What these charts fairly consistently show is that the UK not only started vaccinating much earlier but continues to vaccinate quicker than the EU as a whole. We are roughly 13% of EU +UK and in this table we have 20% of new vaccines. The result is that our lead over the EU increases as we head to full vaccination and we will be there 2 -2.5 months ahead of the EU.
Which will be worth a few thousand lives in each of the major countries but in the overall scheme of things for the pandemic is not likely to be that material. Italy and Belgium are already well ahead of us in deaths per million and will move more so but it is unlikely that France and Germany will catch up.
Economically, our faster vaccination means that our recovery should be rough a quarter ahead of the EU but we were hit harder than most with more severe lockdowns so a faster recovery was pretty likely anyway.
What this might mean for the government is that the considerable credit that it is getting for fast and effective roll out is likely to fade fairly quickly and may well be gone by the end of this year when the focus will be on the overall performance where the UK is mid table at best, not even that on some measures. It seems probable to me that Tory leads will wane considerably at that point.
I'm going to stick my neck out here and make a clear and unambiguous prediction without caveat.
I think the vaccine rollout has been so good, and so popular, and so demonstrably more competent than elsewhere, that it will be the exception that proves the rule. The electorate will do gratitude, this one time, and the Tories will increase their majority at the next general election (I am reminded of a certain infamous article, yes).
Yep could be although in a month or three the EU and many other countries will be where we are (great article btw Robert) and the question then becomes when the UK is in the same position as everywhere else (and don't forget we are still in lockdown while we get there) will the public be so forgiving?
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not really, quite a lot of us want to go on holiday this summer so the faster Italy etc... vaccinate and unlockdown the better, at least from my perspective.
Mr. Ace, does any major UK party advocate England leaving the UK?
No, but one major party is pursuing agendas that push away the other countries, or treat them as occupied zones.
You mean implementing legislation that a majority in parliament votes for?
I can see why you might not like that
Yes, the tyranny of an English majority in Westminster is behind the disquiet in the other countries. The shafting of the DUP being a pertinent one this week.
English nationalism is a form of blind exceptionalism.
It barely recognises the existence either of the other nations in the Union, and promotes an aggressive “unitarism” versus what looks like an increasingly federalist polity.
It resents or denies any impingement on executive British (but really English) sovereignty, whether internal (local government, the judiciary), or external (EU).
Boris’s “cake and eat it” is pure English nationalism. So is the slashing of the foreign aid budget.
England is the only nation in the Union that does not exist actually, every other nation now has its own Parliament unlike England and decides most of its own domestic policy. If the Tories win a majority in England in 2024 again but Starmer becomes PM thanks to support from Welsh Labour MPs and the SNP that will become a major issue, especially as he may ignore EVEL to get his way on English legislation.
And, as it represents 84% of the population of the U.K., it simply uses U.K. governmental machinery to execute its own domestic policy.
Indeed, since Scotland has effectively opted out of its share of U.K. governance (by voting for the SNP), and Northern Ireland is focused entirely on its own sectarian balance, England is able to control its own affairs to an even greater degree than its 84% share of population might suggest.
It seems that Johnson's approval ratings have been impacted by the sleaze allegations, however this has not changed the headline voting figures.
Therefore, it seems to me that Labour is not doing enough on the other side for people to switch. They need to get some policies into place and also change up their top team.
A good post. The Government is riding high on a well-oiled vaccination programme, the pubs open, and free money (4th stage SSEI grants are being paid as we speak).
Not so much the wallpaper, but I did think the "bodies piled high" allegation would shift opinion. On that score Cummings' fox is shot...unless he has a recording.
"Pubs open" - a reality check is needed.
Some pubs are open: those with beer gardens. The vast majority will still be making a loss or, at best, breaking even. That is unsustainable.
What they and restaurants and other hospitality businesses need are the end of social distancing inside or the requirement for mandatory table service or the rule of 6 etc and the ability for people to stand at the bar, as normal. Then they can start earning and making profits.
Will these requirements be lifted? It is unclear. But until they are we are not back to normal and these businesses will not be back to normal and will - without support - be unviable.
There is an unfairness in how they are being treated. If it is ok to go to a shop it is absurd that one cannot go inside a cafe. If it is ok to be packed together in the tube then it is a nonsense to stop people standing together chatting in a pub.
I am suspicious - as is Daughter - of what the government's real intentions are and what will actually happen. She and her customers are desperate to get back to normal. Until she sees the actual rules she does not believe in this "we are getting back to normal" shtick. And she is right to be suspicious. The government is not to be trusted. It has too often said one thing and done another.
I expected to find that it was a speeding offence!
Good morning, everyone.
Shocking - this is the kind of thing the Soviet T-15 torpedo was designed to deal with.
Reminds me of the Father Ted parody of Speed where he had to drive a milk float that was rigged to explode if the speedometer dropped below 4 mph. One of the funniest sitcom episodes I've ever seen.
Front page headline 'What a boost for Britain ' on vaccine rollout and plummeting infections
And on the inside 'The Jokes on you , Sir Keir' referring to his woeful photo stunt
It was an avoidable error by Starmer and he needs better advisors
Quite right, Starmer's woeful photo stunt at John Lewis demeans his office.
I mean, could anybody imagine our Prime Minister engaging in cheap publicity stunts to try to pretend he's a man of the people? He has far more dignity than that. Perish the thought.
Boris has that priced in. Starmer is supposed to be serious and competent. He's already failed at the latter and now he's failing at the former with that cringey photo.
Starmer does no stunts - You cant be PM with less personality than your opponent! Starmer does stunts - You cant be PM doing stunts like that!
Have Starmer critics thought maybe they just dont like him because he is a lefty, not because of his personality?
No, he's just not very good and it's disappointing because we need a strong opposition to the government more than ever given how our liberties are being curtailed. A good opposition leader would be planning with Tory rebels right now to defeat the government on their likely renewal of the virus measures in September. Instead he'll bitch for about two seconds and then quietly vote in favour leaving 60-80 Tory rebels wondering what they need to do to get the opposition to actually bloody oppose.
Rightly or wrongly from a public health perspective our liberties have been curtailed for the past 13 months.
Not a peep from anyone until the week before last or somesuch.
With ongoing huge popularity as evidenced in the polls why on earth would they decide to change policy now? Keep us if not scared, then anxious and in need of nanny.
Alternatively - after a number of false starts, we have a defined policy program to deal with COVID19. That is working....
And in the meantime unparalleled restrictions on our liberty have been waved through with a smile.
As I said, perhaps this was necessary. But the enthusiasm with which the country, not least here on PB, has embraced the restrictions of freedoms has been imo extraodinary.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
On your first point - yes.
However real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The public trashing of a cost-effective vaccine that works, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
And demanding doses from the UK at the peak of the UK pandemic when it would have had minimal positive effect on the EU's roll out but substantially slowed the UK's.
What these charts fairly consistently show is that the UK not only started vaccinating much earlier but continues to vaccinate quicker than the EU as a whole. We are roughly 13% of EU +UK and in this table we have 20% of new vaccines. The result is that our lead over the EU increases as we head to full vaccination and we will be there 2 -2.5 months ahead of the EU.
Which will be worth a few thousand lives in each of the major countries but in the overall scheme of things for the pandemic is not likely to be that material. Italy and Belgium are already well ahead of us in deaths per million and will move more so but it is unlikely that France and Germany will catch up.
Economically, our faster vaccination means that our recovery should be rough a quarter ahead of the EU but we were hit harder than most with more severe lockdowns so a faster recovery was pretty likely anyway.
What this might mean for the government is that the considerable credit that it is getting for fast and effective roll out is likely to fade fairly quickly and may well be gone by the end of this year when the focus will be on the overall performance where the UK is mid table at best, not even that on some measures. It seems probable to me that Tory leads will wane considerably at that point.
I'm going to stick my neck out here and make a clear and unambiguous prediction without caveat.
I think the vaccine rollout has been so good, and so popular, and so demonstrably more competent than elsewhere, that it will be the exception that proves the rule. The electorate will do gratitude, this one time, and the Tories will increase their majority at the next general election (I am reminded of a certain infamous article, yes).
Yep could be although in a month or three the EU and many other countries will be where we are (great article btw Robert) and the question then becomes when the UK is in the same position as everywhere else (and don't forget we are still in lockdown while we get there) will the public be so forgiving?
I think the evidence from, for example, flu vaccination campaigns in pre-pandemic years suggests that our vaccination campaign will end up protecting a higher proportion of our population than anywhere else, pretty much.
This means that as Covid will continue to be a story in the years ahead, with occasional flare-ups and outbreaks, it will to a great extent be a foreign news story. The success of our domestic vaccination programme will be driven home over and over again.
What these charts fairly consistently show is that the UK not only started vaccinating much earlier but continues to vaccinate quicker than the EU as a whole. We are roughly 13% of EU +UK and in this table we have 20% of new vaccines. The result is that our lead over the EU increases as we head to full vaccination and we will be there 2 -2.5 months ahead of the EU.
Which will be worth a few thousand lives in each of the major countries but in the overall scheme of things for the pandemic is not likely to be that material. Italy and Belgium are already well ahead of us in deaths per million and will move more so but it is unlikely that France and Germany will catch up.
Economically, our faster vaccination means that our recovery should be rough a quarter ahead of the EU but we were hit harder than most with more severe lockdowns so a faster recovery was pretty likely anyway.
What this might mean for the government is that the considerable credit that it is getting for fast and effective roll out is likely to fade fairly quickly and may well be gone by the end of this year when the focus will be on the overall performance where the UK is mid table at best, not even that on some measures. It seems probable to me that Tory leads will wane considerably at that point.
I'm going to stick my neck out here and make a clear and unambiguous prediction without caveat.
I think the vaccine rollout has been so good, and so popular, and so demonstrably more competent than elsewhere, that it will be the exception that proves the rule. The electorate will do gratitude, this one time, and the Tories will increase their majority at the next general election (I am reminded of a certain infamous article, yes).
Striking and plausible. Hats off. I'm not ruling that sort of scenario out but I will let a year pass before making the official 'newpunditry-newpolitics' long range call for the next GE.
I price it as follows atm -
Tory majority 50% Hung parliament 40% Labour majority 10%
Very much agree with this. Pricing Labour is tricky. It seems to me that a Labour majority required a black swan shift in sentiment, and that barring a game changer a Tory majority and hung parliament cover nearly 100% of the eventualities. In a sense therefore a 10% chance seems high, but the volatility of the political climate indicates caution. But the bookies current 7/2 Labour majority is fantasy stuff.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
What these charts fairly consistently show is that the UK not only started vaccinating much earlier but continues to vaccinate quicker than the EU as a whole. We are roughly 13% of EU +UK and in this table we have 20% of new vaccines. The result is that our lead over the EU increases as we head to full vaccination and we will be there 2 -2.5 months ahead of the EU.
Which will be worth a few thousand lives in each of the major countries but in the overall scheme of things for the pandemic is not likely to be that material. Italy and Belgium are already well ahead of us in deaths per million and will move more so but it is unlikely that France and Germany will catch up.
Economically, our faster vaccination means that our recovery should be rough a quarter ahead of the EU but we were hit harder than most with more severe lockdowns so a faster recovery was pretty likely anyway.
What this might mean for the government is that the considerable credit that it is getting for fast and effective roll out is likely to fade fairly quickly and may well be gone by the end of this year when the focus will be on the overall performance where the UK is mid table at best, not even that on some measures. It seems probable to me that Tory leads will wane considerably at that point.
The Euro daily vaccination rate has roughly doubled in April, and is set to do so again by late June.
The gap between Victory over Covid days might be smaller than some people think.
As for the post-Covid boom, will it feel that way? The 10% hit hasn't really been felt by most people, so the bounce back might also be more in the stats than people's pockets. In 1997, the Conservatives were able to accurately say "Britain is Booming", but it didn't feel that way to a lot of people, so they didn't get the credit.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
You forgot to invoke the nimble/sclerotic dialectique.
Mr. Ace, does any major UK party advocate England leaving the UK?
No, but one major party is pursuing agendas that push away the other countries, or treat them as occupied zones.
You mean implementing legislation that a majority in parliament votes for?
I can see why you might not like that
Yes, the tyranny of an English majority in Westminster is behind the disquiet in the other countries. The shafting of the DUP being a pertinent one this week.
English nationalism is a form of blind exceptionalism.
It barely recognises the existence either of the other nations in the Union, and promotes an aggressive “unitarism” versus what looks like an increasingly federalist polity.
It resents or denies any impingement on executive British (but really English) sovereignty, whether internal (local government, the judiciary), or external (EU).
Boris’s “cake and eat it” is pure English nationalism. So is the slashing of the foreign aid budget.
England is the only nation in the Union that does not exist actually, every other nation now has its own Parliament unlike England and decides most of its own domestic policy. If the Tories win a majority in England in 2024 again but Starmer becomes PM thanks to support from Welsh Labour MPs and the SNP that will become a major issue, especially as he may ignore EVEL to get his way on English legislation.
And, as it represents 84% of the population of the U.K., it simply uses U.K. governmental machinery to execute its own domestic policy.
Indeed, since Scotland has effectively opted out of its share of U.K. governance (by voting for the SNP), and Northern Ireland is focused entirely on its own sectarian balance, England is able to control its own affairs to an even greater degree than its 84% share of population might suggest.
Outside of the football or rugby pitch it doesn't (even the cricket team is technically England and Wales).
The UK government does not automatically mean England either, eg in 1950, 1964 and February 1974 England voted Tory but got a Labour government thanks to Scottish and Welsh MPs, even in 2010 and 2017 England voted Tory but got a hung parliament UK wide.
England only controls its own affairs as there is currently a UK Tory majority to match the English Tory majority, if Starmer wins in 2024 across the UK but not in England that no longer applies, indeed Starmer may well use Scottish and Welsh MPs to ignore EVEL and ensure he gets his way on English domestic policy too
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We’ll just have to disagree on that.
Malta and Hungary show that an independent vaccine policy was totally available to us.
UK Tories aim to chip away at ‘red wall’ in key electoral test for Boris Johnson A Tory win in the Hartlepool by-election would be a disaster for Labour, which has held the seat since 1974.
I suspect Labour's issue here will be in GOTV. Starmer just doesn't excite.
That doesn't seem to be the issue. The current YouGov showing an 11-point Tory lead shows virtually no difference at all in Con/Lab certainty to vote. I don't think the problem is that Labour voters aren't keen, it's simply that floating voters feel things are going OK for them, so why switch? Brexit hasn't crashed the economy, the pandemic is easing, unemployment hasn't soared - sure, there's some stuff about Number 10 but that's politics, innit?
I agree that if Starmer was riveting and Labour was bursting with innovative policies, people might have a look, but in general they don't feel any need to switch. The only point I'd make to Tories here is that it's generating a sense of complacency which encourages indifference to sleaze allegations and continuing restrictions post-lockdown. In the long run when economic problems appear, as they will, squandering public respect may prove to have been an error.
It seems that Johnson's approval ratings have been impacted by the sleaze allegations, however this has not changed the headline voting figures.
Therefore, it seems to me that Labour is not doing enough on the other side for people to switch. They need to get some policies into place and also change up their top team.
A good post. The Government is riding high on a well-oiled vaccination programme, the pubs open, and free money (4th stage SSEI grants are being paid as we speak).
Not so much the wallpaper, but I did think the "bodies piled high" allegation would shift opinion. On that score Cummings' fox is shot...unless he has a recording.
"Pubs open" - a reality check is needed.
Some pubs are open: those with beer gardens. The vast majority will still be making a loss or, at best, breaking even. That is unsustainable.
What they and restaurants and other hospitality businesses need are the end of social distancing inside or the requirement for mandatory table service or the rule of 6 etc and the ability for people to stand at the bar, as normal. Then they can start earning and making profits.
Will these requirements be lifted? It is unclear. But until they are we are not back to normal and these businesses will not be back to normal and will - without support - be unviable.
There is an unfairness in how they are being treated. If it is ok to go to a shop it is absurd that one cannot go inside a cafe. If it is ok to be packed together in the tube then it is a nonsense to stop people standing together chatting in a pub.
I am suspicious - as is Daughter - of what the government's real intentions are and what will actually happen. She and her customers are desperate to get back to normal. Until she sees the actual rules she does not believe in this "we are getting back to normal" shtick. And she is right to be suspicious. The government is not to be trusted. It has too often said one thing and done another.
If mandatory social distancing regulations for pubs etc are abolished on 21/6, a return to normal not a "new normal" then will you and your daughter be happy with that?
I think it should be sooner, but I'm begrudgingly OK so long as it happens by then. No later, no ifs, no buts.
It’s curious that the Tories are happy to write off London, despite winning there not long ago. Not something they want to talk about.
Even Ed Miliband and Gordon Brown and Corbyn in 2019 won London.
The Tories only won London under Boris before Brexit and then they had zero chance of winning Red Wall seats like Hartlepool.
They have simply swapped wealthy London Remain seats like Enfield Southgate and Richmond Park they won in 2010 and 2015 for working class redwall Leave seats like West Bromwich and Burnley they won in 2019
The Tories’ problems in London pre-date Brexit. North London suburbs delivered the biggest pro-Labour swings of anywhere, in 1997. Then, the capital showed a further pro-Labour swing in 2001. Labour outperformed its national results in London in 2010, 2015, 2017, and 2019.
The Tories did enjoy quite a good run in the capital in 2002-2008. But, then it all petered out. A lot of working and middle class owner occupiers moved out to Herts., Essex, and North Kent in the past 25 years, and then the Conservatives lost upper middle class remain voters after 2016.
True, it is a loss of owner occupiers in London coupled with Brexit that has cost the Tories the capital.
Indeed, even Kensington went Labour in 2017 and it, Chelsea and Fulham and Cities of London and Westminster are all marginal seats now, in 1997 Kensington and Chelsea and Cities of London and Westminster stayed solid blue even as the rest of the country swung heavily to Labour. Kensington and Chelsea was the ultimate Tory safe seat, held by Alan Clark and Michael Portillo, now the Tories will be lucky to hold Kensington certainly next time.
The only safe Tory seats in London now are right on the edge of London in the outer suburbs and Essex and Kent and Hertfordshire borders and tended to vote for Brexit, places like Bexleyheath and Crayford and Old Bexley and Sidcup and Orpington, Romford, Hornchurch and Upminster, Sutton and Cheam and Upminster
How Enfield was lost (it and Barnet are the boroughs I know best) is essentially a story of the replacement of owner occupation with buy to lets. Ditto Redbridge. Enfield's Conservative voters are mostly still alive - they just live in places like Potters Bar, Hatfield, Waltham Abbey, Hoddesdon, Bishops Stortford, these days.
Barnet maintains higher levels of owner occupation, and combined with Labour's alienation of Jewish voters, that meant the borough went in a different political direction.
On topic: the French people I know - a mixture of clients and colleagues, and the neighbours around our second home there - have all been moaning about the slow rollout and wondering when they'll get theirs. No sign at all of vaccine hesitancy. But possibly not representative as they are all middle class professionals and artisans.
Local elections anecdotes: if people I know are bothered to vote at all then I am getting the sense they're so confident nothing much rests on their vote that they may well opt for some more or less exotic choices for mayor and assembly (including surprising numbers for count Binface, and perhaps less surprising for the Greens). It feels like these locals in England will very much follow the pattern of saving the Tory and Labour votes for the generals and trying out other parties at other times.
What these charts fairly consistently show is that the UK not only started vaccinating much earlier but continues to vaccinate quicker than the EU as a whole. We are roughly 13% of EU +UK and in this table we have 20% of new vaccines. The result is that our lead over the EU increases as we head to full vaccination and we will be there 2 -2.5 months ahead of the EU.
Which will be worth a few thousand lives in each of the major countries but in the overall scheme of things for the pandemic is not likely to be that material. Italy and Belgium are already well ahead of us in deaths per million and will move more so but it is unlikely that France and Germany will catch up.
Economically, our faster vaccination means that our recovery should be rough a quarter ahead of the EU but we were hit harder than most with more severe lockdowns so a faster recovery was pretty likely anyway.
What this might mean for the government is that the considerable credit that it is getting for fast and effective roll out is likely to fade fairly quickly and may well be gone by the end of this year when the focus will be on the overall performance where the UK is mid table at best, not even that on some measures. It seems probable to me that Tory leads will wane considerably at that point.
The Euro daily vaccination rate has roughly doubled in April, and is set to do so again by late June.
The gap between Victory over Covid days might be smaller than some people think.
As for the post-Covid boom, will it feel that way? The 10% hit hasn't really been felt by most people, so the bounce back might also be more in the stats than people's pockets. In 1997, the Conservatives were able to accurately say "Britain is Booming", but it didn't feel that way to a lot of people, so they didn't get the credit.
Don't forget that in 1997 the Tories had been in power for 18 years. The desperation for change was everywhere. I watched the count at the University - although most of the people there were born before 1979, most had no recollection of anything other than Tory rule.
What these charts fairly consistently show is that the UK not only started vaccinating much earlier but continues to vaccinate quicker than the EU as a whole. We are roughly 13% of EU +UK and in this table we have 20% of new vaccines. The result is that our lead over the EU increases as we head to full vaccination and we will be there 2 -2.5 months ahead of the EU.
Which will be worth a few thousand lives in each of the major countries but in the overall scheme of things for the pandemic is not likely to be that material. Italy and Belgium are already well ahead of us in deaths per million and will move more so but it is unlikely that France and Germany will catch up.
Economically, our faster vaccination means that our recovery should be rough a quarter ahead of the EU but we were hit harder than most with more severe lockdowns so a faster recovery was pretty likely anyway.
What this might mean for the government is that the considerable credit that it is getting for fast and effective roll out is likely to fade fairly quickly and may well be gone by the end of this year when the focus will be on the overall performance where the UK is mid table at best, not even that on some measures. It seems probable to me that Tory leads will wane considerably at that point.
I'm going to stick my neck out here and make a clear and unambiguous prediction without caveat.
I think the vaccine rollout has been so good, and so popular, and so demonstrably more competent than elsewhere, that it will be the exception that proves the rule. The electorate will do gratitude, this one time, and the Tories will increase their majority at the next general election (I am reminded of a certain infamous article, yes).
Yep could be although in a month or three the EU and many other countries will be where we are (great article btw Robert) and the question then becomes when the UK is in the same position as everywhere else (and don't forget we are still in lockdown while we get there) will the public be so forgiving?
I think May will feel a lot less like lockdown.
I think that is true because few will bother to look up the rules (30 or six indoors?) but lockdown it will be for many.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We’ll just have to disagree on that.
Malta and Hungary show that an independent vaccine policy was totally available to us.
Malta yes, Hungary not so much. Though Malta gets away with it by being small. It seems unlikely that our independent vaccine programme would have gone as unnoticed had we still been in the EU.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We’ll just have to disagree on that.
Malta and Hungary show that an independent vaccine policy was totally available to us.
You've missed the point. Healthcare was never an EU responsibility. Of course we could have had our own vaccine policy in the EU.
But many issues are EU responsibilities. The point here is that having control domestically, rather than control in Brussels, allows better and more accountable decision making.
Do you think there is a magical reason why having domestic control over vaccine decision making allows better and more accountable decision making - but having domestic control over all the other decisions that used to be made in Brussels can't be the same?
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We’ll just have to disagree on that.
Malta and Hungary show that an independent vaccine policy was totally available to us.
I think in reality you are both partly right. Of course we could have gone our own way, but I suspect we wouldn't have done so. And by showing what we were able to do on our own, it has opened some eyes to a future that isn't wholly shit.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We’ll just have to disagree on that.
Malta and Hungary show that an independent vaccine policy was totally available to us.
It is perfectly reasonable for people to conclude we would not have had the fortitude to go against the flow and do so though. Obviously that cannot be proven, but given the vast majority of places didn't, and lashed out with blatant distraction efforts when there were some early issues a la Macron, lends weight to the idea it is not as easy as it sounds. Like many people I thought going outside was stupid, and inertia is powerful.
It seems that Johnson's approval ratings have been impacted by the sleaze allegations, however this has not changed the headline voting figures.
Therefore, it seems to me that Labour is not doing enough on the other side for people to switch. They need to get some policies into place and also change up their top team.
I’ve said before labour has a very poor performing team. Poorer than the Corbyn era. Dodds has been hopeless, I’m amazed as she is bright, smart and astute. I expected better from her. Kate Green has given a free ride to the most inept education secretary in many a year. Ashworth is all bluster. The Shadow ministers who’ve I’ve been impressed with have been the likes of Jess Phillips who seems to have toned down her hysterical indignation and got in with her brief and Lisa Nandy. Very few cut through.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We were still, effectively, members when we kicked off the VTF.
Front page headline 'What a boost for Britain ' on vaccine rollout and plummeting infections
And on the inside 'The Jokes on you , Sir Keir' referring to his woeful photo stunt
It was an avoidable error by Starmer and he needs better advisors
Quite right, Starmer's woeful photo stunt at John Lewis demeans his office.
I mean, could anybody imagine our Prime Minister engaging in cheap publicity stunts to try to pretend he's a man of the people? He has far more dignity than that. Perish the thought.
Boris has that priced in. Starmer is supposed to be serious and competent. He's already failed at the latter and now he's failing at the former with that cringey photo.
Starmer does no stunts - You cant be PM with less personality than your opponent! Starmer does stunts - You cant be PM doing stunts like that!
Have Starmer critics thought maybe they just dont like him because he is a lefty, not because of his personality?
No, he's just not very good and it's disappointing because we need a strong opposition to the government more than ever given how our liberties are being curtailed. A good opposition leader would be planning with Tory rebels right now to defeat the government on their likely renewal of the virus measures in September. Instead he'll bitch for about two seconds and then quietly vote in favour leaving 60-80 Tory rebels wondering what they need to do to get the opposition to actually bloody oppose.
Rightly or wrongly from a public health perspective our liberties have been curtailed for the past 13 months.
Not a peep from anyone until the week before last or somesuch.
With ongoing huge popularity as evidenced in the polls why on earth would they decide to change policy now? Keep us if not scared, then anxious and in need of nanny.
Alternatively - after a number of false starts, we have a defined policy program to deal with COVID19. That is working....
And in the meantime unparalleled restrictions on our liberty have been waved through with a smile.
As I said, perhaps this was necessary. But the enthusiasm with which the country, not least here on PB, has embraced the restrictions of freedoms has been imo extraodinary.
Britons will be slaves, it seems.
I’ve been amazed at the collective reflex to defer to authority figures over the last year. I was always under the impression that the British cultural norm was instinctive distrust of authority. I can only assume it’s because they’ve put up on stage a doctor and a “scientist”, for whom the normal rules go out the window.
Regarding vaccinations, the important thing is the absolute rate at which we all vaccinate, not the relative comparisons between countries. It is not a competition. We are all in this together.
What these charts fairly consistently show is that the UK not only started vaccinating much earlier but continues to vaccinate quicker than the EU as a whole. We are roughly 13% of EU +UK and in this table we have 20% of new vaccines. The result is that our lead over the EU increases as we head to full vaccination and we will be there 2 -2.5 months ahead of the EU.
Which will be worth a few thousand lives in each of the major countries but in the overall scheme of things for the pandemic is not likely to be that material. Italy and Belgium are already well ahead of us in deaths per million and will move more so but it is unlikely that France and Germany will catch up.
Economically, our faster vaccination means that our recovery should be rough a quarter ahead of the EU but we were hit harder than most with more severe lockdowns so a faster recovery was pretty likely anyway.
What this might mean for the government is that the considerable credit that it is getting for fast and effective roll out is likely to fade fairly quickly and may well be gone by the end of this year when the focus will be on the overall performance where the UK is mid table at best, not even that on some measures. It seems probable to me that Tory leads will wane considerably at that point.
The Euro daily vaccination rate has roughly doubled in April, and is set to do so again by late June.
The gap between Victory over Covid days might be smaller than some people think.
As for the post-Covid boom, will it feel that way? The 10% hit hasn't really been felt by most people, so the bounce back might also be more in the stats than people's pockets. In 1997, the Conservatives were able to accurately say "Britain is Booming", but it didn't feel that way to a lot of people, so they didn't get the credit.
Pfizer really seem to have knocked it out of the park. It costs, but they were first out the gate, it's one of the most effective of the bunch, and whilst all seem to have struggled to meet expectations on manufacture and delivery, their ramping up seems to have been top notch too.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
You forgot to invoke the nimble/sclerotic dialectique.
Was there a requirement to bring it up again? That's already 100% undeniably been demonstrated has it not?
Do you deny that the UK signing contracts with vaccine suppliers from March last year was nimble. Do you deny that the EU taking on responsibility for contracts, then dragging out talks until the autumn causing the delays in their rollout was sclerotic?
Nimble/sclerotic has been proven 100% beyond a shadow of a doubt already hasn't it? I thought there was no more a reason to mention it today than to mention that the sun came up in the East.
I am still hoping and expecting a free and wonderful summer.
Does anyone know what happens after we’ve effectively all been vaccinated? Will the government institute an annual “top up” programme?
I think we have planned to have the capacity to do so, but I guess we will wait and see as to how well the current vaccine is working, and whether protection fades substantially. I would not be surprised either way (autumn booster for all/for all who get the flu jab/no booster needed).
It’s curious that the Tories are happy to write off London, despite winning there not long ago. Not something they want to talk about.
Even Ed Miliband and Gordon Brown and Corbyn in 2019 won London.
The Tories only won London under Boris before Brexit and then they had zero chance of winning Red Wall seats like Hartlepool.
They have simply swapped wealthy London Remain seats like Enfield Southgate and Richmond Park they won in 2010 and 2015 for working class redwall Leave seats like West Bromwich and Burnley they won in 2019
The Tories’ problems in London pre-date Brexit. North London suburbs delivered the biggest pro-Labour swings of anywhere, in 1997. Then, the capital showed a further pro-Labour swing in 2001. Labour outperformed its national results in London in 2010, 2015, 2017, and 2019.
The Tories did enjoy quite a good run in the capital in 2002-2008. But, then it all petered out. A lot of working and middle class owner occupiers moved out to Herts., Essex, and North Kent in the past 25 years, and then the Conservatives lost upper middle class remain voters after 2016.
True, it is a loss of owner occupiers in London coupled with Brexit that has cost the Tories the capital.
Indeed, even Kensington went Labour in 2017 and it, Chelsea and Fulham and Cities of London and Westminster are all marginal seats now, in 1997 Kensington and Chelsea and Cities of London and Westminster stayed solid blue even as the rest of the country swung heavily to Labour. Kensington and Chelsea was the ultimate Tory safe seat, held by Alan Clark and Michael Portillo, now the Tories will be lucky to hold Kensington certainly next time.
The only safe Tory seats in London now are right on the edge of London in the outer suburbs and Essex and Kent and Hertfordshire borders and tended to vote for Brexit, places like Bexleyheath and Crayford and Old Bexley and Sidcup and Orpington, Romford, Hornchurch and Upminster, Sutton and Cheam and Upminster
How Enfield was lost (it and Barnet are the boroughs I know best) is essentially a story of the replacement of owner occupation with buy to lets. Ditto Redbridge. Enfield's Conservative voters are mostly still alive - they just live in places like Potters Bar, Hatfield, Waltham Abbey, Hoddesdon, Bishops Stortford, these days.
Barnet maintains higher levels of owner occupation, and combined with Labour's alienation of Jewish voters, that meant the borough went in a different political direction.
Barnet though was also heavily Remain and all its seats are marginal, now Corbyn has been replaced by Starmer its seats are at risk with Jewish voters ready to consider Labour again
It seems that Johnson's approval ratings have been impacted by the sleaze allegations, however this has not changed the headline voting figures.
Therefore, it seems to me that Labour is not doing enough on the other side for people to switch. They need to get some policies into place and also change up their top team.
A good post. The Government is riding high on a well-oiled vaccination programme, the pubs open, and free money (4th stage SSEI grants are being paid as we speak).
Not so much the wallpaper, but I did think the "bodies piled high" allegation would shift opinion. On that score Cummings' fox is shot...unless he has a recording.
"Pubs open" - a reality check is needed.
Some pubs are open: those with beer gardens. The vast majority will still be making a loss or, at best, breaking even. That is unsustainable.
What they and restaurants and other hospitality businesses need are the end of social distancing inside or the requirement for mandatory table service or the rule of 6 etc and the ability for people to stand at the bar, as normal. Then they can start earning and making profits.
Will these requirements be lifted? It is unclear. But until they are we are not back to normal and these businesses will not be back to normal and will - without support - be unviable.
There is an unfairness in how they are being treated. If it is ok to go to a shop it is absurd that one cannot go inside a cafe. If it is ok to be packed together in the tube then it is a nonsense to stop people standing together chatting in a pub.
I am suspicious - as is Daughter - of what the government's real intentions are and what will actually happen. She and her customers are desperate to get back to normal. Until she sees the actual rules she does not believe in this "we are getting back to normal" shtick. And she is right to be suspicious. The government is not to be trusted. It has too often said one thing and done another.
A fair analysis, I was hinting at the symbolism rather than the reality.
I am not a regular pubgoer, but anecdotal evidence suggests opening the beer gardens signals Johnson has won the war. I was in Stratford upon Avon last week for work. The green next to the river by the Shakespeare Theatre was packed but no problem to get a table for a drink or a meal, in the town and it was a nice evening.
What these charts fairly consistently show is that the UK not only started vaccinating much earlier but continues to vaccinate quicker than the EU as a whole. We are roughly 13% of EU +UK and in this table we have 20% of new vaccines. The result is that our lead over the EU increases as we head to full vaccination and we will be there 2 -2.5 months ahead of the EU.
Which will be worth a few thousand lives in each of the major countries but in the overall scheme of things for the pandemic is not likely to be that material. Italy and Belgium are already well ahead of us in deaths per million and will move more so but it is unlikely that France and Germany will catch up.
Economically, our faster vaccination means that our recovery should be rough a quarter ahead of the EU but we were hit harder than most with more severe lockdowns so a faster recovery was pretty likely anyway.
What this might mean for the government is that the considerable credit that it is getting for fast and effective roll out is likely to fade fairly quickly and may well be gone by the end of this year when the focus will be on the overall performance where the UK is mid table at best, not even that on some measures. It seems probable to me that Tory leads will wane considerably at that point.
I'm going to stick my neck out here and make a clear and unambiguous prediction without caveat.
I think the vaccine rollout has been so good, and so popular, and so demonstrably more competent than elsewhere, that it will be the exception that proves the rule. The electorate will do gratitude, this one time, and the Tories will increase their majority at the next general election (I am reminded of a certain infamous article, yes).
Yep could be although in a month or three the EU and many other countries will be where we are (great article btw Robert) and the question then becomes when the UK is in the same position as everywhere else (and don't forget we are still in lockdown while we get there) will the public be so forgiving?
I think May will feel a lot less like lockdown.
I think that is true because few will bother to look up the rules (30 or six indoors?) but lockdown it will be for many.
Yeah, my test is the same as yours, can I walk into a pub, get a drink at the bar and sit at a table without any check ins or app sign in. That plus late night bars/clubs reopening with no social distancing or check ins. I hoping for the first in June and the second stage in July once everyone over 18 has been double dosed.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We were still, effectively, members when we kicked off the VTF.
Yes, but decisions made in the UK were able to be quicker and better and more democratically accountable than decisions made in Brussels.
Do you think that concept magically stops with vaccines and can never apply to any other policy ever again in the future?
I am still hoping and expecting a free and wonderful summer.
Does anyone know what happens after we’ve effectively all been vaccinated? Will the government institute an annual “top up” programme?
Without any doubt. It will be like the flu. Annual vaccines to take account of new strains. I also think masks and social distancing, based on what JVT has said, will be required for the winter for sure and probably the next two or three.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We’ll just have to disagree on that.
Malta and Hungary show that an independent vaccine policy was totally available to us.
Indeed. We would have certainly done our own thing. One could argue that would have been a benefit of British Euroscepticism perhaps. The reality is that Brexit is shit on almost all levels of analysis. Those of us that run businesses have to accept that it is with us and we have to adapt. Europhobe/xenophobes like Philip who have nothing to do with their time but post on here and obsess about how much they hate foreigners now also obsess about the vaccine rollout because it is the only apparent Brexit good news story. Except that, as you say, it probably isn't!
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
You forgot to invoke the nimble/sclerotic dialectique.
What these charts fairly consistently show is that the UK not only started vaccinating much earlier but continues to vaccinate quicker than the EU as a whole. We are roughly 13% of EU +UK and in this table we have 20% of new vaccines. The result is that our lead over the EU increases as we head to full vaccination and we will be there 2 -2.5 months ahead of the EU.
Which will be worth a few thousand lives in each of the major countries but in the overall scheme of things for the pandemic is not likely to be that material. Italy and Belgium are already well ahead of us in deaths per million and will move more so but it is unlikely that France and Germany will catch up.
Economically, our faster vaccination means that our recovery should be rough a quarter ahead of the EU but we were hit harder than most with more severe lockdowns so a faster recovery was pretty likely anyway.
What this might mean for the government is that the considerable credit that it is getting for fast and effective roll out is likely to fade fairly quickly and may well be gone by the end of this year when the focus will be on the overall performance where the UK is mid table at best, not even that on some measures. It seems probable to me that Tory leads will wane considerably at that point.
I'm going to stick my neck out here and make a clear and unambiguous prediction without caveat.
I think the vaccine rollout has been so good, and so popular, and so demonstrably more competent than elsewhere, that it will be the exception that proves the rule. The electorate will do gratitude, this one time, and the Tories will increase their majority at the next general election (I am reminded of a certain infamous article, yes).
Yep could be although in a month or three the EU and many other countries will be where we are (great article btw Robert) and the question then becomes when the UK is in the same position as everywhere else (and don't forget we are still in lockdown while we get there) will the public be so forgiving?
I think May will feel a lot less like lockdown.
I think that is true because few will bother to look up the rules (30 or six indoors?) but lockdown it will be for many.
Yeah, my test is the same as yours, can I walk into a pub, get a drink at the bar and sit at a table without any check ins or app sign in. That plus late night bars/clubs reopening with no social distancing or check ins. I hoping for the first in June and the second stage in July once everyone over 18 has been double dosed.
Front page headline 'What a boost for Britain ' on vaccine rollout and plummeting infections
And on the inside 'The Jokes on you , Sir Keir' referring to his woeful photo stunt
It was an avoidable error by Starmer and he needs better advisors
Quite right, Starmer's woeful photo stunt at John Lewis demeans his office.
I mean, could anybody imagine our Prime Minister engaging in cheap publicity stunts to try to pretend he's a man of the people? He has far more dignity than that. Perish the thought.
Boris has that priced in. Starmer is supposed to be serious and competent. He's already failed at the latter and now he's failing at the former with that cringey photo.
Starmer does no stunts - You cant be PM with less personality than your opponent! Starmer does stunts - You cant be PM doing stunts like that!
Have Starmer critics thought maybe they just dont like him because he is a lefty, not because of his personality?
No, he's just not very good and it's disappointing because we need a strong opposition to the government more than ever given how our liberties are being curtailed. A good opposition leader would be planning with Tory rebels right now to defeat the government on their likely renewal of the virus measures in September. Instead he'll bitch for about two seconds and then quietly vote in favour leaving 60-80 Tory rebels wondering what they need to do to get the opposition to actually bloody oppose.
Rightly or wrongly from a public health perspective our liberties have been curtailed for the past 13 months.
Not a peep from anyone until the week before last or somesuch.
With ongoing huge popularity as evidenced in the polls why on earth would they decide to change policy now? Keep us if not scared, then anxious and in need of nanny.
Alternatively - after a number of false starts, we have a defined policy program to deal with COVID19. That is working....
And in the meantime unparalleled restrictions on our liberty have been waved through with a smile.
As I said, perhaps this was necessary. But the enthusiasm with which the country, not least here on PB, has embraced the restrictions of freedoms has been imo extraodinary.
Britons will be slaves, it seems.
I’ve been amazed at the collective reflex to defer to authority figures over the last year. I was always under the impression that the British cultural norm was instinctive distrust of authority. I can only assume it’s because they’ve put up on stage a doctor and a “scientist”, for whom the normal rules go out the window.
I'd always have assumed the cultural norm was deference to authority. Fits with the 'dont like to cause a fuss' gentility, mustn't grumble, keep calm and carry on, that sort of stuff.
We joke, but we do trust government and the authorities.
I am still hoping and expecting a free and wonderful summer.
Does anyone know what happens after we’ve effectively all been vaccinated? Will the government institute an annual “top up” programme?
Without any doubt. It will be like the flu. Annual vaccines to take account of new strains. I also think masks and social distancing, based on what JVT has said, will be required for the winter for sure and probably the next two or three.
I cannot believe masks and social distancing will be mandated in a climate of 90% plus vaccinated, cases through the floor and no-one dying. There will be a rebellion, and for once I would join it. Masks and distancing are tools to cope when you don't have anything better. Vaccines that work as well as ours do (incredibly well for 1st gen) are the tool to use.
What these charts fairly consistently show is that the UK not only started vaccinating much earlier but continues to vaccinate quicker than the EU as a whole. We are roughly 13% of EU +UK and in this table we have 20% of new vaccines. The result is that our lead over the EU increases as we head to full vaccination and we will be there 2 -2.5 months ahead of the EU.
Which will be worth a few thousand lives in each of the major countries but in the overall scheme of things for the pandemic is not likely to be that material. Italy and Belgium are already well ahead of us in deaths per million and will move more so but it is unlikely that France and Germany will catch up.
Economically, our faster vaccination means that our recovery should be rough a quarter ahead of the EU but we were hit harder than most with more severe lockdowns so a faster recovery was pretty likely anyway.
What this might mean for the government is that the considerable credit that it is getting for fast and effective roll out is likely to fade fairly quickly and may well be gone by the end of this year when the focus will be on the overall performance where the UK is mid table at best, not even that on some measures. It seems probable to me that Tory leads will wane considerably at that point.
I'm going to stick my neck out here and make a clear and unambiguous prediction without caveat.
I think the vaccine rollout has been so good, and so popular, and so demonstrably more competent than elsewhere, that it will be the exception that proves the rule. The electorate will do gratitude, this one time, and the Tories will increase their majority at the next general election (I am reminded of a certain infamous article, yes).
Yep could be although in a month or three the EU and many other countries will be where we are (great article btw Robert) and the question then becomes when the UK is in the same position as everywhere else (and don't forget we are still in lockdown while we get there) will the public be so forgiving?
I think May will feel a lot less like lockdown.
I think that is true because few will bother to look up the rules (30 or six indoors?) but lockdown it will be for many.
Yeah, my test is the same as yours, can I walk into a pub, get a drink at the bar and sit at a table without any check ins or app sign in. That plus late night bars/clubs reopening with no social distancing or check ins. I hoping for the first in June and the second stage in July once everyone over 18 has been double dosed.
I'd be hoping for May and June respectively.
May isn't going to be likely, we're going to still need to check in and all that bullshit. I expect vaccine passports will be deemed necessary for clubs and such for about a month until everyone just gives up on the idea because 95% of people have been double jabbed.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
You forgot to invoke the nimble/sclerotic dialectique.
We're about to see the other side of that, though. Yes, a speedboat is nippy and responsive. An oil tanker or a container ship takes a while to get going. But once it does, it can really go places and achieve a lot more.
It seems that Johnson's approval ratings have been impacted by the sleaze allegations, however this has not changed the headline voting figures.
Therefore, it seems to me that Labour is not doing enough on the other side for people to switch. They need to get some policies into place and also change up their top team.
A good post. The Government is riding high on a well-oiled vaccination programme, the pubs open, and free money (4th stage SSEI grants are being paid as we speak).
Not so much the wallpaper, but I did think the "bodies piled high" allegation would shift opinion. On that score Cummings' fox is shot...unless he has a recording.
"Pubs open" - a reality check is needed.
Some pubs are open: those with beer gardens. The vast majority will still be making a loss or, at best, breaking even. That is unsustainable.
What they and restaurants and other hospitality businesses need are the end of social distancing inside or the requirement for mandatory table service or the rule of 6 etc and the ability for people to stand at the bar, as normal. Then they can start earning and making profits.
Will these requirements be lifted? It is unclear. But until they are we are not back to normal and these businesses will not be back to normal and will - without support - be unviable.
There is an unfairness in how they are being treated. If it is ok to go to a shop it is absurd that one cannot go inside a cafe. If it is ok to be packed together in the tube then it is a nonsense to stop people standing together chatting in a pub.
I am suspicious - as is Daughter - of what the government's real intentions are and what will actually happen. She and her customers are desperate to get back to normal. Until she sees the actual rules she does not believe in this "we are getting back to normal" shtick. And she is right to be suspicious. The government is not to be trusted. It has too often said one thing and done another.
If mandatory social distancing regulations for pubs etc are abolished on 21/6, a return to normal not a "new normal" then will you and your daughter be happy with that?
I think it should be sooner, but I'm begrudgingly OK so long as it happens by then. No later, no ifs, no buts.
What needs to go is social distancing and mandatory table service. If that happens she will be happy and can do business again. She has already booked a very popular local band to come in September and December.
What she does not want is the sort of restrictions there were before the last lockdown which meant that she had all the costs without the customers. She opened last December but it was largely a waste of time, apart from a few days. If the government imposes similar restrictions again, then the business is pointless and she will just give it up.
I hope this won't happen. But when I hear people like Van Tam saying that it is perfectly safe for people who have been vaccinated to meet each other indoors but they shouldn't "because we say so" I wonder what sort of country we are becoming and whether the government really will give up the micro-managing control it seems to love.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We’ll just have to disagree on that.
Malta and Hungary show that an independent vaccine policy was totally available to us.
You've missed the point. Healthcare was never an EU responsibility. Of course we could have had our own vaccine policy in the EU.
But many issues are EU responsibilities. The point here is that having control domestically, rather than control in Brussels, allows better and more accountable decision making.
Do you think there is a magical reason why having domestic control over vaccine decision making allows better and more accountable decision making - but having domestic control over all the other decisions that used to be made in Brussels can't be the same?
This is primary school stuff.
But yes, in order to achieve collective benefits (such as the single market) there is a practical reason to share some powers with other nations.
It’s case by case, although I recognise you don’t “do” nuance.
I am still hoping and expecting a free and wonderful summer.
Does anyone know what happens after we’ve effectively all been vaccinated? Will the government institute an annual “top up” programme?
Without any doubt. It will be like the flu. Annual vaccines to take account of new strains. I also think masks and social distancing, based on what JVT has said, will be required for the winter for sure and probably the next two or three.
Flu requires annual boosters because the virus mutates more quickly and less predictably. As I understand it, Sars-cov2 is more slowly mutating, which is why the “old” vaccines still stop you needing hospital and dying even if they get less good at giving sterilising immunity. And that the life path of the virus is already quite clear and has been understood at a molecular level for some time - it will be forced down an evolutionary pathway that leaves it ceasing to be infectious.
I will not be wearing a mask anywhere after 21 June and legally I cannot be compelled to. It’s vital we break away from these rules to stop them becoming normalised.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
You forgot to invoke the nimble/sclerotic dialectique.
So we can hold them to account for failing to reach a fishing deal with Norway then?
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We’ll just have to disagree on that.
Malta and Hungary show that an independent vaccine policy was totally available to us.
I think in reality you are both partly right. Of course we could have gone our own way, but I suspect we wouldn't have done so. And by showing what we were able to do on our own, it has opened some eyes to a future that isn't wholly shit.
This might be true. But it’s kind of an interesting argument, isn’t it?
“Let’s leave the EU so that we can open our eyes to doing things we could have done anyway inside the EU”.
Front page headline 'What a boost for Britain ' on vaccine rollout and plummeting infections
And on the inside 'The Jokes on you , Sir Keir' referring to his woeful photo stunt
It was an avoidable error by Starmer and he needs better advisors
Quite right, Starmer's woeful photo stunt at John Lewis demeans his office.
I mean, could anybody imagine our Prime Minister engaging in cheap publicity stunts to try to pretend he's a man of the people? He has far more dignity than that. Perish the thought.
Boris has that priced in. Starmer is supposed to be serious and competent. He's already failed at the latter and now he's failing at the former with that cringey photo.
Starmer does no stunts - You cant be PM with less personality than your opponent! Starmer does stunts - You cant be PM doing stunts like that!
Have Starmer critics thought maybe they just dont like him because he is a lefty, not because of his personality?
No, he's just not very good and it's disappointing because we need a strong opposition to the government more than ever given how our liberties are being curtailed. A good opposition leader would be planning with Tory rebels right now to defeat the government on their likely renewal of the virus measures in September. Instead he'll bitch for about two seconds and then quietly vote in favour leaving 60-80 Tory rebels wondering what they need to do to get the opposition to actually bloody oppose.
Rightly or wrongly from a public health perspective our liberties have been curtailed for the past 13 months.
Not a peep from anyone until the week before last or somesuch.
With ongoing huge popularity as evidenced in the polls why on earth would they decide to change policy now? Keep us if not scared, then anxious and in need of nanny.
Alternatively - after a number of false starts, we have a defined policy program to deal with COVID19. That is working....
And in the meantime unparalleled restrictions on our liberty have been waved through with a smile.
As I said, perhaps this was necessary. But the enthusiasm with which the country, not least here on PB, has embraced the restrictions of freedoms has been imo extraodinary.
Britons will be slaves, it seems.
I’ve been amazed at the collective reflex to defer to authority figures over the last year. I was always under the impression that the British cultural norm was instinctive distrust of authority. I can only assume it’s because they’ve put up on stage a doctor and a “scientist”, for whom the normal rules go out the window.
Britain is essentially a suburban, nanny-ised state.
What these charts fairly consistently show is that the UK not only started vaccinating much earlier but continues to vaccinate quicker than the EU as a whole. We are roughly 13% of EU +UK and in this table we have 20% of new vaccines. The result is that our lead over the EU increases as we head to full vaccination and we will be there 2 -2.5 months ahead of the EU.
Which will be worth a few thousand lives in each of the major countries but in the overall scheme of things for the pandemic is not likely to be that material. Italy and Belgium are already well ahead of us in deaths per million and will move more so but it is unlikely that France and Germany will catch up.
Economically, our faster vaccination means that our recovery should be rough a quarter ahead of the EU but we were hit harder than most with more severe lockdowns so a faster recovery was pretty likely anyway.
What this might mean for the government is that the considerable credit that it is getting for fast and effective roll out is likely to fade fairly quickly and may well be gone by the end of this year when the focus will be on the overall performance where the UK is mid table at best, not even that on some measures. It seems probable to me that Tory leads will wane considerably at that point.
I'm going to stick my neck out here and make a clear and unambiguous prediction without caveat.
I think the vaccine rollout has been so good, and so popular, and so demonstrably more competent than elsewhere, that it will be the exception that proves the rule. The electorate will do gratitude, this one time, and the Tories will increase their majority at the next general election (I am reminded of a certain infamous article, yes).
Yep could be although in a month or three the EU and many other countries will be where we are (great article btw Robert) and the question then becomes when the UK is in the same position as everywhere else (and don't forget we are still in lockdown while we get there) will the public be so forgiving?
I think May will feel a lot less like lockdown.
I think that is true because few will bother to look up the rules (30 or six indoors?) but lockdown it will be for many.
Yeah, my test is the same as yours, can I walk into a pub, get a drink at the bar and sit at a table without any check ins or app sign in. That plus late night bars/clubs reopening with no social distancing or check ins. I hoping for the first in June and the second stage in July once everyone over 18 has been double dosed.
I'd be hoping for May and June respectively.
May isn't going to be likely, we're going to still need to check in and all that bullshit. I expect vaccine passports will be deemed necessary for clubs and such for about a month until everyone just gives up on the idea because 95% of people have been double jabbed.
When I've been to a pub this month I haven't checked in. There's QR codes on the tables but no enforcement, no insistence, no bouncers saying "scan this or you can't sit down".
I expect the same from May. A QR code by the door - if people want to scan it they will, if they don't they won't.
If clubs have a month of passports and then its lifted for good then I suppose we can live with that for a month, but I'd still rather not see it. If people are unvaccinated and go in then they're at biggest risk to themselves to be frank. So long as social distancing is removed from pubs and restaurants no later than 21/6.
What these charts fairly consistently show is that the UK not only started vaccinating much earlier but continues to vaccinate quicker than the EU as a whole. We are roughly 13% of EU +UK and in this table we have 20% of new vaccines. The result is that our lead over the EU increases as we head to full vaccination and we will be there 2 -2.5 months ahead of the EU.
Which will be worth a few thousand lives in each of the major countries but in the overall scheme of things for the pandemic is not likely to be that material. Italy and Belgium are already well ahead of us in deaths per million and will move more so but it is unlikely that France and Germany will catch up.
Economically, our faster vaccination means that our recovery should be rough a quarter ahead of the EU but we were hit harder than most with more severe lockdowns so a faster recovery was pretty likely anyway.
What this might mean for the government is that the considerable credit that it is getting for fast and effective roll out is likely to fade fairly quickly and may well be gone by the end of this year when the focus will be on the overall performance where the UK is mid table at best, not even that on some measures. It seems probable to me that Tory leads will wane considerably at that point.
I'm going to stick my neck out here and make a clear and unambiguous prediction without caveat.
I think the vaccine rollout has been so good, and so popular, and so demonstrably more competent than elsewhere, that it will be the exception that proves the rule. The electorate will do gratitude, this one time, and the Tories will increase their majority at the next general election (I am reminded of a certain infamous article, yes).
Yep could be although in a month or three the EU and many other countries will be where we are (great article btw Robert) and the question then becomes when the UK is in the same position as everywhere else (and don't forget we are still in lockdown while we get there) will the public be so forgiving?
I think May will feel a lot less like lockdown.
I think that is true because few will bother to look up the rules (30 or six indoors?) but lockdown it will be for many.
Yeah, my test is the same as yours, can I walk into a pub, get a drink at the bar and sit at a table without any check ins or app sign in. That plus late night bars/clubs reopening with no social distancing or check ins. I hoping for the first in June and the second stage in July once everyone over 18 has been double dosed.
I'd be hoping for May and June respectively.
May isn't going to be likely, we're going to still need to check in and all that bullshit. I expect vaccine passports will be deemed necessary for clubs and such for about a month until everyone just gives up on the idea because 95% of people have been double jabbed.
Out here in the sticks no one seems to care about check in. I haven’t been asked once in the last fortnight. Also went to a place with queuing at the bar,live DJ and that had a single big table of perhaps 12 middle aged friends toasting freedom.
Front page headline 'What a boost for Britain ' on vaccine rollout and plummeting infections
And on the inside 'The Jokes on you , Sir Keir' referring to his woeful photo stunt
It was an avoidable error by Starmer and he needs better advisors
Quite right, Starmer's woeful photo stunt at John Lewis demeans his office.
I mean, could anybody imagine our Prime Minister engaging in cheap publicity stunts to try to pretend he's a man of the people? He has far more dignity than that. Perish the thought.
Boris has that priced in. Starmer is supposed to be serious and competent. He's already failed at the latter and now he's failing at the former with that cringey photo.
Starmer does no stunts - You cant be PM with less personality than your opponent! Starmer does stunts - You cant be PM doing stunts like that!
Have Starmer critics thought maybe they just dont like him because he is a lefty, not because of his personality?
No, he's just not very good and it's disappointing because we need a strong opposition to the government more than ever given how our liberties are being curtailed. A good opposition leader would be planning with Tory rebels right now to defeat the government on their likely renewal of the virus measures in September. Instead he'll bitch for about two seconds and then quietly vote in favour leaving 60-80 Tory rebels wondering what they need to do to get the opposition to actually bloody oppose.
Rightly or wrongly from a public health perspective our liberties have been curtailed for the past 13 months.
Not a peep from anyone until the week before last or somesuch.
With ongoing huge popularity as evidenced in the polls why on earth would they decide to change policy now? Keep us if not scared, then anxious and in need of nanny.
Alternatively - after a number of false starts, we have a defined policy program to deal with COVID19. That is working....
And in the meantime unparalleled restrictions on our liberty have been waved through with a smile.
As I said, perhaps this was necessary. But the enthusiasm with which the country, not least here on PB, has embraced the restrictions of freedoms has been imo extraodinary.
It's because most believed them to be necessary, having seen some of the horrors elsewhere.
We're already seeing crumbling of the concensus on here and I'm seeing it anecdotally in friends and family. As the threat recedes, acceptance of the restrictions will too. It would be crazy if that was not the case.
Is it surprising that restrictions have been accepted so far? Maybe. It would be astonishing to me if restrictions were accepted after June, unless there are unforeseen events (some new super-variant that renders vaccines largley ineffective and a third wave). I'm part of the shadowy cabal (scientists, epidemiologists in particular) that apparently wants to take away peoples freedoms forever, but extend the restrictions beyond 21 June without good reason and I'll be joining you on the barricades.
What these charts fairly consistently show is that the UK not only started vaccinating much earlier but continues to vaccinate quicker than the EU as a whole. We are roughly 13% of EU +UK and in this table we have 20% of new vaccines. The result is that our lead over the EU increases as we head to full vaccination and we will be there 2 -2.5 months ahead of the EU.
Which will be worth a few thousand lives in each of the major countries but in the overall scheme of things for the pandemic is not likely to be that material. Italy and Belgium are already well ahead of us in deaths per million and will move more so but it is unlikely that France and Germany will catch up.
Economically, our faster vaccination means that our recovery should be rough a quarter ahead of the EU but we were hit harder than most with more severe lockdowns so a faster recovery was pretty likely anyway.
What this might mean for the government is that the considerable credit that it is getting for fast and effective roll out is likely to fade fairly quickly and may well be gone by the end of this year when the focus will be on the overall performance where the UK is mid table at best, not even that on some measures. It seems probable to me that Tory leads will wane considerably at that point.
I'm going to stick my neck out here and make a clear and unambiguous prediction without caveat.
I think the vaccine rollout has been so good, and so popular, and so demonstrably more competent than elsewhere, that it will be the exception that proves the rule. The electorate will do gratitude, this one time, and the Tories will increase their majority at the next general election (I am reminded of a certain infamous article, yes).
It's certainly given the government another life. Though I don't see any reason why 2021-4 won't be like 2020, with the Conservatives squandering a lead by dropping 2-3% each time they visibly mess something up.
And whilst the government has done well on vaccination, Winston Churchill did well on winning World War II, and look how much gratitude he got from the voters.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We’ll just have to disagree on that.
Malta and Hungary show that an independent vaccine policy was totally available to us.
You've missed the point. Healthcare was never an EU responsibility. Of course we could have had our own vaccine policy in the EU.
But many issues are EU responsibilities. The point here is that having control domestically, rather than control in Brussels, allows better and more accountable decision making.
Do you think there is a magical reason why having domestic control over vaccine decision making allows better and more accountable decision making - but having domestic control over all the other decisions that used to be made in Brussels can't be the same?
This is primary school stuff.
But yes, in order to achieve collective benefits (such as the single market) there is a practical reason to share some powers with other nations.
It’s case by case, although I recognise you don’t “do” nuance.
Actually I do, I have never disputed that. I used to back Remain, I have never claimed leaving the Single Market is cost-free, nor have I claimed there will be no damage to some businesses from Brexit.
But and this is primary school stuff, its about balance. There are two sides to the balance scale not one. I recognise both sides of the balance scale, I recognise both the benefits from Brexit and the cost - you seem determined to see one side of the balance scale alone.
Unless you're prepared to recognise both sides of the balance scale, unless you can do nuance, then you can't judge this properly.
There are costs to Brexit, there are benefits to Brexit, and the responsible thing to do is to balance them against each other. Do you disagree with that?
What these charts fairly consistently show is that the UK not only started vaccinating much earlier but continues to vaccinate quicker than the EU as a whole. We are roughly 13% of EU +UK and in this table we have 20% of new vaccines. The result is that our lead over the EU increases as we head to full vaccination and we will be there 2 -2.5 months ahead of the EU.
Which will be worth a few thousand lives in each of the major countries but in the overall scheme of things for the pandemic is not likely to be that material. Italy and Belgium are already well ahead of us in deaths per million and will move more so but it is unlikely that France and Germany will catch up.
Economically, our faster vaccination means that our recovery should be rough a quarter ahead of the EU but we were hit harder than most with more severe lockdowns so a faster recovery was pretty likely anyway.
What this might mean for the government is that the considerable credit that it is getting for fast and effective roll out is likely to fade fairly quickly and may well be gone by the end of this year when the focus will be on the overall performance where the UK is mid table at best, not even that on some measures. It seems probable to me that Tory leads will wane considerably at that point.
I'm going to stick my neck out here and make a clear and unambiguous prediction without caveat.
I think the vaccine rollout has been so good, and so popular, and so demonstrably more competent than elsewhere, that it will be the exception that proves the rule. The electorate will do gratitude, this one time, and the Tories will increase their majority at the next general election (I am reminded of a certain infamous article, yes).
Yep could be although in a month or three the EU and many other countries will be where we are (great article btw Robert) and the question then becomes when the UK is in the same position as everywhere else (and don't forget we are still in lockdown while we get there) will the public be so forgiving?
I think May will feel a lot less like lockdown.
I think that is true because few will bother to look up the rules (30 or six indoors?) but lockdown it will be for many.
Yeah, my test is the same as yours, can I walk into a pub, get a drink at the bar and sit at a table without any check ins or app sign in. That plus late night bars/clubs reopening with no social distancing or check ins. I hoping for the first in June and the second stage in July once everyone over 18 has been double dosed.
I'd be hoping for May and June respectively.
May isn't going to be likely, we're going to still need to check in and all that bullshit. I expect vaccine passports will be deemed necessary for clubs and such for about a month until everyone just gives up on the idea because 95% of people have been double jabbed.
When I've been to a pub this month I haven't checked in. There's QR codes on the tables but no enforcement, no insistence, no bouncers saying "scan this or you can't sit down".
I expect the same from May. A QR code by the door - if people want to scan it they will, if they don't they won't.
If clubs have a month of passports and then its lifted for good then I suppose we can live with that for a month, but I'd still rather not see it. If people are unvaccinated and go in then they're at biggest risk to themselves to be frank. So long as social distancing is removed from pubs and restaurants no later than 21/6.
The QR scan may well be a condition of insurance of premises, particularly nightclubs. I'll be scanning (As I have been) any premises I head into as I think it's the socially responsible thing to do. No idea if it'll be compulsory going forward - so long as there's no social distancing requirements in particularly nightclubs.
Front page headline 'What a boost for Britain ' on vaccine rollout and plummeting infections
And on the inside 'The Jokes on you , Sir Keir' referring to his woeful photo stunt
It was an avoidable error by Starmer and he needs better advisors
Quite right, Starmer's woeful photo stunt at John Lewis demeans his office.
I mean, could anybody imagine our Prime Minister engaging in cheap publicity stunts to try to pretend he's a man of the people? He has far more dignity than that. Perish the thought.
Boris has that priced in. Starmer is supposed to be serious and competent. He's already failed at the latter and now he's failing at the former with that cringey photo.
Starmer does no stunts - You cant be PM with less personality than your opponent! Starmer does stunts - You cant be PM doing stunts like that!
Have Starmer critics thought maybe they just dont like him because he is a lefty, not because of his personality?
No, he's just not very good and it's disappointing because we need a strong opposition to the government more than ever given how our liberties are being curtailed. A good opposition leader would be planning with Tory rebels right now to defeat the government on their likely renewal of the virus measures in September. Instead he'll bitch for about two seconds and then quietly vote in favour leaving 60-80 Tory rebels wondering what they need to do to get the opposition to actually bloody oppose.
Rightly or wrongly from a public health perspective our liberties have been curtailed for the past 13 months.
Not a peep from anyone until the week before last or somesuch.
With ongoing huge popularity as evidenced in the polls why on earth would they decide to change policy now? Keep us if not scared, then anxious and in need of nanny.
Alternatively - after a number of false starts, we have a defined policy program to deal with COVID19. That is working....
And in the meantime unparalleled restrictions on our liberty have been waved through with a smile.
As I said, perhaps this was necessary. But the enthusiasm with which the country, not least here on PB, has embraced the restrictions of freedoms has been imo extraodinary.
Britons will be slaves, it seems.
I’ve been amazed at the collective reflex to defer to authority figures over the last year. I was always under the impression that the British cultural norm was instinctive distrust of authority. I can only assume it’s because they’ve put up on stage a doctor and a “scientist”, for whom the normal rules go out the window.
Britain is essentially a suburban, nanny-ised state.
It’s clear that Blair did more damage than I had appreciated.
I know that almost everyone in authority positions in all areas of life, are making it up as they go. I now understand that most haven’t realised that yet.
What these charts fairly consistently show is that the UK not only started vaccinating much earlier but continues to vaccinate quicker than the EU as a whole. We are roughly 13% of EU +UK and in this table we have 20% of new vaccines. The result is that our lead over the EU increases as we head to full vaccination and we will be there 2 -2.5 months ahead of the EU.
Which will be worth a few thousand lives in each of the major countries but in the overall scheme of things for the pandemic is not likely to be that material. Italy and Belgium are already well ahead of us in deaths per million and will move more so but it is unlikely that France and Germany will catch up.
Economically, our faster vaccination means that our recovery should be rough a quarter ahead of the EU but we were hit harder than most with more severe lockdowns so a faster recovery was pretty likely anyway.
What this might mean for the government is that the considerable credit that it is getting for fast and effective roll out is likely to fade fairly quickly and may well be gone by the end of this year when the focus will be on the overall performance where the UK is mid table at best, not even that on some measures. It seems probable to me that Tory leads will wane considerably at that point.
I'm going to stick my neck out here and make a clear and unambiguous prediction without caveat.
I think the vaccine rollout has been so good, and so popular, and so demonstrably more competent than elsewhere, that it will be the exception that proves the rule. The electorate will do gratitude, this one time, and the Tories will increase their majority at the next general election (I am reminded of a certain infamous article, yes).
It's certainly given the government another life. Though I don't see any reason why 2021-4 won't be like 2020, with the Conservatives squandering a lead by dropping 2-3% each time they visibly mess something up.
And whilst the government has done well on vaccination, Winston Churchill did well on winning World War II, and look how much gratitude he got from the voters.
Also, people tend to forget pandemics. According to our resident expert in the literature of disease.
Another thought on French vaccine hesitancy. Perhaps people just reflexively give more negative, rebellious answers to pollsters there but then actually behave differently?
It's a long, rich French tradition to rebel against authority and say "non" to things. So a pollster asks you if you're prepared to take a vaccine and you say "non". Just like you say you disapprove of Macron but still vote for him in the presidential runoff. But when the invitation comes you toddle off to the local surgery to get the jab. After all France is also a country in love with medicine.
What these charts fairly consistently show is that the UK not only started vaccinating much earlier but continues to vaccinate quicker than the EU as a whole. We are roughly 13% of EU +UK and in this table we have 20% of new vaccines. The result is that our lead over the EU increases as we head to full vaccination and we will be there 2 -2.5 months ahead of the EU.
Which will be worth a few thousand lives in each of the major countries but in the overall scheme of things for the pandemic is not likely to be that material. Italy and Belgium are already well ahead of us in deaths per million and will move more so but it is unlikely that France and Germany will catch up.
Economically, our faster vaccination means that our recovery should be rough a quarter ahead of the EU but we were hit harder than most with more severe lockdowns so a faster recovery was pretty likely anyway.
What this might mean for the government is that the considerable credit that it is getting for fast and effective roll out is likely to fade fairly quickly and may well be gone by the end of this year when the focus will be on the overall performance where the UK is mid table at best, not even that on some measures. It seems probable to me that Tory leads will wane considerably at that point.
I'm going to stick my neck out here and make a clear and unambiguous prediction without caveat.
I think the vaccine rollout has been so good, and so popular, and so demonstrably more competent than elsewhere, that it will be the exception that proves the rule. The electorate will do gratitude, this one time, and the Tories will increase their majority at the next general election (I am reminded of a certain infamous article, yes).
It's certainly given the government another life. Though I don't see any reason why 2021-4 won't be like 2020, with the Conservatives squandering a lead by dropping 2-3% each time they visibly mess something up.
And whilst the government has done well on vaccination, Winston Churchill did well on winning World War II, and look how much gratitude he got from the voters.
How exciting. For the next election we have every possibility from 1945 to 1992 and 1987.
It seems that Johnson's approval ratings have been impacted by the sleaze allegations, however this has not changed the headline voting figures.
Therefore, it seems to me that Labour is not doing enough on the other side for people to switch. They need to get some policies into place and also change up their top team.
A good post. The Government is riding high on a well-oiled vaccination programme, the pubs open, and free money (4th stage SSEI grants are being paid as we speak).
Not so much the wallpaper, but I did think the "bodies piled high" allegation would shift opinion. On that score Cummings' fox is shot...unless he has a recording.
"Pubs open" - a reality check is needed.
Some pubs are open: those with beer gardens. The vast majority will still be making a loss or, at best, breaking even. That is unsustainable.
What they and restaurants and other hospitality businesses need are the end of social distancing inside or the requirement for mandatory table service or the rule of 6 etc and the ability for people to stand at the bar, as normal. Then they can start earning and making profits.
Will these requirements be lifted? It is unclear. But until they are we are not back to normal and these businesses will not be back to normal and will - without support - be unviable.
There is an unfairness in how they are being treated. If it is ok to go to a shop it is absurd that one cannot go inside a cafe. If it is ok to be packed together in the tube then it is a nonsense to stop people standing together chatting in a pub.
I am suspicious - as is Daughter - of what the government's real intentions are and what will actually happen. She and her customers are desperate to get back to normal. Until she sees the actual rules she does not believe in this "we are getting back to normal" shtick. And she is right to be suspicious. The government is not to be trusted. It has too often said one thing and done another.
If mandatory social distancing regulations for pubs etc are abolished on 21/6, a return to normal not a "new normal" then will you and your daughter be happy with that?
I think it should be sooner, but I'm begrudgingly OK so long as it happens by then. No later, no ifs, no buts.
What needs to go is social distancing and mandatory table service. If that happens she will be happy and can do business again. She has already booked a very popular local band to come in September and December.
What she does not want is the sort of restrictions there were before the last lockdown which meant that she had all the costs without the customers. She opened last December but it was largely a waste of time, apart from a few days. If the government imposes similar restrictions again, then the business is pointless and she will just give it up.
I hope this won't happen. But when I hear people like Van Tam saying that it is perfectly safe for people who have been vaccinated to meet each other indoors but they shouldn't "because we say so" I wonder what sort of country we are becoming and whether the government really will give up the micro-managing control it seems to love.
I agree with all that.
I want the same thing as you, all the nannying, all the social distancing, all the regulations need to go. Hopefully they do all go and your daughter can have a bumper summer. 👍
Anyway, its Friday morning so lets set a nice test of legal and moral right and wrong.
It is only right that an individual should be able to choose which laws apply to them. It is only right that when a complaint is made and an investigation carried out to determine if that individual has broken the strict professional code that directs their behaviour, that the accused is able to discard the findings against them and carry on in role.
Its only fair. Lawyers get to dismiss professional misconduct convictions. Doctors. Bent Coppers. People who steal from work. So it is an outrage for people to think there is something wrong with the Prime Minister being able to simply dismiss the professional misconduct findings that are presented to him about his behaviour.
The Prime Minister should be subject to the same courts as the rest of us. If he receives a criminal conviction at a court of law then of course he should resign.
Anonymous people claiming on social media that he has done something wrong is not a court of law.
Can the rest of us veto the publication of an official inquiry into ourselves? Or decide the terms of reference into such an inquiry?
It depends.
If the inquiry is by the Police and the CPS then the PM can't veto it, can he? If you're eg Director of a company and you hire someone to create a report for you and to report to you, then I don't see why you couldn't.
The key problem in the PM's example is the Royal Prerogative.
The constitutional fiction is that government ministers are appointed by the Sovereign, and that the Prime Minister only provides advice. This means that the PM is not in any position to give the power of dismissing her Ministers, including themself, to someone investigating impropriety.
The constitutional remedy is for the Commons to use its powers of impeachment - but the strength of the party whip makes that a distant prospect at present.
We have a system which gives often unchecked power to whomever can reliably deliver a plurality of the vote to their party. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
Front page headline 'What a boost for Britain ' on vaccine rollout and plummeting infections
And on the inside 'The Jokes on you , Sir Keir' referring to his woeful photo stunt
It was an avoidable error by Starmer and he needs better advisors
Quite right, Starmer's woeful photo stunt at John Lewis demeans his office.
I mean, could anybody imagine our Prime Minister engaging in cheap publicity stunts to try to pretend he's a man of the people? He has far more dignity than that. Perish the thought.
Boris has that priced in. Starmer is supposed to be serious and competent. He's already failed at the latter and now he's failing at the former with that cringey photo.
Starmer does no stunts - You cant be PM with less personality than your opponent! Starmer does stunts - You cant be PM doing stunts like that!
Have Starmer critics thought maybe they just dont like him because he is a lefty, not because of his personality?
No, he's just not very good and it's disappointing because we need a strong opposition to the government more than ever given how our liberties are being curtailed. A good opposition leader would be planning with Tory rebels right now to defeat the government on their likely renewal of the virus measures in September. Instead he'll bitch for about two seconds and then quietly vote in favour leaving 60-80 Tory rebels wondering what they need to do to get the opposition to actually bloody oppose.
Rightly or wrongly from a public health perspective our liberties have been curtailed for the past 13 months.
Not a peep from anyone until the week before last or somesuch.
With ongoing huge popularity as evidenced in the polls why on earth would they decide to change policy now? Keep us if not scared, then anxious and in need of nanny.
Alternatively - after a number of false starts, we have a defined policy program to deal with COVID19. That is working....
And in the meantime unparalleled restrictions on our liberty have been waved through with a smile.
As I said, perhaps this was necessary. But the enthusiasm with which the country, not least here on PB, has embraced the restrictions of freedoms has been imo extraodinary.
Britons will be slaves, it seems.
I’ve been amazed at the collective reflex to defer to authority figures over the last year. I was always under the impression that the British cultural norm was instinctive distrust of authority. I can only assume it’s because they’ve put up on stage a doctor and a “scientist”, for whom the normal rules go out the window.
Britain is essentially a suburban, nanny-ised state.
It’s clear that Blair did more damage than I had appreciated.
I know that almost everyone in authority positions in all areas of life, are making it up as they go. I now understand that most haven’t realised that yet.
I doubt Blair is to blame.
I would look first to the Victorians, and then perhaps the post-war consensus.
As for “blagging”, it is the quintessential English quality.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We’ll just have to disagree on that.
Malta and Hungary show that an independent vaccine policy was totally available to us.
I think in reality you are both partly right. Of course we could have gone our own way, but I suspect we wouldn't have done so. And by showing what we were able to do on our own, it has opened some eyes to a future that isn't wholly shit.
This might be true. But it’s kind of an interesting argument, isn’t it?
“Let’s leave the EU so that we can open our eyes to doing things we could have done anyway inside the EU”.
I suspect that like most things in life there will be credits and debits. Those that were rabidly in favour of it will be desperate to show the perceived upsides. Those of us that were opposed will be sceptical. Most sensible people will get on with their lives. Only the next generation will be able to judge more dispassionately whether it was a good idea, but even that will be influenced by how the UK and EU look at that time, both of which will look very different to how they would have looked had it not happened in the first place! . Objective analysis is different without a parallel universe.
What these charts fairly consistently show is that the UK not only started vaccinating much earlier but continues to vaccinate quicker than the EU as a whole. We are roughly 13% of EU +UK and in this table we have 20% of new vaccines. The result is that our lead over the EU increases as we head to full vaccination and we will be there 2 -2.5 months ahead of the EU.
Which will be worth a few thousand lives in each of the major countries but in the overall scheme of things for the pandemic is not likely to be that material. Italy and Belgium are already well ahead of us in deaths per million and will move more so but it is unlikely that France and Germany will catch up.
Economically, our faster vaccination means that our recovery should be rough a quarter ahead of the EU but we were hit harder than most with more severe lockdowns so a faster recovery was pretty likely anyway.
What this might mean for the government is that the considerable credit that it is getting for fast and effective roll out is likely to fade fairly quickly and may well be gone by the end of this year when the focus will be on the overall performance where the UK is mid table at best, not even that on some measures. It seems probable to me that Tory leads will wane considerably at that point.
I'm going to stick my neck out here and make a clear and unambiguous prediction without caveat.
I think the vaccine rollout has been so good, and so popular, and so demonstrably more competent than elsewhere, that it will be the exception that proves the rule. The electorate will do gratitude, this one time, and the Tories will increase their majority at the next general election (I am reminded of a certain infamous article, yes).
The Tories may increase their majority but if they do it won't be because of something that went well 3 years before. It will be because they have kept the economy rolling after the initial recovery and delivered employment and investment to their red wall seats. Which is possible but not nailed on by any means.
7% growth in 2021 followed by 4% in 2022. It's going to be an absolutely gigantic bounce. I wouldn't be surprised if the 2021 figure ended up a bit higher than that closing in on 8%.
And I thought I was bullish. 5-6% I thought for this year and maybe 4% next (which would be dramatic enough). The challenge will be to get enough investment in the splurge to keep growth going to nearer the election. There is a risk that the economic cycle and the political cycle will find themselves somewhat out of synch.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We were still, effectively, members when we kicked off the VTF.
Yes, but decisions made in the UK were able to be quicker and better and more democratically accountable than decisions made in Brussels.
Do you think that concept magically stops with vaccines and can never apply to any other policy ever again in the future?
We could, as Malta and Hungary did, as fully paid up (or in our case de facto) members of the EU, be as nimble as we liked.
You seem to be saying that in areas of our competence the UK would not be robust or confident enough to act on our own. That is a worrying indication of your insecurity about our country. Have more faith in the UK, Philip.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We’ll just have to disagree on that.
Malta and Hungary show that an independent vaccine policy was totally available to us.
You've missed the point. Healthcare was never an EU responsibility. Of course we could have had our own vaccine policy in the EU.
But many issues are EU responsibilities. The point here is that having control domestically, rather than control in Brussels, allows better and more accountable decision making.
Do you think there is a magical reason why having domestic control over vaccine decision making allows better and more accountable decision making - but having domestic control over all the other decisions that used to be made in Brussels can't be the same?
This is primary school stuff.
But yes, in order to achieve collective benefits (such as the single market) there is a practical reason to share some powers with other nations.
It’s case by case, although I recognise you don’t “do” nuance.
Actually I do, I have never disputed that. I used to back Remain, I have never claimed leaving the Single Market is cost-free, nor have I claimed there will be no damage to some businesses from Brexit.
But and this is primary school stuff, its about balance. There are two sides to the balance scale not one. I recognise both sides of the balance scale, I recognise both the benefits from Brexit and the cost - you seem determined to see one side of the balance scale alone.
Unless you're prepared to recognise both sides of the balance scale, unless you can do nuance, then you can't judge this properly.
There are costs to Brexit, there are benefits to Brexit, and the responsible thing to do is to balance them against each other. Do you disagree with that?
There are precious few benefits to Brexit that I am aware of.
We have increased our fishing quotas. Perhaps, as someone mentioned upthread, we are more aware of our own puissance.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We were still, effectively, members when we kicked off the VTF.
Yes, but decisions made in the UK were able to be quicker and better and more democratically accountable than decisions made in Brussels.
Do you think that concept magically stops with vaccines and can never apply to any other policy ever again in the future?
We could, as Malta and Hungary did, as fully paid up (or in our case de facto) members of the EU, be as nimble as we liked.
You seem to be saying that in areas of our competence the UK would not be robust or confident enough to act on our own. That is a worrying indication of your insecurity about our country. Have more faith in the UK, Philip.
Your wasting your breath. Philip rarely understands anything he rants on about.
What these charts fairly consistently show is that the UK not only started vaccinating much earlier but continues to vaccinate quicker than the EU as a whole. We are roughly 13% of EU +UK and in this table we have 20% of new vaccines. The result is that our lead over the EU increases as we head to full vaccination and we will be there 2 -2.5 months ahead of the EU.
Which will be worth a few thousand lives in each of the major countries but in the overall scheme of things for the pandemic is not likely to be that material. Italy and Belgium are already well ahead of us in deaths per million and will move more so but it is unlikely that France and Germany will catch up.
Economically, our faster vaccination means that our recovery should be rough a quarter ahead of the EU but we were hit harder than most with more severe lockdowns so a faster recovery was pretty likely anyway.
What this might mean for the government is that the considerable credit that it is getting for fast and effective roll out is likely to fade fairly quickly and may well be gone by the end of this year when the focus will be on the overall performance where the UK is mid table at best, not even that on some measures. It seems probable to me that Tory leads will wane considerably at that point.
I'm going to stick my neck out here and make a clear and unambiguous prediction without caveat.
I think the vaccine rollout has been so good, and so popular, and so demonstrably more competent than elsewhere, that it will be the exception that proves the rule. The electorate will do gratitude, this one time, and the Tories will increase their majority at the next general election (I am reminded of a certain infamous article, yes).
It's certainly given the government another life. Though I don't see any reason why 2021-4 won't be like 2020, with the Conservatives squandering a lead by dropping 2-3% each time they visibly mess something up.
And whilst the government has done well on vaccination, Winston Churchill did well on winning World War II, and look how much gratitude he got from the voters.
The distance to the next election is also a factor. By 2024 (unless called earlier) everywhere in the Western world (hopefully the world) will be well vaccinated and Covid will be something we think back to with a "well that was weird, wasn't it?" attitude while hugging each other in the streets. Unless there's a long term benefit from us being a few month faster with vaccinations, it will be largley forgotten. We've also had one of the worse economic hits, so it's unlikly we'll feel that the UK did exceptionally well in Covid, in the round.
The vaccine performance (which has been great and the government deserves praise) only serves to bring its overall pandemic performance to average-ish. Ending well is a good thing for popularity, but in a few years I think we'll be looking at the bigger picture and worrying more about other issues - the economy. That, relative to many of our comparators, will depend largely on the success of otherwise of Brexit.
Mr. Ace, does any major UK party advocate England leaving the UK?
English nationalism isn’t English separatism. The Tory party isn’t an exclusive English nationalist party, but it has become a very comfortable home for them.
It seems that Johnson's approval ratings have been impacted by the sleaze allegations, however this has not changed the headline voting figures.
Therefore, it seems to me that Labour is not doing enough on the other side for people to switch. They need to get some policies into place and also change up their top team.
A good post. The Government is riding high on a well-oiled vaccination programme, the pubs open, and free money (4th stage SSEI grants are being paid as we speak).
Not so much the wallpaper, but I did think the "bodies piled high" allegation would shift opinion. On that score Cummings' fox is shot...unless he has a recording.
"Pubs open" - a reality check is needed.
Some pubs are open: those with beer gardens. The vast majority will still be making a loss or, at best, breaking even. That is unsustainable.
What they and restaurants and other hospitality businesses need are the end of social distancing inside or the requirement for mandatory table service or the rule of 6 etc and the ability for people to stand at the bar, as normal. Then they can start earning and making profits.
Will these requirements be lifted? It is unclear. But until they are we are not back to normal and these businesses will not be back to normal and will - without support - be unviable.
There is an unfairness in how they are being treated. If it is ok to go to a shop it is absurd that one cannot go inside a cafe. If it is ok to be packed together in the tube then it is a nonsense to stop people standing together chatting in a pub.
I am suspicious - as is Daughter - of what the government's real intentions are and what will actually happen. She and her customers are desperate to get back to normal. Until she sees the actual rules she does not believe in this "we are getting back to normal" shtick. And she is right to be suspicious. The government is not to be trusted. It has too often said one thing and done another.
If mandatory social distancing regulations for pubs etc are abolished on 21/6, a return to normal not a "new normal" then will you and your daughter be happy with that?
I think it should be sooner, but I'm begrudgingly OK so long as it happens by then. No later, no ifs, no buts.
What needs to go is social distancing and mandatory table service. If that happens she will be happy and can do business again. She has already booked a very popular local band to come in September and December.
What she does not want is the sort of restrictions there were before the last lockdown which meant that she had all the costs without the customers. She opened last December but it was largely a waste of time, apart from a few days. If the government imposes similar restrictions again, then the business is pointless and she will just give it up.
I hope this won't happen. But when I hear people like Van Tam saying that it is perfectly safe for people who have been vaccinated to meet each other indoors but they shouldn't "because we say so" I wonder what sort of country we are becoming and whether the government really will give up the micro-managing control it seems to love.
I agree with all that.
I want the same thing as you, all the nannying, all the social distancing, all the regulations need to go. Hopefully they do all go and your daughter can have a bumper summer. 👍
I have no idea why Van Tam receives plaudits. He’s unable to give a single presser with some inane half baked metaphor about cricket or trains rather than talking clearly and articulately about the scientific detail. And his statement this week on “don’t meet up indoors even when vaccinated just because” was scary.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We were still, effectively, members when we kicked off the VTF.
Yes, but decisions made in the UK were able to be quicker and better and more democratically accountable than decisions made in Brussels.
Do you think that concept magically stops with vaccines and can never apply to any other policy ever again in the future?
We could, as Malta and Hungary did, as fully paid up (or in our case de facto) members of the EU, be as nimble as we liked.
You seem to be saying that in areas of our competence the UK would not be robust or confident enough to act on our own. That is a worrying indication of your insecurity about our country. Have more faith in the UK, Philip.
But that’s why Brexit happened. Our politicians could have implemented a whole load of changes to adapt to the challenges of EU membership. They didn’t, so voters took matters into their own hands.
vaccine sentiment isn't a static number though - as we have seen in the Uk some groups have become more positive over a short few months.
France may well do better than expected.
Well here's hoping. Who wants more death? Who wants a neighbour that remains a pool of possible infection and variants? We want all our friends, neighbours and trade partners, indeed the whole world to reduce this terrible illness to the minimum soonest both out of human decency and naked self interest.
The EU are 2 months behind us, possibly slightly more but then their takeup levels will be lower. So if they don't fully open up until the end of the summer and have a daily death rate 5, maybe 10 times higher than the UK I don't think anyone will be looking across the Channel and easily forgetting the UK's success.
Another thought on French vaccine hesitancy. Perhaps people just reflexively give more negative, rebellious answers to pollsters there but then actually behave differently?
It's a long, rich French tradition to rebel against authority and say "non" to things. So a pollster asks you if you're prepared to take a vaccine and you say "non". Just like you say you disapprove of Macron but still vote for him in the presidential runoff. But when the invitation comes you toddle off to the local surgery to get the jab. After all France is also a country in love with medicine.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We were still, effectively, members when we kicked off the VTF.
Yes, but decisions made in the UK were able to be quicker and better and more democratically accountable than decisions made in Brussels.
Do you think that concept magically stops with vaccines and can never apply to any other policy ever again in the future?
We could, as Malta and Hungary did, as fully paid up (or in our case de facto) members of the EU, be as nimble as we liked.
You seem to be saying that in areas of our competence the UK would not be robust or confident enough to act on our own. That is a worrying indication of your insecurity about our country. Have more faith in the UK, Philip.
Not at all you missed the point.
I'm saying that of course the UK could have done vaccines on our own within the EU, healthcare is an area of national competence.
But I'm saying that the proof of concept that national control can lead to better decisions doesn't just apply to vaccines, does it. It can also apply to other issues like trade deals, regulations etc that were not UK competences.
There is no reason the UK's vaccine success can't be replicated across a host of other areas that were Brussels competences.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We were still, effectively, members when we kicked off the VTF.
Yes, but decisions made in the UK were able to be quicker and better and more democratically accountable than decisions made in Brussels.
Do you think that concept magically stops with vaccines and can never apply to any other policy ever again in the future?
We could, as Malta and Hungary did, as fully paid up (or in our case de facto) members of the EU, be as nimble as we liked.
You seem to be saying that in areas of our competence the UK would not be robust or confident enough to act on our own. That is a worrying indication of your insecurity about our country. Have more faith in the UK, Philip.
But that’s why Brexit happened. Our politicians could have implemented a whole load of changes to adapt to the challenges of EU membership. They didn’t, so voters took matters into their own hands.
That’s a good description, which I haven’t heard before. I like it.
The EU are 2 months behind us, possibly slightly more but then their takeup levels will be lower. So if they don't fully open up until the end of the summer and have a daily death rate 5, maybe 10 times higher than the UK I don't think anyone will be looking across the Channel and easily forgetting the UK's success.
Vaccine rates or not....the UK still has an unenviable mortality rate compared to many of our European friends....
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We’ll just have to disagree on that.
Malta and Hungary show that an independent vaccine policy was totally available to us.
You've missed the point. Healthcare was never an EU responsibility. Of course we could have had our own vaccine policy in the EU.
But many issues are EU responsibilities. The point here is that having control domestically, rather than control in Brussels, allows better and more accountable decision making.
Do you think there is a magical reason why having domestic control over vaccine decision making allows better and more accountable decision making - but having domestic control over all the other decisions that used to be made in Brussels can't be the same?
This is primary school stuff.
But yes, in order to achieve collective benefits (such as the single market) there is a practical reason to share some powers with other nations.
It’s case by case, although I recognise you don’t “do” nuance.
Actually I do, I have never disputed that. I used to back Remain, I have never claimed leaving the Single Market is cost-free, nor have I claimed there will be no damage to some businesses from Brexit.
But and this is primary school stuff, its about balance. There are two sides to the balance scale not one. I recognise both sides of the balance scale, I recognise both the benefits from Brexit and the cost - you seem determined to see one side of the balance scale alone.
Unless you're prepared to recognise both sides of the balance scale, unless you can do nuance, then you can't judge this properly.
There are costs to Brexit, there are benefits to Brexit, and the responsible thing to do is to balance them against each other. Do you disagree with that?
There are precious few benefits to Brexit that I am aware of.
We have increased our fishing quotas. Perhaps, as someone mentioned upthread, we are more aware of our own puissance.
Well there we go, you're the one blinded to the balance.
The UK has taken back control over swathes of areas that used to be decided by Brussels. Whole areas now controlled by UK governments answerable to a UK Parliament that we elect and we can kick out if they do a bad job.
Just as the UK was better able to do a good job with vaccines (which I acknowledge were a UK competence so we could have done even within the EU), why do you think that lesson can't apply to all the other areas that used to be Brussels competences and are now UK ones?
Front page headline 'What a boost for Britain ' on vaccine rollout and plummeting infections
And on the inside 'The Jokes on you , Sir Keir' referring to his woeful photo stunt
It was an avoidable error by Starmer and he needs better advisors
Quite right, Starmer's woeful photo stunt at John Lewis demeans his office.
I mean, could anybody imagine our Prime Minister engaging in cheap publicity stunts to try to pretend he's a man of the people? He has far more dignity than that. Perish the thought.
Boris has that priced in. Starmer is supposed to be serious and competent. He's already failed at the latter and now he's failing at the former with that cringey photo.
Starmer does no stunts - You cant be PM with less personality than your opponent! Starmer does stunts - You cant be PM doing stunts like that!
Have Starmer critics thought maybe they just dont like him because he is a lefty, not because of his personality?
No, he's just not very good and it's disappointing because we need a strong opposition to the government more than ever given how our liberties are being curtailed. A good opposition leader would be planning with Tory rebels right now to defeat the government on their likely renewal of the virus measures in September. Instead he'll bitch for about two seconds and then quietly vote in favour leaving 60-80 Tory rebels wondering what they need to do to get the opposition to actually bloody oppose.
Rightly or wrongly from a public health perspective our liberties have been curtailed for the past 13 months.
Not a peep from anyone until the week before last or somesuch.
With ongoing huge popularity as evidenced in the polls why on earth would they decide to change policy now? Keep us if not scared, then anxious and in need of nanny.
Alternatively - after a number of false starts, we have a defined policy program to deal with COVID19. That is working....
And in the meantime unparalleled restrictions on our liberty have been waved through with a smile.
As I said, perhaps this was necessary. But the enthusiasm with which the country, not least here on PB, has embraced the restrictions of freedoms has been imo extraodinary.
Britons will be slaves, it seems.
I’ve been amazed at the collective reflex to defer to authority figures over the last year. I was always under the impression that the British cultural norm was instinctive distrust of authority. I can only assume it’s because they’ve put up on stage a doctor and a “scientist”, for whom the normal rules go out the window.
Nonsense. People think lockdown is the right way to go, so they go with it. Like driving on the left. Am I deferring to authority figures, failing to show enough distrust for authority etc when I stop at red lights, put a seatbelt on and so on? This "look at the sheeple" stuff aims for sophistication and actually sounds like Rik Mayall in the Young Ones.
The EU are 2 months behind us, possibly slightly more but then their takeup levels will be lower. So if they don't fully open up until the end of the summer and have a daily death rate 5, maybe 10 times higher than the UK I don't think anyone will be looking across the Channel and easily forgetting the UK's success.
Vaccine rates or not....the UK still has an unenviable mortality rate compared to many of our European friends....
Far too high of course, but our death rate will probably end up close to the European average and yet our economy and freedoms will be recovered much quicker.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We were still, effectively, members when we kicked off the VTF.
Yes, but decisions made in the UK were able to be quicker and better and more democratically accountable than decisions made in Brussels.
Do you think that concept magically stops with vaccines and can never apply to any other policy ever again in the future?
We could, as Malta and Hungary did, as fully paid up (or in our case de facto) members of the EU, be as nimble as we liked.
You seem to be saying that in areas of our competence the UK would not be robust or confident enough to act on our own. That is a worrying indication of your insecurity about our country. Have more faith in the UK, Philip.
Not at all you missed the point.
I'm saying that of course the UK could have done vaccines on our own within the EU, healthcare is an area of national competence.
But I'm saying that the proof of concept that national control can lead to better decisions doesn't just apply to vaccines, does it. It can also apply to other issues like trade deals, regulations etc that were not UK competences.
There is no reason the UK's vaccine success can't be replicated across a host of other areas that were Brussels competences.
Some areas of public life are better managed at a supranational level, others national and others local. If the EU had not only respected subsidiarity but made it the central pillar of its ethos, it could have been a wonderful institution. As it is, it has a disdain for subsidiarity and cultivates an ethos all about rolling up as much policy and power as possible at a central supranational level, which means the good gets dramatically outweighed by the bad.
I don’t understand why these basic concepts have been so difficult to grasp for so many but here we are.
Front page headline 'What a boost for Britain ' on vaccine rollout and plummeting infections
And on the inside 'The Jokes on you , Sir Keir' referring to his woeful photo stunt
It was an avoidable error by Starmer and he needs better advisors
Quite right, Starmer's woeful photo stunt at John Lewis demeans his office.
I mean, could anybody imagine our Prime Minister engaging in cheap publicity stunts to try to pretend he's a man of the people? He has far more dignity than that. Perish the thought.
Boris has that priced in. Starmer is supposed to be serious and competent. He's already failed at the latter and now he's failing at the former with that cringey photo.
Starmer does no stunts - You cant be PM with less personality than your opponent! Starmer does stunts - You cant be PM doing stunts like that!
Have Starmer critics thought maybe they just dont like him because he is a lefty, not because of his personality?
No, he's just not very good and it's disappointing because we need a strong opposition to the government more than ever given how our liberties are being curtailed. A good opposition leader would be planning with Tory rebels right now to defeat the government on their likely renewal of the virus measures in September. Instead he'll bitch for about two seconds and then quietly vote in favour leaving 60-80 Tory rebels wondering what they need to do to get the opposition to actually bloody oppose.
Rightly or wrongly from a public health perspective our liberties have been curtailed for the past 13 months.
Not a peep from anyone until the week before last or somesuch.
With ongoing huge popularity as evidenced in the polls why on earth would they decide to change policy now? Keep us if not scared, then anxious and in need of nanny.
Alternatively - after a number of false starts, we have a defined policy program to deal with COVID19. That is working....
And in the meantime unparalleled restrictions on our liberty have been waved through with a smile.
As I said, perhaps this was necessary. But the enthusiasm with which the country, not least here on PB, has embraced the restrictions of freedoms has been imo extraodinary.
It's because most believed them to be necessary, having seen some of the horrors elsewhere.
We're already seeing crumbling of the concensus on here and I'm seeing it anecdotally in friends and family. As the threat recedes, acceptance of the restrictions will too. It would be crazy if that was not the case.
Is it surprising that restrictions have been accepted so far? Maybe. It would be astonishing to me if restrictions were accepted after June, unless there are unforeseen events (some new super-variant that renders vaccines largley ineffective and a third wave). I'm part of the shadowy cabal (scientists, epidemiologists in particular) that apparently wants to take away peoples freedoms forever, but extend the restrictions beyond 21 June without good reason and I'll be joining you on the barricades.
It reminds me of the famous "we've established what you are, we're just haggling over price" quote.
Once people have willingly accepted, welcomed even, those restrictions they are likely not going to be put back in the box and one person's "red line" is another's "that sounds perfectly fine".
To use the most obvious example on here, @contrarian had a red line way, way, way over there <== while, say, @SandyRentool and @FrancisUrquhart I believe (apols if not) have a red line over there ==>
Everyone has a red line but that line is on the continuum of a restriction of liberties. OK what about seatbelts you say. And it is a good question. But there has not been copious legislation about the freedom to drive or be in a car. There has been for freedom of assembly, etc.
I am still hoping and expecting a free and wonderful summer.
Does anyone know what happens after we’ve effectively all been vaccinated? Will the government institute an annual “top up” programme?
There was a minister on Today yesterday who spent most of his time discussing wallpaper but managed to slip in that he had bought 60m booster jabs from Pfizer alone. It seems to be simply flexibility at this point, covering the option of a vaccine resistant variant but also addressing the possibility that with some groups the vaccine effect will be shorter lived than with others.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We’ll just have to disagree on that.
Malta and Hungary show that an independent vaccine policy was totally available to us.
You've missed the point. Healthcare was never an EU responsibility. Of course we could have had our own vaccine policy in the EU.
But many issues are EU responsibilities. The point here is that having control domestically, rather than control in Brussels, allows better and more accountable decision making.
Do you think there is a magical reason why having domestic control over vaccine decision making allows better and more accountable decision making - but having domestic control over all the other decisions that used to be made in Brussels can't be the same?
This is primary school stuff.
But yes, in order to achieve collective benefits (such as the single market) there is a practical reason to share some powers with other nations.
It’s case by case, although I recognise you don’t “do” nuance.
Actually I do, I have never disputed that. I used to back Remain, I have never claimed leaving the Single Market is cost-free, nor have I claimed there will be no damage to some businesses from Brexit.
But and this is primary school stuff, its about balance. There are two sides to the balance scale not one. I recognise both sides of the balance scale, I recognise both the benefits from Brexit and the cost - you seem determined to see one side of the balance scale alone.
Unless you're prepared to recognise both sides of the balance scale, unless you can do nuance, then you can't judge this properly.
There are costs to Brexit, there are benefits to Brexit, and the responsible thing to do is to balance them against each other. Do you disagree with that?
There are precious few benefits to Brexit that I am aware of.
We have increased our fishing quotas. Perhaps, as someone mentioned upthread, we are more aware of our own puissance.
Well there we go, you're the one blinded to the balance.
The UK has taken back control over swathes of areas that used to be decided by Brussels. Whole areas now controlled by UK governments answerable to a UK Parliament that we elect and we can kick out if they do a bad job.
Just as the UK was better able to do a good job with vaccines (which I acknowledge were a UK competence so we could have done even within the EU), why do you think that lesson can't apply to all the other areas that used to be Brussels competences and are now UK ones?
But i didn’t say that. I said it was “case by case”.
You take several paragraphs to mischaracterise my argument, it’s very dull.
PRAGUE — The Czech drugs regulator doesn't have enough data to adequately assess Russia's Sputnik V vaccine for clinical trials, its chief said Thursday.
“We received so little material that we could not say if we would recommend its use or not,” said Irena Storová, the head of the State Institute for Drug Control, in an interview with Radiožurnál. “It was only a fraction of the documentation that is submitted by default for the registration or assessment of a drug or medicine.”
What these charts fairly consistently show is that the UK not only started vaccinating much earlier but continues to vaccinate quicker than the EU as a whole. We are roughly 13% of EU +UK and in this table we have 20% of new vaccines. The result is that our lead over the EU increases as we head to full vaccination and we will be there 2 -2.5 months ahead of the EU.
Which will be worth a few thousand lives in each of the major countries but in the overall scheme of things for the pandemic is not likely to be that material. Italy and Belgium are already well ahead of us in deaths per million and will move more so but it is unlikely that France and Germany will catch up.
Economically, our faster vaccination means that our recovery should be rough a quarter ahead of the EU but we were hit harder than most with more severe lockdowns so a faster recovery was pretty likely anyway.
What this might mean for the government is that the considerable credit that it is getting for fast and effective roll out is likely to fade fairly quickly and may well be gone by the end of this year when the focus will be on the overall performance where the UK is mid table at best, not even that on some measures. It seems probable to me that Tory leads will wane considerably at that point.
I'm going to stick my neck out here and make a clear and unambiguous prediction without caveat.
I think the vaccine rollout has been so good, and so popular, and so demonstrably more competent than elsewhere, that it will be the exception that proves the rule. The electorate will do gratitude, this one time, and the Tories will increase their majority at the next general election (I am reminded of a certain infamous article, yes).
Striking and plausible. Hats off. I'm not ruling that sort of scenario out but I will let a year pass before making the official 'newpunditry-newpolitics' long range call for the next GE.
I price it as follows atm -
Tory majority 50% Hung parliament 40% Labour majority 10%
Labour majority closer to zero (Scotland) hung parliament higher, Tory majority (any majority 2 and over) a little lower.
Maybe Boris beating Covid dovetails with Mrs T. beating General Galtieri, although I don't think so.
It's the economy, and should that (and I expect it to) change, then the Johnson teflon coating will be shed, and the stunts and the scandals will no longer be charming.
France and the EU not doing too badly.....that'll have Max and Leon crying into their cornflakes
There is a curious strand that thinks people in the UK will be upset that the EU vaccination programme has improved. I see no evidence for that.
Yes, their programme having been slower than ours has been sharply focused upon, it emphasises our good roll out and the European Commission, Macron and the German government leaking were early on quite blatantly trying to turn their dispute with AZ into a dispute with the UK and that rankled.
But the EU having sped up is great news for everyone. Of course once they got supplies and resolved bureaucratic issues they could go very fast indeed, and that's fantastic.
It doesnt mean their vaccine programme failings which will extend the pandemic for them by several months do not exist, just as our earlier vaccine rollout does not mean our own big pandemic failings do not exist.
As has been made clear theoretically any EU nation could have sought supplies outside or not through the shared programme. Whatever positives in supposed fairness exists that has had a negative result of delay and they need to learn lessons, all places have their own lessons to learn.
That doesnt mean people want the situation to be bad.
I think real anger is justified by:
1 - The transparent diversion tactics. 2 - The trashing of a vaccine, creating hesitation in the wider world outside Europe. That will cause people to die.
The EU have revealed themselves to be absolute arseholes on this matter.
But there is still a decent chunk of people looking to use EU failure to justify Brexit (in the absence of sunny uplands). They will be disappointed to see Europe “open up” a month or so after us.
Not in the slightest. Nobody wants to see the EU's population die unnecessarily and it's in the UKs interests to see the virus eliminated there. Plus people will want it to be safe to have holidays etc
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
We’ll just have to disagree on that.
Malta and Hungary show that an independent vaccine policy was totally available to us.
You've missed the point. Healthcare was never an EU responsibility. Of course we could have had our own vaccine policy in the EU.
But many issues are EU responsibilities. The point here is that having control domestically, rather than control in Brussels, allows better and more accountable decision making.
Do you think there is a magical reason why having domestic control over vaccine decision making allows better and more accountable decision making - but having domestic control over all the other decisions that used to be made in Brussels can't be the same?
This is primary school stuff.
But yes, in order to achieve collective benefits (such as the single market) there is a practical reason to share some powers with other nations.
It’s case by case, although I recognise you don’t “do” nuance.
Actually I do, I have never disputed that. I used to back Remain, I have never claimed leaving the Single Market is cost-free, nor have I claimed there will be no damage to some businesses from Brexit.
But and this is primary school stuff, its about balance. There are two sides to the balance scale not one. I recognise both sides of the balance scale, I recognise both the benefits from Brexit and the cost - you seem determined to see one side of the balance scale alone.
Unless you're prepared to recognise both sides of the balance scale, unless you can do nuance, then you can't judge this properly.
There are costs to Brexit, there are benefits to Brexit, and the responsible thing to do is to balance them against each other. Do you disagree with that?
There are precious few benefits to Brexit that I am aware of.
We have increased our fishing quotas. Perhaps, as someone mentioned upthread, we are more aware of our own puissance.
Well there we go, you're the one blinded to the balance.
The UK has taken back control over swathes of areas that used to be decided by Brussels. Whole areas now controlled by UK governments answerable to a UK Parliament that we elect and we can kick out if they do a bad job.
Just as the UK was better able to do a good job with vaccines (which I acknowledge were a UK competence so we could have done even within the EU), why do you think that lesson can't apply to all the other areas that used to be Brussels competences and are now UK ones?
But i didn’t say that. I said it was “case by case”.
You take several paragraphs to mischaracterise my argument, it’s very dull.
What you said that I was replying to was this:
There are precious few benefits to Brexit that I am aware of.
We have increased our fishing quotas. Perhaps, as someone mentioned upthread, we are more aware of our own puissance.
So do you accept taking back control of our laws as a benefit of Brexit, when it comes to looking at the balance of pros and cons?
Operator of the UK’s biggest fishing vessel, currently in dock in Hull, suggests it may have done its last catch, and that all cod will have to be imported now, after failure to secure deals (apart from Svalbard) in waters fished routinely last year https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1387835064554336263
Comments
And, as it represents 84% of the population of the U.K., it simply uses U.K. governmental machinery to execute its own domestic policy.
Indeed, since Scotland has effectively opted out of its share of U.K. governance (by voting for the SNP), and Northern Ireland is focused entirely on its own sectarian balance, England is able to control its own affairs to an even greater degree than its 84% share of population might suggest.
Some pubs are open: those with beer gardens. The vast majority will still be making a loss or, at best, breaking even. That is unsustainable.
What they and restaurants and other hospitality businesses need are the end of social distancing inside or the requirement for mandatory table service or the rule of 6 etc and the ability for people to stand at the bar, as normal. Then they can start earning and making profits.
Will these requirements be lifted? It is unclear. But until they are we are not back to normal and these businesses will not be back to normal and will - without support - be unviable.
There is an unfairness in how they are being treated. If it is ok to go to a shop it is absurd that one cannot go inside a cafe. If it is ok to be packed together in the tube then it is a nonsense to stop people standing together chatting in a pub.
I am suspicious - as is Daughter - of what the government's real intentions are and what will actually happen. She and her customers are desperate to get back to normal. Until she sees the actual rules she does not believe in this "we are getting back to normal" shtick. And she is right to be suspicious. The government is not to be trusted. It has too often said one thing and done another.
The rest of the EU have vaccination rates less than half the UK's.
And as for "two dose" rates, apart from those two only Denmark has a rate roughly half the UK's, everyone else less than half.
This means that as Covid will continue to be a story in the years ahead, with occasional flare-ups and outbreaks, it will to a great extent be a foreign news story. The success of our domestic vaccination programme will be driven home over and over again.
But the vaccine difference does justify Brexit. It is proof of concept that shows that taking back control allows the UK to act in a way that suits the UK. It shows that we can hold our decision makers to account now.
https://twitter.com/DarrenGBNews/status/1387711260419047426?s=19
The Euro daily vaccination rate has roughly doubled in April, and is set to do so again by late June.
The gap between Victory over Covid days might be smaller than some people think.
As for the post-Covid boom, will it feel that way? The 10% hit hasn't really been felt by most people, so the bounce back might also be more in the stats than people's pockets. In 1997, the Conservatives were able to accurately say "Britain is Booming", but it didn't feel that way to a lot of people, so they didn't get the credit.
The UK government does not automatically mean England either, eg in 1950, 1964 and February 1974 England voted Tory but got a Labour government thanks to Scottish and Welsh MPs, even in 2010 and 2017 England voted Tory but got a hung parliament UK wide.
England only controls its own affairs as there is currently a UK Tory majority to match the English Tory majority, if Starmer wins in 2024 across the UK but not in England that no longer applies, indeed Starmer may well use Scottish and Welsh MPs to ignore EVEL and ensure he gets his way on English domestic policy too
Malta and Hungary show that an independent vaccine policy was totally available to us.
I agree that if Starmer was riveting and Labour was bursting with innovative policies, people might have a look, but in general they don't feel any need to switch. The only point I'd make to Tories here is that it's generating a sense of complacency which encourages indifference to sleaze allegations and continuing restrictions post-lockdown. In the long run when economic problems appear, as they will, squandering public respect may prove to have been an error.
I think it should be sooner, but I'm begrudgingly OK so long as it happens by then. No later, no ifs, no buts.
Barnet maintains higher levels of owner occupation, and combined with Labour's alienation of Jewish voters, that meant the borough went in a different political direction.
Local elections anecdotes: if people I know are bothered to vote at all then I am getting the sense they're so confident nothing much rests on their vote that they may well opt for some more or less exotic choices for mayor and assembly (including surprising numbers for count Binface, and perhaps less surprising for the Greens). It feels like these locals in England will very much follow the pattern of saving the Tory and Labour votes for the generals and trying out other parties at other times.
Does anyone know what happens after we’ve effectively all been vaccinated? Will the government institute an annual “top up” programme?
But many issues are EU responsibilities. The point here is that having control domestically, rather than control in Brussels, allows better and more accountable decision making.
Do you think there is a magical reason why having domestic control over vaccine decision making allows better and more accountable decision making - but having domestic control over all the other decisions that used to be made in Brussels can't be the same?
Do you deny that the UK signing contracts with vaccine suppliers from March last year was nimble.
Do you deny that the EU taking on responsibility for contracts, then dragging out talks until the autumn causing the delays in their rollout was sclerotic?
Nimble/sclerotic has been proven 100% beyond a shadow of a doubt already hasn't it? I thought there was no more a reason to mention it today than to mention that the sun came up in the East.
I am not a regular pubgoer, but anecdotal evidence suggests opening the beer gardens signals Johnson has won the war. I was in Stratford upon Avon last week for work. The green next to the river by the Shakespeare Theatre was packed but no problem to get a table for a drink or a meal, in the town and it was a nice evening.
Do you think that concept magically stops with vaccines and can never apply to any other policy ever again in the future?
We joke, but we do trust government and the authorities.
Yes, a speedboat is nippy and responsive. An oil tanker or a container ship takes a while to get going. But once it does, it can really go places and achieve a lot more.
What she does not want is the sort of restrictions there were before the last lockdown which meant that she had all the costs without the customers. She opened last December but it was largely a waste of time, apart from a few days. If the government imposes similar restrictions again, then the business is pointless and she will just give it up.
I hope this won't happen. But when I hear people like Van Tam saying that it is perfectly safe for people who have been vaccinated to meet each other indoors but they shouldn't "because we say so" I wonder what sort of country we are becoming and whether the government really will give up the micro-managing control it seems to love.
But yes, in order to achieve collective benefits (such as the single market) there is a practical reason to share some powers with other nations.
It’s case by case, although I recognise you don’t “do” nuance.
I will not be wearing a mask anywhere after 21 June and legally I cannot be compelled to. It’s vital we break away from these rules to stop them becoming normalised.
But it’s kind of an interesting argument, isn’t it?
“Let’s leave the EU so that we can open our eyes to doing things we could have done anyway inside the EU”.
I expect the same from May. A QR code by the door - if people want to scan it they will, if they don't they won't.
If clubs have a month of passports and then its lifted for good then I suppose we can live with that for a month, but I'd still rather not see it. If people are unvaccinated and go in then they're at biggest risk to themselves to be frank. So long as social distancing is removed from pubs and restaurants no later than 21/6.
We're already seeing crumbling of the concensus on here and I'm seeing it anecdotally in friends and family. As the threat recedes, acceptance of the restrictions will too. It would be crazy if that was not the case.
Is it surprising that restrictions have been accepted so far? Maybe. It would be astonishing to me if restrictions were accepted after June, unless there are unforeseen events (some new super-variant that renders vaccines largley ineffective and a third wave). I'm part of the shadowy cabal (scientists, epidemiologists in particular) that apparently wants to take away peoples freedoms forever, but extend the restrictions beyond 21 June without good reason and I'll be joining you on the barricades.
And whilst the government has done well on vaccination, Winston Churchill did well on winning World War II, and look how much gratitude he got from the voters.
But and this is primary school stuff, its about balance. There are two sides to the balance scale not one. I recognise both sides of the balance scale, I recognise both the benefits from Brexit and the cost - you seem determined to see one side of the balance scale alone.
Unless you're prepared to recognise both sides of the balance scale, unless you can do nuance, then you can't judge this properly.
There are costs to Brexit, there are benefits to Brexit, and the responsible thing to do is to balance them against each other. Do you disagree with that?
No idea if it'll be compulsory going forward - so long as there's no social distancing requirements in particularly nightclubs.
I know that almost everyone in authority positions in all areas of life, are making it up as they go. I now understand that most haven’t realised that yet.
According to our resident expert in the literature of disease.
It's a long, rich French tradition to rebel against authority and say "non" to things. So a pollster asks you if you're prepared to take a vaccine and you say "non". Just like you say you disapprove of Macron but still vote for him in the presidential runoff. But when the invitation comes you toddle off to the local surgery to get the jab. After all France is also a country in love with medicine.
I want the same thing as you, all the nannying, all the social distancing, all the regulations need to go. Hopefully they do all go and your daughter can have a bumper summer. 👍
That’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
I would look first to the Victorians, and then perhaps the post-war consensus.
As for “blagging”, it is the quintessential English quality.
You seem to be saying that in areas of our competence the UK would not be robust or confident enough to act on our own. That is a worrying indication of your insecurity about our country. Have more faith in the UK, Philip.
France may well do better than expected.
We have increased our fishing quotas.
Perhaps, as someone mentioned upthread, we are more aware of our own puissance.
The vaccine performance (which has been great and the government deserves praise) only serves to bring its overall pandemic performance to average-ish. Ending well is a good thing for popularity, but in a few years I think we'll be looking at the bigger picture and worrying more about other issues - the economy. That, relative to many of our comparators, will depend largely on the success of otherwise of Brexit.
The Tory party isn’t an exclusive English nationalist party, but it has become a very comfortable home for them.
Westminster voting intention:
CON: 39% (-)
LAB: 35% (-2)
via
@BMGResearch, 22 - 26 Apr Chgs. w/ 19 Mar
No other figures available. Tables not yet published.
A lot closer than many others.
I'm saying that of course the UK could have done vaccines on our own within the EU, healthcare is an area of national competence.
But I'm saying that the proof of concept that national control can lead to better decisions doesn't just apply to vaccines, does it. It can also apply to other issues like trade deals, regulations etc that were not UK competences.
There is no reason the UK's vaccine success can't be replicated across a host of other areas that were Brussels competences.
https://twitter.com/EmmanuelMacron/status/1388046551419953155?s=20
https://covidtracker.fr/vaccintracker/
The UK has taken back control over swathes of areas that used to be decided by Brussels. Whole areas now controlled by UK governments answerable to a UK Parliament that we elect and we can kick out if they do a bad job.
Just as the UK was better able to do a good job with vaccines (which I acknowledge were a UK competence so we could have done even within the EU), why do you think that lesson can't apply to all the other areas that used to be Brussels competences and are now UK ones?
I don’t understand why these basic concepts have been so difficult to grasp for so many but here we are.
Once people have willingly accepted, welcomed even, those restrictions they are likely not going to be put back in the box and one person's "red line" is another's "that sounds perfectly fine".
To use the most obvious example on here, @contrarian had a red line way, way, way over there <== while, say, @SandyRentool and @FrancisUrquhart I believe (apols if not) have a red line over there ==>
Everyone has a red line but that line is on the continuum of a restriction of liberties. OK what about seatbelts you say. And it is a good question. But there has not been copious legislation about the freedom to drive or be in a car. There has been for freedom of assembly, etc.
I said it was “case by case”.
You take several paragraphs to mischaracterise my argument, it’s very dull.
“We received so little material that we could not say if we would recommend its use or not,” said Irena Storová, the head of the State Institute for Drug Control, in an interview with Radiožurnál. “It was only a fraction of the documentation that is submitted by default for the registration or assessment of a drug or medicine.”
https://www.politico.eu/article/czech-regulator-we-need-more-data-to-assess-sputnik-vaccine/
Maybe Boris beating Covid dovetails with Mrs T. beating General Galtieri, although I don't think so.
It's the economy, and should that (and I expect it to) change, then the Johnson teflon coating will be shed, and the stunts and the scandals will no longer be charming.
There are precious few benefits to Brexit that I am aware of.
We have increased our fishing quotas.
Perhaps, as someone mentioned upthread, we are more aware of our own puissance.
So do you accept taking back control of our laws as a benefit of Brexit, when it comes to looking at the balance of pros and cons?
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1387835064554336263
https://twitter.com/ukfisheriesltd/status/1386615819506003969?s=21