftly things can move on. And, potentially, how risky putting all eggs in a Culture War can be.
If Boris lost the next election though I could see Patel as Ed Miliband to Sunak's David Miliband and becoming Leader of the Opposition to PM Starmer