That's really not good. It suggests the roadmap might be delayed
I do wonder if the EU has seized supplies we thought we were getting, hence these repeated drops in future vaccine estimates. The UK government would be minded to keep this quiet, because it knows British public pressure to retaliate (eg stopping lipid exports) would be overwhelming, if we were told
This may in turn account for recent statement from EU sources, confident that Britain's vaccine drive is about to flag even as the EU's accelerates...
We know that we've introduced a few weeks delay in the Novavax deliveries, so that we can keep the entire chain out of the EU - so it's had an effect there.
Maybe with Tory core voters vaccinated the government have lost interest?
They did so well with the initial rollout, now there seems to be drift, rather than increasing the pace, and instead government attention is on vaccine ID cards.
Indeed. When I raised the prospect of drift on here (a few times) I was flamed for it.
Sadly, it looks like I'm going to proved right. I'd rather not be.
Apart from the fact that the slow down due to a combination of 2nd doses and constricted supply was stated to be happening weeks ago.
Nothing to do with "drift".
Not sure about that. The recent numbers are well below where we need to be – even accounting for the factors you describe. There is little good in making excuses – the recent numbers are lousy.
Our previous assumptions about supply were overly optimistic, as they didn't factor in interruptions to deliveries from either India or Europe.
According the the numbers from the SAGE report, quoted in the Guardian, supply after July looks even worse: ...The latest modelling paper, produced for the Sage scientific advisory committee, said that “the central rollout scenario” provided to academics by the Cabinet Office was “considerably slower” than previously used.
That, the document added, amounted to “an average of 2.7m doses per week in England until the end of July (2m thereafter)” which was compared with “3.2m per week in the previous iteration (3.9m thereafter)”....
From the SAGE paper itself the new assumptions are: Per Cabinet Office scenario: Fast: An average of 2.7m doses per week in England until week commencing 26th July and 2m per week thereafter Slow: an average of 2.5m doses per week in England until week commencing 26th July and 2m per week thereafter
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Its been the only solution for five years now. 🤷♂️
They need skin in the game to want to compromise. The Protocol not working gives them some. The UK has no incentive to make the Protocol work, we have an incentive to maintain peace. Peace comes first - and who can object to that?
You can - and did. When presented with a hypothetical choice of doing proper Leave or honouring the spirit of the GFA you plumped for the former. When pressed on whether you'd say the same even if it truly did jeopardize the peace process you said "yes".
If you wriggle around and try to deny this now, I will just give you a big raspberry and all who remember will clap and cheer.
Of course I did. Because they were making wild threats for no reason and we don't give in to terrorists.
What comes around goes around and now we can say the same thing back to them. The threat of firebombs means the Protocol is void essentially. Poor old protocol, what a shame.
Well done for admitting it and thus the rank hypocrisy of your previous post.
And please stop saying things like "poor old Protocol, what a shame".
It makes you sound snide and shallow and unpleasant.
Oh don't be so facetious.
Poor old [Gordon], what a shame (PO[G]WAS) has been a long running phrase on this site since I first joined it.
I was being pompous not facetious. There are many arrows in my quiver.
In better news, today's virus numbers are extremely good again. Positive tests nose-diving again and daily deaths heading rapidly towards the 100/week milestone.
Yes, the vaccine numbers may be something of a distraction, if we have already jabbed enough to make the virus go away in terms of deaths/hospitalisations
I still want us to go back to 500,000 a day tho. That felt good. It felt like we were winning. It felt like Ben Stokes hitting sixes all over the park. Now we've got Geoff Boycott eking out one single every over
People should stop wibbling. We did 600,000 as recently as last Thursday, since when there has been a 4-day bank holiday weekend. If the figures are still poor on Friday, they have something to complain about.
Why are Sky News showing so much of the George Floyd case, something which has nothing at all to do with this country?
Perhaps because its interesting?
The USA wasn't very interested in Sarah Everard
Why would they be? We're not very interested in 99.99% of killings in America either.
This, like the OJ Simpson trial, has caught the public's interest. It is the "trial of the century".
What's wrong with that?
Nothing, interest in matters across the pond is definitely a one way street though.
Not entirely.
Its definitely imbalanced but its not entirely one way. The USA has always had some interest in the UK too, hence the interest in a certain Oprah interview recently.
If you listen to Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire while its dominated of course by New York and American news stories there are a fair few British news stories that make the cut as to him the biggest stories of his lifetime until then. Even if it is things like "British politician sex".
That song is crying out for a remake, based on events of the past 32 years since it was written.
Until the arrival of K-pop, it must be the only time in popular music that Panmunjom was ever used as a rhyme ? Joel's attention to the details of US foreign policy and the Cold War struggle is commendable.
In better news, today's virus numbers are extremely good again. Positive tests nose-diving again and daily deaths heading rapidly towards the 100/week milestone.
Yes, the vaccine numbers may be something of a distraction, if we have already jabbed enough to make the virus go away in terms of deaths/hospitalisations
I still want us to go back to 500,000 a day tho. That felt good. It felt like we were winning. It felt like Ben Stokes hitting sixes all over the park. Now we've got Geoff Boycott eking out one single every over
People should stop wibbling. We did 600,000 as recently as last Thursday, since when there has been a 4-day bank holiday weekend. If the figures are still poor on Friday, they have something to complain about.
Wrong. We go over this endlessly. These numbers are lousy EVEN ACCOUNTING FOR WEEKENDS/BANK HOLIDAYS.
It's bizarre. Yesterday it was perfectly dry and sunny, today I'm staring out at a blizzard.
Hideous here in London. Cold, grey, bleak. Like January
I haven't really gotten out of bed. What's the point? I can work in bed then have a siesta without moving
That's a bad habit to get into. I get the temptation but you should make the effort. Shower, shave, proper chinos and top, then set about your day.
At least I have resisted drinking until now. 4.19pm.
I'm just hanging on too. I only do red wine but I'm needing it rather than choosing it these days.
Why don't you do some of your dim and facetious reactionary mocking of people fighting for social justice so I can get distracted by that and postpone the uncork for another few minutes?
Ooh. Good idea
How about this woman? Vile or not vile? I say vile
I read in The Grocer that there is some Good News for exporters. The ludicrous position where a pack of Chocolate Digestives needed a vet certificate has been avoided. The UK and EU governments had a discussion about (I kid you not) the acceptable heat-treatment of dairy content in shelf-stable composite products. A way forward has been found, with alignment now reached between the UK's new divergent position and the EU's / UK's previous and in reality current postion.
Sadly no such agreement has yet been reached for other food categories that include dairy. Which makes it really hard and expensive to ship things like Cheesecake to Norniron and elsewhere once the new 3rd country regulations are activated next month. The UK has not diverged from EU standards. The UK insists it isn't going to diverge downwards on food safety. Yet the UK insists on the *right* to diverge and to be a 3rd country and thats why we remain fucked on basics like import / export.
Common sense is needed. Unfortunately wazzocks in places like Hartlepools expect Britain to defeat the forrin threat and if that means petrol bombings on the streets of Derry thats clearly the fault of some other forrin like the Irish.
Nice example of how in the referendum and aftermath there was no right answer, showing that we had gone too far down an EU track without being asked the question much earlier. Also how many of the problems can be solved for both sides.
There is no solution to the island of Ireland given current red lines. The question is whose red lines shift and when. To suggest that the good people of Hartlepool are mysteriously linked with petrol bombs in Ireland is off beam and needs rethinking.
People are still voting to support the Boris Brexit that has directly provoked the fire bombs. There could have been a different flavour of Brexit where we didn't thrown Norniron off the buss, but that got rejected.
As for red lines, the EU red lines have been there since before the referendum was a twinkle in Farage's eye. Why would they change now? We have chosen to leave the EEA and CU in such a way as to screw part of our own country. The movement needed is the UK back towards practicality as opposed to fantasy.
There has never been any point at which the DUP has made it clear what sort of Brexit would be acceptable, except in undeliverable abstractions. And they were against both May and Boris's deal. The DUP+ the nature of reality threw NI off the bus. The sanest answer in this post religious bigotry world is a single Ireland.
Rochdale is acting from a mythological and arrogant assumption that the EU's red lines must survive contact with reality but nobody else's can.
The sanest answer is for both parties to compromise and dump their "red lines". Unless or until the EU is prepared to do so, the UK must look after its own interests because nobody else is planning to do so.
Rochdale is working from the assumption that the EU has to treat us exactly the same way as they treat other third party countries (as that is what we wish to be).
Which means that until we start to agree compromises with the EU there is nothing the EU can do (if they wish to follow WTO rules) than implement the checks they are currently implementing.
That's fine but then we can treat them as any other third party would.
And we can "implement" the Protocol in the most minimalist and irritating way we can imagine that suits us, not them. Since that's our responsibility, not theirs.
And we should be but we currently aren't because if we did our supermarket shelves may be a bit empty - as we aren't currently in a position to be doing the inspections we should be doing.
Not doing the checks is minimalist. Its the right thing to do. We have no interest or incentive to do the checks.
We should continue to not do the checks. If the EU want checks done they can do them in their territory, not ours.
But it also means we can't do the checks on items arriving from say China / Brazil. And while that is something we may be happy to do, it's something that Europe clearly won't want to do.
And that's a problem for imports into Northern Ireland because when Boris put the border in the Irish Sea he created a mess for Northern Ireland.
Of course we can do checks on items arriving from them. We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose.
There is no border in the Irish Sea and the UK should not be doing checks between NI and GB. If the EU want to do checks between NI and the EU as a result, that's their choice. Us doing checks between NI and GB is on us, not them.
There is a border in the Irish Sea - May carefully negotiated a deal that left the issue on the Northern Ireland / Ireland Border. Boris moved it which is why the EU now have inspection posts at Belfast and Larne
No, May carefully negotiated a deal that left NI within the EU customs territory officially and the UK as a whole within the EU effectively via the backstop.
Boris negotiated a deal that left NI within the UK customs territory officially, but with a protocol the UK is supposed to implement. Supposed being the operative word, how we implement it is up to us as a sovereign country.
De jure there is no Irish Sea customs border, but de facto there's supposed to be one. The UK has the power to ensure there de facto isn't and if the EU wants us to implement one they'll either need to find a way to force the issue, or negotiate a working solution.
So the inspection points in Larne and Belfast ports which caused riots and death threats are a figment of my imagination?
Are those points being used? I thought they'd been abandoned for now - and the UK should ensure they are abandoned permanently.
To secure peace in Northern Ireland. Because peace comes first. And that is legal within international law, because we say it is.
Perhaps Boris should have thought about that before he decided it was the leave article that should be published and before he throw away May's fudge that had a chance of keeping things working...
May's fudge didn't work, it kept the UK within the EU backstop. 🤦♂️
Boris's fudge does work. UK leaves the EU, pretends it will erect an Irish Sea border if needed, then say its all too dangerous and never does. Job done.
Life does become easier if you detach yourself entirely from any obligation to tell the truth.
The Talented Mr Johnson.
Philip is right however. The only solution to the NI problem is a fudge. Some creative blind-eye-turning. It's not like the EU is unused to this, it bends the rules, or completely breaks them, all the time, when it sees fit. See the entire history of the euro.
If we want peace in Ireland, both sides have to feel respected, and that means no border in Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea
Its been the only solution for five years now. 🤷♂️
They need skin in the game to want to compromise. The Protocol not working gives them some. The UK has no incentive to make the Protocol work, we have an incentive to maintain peace. Peace comes first - and who can object to that?
Any member of the WTO because the UK won't be treating all 3rd countries the same. Someone above wrote "We're a sovereign nation, we can do whatever we choose, for whatever reason we choose." That is NOT how world trade works. Unilateral actions prompt other reciprocal actions.
Somewhere along the way the fantasy that "we can do whatever we choose" will have to be dropped. Its already been proven not to be true with the increasingly daft fudge in Norniron where we're managing to enrage Unionists for creating a border which we're enraging the WTO by not implementing.
Our standards and EU standards on food remain identical and will remain identical. Drop the bullshit, accept reality, sign a deal to reopen the border so that we can "export" food within the UK.
Our standards will not remain identical. Your obsession that it will is bizarre and twisted.
At no point will "we can do whatever we choose" be dropped, its already true. Hence us not implementing the border Johnson said to chuck in the bin before the EU even ratified the deal. If someone tells you before you sign a deal that an element can be chucked in the bin, then you sign it anyway, then you can't act mock outraged when its chucked in the bin.
If others want to do reciprocal actions that's their choice. Then we can do our own reciprocal ones if they can and so on and so forth. That's international diplomacy not a matter of law or force - hence the nearly two decade old dispute leading to American tariffs on Scotch Whisky that the UK managed to resolve within weeks of becoming an independent actor.
For food surely our standards will remain the same. Internally our standards are better than the EU's so there isn't a problem unless you expect us to import chlorinated chicken as part of a desperate plan to get a trade deal with the US.
If we raise our standards then its no longer the same, is it?
People assume we only want control to lower standards, but we can also have control to raise them. Giving away control means having their lowest common denominator.
The standard is a *minimum* standard. We can have an even higher standard and nobody bats an eyelid. As an example the legal definition of Gluten Free is 20 parts per million. Sainsburys have a 5 parts per million standard for their own brand. Which is legal under the existing EU laws because the law is minimum standards.
Unless you expect the UK to reduce our existing food safety laws, then nothing we do in future will bring us into conflict with EU standards. Yet we have chosen to declare that we have diverged despite not diverging, and made it difficult / expensive to "export" to part of our own country.
Companies can do better than the minimum standard, that's the case regardless of law. But if its not Sainsbury's saying 5 parts per million, but Westminster saying all products sold in the UK as Gluten Free must be 5 parts per million thus excluding EU GF products from sale, then that's a different matter isn't it?
Or to take a topical example of foie gras - Blair's UK banned domestic production of foie gras but under EU laws we couldn't prevent it being imported to the UK if it was manufactured in France. Now its been suggested that it will be outlawed altogether, so it won't be able to be imported even from France.
That would be a higher standard and a divergence from Europe. QED.
Divergence *above* standards isn't a problem. We don't need to protect our rights to do something we already have the right to do. We are protecting our rights to diverge below standards whilst claiming we will never do such a thing.
It's bizarre. Yesterday it was perfectly dry and sunny, today I'm staring out at a blizzard.
Hideous here in London. Cold, grey, bleak. Like January
I haven't really gotten out of bed. What's the point? I can work in bed then have a siesta without moving
That's a bad habit to get into. I get the temptation but you should make the effort. Shower, shave, proper chinos and top, then set about your day.
At least I have resisted drinking until now. 4.19pm.
I'm just hanging on too. I only do red wine but I'm needing it rather than choosing it these days.
Why don't you do some of your dim and facetious reactionary mocking of people fighting for social justice so I can get distracted by that and postpone the uncork for another few minutes?
Ooh. Good idea
How about this woman? Vile or not vile? I say vile
Comments
from cases
from hospitalisations
Joel's attention to the details of US foreign policy and the Cold War struggle is commendable.
NEW THREAD
April 1 million
May 3 million (40 - 49)
June 5.9 million (30 - 39)
July 7.25 million (18 - 30)