Curious that Ms Cyclefree thinks that having a venue entirely closed increases our liberty.
"Restrictions end 21 June" don't they? 🤔
Who would be closed and why?
As I patiently explained on the previous thread, vaccine passports are potentially beneficial in the scenario where vaccines are effective but not totally so, and take-up is high but not near-complete. In that scenario it might not be safe to allow all restrictions to be ended, and vaccine passports might allow venues to be open. Of course we can't currently know if we'll be in that scenario.
This really isn't hard to understand, so it's clear that those refusing to understand it do so because they don't want to.
To the extent that it can be recognised as a coherent, valid argument - which is highly debateable given that you are advocating for these schemes in certain scenarios but not in others where the risks are at least equal, if not greater, your argument could - if one so choose - could be applied to vast areas of public life. You are setting Covid above them all based on the deaths in the pandemic in the past, and not on a realistic assessment of the relative risks/deaths in the future.
You also present these Vaxport schemes as something which is almost cost free to the businesses implement them, when it is clear that unless restricted purely to those narrow groups of businesses that already impose restrictions on entry (and in a way that ensures 100% compliance) in the course of their operations this is clearly not true.
I think we need to look at the facts of the vaccination scheme and what justification a passport might have in this country, *for domestic use* rather than travel.
1. Vaccines in use in this country gave got over 90% efficacy against symptoms and over 99% efficacy against hospitalisation and almost 100% against death. 2. So far the uptake on vaccines is around 95% of people who have been offered it. 3. The people who are most likely to refuse are religious conservatives, mostly Muslim. 4. ONS surveys (a gold standard measure) show that younger people are as eager to be vaccinated as older people with 95% saying yes, they want it. Anecdotally I concur, literally all of my friends, cousins and colleagues are absolutely desperate to get vaccinated. 5. The vaccine passport system is being proposed for use in places such as cinemas, nightclubs and so on.
These are the actual facts, everything else is bullshit.
Can anyone explain how point 5 addresses the issue in point 3. How does a vaccine passport that targets places young people go help conservative Muslims take the vaccine. That's going to be the last group with low uptake.
Really not sure this is true. All the anti-vaxxers I know are under 30. Admittedly I don’t know many orthodox wahhabis but I believe my anecdata is supported by evidence. The under 30s are a real pool of anti-vaxxery
This is, presumably, one reason why HMG is considering vaxports for clubs and festivals. To nudge the hesitant young
Curious that Ms Cyclefree thinks that having a venue entirely closed increases our liberty.
"Restrictions end 21 June" don't they? 🤔
Who would be closed and why?
As I patiently explained on the previous thread, vaccine passports are potentially beneficial in the scenario where vaccines are effective but not totally so, and take-up is high but not near-complete. In that scenario it might not be safe to allow all restrictions to be ended, and vaccine passports might allow venues to be open. Of course we can't currently know if we'll be in that scenario.
This really isn't hard to understand, so it's clear that those refusing to understand it do so because they don't want to.
We either end restrictions or we don't. We either learn to live with this or we don't.
Some won't get vaccinated, that's on them and they bear the brunt of the risk for that.
If people don't want to mingle with those unvaccinated, then I have no problems with private companies choosing to open themselves to the vaccinated only and for those who don't want to mingle with the unvaccinated being patrons of those companies. That's their private choice. But the alternative to that in my eyes is private companies choosing to open themselves to everyone instead and customers of those venues going in knowing they could be mingling with the unvaccinated.
If the choice is closed or vaccine-only then that is coercion that is not choice and I want no part in that. That is utterly, utterly wrong and inexcusable as a matter of principle and practice.
I think we need to look at the facts of the vaccination scheme and what justification a passport might have in this country, *for domestic use* rather than travel.
1. Vaccines in use in this country gave got over 90% efficacy against symptoms and over 99% efficacy against hospitalisation and almost 100% against death. 2. So far the uptake on vaccines is around 95% of people who have been offered it. 3. The people who are most likely to refuse are religious conservatives, mostly Muslim. 4. ONS surveys (a gold standard measure) show that younger people are as eager to be vaccinated as older people with 95% saying yes, they want it. Anecdotally I concur, literally all of my friends, cousins and colleagues are absolutely desperate to get vaccinated. 5. The vaccine passport system is being proposed for use in places such as cinemas, nightclubs and so on.
These are the actual facts, everything else is bullshit.
Can anyone explain how point 5 addresses the issue in point 3. How does a vaccine passport that targets places young people go help conservative Muslims take the vaccine. That's going to be the last group with low uptake.
Vaccines will end the pandemic. I 100% agree with you. I just wish there was some more measured discussion surrounding variants.
Me too, they seem to be being used as a justification for these vaccine passports but in that scenario the information in them would be useless anyway and we'd almost certainly go into lockdown 3 while vaccines we're reformulated and rapidly rolled out under the new trial procedures.
Anyway, the chance of this happening seems remote. I don't see how these vaccines won't give a good level of immunity against all variants and we already have four companies rolling out specific boosters in August and September.
Curious that Ms Cyclefree thinks that having a venue entirely closed increases our liberty.
"Restrictions end 21 June" don't they? 🤔
Who would be closed and why?
As I patiently explained on the previous thread, vaccine passports are potentially beneficial in the scenario where vaccines are effective but not totally so, and take-up is high but not near-complete. In that scenario it might not be safe to allow all restrictions to be ended, and vaccine passports might allow venues to be open. Of course we can't currently know if we'll be in that scenario.
This really isn't hard to understand, so it's clear that those refusing to understand it do so because they don't want to.
We either end restrictions or we don't. We either learn to live with this or we don't.
Some won't get vaccinated, that's on them and they bear the brunt of the risk for that.
If people don't want to mingle with those unvaccinated, then I have no problems with private companies choosing to open themselves to the vaccinated only and for those who don't want to mingle with the unvaccinated being patrons of those companies. That's their private choice. But the alternative to that in my eyes is private companies choosing to open themselves to everyone instead and customers of those venues going in knowing they could be mingling with the unvaccinated.
If the choice is closed or vaccine-only then that is coercion that is not choice and I want no part in that. That is utterly, utterly wrong and inexcusable as a matter of principle and practice.
So you"d prefer the venue to stay closed, on principle. A curious principle, but fair enough.
Thank you Cyclefree. A few thoughts. Vaccine passports don’t seem to be something that Boris Johnson would personally favour, so who is pushing him? Priti Patel, Michael Gove or Sir Humphrey? Whereas I would assume that Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf will be jizzing themselves at the thought of their introduction. Papers please, Mr. Salmond.
“Willcock v Muckle” sounds very Private Eye, Have they used it?
@DavidL, the passports may not in themselves be a restriction of liberty. Their abuse by certain Police Officers and other jobsworths, e.g. in local councils, will be the cause of a potential restriction of liberty. Which brings us back to Willcock v Muckle.
Courts are currently shut to the public. In normal times if you want to go in you can but you have to go through a metal detector and your bag will be searched. With my pass I can go straight in. Is that a restriction of your liberty or a sensible precaution for the safety of all inside?
There is a lot of hysteria on here this morning, there really is. We live in a country where the government conspired to get someone locked up and nearly half the people are still going to vote for it, including you AIUI. And you claim to worry about the civil liberties of this?
It could be argued that not everyone who has to enter a Court chooses to do so, which is different to pubs and stadiums. I will be voting for the person who was conspired against, not the conspirers.
You’re be ignoring the great one’s entreaty to vote SNP in your constituency then? I’m beginning to think some of this supermajority stuff might be bullshit.
He can hardly vote for Alex on constituency TUD. Sturgeon does certainly seem against a su[permajority, desperately smearing in case she gets a real majority and is forced to actually do something other than procrastinate and blame Westminster , whilst Ollie does the book keeping.
Dunno Malc, I still don’t see what difference a supermajority makes to the fact that It’s down to BJ to grant an S30. I’m open to a consultative referendum run from Scotland but I don’t see how vague suggestions about civil disobedience or international pressure change things much.
I’d do a certain amount of nose holding to get rid of that useless dimwit Annie Wells from Holyrood, but certain diddies on Twitter telling me one minute that people should spoil their constituency ballot and then next minute saying I need to vote Alba for Indy aren’t doing a great job of persuading me.
If my SNP constituency MSP, who I fully support, is defeated, he is likely to be replaced by the chosen person from the SNP list, who received votes from 4% of the voting members, but has been allocated the top list place. If an Alba candidate gains a list place, it will probably be at the expense of Katy Clark (Lab) or Jamie Greene (Con), neither of whom I rate, or possibly Ross Grier (Green) who is even worse. The no.1 on the Alba list is Chris McEleny, whom I voted for as SNP Deputy Leader a few years ago. So an easy choice.
I think we need to look at the facts of the vaccination scheme and what justification a passport might have in this country, *for domestic use* rather than travel.
1. Vaccines in use in this country gave got over 90% efficacy against symptoms and over 99% efficacy against hospitalisation and almost 100% against death. 2. So far the uptake on vaccines is around 95% of people who have been offered it. 3. The people who are most likely to refuse are religious conservatives, mostly Muslim. 4. ONS surveys (a gold standard measure) show that younger people are as eager to be vaccinated as older people with 95% saying yes, they want it. Anecdotally I concur, literally all of my friends, cousins and colleagues are absolutely desperate to get vaccinated. 5. The vaccine passport system is being proposed for use in places such as cinemas, nightclubs and so on.
These are the actual facts, everything else is bullshit.
Can anyone explain how point 5 addresses the issue in point 3. How does a vaccine passport that targets places young people go help conservative Muslims take the vaccine. That's going to be the last group with low uptake.
I suppose one argument is that there might be a strong link between point 4 and point 5. Keenness to take the vaccine among the young in 4 is directly linked to the belief that it will be necessary to do the activities in 5.
If, and it's a big if, all the talk about Vaxports really WAS just a 'nudge' thing, and, at most their introduction was guaranteed to be restricted to say the period June to October (by which point if you haven't taken the opportunity for vaccination, then you are unlikely to) then one can construct an argument for them.
O/t but a few flakes of snow drifting past my N Essex window. Not enough to really be described as 'snowing'.
Snowflakes in N Essex? I thought those were confined to the metropolitan conurbations and the student population.
They drift up here now and again exclaiming in delight at the 'pretty olde world houses' in which many of us live. Then they buy one of the 'pretty olde world houses' and then complain that there's nowhere to park either of their Chelsea tractors.
Curious that Ms Cyclefree thinks that having a venue entirely closed increases our liberty.
"Restrictions end 21 June" don't they? 🤔
Who would be closed and why?
As I patiently explained on the previous thread, vaccine passports are potentially beneficial in the scenario where vaccines are effective but not totally so, and take-up is high but not near-complete. In that scenario it might not be safe to allow all restrictions to be ended, and vaccine passports might allow venues to be open. Of course we can't currently know if we'll be in that scenario.
This really isn't hard to understand, so it's clear that those refusing to understand it do so because they don't want to.
No, it is you that doesn’t understand. In the scenarios you describe, it will be household mixing etc. that will be the problem and we’ll be back in lockdown.
Curious that Ms Cyclefree thinks that having a venue entirely closed increases our liberty.
"Restrictions end 21 June" don't they? 🤔
Who would be closed and why?
As I patiently explained on the previous thread, vaccine passports are potentially beneficial in the scenario where vaccines are effective but not totally so, and take-up is high but not near-complete. In that scenario it might not be safe to allow all restrictions to be ended, and vaccine passports might allow venues to be open. Of course we can't currently know if we'll be in that scenario.
This really isn't hard to understand, so it's clear that those refusing to understand it do so because they don't want to.
And this is equally easy to understand.
Vaccine passports cannot be implemented until everyone has had the opportunity to be completely vaccinated. To do otherwise is discriminatory and any business implementing it is going to lose business in the long term. And you know Wetherspoons will ignore it.
And once everyone has been vaccinated there is little to no point having them...
Is a win win, the government gets the ID cards policy it has wanted for decades, the public get an inch closer to escaping lockdown and doesn’t give two hoots about long term risks. Thankfully we just about still have some representative democracy, checks and balances.
I think we need to look at the facts of the vaccination scheme and what justification a passport might have in this country, *for domestic use* rather than travel.
1. Vaccines in use in this country gave got over 90% efficacy against symptoms and over 99% efficacy against hospitalisation and almost 100% against death. 2. So far the uptake on vaccines is around 95% of people who have been offered it. 3. The people who are most likely to refuse are religious conservatives, mostly Muslim. 4. ONS surveys (a gold standard measure) show that younger people are as eager to be vaccinated as older people with 95% saying yes, they want it. Anecdotally I concur, literally all of my friends, cousins and colleagues are absolutely desperate to get vaccinated. 5. The vaccine passport system is being proposed for use in places such as cinemas, nightclubs and so on.
These are the actual facts, everything else is bullshit.
Can anyone explain how point 5 addresses the issue in point 3. How does a vaccine passport that targets places young people go help conservative Muslims take the vaccine. That's going to be the last group with low uptake.
I’m right. You maybe shouldn’t be worrying so much about conservative Muslims, you should be worrying about the young
“Adults aged 16-29 group 'most likely' to report Covid vaccine hesitancy”
Curious that Ms Cyclefree thinks that having a venue entirely closed increases our liberty.
"Restrictions end 21 June" don't they? 🤔
Who would be closed and why?
As I patiently explained on the previous thread, vaccine passports are potentially beneficial in the scenario where vaccines are effective but not totally so, and take-up is high but not near-complete. In that scenario it might not be safe to allow all restrictions to be ended, and vaccine passports might allow venues to be open. Of course we can't currently know if we'll be in that scenario.
This really isn't hard to understand, so it's clear that those refusing to understand it do so because they don't want to.
No, it is you that doesn’t understand. In the scenarios you describe, it will be household mixing etc. that will be the problem and we’ll be back in lockdown.
Well I'm pleased that you know that. Have you made your expertise available to the UK and Israeli governments?
In the end I don't think vaccination certificates/passports will end up being implemented for domestic use, except perhaps for a handful of major events. But if they are, I can already see the line being deployed by many on here:
A Tory, government, yes a Tory government, with a majority of 80, goes around handing out a compulsory vaccine ID scheme that is an attack on civil liberties. It's obvious - this would be the fault of a) the Labour Party, or b) the Civil Service, or c) both. Starmer - weak and pathetic, all his fault.
Incidentally, the opinion poll frequently cited on here is misleading, as it asks whether people would prefer vaxports to a national or local lockdown. The results would, I suspect, be very different if that either/or were removed.
I did suggest this might happen but MalcolmG called me a turnip or something.
Its a sensational piece of electioneering by handy Alex (who was NOT conspired against by the government as DavidL claims). The SNP are the progressive soft left of independence politics. Pro-Scotland but probably not a Scotland that many would like to see.
Happily if you are a regressive soft right voter who is also patriotic now you have a new choice for your independence - vote for an independent Scotland modelled on Hungary.
You are usually quite sensible Rochdale but that is just bollox
Which bit is bollox? That its a sensational piece of realpolitic by Salmond? That he wasn't the target of a government conspiracy to jail him? Or that there are people in Scotland with a vote who aren't as progressive as Sturgeon is?
The part where it was not Sturgeon , her close pals in SNP and civil service who tried to have him jailed for made up stories, all but the one consensual encounter being shown to be lies and the worst one the claimant was not even on the premises. That she was able along with civil service, police and Crown Office to get away with all this , so far at least is very alarming. Hopefully the forthcoming police enquiries and the civil court cases and missing funds investigations will be better handled.
I simply do not believe the core of this - that 9 women decided to pervert the course of justice and perjure themselves in court for some hope that a faction of a party they may or may not support may somehow win over additional support over someone who had already left the stage.
Well the people who have all the names, all politicians, civil servants very very close to Sturgeon disagree. The couple I know certainly point to it indeed given their history.
Thank you Cyclefree. A few thoughts. Vaccine passports don’t seem to be something that Boris Johnson would personally favour, so who is pushing him? Priti Patel, Michael Gove or Sir Humphrey? Whereas I would assume that Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf will be jizzing themselves at the thought of their introduction. Papers please, Mr. Salmond.
“Willcock v Muckle” sounds very Private Eye, Have they used it?
@DavidL, the passports may not in themselves be a restriction of liberty. Their abuse by certain Police Officers and other jobsworths, e.g. in local councils, will be the cause of a potential restriction of liberty. Which brings us back to Willcock v Muckle.
Courts are currently shut to the public. In normal times if you want to go in you can but you have to go through a metal detector and your bag will be searched. With my pass I can go straight in. Is that a restriction of your liberty or a sensible precaution for the safety of all inside?
There is a lot of hysteria on here this morning, there really is. We live in a country where the government conspired to get someone locked up and nearly half the people are still going to vote for it, including you AIUI. And you claim to worry about the civil liberties of this?
It could be argued that not everyone who has to enter a Court chooses to do so, which is different to pubs and stadiums. I will be voting for the person who was conspired against, not the conspirers.
You’re be ignoring the great one’s entreaty to vote SNP in your constituency then? I’m beginning to think some of this supermajority stuff might be bullshit.
He can hardly vote for Alex on constituency TUD. Sturgeon does certainly seem against a su[permajority, desperately smearing in case she gets a real majority and is forced to actually do something other than procrastinate and blame Westminster , whilst Ollie does the book keeping.
Dunno Malc, I still don’t see what difference a supermajority makes to the fact that It’s down to BJ to grant an S30. I’m open to a consultative referendum run from Scotland but I don’t see how vague suggestions about civil disobedience or international pressure change things much.
I’d do a certain amount of nose holding to get rid of that useless dimwit Annie Wells from Holyrood, but certain diddies on Twitter telling me one minute that people should spoil their constituency ballot and then next minute saying I need to vote Alba for Indy aren’t doing a great job of persuading me.
TUD, I have not seen much on civil disobedience apart from the odd nutter. We have seen the SNP government are at best inept and more likely crooked. Sturgeon does not want independence, she is holding on to get a big gig elsewhere whilst her and Ollie line their pockets. There are other ways to go about it as many countries have proven , begging Boris will never get us there and that suits Sturgeon just fine. Rather than the creepy easily bought Greens we need a real Independence party in Holyrood to hold SNP feet to the fire. I would rather see Annie Wells in charge than the rank bad un that is there just now, Governments shouldl no be able to manipulate justice systems to try and jail innocent people for their political aims. Can only be a matter of time now, the constant police enquiries will get her in the end.
I normally agree with you, Malc, but Annie Wells? Really?
Curious that Ms Cyclefree thinks that having a venue entirely closed increases our liberty.
"Restrictions end 21 June" don't they? 🤔
Who would be closed and why?
As I patiently explained on the previous thread, vaccine passports are potentially beneficial in the scenario where vaccines are effective but not totally so, and take-up is high but not near-complete. In that scenario it might not be safe to allow all restrictions to be ended, and vaccine passports might allow venues to be open. Of course we can't currently know if we'll be in that scenario.
This really isn't hard to understand, so it's clear that those refusing to understand it do so because they don't want to.
We either end restrictions or we don't. We either learn to live with this or we don't.
Some won't get vaccinated, that's on them and they bear the brunt of the risk for that.
If people don't want to mingle with those unvaccinated, then I have no problems with private companies choosing to open themselves to the vaccinated only and for those who don't want to mingle with the unvaccinated being patrons of those companies. That's their private choice. But the alternative to that in my eyes is private companies choosing to open themselves to everyone instead and customers of those venues going in knowing they could be mingling with the unvaccinated.
If the choice is closed or vaccine-only then that is coercion that is not choice and I want no part in that. That is utterly, utterly wrong and inexcusable as a matter of principle and practice.
So you"d prefer the venue to stay closed, on principle. A curious principle, but fair enough.
No, I prefer the venue to be open to all.
Restrictions end 21 June. That is my choice. No ifs, no buts, no equivocation. That is my choice.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Actually, the banner said "Cops Kill" as seen in this video, then was reversed briefly. The person doing this seemed to have a very friendly relationship with the cops. It is all in this thread:
If you march down Whitehall with a banner explicitly advocating the murder of people - cops, doctors, blacks, women, Scot Nats, cake decorators, clam jousting super injunctors - then you should expect to be swiftly arrested. And if you’re an illegal immigrant, as that guy seems to be, you should expect to get deported.
Except that person was protected by the police, not arrested, indeed spent much of the protest behind police lines filming protesters. Undeniably the banner reads "Cops Kill" in the video.
He's a well known far left "Antifa" extremist activist with "journalist" credentials.
So how was he protected by the police? A "journalist" filming a protest is nothing surprising, nor being behind police lines if you have "journalist" credentials.
He is in this video being protected by the police:
Why are you surprised at the thought of him being an under cover policeman? There is a long history of police intelligence officers infiltrating demonstrations, both left and right, both violent and peaceful. Indeed just read the history of Mark Stone.
Head, desk. He’s literally identified himself as antifa, proved his long history of lefty activism, and comprehensively demolished the idea he’s an undercover cop. And no he’s not being protected by cops, he’s just filming within the melee
It’s sometimes hard to believe you’re a doctor
I could blow smoke up Johnson's a** and identify myself as an upright patriotic Johnsonian Conservative to curry favour with the PB glitterati. It appears true because I have told you so, but the reality could be that I am an evil centrist liberal.
I think we need to look at the facts of the vaccination scheme and what justification a passport might have in this country, *for domestic use* rather than travel.
1. Vaccines in use in this country gave got over 90% efficacy against symptoms and over 99% efficacy against hospitalisation and almost 100% against death. 2. So far the uptake on vaccines is around 95% of people who have been offered it. 3. The people who are most likely to refuse are religious conservatives, mostly Muslim. 4. ONS surveys (a gold standard measure) show that younger people are as eager to be vaccinated as older people with 95% saying yes, they want it. Anecdotally I concur, literally all of my friends, cousins and colleagues are absolutely desperate to get vaccinated. 5. The vaccine passport system is being proposed for use in places such as cinemas, nightclubs and so on.
These are the actual facts, everything else is bullshit.
Can anyone explain how point 5 addresses the issue in point 3. How does a vaccine passport that targets places young people go help conservative Muslims take the vaccine. That's going to be the last group with low uptake.
Really not sure this is true. All the anti-vaxxers I know are under 30. Admittedly I don’t know many orthodox wahhabis but I believe my anecdata is supported by evidence. The under 30s are a real pool of anti-vaxxery
This is, presumably, one reason why HMG is considering vaxports for clubs and festivals. To nudge the hesitant young
It isn't though, the ONS and loads of other polls have got young people at 95% uptake.
The government want vaccine passports for reasons other than COVID. If they only wanted them for COVID they send us all a 6-12 month validity photo ID with no biometric data and no tracking a week after the second dose. That would actually be the cheapest way to do it, but it means that it has a shelf life and they can't track where people use them. The government wants the tracking data.
As I said to you the other night, lockdown has robbed you of your edge. A year ago you'd have been spitting with rage about this idea. The government has beaten you into submission, they're holding your favourite activities hostage and you're begging them for permission to have fun. I pity what they've turned you into, a subservient automaton.
One thing missing in Ms Cyclefree's excellent opening piece is recognition that Harry Willcock was , in fact, a Liberal. More than that, a moderately prominent Liberal, having been a councillor and a Parliamentary candidate.
His first remark to the policeman - "I am a Liberal, and I am against this sort of thing" - is still quoted in Liberal/Lib Dem circles.
PS. Apologies for the effective duplication. I have just seen that Mr Cicero has also taken up this point.
These things cross party boundaries a bit. When I introduced an ID cards bill in Parliament (against the then Government's wishes), the LibDem spokesman was one of those who supported it.
I like Cyclefree, I enjoy her articles, and she seems to have nearly unanimous support here. But FWIW I disagree. This reflects my Continental background. I lived for many years in Switzerland, a country which is as far from authoritarian as you can imagine (the culture is confirmist, but that's voluntary). Many of my friends were leftists, some had uncertain right to remain, some were libertarians, and some routinely broke the law by using drugs, cheating on public transport and other minor offences. I NEVER heard anyone suggest that having an ID card was an issue. Nor did I ever hear of a case where someone was prosecuted for not having one - since we all had one, it was just a matter of popping home for it if you'd forgotten.
It was simply convenient., in the same way as having a passport when travelling is convenient, not just a necessity - it's handy to be able to show it at hotel reception or car hire without having to prove you are who you say you are. The faffing about with utility bills and council tax statements that you need to open a bank account in Britain is just silly.
If Britain turned Trumpist, I can imagine joining a protest group that was illegal under the laws that our Trump might pass. I can imagine worrying about my credit card use being tracked, my emails intercepted, an agency compiling a pattern of my behaviour (the last, of course, happns routinely for commercial reasons anyway). But worry about proving who I am? No.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Actually, the banner said "Cops Kill" as seen in this video, then was reversed briefly. The person doing this seemed to have a very friendly relationship with the cops. It is all in this thread:
If you march down Whitehall with a banner explicitly advocating the murder of people - cops, doctors, blacks, women, Scot Nats, cake decorators, clam jousting super injunctors - then you should expect to be swiftly arrested. And if you’re an illegal immigrant, as that guy seems to be, you should expect to get deported.
Except that person was protected by the police, not arrested, indeed spent much of the protest behind police lines filming protesters. Undeniably the banner reads "Cops Kill" in the video.
lol. He’s Antifa. He admits it himself.
If he is Antifa - he will say he is Antifa. If he is undercover police in Antifa - he will still say he is Antifa.
It tells us nothing, either way.
He's an American with a decade long track record including jail time for committing offences on behalf of Antifa.
If he's undercover then he's been deep state undercover for a decade now and has bizarrely been transferred from America.
Nah, I don't think it is Barrett Brown. Why would an antifa be hiding behind the police when things are kicking off rather than joining in?
And surely you agree that the banner said "Cops Kill" rather than the reverse. Incidentally in the video of this a protester tells him that the banner is wrong.
One thing i think it would be useful to know more about/have more polling on is "Second dose hesistancy". And whether the failure to take a second dose, particularly among non vulnerable groups represents an ongoing risk to the policy of "vaccinations for all" (noting that this was arguably a Govt choice, and there are very principled reasons for why a vaccination programme restricted to, say, the over 50s and otherwise vulnerable could have been just as effective).
Because anecdotally i know of people who have quite happily taken the first vaccine, but having suffered a bad reaction and none too keen to go back for another one (and how one defines "bad reaction" is of course individual dependent).
Curious that Ms Cyclefree thinks that having a venue entirely closed increases our liberty.
"Restrictions end 21 June" don't they? 🤔
Who would be closed and why?
As I patiently explained on the previous thread, vaccine passports are potentially beneficial in the scenario where vaccines are effective but not totally so, and take-up is high but not near-complete. In that scenario it might not be safe to allow all restrictions to be ended, and vaccine passports might allow venues to be open. Of course we can't currently know if we'll be in that scenario.
This really isn't hard to understand, so it's clear that those refusing to understand it do so because they don't want to.
No, it is you that doesn’t understand. In the scenarios you describe, it will be household mixing etc. that will be the problem and we’ll be back in lockdown.
Well I'm pleased that you know that. Have you made your expertise available to the UK and Israeli governments?
I’ve emailed my MP citing an Imperial paper that says household settings are the most likely in spreading the virus.
In the end I don't think vaccination certificates/passports will end up being implemented for domestic use, except perhaps for a handful of major events. But if they are, I can already see the line being deployed by many on here:
A Tory, government, yes a Tory government, with a majority of 80, goes around handing out a compulsory vaccine ID scheme that is an attack on civil liberties. It's obvious - this would be the fault of a) the Labour Party, or b) the Civil Service, or c) both. Starmer - weak and pathetic, all his fault.
Incidentally, the opinion poll frequently cited on here is misleading, as it asks whether people would prefer vaxports to a national or local lockdown. The results would, I suspect, be very different if that either/or were removed.
If there was no threat of further local or national lockdowns they would be entirely redundant
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Actually, the banner said "Cops Kill" as seen in this video, then was reversed briefly. The person doing this seemed to have a very friendly relationship with the cops. It is all in this thread:
If you march down Whitehall with a banner explicitly advocating the murder of people - cops, doctors, blacks, women, Scot Nats, cake decorators, clam jousting super injunctors - then you should expect to be swiftly arrested. And if you’re an illegal immigrant, as that guy seems to be, you should expect to get deported.
Except that person was protected by the police, not arrested, indeed spent much of the protest behind police lines filming protesters. Undeniably the banner reads "Cops Kill" in the video.
lol. He’s Antifa. He admits it himself.
If he is Antifa - he will say he is Antifa. If he is undercover police in Antifa - he will still say he is Antifa.
It tells us nothing, either way.
He's an American with a decade long track record including jail time for committing offences on behalf of Antifa.
If he's undercover then he's been deep state undercover for a decade now and has bizarrely been transferred from America.
Nah, I don't think it is Barrett Brown. Why would an antifa be hiding behind the police when things are kicking off rather than joining in?
And surely you agree that the banner said "Cops Kill" rather than the reverse. Incidentally in the video of this a protester tells him that the banner is wrong.
If it weren’t so serious a scene getting the sign round the wrong way wouldn’t be out of place in a Chris Morris movie.
I think we need to look at the facts of the vaccination scheme and what justification a passport might have in this country, *for domestic use* rather than travel.
1. Vaccines in use in this country gave got over 90% efficacy against symptoms and over 99% efficacy against hospitalisation and almost 100% against death. 2. So far the uptake on vaccines is around 95% of people who have been offered it. 3. The people who are most likely to refuse are religious conservatives, mostly Muslim. 4. ONS surveys (a gold standard measure) show that younger people are as eager to be vaccinated as older people with 95% saying yes, they want it. Anecdotally I concur, literally all of my friends, cousins and colleagues are absolutely desperate to get vaccinated. 5. The vaccine passport system is being proposed for use in places such as cinemas, nightclubs and so on.
These are the actual facts, everything else is bullshit.
Can anyone explain how point 5 addresses the issue in point 3. How does a vaccine passport that targets places young people go help conservative Muslims take the vaccine. That's going to be the last group with low uptake.
Vaccines will end the pandemic. I 100% agree with you. I just wish there was some more measured discussion surrounding variants.
Me too, they seem to be being used as a justification for these vaccine passports but in that scenario the information in them would be useless anyway and we'd almost certainly go into lockdown 3 while vaccines we're reformulated and rapidly rolled out under the new trial procedures.
Anyway, the chance of this happening seems remote. I don't see how these vaccines won't give a good level of immunity against all variants and we already have four companies rolling out specific boosters in August and September.
If vaccination, and I'm assuming regular boosters, turns COVID-19 into something on a par with influenza I can't see any reason for restrictions, testing, vaccine passports and the like for COVID-19 when we don't require them for influenza. Logically both diseases would need the same sort of measures if the risks and costs are on a par.
The plans to have vaccine passports in widespread internal use, and testing everyone twice a week*, make me think that the government believe that vaccination may not work, and that they are anticipating a need to rely on NPIs.
* This works out at about 7 billion tests a year for the whole population, the cost will be enormous.
I think we need to look at the facts of the vaccination scheme and what justification a passport might have in this country, *for domestic use* rather than travel.
1. Vaccines in use in this country gave got over 90% efficacy against symptoms and over 99% efficacy against hospitalisation and almost 100% against death. 2. So far the uptake on vaccines is around 95% of people who have been offered it. 3. The people who are most likely to refuse are religious conservatives, mostly Muslim. 4. ONS surveys (a gold standard measure) show that younger people are as eager to be vaccinated as older people with 95% saying yes, they want it. Anecdotally I concur, literally all of my friends, cousins and colleagues are absolutely desperate to get vaccinated. 5. The vaccine passport system is being proposed for use in places such as cinemas, nightclubs and so on.
These are the actual facts, everything else is bullshit.
Can anyone explain how point 5 addresses the issue in point 3. How does a vaccine passport that targets places young people go help conservative Muslims take the vaccine. That's going to be the last group with low uptake.
To add to point 3 - those most likely to refuse are those who distrust authority already - the black community is lower on take up than the Muslim community on data I've seen, albeit not 100% accurate in terms of population. Bringing in an iD Card system to effectively make vaccination and iD compulsory to take part in much of life is not going to work on such people, however much the majority may be happy. Similarly, look at the numbers who have passports or driving licences now - the ONS published numbers last week I think.
If a community distrusts stop and search powers, are they really going to trust Boris's iD card / app?
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Actually, the banner said "Cops Kill" as seen in this video, then was reversed briefly. The person doing this seemed to have a very friendly relationship with the cops. It is all in this thread:
If you march down Whitehall with a banner explicitly advocating the murder of people - cops, doctors, blacks, women, Scot Nats, cake decorators, clam jousting super injunctors - then you should expect to be swiftly arrested. And if you’re an illegal immigrant, as that guy seems to be, you should expect to get deported.
Except that person was protected by the police, not arrested, indeed spent much of the protest behind police lines filming protesters. Undeniably the banner reads "Cops Kill" in the video.
lol. He’s Antifa. He admits it himself.
If he is Antifa - he will say he is Antifa. If he is undercover police in Antifa - he will still say he is Antifa.
It tells us nothing, either way.
He's an American with a decade long track record including jail time for committing offences on behalf of Antifa.
If he's undercover then he's been deep state undercover for a decade now and has bizarrely been transferred from America.
Nah, I don't think it is Barrett Brown. Why would an antifa be hiding behind the police when things are kicking off rather than joining in?
And surely you agree that the banner said "Cops Kill" rather than the reverse. Incidentally in the video of this a protester tells him that the banner is wrong.
When things kick off some protestors like to be there holding the camera and not engaging so they have their own footage they can use for their own agenda and PR. Not an original concept Foxy, seriously is that alien to you? Did you think all protestors just rush headlong in to scrum leaving the "journalism" for others?
From the evidence available it looks like it says both. At some points it said cops kill, at others it said kill cops. Whether that was by accident or by design is unclear at this stage, it may have been an accident but when you hold separate banners holding separate words like that its pretty criticial you make sure you line them up correctly.
I think we need to look at the facts of the vaccination scheme and what justification a passport might have in this country, *for domestic use* rather than travel.
1. Vaccines in use in this country gave got over 90% efficacy against symptoms and over 99% efficacy against hospitalisation and almost 100% against death. 2. So far the uptake on vaccines is around 95% of people who have been offered it. 3. The people who are most likely to refuse are religious conservatives, mostly Muslim. 4. ONS surveys (a gold standard measure) show that younger people are as eager to be vaccinated as older people with 95% saying yes, they want it. Anecdotally I concur, literally all of my friends, cousins and colleagues are absolutely desperate to get vaccinated. 5. The vaccine passport system is being proposed for use in places such as cinemas, nightclubs and so on.
These are the actual facts, everything else is bullshit.
Can anyone explain how point 5 addresses the issue in point 3. How does a vaccine passport that targets places young people go help conservative Muslims take the vaccine. That's going to be the last group with low uptake.
Really not sure this is true. All the anti-vaxxers I know are under 30. Admittedly I don’t know many orthodox wahhabis but I believe my anecdata is supported by evidence. The under 30s are a real pool of anti-vaxxery
This is, presumably, one reason why HMG is considering vaxports for clubs and festivals. To nudge the hesitant young
It isn't though, the ONS and loads of other polls have got young people at 95% uptake.
The government want vaccine passports for reasons other than COVID. If they only wanted them for COVID they send us all a 6-12 month validity photo ID with no biometric data and no tracking a week after the second dose. That would actually be the cheapest way to do it, but it means that it has a shelf life and they can't track where people use them. The government wants the tracking data.
As I said to you the other night, lockdown has robbed you of your edge. A year ago you'd have been spitting with rage about this idea. The government has beaten you into submission, they're holding your favourite activities hostage and you're begging them for permission to have fun. I pity what they've turned you into, a subservient automaton.
No. It’s you that’s wrong, and it’s you that’s lost your customary sharpness. You cite the ONS in your comment. And yet, in the link I just sent you, the ONS, your ‘gold standard’ directly contradicts you
‘Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed adults aged 16-29 are the most likely to report hesitancy around the jab, at around one in every six people.’
You claimed 95% of young people eagerly want the jab. Simply wrong
“The ONS looked at four weeks of responses to the Opinions and Lifestyles Survey...
Around 17% adults aged 16 to 29 years reported vaccine hesitancy - the highest of all age groups.
There a different in sex too, with younger women reporting more vaccine hesitancy (19%) compared to men in the same age group (15%).”
Stop wetting yourself like a toddler over some imaginary hobgoblin coming to eat your liberties. It’s a figment of your fevered id. Return to your normal lucid self
I think we need to look at the facts of the vaccination scheme and what justification a passport might have in this country, *for domestic use* rather than travel.
1. Vaccines in use in this country gave got over 90% efficacy against symptoms and over 99% efficacy against hospitalisation and almost 100% against death. 2. So far the uptake on vaccines is around 95% of people who have been offered it. 3. The people who are most likely to refuse are religious conservatives, mostly Muslim. 4. ONS surveys (a gold standard measure) show that younger people are as eager to be vaccinated as older people with 95% saying yes, they want it. Anecdotally I concur, literally all of my friends, cousins and colleagues are absolutely desperate to get vaccinated. 5. The vaccine passport system is being proposed for use in places such as cinemas, nightclubs and so on.
These are the actual facts, everything else is bullshit.
Can anyone explain how point 5 addresses the issue in point 3. How does a vaccine passport that targets places young people go help conservative Muslims take the vaccine. That's going to be the last group with low uptake.
Vaccines will end the pandemic. I 100% agree with you. I just wish there was some more measured discussion surrounding variants.
Me too, they seem to be being used as a justification for these vaccine passports but in that scenario the information in them would be useless anyway and we'd almost certainly go into lockdown 3 while vaccines we're reformulated and rapidly rolled out under the new trial procedures.
Anyway, the chance of this happening seems remote. I don't see how these vaccines won't give a good level of immunity against all variants and we already have four companies rolling out specific boosters in August and September.
If vaccination, and I'm assuming regular boosters, turns COVID-19 into something on a par with influenza I can't see any reason for restrictions, testing, vaccine passports and the like for COVID-19 when we don't require them for influenza. Logically both diseases would need the same sort of measures if the risks and costs are on a par.
The plans to have vaccine passports in widespread internal use, and testing everyone twice a week*, make me think that the government believe that vaccination may not work, and that they are anticipating a need to rely on NPIs.
* This works out at about 7 billion tests a year for the whole population, the cost will be enormous.
It's the other way around. The government has got all of these great NPIs and control mechanisms they want to hold onto. Vaccines have completey shot the justification of those to death so now they're trying to work backwards to find a way to hold onto things like lockdown and population tracking.
One thing i think it would be useful to know more about/have more polling on is "Second dose hesistancy". And whether the failure to take a second dose, particularly among non vulnerable groups represents an ongoing risk to the policy of "vaccinations for all" (noting that this was arguably a Govt choice, and there are very principled reasons for why a vaccination programme restricted to, say, the over 50s and otherwise vulnerable could have been just as effective).
Because anecdotally i know of people who have quite happily taken the first vaccine, but having suffered a bad reaction and none too keen to go back for another one (and how one defines "bad reaction" is of course individual dependent).
Not oft reported is the reaction of those with a history of anaphylactic shock to Pfizer. Happened bad to my mother in law but, thankfully, the CDC are recommending J&J for second doses in those circs and she has an appointment next Saturday.
Thank you Cyclefree. A few thoughts. Vaccine passports don’t seem to be something that Boris Johnson would personally favour, so who is pushing him? Priti Patel, Michael Gove or Sir Humphrey? Whereas I would assume that Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf will be jizzing themselves at the thought of their introduction. Papers please, Mr. Salmond.
“Willcock v Muckle” sounds very Private Eye, Have they used it?
@DavidL, the passports may not in themselves be a restriction of liberty. Their abuse by certain Police Officers and other jobsworths, e.g. in local councils, will be the cause of a potential restriction of liberty. Which brings us back to Willcock v Muckle.
Courts are currently shut to the public. In normal times if you want to go in you can but you have to go through a metal detector and your bag will be searched. With my pass I can go straight in. Is that a restriction of your liberty or a sensible precaution for the safety of all inside?
There is a lot of hysteria on here this morning, there really is. We live in a country where the government conspired to get someone locked up and nearly half the people are still going to vote for it, including you AIUI. And you claim to worry about the civil liberties of this?
It could be argued that not everyone who has to enter a Court chooses to do so, which is different to pubs and stadiums. I will be voting for the person who was conspired against, not the conspirers.
You’re be ignoring the great one’s entreaty to vote SNP in your constituency then? I’m beginning to think some of this supermajority stuff might be bullshit.
He can hardly vote for Alex on constituency TUD. Sturgeon does certainly seem against a su[permajority, desperately smearing in case she gets a real majority and is forced to actually do something other than procrastinate and blame Westminster , whilst Ollie does the book keeping.
Dunno Malc, I still don’t see what difference a supermajority makes to the fact that It’s down to BJ to grant an S30. I’m open to a consultative referendum run from Scotland but I don’t see how vague suggestions about civil disobedience or international pressure change things much.
I’d do a certain amount of nose holding to get rid of that useless dimwit Annie Wells from Holyrood, but certain diddies on Twitter telling me one minute that people should spoil their constituency ballot and then next minute saying I need to vote Alba for Indy aren’t doing a great job of persuading me.
TUD, I have not seen much on civil disobedience apart from the odd nutter. We have seen the SNP government are at best inept and more likely crooked. Sturgeon does not want independence, she is holding on to get a big gig elsewhere whilst her and Ollie line their pockets. There are other ways to go about it as many countries have proven , begging Boris will never get us there and that suits Sturgeon just fine. Rather than the creepy easily bought Greens we need a real Independence party in Holyrood to hold SNP feet to the fire. I would rather see Annie Wells in charge than the rank bad un that is there just now, Governments shouldl no be able to manipulate justice systems to try and jail innocent people for their political aims. Can only be a matter of time now, the constant police enquiries will get her in the end.
I normally agree with you, Malc, but Annie Wells? Really?
In the end I don't think vaccination certificates/passports will end up being implemented for domestic use, except perhaps for a handful of major events. But if they are, I can already see the line being deployed by many on here:
A Tory, government, yes a Tory government, with a majority of 80, goes around handing out a compulsory vaccine ID scheme that is an attack on civil liberties. It's obvious - this would be the fault of a) the Labour Party, or b) the Civil Service, or c) both. Starmer - weak and pathetic, all his fault.
Incidentally, the opinion poll frequently cited on here is misleading, as it asks whether people would prefer vaxports to a national or local lockdown. The results would, I suspect, be very different if that either/or were removed.
If there was no threat of further local or national lockdowns they would be entirely redundant
The polling isn't based on the threat of future local or national lockdowns. It's based on Vaxports being required to lift the current one.
Current Government policy is that the current one should be lifted in full on 21st June, a policy stated before any mention was made of a link to Vaxports.
Curious that Ms Cyclefree thinks that having a venue entirely closed increases our liberty.
"Restrictions end 21 June" don't they? 🤔
Who would be closed and why?
As I patiently explained on the previous thread, vaccine passports are potentially beneficial in the scenario where vaccines are effective but not totally so, and take-up is high but not near-complete. In that scenario it might not be safe to allow all restrictions to be ended, and vaccine passports might allow venues to be open. Of course we can't currently know if we'll be in that scenario.
This really isn't hard to understand, so it's clear that those refusing to understand it do so because they don't want to.
No, it is you that doesn’t understand. In the scenarios you describe, it will be household mixing etc. that will be the problem and we’ll be back in lockdown.
Well I'm pleased that you know that. Have you made your expertise available to the UK and Israeli governments?
I’ve emailed my MP citing an Imperial paper that says household settings are the most likely in spreading the virus.
One thing missing in Ms Cyclefree's excellent opening piece is recognition that Harry Willcock was , in fact, a Liberal. More than that, a moderately prominent Liberal, having been a councillor and a Parliamentary candidate.
His first remark to the policeman - "I am a Liberal, and I am against this sort of thing" - is still quoted in Liberal/Lib Dem circles.
PS. Apologies for the effective duplication. I have just seen that Mr Cicero has also taken up this point.
These things cross party boundaries a bit. When I introduced an ID cards bill in Parliament (against the then Government's wishes), the LibDem spokesman was one of those who supported it.
I like Cyclefree, I enjoy her articles, and she seems to have nearly unanimous support here. But FWIW I disagree. This reflects my Continental background. I lived for many years in Switzerland, a country which is as far from authoritarian as you can imagine (the culture is confirmist, but that's voluntary). Many of my friends were leftists, some had uncertain right to remain, some were libertarians, and some routinely broke the law by using drugs, cheating on public transport and other minor offences. I NEVER heard anyone suggest that having an ID card was an issue. Nor did I ever hear of a case where someone was prosecuted for not having one - since we all had one, it was just a matter of popping home for it if you'd forgotten.
It was simply convenient., in the same way as having a passport when travelling is convenient, not just a necessity - it's handy to be able to show it at hotel reception or car hire without having to prove you are who you say you are. The faffing about with utility bills and council tax statements that you need to open a bank account in Britain is just silly.
If Britain turned Trumpist, I can imagine joining a protest group that was illegal under the laws that our Trump might pass. I can imagine worrying about my credit card use being tracked, my emails intercepted, an agency compiling a pattern of my behaviour (the last, of course, happns routinely for commercial reasons anyway). But worry about proving who I am? No.
Personally, I am not bothered by carrying ID. I need to at work, and I always carry my driving licence too. Purely voluntary too.
I am bothered by the government giving itself the right to arrest people for peaceful protest on the whim of a police officer. That really is not just the thin edge of the wedge. It is quite a long way along the wedge.
This quote really struck me as a student of history, (as I think Boris is). A certain leader of the German Reich used to conduct his goverment in this way, playing his ministers off against each other, and letting the strongest have their way in a form of Darwinism.
I do find it somewhat amusing of the acussations that Conservatives are waging a culture war. For the last decade they didnt even realise the war was happening. They allowed transgender extremism and movements like critical race theory to infest and spread across institutions. They belatedly realised that elements in their own government and publics services were facilitating this cultural revolution. The mildest of mild push back from them, and it is the Conservatives who are waging a war. A war that theyve barely realised was happening.
Since you invoked the first reference to the early to mid last century. It seems a bit like Germany claiming that the UK is the aggressor and militarist war mongerer for declaring war against them in 1939, when all they were trying to do was peacefully unite their subjugated peoples into a free and democratic homeland.
Amongst the Lib Dems, this case is VERY well known, because of a small detail that Cyclefree omits...
"On 7 December 1950, Willcock was stopped for speeding on Ballard's Lane, North Finchley, London. Police Constable Harold Muckle asked him to produce his card. Willcock refused, reportedly saying "I am a Liberal, and I am against this sort of thing""
I am getting a sense that the tide is turning for the Lib Dems, and even though its early doors, they will do better overall next month. Not least because on these issues they have such a long track record.
It was in my original draft. I cut it for reasons of length.
Vaxports are designed to allow certain businesses to open earlier than otherwise.
But not much earlier- they're not happening tomorrow, and everyone is expecting herd immunity by May/June and complete adult coverage by June/July.
But there's a time interval where vaccination will be partial, and some people will be anxious. But vaxports give reassurance to the already 90%+ protected, that they won't be exposed to the pox that their bodies already have antibodies for. The unprotected will have to stay at home.
But it will allow businesses to reopen. Even though a chunk of their clientele will still be stuck at home. And since the hospitality biz is mainly staffed by young people, there won't be enough people with a passport to stand the other side of the bar.
It doesn't matter that it's popular- it's not going to work.
This quote really struck me as a student of history, (as I think Boris is). A certain leader of the German Reich used to conduct his goverment in this way, playing his ministers off against each other, and letting the strongest have their way in a form of Darwinism.
I do find it somewhat amusing of the acussations that Conservatives are waging a culture war. For the last decade they didnt even realise the war was happening. They allowed transgender extremism and movements like critical race theory to infest and spread across institutions. They belatedly realised that elements in their own government and publics services were facilitating this cultural revolution. The mildest of mild push back from them, and it is the Conservatives who are waging a war. A war that theyve barely realised was happening.
Since you invoked the first reference to the early to mid last century. It seems a bit like Germany claiming that the UK is the aggressor and militarist war mongerer for declaring war against them in 1939, when all they were trying to do was peacefully unite their subjugated peoples into a free and democratic homeland.
Very good point.
The reason the reactions to the race report were so shrill and hysterical (a bit like reax to vaxports here) is because the Left has never experienced push back on this issue ever before. They’ve had it all their own way, they’ve never encountered a different position, and in their culture war there’s been no fighting because an enemy did not exist. It was just endless advance on all fronts.
They seem actively outraged that someone should dare to contradict them.
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Actually, the banner said "Cops Kill" as seen in this video, then was reversed briefly. The person doing this seemed to have a very friendly relationship with the cops. It is all in this thread:
If you march down Whitehall with a banner explicitly advocating the murder of people - cops, doctors, blacks, women, Scot Nats, cake decorators, clam jousting super injunctors - then you should expect to be swiftly arrested. And if you’re an illegal immigrant, as that guy seems to be, you should expect to get deported.
Except that person was protected by the police, not arrested, indeed spent much of the protest behind police lines filming protesters. Undeniably the banner reads "Cops Kill" in the video.
lol. He’s Antifa. He admits it himself.
If he is Antifa - he will say he is Antifa. If he is undercover police in Antifa - he will still say he is Antifa.
It tells us nothing, either way.
With todays social media and reverse photo searching, there is no way with such public exposure that the cover can be maintained. It would require some pretty high level security services internet scrubbing to do that, not some local plod undercover.
This quote really struck me as a student of history, (as I think Boris is). A certain leader of the German Reich used to conduct his goverment in this way, playing his ministers off against each other, and letting the strongest have their way in a form of Darwinism.
I do find it somewhat amusing of the acussations that Conservatives are waging a culture war. For the last decade they didnt even realise the war was happening. They allowed transgender extremism and movements like critical race theory to infest and spread across institutions. They belatedly realised that elements in their own government and publics services were facilitating this cultural revolution. The mildest of mild push back from them, and it is the Conservatives who are waging a war. A war that theyve barely realised was happening.
Since you invoked the first reference to the early to mid last century. It seems a bit like Germany claiming that the UK is the aggressor and militarist war mongerer for declaring war against them in 1939, when all they were trying to do was peacefully unite their subjugated peoples into a free and democratic homeland.
Very good point.
The reason the reactions to the race report were so shrill and hysterical (a bit like reax to vaxports here) is because the Left has never experienced push back on this issue ever before. They’ve had it all their own way, they’ve never encountered a different position, and in their culture war there’s been no fighting because an enemy did not exist. It was just endless advance on all fronts.
They seem actively outraged that someone should dare to contradict them.
Just wondering if you think the people that have publicly commented that they have been misquoted/misrepresented in the report are important to listen to, or whether they're part of the "woke left mob" too?
The culture war doesn't exist, that's why it never came up before. It was invented out of thin air
It's the other way around. The government has got all of these great NPIs and control mechanisms they want to hold onto. Vaccines have completey shot the justification of those to death so now they're trying to work backwards to find a way to hold onto things like lockdown and population tracking.
I don't see why though, because some of these programmes are incredibly expensive, even if people think there are other adjacent uses for them they are still probably too costly to justify keeping them running. I would have thought that the government would want to pull the plug on a lot of the COVID-19 programmes as soon as possible.
Vaccination saves lives, stops the disease spreading, and ought to bring and end to the eye-wateringly expensive NPIs because they are no longer needed. That some NPIs can serve other purposes does not make them good value for money.
Vaxports are designed to allow certain businesses to open earlier than otherwise.
But not much earlier- they're not happening tomorrow, and everyone is expecting herd immunity by May/June and complete adult coverage by June/July.
But there's a time interval where vaccination will be partial, and some people will be anxious. But vaxports give reassurance to the already 90%+ protected, that they won't be exposed to the pox that their bodies already have antibodies for. The unprotected will have to stay at home.
But it will allow businesses to reopen. Even though a chunk of their clientele will still be stuck at home. And since the hospitality biz is mainly staffed by young people, there won't be enough people with a passport to stand the other side of the bar.
It doesn't matter that it's popular- it's not going to work.
And yet, it seems to be working in Israel? I can’t find any serious calls to scrap it, there. If you can, please show me - I’d be sincerely interested
I think we need to look at the facts of the vaccination scheme and what justification a passport might have in this country, *for domestic use* rather than travel.
1. Vaccines in use in this country gave got over 90% efficacy against symptoms and over 99% efficacy against hospitalisation and almost 100% against death. 2. So far the uptake on vaccines is around 95% of people who have been offered it. 3. The people who are most likely to refuse are religious conservatives, mostly Muslim. 4. ONS surveys (a gold standard measure) show that younger people are as eager to be vaccinated as older people with 95% saying yes, they want it. Anecdotally I concur, literally all of my friends, cousins and colleagues are absolutely desperate to get vaccinated. 5. The vaccine passport system is being proposed for use in places such as cinemas, nightclubs and so on.
These are the actual facts, everything else is bullshit.
Can anyone explain how point 5 addresses the issue in point 3. How does a vaccine passport that targets places young people go help conservative Muslims take the vaccine. That's going to be the last group with low uptake.
Really not sure this is true. All the anti-vaxxers I know are under 30. Admittedly I don’t know many orthodox wahhabis but I believe my anecdata is supported by evidence. The under 30s are a real pool of anti-vaxxery
This is, presumably, one reason why HMG is considering vaxports for clubs and festivals. To nudge the hesitant young
It isn't though, the ONS and loads of other polls have got young people at 95% uptake.
The government want vaccine passports for reasons other than COVID. If they only wanted them for COVID they send us all a 6-12 month validity photo ID with no biometric data and no tracking a week after the second dose. That would actually be the cheapest way to do it, but it means that it has a shelf life and they can't track where people use them. The government wants the tracking data.
As I said to you the other night, lockdown has robbed you of your edge. A year ago you'd have been spitting with rage about this idea. The government has beaten you into submission, they're holding your favourite activities hostage and you're begging them for permission to have fun. I pity what they've turned you into, a subservient automaton.
No. It’s you that’s wrong, and it’s you that’s lost your customary sharpness. You cite the ONS in your comment. And yet, in the link I just sent you, the ONS, your ‘gold standard’ directly contradicts you
‘Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed adults aged 16-29 are the most likely to report hesitancy around the jab, at around one in every six people.’
You claimed 95% of young people eagerly want the jab. Simply wrong
“The ONS looked at four weeks of responses to the Opinions and Lifestyles Survey...
Around 17% adults aged 16 to 29 years reported vaccine hesitancy - the highest of all age groups.
There a different in sex too, with younger women reporting more vaccine hesitancy (19%) compared to men in the same age group (15%).”
Stop wetting yourself like a toddler over some imaginary hobgoblin coming to eat your liberties. It’s a figment of your fevered id. Return to your normal lucid self
The overreaction on here is quite bizarre
Let's take 83% as gospel. Fine. There's around 10m people aged 18-29 in this country. Let's also make it completely unfavorable and say none have any kind of immunity.
The current hospitalisation rate is 1 in 1000 fit this age group, again let's assume groups 4 and 6 don't exist, that means up to 100,000 people may be hospitalised in total from this cohort.
The vaccine has a cumulative effect of reducing hospitalisation among younger people by about 99%, it's about 95% in older people.
83% of those people take the vaccine so of those 100,000 that would previously have been hospitalised, 83,000 becomes 830. So even at 83% vaccination rate we've gone from 100,000 hospitalisations to about 18,000. Add in the fact that most of those hospitalisations come from groups 4 and 6 where take up rates are already 90%+ as outlined by PHE and that 18,000 figure is probably around a third of it in real life. Then add in that loads of them already have pre-existing immunity from infection and the 6k becomes about 4k. The IFR for then is about 10% who get hospitalised so 400.
Even at 83% you're talking about absolutely miniscule numbers of at risk of hospitalisation. It's very likely that 83% is going to be a massive undershoot simply because going to Magaluf or Ibiza in August and September will require vaccination status and they'll all go and get the J&J jab. International travel is the sensible nudge, not domestic tracking.
In the end I don't think vaccination certificates/passports will end up being implemented for domestic use, except perhaps for a handful of major events. But if they are, I can already see the line being deployed by many on here:
A Tory, government, yes a Tory government, with a majority of 80, goes around handing out a compulsory vaccine ID scheme that is an attack on civil liberties. It's obvious - this would be the fault of a) the Labour Party, or b) the Civil Service, or c) both. Starmer - weak and pathetic, all his fault.
Incidentally, the opinion poll frequently cited on here is misleading, as it asks whether people would prefer vaxports to a national or local lockdown. The results would, I suspect, be very different if that either/or were removed.
If there was no threat of further local or national lockdowns they would be entirely redundant
The polling isn't based on the threat of future local or national lockdowns. It's based on Vaxports being required to lift the current one.
Current Government policy is that the current one should be lifted in full on 21st June, a policy stated before any mention was made of a link to Vaxports.
I believe vaccination certificates will be demanded by most if not all airlines, cruise ships, and even travel insurance companies for many months, even years to come
Of course that is not the same as an app to ensure safe attendance at events such as football and even theatres and music venues where some common sense measures are required to allow the gradual return to capacity.
I understand they are not required to attend pubs and restaurants so to be honest I believe HMG is following a sensible course to open the economy and it does seem to have public support
The interesting issue that has not been discussed is just how far the authoritarian Sturgeon and Drakeford will go along this route or will they continue their zero covid policy and reject the schemes and stop business reopening
It was notable that Drakeford did confirm that all four nations were in discussion over vaccine passports and he did not seem averse to the idea
One thing missing in Ms Cyclefree's excellent opening piece is recognition that Harry Willcock was , in fact, a Liberal. More than that, a moderately prominent Liberal, having been a councillor and a Parliamentary candidate.
His first remark to the policeman - "I am a Liberal, and I am against this sort of thing" - is still quoted in Liberal/Lib Dem circles.
PS. Apologies for the effective duplication. I have just seen that Mr Cicero has also taken up this point.
These things cross party boundaries a bit. When I introduced an ID cards bill in Parliament (against the then Government's wishes), the LibDem spokesman was one of those who supported it.
I like Cyclefree, I enjoy her articles, and she seems to have nearly unanimous support here. But FWIW I disagree. This reflects my Continental background. I lived for many years in Switzerland, a country which is as far from authoritarian as you can imagine (the culture is confirmist, but that's voluntary). Many of my friends were leftists, some had uncertain right to remain, some were libertarians, and some routinely broke the law by using drugs, cheating on public transport and other minor offences. I NEVER heard anyone suggest that having an ID card was an issue. Nor did I ever hear of a case where someone was prosecuted for not having one - since we all had one, it was just a matter of popping home for it if you'd forgotten.
It was simply convenient., in the same way as having a passport when travelling is convenient, not just a necessity - it's handy to be able to show it at hotel reception or car hire without having to prove you are who you say you are. The faffing about with utility bills and council tax statements that you need to open a bank account in Britain is just silly.
If Britain turned Trumpist, I can imagine joining a protest group that was illegal under the laws that our Trump might pass. I can imagine worrying about my credit card use being tracked, my emails intercepted, an agency compiling a pattern of my behaviour (the last, of course, happns routinely for commercial reasons anyway). But worry about proving who I am? No.
I remember we discussed this at the time Nick and I think it is more than a bit disingenuous to claim the support of the "Lib Dem spokesman". Bearing in mind that NoToID was quite strongly a Lib Dem campaign and that plenty of Lib Dems were quite prepared to follow Willcock to gaol if need be, at best I think you could claim that the Liberal Democrats "understood" your position, but they clearly did not "support" it. The Lib Dem position was and is hostile to compulsory ID. You can argue whether that is the right position but you can not argue that the Lib Dems are not absolutely clear in their opposition to government ID cards. I accept that several EU countries, including especially Estonia, have created a system that works well, but the situation in the UK is rather different, and even Conservatives are rightly queasy about handing over rights of compulsion to the state, and I may add, this is now not just an issue of ID cards, or Covid, it is a fundamental question liberalism versus illiberalism and Liberal Democrats are crystal clear about where they stand.
Morning all. Great header as always from the Cycle. I disagree with the thrust of it but that’s how it goes sometimes.
I don’t for one second think the government is scheming to bring in some sort of oppressive, compulsory national ID card and high-tech tracking process by the backdoor. I’m not worried about that angle. It’s not a serious risk in my view. The fearful speculation is fuelled by a combination of preciousness and paranoia.
However I’m anti all of this Covid paraphernalia sticking around, because it’s irrational, cumbersome, all cost and faff with no tangible benefit. Indeed the benefits are negative. It would be exclusionary and divisive. The vaccine rollout should allow normal life to resume and this is not normal life. It would be denying us our dividend.
At the same time as being strongly against, I’m quite relaxed about it because I think most of the stuff coming from the government is performative rather than actually planned (and in any case would not last long). There are many people in the country who, despite the data showing conclusively that the pandemic is over, remain deeply anxious about going back to the way we were. Memories are foggy. Ok, it’s not logical but people are like this. They voted for Brexit and Boris Johnson remember.
This satanic bug has been a traumatic experience and there’s some PTSD out there. Hence why there might be a psychological need for an “easy does it” period, even though “the science” says otherwise. Bit like if your house is burgled, you might for months afterwards be on edge and take OTT security precautions to help you cope. My parents certainly did back in 2016. House was like Fort Knox for a while. It used to drive me mad when I visited but they wouldn’t listen. They were scared.
Finally on the politics, there is public support for many of these silly measures and so Labour should tread carefully on it. Listening to Rachel Reeves this morning, I get the sense that they will be.
Curious that Ms Cyclefree thinks that having a venue entirely closed increases our liberty.
I don't. However patiently you may have explained it, you are raising a strawman. And, with the greatest of respect, a very silly one.
Once deaths and cases are down and the NHS is no longer at risk, as is now the case and will be even more so come June, there is no reason for anything to remain closed. If they do it is only because the government says so in order to force ID cards on us. It will be because the government abandons the tests it previously set - and deliberately imposes a further restriction in order to sell us a pretend solution.
And you are falling for it.
Anyway sunshine in my bit of the Lakes - so off to the garden centre.
I wonder if people pointing to overwhelming support for vaccine passports did the same thing when Corbyn's policies polled well. He still lost in a landslide.
In my view, polling for single ideas and policies is not always very reliable, a lot comes down to how they ask the questions.
I did suggest this might happen but MalcolmG called me a turnip or something.
Its a sensational piece of electioneering by handy Alex (who was NOT conspired against by the government as DavidL claims). The SNP are the progressive soft left of independence politics. Pro-Scotland but probably not a Scotland that many would like to see.
Happily if you are a regressive soft right voter who is also patriotic now you have a new choice for your independence - vote for an independent Scotland modelled on Hungary.
You are usually quite sensible Rochdale but that is just bollox
Which bit is bollox? That its a sensational piece of realpolitic by Salmond? That he wasn't the target of a government conspiracy to jail him? Or that there are people in Scotland with a vote who aren't as progressive as Sturgeon is?
The part where it was not Sturgeon , her close pals in SNP and civil service who tried to have him jailed for made up stories, all but the one consensual encounter being shown to be lies and the worst one the claimant was not even on the premises. That she was able along with civil service, police and Crown Office to get away with all this , so far at least is very alarming. Hopefully the forthcoming police enquiries and the civil court cases and missing funds investigations will be better handled.
I simply do not believe the core of this - that 9 women decided to pervert the course of justice and perjure themselves in court for some hope that a faction of a party they may or may not support may somehow win over additional support over someone who had already left the stage.
Well the people who have all the names, all politicians, civil servants very very close to Sturgeon disagree. The couple I know certainly point to it indeed given their history.
Cui Bono? I'm one of the 2nd tranche of women who came forward to testify against him in court. Where's the benefit in doing so with me lying and him sent down? Because I want Salmond gone? He'd already gone. Because I wanted power for the SNP? They were in government!
I just don't get it at a base intellectual level. People can tell all kinds of outrageous lies when there is something in it for them. What was in it for these women? Specifically? Because nobody has even been able to propose to me anything beneficial for them in participating in this supposed conspiracy.
This quote really struck me as a student of history, (as I think Boris is). A certain leader of the German Reich used to conduct his goverment in this way, playing his ministers off against each other, and letting the strongest have their way in a form of Darwinism.
I do find it somewhat amusing of the acussations that Conservatives are waging a culture war. For the last decade they didnt even realise the war was happening. They allowed transgender extremism and movements like critical race theory to infest and spread across institutions. They belatedly realised that elements in their own government and publics services were facilitating this cultural revolution. The mildest of mild push back from them, and it is the Conservatives who are waging a war. A war that theyve barely realised was happening.
Since you invoked the first reference to the early to mid last century. It seems a bit like Germany claiming that the UK is the aggressor and militarist war mongerer for declaring war against them in 1939, when all they were trying to do was peacefully unite their subjugated peoples into a free and democratic homeland.
Very good point.
The reason the reactions to the race report were so shrill and hysterical (a bit like reax to vaxports here) is because the Left has never experienced push back on this issue ever before. They’ve had it all their own way, they’ve never encountered a different position, and in their culture war there’s been no fighting because an enemy did not exist. It was just endless advance on all fronts.
They seem actively outraged that someone should dare to contradict them.
Absolutely. The rage was there for all to see. Average white person response to what we've seen over the last few years of the ratcheting up of this "how awful racist Britain and its institutions are" has divided into two, what are now becoming familiar lines.
Most people live in their cocoons, whether those are based on class, professions or race. Sometimes there is massive cross over of these and sometimes you can find yourself in regular company outside of that which you are familiar (NP talked about his poker games the other day as his experience). So we often really dont experience the lives of others and are willing to take their word for it.
So we end up with many people believing some of the more extreme claims about life in the UK by those who have largest media coverage. That for poorer people life has never been worse, with young urchins starving to death without access to foodbanks. That black people cannot experience a day without been abused racially etc.
This has allowed a ratchet on the latter for more and more ludicrous situations to be reported on with all seriousness. The list of things, places, activities and organisations that are now racist has become so ubiquitous that there are a sizable group of people who unquestionably accept it.
And then you have those who dont. Who see the whole thing as a nonsense, but mutter it quietly . The problem is.... That yes the whole thing is a nonsense, but the grain of truth that sometimes people do experience prejudice based on their race and lets see where we reduce it is lost.
I think we need to look at the facts of the vaccination scheme and what justification a passport might have in this country, *for domestic use* rather than travel.
1. Vaccines in use in this country gave got over 90% efficacy against symptoms and over 99% efficacy against hospitalisation and almost 100% against death. 2. So far the uptake on vaccines is around 95% of people who have been offered it. 3. The people who are most likely to refuse are religious conservatives, mostly Muslim. 4. ONS surveys (a gold standard measure) show that younger people are as eager to be vaccinated as older people with 95% saying yes, they want it. Anecdotally I concur, literally all of my friends, cousins and colleagues are absolutely desperate to get vaccinated. 5. The vaccine passport system is being proposed for use in places such as cinemas, nightclubs and so on.
These are the actual facts, everything else is bullshit.
Can anyone explain how point 5 addresses the issue in point 3. How does a vaccine passport that targets places young people go help conservative Muslims take the vaccine. That's going to be the last group with low uptake.
Really not sure this is true. All the anti-vaxxers I know are under 30. Admittedly I don’t know many orthodox wahhabis but I believe my anecdata is supported by evidence. The under 30s are a real pool of anti-vaxxery
This is, presumably, one reason why HMG is considering vaxports for clubs and festivals. To nudge the hesitant young
It isn't though, the ONS and loads of other polls have got young people at 95% uptake.
The government want vaccine passports for reasons other than COVID. If they only wanted them for COVID they send us all a 6-12 month validity photo ID with no biometric data and no tracking a week after the second dose. That would actually be the cheapest way to do it, but it means that it has a shelf life and they can't track where people use them. The government wants the tracking data.
As I said to you the other night, lockdown has robbed you of your edge. A year ago you'd have been spitting with rage about this idea. The government has beaten you into submission, they're holding your favourite activities hostage and you're begging them for permission to have fun. I pity what they've turned you into, a subservient automaton.
No. It’s you that’s wrong, and it’s you that’s lost your customary sharpness. You cite the ONS in your comment. And yet, in the link I just sent you, the ONS, your ‘gold standard’ directly contradicts you
‘Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed adults aged 16-29 are the most likely to report hesitancy around the jab, at around one in every six people.’
You claimed 95% of young people eagerly want the jab. Simply wrong
“The ONS looked at four weeks of responses to the Opinions and Lifestyles Survey...
Around 17% adults aged 16 to 29 years reported vaccine hesitancy - the highest of all age groups.
There a different in sex too, with younger women reporting more vaccine hesitancy (19%) compared to men in the same age group (15%).”
Stop wetting yourself like a toddler over some imaginary hobgoblin coming to eat your liberties. It’s a figment of your fevered id. Return to your normal lucid self
The overreaction on here is quite bizarre
Let's take 83% as gospel. Fine. There's around 10m people aged 18-29 in this country. Let's also make it completely unfavorable and say none have any kind of immunity.
The current hospitalisation rate is 1 in 1000 fit this age group, again let's assume groups 4 and 6 don't exist, that means up to 100,000 people may be hospitalised in total from this cohort.
The vaccine has a cumulative effect of reducing hospitalisation among younger people by about 99%, it's about 95% in older people.
83% of those people take the vaccine so of those 100,000 that would previously have been hospitalised, 83,000 becomes 830. So even at 83% vaccination rate we've gone from 100,000 hospitalisations to about 18,000. Add in the fact that most of those hospitalisations come from groups 4 and 6 where take up rates are already 90%+ as outlined by PHE and that 18,000 figure is probably around a third of it in real life. Then add in that loads of them already have pre-existing immunity from infection and the 6k becomes about 4k. The IFR for then is about 10% who get hospitalised so 400.
Even at 83% you're talking about absolutely miniscule numbers of at risk of hospitalisation. It's very likely that 83% is going to be a massive undershoot simply because going to Magaluf or Ibiza in August and September will require vaccination status and they'll all go and get the J&J jab. International travel is the sensible nudge, not domestic tracking.
When did I ever claim that young people are keeling over from Covid? What a strange evolution in your argument.
However, I usually enjoy your informed commentary and I dislike this new name-calling, so I suggest we agree to disagree.
As for the idea the government should send us a basic photo ID if they’re gonna do this at all, I half concur with you. However, I can also see why the government might want the potential ability to track us with a more sophisticated app.
It’s not for Covid. It’s for the NEXT pandemic. The government wants to have the ability to do a Korea. Use superb, real-time track and trace (via smartphones) to crush the next disease early
The libertarian in me (he does exist!) finds this menacing, and yet the government might say, Well, this way we avoid putting the nation in prison for a year, and we avoid destroying the economy, and we save 150,000 lives, so surely it’s worth it?
I wonder if people pointing to overwhelming support for vaccine passports did the same thing when Corbyn's policies polled well. He still lost in a landslide.
In my view, polling for single ideas and policies is not always very reliable, a lot comes down to how they ask the questions.
That's why a liberal free market solution is best.
If this is popular and proftiable companies will choose to do it out of their own free choice.
If it isn't, they won't.
We have no reason to require the state to tell us what to do.
You elect a nationalist-populist government, what do you expect?
As far as I know (and I'd really like someone to describe an exception) they all end up unpleasantly authoritarian, led by a sleazy clique, and eventually running out of money.
It's a potent brew to win power, but it fails as a way to run a country.
Spot on, but according to most "conservatives" on here, bad governance is a price well worth paying for annoying the liberal lefties.
There are certainly a number of Conservative Party supporters on PB who don't really seem to care much what their side do when in power as long as they win. It's more akin to supporting a football team.
It is pointless arguing about whether Johnson is liberal or not, very few of his actions are motivated by conviction or political principle , the driver is what is likely to keep him in power.
People like HUYFD and Big G can be four square behind the Tories under Cameron when they were strongly in favour of being in the EU and then a couple of years later four square behind the Tories when Johnson has removed us from the EU and it is a virulently anti-EU party. I really don't get it.
OT Can't get worked up about vaxpassports either way. The horse has well and truly bolted if you are worried about a "surveillance society". CCTV cameras, mobile phone tracking, driving licences, NHS records, passports, credit cards - anyone who believes that we cannot be tracked already is delusional.
Great article, Ms Cyclefree, and an interesting debate BTL.
How sad that many of the quite reasonable views on here - on both sides - will not be discussed at all in Parliament. The problem has long been that barring a few dissidents, there is no party in parliament that is willing to stand up for personal liberties and against overreach of the state. Authoritarianism is fine so long as it's our lot in charge, seems to be the overriding view.
Over the past year we have had civil liberties curtailed by the government more than at virtually any time in our history. Yet the only argument from the various opposition parties is we need to curtail more.
Perhaps the opposition has dragged the liberal Boris into the authoritarian column, perhaps not. Perhaps the curtailment of civil liberties was justified, perhaps not. Perhaps covid passports are justified, perhaps not. These arguments to me miss the point somewhat - the point being that in a democracy the principle of personal liberty should be represented - in Parliament, in the mainstream media just as it is in the general population.
Sadly at the moment it's not. We live in hope that this will be the first step to changing that, but sadly I expect all the opposition parties once again to side with the authoritarians. And I can say with certainty that there is nothing positive about that.
I did suggest this might happen but MalcolmG called me a turnip or something.
Its a sensational piece of electioneering by handy Alex (who was NOT conspired against by the government as DavidL claims). The SNP are the progressive soft left of independence politics. Pro-Scotland but probably not a Scotland that many would like to see.
Happily if you are a regressive soft right voter who is also patriotic now you have a new choice for your independence - vote for an independent Scotland modelled on Hungary.
You are usually quite sensible Rochdale but that is just bollox
Which bit is bollox? That its a sensational piece of realpolitic by Salmond? That he wasn't the target of a government conspiracy to jail him? Or that there are people in Scotland with a vote who aren't as progressive as Sturgeon is?
The part where it was not Sturgeon , her close pals in SNP and civil service who tried to have him jailed for made up stories, all but the one consensual encounter being shown to be lies and the worst one the claimant was not even on the premises. That she was able along with civil service, police and Crown Office to get away with all this , so far at least is very alarming. Hopefully the forthcoming police enquiries and the civil court cases and missing funds investigations will be better handled.
I simply do not believe the core of this - that 9 women decided to pervert the course of justice and perjure themselves in court for some hope that a faction of a party they may or may not support may somehow win over additional support over someone who had already left the stage.
Well the people who have all the names, all politicians, civil servants very very close to Sturgeon disagree. The couple I know certainly point to it indeed given their history.
Cui Bono? I'm one of the 2nd tranche of women who came forward to testify against him in court. Where's the benefit in doing so with me lying and him sent down? Because I want Salmond gone? He'd already gone. Because I wanted power for the SNP? They were in government!
I just don't get it at a base intellectual level. People can tell all kinds of outrageous lies when there is something in it for them. What was in it for these women? Specifically? Because nobody has even been able to propose to me anything beneficial for them in participating in this supposed conspiracy.
You're being naive. We don't know since the identities of the women and their motives are protected.
If as rumoured they were close to Sturgeon then absolutely they could get involved in conspiracies, it wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened especially with Whatsapp etc
A few years ago I went to a tribunal and had taken legal advice that said it was a 50/50 "he said, he said" until someone leaked a group chat to me. I passed that leak on to my lawyer who said effectively that he never says 100% but it was as close to that as it could be with that as evidence. Without that leak there could have been a real miscarriage of justice. People do get involved in conspiracies without even realising it when they're egging each other on.
I remember we discussed this at the time Nick and I think it is more than a bit disingenuous to claim the support of the "Lib Dem spokesman". Bearing in mind that NoToID was quite strongly a Lib Dem campaign and that plenty of Lib Dems were quite prepared to follow Willcock to gaol if need be, at best I think you could claim that the Liberal Democrats "understood" your position, but they clearly did not "support" it. The Lib Dem position was and is hostile to compulsory ID. You can argue whether that is the right position but you can not argue that the Lib Dems are not absolutely clear in their opposition to government ID cards. I accept that several EU countries, including especially Estonia, have created a system that works well, but the situation in the UK is rather different, and even Conservatives are rightly queasy about handing over rights of compulsion to the state, and I may add, this is now not just an issue of ID cards, or Covid, it is a fundamental question liberalism versus illiberalism and Liberal Democrats are crystal clear about where they stand.
I'm just stating the fact. It was a private members' bill, so there was no whip. The LibDem spokesman for covering these issues voted for it, no doubt at a personal level - I spoke with him briefly as I was a bit surprised (since as you say it's not the traditional LD position) and he didn't suggest any party view at the time. What I said, that opinion on these things varies across parties (and over time) is simply true. At that time, the issue wasn't prominent and the Labour government was opposed to the idea, later they swung in favour.
A few years later, I debated Chris Huhne on the subject at a university event. I teased him about it afterwards and he laughed heartily and said "Being a LibDem covers a variety of attitudes." (I said "You could say that of all the parties", and we parted very amicably.)
Incidentally, I thought it interesting that a number of the trial venues in Liverpool, have now said publically that that won't be testing the internal passport and their involvement in the trial is to test ventilation and social distancing etc.
Why is that? Because the suggestion that they might test vaxpasses was met with a volley of abuse by many.
Now whether that abuse was acceptable is a different question but I suspect this is one of these issues where those opposed will be much more vocal than those supposedly giving their full support to the march of the authoritarian state.
The one venue I heard on the news in Liverpool is actively cooperating with the scheme and the scientists and is very much in favour
You mean like those companies used in advertising Brexit who claimed that exports had never been better?
I don't think it is yet wildly grasped how extensive the government's off the record media operation is. They are running hundreds of web sites, blogs, FB groups, etc. at arm's length
Seriously, evidence? I haven’t seen much discussion of this.
Was the story that the guy holding the kill cops banner this weekend was an undercover cop himself and there simply to agitate, confirmed or denied?
Actually, the banner said "Cops Kill" as seen in this video, then was reversed briefly. The person doing this seemed to have a very friendly relationship with the cops. It is all in this thread:
If you march down Whitehall with a banner explicitly advocating the murder of people - cops, doctors, blacks, women, Scot Nats, cake decorators, clam jousting super injunctors - then you should expect to be swiftly arrested. And if you’re an illegal immigrant, as that guy seems to be, you should expect to get deported.
Except that person was protected by the police, not arrested, indeed spent much of the protest behind police lines filming protesters. Undeniably the banner reads "Cops Kill" in the video.
lol. He’s Antifa. He admits it himself.
If he is Antifa - he will say he is Antifa. If he is undercover police in Antifa - he will still say he is Antifa.
It tells us nothing, either way.
He's an American with a decade long track record including jail time for committing offences on behalf of Antifa.
If he's undercover then he's been deep state undercover for a decade now and has bizarrely been transferred from America.
Nah, I don't think it is Barrett Brown. Why would an antifa be hiding behind the police when things are kicking off rather than joining in?
And surely you agree that the banner said "Cops Kill" rather than the reverse. Incidentally in the video of this a protester tells him that the banner is wrong.
The guy has written a sizeable article on medium saying basically "yup, that’s me". (I linked to it below.)
Occam’s Razor suggests that 1) It really is Barrett Brown, who has a history of making pro-violence against state forces statements in the past & that he was responsible for swapping the "Cops Kill" sign to read "Kill Cops".
It’s also possible that BB is a deep state agent provacateur & it would not be the first time that the most extreme individuals in a movement turned out to be state moles placed there to discredit the movement in the eyes of the wider population, but it’s impossible to prove or disprove such a statement & would be something that I personally would simply keep at the back of my mind when reading stories like this. Everyone is trying to spin the narrative & that goes for the police & their fellow travellers as well as the protestors.
You elect a nationalist-populist government, what do you expect?
As far as I know (and I'd really like someone to describe an exception) they all end up unpleasantly authoritarian, led by a sleazy clique, and eventually running out of money.
It's a potent brew to win power, but it fails as a way to run a country.
Spot on, but according to most "conservatives" on here, bad governance is a price well worth paying for annoying the liberal lefties.
There are certainly a number of Conservative Party supporters on PB who don't really seem to care much what their side do when in power as long as they win. It's more akin to supporting a football team.
It is pointless arguing about whether Johnson is liberal or not, very few of his actions are motivated by conviction or political principle , the driver is what is likely to keep him in power.
People like HUYFD and Big G can be four square behind the Tories under Cameron when they were strongly in favour of being in the EU and then a couple of years later four square behind the Tories when Johnson has removed us from the EU and it is a virulently anti-EU party. I really don't get it.
OT Can't get worked up about vaxpassports either way. The horse has well and truly bolted if you are worried about a "surveillance society". CCTV cameras, mobile phone tracking, driving licences, NHS records, passports, credit cards - anyone who believes that we cannot be tracked already is delusional.
Can I just correct that comment
I have never been strongly in favour of the EU and my vote to remain was reluctant nor was I happy that Cameron had not achieved a deal with the EU
When we voted to leave I accepted the result and now want to move forward and adapt to the change that is inevitable
Vaxports are designed to allow certain businesses to open earlier than otherwise.
But not much earlier- they're not happening tomorrow, and everyone is expecting herd immunity by May/June and complete adult coverage by June/July.
But there's a time interval where vaccination will be partial, and some people will be anxious. But vaxports give reassurance to the already 90%+ protected, that they won't be exposed to the pox that their bodies already have antibodies for. The unprotected will have to stay at home.
But it will allow businesses to reopen. Even though a chunk of their clientele will still be stuck at home. And since the hospitality biz is mainly staffed by young people, there won't be enough people with a passport to stand the other side of the bar.
It doesn't matter that it's popular- it's not going to work.
And yet, it seems to be working in Israel? I can’t find any serious calls to scrap it, there. If you can, please show me - I’d be sincerely interested
Isn't the main thing about Israel that they've vaccinated so many people that the virus literally can't spread? Which is how it should be.
Plus a famously rigourous approach to national security.
Vaccine internal passports solve the problem of managing a society where a state of partial vaccination persists for a long time. That's not going to be the situation.
Imagine it’s early 2020 all over again. Except this time we are forewarned. We know what’s coming.
The government says to us, we can have a Korea style outcome, 1,700 dead, 100,000 cases, virtually no lockdown, economy barely touched, but for that to happen we need compulsory smartphone apps so the government can track and trace everyone?
Alternatively, we can have no compulsory apps, the government will not track everyone, but instead we will have 4m cases, 150,000 dead, a year of lockdown, and an economy decimated
I know which one I’d choose. The first. South Korea. Let the government film me in the loo. I don’t bloody care
I imagine 98% of Britons would choose the same. So Liberty really is relative, not absolute
Morning all. Great header as always from the Cycle. I disagree with the thrust of it but that’s how it goes sometimes.
I don’t for one second think the government is scheming to bring in some sort of oppressive, compulsory national ID card and high-tech tracking process by the backdoor. I’m not worried about that angle. It’s not a serious risk in my view. The fearful speculation is fuelled by a combination of preciousness and paranoia.
However I’m anti all of this Covid paraphernalia sticking around, because it’s irrational, cumbersome, all cost and faff with no tangible benefit. Indeed the benefits are negative. It would be exclusionary and divisive. The vaccine rollout should allow normal life to resume and this is not normal life. It would be denying us our dividend.
At the same time as being strongly against, I’m quite relaxed about it because I think most of the stuff coming from the government is performative rather than actually planned (and in any case would not last long). There are many people in the country who, despite the data showing conclusively that the pandemic is over, remain deeply anxious about going back to the way we were. Memories are foggy. Ok, it’s not logical but people are like this. They voted for Brexit and Boris Johnson remember.
This satanic bug has been a traumatic experience and there’s some PTSD out there. Hence why there might be a psychological need for an “easy does it” period, even though “the science” says otherwise. Bit like if your house is burgled, you might for months afterwards be on edge and take OTT security precautions to help you cope. My parents certainly did back in 2016. House was like Fort Knox for a while. It used to drive me mad when I visited but they wouldn’t listen. They were scared.
Finally on the politics, there is public support for many of these silly measures and so Labour should tread carefully on it. Listening to Rachel Reeves this morning, I get the sense that they will be.
A very perceptive post (as so many of yours are - if you’ll forgive my possibly obsequious tone). This is going to be a key factor coming out of lockdown. Many people will simply want to continue wearing masks and socially distancing long after it ceases to be necessary.
Vaxports are designed to allow certain businesses to open earlier than otherwise.
But not much earlier- they're not happening tomorrow, and everyone is expecting herd immunity by May/June and complete adult coverage by June/July.
But there's a time interval where vaccination will be partial, and some people will be anxious. But vaxports give reassurance to the already 90%+ protected, that they won't be exposed to the pox that their bodies already have antibodies for. The unprotected will have to stay at home.
But it will allow businesses to reopen. Even though a chunk of their clientele will still be stuck at home. And since the hospitality biz is mainly staffed by young people, there won't be enough people with a passport to stand the other side of the bar.
It doesn't matter that it's popular- it's not going to work.
And yet, it seems to be working in Israel? I can’t find any serious calls to scrap it, there. If you can, please show me - I’d be sincerely interested
Isn't the main thing about Israel that they've vaccinated so many people that the virus literally can't spread? Which is how it should be.
Plus a famously rigourous approach to national security.
Vaccine internal passports solve the problem of managing a society where a state of partial vaccination persists for a long time. That's not going to be the situation.
I’m talking about the Israeli vaxport. They’ve got it. They’re using it. I can’t find much objection to it from businesses or individuals, just the odd complaint about its functionality. And a couple of scholarly libertarians
Personally, I am not bothered by carrying ID. I need to at work, and I always carry my driving licence too. Purely voluntary too.
I am bothered by the government giving itself the right to arrest people for peaceful protest on the whim of a police officer. That really is not just the thin edge of the wedge. It is quite a long way along the wedge.
Yes, I agree, but isn't it a separate issue? The problem is the right to arrest people for peaceful protest, which the police can do under the proposed legislation merely because they think someone might be annoyed, without any ID card issue at all. If we have ID cards without oppressive legislation, they wouldn't be a problem. If we have opporessive legislation without ID cards, it's very much a problem. The ability , after being arrested, to pretend you're someone else will not hold for long.
Imagine it’s early 2020 all over again. Except this time we are forewarned. We know what’s coming.
The government says to us, we can have a Korea style outcome, 1,700 dead, 100,000 cases, virtually no lockdown, economy barely touched, but for that to happen we need compulsory smartphone apps so the government can track and trace everyone?
Alternatively, we can have no compulsory apps, the government will not track everyone, but instead we will have 4m cases, 150,000 dead, a year of lockdown, and an economy decimated
I know which one I’d choose. The first. South Korea. Let the government film me in the loo. I don’t bloody care
I imagine 98% of Britons would choose the same. So Liberty really is relative, not absolute
Err, if you think what’s being proposed will turn us into South Korea for next time I have a bridge to sell you.
Imagine it’s early 2020 all over again. Except this time we are forewarned. We know what’s coming.
The government says to us, we can have a Korea style outcome, 1,700 dead, 100,000 cases, virtually no lockdown, economy barely touched, but for that to happen we need compulsory smartphone apps so the government can track and trace everyone?
Alternatively, we can have no compulsory apps, the government will not track everyone, but instead we will have 4m cases, 150,000 dead, a year of lockdown, and an economy decimated
I know which one I’d choose. The first. South Korea. Let the government film me in the loo. I don’t bloody care
I imagine 98% of Britons would choose the same. So Liberty really is relative, not absolute
We're not in early 2020 and when we are next in early 2020 position again we won't have a vaccine for it, since it will be novel again. So next time we're in an early 2020 situation vaxports won't be a solution though testing, tracking, tracing and isolation may be.
So the government is probably wise to consider working behind the scenes on maintaining testing and tracing cabilities that can be rolled out if required and voted for as an emergency measure by Parliament. But there is no reason or excuse to have that active today.
These arguments for the introduction of the internal passport fall apart like a wet paper bag.
It's about protection of staff - in which case why has Johnson already said they won't be applicable for many venues?
It's because Covid is some unique emergency. Yes it's a nasty virus and can cause complications but now the vast majority of the vulnerable population have been vaccinated, you can apply the same argument to influenza and the flu vaccine.
It's sledgehammer to crack a nut stuff. And yes I'd much rather attend a venue that wasn't demanding to know whether I'd either been vaxxed, had Covid anti-bodies or taken a recent test.
As a society we seem to be totally unwilling to allow individuals to weigh up the risks for themselves as we emerge into a future where the virus will be a background issue but the protection of the health system has been achieved.
If its a public health policy, the very first place that should be included is the tube. There is nowhere else that comes close to its impact in spreading germs around not just London but as London is so inter connected also to the wider country.
That it is not included is clear evidence that it is not a public health policy, but at best theatre to encourage youngsters to take the vaccine in greater numbers, or more likely the start of a permanent ID card scheme.
This is (re: the tube) of course an excellent point. The Government's general approach for combatting the spread of Covid has been to ban all activities which are "non-essential" whilst mitigating the dangers of those which they have to treat as essential. Public transport of course being in the latter group. The basic mitigation (other than masks and some measures to impose social distancing by fencing off seats) being to reduce usage to essential workers (everyone else being required to work from home).
But once the working from home guidance, and limits on non-essential activities are lifted then they have to accept that public transports and the tube in particular will start to become very busy again. Yes they'll still probably have masks to hold the line, but really, what's the point in protecting people in nightclubs and other crowded venues, if the protections on the tube are so flimsy?
The tube has about 100m passenger journeys per month in normal times. A decent proportion of those will be in more cramped and close conditions than any nightclub dancefloor let alone a bar, pub, theatre, sports stadia. It has poor ventilation.
That is before considering similarly crowded trains, trams and buses throughout the country.
If covid spreads again as we open up, it will be mostly from public transport, not hospitality venues.
Once again, that's missing the point a bit. Does it matter if a million people per day get COVID it only 100 of them turn up in hospital? The vaccines are primarily a tool to stop people needing hospital treatment and they are extremely effective at that.
Vaccine passports have got no utility that scenario.
Until WHO changed the definition of herd immunity, medics. recognised T cell immunity which is how a large population could mostly defeat a relatively new virus (SARS CoV 2 is ~80% similar to SARS 1 and of course some common colds are coronaviruses).
T cells are part of the reason why in a two week period only ~20% of passengers on the Diamond Princess became infected (NB in a longer period, it's thought that more would catch it but certainly not 100%).
The DP was an interesting trial because it was unintended and wouldn't normally be carried out due to 'ethics'. 0.37% died out of a ship population with an average age of ~60. There are proven treatments tested since then inclo Ivermectin, HCQ, vitamin D particularly.
Ioannidis recently published a paper estimating the IFR at 0.15%, or 0.05% if aged under 70.
Compulsory vaccination for an IFR of 0.15, let alone 0.05%? Go **** yourself, Gove and Johnson.
1 - T-cells provide a component of immunity but not, by their very nature, sterilising immunity that prevents transmission. As pointed out in detail by Shane Crotty, the immunologist who identified coronavirus cross-reactivity in SARS-CoV-2
2 - The cross-reactivity from common cold coronaviruses (which comprise only 20% of common cold infections in the first place) was studied and found to provide zero benefit in actually resisting covid - the T-cells were stimulated to react, but did not attack the virus at all. The common denialist meme that other coronavirus immunity protects against SARS-CoV-2 was comprehensively disproven.
3 - Ioannidis paper wasn't recent; it was several months ago, and was ripped apart by the wider community for dodgy assumptions, excluding any data that disagreed with it (of which there was much), and incorporating very dodgy serological data (which was since shown to be wrong) simply because it seemed to support his original idea. His latest paper was an attempt to defend it despite it being patently disproved by the IFR in many countries, including incorporating personal attacks on those who dismembered it in the first place.
4 - The IFR is neither 0.15% nor 0.05% as can be shown by the fact that the population death rate in many areas is considerably worse than that already.
Imagine it’s early 2020 all over again. Except this time we are forewarned. We know what’s coming.
The government says to us, we can have a Korea style outcome, 1,700 dead, 100,000 cases, virtually no lockdown, economy barely touched, but for that to happen we need compulsory smartphone apps so the government can track and trace everyone?
Alternatively, we can have no compulsory apps, the government will not track everyone, but instead we will have 4m cases, 150,000 dead, a year of lockdown, and an economy decimated
I know which one I’d choose. The first. South Korea. Let the government film me in the loo. I don’t bloody care
I imagine 98% of Britons would choose the same. So Liberty really is relative, not absolute
Err, if you think what’s being proposed will turn us into South Korea for next time I have a bridge to sell you.
Maybe we can’t do as well as South Korea. But, you know, I’d like our government to TRY.
Reading through the thread again it is clear that there are different interpretations over what a domestic vaccine passport would mean.
For example:
1) Mandatory State: Costly and possibly high-tech state solution with government mandate that it is used in certain locations (e.g. indoor restaurants) 2) Voluntary State: Costly and possibly high-tech state solution which businesses can use to discriminate custom if they so wish 3) Voluntary Business: Businesses make the liberal commercial decision to insist on evidence of vaccination from punters which is not state-produced, e.g. NHS vaccination card/ signed declaration
These scenarios are obviously very different and each has differing civil liberty implications.
3) is least problematic, I agree, but should businesses be able to enquire over the health details of its customers? (The fuss over GDPR trivialities seems aeons ago.)
I did suggest this might happen but MalcolmG called me a turnip or something.
Its a sensational piece of electioneering by handy Alex (who was NOT conspired against by the government as DavidL claims). The SNP are the progressive soft left of independence politics. Pro-Scotland but probably not a Scotland that many would like to see.
Happily if you are a regressive soft right voter who is also patriotic now you have a new choice for your independence - vote for an independent Scotland modelled on Hungary.
You are usually quite sensible Rochdale but that is just bollox
Which bit is bollox? That its a sensational piece of realpolitic by Salmond? That he wasn't the target of a government conspiracy to jail him? Or that there are people in Scotland with a vote who aren't as progressive as Sturgeon is?
The part where it was not Sturgeon , her close pals in SNP and civil service who tried to have him jailed for made up stories, all but the one consensual encounter being shown to be lies and the worst one the claimant was not even on the premises. That she was able along with civil service, police and Crown Office to get away with all this , so far at least is very alarming. Hopefully the forthcoming police enquiries and the civil court cases and missing funds investigations will be better handled.
I simply do not believe the core of this - that 9 women decided to pervert the course of justice and perjure themselves in court for some hope that a faction of a party they may or may not support may somehow win over additional support over someone who had already left the stage.
Well the people who have all the names, all politicians, civil servants very very close to Sturgeon disagree. The couple I know certainly point to it indeed given their history.
Cui Bono? I'm one of the 2nd tranche of women who came forward to testify against him in court. Where's the benefit in doing so with me lying and him sent down? Because I want Salmond gone? He'd already gone. Because I wanted power for the SNP? They were in government!
I just don't get it at a base intellectual level. People can tell all kinds of outrageous lies when there is something in it for them. What was in it for these women? Specifically? Because nobody has even been able to propose to me anything beneficial for them in participating in this supposed conspiracy.
You're being naive. We don't know since the identities of the women and their motives are protected.
If as rumoured they were close to Sturgeon then absolutely they could get involved in conspiracies, it wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened especially with Whatsapp etc
A few years ago I went to a tribunal and had taken legal advice that said it was a 50/50 "he said, he said" until someone leaked a group chat to me. I passed that leak on to my lawyer who said effectively that he never says 100% but it was as close to that as it could be with that as evidence. Without that leak there could have been a real miscarriage of justice. People do get involved in conspiracies without even realising it when they're egging each other on.
Perhaps I am being naive - its certainly a possibility on this one. I absolutely get that people get caught up in stuff. Had it just been the original two complainants then yes perhaps. But nine of them? If you are recruiting people to lie and risk jail for your barely perceivable political gain, then I could get managing to persuade a couple of fools to do it. But not nine of them. Its the numbers that make this not pass my bullshit test.
This quote really struck me as a student of history, (as I think Boris is). A certain leader of the German Reich used to conduct his goverment in this way, playing his ministers off against each other, and letting the strongest have their way in a form of Darwinism.
I do find it somewhat amusing of the acussations that Conservatives are waging a culture war. For the last decade they didnt even realise the war was happening. They allowed transgender extremism and movements like critical race theory to infest and spread across institutions. They belatedly realised that elements in their own government and publics services were facilitating this cultural revolution. The mildest of mild push back from them, and it is the Conservatives who are waging a war. A war that theyve barely realised was happening.
Since you invoked the first reference to the early to mid last century. It seems a bit like Germany claiming that the UK is the aggressor and militarist war mongerer for declaring war against them in 1939, when all they were trying to do was peacefully unite their subjugated peoples into a free and democratic homeland.
Very good point.
The reason the reactions to the race report were so shrill and hysterical (a bit like reax to vaxports here) is because the Left has never experienced push back on this issue ever before. They’ve had it all their own way, they’ve never encountered a different position, and in their culture war there’s been no fighting because an enemy did not exist. It was just endless advance on all fronts.
They seem actively outraged that someone should dare to contradict them.
Absolutely. The rage was there for all to see. Average white person response to what we've seen over the last few years of the ratcheting up of this "how awful racist Britain and its institutions are" has divided into two, what are now becoming familiar lines.
Most people live in their cocoons, whether those are based on class, professions or race. Sometimes there is massive cross over of these and sometimes you can find yourself in regular company outside of that which you are familiar (NP talked about his poker games the other day as his experience). So we often really dont experience the lives of others and are willing to take their word for it.
So we end up with many people believing some of the more extreme claims about life in the UK by those who have largest media coverage. That for poorer people life has never been worse, with young urchins starving to death without access to foodbanks. That black people cannot experience a day without been abused racially etc.
This has allowed a ratchet on the latter for more and more ludicrous situations to be reported on with all seriousness. The list of things, places, activities and organisations that are now racist has become so ubiquitous that there are a sizable group of people who unquestionably accept it.
And then you have those who dont. Who see the whole thing as a nonsense, but mutter it quietly . The problem is.... That yes the whole thing is a nonsense, but the grain of truth that sometimes people do experience prejudice based on their race and lets see where we reduce it is lost.
At least some of those people are in regular receipt of a river of racist bullshit.
Do you imagine that David Lammy’s inbox is nothing but sweetness and light?
I think the report may have been well intentioned, but it utterly failed to either a) consider the context into which it was being dropped or b) to give the slightest thought or credence to any of the arguments that Britain does contain elements of institutional (or other) racism.
It’s one thing to think those arguments are wrong, but to simply ignore them completely & cherry pick only those parts of people’s research that the authors believed supported their POV without even consulting them suggests that the authors simply wished to push a particular narrative & were uninterested in any of the counter-arguments.
This might be good politics, but it’s bad science IMO.
Imagine it’s early 2020 all over again. Except this time we are forewarned. We know what’s coming.
The government says to us, we can have a Korea style outcome, 1,700 dead, 100,000 cases, virtually no lockdown, economy barely touched, but for that to happen we need compulsory smartphone apps so the government can track and trace everyone?
Alternatively, we can have no compulsory apps, the government will not track everyone, but instead we will have 4m cases, 150,000 dead, a year of lockdown, and an economy decimated
I know which one I’d choose. The first. South Korea. Let the government film me in the loo. I don’t bloody care
I imagine 98% of Britons would choose the same. So Liberty really is relative, not absolute
I agree with you in principle. I don't care if I'm tracked 24/7 so long as everyone else is. I wouldn't want to be picked on. But I seriously doubt our ability to do that. By "our" I mean in the widest sense - government, state, population.
Imagine it’s early 2020 all over again. Except this time we are forewarned. We know what’s coming.
The government says to us, we can have a Korea style outcome, 1,700 dead, 100,000 cases, virtually no lockdown, economy barely touched, but for that to happen we need compulsory smartphone apps so the government can track and trace everyone?
Alternatively, we can have no compulsory apps, the government will not track everyone, but instead we will have 4m cases, 150,000 dead, a year of lockdown, and an economy decimated
I know which one I’d choose. The first. South Korea. Let the government film me in the loo. I don’t bloody care
I imagine 98% of Britons would choose the same. So Liberty really is relative, not absolute
Obviously you take South Korea in that scenario, or more likely New Zealand/Australia with very, very tough border entry controls.
As for your previous post, you said the vaccine passport is a nudge to get people to take it, my question is again, to what end? We're really talking about tiny numbers. The better nudge, IMO, is requiring vaccine status to exit the country. It's much less onerous and we can link it to Amadeus which is easy to do and doesn't require a completely new apparatus and nightclub bouncers given access to people's health data.
Imagine it’s early 2020 all over again. Except this time we are forewarned. We know what’s coming.
The government says to us, we can have a Korea style outcome, 1,700 dead, 100,000 cases, virtually no lockdown, economy barely touched, but for that to happen we need compulsory smartphone apps so the government can track and trace everyone?
Alternatively, we can have no compulsory apps, the government will not track everyone, but instead we will have 4m cases, 150,000 dead, a year of lockdown, and an economy decimated
I know which one I’d choose. The first. South Korea. Let the government film me in the loo. I don’t bloody care
I imagine 98% of Britons would choose the same. So Liberty really is relative, not absolute
You would be more likely to get the surveillance society plus the lockdowns and deaths given government's unwillingness to shut the borders and inability to organise track and trace.
You elect a nationalist-populist government, what do you expect?
As far as I know (and I'd really like someone to describe an exception) they all end up unpleasantly authoritarian, led by a sleazy clique, and eventually running out of money.
It's a potent brew to win power, but it fails as a way to run a country.
Spot on, but according to most "conservatives" on here, bad governance is a price well worth paying for annoying the liberal lefties.
There are certainly a number of Conservative Party supporters on PB who don't really seem to care much what their side do when in power as long as they win. It's more akin to supporting a football team.
It is pointless arguing about whether Johnson is liberal or not, very few of his actions are motivated by conviction or political principle , the driver is what is likely to keep him in power.
People like HUYFD and Big G can be four square behind the Tories under Cameron when they were strongly in favour of being in the EU and then a couple of years later four square behind the Tories when Johnson has removed us from the EU and it is a virulently anti-EU party. I really don't get it.
OT Can't get worked up about vaxpassports either way. The horse has well and truly bolted if you are worried about a "surveillance society". CCTV cameras, mobile phone tracking, driving licences, NHS records, passports, credit cards - anyone who believes that we cannot be tracked already is delusional.
Can I just correct that comment
I have never been strongly in favour of the EU and my vote to remain was reluctant nor was I happy that Cameron had not achieved a deal with the EU
When we voted to leave I accepted the result and now want to move forward and adapt to the change that is inevitable
Accepting that Brexit it s now a fact is one thing, actively supporting a Brexit government is another thing entirely.
If you believe that being in the EU is a beneficial to this country, as I still do, then it is illogical to actively support this Johnson government. You might, at a stretch, vote for it as the lesser of 2 evils but to actively be a member makes no sense to me.
Vaxports are designed to allow certain businesses to open earlier than otherwise.
But not much earlier- they're not happening tomorrow, and everyone is expecting herd immunity by May/June and complete adult coverage by June/July.
But there's a time interval where vaccination will be partial, and some people will be anxious. But vaxports give reassurance to the already 90%+ protected, that they won't be exposed to the pox that their bodies already have antibodies for. The unprotected will have to stay at home.
But it will allow businesses to reopen. Even though a chunk of their clientele will still be stuck at home. And since the hospitality biz is mainly staffed by young people, there won't be enough people with a passport to stand the other side of the bar.
It doesn't matter that it's popular- it's not going to work.
And yet, it seems to be working in Israel? I can’t find any serious calls to scrap it, there. If you can, please show me - I’d be sincerely interested
Isn't the main thing about Israel that they've vaccinated so many people that the virus literally can't spread? Which is how it should be.
Plus a famously rigourous approach to national security.
Vaccine internal passports solve the problem of managing a society where a state of partial vaccination persists for a long time. That's not going to be the situation.
I’m talking about the Israeli vaxport. They’ve got it. They’re using it. I can’t find much objection to it from businesses or individuals, just the odd complaint about its functionality. And a couple of scholarly libertarians
That'll be the famously rigourous (and eminently justified) approach to national security.
As for next virus, I'd like to know how quickly it would be possible to get from new nasty to mass distribution of mRNA vaccines, now we know what we're doing with them. This time, a year was remarkably quick- next time will surely be faster still, which changes the calculation a lot.
The psychological impact of this pandemic will be profound. The below relates the outcomes of the 1889-90 “Russian Flu” pandemic (possibly actually a form of coronavirus outbreak) and its profound effect on the cultural end of the 19th Century.
“[Josephine] Butler was one of the most prominent female sufferers to document the lingering after-effects of influenza following the pandemic of 1889–92—colloquially called the Russian influenza because the epidemic had broken out in St Petersburg in November, 1889. However, the best known and most widely reported influenza invalids in the UK were male and included the then British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary Lord Salisbury, his nephew Alfred Balfour, the Secretary of State for Ireland, and Lord George Hamilton, the First Lord of the Admiralty. In February, 1895, the Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister, Lord Rosebery, also had Russian influenza and was confined to his home in Epsom, Surrey, for 6 weeks, with fatigue and insomnia, prompting intense commentary in Victorian newspapers and periodicals.
As with COVID-19, the diversity of these post-influenza symptoms and their unpredictability baffled contemporary medical observers and provoked lengthy disquisitions in The Lancet and other medical journals. The neurological conditions observed after the Russian influenza were given many names: neuralgia, neurasthenia, neuritis, nerve exhaustion, “grippe catalepsy”, “post-grippal numbness”, psychoses, “prostration”, “inertia”, anxiety, and paranoia. The Victorian throat specialist Sir Morell Mackenzie described how influenza appeared to “run up and down the nervous keyboard stirring up disorder and pain in different parts of the body with what almost seems malicious caprice”. The German-born Harley Street neurologist Julius Althaus concurred, stating that “there are few disorders or diseases of the nervous system which are not liable to occur as consequences of grip”.
The result was that by the middle 1890s Russian influenza was being blamed in England for everything from the suicide rate to the general sense of malaise that marked the fin de siècle, and the image of a nation of convalescents, too debilitated to work or return to daily routines, and plagued with mysterious and erratic symptoms and chronic illnesses, had become central to the period's medical and cultural iconography. Although H Franklin Parsons, the medical investigator for England's Local Government Board, completed his final report on the “1889–92 epidemic” in 1893, further severe recrudescences were observed in 1893, 1895, 1898, and 1899–1900. The official end of the pandemic, therefore, did not mean the end of illness but was merely the prelude to a longue durée of baffling sequelae.”
You elect a nationalist-populist government, what do you expect?
As far as I know (and I'd really like someone to describe an exception) they all end up unpleasantly authoritarian, led by a sleazy clique, and eventually running out of money.
It's a potent brew to win power, but it fails as a way to run a country.
Spot on, but according to most "conservatives" on here, bad governance is a price well worth paying for annoying the liberal lefties.
There are certainly a number of Conservative Party supporters on PB who don't really seem to care much what their side do when in power as long as they win. It's more akin to supporting a football team.
It is pointless arguing about whether Johnson is liberal or not, very few of his actions are motivated by conviction or political principle , the driver is what is likely to keep him in power.
People like HUYFD and Big G can be four square behind the Tories under Cameron when they were strongly in favour of being in the EU and then a couple of years later four square behind the Tories when Johnson has removed us from the EU and it is a virulently anti-EU party. I really don't get it.
OT Can't get worked up about vaxpassports either way. The horse has well and truly bolted if you are worried about a "surveillance society". CCTV cameras, mobile phone tracking, driving licences, NHS records, passports, credit cards - anyone who believes that we cannot be tracked already is delusional.
Can I just correct that comment
I have never been strongly in favour of the EU and my vote to remain was reluctant nor was I happy that Cameron had not achieved a deal with the EU
When we voted to leave I accepted the result and now want to move forward and adapt to the change that is inevitable
Accepting that Brexit it s now a fact is one thing, actively supporting a Brexit government is another thing entirely.
If you believe that being in the EU is a beneficial to this country, as I still do, then it is illogical to actively support this Johnson government. You might, at a stretch, vote for it as the lesser of 2 evils but to actively be a member makes no sense to me.
Once you make the decision, you make the best of it....
Imagine it’s early 2020 all over again. Except this time we are forewarned. We know what’s coming.
The government says to us, we can have a Korea style outcome, 1,700 dead, 100,000 cases, virtually no lockdown, economy barely touched, but for that to happen we need compulsory smartphone apps so the government can track and trace everyone?
Alternatively, we can have no compulsory apps, the government will not track everyone, but instead we will have 4m cases, 150,000 dead, a year of lockdown, and an economy decimated
I know which one I’d choose. The first. South Korea. Let the government film me in the loo. I don’t bloody care
I imagine 98% of Britons would choose the same. So Liberty really is relative, not absolute
Err, if you think what’s being proposed will turn us into South Korea for next time I have a bridge to sell you.
Maybe we can’t do as well as South Korea. But, you know, I’d like our government to TRY.
If the public inquiry recommends copying their model of society, then perhaps the politicians can think about putting ID cards in their manifesto for 2024.
However, the differences between us and South Korea go way beyond official schemes. It’s a state of mind. Perhaps this is a game changer and we’re all going to change the way we behave. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
Reading through the thread again it is clear that there are different interpretations over what a domestic vaccine passport would mean.
For example:
1) Mandatory State: Costly and possibly high-tech state solution with government mandate that it is used in certain locations (e.g. indoor restaurants) 2) Voluntary State: Costly and possibly high-tech state solution which businesses can use to discriminate custom if they so wish 3) Voluntary Business: Businesses make the liberal commercial decision to insist on evidence of vaccination from punters which is not state-produced, e.g. NHS vaccination card/ signed declaration
These scenarios are obviously very different and each has differing civil liberty implications.
3) is least problematic, I agree, but should businesses be able to enquire over the health details of its customers? (The fuss over GDPR trivialities seems aeons ago.)
Businesses can only enquire over the health details of its customers, if the customers let the business do so by choosing to patronise that business.
If the customer doesn't want their health details being considered then they can go somewhere else instead. Free choice.
If the business wants to enquire and the customer is happy to let them do so, then what is the problem?
Imagine it’s early 2020 all over again. Except this time we are forewarned. We know what’s coming.
The government says to us, we can have a Korea style outcome, 1,700 dead, 100,000 cases, virtually no lockdown, economy barely touched, but for that to happen we need compulsory smartphone apps so the government can track and trace everyone?
Alternatively, we can have no compulsory apps, the government will not track everyone, but instead we will have 4m cases, 150,000 dead, a year of lockdown, and an economy decimated
I know which one I’d choose. The first. South Korea. Let the government film me in the loo. I don’t bloody care
I imagine 98% of Britons would choose the same. So Liberty really is relative, not absolute
Err, if you think what’s being proposed will turn us into South Korea for next time I have a bridge to sell you.
Maybe we can’t do as well as South Korea. But, you know, I’d like our government to TRY.
New Zealand did pretty well: We never needed to go full SE Asian culture in order to do far, far better than the UK has done. The refusal of those within the government to countenance any restrictions on their liberty so they could continue to do whatever the f. they wanted ended inevitably with successive total lockdowns & all the economic damage they entailed, all because they were too selfish accept that some initial restrictions were necessary.
Imagine it’s early 2020 all over again. Except this time we are forewarned. We know what’s coming.
The government says to us, we can have a Korea style outcome, 1,700 dead, 100,000 cases, virtually no lockdown, economy barely touched, but for that to happen we need compulsory smartphone apps so the government can track and trace everyone?
Alternatively, we can have no compulsory apps, the government will not track everyone, but instead we will have 4m cases, 150,000 dead, a year of lockdown, and an economy decimated
I know which one I’d choose. The first. South Korea. Let the government film me in the loo. I don’t bloody care
I imagine 98% of Britons would choose the same. So Liberty really is relative, not absolute
Vaccine passports and mass testing were things proposed last year to deal with COVID-19 before any vaccine had been approved, and even before trial data started to be reported. Now we have several working vaccines, and lots of vaccine production coming, so the need for the other measures is much reduced.
If vaccines work, if cases plummet, if hospitalisations and deaths are much reduced, then why do we need passports and testing for a disease that should be on a par with influenza? And these restrictions aren't free, there is a large cost to implement them both directly and indirectly.
Imagine it’s early 2020 all over again. Except this time we are forewarned. We know what’s coming.
The government says to us, we can have a Korea style outcome, 1,700 dead, 100,000 cases, virtually no lockdown, economy barely touched, but for that to happen we need compulsory smartphone apps so the government can track and trace everyone?
Alternatively, we can have no compulsory apps, the government will not track everyone, but instead we will have 4m cases, 150,000 dead, a year of lockdown, and an economy decimated
I know which one I’d choose. The first. South Korea. Let the government film me in the loo. I don’t bloody care
I imagine 98% of Britons would choose the same. So Liberty really is relative, not absolute
You would be more likely to get the surveillance society plus the lockdowns and deaths given government's unwillingness to shut the borders and inability to organise track and trace.
Yes, the borders are the key, we don't need a SK surveillance state if we close the border properly.
Imagine it’s early 2020 all over again. Except this time we are forewarned. We know what’s coming.
The government says to us, we can have a Korea style outcome, 1,700 dead, 100,000 cases, virtually no lockdown, economy barely touched, but for that to happen we need compulsory smartphone apps so the government can track and trace everyone?
Alternatively, we can have no compulsory apps, the government will not track everyone, but instead we will have 4m cases, 150,000 dead, a year of lockdown, and an economy decimated
I know which one I’d choose. The first. South Korea. Let the government film me in the loo. I don’t bloody care
I imagine 98% of Britons would choose the same. So Liberty really is relative, not absolute
Obviously you take South Korea in that scenario, or more likely New Zealand/Australia with very, very tough border entry controls.
As for your previous post, you said the vaccine passport is a nudge to get people to take it, my question is again, to what end? We're really talking about tiny numbers. The better nudge, IMO, is requiring vaccine status to exit the country. It's much less onerous and we can link it to Amadeus which is easy to do and doesn't require a completely new apparatus and nightclub bouncers given access to people's health data.
I suspect the people most likely not to get vaccinated are already ignoring large numbers of laws and regulations.
So not having a vaccination certificate would be less onerous to them than it would be to the average person.
Imagine it’s early 2020 all over again. Except this time we are forewarned. We know what’s coming.
The government says to us, we can have a Korea style outcome, 1,700 dead, 100,000 cases, virtually no lockdown, economy barely touched, but for that to happen we need compulsory smartphone apps so the government can track and trace everyone?
Alternatively, we can have no compulsory apps, the government will not track everyone, but instead we will have 4m cases, 150,000 dead, a year of lockdown, and an economy decimated
I know which one I’d choose. The first. South Korea. Let the government film me in the loo. I don’t bloody care
I imagine 98% of Britons would choose the same. So Liberty really is relative, not absolute
I agree with you in principle. I don't care if I'm tracked 24/7 so long as everyone else is. I wouldn't want to be picked on. But I seriously doubt our ability to do that. By "our" I mean in the widest sense - government, state, population.
Actually, I don’t doubt our ability. We have a world class gene sequencing programme. We have a world beating vaccination programme. We have a world best testing programme. After a calamitous start - thanks to governmental and scientific ineptitude, on a colossal scale - we have now mastered some hugely important and difficult things.
So I entirely believe we could do a South Korea. It’s not THAT hard. Indeed, it’s not even a question of ‘could’, next time we HAVE to be like South Korea.
I did suggest this might happen but MalcolmG called me a turnip or something.
Its a sensational piece of electioneering by handy Alex (who was NOT conspired against by the government as DavidL claims). The SNP are the progressive soft left of independence politics. Pro-Scotland but probably not a Scotland that many would like to see.
Happily if you are a regressive soft right voter who is also patriotic now you have a new choice for your independence - vote for an independent Scotland modelled on Hungary.
You are usually quite sensible Rochdale but that is just bollox
Which bit is bollox? That its a sensational piece of realpolitic by Salmond? That he wasn't the target of a government conspiracy to jail him? Or that there are people in Scotland with a vote who aren't as progressive as Sturgeon is?
The part where it was not Sturgeon , her close pals in SNP and civil service who tried to have him jailed for made up stories, all but the one consensual encounter being shown to be lies and the worst one the claimant was not even on the premises. That she was able along with civil service, police and Crown Office to get away with all this , so far at least is very alarming. Hopefully the forthcoming police enquiries and the civil court cases and missing funds investigations will be better handled.
I simply do not believe the core of this - that 9 women decided to pervert the course of justice and perjure themselves in court for some hope that a faction of a party they may or may not support may somehow win over additional support over someone who had already left the stage.
Well the people who have all the names, all politicians, civil servants very very close to Sturgeon disagree. The couple I know certainly point to it indeed given their history.
Cui Bono? I'm one of the 2nd tranche of women who came forward to testify against him in court. Where's the benefit in doing so with me lying and him sent down? Because I want Salmond gone? He'd already gone. Because I wanted power for the SNP? They were in government!
I just don't get it at a base intellectual level. People can tell all kinds of outrageous lies when there is something in it for them. What was in it for these women? Specifically? Because nobody has even been able to propose to me anything beneficial for them in participating in this supposed conspiracy.
You're being naive. We don't know since the identities of the women and their motives are protected.
If as rumoured they were close to Sturgeon then absolutely they could get involved in conspiracies, it wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened especially with Whatsapp etc
A few years ago I went to a tribunal and had taken legal advice that said it was a 50/50 "he said, he said" until someone leaked a group chat to me. I passed that leak on to my lawyer who said effectively that he never says 100% but it was as close to that as it could be with that as evidence. Without that leak there could have been a real miscarriage of justice. People do get involved in conspiracies without even realising it when they're egging each other on.
Perhaps I am being naive - its certainly a possibility on this one. I absolutely get that people get caught up in stuff. Had it just been the original two complainants then yes perhaps. But nine of them? If you are recruiting people to lie and risk jail for your barely perceivable political gain, then I could get managing to persuade a couple of fools to do it. But not nine of them. Its the numbers that make this not pass my bullshit test.
And yet the Court found him not guilty and the judicial review showed the whole thing was f*cked up. So how do you square that circle?
Once the ball gets rolling, especially when you're promised you will remain protected and anonymous (a promise that has lasted through to today despite the judicial review and acquittal and subsequent scrutiny) then it is easier to get people egged on to the point they step forward inappropriately.
It is a problem that we need to be aware of and how miscarriages of justice can often occur and why there needs to be the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" and why few statements are as pernicious as "no smoke without fire".
Morning all. Great header as always from the Cycle. I disagree with the thrust of it but that’s how it goes sometimes.
I don’t for one second think the government is scheming to bring in some sort of oppressive, compulsory national ID card and high-tech tracking process by the backdoor. I’m not worried about that angle. It’s not a serious risk in my view. The fearful speculation is fuelled by a combination of preciousness and paranoia.
However I’m anti all of this Covid paraphernalia sticking around, because it’s irrational, cumbersome, all cost and faff with no tangible benefit. Indeed the benefits are negative. It would be exclusionary and divisive. The vaccine rollout should allow normal life to resume and this is not normal life. It would be denying us our dividend.
At the same time as being strongly against, I’m quite relaxed about it because I think most of the stuff coming from the government is performative rather than actually planned (and in any case would not last long). There are many people in the country who, despite the data showing conclusively that the pandemic is over, remain deeply anxious about going back to the way we were. Memories are foggy. Ok, it’s not logical but people are like this. They voted for Brexit and Boris Johnson remember.
This satanic bug has been a traumatic experience and there’s some PTSD out there. Hence why there might be a psychological need for an “easy does it” period, even though “the science” says otherwise. Bit like if your house is burgled, you might for months afterwards be on edge and take OTT security precautions to help you cope. My parents certainly did back in 2016. House was like Fort Knox for a while. It used to drive me mad when I visited but they wouldn’t listen. They were scared.
Finally on the politics, there is public support for many of these silly measures and so Labour should tread carefully on it. Listening to Rachel Reeves this morning, I get the sense that they will be.
A very perceptive post (as so many of yours are - if you’ll forgive my possibly obsequious tone). This is going to be a key factor coming out of lockdown. Many people will simply want to continue wearing masks and socially distancing long after it ceases to be necessary.
That's most kind, Thomas, thank you. Yes, I've heard a few vox pops now and they support the polling. For every person gung ho for 'max normal in min time' there is more than one wishing to take things steadily and retain some of the precautionary regime and habits for a while. I'm hoping most of it will fade away as we open up.
The psychological impact of this pandemic will be profound. The below relates the outcomes of the 1889-90 “Russian Flu” pandemic (possibly actually a form of coronavirus outbreak) and its profound effect on the cultural end of the 19th Century.
“[Josephine] Butler was one of the most prominent female sufferers to document the lingering after-effects of influenza following the pandemic of 1889–92—colloquially called the Russian influenza because the epidemic had broken out in St Petersburg in November, 1889. However, the best known and most widely reported influenza invalids in the UK were male and included the then British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary Lord Salisbury, his nephew Alfred Balfour, the Secretary of State for Ireland, and Lord George Hamilton, the First Lord of the Admiralty. In February, 1895, the Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister, Lord Rosebery, also had Russian influenza and was confined to his home in Epsom, Surrey, for 6 weeks, with fatigue and insomnia, prompting intense commentary in Victorian newspapers and periodicals.
As with COVID-19, the diversity of these post-influenza symptoms and their unpredictability baffled contemporary medical observers and provoked lengthy disquisitions in The Lancet and other medical journals. The neurological conditions observed after the Russian influenza were given many names: neuralgia, neurasthenia, neuritis, nerve exhaustion, “grippe catalepsy”, “post-grippal numbness”, psychoses, “prostration”, “inertia”, anxiety, and paranoia. The Victorian throat specialist Sir Morell Mackenzie described how influenza appeared to “run up and down the nervous keyboard stirring up disorder and pain in different parts of the body with what almost seems malicious caprice”. The German-born Harley Street neurologist Julius Althaus concurred, stating that “there are few disorders or diseases of the nervous system which are not liable to occur as consequences of grip”.
The result was that by the middle 1890s Russian influenza was being blamed in England for everything from the suicide rate to the general sense of malaise that marked the fin de siècle, and the image of a nation of convalescents, too debilitated to work or return to daily routines, and plagued with mysterious and erratic symptoms and chronic illnesses, had become central to the period's medical and cultural iconography. Although H Franklin Parsons, the medical investigator for England's Local Government Board, completed his final report on the “1889–92 epidemic” in 1893, further severe recrudescences were observed in 1893, 1895, 1898, and 1899–1900. The official end of the pandemic, therefore, did not mean the end of illness but was merely the prelude to a longue durée of baffling sequelae.”
Comments
You also present these Vaxport schemes as something which is almost cost free to the businesses implement them, when it is clear that unless restricted purely to those narrow groups of businesses that already impose restrictions on entry (and in a way that ensures 100% compliance) in the course of their operations this is clearly not true.
This is, presumably, one reason why HMG is considering vaxports for clubs and festivals. To nudge the hesitant young
If Boris was in opposition at the moment he would be deeming this an inverted pyramid of piffle, or similar.
Oh and O/T, a friend in Oxford tells me it has just started snowing. Thoughts and prayers with the NoSnowWatch guys at this difficult time.
We either learn to live with this or we don't.
Some won't get vaccinated, that's on them and they bear the brunt of the risk for that.
If people don't want to mingle with those unvaccinated, then I have no problems with private companies choosing to open themselves to the vaccinated only and for those who don't want to mingle with the unvaccinated being patrons of those companies. That's their private choice. But the alternative to that in my eyes is private companies choosing to open themselves to everyone instead and customers of those venues going in knowing they could be mingling with the unvaccinated.
If the choice is closed or vaccine-only then that is coercion that is not choice and I want no part in that. That is utterly, utterly wrong and inexcusable as a matter of principle and practice.
Anyway, the chance of this happening seems remote. I don't see how these vaccines won't give a good level of immunity against all variants and we already have four companies rolling out specific boosters in August and September.
If, and it's a big if, all the talk about Vaxports really WAS just a 'nudge' thing, and, at most their introduction was guaranteed to be restricted to say the period June to October (by which point if you haven't taken the opportunity for vaccination, then you are unlikely to) then one can construct an argument for them.
Vaccine passports cannot be implemented until everyone has had the opportunity to be completely vaccinated. To do otherwise is discriminatory and any business implementing it is going to lose business in the long term. And you know Wetherspoons will ignore it.
And once everyone has been vaccinated there is little to no point having them...
“Adults aged 16-29 group 'most likely' to report Covid vaccine hesitancy”
https://www.itv.com/news/2021-03-08/adults-aged-16-29-group-most-likely-to-report-covid-vaccine-hesitancy
A Tory, government, yes a Tory government, with a majority of 80, goes around handing out a compulsory vaccine ID scheme that is an attack on civil liberties. It's obvious - this would be the fault of a) the Labour Party, or b) the Civil Service, or c) both. Starmer - weak and pathetic, all his fault.
Incidentally, the opinion poll frequently cited on here is misleading, as it asks whether people would prefer vaxports to a national or local lockdown. The results would, I suspect, be very different if that either/or were removed.
Restrictions end 21 June. That is my choice. No ifs, no buts, no equivocation. That is my choice.
Why should anything close?
The government want vaccine passports for reasons other than COVID. If they only wanted them for COVID they send us all a 6-12 month validity photo ID with no biometric data and no tracking a week after the second dose. That would actually be the cheapest way to do it, but it means that it has a shelf life and they can't track where people use them. The government wants the tracking data.
As I said to you the other night, lockdown has robbed you of your edge. A year ago you'd have been spitting with rage about this idea. The government has beaten you into submission, they're holding your favourite activities hostage and you're begging them for permission to have fun. I pity what they've turned you into, a subservient automaton.
I expect both Whitty and Vallance to be cautioning against thinking it is all over, so to speak
I like Cyclefree, I enjoy her articles, and she seems to have nearly unanimous support here. But FWIW I disagree. This reflects my Continental background. I lived for many years in Switzerland, a country which is as far from authoritarian as you can imagine (the culture is confirmist, but that's voluntary). Many of my friends were leftists, some had uncertain right to remain, some were libertarians, and some routinely broke the law by using drugs, cheating on public transport and other minor offences. I NEVER heard anyone suggest that having an ID card was an issue. Nor did I ever hear of a case where someone was prosecuted for not having one - since we all had one, it was just a matter of popping home for it if you'd forgotten.
It was simply convenient., in the same way as having a passport when travelling is convenient, not just a necessity - it's handy to be able to show it at hotel reception or car hire without having to prove you are who you say you are. The faffing about with utility bills and council tax statements that you need to open a bank account in Britain is just silly.
If Britain turned Trumpist, I can imagine joining a protest group that was illegal under the laws that our Trump might pass. I can imagine worrying about my credit card use being tracked, my emails intercepted, an agency compiling a pattern of my behaviour (the last, of course, happns routinely for commercial reasons anyway). But worry about proving who I am? No.
And surely you agree that the banner said "Cops Kill" rather than the reverse. Incidentally in the video of this a protester tells him that the banner is wrong.
Because anecdotally i know of people who have quite happily taken the first vaccine, but having suffered a bad reaction and none too keen to go back for another one (and how one defines "bad reaction" is of course individual dependent).
Might email my friend in Mossad later.
The plans to have vaccine passports in widespread internal use, and testing everyone twice a week*, make me think that the government believe that vaccination may not work, and that they are anticipating a need to rely on NPIs.
* This works out at about 7 billion tests a year for the whole population, the cost will be enormous.
If a community distrusts stop and search powers, are they really going to trust Boris's iD card / app?
From the evidence available it looks like it says both. At some points it said cops kill, at others it said kill cops. Whether that was by accident or by design is unclear at this stage, it may have been an accident but when you hold separate banners holding separate words like that its pretty criticial you make sure you line them up correctly.
‘Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed adults aged 16-29 are the most likely to report hesitancy around the jab, at around one in every six people.’
You claimed 95% of young people eagerly want the jab. Simply wrong
“The ONS looked at four weeks of responses to the Opinions and Lifestyles Survey...
Around 17% adults aged 16 to 29 years reported vaccine hesitancy - the highest of all age groups.
There a different in sex too, with younger women reporting more vaccine hesitancy (19%) compared to men in the same age group (15%).”
https://www.itv.com/news/2021-03-08/adults-aged-16-29-group-most-likely-to-report-covid-vaccine-hesitancy
Stop wetting yourself like a toddler over some imaginary hobgoblin coming to eat your liberties. It’s a figment of your fevered id. Return to your normal lucid self
The overreaction on here is quite bizarre
Current Government policy is that the current one should be lifted in full on 21st June, a policy stated before any mention was made of a link to Vaxports.
I am bothered by the government giving itself the right to arrest people for peaceful protest on the whim of a police officer. That really is not just the thin edge of the wedge. It is quite a long way along the wedge.
Since you invoked the first reference to the early to mid last century. It seems a bit like Germany claiming that the UK is the aggressor and militarist war mongerer for declaring war against them in 1939, when all they were trying to do was peacefully unite their subjugated peoples into a free and democratic homeland.
Vaxports are designed to allow certain businesses to open earlier than otherwise.
But not much earlier- they're not happening tomorrow, and everyone is expecting herd immunity by May/June and complete adult coverage by June/July.
But there's a time interval where vaccination will be partial, and some people will be anxious. But vaxports give reassurance to the already 90%+ protected, that they won't be exposed to the pox that their bodies already have antibodies for. The unprotected will have to stay at home.
But it will allow businesses to reopen. Even though a chunk of their clientele will still be stuck at home. And since the hospitality biz is mainly staffed by young people, there won't be enough people with a passport to stand the other side of the bar.
It doesn't matter that it's popular- it's not going to work.
The reason the reactions to the race report were so shrill and hysterical (a bit like reax to vaxports here) is because the Left has never experienced push back on this issue ever before. They’ve had it all their own way, they’ve never encountered a different position, and in their culture war there’s been no fighting because an enemy did not exist. It was just endless advance on all fronts.
They seem actively outraged that someone should dare to contradict them.
The culture war doesn't exist, that's why it never came up before. It was invented out of thin air
Vaccination saves lives, stops the disease spreading, and ought to bring and end to the eye-wateringly expensive NPIs because they are no longer needed. That some NPIs can serve other purposes does not make them good value for money.
The current hospitalisation rate is 1 in 1000 fit this age group, again let's assume groups 4 and 6 don't exist, that means up to 100,000 people may be hospitalised in total from this cohort.
The vaccine has a cumulative effect of reducing hospitalisation among younger people by about 99%, it's about 95% in older people.
83% of those people take the vaccine so of those 100,000 that would previously have been hospitalised, 83,000 becomes 830. So even at 83% vaccination rate we've gone from 100,000 hospitalisations to about 18,000. Add in the fact that most of those hospitalisations come from groups 4 and 6 where take up rates are already 90%+ as outlined by PHE and that 18,000 figure is probably around a third of it in real life. Then add in that loads of them already have pre-existing immunity from infection and the 6k becomes about 4k. The IFR for then is about 10% who get hospitalised so 400.
Even at 83% you're talking about absolutely miniscule numbers of at risk of hospitalisation. It's very likely that 83% is going to be a massive undershoot simply because going to Magaluf or Ibiza in August and September will require vaccination status and they'll all go and get the J&J jab. International travel is the sensible nudge, not domestic tracking.
Of course that is not the same as an app to ensure safe attendance at events such as football and even theatres and music venues where some common sense measures are required to allow the gradual return to capacity.
I understand they are not required to attend pubs and restaurants so to be honest I believe HMG is following a sensible course to open the economy and it does seem to have public support
The interesting issue that has not been discussed is just how far the authoritarian Sturgeon and Drakeford will go along this route or will they continue their zero covid policy and reject the schemes and stop business reopening
It was notable that Drakeford did confirm that all four nations were in discussion over vaccine passports and he did not seem averse to the idea
Now this is interesting
I don’t for one second think the government is scheming to bring in some sort of oppressive, compulsory national ID card and high-tech tracking process by the backdoor. I’m not worried about that angle. It’s not a serious risk in my view. The fearful speculation is fuelled by a combination of preciousness and paranoia.
However I’m anti all of this Covid paraphernalia sticking around, because it’s irrational, cumbersome, all cost and faff with no tangible benefit. Indeed the benefits are negative. It would be exclusionary and divisive. The vaccine rollout should allow normal life to resume and this is not normal life. It would be denying us our dividend.
At the same time as being strongly against, I’m quite relaxed about it because I think most of the stuff coming from the government is performative rather than actually planned (and in any case would not last long). There are many people in the country who, despite the data showing conclusively that the pandemic is over, remain deeply anxious about going back to the way we were. Memories are foggy. Ok, it’s not logical but people are like this. They voted for Brexit and Boris Johnson remember.
This satanic bug has been a traumatic experience and there’s some PTSD out there. Hence why there might be a psychological need for an “easy does it” period, even though “the science” says otherwise. Bit like if your house is burgled, you might for months afterwards be on edge and take OTT security precautions to help you cope. My parents certainly did back in 2016. House was like Fort Knox for a while. It used to drive me mad when I visited but they wouldn’t listen. They were scared.
Finally on the politics, there is public support for many of these silly measures and so Labour should tread carefully on it. Listening to Rachel Reeves this morning, I get the sense that they will be.
Later fellow antifa dudes!
Once deaths and cases are down and the NHS is no longer at risk, as is now the case and will be even more so come June, there is no reason for anything to remain closed. If they do it is only because the government says so in order to force ID cards on us. It will be because the government abandons the tests it previously set - and deliberately imposes a further restriction in order to sell us a pretend solution.
And you are falling for it.
Anyway sunshine in my bit of the Lakes - so off to the garden centre.
Bye for now.
In my view, polling for single ideas and policies is not always very reliable, a lot comes down to how they ask the questions.
I just don't get it at a base intellectual level. People can tell all kinds of outrageous lies when there is something in it for them. What was in it for these women? Specifically? Because nobody has even been able to propose to me anything beneficial for them in participating in this supposed conspiracy.
Most people live in their cocoons, whether those are based on class, professions or race. Sometimes there is massive cross over of these and sometimes you can find yourself in regular company outside of that which you are familiar (NP talked about his poker games the other day as his experience). So we often really dont experience the lives of others and are willing to take their word for it.
So we end up with many people believing some of the more extreme claims about life in the UK by those who have largest media coverage. That for poorer people life has never been worse, with young urchins starving to death without access to foodbanks. That black people cannot experience a day without been abused racially etc.
This has allowed a ratchet on the latter for more and more ludicrous situations to be reported on with all seriousness. The list of things, places, activities and organisations that are now racist has become so ubiquitous that there are a sizable group of people who unquestionably accept it.
And then you have those who dont. Who see the whole thing as a nonsense, but mutter it quietly . The problem is.... That yes the whole thing is a nonsense, but the grain of truth that sometimes people do experience prejudice based on their race and lets see where we reduce it is lost.
However, I usually enjoy your informed commentary and I dislike this new name-calling, so I suggest we agree to disagree.
As for the idea the government should send us a basic photo ID if they’re gonna do this at all, I half concur with you. However, I can also see why the government might want the potential ability to track us with a more sophisticated app.
It’s not for Covid. It’s for the NEXT pandemic. The government wants to have the ability to do a Korea. Use superb, real-time track and trace (via smartphones) to crush the next disease early
The libertarian in me (he does exist!) finds this menacing, and yet the government might say, Well, this way we avoid putting the nation in prison for a year, and we avoid destroying the economy, and we save 150,000 lives, so surely it’s worth it?
And I don’t know how I’d answer
If this is popular and proftiable companies will choose to do it out of their own free choice.
If it isn't, they won't.
We have no reason to require the state to tell us what to do.
It is pointless arguing about whether Johnson is liberal or not, very few of his actions are motivated by conviction or political principle , the driver is what is likely to keep him in power.
People like HUYFD and Big G can be four square behind the Tories under Cameron when they were strongly in favour of being in the EU and then a couple of years later four square behind the Tories when Johnson has removed us from the EU and it is a virulently anti-EU party. I really don't get it.
OT Can't get worked up about vaxpassports either way. The horse has well and truly bolted if you are worried about a "surveillance society".
CCTV cameras, mobile phone tracking, driving licences, NHS records, passports, credit cards - anyone who believes that we cannot be tracked already is delusional.
How sad that many of the quite reasonable views on here - on both sides - will not be discussed at all in Parliament. The problem has long been that barring a few dissidents, there is no party in parliament that is willing to stand up for personal liberties and against overreach of the state. Authoritarianism is fine so long as it's our lot in charge, seems to be the overriding view.
Over the past year we have had civil liberties curtailed by the government more than at virtually any time in our history. Yet the only argument from the various opposition parties is we need to curtail more.
Perhaps the opposition has dragged the liberal Boris into the authoritarian column, perhaps not. Perhaps the curtailment of civil liberties was justified, perhaps not. Perhaps covid passports are justified, perhaps not. These arguments to me miss the point somewhat - the point being that in a democracy the principle of personal liberty should be represented - in Parliament, in the mainstream media just as it is in the general population.
Sadly at the moment it's not. We live in hope that this will be the first step to changing that, but sadly I expect all the opposition parties once again to side with the authoritarians. And I can say with certainty that there is nothing positive about that.
If as rumoured they were close to Sturgeon then absolutely they could get involved in conspiracies, it wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened especially with Whatsapp etc
A few years ago I went to a tribunal and had taken legal advice that said it was a 50/50 "he said, he said" until someone leaked a group chat to me. I passed that leak on to my lawyer who said effectively that he never says 100% but it was as close to that as it could be with that as evidence. Without that leak there could have been a real miscarriage of justice. People do get involved in conspiracies without even realising it when they're egging each other on.
A few years later, I debated Chris Huhne on the subject at a university event. I teased him about it afterwards and he laughed heartily and said "Being a LibDem covers a variety of attitudes." (I said "You could say that of all the parties", and we parted very amicably.)
Occam’s Razor suggests that 1) It really is Barrett Brown, who has a history of making pro-violence against state forces statements in the past & that he was responsible for swapping the "Cops Kill" sign to read "Kill Cops".
It’s also possible that BB is a deep state agent provacateur & it would not be the first time that the most extreme individuals in a movement turned out to be state moles placed there to discredit the movement in the eyes of the wider population, but it’s impossible to prove or disprove such a statement & would be something that I personally would simply keep at the back of my mind when reading stories like this. Everyone is trying to spin the narrative & that goes for the police & their fellow travellers as well as the protestors.
I have never been strongly in favour of the EU and my vote to remain was reluctant nor was I happy that Cameron had not achieved a deal with the EU
When we voted to leave I accepted the result and now want to move forward and adapt to the change that is inevitable
Plus a famously rigourous approach to national security.
Vaccine internal passports solve the problem of managing a society where a state of partial vaccination persists for a long time. That's not going to be the situation.
Imagine it’s early 2020 all over again. Except this time we are forewarned. We know what’s coming.
The government says to us, we can have a Korea style outcome, 1,700 dead, 100,000 cases, virtually no lockdown, economy barely touched, but for that to happen we need compulsory smartphone apps so the government can track and trace everyone?
Alternatively, we can have no compulsory apps, the government will not track everyone, but instead we will have 4m cases, 150,000 dead, a year of lockdown, and an economy decimated
I know which one I’d choose. The first. South Korea. Let the government film me in the loo. I don’t bloody care
I imagine 98% of Britons would choose the same. So Liberty really is relative, not absolute
So the government is probably wise to consider working behind the scenes on maintaining testing and tracing cabilities that can be rolled out if required and voted for as an emergency measure by Parliament. But there is no reason or excuse to have that active today.
2 - The cross-reactivity from common cold coronaviruses (which comprise only 20% of common cold infections in the first place) was studied and found to provide zero benefit in actually resisting covid - the T-cells were stimulated to react, but did not attack the virus at all. The common denialist meme that other coronavirus immunity protects against SARS-CoV-2 was comprehensively disproven.
3 - Ioannidis paper wasn't recent; it was several months ago, and was ripped apart by the wider community for dodgy assumptions, excluding any data that disagreed with it (of which there was much), and incorporating very dodgy serological data (which was since shown to be wrong) simply because it seemed to support his original idea. His latest paper was an attempt to defend it despite it being patently disproved by the IFR in many countries, including incorporating personal attacks on those who dismembered it in the first place.
4 - The IFR is neither 0.15% nor 0.05% as can be shown by the fact that the population death rate in many areas is considerably worse than that already.
Maybe we can’t do as well as South Korea. But, you know, I’d like our government to TRY.
For example:
1) Mandatory State: Costly and possibly high-tech state solution with government mandate that it is used in certain locations (e.g. indoor restaurants)
2) Voluntary State: Costly and possibly high-tech state solution which businesses can use to discriminate custom if they so wish
3) Voluntary Business: Businesses make the liberal commercial decision to insist on evidence of vaccination from punters which is not state-produced, e.g. NHS vaccination card/ signed declaration
These scenarios are obviously very different and each has differing civil liberty implications.
3) is least problematic, I agree, but should businesses be able to enquire over the health details of its customers? (The fuss over GDPR trivialities seems aeons ago.)
Do you imagine that David Lammy’s inbox is nothing but sweetness and light?
I think the report may have been well intentioned, but it utterly failed to either a) consider the context into which it was being dropped or b) to give the slightest thought or credence to any of the arguments that Britain does contain elements of institutional (or other) racism.
It’s one thing to think those arguments are wrong, but to simply ignore them completely & cherry pick only those parts of people’s research that the authors believed supported their POV without even consulting them suggests that the authors simply wished to push a particular narrative & were uninterested in any of the counter-arguments.
This might be good politics, but it’s bad science IMO.
https://twitter.com/banalyst/status/1378990712021221377?s=20
As for your previous post, you said the vaccine passport is a nudge to get people to take it, my question is again, to what end? We're really talking about tiny numbers. The better nudge, IMO, is requiring vaccine status to exit the country. It's much less onerous and we can link it to Amadeus which is easy to do and doesn't require a completely new apparatus and nightclub bouncers given access to people's health data.
If you believe that being in the EU is a beneficial to this country, as I still do, then it is illogical to actively support this Johnson government. You might, at a stretch, vote for it as the lesser of 2 evils but to actively be a member makes no sense to me.
As for next virus, I'd like to know how quickly it would be possible to get from new nasty to mass distribution of mRNA vaccines, now we know what we're doing with them. This time, a year was remarkably quick- next time will surely be faster still, which changes the calculation a lot.
“[Josephine] Butler was one of the most prominent female sufferers to document the lingering after-effects of influenza following the pandemic of 1889–92—colloquially called the Russian influenza because the epidemic had broken out in St Petersburg in November, 1889. However, the best known and most widely reported influenza invalids in the UK were male and included the then British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary Lord Salisbury, his nephew Alfred Balfour, the Secretary of State for Ireland, and Lord George Hamilton, the First Lord of the Admiralty. In February, 1895, the Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister, Lord Rosebery, also had Russian influenza and was confined to his home in Epsom, Surrey, for 6 weeks, with fatigue and insomnia, prompting intense commentary in Victorian newspapers and periodicals.
As with COVID-19, the diversity of these post-influenza symptoms and their unpredictability baffled contemporary medical observers and provoked lengthy disquisitions in The Lancet and other medical journals. The neurological conditions observed after the Russian influenza were given many names: neuralgia, neurasthenia, neuritis, nerve exhaustion, “grippe catalepsy”, “post-grippal numbness”, psychoses, “prostration”, “inertia”, anxiety, and paranoia. The Victorian throat specialist Sir Morell Mackenzie described how influenza appeared to “run up and down the nervous keyboard stirring up disorder and pain in different parts of the body with what almost seems malicious caprice”. The German-born Harley Street neurologist Julius Althaus concurred, stating that “there are few disorders or diseases of the nervous system which are not liable to occur as consequences of grip”.
The result was that by the middle 1890s Russian influenza was being blamed in England for everything from the suicide rate to the general sense of malaise that marked the fin de siècle, and the image of a nation of convalescents, too debilitated to work or return to daily routines, and plagued with mysterious and erratic symptoms and chronic illnesses, had become central to the period's medical and cultural iconography. Although H Franklin Parsons, the medical investigator for England's Local Government Board, completed his final report on the “1889–92 epidemic” in 1893, further severe recrudescences were observed in 1893, 1895, 1898, and 1899–1900. The official end of the pandemic, therefore, did not mean the end of illness but was merely the prelude to a longue durée of baffling sequelae.”
https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(20)32134-6/fulltext
However, the differences between us and South Korea go way beyond official schemes. It’s a state of mind. Perhaps this is a game changer and we’re all going to change the way we behave. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
If the customer doesn't want their health details being considered then they can go somewhere else instead. Free choice.
If the business wants to enquire and the customer is happy to let them do so, then what is the problem?
If vaccines work, if cases plummet, if hospitalisations and deaths are much reduced, then why do we need passports and testing for a disease that should be on a par with influenza? And these restrictions aren't free, there is a large cost to implement them both directly and indirectly.
So not having a vaccination certificate would be less onerous to them than it would be to the average person.
So I entirely believe we could do a South Korea. It’s not THAT hard. Indeed, it’s not even a question of ‘could’, next time we HAVE to be like South Korea.
Thousands of tourists are being let in to the country every day even though the government has tightened restrictions on British people going abroad.
Hundreds are arriving on tourist visas issued by the Home Office, according to Border Force staff.
One visa was granted to a tourist from Peru who said on their application form that the reason for their trip to the UK was to “visit Big Ben”.
Of the roughly 20,000 people arriving every day about 40 per cent, or 8,000, are tourists, according to figures compiled by Border Force staff.
At Gatwick and the Eurostar terminals, as many as 80 to 90 per cent of arrivals are tourists
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/thousands-foreign-tourists-britons-no-covid-travel-s02ltsl3j
Once the ball gets rolling, especially when you're promised you will remain protected and anonymous (a promise that has lasted through to today despite the judicial review and acquittal and subsequent scrutiny) then it is easier to get people egged on to the point they step forward inappropriately.
It is a problem that we need to be aware of and how miscarriages of justice can often occur and why there needs to be the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" and why few statements are as pernicious as "no smoke without fire".