And does anyone in Government know how many hundreds of people flew into the UK from Nigeria over the last week?
No. Thought not.
I don't understand the government's attitude to the border. It's quite simply the single most destructive policy we've had during this pandemic.
We've kept the border open so people from PERU (world's highest Covid excess death rate) can come on holiday "to see Big Ben"
Meanwhile every Briton has been locked away at home for most of a year, and is forbidden from foreign holidays altogether
Piss-boiling
Yes, someone needs to punch every single minister in the balls over and over again until this policy is changed. I still don't understand how the opposition aren't smashing the government on this every single day. I'd raise the issue every single PMQs with all of the new idiotic scenarios that we hear about such as the above until Boris is embarrassed enough to fire Shapps and reverse the policy.
I'm desperate to travel abroad. As I have said. But if the only way to get rid of Covid is to close the borders FOR ANOTHER YEAR to stop it getting in, then just bloody do it. Allow vital trade and politics, allow tested hauliers, pilots, docs, scientists, and that's about it. Why should anyone - ANYONE - be allowed to come here "on holiday" when we aren't allowed to do the same??
If the Tories' lax and unexplained border "controls" allow another escaped variant and a fourth lockdown then I will never vote for them ever again in my lifetime
Again, I do not remotely understand, and I will never forgive. We are an island. Take advantage. Close. The. Fucking. Borders
Search me. No idea. Obviously freight needs to flow. But businessmen from Nigeria?
I'm in a deeply pessimistic mood tonight. We are heading straight to an autumn lockdown I fear.
That would genuinely see Tory support crater and Boris be in trouble I think. Whatever general caution the government may express on optimism, I think people are holding out that this really will be the last ever lockdown. If it isn't, he's fucked.
Who knows. We have mostly been highly tolerant so far. Personally I think Johnson should fall if he tries to introduce a digital national ID hidden as vaxports but that's up to the 1922.
I must the only one who finds “politician eats food” stories utterly trite.
I’m thinking of Sir Keir’s fish and chips, Ed’s bacon sarnie and Ozzy’s burger.
Who TF cares?
I do, because it's a relief to talk about apparently trivial shit, as against deadly plague and dry economics. Also this stuff matters: the story of Ursula and The Chair is now everywhere, because it says something about Turkey, men, politics for women, the EU...
And as for chips in the West Country, the moment I realised Teresa was a disaster was when she ate chips in Cornwall
Except the Tory vote share in St Austell & Newquay increased significantly, and the majority went up by about 3,000, in 2017. So perhaps Theresa May's chip eating style wasn't so off-putting after all?
You maybe missed the other results?
Seriously, when she ate those chips like an autistic, disarticulated android in a lady suit, who had never encountered carbohydrate-based foodstuffs before. that's when I knew she was in deeeeeeep trouble.
Corbyn, for all his immense faults, always looked comfortable in his own skin. Boris always looks like he is enormously enjoying himself, or he is trying to hide the same hedonistic pleasure.
Voters like to find their leaders relatable or cheering or, ideally, both. A leader that makes your teeth grind with embarrassment every time you see her, not so much
She is diabetic and starches convert to sugars. Potato is best avoided.
I know, I had a badly diabetic partner for a while. Knowing that kinda made it worse. She was doing a populist thing in a cack-handed way that probably made her more unpopular, the Ed Miliband bacon sandwich was the same
People like authenticity, they reject the obviously bogus quite fiercely. You have to be a very accomplished actor to bring off a totally fake persona. Boris might be one (I am not sure), Harold Wilson was apparently another (the pipe v the cigar)
Corbyn was authentically himself, which is why he got away with insane terrible policies in 2017. It really helps
Blair was himself and relaxed and won. Brown was not, and awkward, and lost. Sturgeon is a good fake, Salmond is himself, Davidson was good.
Starmer seems reasonably himself. He accepts he is not terribly exciting, and does not pretend otherwise. I suspect the British might give him a second chance if he persists. However, given his boring-ness, he will need some good, eye-catching policies
Which as I recall you think should be headed by "clean streets".
We don't whilst the Government fails to take the problem of imported viral shit seriously enough.
The single best measure that could be taken right now to promote public health would be blanket hotel quarantine for incoming air travellers, if necessary accompanied by a rationing system so that returning UK & Irish nationals have to join a virtual queue for the available quarantine rooms, and aren't allowed back until places become available.
We could then open air bridges to individual countries once we'd properly kicked the crap out of this virus, but only to countries that had done at least as effective a job. Anything else is reckless.
That's what NZ has done with brutal effectiveness. Lots of Kiwis have been stranded abroad for a YEAR
We don't whilst the Government fails to take the problem of imported viral shit seriously enough.
The single best measure that could be taken right now to promote public health would be blanket hotel quarantine for incoming air travellers, if necessary accompanied by a rationing system so that returning UK & Irish nationals have to join a virtual queue for the available quarantine rooms, and aren't allowed back until places become available.
We could then open air bridges to individual countries once we'd properly kicked the crap out of this virus, but only to countries that had done at least as effective a job. Anything else is reckless.
Why is the government not doing this? Serious question I would love to know the answer to.
And does anyone in Government know how many hundreds of people flew into the UK from Nigeria over the last week?
No. Thought not.
I don't understand the government's attitude to the border. It's quite simply the single most destructive policy we've had during this pandemic.
It's incomprehensible. My only plausible explanation is that the Tories are in hock to the airlines and airports, because the government seem to be obsessed with the idea of enabling overseas travel despite the potential for it to send us back to square one.
Restricting international travel for politicians and media types is the equivalent of restricting alcohol to an alcoholic.
Not only cannot they do without it but they cannot even conceive of doing so.
And does anyone in Government know how many hundreds of people flew into the UK from Nigeria over the last week?
No. Thought not.
I don't understand the government's attitude to the border. It's quite simply the single most destructive policy we've had during this pandemic.
It's incomprehensible. My only plausible explanation is that the Tories are in hock to the airlines and airports, because the government seem to be obsessed with the idea of enabling overseas travel despite the potential for it to send us back to square one.
It's rather simpler - if you cut off the avenues mentioned above, you will cut off immigration.
"Business men", "Holiday makers", "Students"..... the labels are endless. The reality is simple. nearly all immigration, legal and illegal goes on through the airports and the scheduled ferry services.
If having a first dose of a vaccine doesn't have any negative effects does that suggest that having a second dose will also not have any negative effects ?
I was wondering same thing. Presumably it might but the risk level even lower??
They did report that zero cases had been recorded after the second dose, but only 2.2 million second doses had yet been given, so a one-in-a-million level couldn’t yet be completely ruled out for those.
Intuitively, one would think that if the first dose didn’t do anything bad, the second dose would be more of the same.
Jesus Christ, I am watching Sky News for the first time in a long while
When did it become the Guardian on super-steroids? It is one long leftwing, right on, BLM-y, bien pensant, virtue-signalling RANT. it makes Channel 4 look balanced
No wonder GB News saw a niche
I have been saying this for sometime
GBnews will run riot with Sky's viewing figures
We don't watch Sky news, even the papers review disappoints. ITV news is fairly ok . We are heading in the UK for news channels where the bias is no longer hidden.. its already happened to c4 news.. British versions of Fox news await..
I must the only one who finds “politician eats food” stories utterly trite.
I’m thinking of Sir Keir’s fish and chips, Ed’s bacon sarnie and Ozzy’s burger.
Who TF cares?
I do, because it's a relief to talk about apparently trivial shit, as against deadly plague and dry economics. Also this stuff matters: the story of Ursula and The Chair is now everywhere, because it says something about Turkey, men, politics for women, the EU...
And as for chips in the West Country, the moment I realised Teresa was a disaster was when she ate chips in Cornwall
Except the Tory vote share in St Austell & Newquay increased significantly, and the majority went up by about 3,000, in 2017. So perhaps Theresa May's chip eating style wasn't so off-putting after all?
You maybe missed the other results?
Seriously, when she ate those chips like an autistic, disarticulated android in a lady suit, who had never encountered carbohydrate-based foodstuffs before. that's when I knew she was in deeeeeeep trouble.
Corbyn, for all his immense faults, always looked comfortable in his own skin. Boris always looks like he is enormously enjoying himself, or he is trying to hide the same hedonistic pleasure.
Voters like to find their leaders relatable or cheering or, ideally, both. A leader that makes your teeth grind with embarrassment every time you see her, not so much
She is diabetic and starches convert to sugars. Potato is best avoided.
I know, I had a badly diabetic partner for a while. Knowing that kinda made it worse. She was doing a populist thing in a cack-handed way that probably made her more unpopular, the Ed Miliband bacon sandwich was the same
People like authenticity, they reject the obviously bogus quite fiercely. You have to be a very accomplished actor to bring off a totally fake persona. Boris might be one (I am not sure), Harold Wilson was apparently another (the pipe v the cigar)
Corbyn was authentically himself, which is why he got away with insane terrible policies in 2017. It really helps
Blair was himself and relaxed and won. Brown was not, and awkward, and lost. Sturgeon is a good fake, Salmond is himself, Davidson was good.
Starmer seems reasonably himself. He accepts he is not terribly exciting, and does not pretend otherwise. I suspect the British might give him a second chance if he persists. However, given his boring-ness, he will need some good, eye-catching policies
Which as I recall you think should be headed by "clean streets".
And that by itself would be eye-catching, Many BAMEs, living in tougher districts, would love it. A simple obvious achievable policy. Do it.
And does anyone in Government know how many hundreds of people flew into the UK from Nigeria over the last week?
No. Thought not.
I don't understand the government's attitude to the border. It's quite simply the single most destructive policy we've had during this pandemic.
We've kept the border open so people from PERU (world's highest Covid excess death rate) can come on holiday "to see Big Ben"
Meanwhile every Briton has been locked away at home for most of a year, and is forbidden from foreign holidays altogether
Piss-boiling
Yes, someone needs to punch every single minister in the balls over and over again until this policy is changed. I still don't understand how the opposition aren't smashing the government on this every single day. I'd raise the issue every single PMQs with all of the new idiotic scenarios that we hear about such as the above until Boris is embarrassed enough to fire Shapps and reverse the policy.
I simply don't understand why the government won't close the borders. Are Ministers all being bribed by the travel industry or something?
The government insists on micromanaging every aspect of domestic life but lets any Tom, Dick or Harry waltz in.
It's baffling and infuriating.
At this rate we'll never lift this bloody lockdown. Grrr......
And does anyone in Government know how many hundreds of people flew into the UK from Nigeria over the last week?
No. Thought not.
I don't understand the government's attitude to the border. It's quite simply the single most destructive policy we've had during this pandemic.
We've kept the border open so people from PERU (world's highest Covid excess death rate) can come on holiday "to see Big Ben"
Meanwhile every Briton has been locked away at home for most of a year, and is forbidden from foreign holidays altogether
Piss-boiling
Yes, someone needs to punch every single minister in the balls over and over again until this policy is changed. I still don't understand how the opposition aren't smashing the government on this every single day. I'd raise the issue every single PMQs with all of the new idiotic scenarios that we hear about such as the above until Boris is embarrassed enough to fire Shapps and reverse the policy.
I'm desperate to travel abroad. As I have said. But if the only way to get rid of Covid is to close the borders FOR ANOTHER YEAR to stop it getting in, then just bloody do it. Allow vital trade and politics, allow tested hauliers, pilots, docs, scientists, and that's about it. Why should anyone - ANYONE - be allowed to come here "on holiday" when we aren't allowed to do the same??
If the Tories' lax and unexplained border "controls" allow another escaped variant and a fourth lockdown then I will never vote for them ever again in my lifetime
Yes, as am I. You're right about it though, I'd rather have a fully open internal economy and put off foreign travel until late this year or even next year if necessary. We should block everywhere and selectively reopen to countries that have got high rates of vaccination and reached herd immunity. That means Israel and the US initially but over time other countries could also be added, it should also only be for citizens and long term residents of those countries who have been vaccinated, not transit passengers from the likes of Brazil.
Jesus Christ, I am watching Sky News for the first time in a long while
When did it become the Guardian on super-steroids? It is one long leftwing, right on, BLM-y, bien pensant, virtue-signalling RANT. it makes Channel 4 look balanced
No wonder GB News saw a niche
I have been saying this for sometime
GBnews will run riot with Sky's viewing figures
I do hope you aren't tempted. It might push you further right than a person ought to be.
On the critical subject of eating fish and chips, while SKS is guilty of being a slightly dull person in the wrong photo op giving the wrong sort of publicity by going anywhere near eating something, he is doing two things right: He is making sure he doesn't do a Miliband - better to look dull and do nothing than look a bit ridiculous. Boris is about the only senior politician around who does OK out of being a lad and a Bertie Wooster. If you haven't got it you can't put it on.
Secondly, in general as far as he has a strategy it is plainly to wait and hope that the times will come when Boris's wheels come off and everyone notices there is a dull, decent, respectable, uxorious, competent, alternative sort of chap we could elect who probably wouldn't trash the country and isn't nuts, and probably wouldn't sit down before all the ladies are seated. Boris's act could become unamusing if we got 3 million unemployed and 18% inflation. (Though he too would generally not sit down before the ladies are comfortable).
Exactly. When we all tire of Boris, the county will want someone like Keir. And it is "when" not "if". And when we tire of Boris, Instagram Rishi is not going to be enough of a change to satisfy.
The trouble is that having someone like Keir as LotO possibly extends the time before we all tire of Boris.
Which county is that then?
Anyway, remember what it was like waiting for the country to tire of Tony Blair? Because I do.
So do I. William Hague (thank goodness there are no Rs in his name... must get the keyboard checked post-lockdown) was and is a decent statesman of solid Tory instincts... who made approximately zero progress from 1997 to 2001. Net gain of one seat on decent but exhausted John Major. Basically, winning back Tatton because Neil Hamilton wasn't the candidate.
The other thing I remember was the early years of Brown. Cameron had seemed like the new hope, but was being batted away by the man born to rule. Then something happened.
The one I don't remember was the early years of Thatcher. I was too busy counting ladybirds in the garden or something. But people older than me (including Conservative Aldermen, I'll have you know) say that she was obviously going nowhere against Jolly Jim. Then something happened.
The key thing about being in opposition is that you are powerless. That always makes you look bad. All you can really do is keep calm, make sure you don't look repulsive and have something ready for the moment when things do go wrong for the government. That was what made Blair unusual; he took over when the Major government was already in lame duck zombie mode.
Right now, BoJo is Father of the Nation. (And not in that sense, oh no missus, titter ye not.) That won't last forever; it came blooming close to falling apart last December. I don't think it's a deserved status, but I recognise that I'm not in the majority for thinking that right now. But Boris too is mortal.
I wonder if there is any mileage in continuing the AZ vaccine in all age groups and have follow up appointments to give all patients clot busting drugs as a precaution. Not sure if that's feasible, maybe @Foxy can say.
I must the only one who finds “politician eats food” stories utterly trite.
I’m thinking of Sir Keir’s fish and chips, Ed’s bacon sarnie and Ozzy’s burger.
Who TF cares?
I do, because it's a relief to talk about apparently trivial shit, as against deadly plague and dry economics. Also this stuff matters: the story of Ursula and The Chair is now everywhere, because it says something about Turkey, men, politics for women, the EU...
And as for chips in the West Country, the moment I realised Teresa was a disaster was when she ate chips in Cornwall
Except the Tory vote share in St Austell & Newquay increased significantly, and the majority went up by about 3,000, in 2017. So perhaps Theresa May's chip eating style wasn't so off-putting after all?
You maybe missed the other results?
Seriously, when she ate those chips like an autistic, disarticulated android in a lady suit, who had never encountered carbohydrate-based foodstuffs before. that's when I knew she was in deeeeeeep trouble.
Corbyn, for all his immense faults, always looked comfortable in his own skin. Boris always looks like he is enormously enjoying himself, or he is trying to hide the same hedonistic pleasure.
Voters like to find their leaders relatable or cheering or, ideally, both. A leader that makes your teeth grind with embarrassment every time you see her, not so much
She is diabetic and starches convert to sugars. Potato is best avoided.
I know, I had a badly diabetic partner for a while. Knowing that kinda made it worse. She was doing a populist thing in a cack-handed way that probably made her more unpopular, the Ed Miliband bacon sandwich was the same
People like authenticity, they reject the obviously bogus quite fiercely. You have to be a very accomplished actor to bring off a totally fake persona. Boris might be one (I am not sure), Harold Wilson was apparently another (the pipe v the cigar)
Corbyn was authentically himself, which is why he got away with insane terrible policies in 2017. It really helps
Blair was himself and relaxed and won. Brown was not, and awkward, and lost. Sturgeon is a good fake, Salmond is himself, Davidson was good.
Starmer seems reasonably himself. He accepts he is not terribly exciting, and does not pretend otherwise. I suspect the British might give him a second chance if he persists. However, given his boring-ness, he will need some good, eye-catching policies
Which as I recall you think should be headed by "clean streets".
And that by itself would be eye-catching, Many BAMEs, living in tougher districts, would love it. A simple obvious achievable policy. Do it.
Jesus Christ, I am watching Sky News for the first time in a long while
When did it become the Guardian on super-steroids? It is one long leftwing, right on, BLM-y, bien pensant, virtue-signalling RANT. it makes Channel 4 look balanced
No wonder GB News saw a niche
I have been saying this for sometime
GBnews will run riot with Sky's viewing figures
We don't watch Sky news, even the papers review disappoints. ITV news is fairly ok . We are heading in the UK for news channels where the bias is no longer hidden.. its already happened to c4 news.. British versions of Fox news await..
I went to Australia just before Covid hit to see relatives, and they watched a lot of Sky News - I was taken aback at just how politicised and right wing the Aussie Sky is compared to here. They seem to love the "news anchor delivers a political rant with a tenuous link to what actually happened directly to camera immediately after reporting the news to blur the lines between fact and opinion" thing even more than in the US. Different markets I suppose.
I wonder if there is any mileage in continuing the AZ vaccine in all age groups and have follow up appointments to give all patients clot busting drugs as a precaution. Not sure if that's feasible, maybe @Foxy can say.
You’d have to consider the side effects of the clot busters too. I heard a chat on the radio today with the medic asserting that all active drugs have side effects, and anything without a side effect almost certainly didn’t have any efficacy.
Jesus Christ, I am watching Sky News for the first time in a long while
When did it become the Guardian on super-steroids? It is one long leftwing, right on, BLM-y, bien pensant, virtue-signalling RANT. it makes Channel 4 look balanced
No wonder GB News saw a niche
I have been saying this for sometime
GBnews will run riot with Sky's viewing figures
I do hope you aren't tempted. It might push you further right than a person ought to be.
Rest assured I am a left of centre conservative and miles from ERG
That is not going to change but we do need a new broadcaster to counter the move to the left of Sky
I wonder if there is any mileage in continuing the AZ vaccine in all age groups and have follow up appointments to give all patients clot busting drugs as a precaution. Not sure if that's feasible, maybe @Foxy can say.
I have been on clot-busting drugs. They really are not the sort of thing you hand out willynilly unless a person really needs them. They have side effects too.
And does anyone in Government know how many hundreds of people flew into the UK from Nigeria over the last week?
No. Thought not.
I don't understand the government's attitude to the border. It's quite simply the single most destructive policy we've had during this pandemic.
We've kept the border open so people from PERU (world's highest Covid excess death rate) can come on holiday "to see Big Ben"
Meanwhile every Briton has been locked away at home for most of a year, and is forbidden from foreign holidays altogether
Piss-boiling
Yes, someone needs to punch every single minister in the balls over and over again until this policy is changed. I still don't understand how the opposition aren't smashing the government on this every single day. I'd raise the issue every single PMQs with all of the new idiotic scenarios that we hear about such as the above until Boris is embarrassed enough to fire Shapps and reverse the policy.
I simply don't understand why the government won't close the borders. Are Ministers all being bribed by the travel industry or something?
The government insists on micromanaging every aspect of domestic life but lets any Tom, Dick or Harry waltz in.
It's baffling and infuriating.
At this rate we'll never lift this bloody lockdown. Grrr......
As I've said, many times - what do you think the reaction will be when they shut down immigration? Not reduce it. Shut it down.
That's not isn the wheelhouse of any politician at Westminster.
Because of the reaction from our Optimates would be universal condemnation.
Again, I do not remotely understand, and I will never forgive. We are an island. Take advantage. Close. The. Fucking. Borders
We're into the second year of this plaintive cry from all political hues on here. Yet folk continue to merrily traipse backwards and forwards...
Which is why I believe there is something we don’t know.
I do know we are unbelievable economically linked to flights, especially to the US.
But if might be something as simple as BA saying it will go bust and sell all its Heathrow slots to the Americans
Do you know, Charles? I was going to add "there must be summat going on we don't know about" to my original comment. But I didn't cos I couldn't think of a credible, non-conspiracy loon theory. So thanks for providing one. Any others?
Again, I do not remotely understand, and I will never forgive. We are an island. Take advantage. Close. The. Fucking. Borders
We're into the second year of this plaintive cry from all political hues on here. Yet folk continue to merrily traipse backwards and forwards...
Which is why I believe there is something we don’t know.
I do know we are unbelievable economically linked to flights, especially to the US.
But if might be something as simple as BA saying it will go bust and sell all its Heathrow slots to the Americans
Wouldn't we simply bail out BA for a year at that point?
Probably
My point is that government is usually logical even if wrong. So there is some reason why it hasn’t closed the borders
Indeed. But I can't see it. Max is right. Bailing out the entire travel industry for a year would be cheaper than another lockdown from another variant.
I wonder if there is any mileage in continuing the AZ vaccine in all age groups and have follow up appointments to give all patients clot busting drugs as a precaution. Not sure if that's feasible, maybe @Foxy can say.
I have been on clot-busting drugs. They really are not the sort of thing you hand out willynilly unless a person really needs them. They have side effects too.
I've been on blood thinners for 30 years and they keep me alive.
Also, forgot to mention, NHS England will get around 400k Moderna doses at some point in the next few days for immediate roll out and we're continuing to use the same JiT delivery method so all 400k will be given as first doses.
I got that from a pretty reliable contact just before the end of the work day, another 400-500k is expected "very soon" and then regular shipments of "about 900k" from later in April. I'm also told the government regrets not purchasing more Moderna when they had the opportunity and also regrets not backing it as one of the domestic manufacturing deals like Novavax and Valneva when it had the chance.
Jesus Christ, I am watching Sky News for the first time in a long while
When did it become the Guardian on super-steroids? It is one long leftwing, right on, BLM-y, bien pensant, virtue-signalling RANT. it makes Channel 4 look balanced
No wonder GB News saw a niche
I have been saying this for sometime
GBnews will run riot with Sky's viewing figures
I do hope you aren't tempted. It might push you further right than a person ought to be.
Rest assured I am a left of centre conservative and miles from ERG
That is not going to change but we do need a new broadcaster to counter the move to the left of Sky
To be fair I am less critical of the BBC or ITV
I'll have to take your word about Sky. It's Ch4 news all day long for me. Or at 7 pm anyway. The mighty KGM. National treasure Snow. Implacable Cathy Newman. And the rest of the team. No weak link.
Also, forgot to mention, NHS England will get around 400k Moderna doses at some point in the next few days for immediate roll out and we're continuing to use the same JiT delivery method so all 400k will be given as first doses.
I got that from a pretty reliable contact just before the end of the work day, another 400-500k is expected "very soon" and then regular shipments of "about 900k" from later in April. I'm also told the government regrets not purchasing more Moderna when they had the opportunity and also regrets not backing it as one of the domestic manufacturing deals like Novavax and Valneva when it had the chance.
They made some great calls and backed some right horses. But no one in the vaccine wars called all the right horses I imagine.
I must the only one who finds “politician eats food” stories utterly trite.
I’m thinking of Sir Keir’s fish and chips, Ed’s bacon sarnie and Ozzy’s burger.
Who TF cares?
I do, because it's a relief to talk about apparently trivial shit, as against deadly plague and dry economics. Also this stuff matters: the story of Ursula and The Chair is now everywhere, because it says something about Turkey, men, politics for women, the EU...
And as for chips in the West Country, the moment I realised Teresa was a disaster was when she ate chips in Cornwall
Except the Tory vote share in St Austell & Newquay increased significantly, and the majority went up by about 3,000, in 2017. So perhaps Theresa May's chip eating style wasn't so off-putting after all?
You maybe missed the other results?
Seriously, when she ate those chips like an autistic, disarticulated android in a lady suit, who had never encountered carbohydrate-based foodstuffs before. that's when I knew she was in deeeeeeep trouble.
Corbyn, for all his immense faults, always looked comfortable in his own skin. Boris always looks like he is enormously enjoying himself, or he is trying to hide the same hedonistic pleasure.
Voters like to find their leaders relatable or cheering or, ideally, both. A leader that makes your teeth grind with embarrassment every time you see her, not so much
She is diabetic and starches convert to sugars. Potato is best avoided.
I know, I had a badly diabetic partner for a while. Knowing that kinda made it worse. She was doing a populist thing in a cack-handed way that probably made her more unpopular, the Ed Miliband bacon sandwich was the same
People like authenticity, they reject the obviously bogus quite fiercely. You have to be a very accomplished actor to bring off a totally fake persona. Boris might be one (I am not sure), Harold Wilson was apparently another (the pipe v the cigar)
Corbyn was authentically himself, which is why he got away with insane terrible policies in 2017. It really helps
Blair was himself and relaxed and won. Brown was not, and awkward, and lost. Sturgeon is a good fake, Salmond is himself, Davidson was good.
Starmer seems reasonably himself. He accepts he is not terribly exciting, and does not pretend otherwise. I suspect the British might give him a second chance if he persists. However, given his boring-ness, he will need some good, eye-catching policies
Which as I recall you think should be headed by "clean streets".
And that by itself would be eye-catching, Many BAMEs, living in tougher districts, would love it. A simple obvious achievable policy. Do it.
What are BAMEs?
When I look back upon my life It's always with a sense of shame I've always been the one to BAME
I wonder if there is any mileage in continuing the AZ vaccine in all age groups and have follow up appointments to give all patients clot busting drugs as a precaution. Not sure if that's feasible, maybe @Foxy can say.
You’d have to consider the side effects of the clot busters too. I heard a chat on the radio today with the medic asserting that all active drugs have side effects, and anything without a side effect almost certainly didn’t have any efficacy.
As I said, I'm not a medic so I don't know if it's feasible. Would something like Heparin work or is that a blood thinner rather than clot buster? Or are they the same thing?
Also, forgot to mention, NHS England will get around 400k Moderna doses at some point in the next few days for immediate roll out and we're continuing to use the same JiT delivery method so all 400k will be given as first doses.
I got that from a pretty reliable contact just before the end of the work day, another 400-500k is expected "very soon" and then regular shipments of "about 900k" from later in April. I'm also told the government regrets not purchasing more Moderna when they had the opportunity and also regrets not backing it as one of the domestic manufacturing deals like Novavax and Valneva when it had the chance.
They made some great calls and backed some right horses. But no one in the vaccine wars called all the right horses I imagine.
Yes, no doubt but I think watching the way mRNA vaccines have ramped up manufacturing fairly easily as chemical processes vs biological processes like AZ or Novavax which have had a tougher ramp up has given them some regrets. We're in the game with CureVac now but that deal won't deliver until 2022 and will be a gen 2 or 3 vaccine targeting variants.
Jesus Christ, I am watching Sky News for the first time in a long while
When did it become the Guardian on super-steroids? It is one long leftwing, right on, BLM-y, bien pensant, virtue-signalling RANT. it makes Channel 4 look balanced
No wonder GB News saw a niche
I have been saying this for sometime
GBnews will run riot with Sky's viewing figures
I do hope you aren't tempted. It might push you further right than a person ought to be.
Rest assured I am a left of centre conservative and miles from ERG
That is not going to change but we do need a new broadcaster to counter the move to the left of Sky
To be fair I am less critical of the BBC or ITV
I'll have to take your word about Sky. It's Ch4 news all day long for me. Or at 7 pm anyway. The mighty KGM. National treasure Snow. Implacable Cathy Newman. And the rest of the team. No weak link.
But of course, the 'anti-GB' News. Good for them to have a mirror image for balance at last.
And does anyone in Government know how many hundreds of people flew into the UK from Nigeria over the last week?
No. Thought not.
I don't understand the government's attitude to the border. It's quite simply the single most destructive policy we've had during this pandemic.
We've kept the border open so people from PERU (world's highest Covid excess death rate) can come on holiday "to see Big Ben"
Meanwhile every Briton has been locked away at home for most of a year, and is forbidden from foreign holidays altogether
Piss-boiling
Yes, someone needs to punch every single minister in the balls over and over again until this policy is changed. I still don't understand how the opposition aren't smashing the government on this every single day. I'd raise the issue every single PMQs with all of the new idiotic scenarios that we hear about such as the above until Boris is embarrassed enough to fire Shapps and reverse the policy.
I simply don't understand why the government won't close the borders. Are Ministers all being bribed by the travel industry or something?
The government insists on micromanaging every aspect of domestic life but lets any Tom, Dick or Harry waltz in.
It's baffling and infuriating.
At this rate we'll never lift this bloody lockdown. Grrr......
My understanding is that there's three problems:
1) We're not really an 'island' in the same way Japan, or even South Korea (given its only land border is with a hermit state) is; instead of trade being done through mostly automated container shipping, we have a comparatively very manpower heavy roll on roll off ferry link with the mainland, through which a lot of food and vital resources are imported. You can't stop that, or automate it in short order with our current infrastructure. Functionally, it's like having a land border. So you're going to have thousands of people entering the country every day, even if you completely shut the airports and non-RO RO seaports.
2) If we assume the Government makes 'common sense' adjustments to the closed border policy - allowing lorry drivers in, allowing people to enter for humanitarian reasons, allowing people to enter for limited economic reasons - the policy wouldn't be all that much different from what we already have, so at that point it mostly becomes a question of branding.
3) We have a land border with the Republic of Ireland; if the Government went with an explicitly closed borders policy, either they have to close the border with the RoI, and risk Nationalist violence, close the border with Great Britain, and risk Unionist violence, or beg the RoI to match British domestic policy and shut themselves off to the rest of the world, which (presumably) they won't be keen to do.
Again, I do not remotely understand, and I will never forgive. We are an island. Take advantage. Close. The. Fucking. Borders
We're into the second year of this plaintive cry from all political hues on here. Yet folk continue to merrily traipse backwards and forwards...
Which is why I believe there is something we don’t know.
I do know we are unbelievable economically linked to flights, especially to the US.
But if might be something as simple as BA saying it will go bust and sell all its Heathrow slots to the Americans
Wouldn't we simply bail out BA for a year at that point?
Probably
My point is that government is usually logical even if wrong. So there is some reason why it hasn’t closed the borders
That's my sense too. There's a reason which cannot speak its name.
Which is?
We don't know. But we're all pretty damn sure there must be one. As what we observe makes no sense otherwise. It is the political equivalent of dark matter.
And does anyone in Government know how many hundreds of people flew into the UK from Nigeria over the last week?
No. Thought not.
I don't understand the government's attitude to the border. It's quite simply the single most destructive policy we've had during this pandemic.
It's incomprehensible. My only plausible explanation is that the Tories are in hock to the airlines and airports, because the government seem to be obsessed with the idea of enabling overseas travel despite the potential for it to send us back to square one.
Restricting international travel for politicians and media types is the equivalent of restricting alcohol to an alcoholic.
Not only cannot they do without it but they cannot even conceive of doing so.
They will however pretend to be doing without it.
But it's okay to lock ordinary people in their homes for many months.
And does anyone in Government know how many hundreds of people flew into the UK from Nigeria over the last week?
No. Thought not.
I don't understand the government's attitude to the border. It's quite simply the single most destructive policy we've had during this pandemic.
We've kept the border open so people from PERU (world's highest Covid excess death rate) can come on holiday "to see Big Ben"
Meanwhile every Briton has been locked away at home for most of a year, and is forbidden from foreign holidays altogether
Piss-boiling
Yes, someone needs to punch every single minister in the balls over and over again until this policy is changed. I still don't understand how the opposition aren't smashing the government on this every single day. I'd raise the issue every single PMQs with all of the new idiotic scenarios that we hear about such as the above until Boris is embarrassed enough to fire Shapps and reverse the policy.
I simply don't understand why the government won't close the borders. Are Ministers all being bribed by the travel industry or something?
The government insists on micromanaging every aspect of domestic life but lets any Tom, Dick or Harry waltz in.
It's baffling and infuriating.
At this rate we'll never lift this bloody lockdown. Grrr......
My understanding is that there's three problems:
1) We're not really an 'island' in the same way Japan, or even South Korea (given its only land border is with a hermit state) is; instead of trade being done through mostly automated container shipping, we have a comparatively very manpower heavy roll on roll off ferry link with the mainland, through which a lot of food and vital resources are imported. You can't stop that, or automate it in short order with our current infrastructure. Functionally, it's like having a land border. So you're going to have thousands of people entering the country every day, even if you completely shut the airports and non-RO RO seaports.
2) If we assume the Government makes 'common sense' adjustments to the closed border policy - allowing lorry drivers in, allowing people to enter for humanitarian reasons, allowing people to enter for limited economic reasons - the policy wouldn't be all that much different from what we already have, so at that point it mostly becomes a question of branding.
3) We have a land border with the Republic of Ireland; if the Government went with an explicitly closed borders policy, either they have to close the border with the RoI, and risk Nationalist violence, close the border with Great Britain, and risk Unionist violence, or beg the RoI to match British domestic policy and shut themselves off to the rest of the world, which (presumably) they won't be keen to do.
My guess is that it is a mix of what you say (we are so connected we are hardly an island) and what Matt Yglesias says, via Alistair's very helpful link, below
Neither is acceptable, alone or in combination. If you can demolish the UK foreign travel industry you can make it a LOT harder for hauliers to interact with Brits, keep them tested and quarantined, then send them home. At the same time you can get your thick skull around the fact Covid is very different to other diseases, and we now know travel bans WORK, see New Zealand and Oz and others
They refuse to learn this as they refused to learn Covid was not flu, masks work, etc etc etc ETFUCKINGC
We are governed by craven, idiot politicians who kow tow to parochial, wibbling scientists unable to grasp new paradigms
Jesus Christ, I am watching Sky News for the first time in a long while
When did it become the Guardian on super-steroids? It is one long leftwing, right on, BLM-y, bien pensant, virtue-signalling RANT. it makes Channel 4 look balanced
No wonder GB News saw a niche
I have been saying this for sometime
GBnews will run riot with Sky's viewing figures
I do hope you aren't tempted. It might push you further right than a person ought to be.
Rest assured I am a left of centre conservative and miles from ERG
That is not going to change but we do need a new broadcaster to counter the move to the left of Sky
To be fair I am less critical of the BBC or ITV
I'll have to take your word about Sky. It's Ch4 news all day long for me. Or at 7 pm anyway. The mighty KGM. National treasure Snow. Implacable Cathy Newman. And the rest of the team. No weak link.
But of course, the 'anti-GB' News. Good for them to have a mirror image for balance at last.
Yes I don't mind, so long as it only gets a tiny audience and flops.
And does anyone in Government know how many hundreds of people flew into the UK from Nigeria over the last week?
No. Thought not.
I don't understand the government's attitude to the border. It's quite simply the single most destructive policy we've had during this pandemic.
We've kept the border open so people from PERU (world's highest Covid excess death rate) can come on holiday "to see Big Ben"
Meanwhile every Briton has been locked away at home for most of a year, and is forbidden from foreign holidays altogether
Piss-boiling
Yes, someone needs to punch every single minister in the balls over and over again until this policy is changed. I still don't understand how the opposition aren't smashing the government on this every single day. I'd raise the issue every single PMQs with all of the new idiotic scenarios that we hear about such as the above until Boris is embarrassed enough to fire Shapps and reverse the policy.
I simply don't understand why the government won't close the borders. Are Ministers all being bribed by the travel industry or something?
The government insists on micromanaging every aspect of domestic life but lets any Tom, Dick or Harry waltz in.
It's baffling and infuriating.
At this rate we'll never lift this bloody lockdown. Grrr......
My understanding is that there's three problems:
1) We're not really an 'island' in the same way Japan, or even South Korea (given its only land border is with a hermit state) is; instead of trade being done through mostly automated container shipping, we have a comparatively very manpower heavy roll on roll off ferry link with the mainland, through which a lot of food and vital resources are imported. You can't stop that, or automate it in short order with our current infrastructure. Functionally, it's like having a land border. So you're going to have thousands of people entering the country every day, even if you completely shut the airports and non-RO RO seaports.
2) If we assume the Government makes 'common sense' adjustments to the closed border policy - allowing lorry drivers in, allowing people to enter for humanitarian reasons, allowing people to enter for limited economic reasons - the policy wouldn't be all that much different from what we already have, so at that point it mostly becomes a question of branding.
3) We have a land border with the Republic of Ireland; if the Government went with an explicitly closed borders policy, either they have to close the border with the RoI, and risk Nationalist violence, close the border with Great Britain, and risk Unionist violence, or beg the RoI to match British domestic policy and shut themselves off to the rest of the world, which (presumably) they won't be keen to do.
My guess is that it is a mix of what you say (we are so connected we are hardly an island) and what Matt Yglesias says, via Alistair's very helpful link, below
Neither is acceptable, alone or in combination. If you can demolish the UK foreign travel industry you can make it a LOT harder for hauliers to interact with Brits, keep them tested and quarantined, then send them home. At the same time you can get your thick skull around the fact Covid is very different to other diseases, and we now know travel bans WORK, see New Zealand and Oz and others
They refuse to learn this as they refused to learn Covid was not flu, masks work, etc etc etc ETFUCKINGC
We are governed by craven, idiot politicians who kow tow to parochial, wibbling scientists unable to grasp new paradigms
The "people won't report a plague" concept is totally bizarre. You can't hide a plague like you might hide other things.
Also:
"stigmatizing the disease would have likely been counterproductive by undermining contact tracing"
What? A disease will always be attached to stigma, no matter what you do.
This theory sounds pretty iffy even in the circumstances in which it was supposed to work in the first place, let alone any others.
It seems okay to me, it's just the basic central tension of the pandemic vs response that we have discussed a thousand times. The economic cost of lockdown will kill people as surely as the actual effect of disease. You have to find a balance between them.
The idiocy comes from trying to generalise a very specific disease with a known treatment and limited human-human transmission like the plague to all pandemics. Especially idiotic to apply to an unknown respiratory infection.
And does anyone in Government know how many hundreds of people flew into the UK from Nigeria over the last week?
No. Thought not.
I don't understand the government's attitude to the border. It's quite simply the single most destructive policy we've had during this pandemic.
We've kept the border open so people from PERU (world's highest Covid excess death rate) can come on holiday "to see Big Ben"
Meanwhile every Briton has been locked away at home for most of a year, and is forbidden from foreign holidays altogether
Piss-boiling
Yes, someone needs to punch every single minister in the balls over and over again until this policy is changed. I still don't understand how the opposition aren't smashing the government on this every single day. I'd raise the issue every single PMQs with all of the new idiotic scenarios that we hear about such as the above until Boris is embarrassed enough to fire Shapps and reverse the policy.
I simply don't understand why the government won't close the borders. Are Ministers all being bribed by the travel industry or something?
The government insists on micromanaging every aspect of domestic life but lets any Tom, Dick or Harry waltz in.
It's baffling and infuriating.
At this rate we'll never lift this bloody lockdown. Grrr......
My understanding is that there's three problems:
1) We're not really an 'island' in the same way Japan, or even South Korea (given its only land border is with a hermit state) is; instead of trade being done through mostly automated container shipping, we have a comparatively very manpower heavy roll on roll off ferry link with the mainland, through which a lot of food and vital resources are imported. You can't stop that, or automate it in short order with our current infrastructure. Functionally, it's like having a land border. So you're going to have thousands of people entering the country every day, even if you completely shut the airports and non-RO RO seaports.
2) If we assume the Government makes 'common sense' adjustments to the closed border policy - allowing lorry drivers in, allowing people to enter for humanitarian reasons, allowing people to enter for limited economic reasons - the policy wouldn't be all that much different from what we already have, so at that point it mostly becomes a question of branding.
3) We have a land border with the Republic of Ireland; if the Government went with an explicitly closed borders policy, either they have to close the border with the RoI, and risk Nationalist violence, close the border with Great Britain, and risk Unionist violence, or beg the RoI to match British domestic policy and shut themselves off to the rest of the world, which (presumably) they won't be keen to do.
My guess is that it is a mix of what you say (we are so connected we are hardly an island) and what Matt Yglesias says, via Alistair's very helpful link, below
Neither is acceptable, alone or in combination. If you can demolish the UK foreign travel industry you can make it a LOT harder for hauliers to interact with Brits, keep them tested and quarantined, then send them home. At the same time you can get your thick skull around the fact Covid is very different to other diseases, and we now know travel bans WORK, see New Zealand and Oz and others
They refuse to learn this as they refused to learn Covid was not flu, masks work, etc etc etc ETFUCKINGC
We are governed by craven, idiot politicians who kow tow to parochial, wibbling scientists unable to grasp new paradigms
The "people won't report a plague" concept is totally bizarre. You can't hide a plague like you might hide other things.
China literally tried from November to January so not that bizarre.
Spain’s health ministry decided to only give AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine to people aged between 60 to 65 after European and British regulators found a potential link between the shot and rare brain blood clots.
Again, I do not remotely understand, and I will never forgive. We are an island. Take advantage. Close. The. Fucking. Borders
We're into the second year of this plaintive cry from all political hues on here. Yet folk continue to merrily traipse backwards and forwards...
Which is why I believe there is something we don’t know.
I do know we are unbelievable economically linked to flights, especially to the US.
But if might be something as simple as BA saying it will go bust and sell all its Heathrow slots to the Americans
Wouldn't we simply bail out BA for a year at that point?
Probably
My point is that government is usually logical even if wrong. So there is some reason why it hasn’t closed the borders
That's my sense too. There's a reason which cannot speak its name.
Which is?
We don't know. But we're all pretty damn sure there must be one. As what we observe makes no sense otherwise. It is the political equivalent of dark matter.
But given that not a single politician seems to be bothered it would mean that the secret was widely known and universally supported.
It feels like the UK's relatively rapid vaccination programme could make a big difference to that particuluar league table over the coming couple of months.
I must the only one who finds “politician eats food” stories utterly trite.
I’m thinking of Sir Keir’s fish and chips, Ed’s bacon sarnie and Ozzy’s burger.
Who TF cares?
I do, because it's a relief to talk about apparently trivial shit, as against deadly plague and dry economics. Also this stuff matters: the story of Ursula and The Chair is now everywhere, because it says something about Turkey, men, politics for women, the EU...
And as for chips in the West Country, the moment I realised Teresa was a disaster was when she ate chips in Cornwall
Except the Tory vote share in St Austell & Newquay increased significantly, and the majority went up by about 3,000, in 2017. So perhaps Theresa May's chip eating style wasn't so off-putting after all?
You maybe missed the other results?
Seriously, when she ate those chips like an autistic, disarticulated android in a lady suit, who had never encountered carbohydrate-based foodstuffs before. that's when I knew she was in deeeeeeep trouble.
Corbyn, for all his immense faults, always looked comfortable in his own skin. Boris always looks like he is enormously enjoying himself, or he is trying to hide the same hedonistic pleasure.
Voters like to find their leaders relatable or cheering or, ideally, both. A leader that makes your teeth grind with embarrassment every time you see her, not so much
She is diabetic and starches convert to sugars. Potato is best avoided.
Very few diabetics avoid all carbohydrates, just use insulin at the right level to assimilate them.
And does anyone in Government know how many hundreds of people flew into the UK from Nigeria over the last week?
No. Thought not.
I don't understand the government's attitude to the border. It's quite simply the single most destructive policy we've had during this pandemic.
We've kept the border open so people from PERU (world's highest Covid excess death rate) can come on holiday "to see Big Ben"
Meanwhile every Briton has been locked away at home for most of a year, and is forbidden from foreign holidays altogether
Piss-boiling
Yes, someone needs to punch every single minister in the balls over and over again until this policy is changed. I still don't understand how the opposition aren't smashing the government on this every single day. I'd raise the issue every single PMQs with all of the new idiotic scenarios that we hear about such as the above until Boris is embarrassed enough to fire Shapps and reverse the policy.
I simply don't understand why the government won't close the borders. Are Ministers all being bribed by the travel industry or something?
The government insists on micromanaging every aspect of domestic life but lets any Tom, Dick or Harry waltz in.
It's baffling and infuriating.
At this rate we'll never lift this bloody lockdown. Grrr......
My understanding is that there's three problems:
1) We're not really an 'island' in the same way Japan, or even South Korea (given its only land border is with a hermit state) is; instead of trade being done through mostly automated container shipping, we have a comparatively very manpower heavy roll on roll off ferry link with the mainland, through which a lot of food and vital resources are imported. You can't stop that, or automate it in short order with our current infrastructure. Functionally, it's like having a land border. So you're going to have thousands of people entering the country every day, even if you completely shut the airports and non-RO RO seaports.
2) If we assume the Government makes 'common sense' adjustments to the closed border policy - allowing lorry drivers in, allowing people to enter for humanitarian reasons, allowing people to enter for limited economic reasons - the policy wouldn't be all that much different from what we already have, so at that point it mostly becomes a question of branding.
3) We have a land border with the Republic of Ireland; if the Government went with an explicitly closed borders policy, either they have to close the border with the RoI, and risk Nationalist violence, close the border with Great Britain, and risk Unionist violence, or beg the RoI to match British domestic policy and shut themselves off to the rest of the world, which (presumably) they won't be keen to do.
This seems plausible to me. Also would explain why it hasn't been explained.
Spain’s health ministry decided to only give AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine to people aged between 60 to 65 after European and British regulators found a potential link between the shot and rare brain blood clots.
Inevitable this would happen. Most other European countries will probably adopt the same policy. Not based in science.
"Public health records, scores of scientific studies and interviews with more than two dozen experts show the policy of unobstructed travel was never based on hard science. It was a political decision, recast as health advice, which emerged after a plague outbreak in India in the 1990s. By the time Covid-19 surfaced, it had become an article of faith.
“It’s part of the religion of global health: Travel and trade restrictions are bad,” said Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University who helped write the global rules known as the International Health Regulations. “I’m one of the congregants.”"
Again, I do not remotely understand, and I will never forgive. We are an island. Take advantage. Close. The. Fucking. Borders
We're into the second year of this plaintive cry from all political hues on here. Yet folk continue to merrily traipse backwards and forwards...
Which is why I believe there is something we don’t know.
I do know we are unbelievable economically linked to flights, especially to the US.
But if might be something as simple as BA saying it will go bust and sell all its Heathrow slots to the Americans
Wouldn't we simply bail out BA for a year at that point?
Probably
My point is that government is usually logical even if wrong. So there is some reason why it hasn’t closed the borders
That's my sense too. There's a reason which cannot speak its name.
Which is?
We don't know. But we're all pretty damn sure there must be one. As what we observe makes no sense otherwise. It is the political equivalent of dark matter.
But given that not a single politician seems to be bothered it would mean that the secret was widely known and universally supported.
And yet I know a lot of politically connected people and none can explain it, apart from a few lefties who waffle about xenophobia and a few righties who waffle about freedom and trade, so I genuinely suspect it is a toxic combination of these two stupidities, with generalised apathy about tackling such a difficult problem in an interconnected country like the UK. All this plus the Ebola hangover thing, and a pious belief travel bans "don't work" when it is now absolutely clear that they do
And does anyone in Government know how many hundreds of people flew into the UK from Nigeria over the last week?
No. Thought not.
I don't understand the government's attitude to the border. It's quite simply the single most destructive policy we've had during this pandemic.
We've kept the border open so people from PERU (world's highest Covid excess death rate) can come on holiday "to see Big Ben"
Meanwhile every Briton has been locked away at home for most of a year, and is forbidden from foreign holidays altogether
Piss-boiling
Yes, someone needs to punch every single minister in the balls over and over again until this policy is changed. I still don't understand how the opposition aren't smashing the government on this every single day. I'd raise the issue every single PMQs with all of the new idiotic scenarios that we hear about such as the above until Boris is embarrassed enough to fire Shapps and reverse the policy.
I simply don't understand why the government won't close the borders. Are Ministers all being bribed by the travel industry or something?
The government insists on micromanaging every aspect of domestic life but lets any Tom, Dick or Harry waltz in.
It's baffling and infuriating.
At this rate we'll never lift this bloody lockdown. Grrr......
My understanding is that there's three problems:
1) We're not really an 'island' in the same way Japan, or even South Korea (given its only land border is with a hermit state) is; instead of trade being done through mostly automated container shipping, we have a comparatively very manpower heavy roll on roll off ferry link with the mainland, through which a lot of food and vital resources are imported. You can't stop that, or automate it in short order with our current infrastructure. Functionally, it's like having a land border. So you're going to have thousands of people entering the country every day, even if you completely shut the airports and non-RO RO seaports.
2) If we assume the Government makes 'common sense' adjustments to the closed border policy - allowing lorry drivers in, allowing people to enter for humanitarian reasons, allowing people to enter for limited economic reasons - the policy wouldn't be all that much different from what we already have, so at that point it mostly becomes a question of branding.
3) We have a land border with the Republic of Ireland; if the Government went with an explicitly closed borders policy, either they have to close the border with the RoI, and risk Nationalist violence, close the border with Great Britain, and risk Unionist violence, or beg the RoI to match British domestic policy and shut themselves off to the rest of the world, which (presumably) they won't be keen to do.
I must the only one who finds “politician eats food” stories utterly trite.
I’m thinking of Sir Keir’s fish and chips, Ed’s bacon sarnie and Ozzy’s burger.
Who TF cares?
I do, because it's a relief to talk about apparently trivial shit, as against deadly plague and dry economics. Also this stuff matters: the story of Ursula and The Chair is now everywhere, because it says something about Turkey, men, politics for women, the EU...
And as for chips in the West Country, the moment I realised Teresa was a disaster was when she ate chips in Cornwall
Except the Tory vote share in St Austell & Newquay increased significantly, and the majority went up by about 3,000, in 2017. So perhaps Theresa May's chip eating style wasn't so off-putting after all?
You maybe missed the other results?
Seriously, when she ate those chips like an autistic, disarticulated android in a lady suit, who had never encountered carbohydrate-based foodstuffs before. that's when I knew she was in deeeeeeep trouble.
Corbyn, for all his immense faults, always looked comfortable in his own skin. Boris always looks like he is enormously enjoying himself, or he is trying to hide the same hedonistic pleasure.
Voters like to find their leaders relatable or cheering or, ideally, both. A leader that makes your teeth grind with embarrassment every time you see her, not so much
She is diabetic and starches convert to sugars. Potato is best avoided.
Very few diabetics avoid all carbohydrates, just use insulin at the right level to assimilate them.
Er... I thought most type 2 diabetics take metformin rather than insulin.
Boring, dull and defeatist. Why the focus on the party vote alone. Are the Tories really giving up in every constituency in Scotland?
They want to rebuild Scotland "brick by brick". How? What should be done in our schools, how are our hospitals to cope with the backlog, what the hell are we going to do about the £500m of Gupta guarantees given by the Scottish government, what do the Tories think about Crown Office, the wrongful prosecutions, the failed investments in failed businesses, the lying and the dishonesty? Surely the Tories have more to say about what kind of Scotland in the UK they want than no to a second referendum.
Why are they not offering a paean to the UK triumph of UK vaccines, the Scottish lives saved, the jobs saved by furlough, the incredibly generous grants, the money poured on the Scottish government and wasted on yet more gestures like free buses? Why are they not making a positive case for the Union and a critique of 14 years of SNP mismanagement? I am so frustrated.
I must the only one who finds “politician eats food” stories utterly trite.
I’m thinking of Sir Keir’s fish and chips, Ed’s bacon sarnie and Ozzy’s burger.
Who TF cares?
I do, because it's a relief to talk about apparently trivial shit, as against deadly plague and dry economics. Also this stuff matters: the story of Ursula and The Chair is now everywhere, because it says something about Turkey, men, politics for women, the EU...
And as for chips in the West Country, the moment I realised Teresa was a disaster was when she ate chips in Cornwall
Except the Tory vote share in St Austell & Newquay increased significantly, and the majority went up by about 3,000, in 2017. So perhaps Theresa May's chip eating style wasn't so off-putting after all?
You maybe missed the other results?
Seriously, when she ate those chips like an autistic, disarticulated android in a lady suit, who had never encountered carbohydrate-based foodstuffs before. that's when I knew she was in deeeeeeep trouble.
Corbyn, for all his immense faults, always looked comfortable in his own skin. Boris always looks like he is enormously enjoying himself, or he is trying to hide the same hedonistic pleasure.
Voters like to find their leaders relatable or cheering or, ideally, both. A leader that makes your teeth grind with embarrassment every time you see her, not so much
She is diabetic and starches convert to sugars. Potato is best avoided.
Very few diabetics avoid all carbohydrates, just use insulin at the right level to assimilate them.
Yeah but eating a portion of chips is a shit idea if you are diabetic. The only good think in it is the fat. You need to keep your carbs at a moderate, constant level.
Again, I do not remotely understand, and I will never forgive. We are an island. Take advantage. Close. The. Fucking. Borders
We're into the second year of this plaintive cry from all political hues on here. Yet folk continue to merrily traipse backwards and forwards...
Which is why I believe there is something we don’t know.
I do know we are unbelievable economically linked to flights, especially to the US.
But if might be something as simple as BA saying it will go bust and sell all its Heathrow slots to the Americans
Wouldn't we simply bail out BA for a year at that point?
Probably
My point is that government is usually logical even if wrong. So there is some reason why it hasn’t closed the borders
That's my sense too. There's a reason which cannot speak its name.
Which is?
We don't know. But we're all pretty damn sure there must be one. As what we observe makes no sense otherwise. It is the political equivalent of dark matter.
But given that not a single politician seems to be bothered it would mean that the secret was widely known and universally supported.
And yet I know a lot of politically connected people and none can explain it, apart from a few lefties who waffle about xenophobia and a few righties who waffle about freedom and trade, so I genuinely suspect it is a toxic combination of these two stupidities, with generalised apathy about tackling such a difficult problem in an interconnected country like the UK. All this plus the Ebola hangover thing, and a pious belief travel bans "don't work" when it is now absolutely clear that they do
Which also raises the question if it is "an article of faith" how come Oz and NZ are recusant? I know it's much easier to implement there, but, the figures, and the relative lack of any other restrictions shout for themselves, don't they?
Jesus Christ, I am watching Sky News for the first time in a long while
When did it become the Guardian on super-steroids? It is one long leftwing, right on, BLM-y, bien pensant, virtue-signalling RANT. it makes Channel 4 look balanced
No wonder GB News saw a niche
I have been saying this for sometime
GBnews will run riot with Sky's viewing figures
I do hope you aren't tempted. It might push you further right than a person ought to be.
Rest assured I am a left of centre conservative and miles from ERG
That is not going to change but we do need a new broadcaster to counter the move to the left of Sky
To be fair I am less critical of the BBC or ITV
I'll have to take your word about Sky. It's Ch4 news all day long for me. Or at 7 pm anyway. The mighty KGM. National treasure Snow. Implacable Cathy Newman. And the rest of the team. No weak link.
No surprises there whatsoever, I wouldn't expect anything else from you.
It would be good to have a counterweight to Ch4 but I expect that GB News would be far more balanced and neutral than Ch4 is.
And does anyone in Government know how many hundreds of people flew into the UK from Nigeria over the last week?
No. Thought not.
I don't understand the government's attitude to the border. It's quite simply the single most destructive policy we've had during this pandemic.
We've kept the border open so people from PERU (world's highest Covid excess death rate) can come on holiday "to see Big Ben"
Meanwhile every Briton has been locked away at home for most of a year, and is forbidden from foreign holidays altogether
Piss-boiling
Yes, someone needs to punch every single minister in the balls over and over again until this policy is changed. I still don't understand how the opposition aren't smashing the government on this every single day. I'd raise the issue every single PMQs with all of the new idiotic scenarios that we hear about such as the above until Boris is embarrassed enough to fire Shapps and reverse the policy.
I simply don't understand why the government won't close the borders. Are Ministers all being bribed by the travel industry or something?
The government insists on micromanaging every aspect of domestic life but lets any Tom, Dick or Harry waltz in.
It's baffling and infuriating.
At this rate we'll never lift this bloody lockdown. Grrr......
My understanding is that there's three problems:
1) We're not really an 'island' in the same way Japan, or even South Korea (given its only land border is with a hermit state) is; instead of trade being done through mostly automated container shipping, we have a comparatively very manpower heavy roll on roll off ferry link with the mainland, through which a lot of food and vital resources are imported. You can't stop that, or automate it in short order with our current infrastructure. Functionally, it's like having a land border. So you're going to have thousands of people entering the country every day, even if you completely shut the airports and non-RO RO seaports.
2) If we assume the Government makes 'common sense' adjustments to the closed border policy - allowing lorry drivers in, allowing people to enter for humanitarian reasons, allowing people to enter for limited economic reasons - the policy wouldn't be all that much different from what we already have, so at that point it mostly becomes a question of branding.
3) We have a land border with the Republic of Ireland; if the Government went with an explicitly closed borders policy, either they have to close the border with the RoI, and risk Nationalist violence, close the border with Great Britain, and risk Unionist violence, or beg the RoI to match British domestic policy and shut themselves off to the rest of the world, which (presumably) they won't be keen to do.
My guess is that it is a mix of what you say (we are so connected we are hardly an island) and what Matt Yglesias says, via Alistair's very helpful link, below
Neither is acceptable, alone or in combination. If you can demolish the UK foreign travel industry you can make it a LOT harder for hauliers to interact with Brits, keep them tested and quarantined, then send them home. At the same time you can get your thick skull around the fact Covid is very different to other diseases, and we now know travel bans WORK, see New Zealand and Oz and others
They refuse to learn this as they refused to learn Covid was not flu, masks work, etc etc etc ETFUCKINGC
We are governed by craven, idiot politicians who kow tow to parochial, wibbling scientists unable to grasp new paradigms
The "people won't report a plague" concept is totally bizarre. You can't hide a plague like you might hide other things.
China literally tried from November to January so not that bizarre.
Some European countries effectively hid the extent of their plague by not testing enough last summer. The air bridges made sense when prevalences were equivalent (ignoring the behaviour change of people on holiday), but it turned out that they weren't equivalent at all.
Again, I do not remotely understand, and I will never forgive. We are an island. Take advantage. Close. The. Fucking. Borders
We're into the second year of this plaintive cry from all political hues on here. Yet folk continue to merrily traipse backwards and forwards...
Which is why I believe there is something we don’t know.
I do know we are unbelievable economically linked to flights, especially to the US.
But if might be something as simple as BA saying it will go bust and sell all its Heathrow slots to the Americans
Wouldn't we simply bail out BA for a year at that point?
Probably
My point is that government is usually logical even if wrong. So there is some reason why it hasn’t closed the borders
That's my sense too. There's a reason which cannot speak its name.
Which is?
We don't know. But we're all pretty damn sure there must be one. As what we observe makes no sense otherwise. It is the political equivalent of dark matter.
But given that not a single politician seems to be bothered it would mean that the secret was widely known and universally supported.
And yet I know a lot of politically connected people and none can explain it, apart from a few lefties who waffle about xenophobia and a few righties who waffle about freedom and trade, so I genuinely suspect it is a toxic combination of these two stupidities, with generalised apathy about tackling such a difficult problem in an interconnected country like the UK. All this plus the Ebola hangover thing, and a pious belief travel bans "don't work" when it is now absolutely clear that they do
It's part of the religion of the global elites that the last thing you do is stop global travel. You prefer to lock down domestic populations first.
Again, I do not remotely understand, and I will never forgive. We are an island. Take advantage. Close. The. Fucking. Borders
We're into the second year of this plaintive cry from all political hues on here. Yet folk continue to merrily traipse backwards and forwards...
Which is why I believe there is something we don’t know.
I do know we are unbelievable economically linked to flights, especially to the US.
But if might be something as simple as BA saying it will go bust and sell all its Heathrow slots to the Americans
Wouldn't we simply bail out BA for a year at that point?
Probably
My point is that government is usually logical even if wrong. So there is some reason why it hasn’t closed the borders
That's my sense too. There's a reason which cannot speak its name.
Which is?
We don't know. But we're all pretty damn sure there must be one. As what we observe makes no sense otherwise. It is the political equivalent of dark matter.
But given that not a single politician seems to be bothered it would mean that the secret was widely known and universally supported.
And yet I know a lot of politically connected people and none can explain it, apart from a few lefties who waffle about xenophobia and a few righties who waffle about freedom and trade, so I genuinely suspect it is a toxic combination of these two stupidities, with generalised apathy about tackling such a difficult problem in an interconnected country like the UK. All this plus the Ebola hangover thing, and a pious belief travel bans "don't work" when it is now absolutely clear that they do
Which also raises the question if it is "an article of faith" how come Oz and NZ are recusant? I know it's much easier to implement there, but, the figures, and the relative lack of any other restrictions shout for themselves, don't they?
It is lazy, complacent groupthink from people who believe they are smarter than they are. Watching Jonathan "masks don't work" Van Tam today just rammed it home. Why is this waffling no-mark still in a job after that hideous, repeated error?
They are a clerisy, and they support each other. If they admit one of their number has completely fucked up, all may fall. So they go along with the established beliefs, and bear no bad witness to each other, until such time as they are so absurdly wrong they quietly shift, all at once. Again, see the advice on masks, effortlessly segueing from masks are bad to masks are brilliant, and yet no one lied, and/or no one got it terribly terribly wrong?
At the end of this, we need a reckoning, A whole cohort of politicians and scientists and civil servants need to be sacked and driven from public life. They have monumentally failed. 150,000 have died, and still more may die.
This can't be ignored with feeble inquiries like Iraq. This is a once-in-a-century failure of governance, guidance, and public health policy.
If you are ever on that flight, you will discover that every single person in Upper Class and Premium Economy works for an oil company / oil services company, If you wanted to insider trade oil stocks, just sitting quietly in your seat and listening to people complaining about "production being well below schedule in the x well" or boasting "have you seen the seismic for y... incredible" is all you need.
For the record: I never did such a thing, and would never do such a thing. Headphones exist for a reason.
Jesus Christ, I am watching Sky News for the first time in a long while
When did it become the Guardian on super-steroids? It is one long leftwing, right on, BLM-y, bien pensant, virtue-signalling RANT. it makes Channel 4 look balanced
No wonder GB News saw a niche
I have been saying this for sometime
GBnews will run riot with Sky's viewing figures
I do hope you aren't tempted. It might push you further right than a person ought to be.
Rest assured I am a left of centre conservative and miles from ERG
That is not going to change but we do need a new broadcaster to counter the move to the left of Sky
To be fair I am less critical of the BBC or ITV
I'll have to take your word about Sky. It's Ch4 news all day long for me. Or at 7 pm anyway. The mighty KGM. National treasure Snow. Implacable Cathy Newman. And the rest of the team. No weak link.
No surprises there whatsoever, I wouldn't expect anything else from you.
It would be good to have a counterweight to Ch4 but I expect that GB News would be far more balanced and neutral than it is.
Which just proves that neutrality is in the eye of the beholder.
Ch4 News has to adhere to the Ofcom broadcasting code on impartiality and accuracy, as will GB news.
So in a few days we've gone back and forth between Alba helping toward a super majority without hurting the SNP, and it costing the SNP their majority (albeit still with a Sindy majority).
It's driving me spare and we're still a month out - I don't know that my heart will make it through the ructions of the next Sindyref campaign.
Again, I do not remotely understand, and I will never forgive. We are an island. Take advantage. Close. The. Fucking. Borders
We're into the second year of this plaintive cry from all political hues on here. Yet folk continue to merrily traipse backwards and forwards...
Which is why I believe there is something we don’t know.
I do know we are unbelievable economically linked to flights, especially to the US.
But if might be something as simple as BA saying it will go bust and sell all its Heathrow slots to the Americans
Wouldn't we simply bail out BA for a year at that point?
Probably
My point is that government is usually logical even if wrong. So there is some reason why it hasn’t closed the borders
That's my sense too. There's a reason which cannot speak its name.
Which is?
We don't know. But we're all pretty damn sure there must be one. As what we observe makes no sense otherwise. It is the political equivalent of dark matter.
But given that not a single politician seems to be bothered it would mean that the secret was widely known and universally supported.
And yet I know a lot of politically connected people and none can explain it, apart from a few lefties who waffle about xenophobia and a few righties who waffle about freedom and trade, so I genuinely suspect it is a toxic combination of these two stupidities, with generalised apathy about tackling such a difficult problem in an interconnected country like the UK. All this plus the Ebola hangover thing, and a pious belief travel bans "don't work" when it is now absolutely clear that they do
Which also raises the question if it is "an article of faith" how come Oz and NZ are recusant? I know it's much easier to implement there, but, the figures, and the relative lack of any other restrictions shout for themselves, don't they?
It is lazy, complacent groupthink from people who believe they are smarter than they are. Watching Jonathan "masks don't work" Van Tam today just rammed it home. Why is this waffling no-mark still in a job after that hideous, repeated error?
They are a clerisy, and they support each other. If they admit one of their number has completely fucked up, all may fall. So they go along with the established beliefs, and bear no bad witness to each other, until such time as they are so absurdly wrong they quietly shift, all at once. Again, see the advice on masks, effortlessly segueing from masks are bad to masks are brilliant, and yet no one lied, and/or no one got it terribly terribly wrong?
At the end of this, we need a reckoning, A whole cohort of politicians and scientists and civil servants need to be sacked and driven from public life. They have monumentally failed. 150,000 have died, and still more may die.
This can't be ignored with feeble inquiries like Iraq. This is a once-in-a-century failure of governance, guidance, and public health policy.
Indeed, and the government is stil basing policies, such as vaccine passports, on their idiotic ideas and failed models. It's weird that you realise they're rubbish at everything and yet still trust them to do right by us on vaccine passport data modelling.
It feels like the UK's relatively rapid vaccination programme could make a big difference to that particuluar league table over the coming couple of months.
Italy will overtake us tomorrow but there are pretty large gaps to anyone else. I suspect we will remain high on this particular leader board even if the gaps are reduced somewhat. January pushed us to a different level to most although some of the eastern European countries are having a terrible time.
So in a few days we've gone back and forth between Alba helping toward a super majority without hurting the SNP, and it costing the SNP their majority (albeit still with a Sindy majority).
It's driving me spare and we're still a month out - I don't know that my heart will make it through the ructions of the next Sindyref campaign.
Be of good cheer. Boris really is gonna deny Sindyref2, so it won't be until 2024-25 earliest. No point in worrying.
What will be popcorny fun is Salmond leading the Mahatma Gandhi style civil disobedience, as Nicola watches from Bute House, lip curling in shrewish disapproval, deeply tinged with personal loathing
It feels like the UK's relatively rapid vaccination programme could make a big difference to that particuluar league table over the coming couple of months.
Italy will overtake us tomorrow but there are pretty large gaps to anyone else. I suspect we will remain high on this particular leader board even if the gaps are reduced somewhat. January pushed us to a different level to most although some of the eastern European countries are having a terrible time.
On excess deaths we were in 16th place a month ago according to this. That was before the vaccination programme started to make a big impact.
"Public health records, scores of scientific studies and interviews with more than two dozen experts show the policy of unobstructed travel was never based on hard science. It was a political decision, recast as health advice, which emerged after a plague outbreak in India in the 1990s. By the time Covid-19 surfaced, it had become an article of faith.
“It’s part of the religion of global health: Travel and trade restrictions are bad,” said Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University who helped write the global rules known as the International Health Regulations. “I’m one of the congregants.”"
Again, I do not remotely understand, and I will never forgive. We are an island. Take advantage. Close. The. Fucking. Borders
We're into the second year of this plaintive cry from all political hues on here. Yet folk continue to merrily traipse backwards and forwards...
Which is why I believe there is something we don’t know.
I do know we are unbelievable economically linked to flights, especially to the US.
But if might be something as simple as BA saying it will go bust and sell all its Heathrow slots to the Americans
Wouldn't we simply bail out BA for a year at that point?
Probably
My point is that government is usually logical even if wrong. So there is some reason why it hasn’t closed the borders
That's my sense too. There's a reason which cannot speak its name.
Which is?
We don't know. But we're all pretty damn sure there must be one. As what we observe makes no sense otherwise. It is the political equivalent of dark matter.
But given that not a single politician seems to be bothered it would mean that the secret was widely known and universally supported.
And yet I know a lot of politically connected people and none can explain it, apart from a few lefties who waffle about xenophobia and a few righties who waffle about freedom and trade, so I genuinely suspect it is a toxic combination of these two stupidities, with generalised apathy about tackling such a difficult problem in an interconnected country like the UK. All this plus the Ebola hangover thing, and a pious belief travel bans "don't work" when it is now absolutely clear that they do
Which also raises the question if it is "an article of faith" how come Oz and NZ are recusant? I know it's much easier to implement there, but, the figures, and the relative lack of any other restrictions shout for themselves, don't they?
It is lazy, complacent groupthink from people who believe they are smarter than they are. Watching Jonathan "masks don't work" Van Tam today just rammed it home. Why is this waffling no-mark still in a job after that hideous, repeated error?
They are a clerisy, and they support each other. If they admit one of their number has completely fucked up, all may fall. So they go along with the established beliefs, and bear no bad witness to each other, until such time as they are so absurdly wrong they quietly shift, all at once. Again, see the advice on masks, effortlessly segueing from masks are bad to masks are brilliant, and yet no one lied, and/or no one got it terribly terribly wrong?
At the end of this, we need a reckoning, A whole cohort of politicians and scientists and civil servants need to be sacked and driven from public life. They have monumentally failed. 150,000 have died, and still more may die.
This can't be ignored with feeble inquiries like Iraq. This is a once-in-a-century failure of governance, guidance, and public health policy.
Indeed, and the government is stil basing policies, such as vaccine passports, on their idiotic ideas and failed models. It's weird that you realise they're rubbish at everything and yet still trust them to do right by us on vaccine passport data modelling.m,
My support for vaxports has fuck all to do with their shitty models. I just understand human psychology., especially cautious older folk, and I comprehend that things like theatres and concert halls will only reopen with the reassurance provided by vaxports. Otherwise too many people will be too scared
You can't wish this away with "data on hospitalisations". The public has been successfully terrified - see their support for every severe measure - and it now needs symbolic hand-holding, to lead it back to normality. Vaxports may do that. They are certainly worth a punt
I would not vote Labour if they supported the death penalty. Likewise any other party.
Such an idea is a total abomination and must never be reintroduced.
Labour voters seem to be getting more authoritarian. I'm sure the figures would have been lower a few years ago.
That is surprising, as the more reactionary Labour voters are supposed to have jumped ship to the Tories, or the latest (hopefully last) Farage vehicle to appear on a ballot paper.
Maybe it is the moderates, repelled by Corbyn that supported Johnson in GE2019 after all. In that case SKSIPM.
It feels like the UK's relatively rapid vaccination programme could make a big difference to that particuluar league table over the coming couple of months.
Italy will overtake us tomorrow but there are pretty large gaps to anyone else. I suspect we will remain high on this particular leader board even if the gaps are reduced somewhat. January pushed us to a different level to most although some of the eastern European countries are having a terrible time.
On excess deaths we were in 16th place a month ago according to this. That was before the vaccination programme started to make a big impact.
Comments
If the Tories' lax and unexplained border "controls" allow another escaped variant and a fourth lockdown then I will never vote for them ever again in my lifetime
Yet folk continue to merrily traipse backwards and forwards...
Not only cannot they do without it but they cannot even conceive of doing so.
They will however pretend to be doing without it.
"Business men", "Holiday makers", "Students"..... the labels are endless. The reality is simple. nearly all immigration, legal and illegal goes on through the airports and the scheduled ferry services.
Why do you think Labour has said anything?
Intuitively, one would think that if the first dose didn’t do anything bad, the second dose would be more of the same.
The government insists on micromanaging every aspect of domestic life but lets any Tom, Dick or Harry waltz in.
It's baffling and infuriating.
At this rate we'll never lift this bloody lockdown. Grrr......
I got him at 100/1, 80/1 & 66/1. He's now at 6/1! It's the betting opportunity of the decade!
The other thing I remember was the early years of Brown. Cameron had seemed like the new hope, but was being batted away by the man born to rule. Then something happened.
The one I don't remember was the early years of Thatcher. I was too busy counting ladybirds in the garden or something. But people older than me (including Conservative Aldermen, I'll have you know) say that she was obviously going nowhere against Jolly Jim. Then something happened.
The key thing about being in opposition is that you are powerless. That always makes you look bad. All you can really do is keep calm, make sure you don't look repulsive and have something ready for the moment when things do go wrong for the government. That was what made Blair unusual; he took over when the Major government was already in lame duck zombie mode.
Right now, BoJo is Father of the Nation. (And not in that sense, oh no missus, titter ye not.) That won't last forever; it came blooming close to falling apart last December. I don't think it's a deserved status, but I recognise that I'm not in the majority for thinking that right now. But Boris too is mortal.
I do know we are unbelievable economically linked to flights, especially to the US.
But if might be something as simple as BA saying it will go bust and sell all its Heathrow slots to the Americans
That is not going to change but we do need a new broadcaster to counter the move to the left of Sky
To be fair I am less critical of the BBC or ITV
https://twitter.com/aoifemcl/status/1378277795286122496?s=20
It is also in France, sorry, Algeria
https://twitter.com/Mehdidjr/status/1379561579348381699?s=20
Denmark
https://twitter.com/katja_adolf/status/1378617244951937025?s=20
My point is that government is usually logical even if wrong. So there is some reason why it hasn’t closed the borders
That's not isn the wheelhouse of any politician at Westminster.
Because of the reaction from our Optimates would be universal condemnation.
But I didn't cos I couldn't think of a credible, non-conspiracy loon theory.
So thanks for providing one. Any others?
So what is the point in keeping the borders open?
I got that from a pretty reliable contact just before the end of the work day, another 400-500k is expected "very soon" and then regular shipments of "about 900k" from later in April. I'm also told the government regrets not purchasing more Moderna when they had the opportunity and also regrets not backing it as one of the domestic manufacturing deals like Novavax and Valneva when it had the chance.
It's always with a sense of shame
I've always been the one to BAME
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1334468357224067072?s=19
The burger was John Gummer trying to feed his daughter at the height of the BSE scare!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9447051/Jab-passports-warning-mothers-be.html?ito=push-notification&ci=120936&si=28693982&ai=9447051
https://twitter.com/johnharris1969/status/1379901164205015045?s=20
1) We're not really an 'island' in the same way Japan, or even South Korea (given its only land border is with a hermit state) is; instead of trade being done through mostly automated container shipping, we have a comparatively very manpower heavy roll on roll off ferry link with the mainland, through which a lot of food and vital resources are imported. You can't stop that, or automate it in short order with our current infrastructure. Functionally, it's like having a land border. So you're going to have thousands of people entering the country every day, even if you completely shut the airports and non-RO RO seaports.
2) If we assume the Government makes 'common sense' adjustments to the closed border policy - allowing lorry drivers in, allowing people to enter for humanitarian reasons, allowing people to enter for limited economic reasons - the policy wouldn't be all that much different from what we already have, so at that point it mostly becomes a question of branding.
3) We have a land border with the Republic of Ireland; if the Government went with an explicitly closed borders policy, either they have to close the border with the RoI, and risk Nationalist violence, close the border with Great Britain, and risk Unionist violence, or beg the RoI to match British domestic policy and shut themselves off to the rest of the world, which (presumably) they won't be keen to do.
But we're all pretty damn sure there must be one. As what we observe makes no sense otherwise.
It is the political equivalent of dark matter.
Seems fitting
People "won't report a plague"? Isn't it pretty damn difficult to keep one under wraps...
Neither is acceptable, alone or in combination. If you can demolish the UK foreign travel industry you can make it a LOT harder for hauliers to interact with Brits, keep them tested and quarantined, then send them home. At the same time you can get your thick skull around the fact Covid is very different to other diseases, and we now know travel bans WORK, see New Zealand and Oz and others
They refuse to learn this as they refused to learn Covid was not flu, masks work, etc etc etc ETFUCKINGC
We are governed by craven, idiot politicians who kow tow to parochial, wibbling scientists unable to grasp new paradigms
Can't see you watching it. Which is good.
Also:
"stigmatizing the disease would have likely been counterproductive by undermining contact tracing"
What? A disease will always be attached to stigma, no matter what you do.
The idiocy comes from trying to generalise a very specific disease with a known treatment and limited human-human transmission like the plague to all pandemics. Especially idiotic to apply to an unknown respiratory infection.
If that's what we're doing then that would be 20% doses more in practice than what has been officially received.
Which would amount to millions of doses by now.
And might link in to EU conspiracies about the UK supposedly receiving extra vaccines by nefarious means.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
It feels like the UK's relatively rapid vaccination programme could make a big difference to that particuluar league table over the coming couple of months.
"Public health records, scores of scientific studies and interviews with more than two dozen experts show the policy of unobstructed travel was never based on hard science. It was a political decision, recast as health advice, which emerged after a plague outbreak in India in the 1990s. By the time Covid-19 surfaced, it had become an article of faith.
“It’s part of the religion of global health: Travel and trade restrictions are bad,” said Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University who helped write the global rules known as the International Health Regulations. “I’m one of the congregants.”"
https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-road-not-traveled
Get Salmind.
They want to rebuild Scotland "brick by brick". How? What should be done in our schools, how are our hospitals to cope with the backlog, what the hell are we going to do about the £500m of Gupta guarantees given by the Scottish government, what do the Tories think about Crown Office, the wrongful prosecutions, the failed investments in failed businesses, the lying and the dishonesty? Surely the Tories have more to say about what kind of Scotland in the UK they want than no to a second referendum.
Why are they not offering a paean to the UK triumph of UK vaccines, the Scottish lives saved, the jobs saved by furlough, the incredibly generous grants, the money poured on the Scottish government and wasted on yet more gestures like free buses? Why are they not making a positive case for the Union and a critique of 14 years of SNP mismanagement? I am so frustrated.
https://www.kayak.co.uk/flights/LON-LOS/2021-05-07/2021-05-14?sort=bestflight_a
I know it's much easier to implement there, but, the figures, and the relative lack of any other restrictions shout for themselves, don't they?
It would be good to have a counterweight to Ch4 but I expect that GB News would be far more balanced and neutral than Ch4 is.
Never thought I'd see the day. Hell hath completely frozen over.
They are a clerisy, and they support each other. If they admit one of their number has completely fucked up, all may fall. So they go along with the established beliefs, and bear no bad witness to each other, until such time as they are so absurdly wrong they quietly shift, all at once. Again, see the advice on masks, effortlessly segueing from masks are bad to masks are brilliant, and yet no one lied, and/or no one got it terribly terribly wrong?
At the end of this, we need a reckoning, A whole cohort of politicians and scientists and civil servants need to be sacked and driven from public life. They have monumentally failed. 150,000 have died, and still more may die.
This can't be ignored with feeble inquiries like Iraq. This is a once-in-a-century failure of governance, guidance, and public health policy.
For the record: I never did such a thing, and would never do such a thing. Headphones exist for a reason.
Ch4 News has to adhere to the Ofcom broadcasting code on impartiality and accuracy, as will GB news.
It's driving me spare and we're still a month out - I don't know that my heart will make it through the ructions of the next Sindyref campaign.
What will be popcorny fun is Salmond leading the Mahatma Gandhi style civil disobedience, as Nicola watches from Bute House, lip curling in shrewish disapproval, deeply tinged with personal loathing
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker
And travel restrictions are anathema to them.
You can't wish this away with "data on hospitalisations". The public has been successfully terrified - see their support for every severe measure - and it now needs symbolic hand-holding, to lead it back to normality. Vaxports may do that. They are certainly worth a punt
On this Boris is right
Maybe it is the moderates, repelled by Corbyn that supported Johnson in GE2019 after all. In that case SKSIPM.