I wonder whether there will be common underlying conditions between the people who have had the adverse effects to AZ?
Jonathan Van Tam needs to go to jail. This is what they have done, alongside Macron and the "German health official" who briefed Handelsblatt
?! What nonsense. The MHRA have played a completely straight and sensible bat with regards to vaccinations.
Let's wait and see. If there is no uptick in vaccine hesitancy as a result of this, I have offered to pour mild curry sauce on my gonads. Which I think is fair. If, however, vax skepticism DOES increase, then you have to hit your genitals repeatedly with a boomerang. At noon. Half way down Piccadilly
Deal?
The counterfactual isn't that there is a (tiny tiny) problem with the AZ vaccine though, it's a massive cover up. That wouldn't end well.
It's also impossible. No way a cover up would stick. It's completely unethical to recommend a vaccine (any medication/intervention) where the risks appear to outweigh the benefits. To believe that everyone with access to the data would toe the line is fantasy. Even if they did, there are other teams, other countries. Any cover up would - rightly - fail and no one would trust any vaccine or medication in this country ever again. And with good reason.
We have trust in vaccinations here for a reason: the people making the recommendations are competent and trustworthy. Undo that and we've got far bigger problems than a few Covid vaccine refusers.
I agree but think it could have been handled better with a simple provision change in the system and a press release rather than a big public press conference. A proper paper explaining the risk differential would have been fine.
The problem with that idea, is that
- The anti-vax types would have kicked off when they noticed. - The press would have demanded answers
... and we would have ended up with the press conference we had yesterday, from a worse starting position.
You really think people would have drilled into the detail of "low exposure risk" of "2 in 10,000" in a "certain age group" and then gone AHA when they noticed the figures 1.1 against 0.8???
They would not. And besides, even if they did (and they wouldn't) the JCVI would just say yes we said there is a miniscule risk, but the benefits of everyone getting vaxed ASAP outweigh these tiny risks, in terms of transmission, suppression, countering hesitancy. And that would be entirely reasonable as a response
Instead the British government has announced a British vaccine is dangerous, That is the signal going around the world. It is monumental folly. I hope my fears are wrong.
I don't know about the rest of the world but as I said yesterday, over here the only people getting excited by it are those who were already not inclined to get the vaccine. I'm not sure it's going to make a huge amount of difference and for the under 30s group in general they've raised the value of the other three vaccines so all things being rational it may actually increase vaccination rates for that group.
"all things being rational" is doing a lot of work there, and is probably not up to the onerous tasks assigned
I think the point is that when it comes to vaccines the public are pretty rational. There might be a few excitable anti-vaxxers that like to spout bullshit but ultimately that's a small number and the vast majority aren't really going to be swayed too much. Additionally, almost all under 30s will want to go overseas at some point and getting vaccinated is literally going to be the only way to do that.
You think? He's an interesting guy but he barely troubled the scorers when he ran for the Democratic nomination.
Polling shows the field wide open, but Yang in the lead. And FWIW he's the short odds favourite on Betfair.
Do you have a view on the very short Ron D price for the GOP nomination? Seems to be the flavour right now. Wondering whether to add him to my Trump centred lay book.
"RECALLING that Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom
The Withdrawal Agreement, as ratified by the EU, the RoI, the UK and as hosted on the EU's own website says it explicitly. Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom, there are no ifs or buts about that, that is international law. Checkmate.
What am I wrong on precisely you pillock? Checkmate?!! I doubt you would win against a five year old in a game of draughts! Actually you would probably find "snap" a little perplexing
You were wrong in falsely claiming that NI was part of the EU's customs territory not the UK's. It is explicitly recognised as the other way around, NI is part of the UK's territory.
The NI Protocol was quite clever. If there's no societal difficulties likely to persist from the Protocol then who cares, life goes on.
If there are societal difficulties likely to persist then the Protocol Article 16 gives the UK (and the EU) unilateral rights to do whatever it considers necessary to resolve those difficulties.
So either way we have no issue. If there's no difficulties there's no problem. If there are difficulties (and everyone agrees there are) we invoke Article 16 and move on.
That's why it was clever negotiations.
Much from you about this today. Energizer bunny.
In fact I get your position completely, but let’s take the lipstick off the pig. The EU’s biggest red line in Brexit was to protect the integrity of their single market. Since all sides – absolutely everyone - agreed there mustn’t under any circumstances be a border in Ireland it meant a border in the Irish Sea. That solemn undertaking was expressed in the Protocol. Letter and spirit.
You are saying we should renege on this. We should now refuse to implement the Irish Sea border and present them with a ‘devil and deep blue sea’ choice – put up a border in Ireland after all or accept a violation of the integrity of the single market. Which, I repeat, was their biggest red line, perhaps their one and only genuine red line.
“Tough,” you might say. Or “Cool, we win!” We protect the UK single market and if they put a border across Ireland and it causes trouble that’s “on them” (to use the rather chippy phrase that the more bumptious Leavers seem to like). Also “on them” if they choose to live with a hole in their single market. Ditto if they take us to court and get embroiled in that for years. All on them.
And you’re right in a sense. It is on them. It’s on them for assuming that the UK government was negotiating the Brexit deal in good faith. For assuming that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove were not a political incarnation of Delboy and Rodney.
But now they know better, and so does the rest of the world. It’s a “win” at the price of looking like a rogue nation that has chosen to defect from normal good practice in international affairs and instead conduct itself according to the grubby character of the individual who just happens to be our PM at this moment.
Yay.
Ad that is the absolute heart of the problem.
The EU's "greatest priority" was "the integrity of the Single Market".
It should have been Peace in Ireland.
The self defined sensible Remainers could have ensured this problem didn't exist by voting for Mrs May's deal - they had been elected in 2017 on a pledge to respect the referendum result, why did they take a punt on getting it overturned?
Hubris, a fractured agenda, poor political judgement.
"RECALLING that Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom
The Withdrawal Agreement, as ratified by the EU, the RoI, the UK and as hosted on the EU's own website says it explicitly. Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom, there are no ifs or buts about that, that is international law. Checkmate.
What am I wrong on precisely you pillock? Checkmate?!! I doubt you would win against a five year old in a game of draughts! Actually you would probably find "snap" a little perplexing
You were wrong in falsely claiming that NI was part of the EU's customs territory not the UK's. It is explicitly recognised as the other way around, NI is part of the UK's territory.
The NI Protocol was quite clever. If there's no societal difficulties likely to persist from the Protocol then who cares, life goes on.
If there are societal difficulties likely to persist then the Protocol Article 16 gives the UK (and the EU) unilateral rights to do whatever it considers necessary to resolve those difficulties.
So either way we have no issue. If there's no difficulties there's no problem. If there are difficulties (and everyone agrees there are) we invoke Article 16 and move on.
That's why it was clever negotiations.
Much from you about this today. Energizer bunny.
In fact I get your position completely, but let’s take the lipstick off the pig. The EU’s biggest red line in Brexit was to protect the integrity of their single market. Since all sides – absolutely everyone - agreed there mustn’t under any circumstances be a border in Ireland it meant a border in the Irish Sea. That solemn undertaking was expressed in the Protocol. Letter and spirit.
You are saying we should renege on this. We should now refuse to implement the Irish Sea border and present them with a ‘devil and deep blue sea’ choice – put up a border in Ireland after all or accept a violation of the integrity of the single market. Which, I repeat, was their biggest red line, perhaps their one and only genuine red line.
“Tough,” you might say. Or “Cool, we win!” We protect the UK single market and if they put a border across Ireland and it causes trouble that’s “on them” (to use the rather chippy phrase that the more bumptious Leavers seem to like). Also “on them” if they choose to live with a hole in their single market. Ditto if they take us to court and get embroiled in that for years. All on them.
And you’re right in a sense. It is on them. It’s on them for assuming that the UK government was negotiating the Brexit deal in good faith. For assuming that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove were not a political incarnation of Delboy and Rodney.
But now they know better, and so does the rest of the world. It’s a “win” at the price of looking like a rogue nation that has chosen to defect from normal good practice in international affairs and instead conduct itself according to the grubby character of the individual who just happens to be our PM at this moment.
Yay.
Ad that is the absolute heart of the problem.
The EU's "greatest priority" was "the integrity of the Single Market".
It should have been Peace in Ireland.
The self defined sensible Remainers could have ensured this problem didn't exist by voting for Mrs May's deal - they had been elected in 2017 on a pledge to respect the referendum result, why did they take a punt on getting it overturned?
Hubris, a fractured agenda, poor political judgement.
"RECALLING that Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom
The Withdrawal Agreement, as ratified by the EU, the RoI, the UK and as hosted on the EU's own website says it explicitly. Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom, there are no ifs or buts about that, that is international law. Checkmate.
What am I wrong on precisely you pillock? Checkmate?!! I doubt you would win against a five year old in a game of draughts! Actually you would probably find "snap" a little perplexing
You were wrong in falsely claiming that NI was part of the EU's customs territory not the UK's. It is explicitly recognised as the other way around, NI is part of the UK's territory.
The NI Protocol was quite clever. If there's no societal difficulties likely to persist from the Protocol then who cares, life goes on.
If there are societal difficulties likely to persist then the Protocol Article 16 gives the UK (and the EU) unilateral rights to do whatever it considers necessary to resolve those difficulties.
So either way we have no issue. If there's no difficulties there's no problem. If there are difficulties (and everyone agrees there are) we invoke Article 16 and move on.
That's why it was clever negotiations.
Much from you about this today. Energizer bunny.
In fact I get your position completely, but let’s take the lipstick off the pig. The EU’s biggest red line in Brexit was to protect the integrity of their single market. Since all sides – absolutely everyone - agreed there mustn’t under any circumstances be a border in Ireland it meant a border in the Irish Sea. That solemn undertaking was expressed in the Protocol. Letter and spirit.
You are saying we should renege on this. We should now refuse to implement the Irish Sea border and present them with a ‘devil and deep blue sea’ choice – put up a border in Ireland after all or accept a violation of the integrity of the single market. Which, I repeat, was their biggest red line, perhaps their one and only genuine red line.
“Tough,” you might say. Or “Cool, we win!” We protect the UK single market and if they put a border across Ireland and it causes trouble that’s “on them” (to use the rather chippy phrase that the more bumptious Leavers seem to like). Also “on them” if they choose to live with a hole in their single market. Ditto if they take us to court and get embroiled in that for years. All on them.
And you’re right in a sense. It is on them. It’s on them for assuming that the UK government was negotiating the Brexit deal in good faith. For assuming that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove were not a political incarnation of Delboy and Rodney.
But now they know better, and so does the rest of the world. It’s a “win” at the price of looking like a rogue nation that has chosen to defect from normal good practice in international affairs and instead conduct itself according to the grubby character of the individual who just happens to be our PM at this moment.
Yay.
Ad that is the absolute heart of the problem.
The EU's "greatest priority" was "the integrity of the Single Market".
It should have been Peace in Ireland.
The self defined sensible Remainers could have ensured this problem didn't exist by voting for Mrs May's deal - they had been elected in 2017 on a pledge to respect the referendum result, why did they take a punt on getting it overturned?
Hubris, a fractured agenda, poor political judgement.
I wonder whether there will be common underlying conditions between the people who have had the adverse effects to AZ?
Jonathan Van Tam needs to go to jail. This is what they have done, alongside Macron and the "German health official" who briefed Handelsblatt
?! What nonsense. The MHRA have played a completely straight and sensible bat with regards to vaccinations.
Let's wait and see. If there is no uptick in vaccine hesitancy as a result of this, I have offered to pour mild curry sauce on my gonads. Which I think is fair. If, however, vax skepticism DOES increase, then you have to hit your genitals repeatedly with a boomerang. At noon. Half way down Piccadilly
Deal?
The counterfactual isn't that there is a (tiny tiny) problem with the AZ vaccine though, it's a massive cover up. That wouldn't end well.
It's also impossible. No way a cover up would stick. It's completely unethical to recommend a vaccine (any medication/intervention) where the risks appear to outweigh the benefits. To believe that everyone with access to the data would toe the line is fantasy. Even if they did, there are other teams, other countries. Any cover up would - rightly - fail and no one would trust any vaccine or medication in this country ever again. And with good reason.
We have trust in vaccinations here for a reason: the people making the recommendations are competent and trustworthy. Undo that and we've got far bigger problems than a few Covid vaccine refusers.
I agree but think it could have been handled better with a simple provision change in the system and a press release rather than a big public press conference. A proper paper explaining the risk differential would have been fine.
The problem with that idea, is that
- The anti-vax types would have kicked off when they noticed. - The press would have demanded answers
... and we would have ended up with the press conference we had yesterday, from a worse starting position.
You really think people would have drilled into the detail of "low exposure risk" of "2 in 10,000" in a "certain age group" and then gone AHA when they noticed the figures 1.1 against 0.8???
They would not. And besides, even if they did (and they wouldn't) the JCVI would just say yes we said there is a miniscule risk, but the benefits of everyone getting vaxed ASAP outweigh these tiny risks, in terms of transmission, suppression, countering hesitancy. And that would be entirely reasonable as a response
Instead the British government has announced a British vaccine is dangerous, That is the signal going around the world. It is monumental folly. I hope my fears are wrong.
I don't know about the rest of the world but as I said yesterday, over here the only people getting excited by it are those who were already not inclined to get the vaccine. I'm not sure it's going to make a huge amount of difference and for the under 30s group in general they've raised the value of the other three vaccines so all things being rational it may actually increase vaccination rates for that group.
"all things being rational" is doing a lot of work there, and is probably not up to the onerous tasks assigned
I think the point is that when it comes to vaccines the public are pretty rational. There might be a few excitable anti-vaxxers that like to spout bullshit but ultimately that's a small number and the vast majority aren't really going to be swayed too much. Additionally, almost all under 30s will want to go overseas at some point and getting vaccinated is literally going to be the only way to do that.
Yes, I am closely watching my nubile antivaxxer friends, to see what happens when their resolute theology collides with their oft-expressed desire to "get the fuck out of Britain for a bit of sun"
Another problem is that they are all educated in the same high pressure and technocratical way, meaning they all think the same way. So they will all approach the same problem with the same solution. it is better to have a variety of opinion
Absolutely. But ENA is just a symbol of that, and it's not unusual for the elite of a country to be dominated by a small school selection (UK and Eton for example). The real problem in France is how it afflicts the whole of French work culture private and public. Everything is based on your diplomas, no value placed on experience, transferable skills, or an outside perspective. Which makes it extremely difficult for a French person to change career even slightly - they have to start at the bottom again. The result is that people are railroaded into careers from a young age all coming at them from the same molded background and approaching problems the same way. Couple that with the reliance on 'who you know' to advance upwards being much worse than in the UK, and it is no surprise the French are the most miserable in Europe. It is better to be a foreigner and be completely outside the system rather than try and work your way up it. It's why French people like the freedom offered by the UK work culture.
You think? He's an interesting guy but he barely troubled the scorers when he ran for the Democratic nomination.
Polling shows the field wide open, but Yang in the lead. And FWIW he's the short odds favourite on Betfair.
Do you have a view on the very short Ron D price for the GOP nomination? Seems to be the flavour right now. Wondering whether to add him to my Trump centred lay book.
Yes, you're right. The second is often overlooked. Remainers weren't, and aren't, a single coherent block any more than Leavers were. It's no more rational to expect them to act as one consistent voice than it is to expect Leavers to.
This gives a good indication as to why case numbers are now in free fall. Combined with those who have already had Covid there are many people who have immunity. As soon as they get the doses to get through the 30 to 49s then the risk ought to be tiny and it will be very hard for the virus to spread.
The 28% figure for 16 to 49 year olds is much higher than I was expecting. Very encouraging.
"RECALLING that Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom
The Withdrawal Agreement, as ratified by the EU, the RoI, the UK and as hosted on the EU's own website says it explicitly. Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom, there are no ifs or buts about that, that is international law. Checkmate.
What am I wrong on precisely you pillock? Checkmate?!! I doubt you would win against a five year old in a game of draughts! Actually you would probably find "snap" a little perplexing
You were wrong in falsely claiming that NI was part of the EU's customs territory not the UK's. It is explicitly recognised as the other way around, NI is part of the UK's territory.
The NI Protocol was quite clever. If there's no societal difficulties likely to persist from the Protocol then who cares, life goes on.
If there are societal difficulties likely to persist then the Protocol Article 16 gives the UK (and the EU) unilateral rights to do whatever it considers necessary to resolve those difficulties.
So either way we have no issue. If there's no difficulties there's no problem. If there are difficulties (and everyone agrees there are) we invoke Article 16 and move on.
That's why it was clever negotiations.
Much from you about this today. Energizer bunny.
In fact I get your position completely, but let’s take the lipstick off the pig. The EU’s biggest red line in Brexit was to protect the integrity of their single market. Since all sides – absolutely everyone - agreed there mustn’t under any circumstances be a border in Ireland it meant a border in the Irish Sea. That solemn undertaking was expressed in the Protocol. Letter and spirit.
You are saying we should renege on this. We should now refuse to implement the Irish Sea border and present them with a ‘devil and deep blue sea’ choice – put up a border in Ireland after all or accept a violation of the integrity of the single market. Which, I repeat, was their biggest red line, perhaps their one and only genuine red line.
“Tough,” you might say. Or “Cool, we win!” We protect the UK single market and if they put a border across Ireland and it causes trouble that’s “on them” (to use the rather chippy phrase that the more bumptious Leavers seem to like). Also “on them” if they choose to live with a hole in their single market. Ditto if they take us to court and get embroiled in that for years. All on them.
And you’re right in a sense. It is on them. It’s on them for assuming that the UK government was negotiating the Brexit deal in good faith. For assuming that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove were not a political incarnation of Delboy and Rodney.
But now they know better, and so does the rest of the world. It’s a “win” at the price of looking like a rogue nation that has chosen to defect from normal good practice in international affairs and instead conduct itself according to the grubby character of the individual who just happens to be our PM at this moment.
Yay.
Ad that is the absolute heart of the problem.
The EU's "greatest priority" was "the integrity of the Single Market".
It should have been Peace in Ireland.
The self defined sensible Remainers could have ensured this problem didn't exist by voting for Mrs May's deal - they had been elected in 2017 on a pledge to respect the referendum result, why did they take a punt on getting it overturned?
Hubris, a fractured agenda, poor political judgement.
And now the ringleader is LotO!
I beat you to that one this morning. Do PB have a plagiarism policy?
Better vax numbers today, but nothing particularly amazing, given the huge Second Dose Debt. We have quite a bit of catching up to do after a dismal Easter weekend.
"RECALLING that Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom
The Withdrawal Agreement, as ratified by the EU, the RoI, the UK and as hosted on the EU's own website says it explicitly. Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom, there are no ifs or buts about that, that is international law. Checkmate.
What am I wrong on precisely you pillock? Checkmate?!! I doubt you would win against a five year old in a game of draughts! Actually you would probably find "snap" a little perplexing
You were wrong in falsely claiming that NI was part of the EU's customs territory not the UK's. It is explicitly recognised as the other way around, NI is part of the UK's territory.
The NI Protocol was quite clever. If there's no societal difficulties likely to persist from the Protocol then who cares, life goes on.
If there are societal difficulties likely to persist then the Protocol Article 16 gives the UK (and the EU) unilateral rights to do whatever it considers necessary to resolve those difficulties.
So either way we have no issue. If there's no difficulties there's no problem. If there are difficulties (and everyone agrees there are) we invoke Article 16 and move on.
That's why it was clever negotiations.
Much from you about this today. Energizer bunny.
In fact I get your position completely, but let’s take the lipstick off the pig. The EU’s biggest red line in Brexit was to protect the integrity of their single market. Since all sides – absolutely everyone - agreed there mustn’t under any circumstances be a border in Ireland it meant a border in the Irish Sea. That solemn undertaking was expressed in the Protocol. Letter and spirit.
You are saying we should renege on this. We should now refuse to implement the Irish Sea border and present them with a ‘devil and deep blue sea’ choice – put up a border in Ireland after all or accept a violation of the integrity of the single market. Which, I repeat, was their biggest red line, perhaps their one and only genuine red line.
“Tough,” you might say. Or “Cool, we win!” We protect the UK single market and if they put a border across Ireland and it causes trouble that’s “on them” (to use the rather chippy phrase that the more bumptious Leavers seem to like). Also “on them” if they choose to live with a hole in their single market. Ditto if they take us to court and get embroiled in that for years. All on them.
And you’re right in a sense. It is on them. It’s on them for assuming that the UK government was negotiating the Brexit deal in good faith. For assuming that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove were not a political incarnation of Delboy and Rodney.
But now they know better, and so does the rest of the world. It’s a “win” at the price of looking like a rogue nation that has chosen to defect from normal good practice in international affairs and instead conduct itself according to the grubby character of the individual who just happens to be our PM at this moment.
Yay.
Ad that is the absolute heart of the problem.
The EU's "greatest priority" was "the integrity of the Single Market".
It should have been Peace in Ireland.
The self defined sensible Remainers could have ensured this problem didn't exist by voting for Mrs May's deal - they had been elected in 2017 on a pledge to respect the referendum result, why did they take a punt on getting it overturned?
Hubris, a fractured agenda, poor political judgement.
And Labour chose one of those as their leader .... oh well, never mind.
This gives a good indication as to why case numbers are now in free fall. Combined with those who have already had Covid there are many people who have immunity. As soon as they get the doses to get through the 30 to 49s then the risk ought to be tiny and it will be very hard for the virus to spread.
The 28% figure for 16 to 49 year olds is much higher than I was expecting. Very encouraging.
Using the NIMIS population growth numbers - which are based on ONS 2019 and then projected forward
I think Johnson was right. Letting the Northern Irish tail wag the British dog again would have been ridiculous, and probably led to serious riots in England.
My preferred solution is still for us to get rid of Northern Ireland, which has been an embarassing and expensive curse for centuries.
Certainly not from the Conservative and Unionist Party, the latter part of which came from opposition even to Irish Home Rule
It is true, but political positions of a century and a half ago should not determine what we think or do today.
Northern Ireland is a huge drain on our economy and politics and gives us nothing in return. The Republicans actively want to sabotage the country, and the Unionists would have landed us with Corbyn in 2017 if we hadn't bribed them. So we're much better off without them.
I feel that about London
can we ditch that too ?
You think London is a huge drain on our economy and gives us nothing in return?
Yes
Don't fully agree but you have a point. It sucks in and crowds out.
London is the brains (and piggybank) of the country. Northern Ireland is its malignant (and expensive) tumour.
I don't look upon impoverished regions of the country as being like malignant tumours. If in polemical mood I'd describe the City as being exactly like that - but let's just say that imo there are significant downsides to London's dominance and that I'd prefer a greater spread of wealth and opportunity.
Great place to live though.
I take it you're referring to London, not Northern Ireland?
We've had this discussion on here before. London is a curate's egg wrt quality of life. Greenwich, Chiswick, Richmond, Highgate - wonderful places. Catford, Lewisham, Stratford, Stockwell - I would rather live somewhere else. But then those choices may say as much about what I value.
It's with a certain sheepishness that I confess to never never never having set foot in Northern Ireland.
I worked there for a year. I wanted to see my tax money at work. It feels Scottish rather than English or Irish.
YOUR tax money? That sounds a bit off. It's all one big soup. All ladle. All sup.
"RECALLING that Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom
The Withdrawal Agreement, as ratified by the EU, the RoI, the UK and as hosted on the EU's own website says it explicitly. Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom, there are no ifs or buts about that, that is international law. Checkmate.
What am I wrong on precisely you pillock? Checkmate?!! I doubt you would win against a five year old in a game of draughts! Actually you would probably find "snap" a little perplexing
You were wrong in falsely claiming that NI was part of the EU's customs territory not the UK's. It is explicitly recognised as the other way around, NI is part of the UK's territory.
The NI Protocol was quite clever. If there's no societal difficulties likely to persist from the Protocol then who cares, life goes on.
If there are societal difficulties likely to persist then the Protocol Article 16 gives the UK (and the EU) unilateral rights to do whatever it considers necessary to resolve those difficulties.
So either way we have no issue. If there's no difficulties there's no problem. If there are difficulties (and everyone agrees there are) we invoke Article 16 and move on.
That's why it was clever negotiations.
Much from you about this today. Energizer bunny.
In fact I get your position completely, but let’s take the lipstick off the pig. The EU’s biggest red line in Brexit was to protect the integrity of their single market. Since all sides – absolutely everyone - agreed there mustn’t under any circumstances be a border in Ireland it meant a border in the Irish Sea. That solemn undertaking was expressed in the Protocol. Letter and spirit.
You are saying we should renege on this. We should now refuse to implement the Irish Sea border and present them with a ‘devil and deep blue sea’ choice – put up a border in Ireland after all or accept a violation of the integrity of the single market. Which, I repeat, was their biggest red line, perhaps their one and only genuine red line.
“Tough,” you might say. Or “Cool, we win!” We protect the UK single market and if they put a border across Ireland and it causes trouble that’s “on them” (to use the rather chippy phrase that the more bumptious Leavers seem to like). Also “on them” if they choose to live with a hole in their single market. Ditto if they take us to court and get embroiled in that for years. All on them.
And you’re right in a sense. It is on them. It’s on them for assuming that the UK government was negotiating the Brexit deal in good faith. For assuming that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove were not a political incarnation of Delboy and Rodney.
But now they know better, and so does the rest of the world. It’s a “win” at the price of looking like a rogue nation that has chosen to defect from normal good practice in international affairs and instead conduct itself according to the grubby character of the individual who just happens to be our PM at this moment.
Yay.
Ad that is the absolute heart of the problem.
The EU's "greatest priority" was "the integrity of the Single Market".
It should have been Peace in Ireland.
The self defined sensible Remainers could have ensured this problem didn't exist by voting for Mrs May's deal - they had been elected in 2017 on a pledge to respect the referendum result, why did they take a punt on getting it overturned?
Hubris, a fractured agenda, poor political judgement.
And Labour chose one of those as their leader .... oh well, never mind.
"RECALLING that Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom
The Withdrawal Agreement, as ratified by the EU, the RoI, the UK and as hosted on the EU's own website says it explicitly. Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom, there are no ifs or buts about that, that is international law. Checkmate.
What am I wrong on precisely you pillock? Checkmate?!! I doubt you would win against a five year old in a game of draughts! Actually you would probably find "snap" a little perplexing
You were wrong in falsely claiming that NI was part of the EU's customs territory not the UK's. It is explicitly recognised as the other way around, NI is part of the UK's territory.
The NI Protocol was quite clever. If there's no societal difficulties likely to persist from the Protocol then who cares, life goes on.
If there are societal difficulties likely to persist then the Protocol Article 16 gives the UK (and the EU) unilateral rights to do whatever it considers necessary to resolve those difficulties.
So either way we have no issue. If there's no difficulties there's no problem. If there are difficulties (and everyone agrees there are) we invoke Article 16 and move on.
That's why it was clever negotiations.
Much from you about this today. Energizer bunny.
In fact I get your position completely, but let’s take the lipstick off the pig. The EU’s biggest red line in Brexit was to protect the integrity of their single market. Since all sides – absolutely everyone - agreed there mustn’t under any circumstances be a border in Ireland it meant a border in the Irish Sea. That solemn undertaking was expressed in the Protocol. Letter and spirit.
You are saying we should renege on this. We should now refuse to implement the Irish Sea border and present them with a ‘devil and deep blue sea’ choice – put up a border in Ireland after all or accept a violation of the integrity of the single market. Which, I repeat, was their biggest red line, perhaps their one and only genuine red line.
“Tough,” you might say. Or “Cool, we win!” We protect the UK single market and if they put a border across Ireland and it causes trouble that’s “on them” (to use the rather chippy phrase that the more bumptious Leavers seem to like). Also “on them” if they choose to live with a hole in their single market. Ditto if they take us to court and get embroiled in that for years. All on them.
And you’re right in a sense. It is on them. It’s on them for assuming that the UK government was negotiating the Brexit deal in good faith. For assuming that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove were not a political incarnation of Delboy and Rodney.
But now they know better, and so does the rest of the world. It’s a “win” at the price of looking like a rogue nation that has chosen to defect from normal good practice in international affairs and instead conduct itself according to the grubby character of the individual who just happens to be our PM at this moment.
Yay.
Ad that is the absolute heart of the problem.
The EU's "greatest priority" was "the integrity of the Single Market".
It should have been Peace in Ireland.
The self defined sensible Remainers could have ensured this problem didn't exist by voting for Mrs May's deal - they had been elected in 2017 on a pledge to respect the referendum result, why did they take a punt on getting it overturned?
Hubris, a fractured agenda, poor political judgement.
And now the ringleader is LotO!
I beat you to that one this morning. Do PB have a plagiarism policy?
Sorry.
I don’t know, but when everyone is calling Net Ratings “Red Herrings” I’ll be sure to find out!
"RECALLING that Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom
The Withdrawal Agreement, as ratified by the EU, the RoI, the UK and as hosted on the EU's own website says it explicitly. Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom, there are no ifs or buts about that, that is international law. Checkmate.
What am I wrong on precisely you pillock? Checkmate?!! I doubt you would win against a five year old in a game of draughts! Actually you would probably find "snap" a little perplexing
You were wrong in falsely claiming that NI was part of the EU's customs territory not the UK's. It is explicitly recognised as the other way around, NI is part of the UK's territory.
The NI Protocol was quite clever. If there's no societal difficulties likely to persist from the Protocol then who cares, life goes on.
If there are societal difficulties likely to persist then the Protocol Article 16 gives the UK (and the EU) unilateral rights to do whatever it considers necessary to resolve those difficulties.
So either way we have no issue. If there's no difficulties there's no problem. If there are difficulties (and everyone agrees there are) we invoke Article 16 and move on.
That's why it was clever negotiations.
Much from you about this today. Energizer bunny.
In fact I get your position completely, but let’s take the lipstick off the pig. The EU’s biggest red line in Brexit was to protect the integrity of their single market. Since all sides – absolutely everyone - agreed there mustn’t under any circumstances be a border in Ireland it meant a border in the Irish Sea. That solemn undertaking was expressed in the Protocol. Letter and spirit.
You are saying we should renege on this. We should now refuse to implement the Irish Sea border and present them with a ‘devil and deep blue sea’ choice – put up a border in Ireland after all or accept a violation of the integrity of the single market. Which, I repeat, was their biggest red line, perhaps their one and only genuine red line.
“Tough,” you might say. Or “Cool, we win!” We protect the UK single market and if they put a border across Ireland and it causes trouble that’s “on them” (to use the rather chippy phrase that the more bumptious Leavers seem to like). Also “on them” if they choose to live with a hole in their single market. Ditto if they take us to court and get embroiled in that for years. All on them.
And you’re right in a sense. It is on them. It’s on them for assuming that the UK government was negotiating the Brexit deal in good faith. For assuming that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove were not a political incarnation of Delboy and Rodney.
But now they know better, and so does the rest of the world. It’s a “win” at the price of looking like a rogue nation that has chosen to defect from normal good practice in international affairs and instead conduct itself according to the grubby character of the individual who just happens to be our PM at this moment.
Yay.
Ad that is the absolute heart of the problem.
The EU's "greatest priority" was "the integrity of the Single Market".
It should have been Peace in Ireland.
The self defined sensible Remainers could have ensured this problem didn't exist by voting for Mrs May's deal - they had been elected in 2017 on a pledge to respect the referendum result, why did they take a punt on getting it overturned?
Hubris, a fractured agenda, poor political judgement.
This gives a good indication as to why case numbers are now in free fall. Combined with those who have already had Covid there are many people who have immunity. As soon as they get the doses to get through the 30 to 49s then the risk ought to be tiny and it will be very hard for the virus to spread.
I think it's safe to say Phase I is complete.
No - there's still a fair bit to do in the 50-60s groups. I don't think that 90%+ is unattainable there.
Cue HYUFD to tell us that the Scottish Tories have got it wrong when it comes to Scotland.
No that is correct, if the Nationalists win a majority they will hold an illegal referendum.
Unionists will boycott it and Boris will ignore the result of course and then Salmond and Sturgeon will tear each other apart over whether to declare UDI or not.
A Unionist majority and Scottish Conservative gains however would mean Sturgeon could not even hold an illegal referendum
"RECALLING that Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom
The Withdrawal Agreement, as ratified by the EU, the RoI, the UK and as hosted on the EU's own website says it explicitly. Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom, there are no ifs or buts about that, that is international law. Checkmate.
What am I wrong on precisely you pillock? Checkmate?!! I doubt you would win against a five year old in a game of draughts! Actually you would probably find "snap" a little perplexing
You were wrong in falsely claiming that NI was part of the EU's customs territory not the UK's. It is explicitly recognised as the other way around, NI is part of the UK's territory.
The NI Protocol was quite clever. If there's no societal difficulties likely to persist from the Protocol then who cares, life goes on.
If there are societal difficulties likely to persist then the Protocol Article 16 gives the UK (and the EU) unilateral rights to do whatever it considers necessary to resolve those difficulties.
So either way we have no issue. If there's no difficulties there's no problem. If there are difficulties (and everyone agrees there are) we invoke Article 16 and move on.
That's why it was clever negotiations.
Much from you about this today. Energizer bunny.
In fact I get your position completely, but let’s take the lipstick off the pig. The EU’s biggest red line in Brexit was to protect the integrity of their single market. Since all sides – absolutely everyone - agreed there mustn’t under any circumstances be a border in Ireland it meant a border in the Irish Sea. That solemn undertaking was expressed in the Protocol. Letter and spirit.
You are saying we should renege on this. We should now refuse to implement the Irish Sea border and present them with a ‘devil and deep blue sea’ choice – put up a border in Ireland after all or accept a violation of the integrity of the single market. Which, I repeat, was their biggest red line, perhaps their one and only genuine red line.
“Tough,” you might say. Or “Cool, we win!” We protect the UK single market and if they put a border across Ireland and it causes trouble that’s “on them” (to use the rather chippy phrase that the more bumptious Leavers seem to like). Also “on them” if they choose to live with a hole in their single market. Ditto if they take us to court and get embroiled in that for years. All on them.
And you’re right in a sense. It is on them. It’s on them for assuming that the UK government was negotiating the Brexit deal in good faith. For assuming that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove were not a political incarnation of Delboy and Rodney.
But now they know better, and so does the rest of the world. It’s a “win” at the price of looking like a rogue nation that has chosen to defect from normal good practice in international affairs and instead conduct itself according to the grubby character of the individual who just happens to be our PM at this moment.
Yay.
Ad that is the absolute heart of the problem.
The EU's "greatest priority" was "the integrity of the Single Market".
It should have been Peace in Ireland.
The self defined sensible Remainers could have ensured this problem didn't exist by voting for Mrs May's deal - they had been elected in 2017 on a pledge to respect the referendum result, why did they take a punt on getting it overturned?
Hubris, a fractured agenda, poor political judgement.
And now the ringleader is LotO!
But it worked for shrewdie Starmer. Like you say, he's LotO.
Cue HYUFD to tell us that the Scottish Tories have got it wrong when it comes to Scotland.
No that is correct, if the Nationalists win a majority they will hold an illegal referendum.
Unionists will boycott it and Boris will ignore the result of course and then Salmond and Sturgeon will tear each other apart over whether to declare UDI or not.
A Unionist majority and Scottish Conservative gains however would mean Sturgeon could not even hold an illegal referendum
Its not about its legality. Its about a MANDATE. Your compatriots north of the border agree that an SNP majority is an electoral mandate for a referendum.
Once they have that you can still denounce it as illegal. But they have a mandate, the will of the people. Which your party insists can never be ignored.
This gives a good indication as to why case numbers are now in free fall. Combined with those who have already had Covid there are many people who have immunity. As soon as they get the doses to get through the 30 to 49s then the risk ought to be tiny and it will be very hard for the virus to spread.
I think it's safe to say Phase I is complete.
No - there's still a fair bit to do in the 50-60s groups. I don't think that 90%+ is unattainable there.
How many more still to go to get to 90%?
Those figures are 4 days out of date already. Any who weren't vaccinated already 4 days ago ought to have been offered a vaccine by now.
I know the point about the NI situation is very relevant and Boris's decisions have certainly been a big part of how things develop there, but people have to get over that damn referendum bus.
Of all the things to want to keep in peoples' minds, that there was a bus with a slogan on it is what we are choosing? It's really bizarre, because recalling the things said without going on about or highlighting the bus also works (Edit: and yes I know it is relevant in this particular example of a picture of a bus on fire, but this is a general point, as people bring up the bus all the time).
The EU will just wait out the Johnson project at this point I think. They'll deal with whomever comes after on the basis that they almost certainly won't be a conceited shit surrendered by a coterie of brainfucked ball garglers.
I think this is a mistake based on a false analogy between Brexit and Trump.
I wonder whether there will be common underlying conditions between the people who have had the adverse effects to AZ?
Jonathan Van Tam needs to go to jail. This is what they have done, alongside Macron and the "German health official" who briefed Handelsblatt
?! What nonsense. The MHRA have played a completely straight and sensible bat with regards to vaccinations.
Let's wait and see. If there is no uptick in vaccine hesitancy as a result of this, I have offered to pour mild curry sauce on my gonads. Which I think is fair. If, however, vax skepticism DOES increase, then you have to hit your genitals repeatedly with a boomerang. At noon. Half way down Piccadilly
Deal?
The counterfactual isn't that there is a (tiny tiny) problem with the AZ vaccine though, it's a massive cover up. That wouldn't end well.
It's also impossible. No way a cover up would stick. It's completely unethical to recommend a vaccine (any medication/intervention) where the risks appear to outweigh the benefits. To believe that everyone with access to the data would toe the line is fantasy. Even if they did, there are other teams, other countries. Any cover up would - rightly - fail and no one would trust any vaccine or medication in this country ever again. And with good reason.
We have trust in vaccinations here for a reason: the people making the recommendations are competent and trustworthy. Undo that and we've got far bigger problems than a few Covid vaccine refusers.
I agree but think it could have been handled better with a simple provision change in the system and a press release rather than a big public press conference. A proper paper explaining the risk differential would have been fine.
The problem with that idea, is that
- The anti-vax types would have kicked off when they noticed. - The press would have demanded answers
... and we would have ended up with the press conference we had yesterday, from a worse starting position.
You really think people would have drilled into the detail of "low exposure risk" of "2 in 10,000" in a "certain age group" and then gone AHA when they noticed the figures 1.1 against 0.8???
They would not. And besides, even if they did (and they wouldn't) the JCVI would just say yes we said there is a miniscule risk, but the benefits of everyone getting vaxed ASAP outweigh these tiny risks, in terms of transmission, suppression, countering hesitancy. And that would be entirely reasonable as a response
Instead the British government has announced a British vaccine is dangerous, That is the signal going around the world. It is monumental folly. I hope my fears are wrong.
I don't know about the rest of the world but as I said yesterday, over here the only people getting excited by it are those who were already not inclined to get the vaccine. I'm not sure it's going to make a huge amount of difference and for the under 30s group in general they've raised the value of the other three vaccines so all things being rational it may actually increase vaccination rates for that group.
"all things being rational" is doing a lot of work there, and is probably not up to the onerous tasks assigned
I think the point is that when it comes to vaccines the public are pretty rational. There might be a few excitable anti-vaxxers that like to spout bullshit but ultimately that's a small number and the vast majority aren't really going to be swayed too much. Additionally, almost all under 30s will want to go overseas at some point and getting vaccinated is literally going to be the only way to do that.
Yes, I am closely watching my nubile antivaxxer friends, to see what happens when their resolute theology collides with their oft-expressed desire to "get the fuck out of Britain for a bit of sun"
The Camden centre was on the news yesterday. You could see the actual seat where both your cheeks and mine rested as we received the life protecting fluid into our arms.
The EU will just wait out the Johnson project at this point I think. They'll deal with whomever comes after on the basis that they almost certainly won't be a conceited shit surrendered by a coterie of brainfucked ball garglers.
I think this is a mistake based on a false analogy between Brexit and Trump.
I agree. I don’t think the EU understands British politics and the impossibility of any Gvt being seen to yield to an outside force.
I wonder whether there will be common underlying conditions between the people who have had the adverse effects to AZ?
Jonathan Van Tam needs to go to jail. This is what they have done, alongside Macron and the "German health official" who briefed Handelsblatt
?! What nonsense. The MHRA have played a completely straight and sensible bat with regards to vaccinations.
Let's wait and see. If there is no uptick in vaccine hesitancy as a result of this, I have offered to pour mild curry sauce on my gonads. Which I think is fair. If, however, vax skepticism DOES increase, then you have to hit your genitals repeatedly with a boomerang. At noon. Half way down Piccadilly
Deal?
The counterfactual isn't that there is a (tiny tiny) problem with the AZ vaccine though, it's a massive cover up. That wouldn't end well.
It's also impossible. No way a cover up would stick. It's completely unethical to recommend a vaccine (any medication/intervention) where the risks appear to outweigh the benefits. To believe that everyone with access to the data would toe the line is fantasy. Even if they did, there are other teams, other countries. Any cover up would - rightly - fail and no one would trust any vaccine or medication in this country ever again. And with good reason.
We have trust in vaccinations here for a reason: the people making the recommendations are competent and trustworthy. Undo that and we've got far bigger problems than a few Covid vaccine refusers.
I agree but think it could have been handled better with a simple provision change in the system and a press release rather than a big public press conference. A proper paper explaining the risk differential would have been fine.
The problem with that idea, is that
- The anti-vax types would have kicked off when they noticed. - The press would have demanded answers
... and we would have ended up with the press conference we had yesterday, from a worse starting position.
You really think people would have drilled into the detail of "low exposure risk" of "2 in 10,000" in a "certain age group" and then gone AHA when they noticed the figures 1.1 against 0.8???
They would not. And besides, even if they did (and they wouldn't) the JCVI would just say yes we said there is a miniscule risk, but the benefits of everyone getting vaxed ASAP outweigh these tiny risks, in terms of transmission, suppression, countering hesitancy. And that would be entirely reasonable as a response
Instead the British government has announced a British vaccine is dangerous, That is the signal going around the world. It is monumental folly. I hope my fears are wrong.
I don't know about the rest of the world but as I said yesterday, over here the only people getting excited by it are those who were already not inclined to get the vaccine. I'm not sure it's going to make a huge amount of difference and for the under 30s group in general they've raised the value of the other three vaccines so all things being rational it may actually increase vaccination rates for that group.
"all things being rational" is doing a lot of work there, and is probably not up to the onerous tasks assigned
I think the point is that when it comes to vaccines the public are pretty rational. There might be a few excitable anti-vaxxers that like to spout bullshit but ultimately that's a small number and the vast majority aren't really going to be swayed too much. Additionally, almost all under 30s will want to go overseas at some point and getting vaccinated is literally going to be the only way to do that.
Yes, I am closely watching my nubile antivaxxer friends, to see what happens when their resolute theology collides with their oft-expressed desire to "get the fuck out of Britain for a bit of sun"
The Camden centre was on the news yesterday. You could see the actual seat where both your bum and mine rested as we received the life protecting fluid into our arms.
To be honest, the idea that my bottom was in close proximity to yours, albeit temporally separated, induces a painful anal puckering. Please desist
It's clearly one-in-a-million for the population at large, but it may very well be a worse risk for women under the age of 30, who are on the pill. Especially given that this group has only a very small chance of dying of CV19.
"RECALLING that Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom
The Withdrawal Agreement, as ratified by the EU, the RoI, the UK and as hosted on the EU's own website says it explicitly. Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom, there are no ifs or buts about that, that is international law. Checkmate.
What am I wrong on precisely you pillock? Checkmate?!! I doubt you would win against a five year old in a game of draughts! Actually you would probably find "snap" a little perplexing
You were wrong in falsely claiming that NI was part of the EU's customs territory not the UK's. It is explicitly recognised as the other way around, NI is part of the UK's territory.
The NI Protocol was quite clever. If there's no societal difficulties likely to persist from the Protocol then who cares, life goes on.
If there are societal difficulties likely to persist then the Protocol Article 16 gives the UK (and the EU) unilateral rights to do whatever it considers necessary to resolve those difficulties.
So either way we have no issue. If there's no difficulties there's no problem. If there are difficulties (and everyone agrees there are) we invoke Article 16 and move on.
That's why it was clever negotiations.
Much from you about this today. Energizer bunny.
In fact I get your position completely, but let’s take the lipstick off the pig. The EU’s biggest red line in Brexit was to protect the integrity of their single market. Since all sides – absolutely everyone - agreed there mustn’t under any circumstances be a border in Ireland it meant a border in the Irish Sea. That solemn undertaking was expressed in the Protocol. Letter and spirit.
You are saying we should renege on this. We should now refuse to implement the Irish Sea border and present them with a ‘devil and deep blue sea’ choice – put up a border in Ireland after all or accept a violation of the integrity of the single market. Which, I repeat, was their biggest red line, perhaps their one and only genuine red line.
“Tough,” you might say. Or “Cool, we win!” We protect the UK single market and if they put a border across Ireland and it causes trouble that’s “on them” (to use the rather chippy phrase that the more bumptious Leavers seem to like). Also “on them” if they choose to live with a hole in their single market. Ditto if they take us to court and get embroiled in that for years. All on them.
And you’re right in a sense. It is on them. It’s on them for assuming that the UK government was negotiating the Brexit deal in good faith. For assuming that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove were not a political incarnation of Delboy and Rodney.
But now they know better, and so does the rest of the world. It’s a “win” at the price of looking like a rogue nation that has chosen to defect from normal good practice in international affairs and instead conduct itself according to the grubby character of the individual who just happens to be our PM at this moment.
Yay.
Ad that is the absolute heart of the problem.
The EU's "greatest priority" was "the integrity of the Single Market".
It should have been Peace in Ireland.
Just as it should have been for the UK government. To be fair to Theresa May, it was for her. Sadly, it was less of an issue for her successor.
Yes. She made a deal that was so weak that the nasty Brexiteers wouldn't vote for it, and which respected the delicacy of the Irish border problem. Would it really have been so bad for Remain MP's, elected on a pledge to respect the referendum result, to have swallowed their pride and voted for it, rather than gamble on getting, then winning, a second referendum, the ridiculous "People's Vote"?
Then along came Boris, and that was that. Huge Con Maj instead of weak deal with the DUP, and Boris's Brexit instead of Theresa's compromise
The Remain MPs didn't gamble on *getting* a second referendum. They seemed to hope that one would be *given* to them. Perhaps a watery tart would start standing out referendums, down at the lake?
If they had *tried* to get a second referendum, with those vote things in Parliament, now that would have been a different matter.
Funny to recall the serious faces of Remain MPs as they continually voted down every single option, whilst saying they respected the Leave vote!
I'll be eternally grateful for those useful idiots in giving us exactly what we wanted.
Have any of them admitted their strategy was a calamitous mistake yet? That they should have just accepted the public’s vote and made the best of it? The memoirs maybe
Cue HYUFD to tell us that the Scottish Tories have got it wrong when it comes to Scotland.
No that is correct, if the Nationalists win a majority they will hold an illegal referendum.
Unionists will boycott it and Boris will ignore the result of course and then Salmond and Sturgeon will tear each other apart over whether to declare UDI or not.
A Unionist majority and Scottish Conservative gains however would mean Sturgeon could not even hold an illegal referendum
Its not about its legality. Its about a MANDATE. Your compatriots north of the border agree that an SNP majority is an electoral mandate for a referendum.
Once they have that you can still denounce it as illegal. But they have a mandate, the will of the people. Which your party insists can never be ignored.
No, they don't. They argue and I quote the SNP 'will hold another divisive independence referendum' if they win a majority at Holyrood and they will.
At which point the UK Tory government would correctly follow the example of our Spanish conservative cousins the PP in 2017 and tell Unionists to boycott such a referendum and ignore the result.
However Scottish Conservative gains from the SNP would mean a Unionist majority and avoid the hassle of us going full hardline Tory bastard Madrid style, which we would do if we had to but a Unionist majority would make it easier for us to be nice Scottish Tories instead
It's clearly one-in-a-million for the population at large, but it may very well be a worse risk for women under the age of 30, who are on the pill. Especially given that this group has only a very small chance of dying of CV19.
It's clearly one-in-a-million for the population at large, but it may very well be a worse risk for women under the age of 30, who are on the pill. Especially given that this group has only a very small chance of dying of CV19.
so just offer AZ to blokes under thirty.
Given other vaccines are available the plan seems to be youngsters won't be offered AZ..
The EU will just wait out the Johnson project at this point I think. They'll deal with whomever comes after on the basis that they almost certainly won't be a conceited shit surrendered by a coterie of brainfucked ball garglers.
Not quite the terminology I would use, but you are spot-on. Quite apart from anything else, Boris has rubbished and reneged on both agreements he's signed, within weeks of signing and hailing them as triumphs, so they'd have to be out of their minds to want to deal with him any further if they can avoid it.
Cue HYUFD to tell us that the Scottish Tories have got it wrong when it comes to Scotland.
No that is correct, if the Nationalists win a majority they will hold an illegal referendum.
Unionists will boycott it and Boris will ignore the result of course and then Salmond and Sturgeon will tear each other apart over whether to declare UDI or not.
A Unionist majority and Scottish Conservative gains however would mean Sturgeon could not even hold an illegal referendum
Its not about its legality. Its about a MANDATE. Your compatriots north of the border agree that an SNP majority is an electoral mandate for a referendum.
Once they have that you can still denounce it as illegal. But they have a mandate, the will of the people. Which your party insists can never be ignored.
No, they don't. They argue and I quote the SNP 'will hold another divisive independence referendum' if they win a majority at Holyrood and they will.
At which point the UK Tory government would correctly follow the example of our Spanish conservative cousins the PP in 2017 and tell Unionists to boycott such a referendum and ignore the result.
However Scottish Conservative gains from the SNP would mean a Unionist majority and avoid the hassle of us going full hardline Tory bastard Madrid style, which we would do if we had to but a Unionist majority would make it easier for us to be nice Scottish Tories instead
Yes. They will hold it because campaigning on a platform of "lets have another referendum" they will be given a mandate by the electorate.
Thats how politics work. You propose a policy. If enough people vite for you then you get to enact it with their mandate.
Better vax numbers today, but nothing particularly amazing, given the huge Second Dose Debt. We have quite a bit of catching up to do after a dismal Easter weekend.
Most people wanted to enjoy the Easter weekend, which they did.
Now, I'm going to put my cross hat on for a second. Back in January, the EU released a presentation of its vaccination strategy. It literally contains the line that large scale deliveries don't start until April.
They are literally getting *exactly* what they paid for. Slower access to vaccines at lower prices. That was the choice they made.
And yet they have bitched and moaned like a bitchy moany thing. About getting exactly what they asked for and paid for.
It's clearly one-in-a-million for the population at large, but it may very well be a worse risk for women under the age of 30, who are on the pill. Especially given that this group has only a very small chance of dying of CV19.
The stick I got here the other day when I said there was something questionable about a govt mandating such people to have the jab where there is a non-zero risk in order to participate in normal life.
The govt has been sensible here and said no they don't have to have it.
"RECALLING that Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom
The Withdrawal Agreement, as ratified by the EU, the RoI, the UK and as hosted on the EU's own website says it explicitly. Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the United Kingdom, there are no ifs or buts about that, that is international law. Checkmate.
What am I wrong on precisely you pillock? Checkmate?!! I doubt you would win against a five year old in a game of draughts! Actually you would probably find "snap" a little perplexing
You were wrong in falsely claiming that NI was part of the EU's customs territory not the UK's. It is explicitly recognised as the other way around, NI is part of the UK's territory.
The NI Protocol was quite clever. If there's no societal difficulties likely to persist from the Protocol then who cares, life goes on.
If there are societal difficulties likely to persist then the Protocol Article 16 gives the UK (and the EU) unilateral rights to do whatever it considers necessary to resolve those difficulties.
So either way we have no issue. If there's no difficulties there's no problem. If there are difficulties (and everyone agrees there are) we invoke Article 16 and move on.
That's why it was clever negotiations.
Much from you about this today. Energizer bunny.
In fact I get your position completely, but let’s take the lipstick off the pig. The EU’s biggest red line in Brexit was to protect the integrity of their single market. Since all sides – absolutely everyone - agreed there mustn’t under any circumstances be a border in Ireland it meant a border in the Irish Sea. That solemn undertaking was expressed in the Protocol. Letter and spirit.
You are saying we should renege on this. We should now refuse to implement the Irish Sea border and present them with a ‘devil and deep blue sea’ choice – put up a border in Ireland after all or accept a violation of the integrity of the single market. Which, I repeat, was their biggest red line, perhaps their one and only genuine red line.
“Tough,” you might say. Or “Cool, we win!” We protect the UK single market and if they put a border across Ireland and it causes trouble that’s “on them” (to use the rather chippy phrase that the more bumptious Leavers seem to like). Also “on them” if they choose to live with a hole in their single market. Ditto if they take us to court and get embroiled in that for years. All on them.
And you’re right in a sense. It is on them. It’s on them for assuming that the UK government was negotiating the Brexit deal in good faith. For assuming that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove were not a political incarnation of Delboy and Rodney.
But now they know better, and so does the rest of the world. It’s a “win” at the price of looking like a rogue nation that has chosen to defect from normal good practice in international affairs and instead conduct itself according to the grubby character of the individual who just happens to be our PM at this moment.
Yay.
Ad that is the absolute heart of the problem.
The EU's "greatest priority" was "the integrity of the Single Market".
It should have been Peace in Ireland.
Just as it should have been for the UK government. To be fair to Theresa May, it was for her. Sadly, it was less of an issue for her successor.
Yes. She made a deal that was so weak that the nasty Brexiteers wouldn't vote for it, and which respected the delicacy of the Irish border problem. Would it really have been so bad for Remain MP's, elected on a pledge to respect the referendum result, to have swallowed their pride and voted for it, rather than gamble on getting, then winning, a second referendum, the ridiculous "People's Vote"?
Then along came Boris, and that was that. Huge Con Maj instead of weak deal with the DUP, and Boris's Brexit instead of Theresa's compromise
The Remain MPs didn't gamble on *getting* a second referendum. They seemed to hope that one would be *given* to them. Perhaps a watery tart would start standing out referendums, down at the lake?
If they had *tried* to get a second referendum, with those vote things in Parliament, now that would have been a different matter.
Funny to recall the serious faces of Remain MPs as they continually voted down every single option, whilst saying they respected the Leave vote!
I'll be eternally grateful for those useful idiots in giving us exactly what we wanted.
Have any of them admitted their strategy was a calamitous mistake yet? That they should have just accepted the public’s vote and made the best of it? The memoirs maybe
I wonder whether there will be common underlying conditions between the people who have had the adverse effects to AZ?
Jonathan Van Tam needs to go to jail. This is what they have done, alongside Macron and the "German health official" who briefed Handelsblatt
?! What nonsense. The MHRA have played a completely straight and sensible bat with regards to vaccinations.
Let's wait and see. If there is no uptick in vaccine hesitancy as a result of this, I have offered to pour mild curry sauce on my gonads. Which I think is fair. If, however, vax skepticism DOES increase, then you have to hit your genitals repeatedly with a boomerang. At noon. Half way down Piccadilly
Deal?
The counterfactual isn't that there is a (tiny tiny) problem with the AZ vaccine though, it's a massive cover up. That wouldn't end well.
It's also impossible. No way a cover up would stick. It's completely unethical to recommend a vaccine (any medication/intervention) where the risks appear to outweigh the benefits. To believe that everyone with access to the data would toe the line is fantasy. Even if they did, there are other teams, other countries. Any cover up would - rightly - fail and no one would trust any vaccine or medication in this country ever again. And with good reason.
We have trust in vaccinations here for a reason: the people making the recommendations are competent and trustworthy. Undo that and we've got far bigger problems than a few Covid vaccine refusers.
I agree but think it could have been handled better with a simple provision change in the system and a press release rather than a big public press conference. A proper paper explaining the risk differential would have been fine.
The problem with that idea, is that
- The anti-vax types would have kicked off when they noticed. - The press would have demanded answers
... and we would have ended up with the press conference we had yesterday, from a worse starting position.
You really think people would have drilled into the detail of "low exposure risk" of "2 in 10,000" in a "certain age group" and then gone AHA when they noticed the figures 1.1 against 0.8???
They would not. And besides, even if they did (and they wouldn't) the JCVI would just say yes we said there is a miniscule risk, but the benefits of everyone getting vaxed ASAP outweigh these tiny risks, in terms of transmission, suppression, countering hesitancy. And that would be entirely reasonable as a response
Instead the British government has announced a British vaccine is dangerous, That is the signal going around the world. It is monumental folly. I hope my fears are wrong.
I don't know about the rest of the world but as I said yesterday, over here the only people getting excited by it are those who were already not inclined to get the vaccine. I'm not sure it's going to make a huge amount of difference and for the under 30s group in general they've raised the value of the other three vaccines so all things being rational it may actually increase vaccination rates for that group.
"all things being rational" is doing a lot of work there, and is probably not up to the onerous tasks assigned
I think the point is that when it comes to vaccines the public are pretty rational. There might be a few excitable anti-vaxxers that like to spout bullshit but ultimately that's a small number and the vast majority aren't really going to be swayed too much. Additionally, almost all under 30s will want to go overseas at some point and getting vaccinated is literally going to be the only way to do that.
Yes, I am closely watching my nubile antivaxxer friends, to see what happens when their resolute theology collides with their oft-expressed desire to "get the fuck out of Britain for a bit of sun"
The Camden centre was on the news yesterday. You could see the actual seat where both your bum and mine rested as we received the life protecting fluid into our arms.
To be honest, the idea that my bottom was in close proximity to yours, albeit temporally separated, induces a painful anal puckering. Please desist
Your casual usage of the English language makes that a very disturbing sentence.
Now, I'm going to put my cross hat on for a second. Back in January, the EU released a presentation of its vaccination strategy. It literally contains the line that large scale deliveries don't start until April.
They are literally getting *exactly* what they paid for. Slower access to vaccines at lower prices. That was the choice they made.
And yet they have bitched and moaned like a bitchy moany thing. About getting exactly what they asked for and paid for.
One of France's top colleges - the Ecole Nationale d'Administration - will be shut down, French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to announce, under plans to boost social mobility.
I wonder whether there will be common underlying conditions between the people who have had the adverse effects to AZ?
Jonathan Van Tam needs to go to jail. This is what they have done, alongside Macron and the "German health official" who briefed Handelsblatt
?! What nonsense. The MHRA have played a completely straight and sensible bat with regards to vaccinations.
Let's wait and see. If there is no uptick in vaccine hesitancy as a result of this, I have offered to pour mild curry sauce on my gonads. Which I think is fair. If, however, vax skepticism DOES increase, then you have to hit your genitals repeatedly with a boomerang. At noon. Half way down Piccadilly
Deal?
The counterfactual isn't that there is a (tiny tiny) problem with the AZ vaccine though, it's a massive cover up. That wouldn't end well.
It's also impossible. No way a cover up would stick. It's completely unethical to recommend a vaccine (any medication/intervention) where the risks appear to outweigh the benefits. To believe that everyone with access to the data would toe the line is fantasy. Even if they did, there are other teams, other countries. Any cover up would - rightly - fail and no one would trust any vaccine or medication in this country ever again. And with good reason.
We have trust in vaccinations here for a reason: the people making the recommendations are competent and trustworthy. Undo that and we've got far bigger problems than a few Covid vaccine refusers.
I agree but think it could have been handled better with a simple provision change in the system and a press release rather than a big public press conference. A proper paper explaining the risk differential would have been fine.
The problem with that idea, is that
- The anti-vax types would have kicked off when they noticed. - The press would have demanded answers
... and we would have ended up with the press conference we had yesterday, from a worse starting position.
You really think people would have drilled into the detail of "low exposure risk" of "2 in 10,000" in a "certain age group" and then gone AHA when they noticed the figures 1.1 against 0.8???
They would not. And besides, even if they did (and they wouldn't) the JCVI would just say yes we said there is a miniscule risk, but the benefits of everyone getting vaxed ASAP outweigh these tiny risks, in terms of transmission, suppression, countering hesitancy. And that would be entirely reasonable as a response
Instead the British government has announced a British vaccine is dangerous, That is the signal going around the world. It is monumental folly. I hope my fears are wrong.
I don't know about the rest of the world but as I said yesterday, over here the only people getting excited by it are those who were already not inclined to get the vaccine. I'm not sure it's going to make a huge amount of difference and for the under 30s group in general they've raised the value of the other three vaccines so all things being rational it may actually increase vaccination rates for that group.
"all things being rational" is doing a lot of work there, and is probably not up to the onerous tasks assigned
I think the point is that when it comes to vaccines the public are pretty rational. There might be a few excitable anti-vaxxers that like to spout bullshit but ultimately that's a small number and the vast majority aren't really going to be swayed too much. Additionally, almost all under 30s will want to go overseas at some point and getting vaccinated is literally going to be the only way to do that.
Yes, I am closely watching my nubile antivaxxer friends, to see what happens when their resolute theology collides with their oft-expressed desire to "get the fuck out of Britain for a bit of sun"
The Camden centre was on the news yesterday. You could see the actual seat where both your bum and mine rested as we received the life protecting fluid into our arms.
To be honest, the idea that my bottom was in close proximity to yours, albeit temporally separated, induces a painful anal puckering. Please desist
Oh. I thought it was a nice thought. But ok - won't bother in future. Don't wish to cause discomfort with false intimacy. Keep my distance.
This gives a good indication as to why case numbers are now in free fall. Combined with those who have already had Covid there are many people who have immunity. As soon as they get the doses to get through the 30 to 49s then the risk ought to be tiny and it will be very hard for the virus to spread.
I think it's safe to say Phase I is complete.
No - there's still a fair bit to do in the 50-60s groups. I don't think that 90%+ is unattainable there.
How many more still to go to get to 90%?
Those figures are 4 days out of date already. Any who weren't vaccinated already 4 days ago ought to have been offered a vaccine by now.
See below for whose left
The first column is using the 94% achieved for the 75-79 group as the goal, the second column uses 90% as a goal
to 94% to 90% Under 50 18,640,314 17,441,494 50-54 564,069 376,769 55-59 395,395 214,440 60-64 233,415 79,908 65-69 108,029 N/A 70-74 29,842 N/A 75-79 0 N/A 80+ 16,238 N/A
If there are any Surrey fans on there, I feel your pain.
(No, not really, but I’m trying to be nice.)
Incidentally, for the amusement of @justin124 and @Pagan2 I have just had a visit from a census collector. He asked if I had completed my census and when I said, rather startled, that I had, weeks ago, he sighed in exasperation and said that of 40 people he’d spoken to today, 38 had said the same and he was getting fed up with the system’s problems.
Nice man, he called Gavin Williamson a ‘fucking prick,’ so he obviously is very bright.
One of France's top colleges - the Ecole Nationale d'Administration - will be shut down, French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to announce, under plans to boost social mobility.
This gives a good indication as to why case numbers are now in free fall. Combined with those who have already had Covid there are many people who have immunity. As soon as they get the doses to get through the 30 to 49s then the risk ought to be tiny and it will be very hard for the virus to spread.
It's clearly one-in-a-million for the population at large, but it may very well be a worse risk for women under the age of 30, who are on the pill. Especially given that this group has only a very small chance of dying of CV19.
so just offer AZ to blokes under thirty.
Given other vaccines are available the plan seems to be youngsters won't be offered AZ..
which simply raises the question whats all the fuss about ? Pfizer and AZ have bridged a gap until other vaccines come on stream and the UK has benefitted tremendously as we can see from falling deaths. By about July well be exporting most of what we make elsewhere to combat CV in other countries.
Now, I'm going to put my cross hat on for a second. Back in January, the EU released a presentation of its vaccination strategy. It literally contains the line that large scale deliveries don't start until April.
They are literally getting *exactly* what they paid for. Slower access to vaccines at lower prices. That was the choice they made.
And yet they have bitched and moaned like a bitchy moany thing. About getting exactly what they asked for and paid for.
Germany's problem, and the problem across Europe, is soon going to be demand not supply: when they hit the ceiling of the vaccine hesitant. This ceiling will be lower after events yesterday
Cue HYUFD to tell us that the Scottish Tories have got it wrong when it comes to Scotland.
No that is correct, if the Nationalists win a majority they will hold an illegal referendum.
Unionists will boycott it and Boris will ignore the result of course and then Salmond and Sturgeon will tear each other apart over whether to declare UDI or not.
A Unionist majority and Scottish Conservative gains however would mean Sturgeon could not even hold an illegal referendum
Its not about its legality. Its about a MANDATE. Your compatriots north of the border agree that an SNP majority is an electoral mandate for a referendum.
Once they have that you can still denounce it as illegal. But they have a mandate, the will of the people. Which your party insists can never be ignored.
No, they don't. They argue and I quote the SNP 'will hold another divisive independence referendum' if they win a majority at Holyrood and they will.
At which point the UK Tory government would correctly follow the example of our Spanish conservative cousins the PP in 2017 and tell Unionists to boycott such a referendum and ignore the result.
However Scottish Conservative gains from the SNP would mean a Unionist majority and avoid the hassle of us going full hardline Tory bastard Madrid style, which we would do if we had to but a Unionist majority would make it easier for us to be nice Scottish Tories instead
Yes. They will hold it because campaigning on a platform of "lets have another referendum" they will be given a mandate by the electorate.
Thats how politics work. You propose a policy. If enough people vite for you then you get to enact it with their mandate.
They can hold it, the Union is a matter reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act 1998 however.
So as long as we have a Tory government at Westminster we will ignore the result of any such referendum, refuse to implement the result and tell Unionists to boycott it
Incidentally, for the amusement of @justin124 and @Pagan2 I have just had a visit from a census collector. He asked if I had completed my census and when I said, rather startled, that I had, weeks ago, he sighed in exasperation and said that of 40 people he’d spoken to today, 38 had said the same and he was getting fed up with the system’s problems.
Nice man, he called Gavin Williamson a ‘fucking prick,’ so he obviously is very bright.
I had exactly the same experience with a (very pleasant and polite) census official, but without the Gavin Williamson bonus.
I wonder whether there will be common underlying conditions between the people who have had the adverse effects to AZ?
Jonathan Van Tam needs to go to jail. This is what they have done, alongside Macron and the "German health official" who briefed Handelsblatt
?! What nonsense. The MHRA have played a completely straight and sensible bat with regards to vaccinations.
Let's wait and see. If there is no uptick in vaccine hesitancy as a result of this, I have offered to pour mild curry sauce on my gonads. Which I think is fair. If, however, vax skepticism DOES increase, then you have to hit your genitals repeatedly with a boomerang. At noon. Half way down Piccadilly
Deal?
The counterfactual isn't that there is a (tiny tiny) problem with the AZ vaccine though, it's a massive cover up. That wouldn't end well.
It's also impossible. No way a cover up would stick. It's completely unethical to recommend a vaccine (any medication/intervention) where the risks appear to outweigh the benefits. To believe that everyone with access to the data would toe the line is fantasy. Even if they did, there are other teams, other countries. Any cover up would - rightly - fail and no one would trust any vaccine or medication in this country ever again. And with good reason.
We have trust in vaccinations here for a reason: the people making the recommendations are competent and trustworthy. Undo that and we've got far bigger problems than a few Covid vaccine refusers.
I agree but think it could have been handled better with a simple provision change in the system and a press release rather than a big public press conference. A proper paper explaining the risk differential would have been fine.
The problem with that idea, is that
- The anti-vax types would have kicked off when they noticed. - The press would have demanded answers
... and we would have ended up with the press conference we had yesterday, from a worse starting position.
You really think people would have drilled into the detail of "low exposure risk" of "2 in 10,000" in a "certain age group" and then gone AHA when they noticed the figures 1.1 against 0.8???
They would not. And besides, even if they did (and they wouldn't) the JCVI would just say yes we said there is a miniscule risk, but the benefits of everyone getting vaxed ASAP outweigh these tiny risks, in terms of transmission, suppression, countering hesitancy. And that would be entirely reasonable as a response
Instead the British government has announced a British vaccine is dangerous, That is the signal going around the world. It is monumental folly. I hope my fears are wrong.
I don't know about the rest of the world but as I said yesterday, over here the only people getting excited by it are those who were already not inclined to get the vaccine. I'm not sure it's going to make a huge amount of difference and for the under 30s group in general they've raised the value of the other three vaccines so all things being rational it may actually increase vaccination rates for that group.
"all things being rational" is doing a lot of work there, and is probably not up to the onerous tasks assigned
I think the point is that when it comes to vaccines the public are pretty rational. There might be a few excitable anti-vaxxers that like to spout bullshit but ultimately that's a small number and the vast majority aren't really going to be swayed too much. Additionally, almost all under 30s will want to go overseas at some point and getting vaccinated is literally going to be the only way to do that.
Yes, I am closely watching my nubile antivaxxer friends, to see what happens when their resolute theology collides with their oft-expressed desire to "get the fuck out of Britain for a bit of sun"
The Camden centre was on the news yesterday. You could see the actual seat where both your bum and mine rested as we received the life protecting fluid into our arms.
To be honest, the idea that my bottom was in close proximity to yours, albeit temporally separated, induces a painful anal puckering. Please desist
“ Swinson was responsible for delivering a Conservative majority government, but it was Labour MPs who gave us Johnson as prime minister and his Brexit.
If they had voted for Theresa May’s deal, she would still be prime minister now, the weak leader of a divided party. And the Labour Party would be a potential party of government, instead of facing the prospect of another decade out of power.”
I know the point about the NI situation is very relevant and Boris's decisions have certainly been a big part of how things develop there, but people have to get over that damn referendum bus.
Of all the things to want to keep in peoples' minds, that there was a bus with a slogan on it is what we are choosing? It's really bizarre, because recalling the things said without going on about or highlighting the bus also works (Edit: and yes I know it is relevant in this particular example of a picture of a bus on fire, but this is a general point, as people bring up the bus all the time).
The fury on the remain side about the slogan on a bus is, from outside the Remainy bubble, a bit odd. As I understand it it went like this: Leave: "We spend £350m on the EU - let's spend it on the NHS instead" Remain: "But we get a rebate of £100m - so actually the figure is only £250m a week" Leave: - silence - Remain: "I said, net, we spend £250m a week on the EU." Voters, suddenly noticing the argument [sotto voce]: "That sounds quite a lot" Remain: "We spend £250m a week on the EU" Remain: "It's £250m a week!" Remain: "TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION A WEEK! ON THE EU!" Remain: "Why are people voting leave?"
Cue HYUFD to tell us that the Scottish Tories have got it wrong when it comes to Scotland.
No that is correct, if the Nationalists win a majority they will hold an illegal referendum.
Unionists will boycott it and Boris will ignore the result of course and then Salmond and Sturgeon will tear each other apart over whether to declare UDI or not.
A Unionist majority and Scottish Conservative gains however would mean Sturgeon could not even hold an illegal referendum
Its not about its legality. Its about a MANDATE. Your compatriots north of the border agree that an SNP majority is an electoral mandate for a referendum.
Once they have that you can still denounce it as illegal. But they have a mandate, the will of the people. Which your party insists can never be ignored.
No, they don't. They argue and I quote the SNP 'will hold another divisive independence referendum' if they win a majority at Holyrood and they will.
At which point the UK Tory government would correctly follow the example of our Spanish conservative cousins the PP in 2017 and tell Unionists to boycott such a referendum and ignore the result.
However Scottish Conservative gains from the SNP would mean a Unionist majority and avoid the hassle of us going full hardline Tory bastard Madrid style, which we would do if we had to but a Unionist majority would make it easier for us to be nice Scottish Tories instead
Yes. They will hold it because campaigning on a platform of "lets have another referendum" they will be given a mandate by the electorate.
Thats how politics work. You propose a policy. If enough people vite for you then you get to enact it with their mandate.
They can hold it, the Union is a matter reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act 1998 however.
So as long as we have a Tory government at Westminster we will ignore the result of any such referendum, refuse to implement the result and tell Unionists to boycott it
I'm not sure Sturgeon will hold it. She knows that a botched wildcat referendum is a probable and potential disaster. It will be boycotted by unionists, ignored by Westminster, and then what? Her party looks inept and clueless and the idea of a THIRD referendum recedes further into the distance
If Salmond holds the balance of power, however, he might be able to force her. But the polls show Alba is cratering
One of France's top colleges - the Ecole Nationale d'Administration - will be shut down, French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to announce, under plans to boost social mobility.
To be replaced by a new "public administration school”.
French media reported that a new school would aim to attract a more socially diverse range of students, who would follow a course more in touch with modern life that included subjects such as laîcité – France’s version of secularism – poverty, ecology and sciences.
The EU will just wait out the Johnson project at this point I think. They'll deal with whomever comes after on the basis that they almost certainly won't be a conceited shit surrendered by a coterie of brainfucked ball garglers.
Not quite the terminology I would use, but you are spot-on. Quite apart from anything else, Boris has rubbished and reneged on both agreements he's signed, within weeks of signing and hailing them as triumphs, so they'd have to be out of their minds to want to deal with him any further if they can avoid it.
Whereas the EU has proved to be totally trustworthy ... oh
“ Swinson was responsible for delivering a Conservative majority government, but it was Labour MPs who gave us Johnson as prime minister and his Brexit.
If they had voted for Theresa May’s deal, she would still be prime minister now, the weak leader of a divided party. And the Labour Party would be a potential party of government, instead of facing the prospect of another decade out of power.”
If there are any Surrey fans on there, I feel your pain.
(No, not really, but I’m trying to be nice.)
Incidentally, for the amusement of @justin124 and @Pagan2 I have just had a visit from a census collector. He asked if I had completed my census and when I said, rather startled, that I had, weeks ago, he sighed in exasperation and said that of 40 people he’d spoken to today, 38 had said the same and he was getting fed up with the system’s problems.
Nice man, he called Gavin Williamson a ‘fucking prick,’ so he obviously is very bright.
Unprompted? Or did you offer him a multiple choice in which FP was the most complimentary option? Such fine distinctions matter when a reputation is as fragile as Williamson's.
One of France's top colleges - the Ecole Nationale d'Administration - will be shut down, French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to announce, under plans to boost social mobility.
To be replaced by a new "public administration school”.
French media reported that a new school would aim to attract a more socially diverse range of students, who would follow a course more in touch with modern life that included subjects such as laîcité – France’s version of secularism – poverty, ecology and sciences.
Honestly, the man’s such an empty suit. First out-Islamaphobing Le Pen, now trying to out-woke BLM. What would be wrong with ordering the ENA to change its admission policies, as we have with the OFA?
He doesn’t deserve another term and I hope somebody emerges to thwart both him and Le Pen.
I know the point about the NI situation is very relevant and Boris's decisions have certainly been a big part of how things develop there, but people have to get over that damn referendum bus.
Of all the things to want to keep in peoples' minds, that there was a bus with a slogan on it is what we are choosing? It's really bizarre, because recalling the things said without going on about or highlighting the bus also works (Edit: and yes I know it is relevant in this particular example of a picture of a bus on fire, but this is a general point, as people bring up the bus all the time).
The fury on the remain side about the slogan on a bus is, from outside the Remainy bubble, a bit odd. As I understand it it went like this: Leave: "We spend £350m on the EU - let's spend it on the NHS instead" Remain: "But we get a rebate of £100m - so actually the figure is only £250m a week" Leave: - silence - Remain: "I said, net, we spend £250m a week on the EU." Voters, suddenly noticing the argument [sotto voce]: "That sounds quite a lot" Remain: "We spend £250m a week on the EU" Remain: "It's £250m a week!" Remain: "TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION A WEEK! ON THE EU!" Remain: "Why are people voting leave?"
Even weirder they get bent out of shape when Theresa May went on to commit more to the NHS than £350 million a week......
“ Swinson was responsible for delivering a Conservative majority government, but it was Labour MPs who gave us Johnson as prime minister and his Brexit.
If they had voted for Theresa May’s deal, she would still be prime minister now, the weak leader of a divided party. And the Labour Party would be a potential party of government, instead of facing the prospect of another decade out of power.”
For most of the Blairite tendency amongst Labour Remainers it was more important to get rid of Corbyn than to avoid a Hard Brexit.
So main mission accomplished in their case.
Is that true? Most of them were maniacal Remoaners desperate for a "People's vote" - look at Alistair Campbell (if we must). Or indeed Blair himself, secretly negotiating with the EU to get exactly that
I reckon they'd have tolerated a Corbyn govt if it meant reversing Brexit
One of France's top colleges - the Ecole Nationale d'Administration - will be shut down, French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to announce, under plans to boost social mobility.
To be replaced by a new "public administration school”.
French media reported that a new school would aim to attract a more socially diverse range of students, who would follow a course more in touch with modern life that included subjects such as laîcité – France’s version of secularism – poverty, ecology and sciences.
Honestly, the man’s such an empty suit. First out-Islamaphobing Le Pen, now trying to out-woke BLM. What would be wrong with ordering the ENA to change its admission policies, as we have with the OFA?
He doesn’t deserve another term and I hope somebody emerges to thwart both him and Le Pen.
Beat him to the second round, which only requires 20-25% depending on how well Macron does, and Le Pen should be taken care of.
It's clearly one-in-a-million for the population at large, but it may very well be a worse risk for women under the age of 30, who are on the pill. Especially given that this group has only a very small chance of dying of CV19.
This is the differential risk factor, for most groups the risk of dying from this is far, far smaller than the risk of dying from COVID but for a small number of people (mostly younger women) it isn't so it makes sense to offer them other vaccines that don't carry the same level of risk. I don't think it's a very controversial issue and the regulator has handled it just fine. People are getting overly concerned about it for no reason. The only time it would matter is of those groups were offered no alternative, but that's not the case as we have got Moderna, Pfizer and Novavax which will form the vast majority of doses given in Phase 2.
Nice man, he called Gavin Williamson a ‘fucking prick,’ so he obviously is very bright.
Not really, I think it has replaced Hello as a form of greeting in many places.
"Good Morning, Gavin Williamson is a 'f*cking prick', I'm Dennis" "Nice to meet you Dennis, Gavin Williamson is a 'f*cking prick'"
Well, he asked me why I was knocking a hole in my door (it needed enlarging). So I explained, and said that I found I hit the chisel much harder and more accurately if I imagined it was Williamson’s face.
One of France's top colleges - the Ecole Nationale d'Administration - will be shut down, French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to announce, under plans to boost social mobility.
To be replaced by a new "public administration school”.
French media reported that a new school would aim to attract a more socially diverse range of students, who would follow a course more in touch with modern life that included subjects such as laîcité – France’s version of secularism – poverty, ecology and sciences.
Honestly, the man’s such an empty suit. First out-Islamaphobing Le Pen, now trying to out-woke BLM. What would be wrong with ordering the ENA to change its admission policies, as we have with the OFA?
He doesn’t deserve another term and I hope somebody emerges to thwart both him and Le Pen.
If there are any Surrey fans on there, I feel your pain.
(No, not really, but I’m trying to be nice.)
Incidentally, for the amusement of @justin124 and @Pagan2 I have just had a visit from a census collector. He asked if I had completed my census and when I said, rather startled, that I had, weeks ago, he sighed in exasperation and said that of 40 people he’d spoken to today, 38 had said the same and he was getting fed up with the system’s problems.
Nice man, he called Gavin Williamson a ‘fucking prick,’ so he obviously is very bright.
Unprompted? Or did you offer him a multiple choice in which FP was the most complimentary option? Such fine distinctions matter when a reputation is as fragile as Williamson's.
I'd like to think the government are killing two birds with one stone here: chasing up on old census forms, and confirming to each voter, individually and in person, that Gavin Williamson is a fucking prick.
Comments
Has he escaped from The Young Ones?
The second is often overlooked. Remainers weren't, and aren't, a single coherent block any more than Leavers were. It's no more rational to expect them to act as one consistent voice than it is to expect Leavers to.
https://twitter.com/GermanEmbassy/status/1380113808883134466
https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1380147703846428672
Under 50 25%
50-54 81%
55-59 85%
60-64 88%
65-69 91%
70-74 93%
75-79 94%
80+ 94%
The change on the previous weeks data
Under 50 1.50%
50-54 3.26%
55-59 2.22%
60-64 0.74%
65-69 0.28%
70-74 0.11%
75-79 0.10%
80+ 0.04%
https://twitter.com/Peter__Leonard/status/1379903434648862724
I don’t know, but when everyone is calling Net Ratings “Red Herrings” I’ll be sure to find out!
https://twitter.com/NathaliaVasquez/status/1380114676537778176
Unionists will boycott it and Boris will ignore the result of course and then Salmond and Sturgeon will tear each other apart over whether to declare UDI or not.
A Unionist majority and Scottish Conservative gains however would mean Sturgeon could not even hold an illegal referendum
Once they have that you can still denounce it as illegal. But they have a mandate, the will of the people. Which your party insists can never be ignored.
Those figures are 4 days out of date already. Any who weren't vaccinated already 4 days ago ought to have been offered a vaccine by now.
Of all the things to want to keep in peoples' minds, that there was a bus with a slogan on it is what we are choosing? It's really bizarre, because recalling the things said without going on about or highlighting the bus also works (Edit: and yes I know it is relevant in this particular example of a picture of a bus on fire, but this is a general point, as people bring up the bus all the time).
https://twitter.com/Mij_Europe/status/1380141477884477445?s=20
It's clearly one-in-a-million for the population at large, but it may very well be a worse risk for women under the age of 30, who are on the pill. Especially given that this group has only a very small chance of dying of CV19.
At which point the UK Tory government would correctly follow the example of our Spanish conservative cousins the PP in 2017 and tell Unionists to boycott such a referendum and ignore the result.
However Scottish Conservative gains from the SNP would mean a Unionist majority and avoid the hassle of us going full hardline Tory bastard Madrid style, which we would do if we had to but a Unionist majority would make it easier for us to be nice Scottish Tories instead
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/welby-says-royalty-is-life-without-parole-8wsjc2rk6
Thats how politics work. You propose a policy. If enough people vite for you then you get to enact it with their mandate.
Now, I'm going to put my cross hat on for a second. Back in January, the EU released a presentation of its vaccination strategy. It literally contains the line that large scale deliveries don't start until April.
They are literally getting *exactly* what they paid for. Slower access to vaccines at lower prices. That was the choice they made.
And yet they have bitched and moaned like a bitchy moany thing. About getting exactly what they asked for and paid for.
That’s why it’s not in the news.
The govt has been sensible here and said no they don't have to have it.
https://twitter.com/gloriadepiero/status/1206183861576765441?s=21
One of France's top colleges - the Ecole Nationale d'Administration - will be shut down, French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to announce, under plans to boost social mobility.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56674726
The first column is using the 94% achieved for the 75-79 group as the goal, the second column uses 90% as a goal
to 94% to 90%
Under 50 18,640,314 17,441,494
50-54 564,069 376,769
55-59 395,395 214,440
60-64 233,415 79,908
65-69 108,029 N/A
70-74 29,842 N/A
75-79 0 N/A
80+ 16,238 N/A
If there are any Surrey fans on there, I feel your pain.
(No, not really, but I’m trying to be nice.)
Incidentally, for the amusement of @justin124 and @Pagan2 I have just had a visit from a census collector. He asked if I had completed my census and when I said, rather startled, that I had, weeks ago, he sighed in exasperation and said that of 40 people he’d spoken to today, 38 had said the same and he was getting fed up with the system’s problems.
Nice man, he called Gavin Williamson a ‘fucking prick,’ so he obviously is very bright.
So as long as we have a Tory government at Westminster we will ignore the result of any such referendum, refuse to implement the result and tell Unionists to boycott it
https://twitter.com/suedepyjamas/status/1261684082284662787
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/19218058.fry-magazine-announce-50-best-fish-chip-shops-2021---see-won-region/
But do they all do mushy pea, gravy and curry sauce? "Eh? Has tha nowt moist?" should be the first question the inspectors ask.
“ Swinson was responsible for delivering a Conservative majority government, but it was Labour MPs who gave us Johnson as prime minister and his Brexit.
If they had voted for Theresa May’s deal, she would still be prime minister now, the weak leader of a divided party. And the Labour Party would be a potential party of government, instead of facing the prospect of another decade out of power.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/labour-corbyn-defeat-support-may-brexit-deal-a9246871.html
Leave: "We spend £350m on the EU - let's spend it on the NHS instead"
Remain: "But we get a rebate of £100m - so actually the figure is only £250m a week"
Leave: - silence -
Remain: "I said, net, we spend £250m a week on the EU."
Voters, suddenly noticing the argument [sotto voce]: "That sounds quite a lot"
Remain: "We spend £250m a week on the EU"
Remain: "It's £250m a week!"
Remain: "TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION A WEEK! ON THE EU!"
Remain: "Why are people voting leave?"
If Salmond holds the balance of power, however, he might be able to force her. But the polls show Alba is cratering
French media reported that a new school would aim to attract a more socially diverse range of students, who would follow a course more in touch with modern life that included subjects such as laîcité – France’s version of secularism – poverty, ecology and sciences.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/08/macron-close-france-elite-finishing-school-ena-elite-presidents
So mission accomplished in their case.
"Good Morning, Gavin Williamson is a 'f*cking prick', I'm Dennis"
"Nice to meet you Dennis, Gavin Williamson is a 'f*cking prick'"
He doesn’t deserve another term and I hope somebody emerges to thwart both him and Le Pen.
How they kept a straight face is beyond me
I reckon they'd have tolerated a Corbyn govt if it meant reversing Brexit
LEAVE: Let's put a giant lie on the side of a bus.
REMAIN: It's a lie. BoZo is a liar. Any idiot that votes for this is going to be disappointed.
And here we are...
https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1380147703846428672
I think Smith was surprised Josh Shaw bowled a straight one, tbh. I know I am...
Although I do like your idea...