We are currently 26th on that list of excess deaths per 100k but we are falling fairly quickly given that our deaths have for statistical purposes pretty much stopped.
One of the odd things about a pandemic is that it might be better to get hit hard early on, as that will result in greater compliance during future waves on infection. Countries that got off lighltly last year are now being hammered, and their populations are already bored of lockdowns and so less inclined to comply with restrictions.
By the time this pandemic is all over I think the UK will be seen to have faired relatively well.
The one thing the Sweden egghead got right, all those breathless daily comparisons in the first few weeks, he said wait 2 years then see...
Interesting fact is that Sweden is doing better than most European countries on Covid-19. It's only if you compare them to the other 4 Nordic countries that they're doing badly.
That comes back to my "given" concept I set out below. A country with the population density and homogeneity of Sweden should do well, almost regardless of its policies. Like our policies these may affect the rate of infection and death but not the ultimate outcome (without vaccines).
Sweden doing well depends on which metric you use. On the most obvious of deaths as a proportion of population yes they do well compared to the UK. Although even there not that great as they are in 33rd place with 1,418 deaths per million people compared to the UK with 1,873 deaths per million.
But on the metric of covid cases per head of population they are actually doing terribly. They are in 11th place with 105,000 cases per million people. For comparison the UK is in 50h place with 65,000 cases per million people.
So we perhaps need to look at what Sweden do right in terms of treating those who catch Covid but also look at what they did wrong in terms of allowing so many people to catch it in the first place.
Compared to the rest of Scandinavia you are right they did terribly.
I probably would not be classing Sweden as a country that 'did well'.
I think - and I may be wrong - that Sweden did well at not letting people die of covid by letting the right people catch it. Sweden didn't do much better than us at not letting the super-old catch it; we did much better at stopping the under 30s catching it, but almost all of the under 30s will recover on their own.
BREAKING: Switzerland cancels ratification of framework agreement with EU. "Based on the results of negotiations in recent months, the [Swiss] Federal Council has determined that the talks with the EU ... haven't led to the necessary solutions," said Swiss President Guy Parmelin.
Mr. Leon, Sturgeon being an idiot is no reason to destroy a nation.
Devolution is a disaster. Especially the botched, stupid, asymmetric devolution given us by Labour. Boris is right
Anecdote: at my last large family gathering I was struck by the family members who were seriously anti-union and anti-Scottish. They used to be apathetic, now they are averse. Let Scotland go. Cut them away. This is a growing feeling in England. It will be England that ends the Union, if it ends
My family is not alone
‘MICHAEL Gove has been warned by a Tory MP that the Union could end through "benign neglect" as voters in England give up on it just as they did with the EU.
The Cabinet Office minister was told by Jackie Doyle-Price that her constituents in Thurrock in Essex now griped about Scotland they way they used to about Brussels.
She said for many people in England the Union was not a “living entity”and urged UK ministers to do more to help people understand and appreciate it.’
The main problem is it is no longer a Union as such but a Federal UK excluding England.
Give England its own Parliament or at least English regional assemblies and the problem would be resolved
no it wouldn't - a UK government would only be allowed to work if the constituent nations accepted the federal government and allowed the federal government to control the overall economic direction of the nation, its defence etc- the English government let alone others would have no incentive to do this - a federal UK could only work if you broke England into pieces so no part was too powerful, and why should England want that?
The UK government already does control the overall economic direction and defence of the whole UK. Just England is the only country in the UK which does not have its own Parliament to run the rest of its domestic policy.
There is no reason an English Parliament would not work other than leftwingers don't want it as it would normally have a Tory majority, otherwise we should at least have regional assemblies which would still be better than the current situation where England has no government of its own at national or regional level outside of the UK (except in the London region with the Mayor and Assembly)
this is nuts - if there were an English government it would be like the SNP on steroids - questioning every single action of the UK govt and attempting to delegitimise it, be allowed to 'approve' its decisions etc - the UK is not suited to be a federation as England dominates - everybody who has thought about this for more than 10 minutes understands this.
I remmeber a particularly interesting and illuminating discussion on PB about 2012-13 which came to an almost unanimous conclusion (quite unusual for that time and general topic of indyref) that true federalism was a non-runner in the UK because of precisely what you say, plus the political unacceptability of breaking up England a la Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy.
This is one reason why Gordon Brown's repeated Interventions with promises of more federalism have not, er, had much effect.
England doesn't need to be broken up within a Federal system, and the more it is broken up within that system, the more it dominates, as the 'more Englands' there are, the more they can out-vote the other home nations. Indeed, if England is broken up in a way that is commensurate with its population size, it totally swamps the other home nations, and defeats the entire object of federalisation. It becomes Westminster MPs mark 2.
I've made this argument to you a few times, and you've never made a counter-argument, so I'm surprised that you persist in the nonsense that England would need to be broken up to make a federal system work.
Hmm, that actually assumes a homogeneous England. If it is, then you are quite right. But if not, not.
Surely China is doing best. But is it the lockdown or their vaccines?
During the Tiananmen Square massacres, it was reported by the British Ambassador to China Alan Donald, that:
“STUDENTS LINKED ARMS BUT WERE MOWN DOWN INCLUDING SOLDIERS. APCS THEN RAN OVER BODIES TIME AND TIME AGAIN TO MAKE QUOTE PIE UNQUOTE AND REMAINS COLLECTED BY BULLDOZER. REMAINS INCINERATED AND THEN HOSED DOWN DRAINS.”
It would be ethically and administratively trivial for the Chinese Communist Party to have drastically under reported covid deaths all around the country. Which I am certain that they did, going all the way back to 2019. At least.
What it boils down to is that Australia and New Zealand got it right initially — (not so much now, with vaccines) — because they weren't afraid of being called racist for closing their borders.
Must admit that piccaninnies, watermelon smiles and letterboxes BJ not closing the borders cos he was scared that Wokies would call him a racist was not the hot take I was expecting today.
Why else didn't he close the borders? And why didn't he immediately stop flights from India.
That’s a question only he can answer, certainly not a load of randoms trying to crowbar the culture war into a government fuckup. I’d imagine New Improved Global Britain trade deals figured with regard to India.
I would wet my pants laughing to see BJ say he didn’t close the borders because he was running scared of Woke.
BREAKING: Switzerland cancels ratification of framework agreement with EU. "Based on the results of negotiations in recent months, the [Swiss] Federal Council has determined that the talks with the EU ... haven't led to the necessary solutions," said Swiss President Guy Parmelin.
Not really, our deal has better flexibility that EFTA membership and we have completely escaped ECJ jurisdiction which EFTA membership would still have, though to a lesser degree than EEA membership.
Hang on: if we were just party to the EFTA part (i.e. trade with Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein), then we'd be bound to follow the decisions of the EFTA Court, but the ECJ wouldn't have a say would it? It'd only be if we wanted to be a part of EFTA/EEA that would be an issue. And given we (like Switzerland) have our own separate side deal with the EU, that probably wouldn't be an issue.
Mr. Leon, Sturgeon being an idiot is no reason to destroy a nation.
Devolution is a disaster. Especially the botched, stupid, asymmetric devolution given us by Labour. Boris is right
Anecdote: at my last large family gathering I was struck by the family members who were seriously anti-union and anti-Scottish. They used to be apathetic, now they are averse. Let Scotland go. Cut them away. This is a growing feeling in England. It will be England that ends the Union, if it ends
My family is not alone
‘MICHAEL Gove has been warned by a Tory MP that the Union could end through "benign neglect" as voters in England give up on it just as they did with the EU.
The Cabinet Office minister was told by Jackie Doyle-Price that her constituents in Thurrock in Essex now griped about Scotland they way they used to about Brussels.
She said for many people in England the Union was not a “living entity”and urged UK ministers to do more to help people understand and appreciate it.’
The main problem is it is no longer a Union as such but a Federal UK excluding England.
Give England its own Parliament or at least English regional assemblies and the problem would be resolved
no it wouldn't - a UK government would only be allowed to work if the constituent nations accepted the federal government and allowed the federal government to control the overall economic direction of the nation, its defence etc- the English government let alone others would have no incentive to do this - a federal UK could only work if you broke England into pieces so no part was too powerful, and why should England want that?
The UK government already does control the overall economic direction and defence of the whole UK. Just England is the only country in the UK which does not have its own Parliament to run the rest of its domestic policy.
There is no reason an English Parliament would not work other than leftwingers don't want it as it would normally have a Tory majority, otherwise we should at least have regional assemblies which would still be better than the current situation where England has no government of its own at national or regional level outside of the UK (except in the London region with the Mayor and Assembly)
this is nuts - if there were an English government it would be like the SNP on steroids - questioning every single action of the UK govt and attempting to delegitimise it, be allowed to 'approve' its decisions etc - the UK is not suited to be a federation as England dominates - everybody who has thought about this for more than 10 minutes understands this.
I remmeber a particularly interesting and illuminating discussion on PB about 2012-13 which came to an almost unanimous conclusion (quite unusual for that time and general topic of indyref) that true federalism was a non-runner in the UK because of precisely what you say, plus the political unacceptability of breaking up England a la Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy.
This is one reason why Gordon Brown's repeated Interventions with promises of more federalism have not, er, had much effect.
England doesn't need to be broken up within a Federal system, and the more it is broken up within that system, the more it dominates, as the 'more Englands' there are, the more they can out-vote the other home nations. Indeed, if England is broken up in a way that is commensurate with its population size, it totally swamps the other home nations, and defeats the entire object of federalisation. It becomes Westminster MPs mark 2.
I've made this argument to you a few times, and you've never made a counter-argument, so I'm surprised that you persist in the nonsense that England would need to be broken up to make a federal system work.
Hmm, that actually assumes a homogeneous England. If it is, then you are quite right. But if not, not.
You do realise you're undermining the SNP's whole argument on the hopelessness of Scotland's position wrt Westminster by saying that? English MP's aren't 'homogenous' either. Yet it's portrayed as Scotland being overruled by England.
We’ve all wondered why they didn’t close the borders. Now we know. It was The Woke. Closing borders is ‘racist’
This is pretty explosive stuff now
That was always the most obvious thing about the whole saga.
The interesting thing is that hardly anyone accuses New Zealand and Australia of being racist when they closed their borders.
It is the single biggest government failure. Perhaps in modern British history. Keeping the borders open surely killed tens of thousands and took 5% off GDP
We need to know exactly how much ‘fear of racism’ contributed to this and then the whole culture that perpetuates this toxic drivel needs to be extirpated
As I asked on a previous thread, What exactly do you mean by "closing the borders"? We are a major travel hub - do you mean that UK citizens abroad shouldn't have been allowed to return home, people with close family abroad not allowed to visit (either way) even in end of life scenarios, business travel reasons cancelled, journalists and news organisations not allowed to travel, HGV drivers not able to ply their trade?
This is not easy, practically, economically and on principle.
The government has massively cut international travel throughout all of this. And when you look at the traffic light rules now they are pretty draconian aren't they? Even visiting a green list country means a PCR test before leaving the UK plus a test within 72 hours of return to the UK plus a further PCR test two days after return - plus compulsory mask-wearing on route. Amber means all that plus a 4th PCR test 8 days after return plus quarantine. Red means all that plus quarantine in a government prescribed hotel (at traveller's expense).
I mean exactly that. Just close the fucking borders. To everyone, bar absolutely essential trade (and make HGV drivers stay in a bubble).
Australia did it, and it works. East Asia did it, and they are major travel hubs. Yes it is hurtful and painful; dying is worse
"There are numerous examples. I mean in the summer he said that everybody who needed treatment got the treatment that they required.
He knew that that was a lie because he had been briefed by the chief scientific adviser and the chief medical officer himself about the first peak, and we were told explicitly people did not get the treatment they deserved, many people were left to die in horrific circumstances."
I mean, with respect, the NHS doesn't give patients the treatment they deserve in before or indeed surely after COVID. Hancock's statement was, and is, meaningless and I'm surprised it's Dom's choice of target.
Yes, he's gone after at vague piece of pablum. Odd choice.
We’ve all wondered why they didn’t close the borders. Now we know. It was The Woke. Closing borders is ‘racist’
This is pretty explosive stuff now
That was always the most obvious thing about the whole saga.
The interesting thing is that hardly anyone accuses New Zealand and Australia of being racist when they closed their borders.
It is the single biggest government failure. Perhaps in modern British history. Keeping the borders open surely killed tens of thousands and took 5% off GDP
We need to know exactly how much ‘fear of racism’ contributed to this and then the whole culture that perpetuates this toxic drivel needs to be extirpated
As I asked on a previous thread, What exactly do you mean by "closing the borders"? We are a major travel hub - do you mean that UK citizens abroad shouldn't have been allowed to return home, people with close family abroad not allowed to visit (either way) even in end of life scenarios, business travel reasons cancelled, journalists and news organisations not allowed to travel, HGV drivers not able to ply their trade?
This is not easy, practically, economically and on principle.
The government has massively cut international travel throughout all of this. And when you look at the traffic light rules now they are pretty draconian aren't they? Even visiting a green list country means a PCR test before leaving the UK plus a test within 72 hours of return to the UK plus a further PCR test two days after return - plus compulsory mask-wearing on route. Amber means all that plus a 4th PCR test 8 days after return plus quarantine. Red means all that plus quarantine in a government prescribed hotel (at traveller's expense).
I mean exactly that. Just close the fucking borders. To everyone, bar absolutely essential trade (and make HGV d4ivers stay in a bubble).
Australia did it, and it works. East Asia did it, and they are major travel hubs. Yes it is hurtful and painful; dying is worse
That was part of the solution. The other thing that was damaging was the “stay home protect the nhs save lives”. Upon a positive test you should not have stayed home. You should have been offered all expenses paid for two weeks in a hotel on full pay, rather than infecting the rest of your household.
Must admit that piccaninnies, watermelon smiles and letterboxes BJ not closing the borders cos he was scared that Wokies would call him a racist was not the hot take I was expecting today.
Why else didn't he close the borders? And why didn't he immediately stop flights from India.
What do you mean "immediately"? Flights from India have never been stopped. India is on the Red List. Travellers from India can only come if they don't have Covid (evidenced by negative Covid test) plus they have to undergo further testing when the are in the UK plus they have to quarantine in a government-approved location at their own expense. What are you worried about?
As we know, hundreds of thousands of people in India have Covid. It isn't going away. Sounds like you want to completely ban them from coming here. How long for? As I say, Covid isn't going anywhere. Think of all the family in the UK who have close relatives in India, how long do you want to deprive them of seeing loved ones?
Also, flights from India should have been stopped as soon as the Indian variant was identified. They were deliberately allowed to continue for about 5 days, presumably in order not to upset people who wanted to get back to the UK. And that's why a lot of people ended up in hospital in Bolton with the Indian variant.
Bollocks to that. They ended up in hospital because the silly buggers turned down the vaccine.
We’ve all wondered why they didn’t close the borders. Now we know. It was The Woke. Closing borders is ‘racist’
This is pretty explosive stuff now
That was always the most obvious thing about the whole saga.
The interesting thing is that hardly anyone accuses New Zealand and Australia of being racist when they closed their borders.
It is the single biggest government failure. Perhaps in modern British history. Keeping the borders open surely killed tens of thousands and took 5% off GDP
We need to know exactly how much ‘fear of racism’ contributed to this and then the whole culture that perpetuates this toxic drivel needs to be extirpated
As I asked on a previous thread, What exactly do you mean by "closing the borders"? We are a major travel hub - do you mean that UK citizens abroad shouldn't have been allowed to return home, people with close family abroad not allowed to visit (either way) even in end of life scenarios, business travel reasons cancelled, journalists and news organisations not allowed to travel, HGV drivers not able to ply their trade?
This is not easy, practically, economically and on principle.
The government has massively cut international travel throughout all of this. And when you look at the traffic light rules now they are pretty draconian aren't they? Even visiting a green list country means a PCR test before leaving the UK plus a test within 72 hours of return to the UK plus a further PCR test two days after return - plus compulsory mask-wearing on route. Amber means all that plus a 4th PCR test 8 days after return plus quarantine. Red means all that plus quarantine in a government prescribed hotel (at traveller's expense).
I mean exactly that. Just close the fucking borders. To everyone, bar absolutely essential trade (and make HGV d4ivers stay in a bubble).
Australia did it, and it works. East Asia did it, and they are major travel hubs. Yes it is hurtful and painful; dying is worse
The thing is though Leon, those places are now stuck in a zero covid mindset. The lack of any significant outbreak is proving poisonous to their societies. And people never “got the fear”, they’re running into a wall of vaccine hesitancy. So the borders are just staying locked. It’s rather sad.
Cummings must have been fun to be with in the 1990s and noughties. (Not being sarcastic). When he was attempting to start up his Russian airline for instance.
We’ve all wondered why they didn’t close the borders. Now we know. It was The Woke. Closing borders is ‘racist’
This is pretty explosive stuff now
That was always the most obvious thing about the whole saga.
The interesting thing is that hardly anyone accuses New Zealand and Australia of being racist when they closed their borders.
It is the single biggest government failure. Perhaps in modern British history. Keeping the borders open surely killed tens of thousands and took 5% off GDP
We need to know exactly how much ‘fear of racism’ contributed to this and then the whole culture that perpetuates this toxic drivel needs to be extirpated
As I asked on a previous thread, What exactly do you mean by "closing the borders"? We are a major travel hub - do you mean that UK citizens abroad shouldn't have been allowed to return home, people with close family abroad not allowed to visit (either way) even in end of life scenarios, business travel reasons cancelled, journalists and news organisations not allowed to travel, HGV drivers not able to ply their trade?
This is not easy, practically, economically and on principle.
The government has massively cut international travel throughout all of this. And when you look at the traffic light rules now they are pretty draconian aren't they? Even visiting a green list country means a PCR test before leaving the UK plus a test within 72 hours of return to the UK plus a further PCR test two days after return - plus compulsory mask-wearing on route. Amber means all that plus a 4th PCR test 8 days after return plus quarantine. Red means all that plus quarantine in a government prescribed hotel (at traveller's expense).
I mean exactly that. Just close the fucking borders. To everyone, bar absolutely essential trade (and make HGV drivers stay in a bubble).
Australia did it, and it works. East Asia did it, and they are major travel hubs. Yes it is hurtful and painful; dying is worse
I'm sorry Leon but that's ridiculous. Australia has behaved abominably to its own citizens. Seems they have been more authoritarian than even we have.
Basically, Dom agrees with all our critiques of government covid policy. He’s our guy in number Ten. Or he was
And the reason they keep the borders open is ‘fear of being racist’. As we speculated
Head::desk
He says he agrees with it now. Not the same thing.
Criticisms he raises will need looking into and many might be valid, we should not shoot the messenger, but theres no getting away from the fact he is in general not to be trusted given his history of leaking and political machinations, and he clearly has a massive personal axe to grind, hence his attempt at humility act at the start (I say act as it is out of character, massively so).
The man is inherently untrustworthy. It's a shame someone even a smidge more credible were not the one saying it. I'd double check if he said my name was kle4.
Also, flights from India should have been stopped as soon as the Indian variant was identified. They were deliberately allowed to continue for about 5 days, presumably in order not to upset people who wanted to get back to the UK. And that's why a lot of people ended up in hospital in Bolton with the Indian variant.
Bollocks to that. They ended up in hospital because the silly buggers turned down the vaccine.
Both are clearly true, and not contradictory
Border closure with no vaccine just delays the problem. Vaccine with no border closure means no problem. I’m fed up with the government playing nanny. If these stupid sods want to spin the roulette wheel with their health then fine, but it shouldn’t mean the great many vaccinated British residents with reason to visit India should get stuck there.
We’ve all wondered why they didn’t close the borders. Now we know. It was The Woke. Closing borders is ‘racist’
This is pretty explosive stuff now
That was always the most obvious thing about the whole saga.
The interesting thing is that hardly anyone accuses New Zealand and Australia of being racist when they closed their borders.
It is the single biggest government failure. Perhaps in modern British history. Keeping the borders open surely killed tens of thousands and took 5% off GDP
We need to know exactly how much ‘fear of racism’ contributed to this and then the whole culture that perpetuates this toxic drivel needs to be extirpated
As I asked on a previous thread, What exactly do you mean by "closing the borders"? We are a major travel hub - do you mean that UK citizens abroad shouldn't have been allowed to return home, people with close family abroad not allowed to visit (either way) even in end of life scenarios, business travel reasons cancelled, journalists and news organisations not allowed to travel, HGV drivers not able to ply their trade?
This is not easy, practically, economically and on principle.
The government has massively cut international travel throughout all of this. And when you look at the traffic light rules now they are pretty draconian aren't they? Even visiting a green list country means a PCR test before leaving the UK plus a test within 72 hours of return to the UK plus a further PCR test two days after return - plus compulsory mask-wearing on route. Amber means all that plus a 4th PCR test 8 days after return plus quarantine. Red means all that plus quarantine in a government prescribed hotel (at traveller's expense).
I mean exactly that. Just close the fucking borders. To everyone, bar absolutely essential trade (and make HGV d4ivers stay in a bubble).
Australia did it, and it works. East Asia did it, and they are major travel hubs. Yes it is hurtful and painful; dying is worse
The thing is though Leon, those places are now stuck in a zero covid mindset. The lack of any significant outbreak is proving poisonous to their societies. And people never “got the fear”, they’re running into a wall of vaccine hesitancy. So the borders are just staying locked. It’s rather sad.
Correct. They are like frightened mice in a cage. And Covid fills niches as we have seen many times. They better vaccinate fast or they will get mightily clobbered with no immunity.
We’ve all wondered why they didn’t close the borders. Now we know. It was The Woke. Closing borders is ‘racist’
This is pretty explosive stuff now
That was always the most obvious thing about the whole saga.
The interesting thing is that hardly anyone accuses New Zealand and Australia of being racist when they closed their borders.
It is the single biggest government failure. Perhaps in modern British history. Keeping the borders open surely killed tens of thousands and took 5% off GDP
We need to know exactly how much ‘fear of racism’ contributed to this and then the whole culture that perpetuates this toxic drivel needs to be extirpated
As I asked on a previous thread, What exactly do you mean by "closing the borders"? We are a major travel hub - do you mean that UK citizens abroad shouldn't have been allowed to return home, people with close family abroad not allowed to visit (either way) even in end of life scenarios, business travel reasons cancelled, journalists and news organisations not allowed to travel, HGV drivers not able to ply their trade?
This is not easy, practically, economically and on principle.
The government has massively cut international travel throughout all of this. And when you look at the traffic light rules now they are pretty draconian aren't they? Even visiting a green list country means a PCR test before leaving the UK plus a test within 72 hours of return to the UK plus a further PCR test two days after return - plus compulsory mask-wearing on route. Amber means all that plus a 4th PCR test 8 days after return plus quarantine. Red means all that plus quarantine in a government prescribed hotel (at traveller's expense).
I mean exactly that. Just close the fucking borders. To everyone, bar absolutely essential trade (and make HGV d4ivers stay in a bubble).
Australia did it, and it works. East Asia did it, and they are major travel hubs. Yes it is hurtful and painful; dying is worse
The thing is though Leon, those places are now stuck in a zero covid mindset. The lack of any significant outbreak is proving poisonous to their societies. And people never “got the fear”, they’re running into a wall of vaccine hesitancy. So the borders are just staying locked. It’s rather sad.
BREAKING: Switzerland cancels ratification of framework agreement with EU. "Based on the results of negotiations in recent months, the [Swiss] Federal Council has determined that the talks with the EU ... haven't led to the necessary solutions," said Swiss President Guy Parmelin.
I think both Norway and Switzerland are going to have to join the EU and sooner rather than later. Meanwhile our mickey mouse trade deals with economies we can´t actually do much trade with do not make up for the total shambles of the collapse in EU/UK trade. Then in 5 years time, when we ask to effectively rejoin, we get locked out and the EFTA half way house is not available. That really is shooting yourself in the foot.
What collapse in EU/UK trade? Aren't volumes back to relatively "normal" levels?
"Nope" says ONS
Vs March 2019: EU Imports March 2020 -26%, March 2021 -29% EU Exports March 2020 -29%, March 2021 -21% ROW Imports March 2020 -12%, March 2021 +2% ROW Exports March 2020 -12%, March 2021 -10%
Carol Monaghan (SNP) asks how a previous PM would have dealt with this (the prospect of another lockdown).
Cummings says if you took “anybody at random from the kind of top 1% competent people in this country” they would do things differently.
Q: Was it arrogance or complacency?
Cummings says Boris Johnson is misunderstood. People think that after he fell ill, he took it more seriously. But he thought that the first lockdown was a mistake. And he thought he had been gamed into ordering it.
Q: Did you hear him say that he would rather see the bodies pile high than order another lockdown?
Cummings says there are different versions of this. There was a version in the Sunday Times that was not correct. But he says the BBC version was correct.
He says: “I heard that in the PM’s study.”
He says this was at a different point. This was on 31 October.
Here is the BBC version of the story. And this is how it starts:
'Boris Johnson said he would rather see “bodies pile high” than take the country into a third lockdown, sources familiar with the conversations have told the BBC.
The remarks were said to have been made last autumn, just as England went into a second lockdown.'
This piece of evidence from Cummings is important because Johnson specifically denied saying this, or anything to this effect, in the House of Commons. Cummings is the first on-the-record witness to contradict him.
Also, flights from India should have been stopped as soon as the Indian variant was identified. They were deliberately allowed to continue for about 5 days, presumably in order not to upset people who wanted to get back to the UK. And that's why a lot of people ended up in hospital in Bolton with the Indian variant.
Bollocks to that. They ended up in hospital because the silly buggers turned down the vaccine.
Both are clearly true, and not contradictory
Border closure with no vaccine just delays the problem. Vaccine with no border closure means no problem. I’m fed up with the government playing nanny. If these stupid sods want to spin the roulette wheel with their health then fine, but it shouldn’t mean the great many vaccinated British residents with reason to visit India should get stuck there.
It's long seemed to me that a new infection coming from abroad is seen as much worse than a new infection transmitted domestically. We'll have no dirty foreigner virus here!
What it boils down to is that Australia and New Zealand got it right initially — (not so much now, with vaccines) — because they weren't afraid of being called racist for closing their borders.
Not really at least not with NZ,
NZ ware actually late to lock down and travel bans, at least in calendar date wise. Jesindar was IIRC the last head of government to still go on an international travel. I remember a friend of mind who is a paid up member of the NZ Labour party sharing a thing on Facebook, just after the UK started its Lockdown saying NZ was not implanting a Lockdown because it will not work and NZ labour understand science!! (they changed there opinions when the lockdown happened, I mean when the facts changed)
NZ did well, for a few reasons:
By chance the virus got there late, It got there in the southern Summer so spread slowly The nation is low density even the big city of Auckland, so speeds more slowly Being remote, they have few visitors arriving per day even if they tend to stay a long time. New Zealanders sore what was going on in the rest of the would so adopted some social distancing voluntarily e.g. not shaking hands/ working form home, while there where very few caing in NZ.
As a result of all of the above, they where able to make a short but extreme Lockdown work,
This does not mean Jacinda does not deserve some prase, she does, she made it work, but it should also be put in to context.
BREAKING: Switzerland cancels ratification of framework agreement with EU. "Based on the results of negotiations in recent months, the [Swiss] Federal Council has determined that the talks with the EU ... haven't led to the necessary solutions," said Swiss President Guy Parmelin.
Not really, our deal has better flexibility that EFTA membership and we have completely escaped ECJ jurisdiction which EFTA membership would still have, though to a lesser degree than EEA membership.
Hang on: if we were just party to the EFTA part (i.e. trade with Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein), then we'd be bound to follow the decisions of the EFTA Court, but the ECJ wouldn't have a say would it? It'd only be if we wanted to be a part of EFTA/EEA that would be an issue. And given we (like Switzerland) have our own separate side deal with the EU, that probably wouldn't be an issue.
If some think that the EU is the same as the EEA, the CU, EFTA etc then of course we would be bound by the ECJ. Just as having left and become a 3rd country we are definitely not bound by the WTO no siree.
Cummings says his decision to quit No 10 was linked to Carrie Symonds, the PM’s partner, trying to change various Downing Street appointments. In particular, he says she was trying to change the outcome of one official hiring process in a way that was “completely unethical”.
But he says his relationship with the PM had deteriorated. “Fundamentally I regarded him as unfit for the job,” says Cummings.
Must admit that piccaninnies, watermelon smiles and letterboxes BJ not closing the borders cos he was scared that Wokies would call him a racist was not the hot take I was expecting today.
Why else didn't he close the borders? And why didn't he immediately stop flights from India.
BREAKING: Switzerland cancels ratification of framework agreement with EU. "Based on the results of negotiations in recent months, the [Swiss] Federal Council has determined that the talks with the EU ... haven't led to the necessary solutions," said Swiss President Guy Parmelin.
Not really, our deal has better flexibility that EFTA membership and we have completely escaped ECJ jurisdiction which EFTA membership would still have, though to a lesser degree than EEA membership.
Hang on: if we were just party to the EFTA part (i.e. trade with Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein), then we'd be bound to follow the decisions of the EFTA Court, but the ECJ wouldn't have a say would it? It'd only be if we wanted to be a part of EFTA/EEA that would be an issue. And given we (like Switzerland) have our own separate side deal with the EU, that probably wouldn't be an issue.
If some think that the EU is the same as the EEA, the CU, EFTA etc then of course we would be bound by the ECJ. Just as having left and become a 3rd country we are definitely not bound by the WTO no siree.
Things like the WTO are not the equivalent of a global government. They are simply the product of the evolution of the trade policies of the major powers since WW2.
Cummings says in late September he should have told Johnson that if Johnson did not order a lockdown, he would resign and hold a press conference and say the decision was going to cost thousands of lives. He says he does not know if this would have worked. But he apologises for not trying.
BREAKING: Switzerland cancels ratification of framework agreement with EU. "Based on the results of negotiations in recent months, the [Swiss] Federal Council has determined that the talks with the EU ... haven't led to the necessary solutions," said Swiss President Guy Parmelin.
They really seem to have lost the place in recent times. An organisation that needs the UK government to behave even vaguely sensibly brings a whole new meaning to dysfunctional.
It's absolutely weird. You'd have thought that, in the middle of a pandemic, they might have chosen to retaliate by banning Gruyère or vanity watches, not medical equipment.
Only the Swiss could make a cheese as boring as Gruyere. I would definitely have gone for that.
Cummings says Dominic Raab has not got enough credit for how he handled the situation when Boris Johnson was ill. He says he also thinks Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, did a brilliant job.
"The India travel ban set off a tribal response in the community. ‘Why were those Australians even in India?’, people asked. ‘If they selfishly decided to travel, then why are they surprised that there are consequences?’ "
We’ve all wondered why they didn’t close the borders. Now we know. It was The Woke. Closing borders is ‘racist’
This is pretty explosive stuff now
That was always the most obvious thing about the whole saga.
The interesting thing is that hardly anyone accuses New Zealand and Australia of being racist when they closed their borders.
It is the single biggest government failure. Perhaps in modern British history. Keeping the borders open surely killed tens of thousands and took 5% off GDP
We need to know exactly how much ‘fear of racism’ contributed to this and then the whole culture that perpetuates this toxic drivel needs to be extirpated
As I asked on a previous thread, What exactly do you mean by "closing the borders"? We are a major travel hub - do you mean that UK citizens abroad shouldn't have been allowed to return home, people with close family abroad not allowed to visit (either way) even in end of life scenarios, business travel reasons cancelled, journalists and news organisations not allowed to travel, HGV drivers not able to ply their trade?
This is not easy, practically, economically and on principle.
The government has massively cut international travel throughout all of this. And when you look at the traffic light rules now they are pretty draconian aren't they? Even visiting a green list country means a PCR test before leaving the UK plus a test within 72 hours of return to the UK plus a further PCR test two days after return - plus compulsory mask-wearing on route. Amber means all that plus a 4th PCR test 8 days after return plus quarantine. Red means all that plus quarantine in a government prescribed hotel (at traveller's expense).
I mean exactly that. Just close the fucking borders. To everyone, bar absolutely essential trade (and make HGV d4ivers stay in a bubble).
Australia did it, and it works. East Asia did it, and they are major travel hubs. Yes it is hurtful and painful; dying is worse
The thing is though Leon, those places are now stuck in a zero covid mindset. The lack of any significant outbreak is proving poisonous to their societies. And people never “got the fear”, they’re running into a wall of vaccine hesitancy. So the borders are just staying locked. It’s rather sad.
Correct. They are like frightened mice in a cage. And Covid fills niches as we have seen many times. They better vaccinate fast or they will get mightily clobbered with no immunity.
I read somewhere that they plan to remain closed until 2022 –– don't know if that's still the case. There are serious problems coming unless they get on with vaccinating.
We’ve all wondered why they didn’t close the borders. Now we know. It was The Woke. Closing borders is ‘racist’
This is pretty explosive stuff now
That was always the most obvious thing about the whole saga.
The interesting thing is that hardly anyone accuses New Zealand and Australia of being racist when they closed their borders.
It is the single biggest government failure. Perhaps in modern British history. Keeping the borders open surely killed tens of thousands and took 5% off GDP
We need to know exactly how much ‘fear of racism’ contributed to this and then the whole culture that perpetuates this toxic drivel needs to be extirpated
As I asked on a previous thread, What exactly do you mean by "closing the borders"? We are a major travel hub - do you mean that UK citizens abroad shouldn't have been allowed to return home, people with close family abroad not allowed to visit (either way) even in end of life scenarios, business travel reasons cancelled, journalists and news organisations not allowed to travel, HGV drivers not able to ply their trade?
This is not easy, practically, economically and on principle.
The government has massively cut international travel throughout all of this. And when you look at the traffic light rules now they are pretty draconian aren't they? Even visiting a green list country means a PCR test before leaving the UK plus a test within 72 hours of return to the UK plus a further PCR test two days after return - plus compulsory mask-wearing on route. Amber means all that plus a 4th PCR test 8 days after return plus quarantine. Red means all that plus quarantine in a government prescribed hotel (at traveller's expense).
I mean exactly that. Just close the fucking borders. To everyone, bar absolutely essential trade (and make HGV drivers stay in a bubble).
Australia did it, and it works. East Asia did it, and they are major travel hubs. Yes it is hurtful and painful; dying is worse
I'm sorry Leon but that's ridiculous. Australia has behaved abominably to its own citizens. Seems they have been more authoritarian than even we have.
I have a daughter in Australia, and a daughter in the UK. The former is now much freer than the latter, the former lives in an economy which is virtually unharmed, the latter lives in the UK
That said, I don't agree with the insane over-reactions now going on in Oz. And they have been rubbish at vaccines
Mr. Leon, Sturgeon being an idiot is no reason to destroy a nation.
Devolution is a disaster. Especially the botched, stupid, asymmetric devolution given us by Labour. Boris is right
Anecdote: at my last large family gathering I was struck by the family members who were seriously anti-union and anti-Scottish. They used to be apathetic, now they are averse. Let Scotland go. Cut them away. This is a growing feeling in England. It will be England that ends the Union, if it ends
My family is not alone
‘MICHAEL Gove has been warned by a Tory MP that the Union could end through "benign neglect" as voters in England give up on it just as they did with the EU.
The Cabinet Office minister was told by Jackie Doyle-Price that her constituents in Thurrock in Essex now griped about Scotland they way they used to about Brussels.
She said for many people in England the Union was not a “living entity”and urged UK ministers to do more to help people understand and appreciate it.’
The main problem is it is no longer a Union as such but a Federal UK excluding England.
Give England its own Parliament or at least English regional assemblies and the problem would be resolved
no it wouldn't - a UK government would only be allowed to work if the constituent nations accepted the federal government and allowed the federal government to control the overall economic direction of the nation, its defence etc- the English government let alone others would have no incentive to do this - a federal UK could only work if you broke England into pieces so no part was too powerful, and why should England want that?
The UK government already does control the overall economic direction and defence of the whole UK. Just England is the only country in the UK which does not have its own Parliament to run the rest of its domestic policy.
There is no reason an English Parliament would not work other than leftwingers don't want it as it would normally have a Tory majority, otherwise we should at least have regional assemblies which would still be better than the current situation where England has no government of its own at national or regional level outside of the UK (except in the London region with the Mayor and Assembly)
this is nuts - if there were an English government it would be like the SNP on steroids - questioning every single action of the UK govt and attempting to delegitimise it, be allowed to 'approve' its decisions etc - the UK is not suited to be a federation as England dominates - everybody who has thought about this for more than 10 minutes understands this.
I remmeber a particularly interesting and illuminating discussion on PB about 2012-13 which came to an almost unanimous conclusion (quite unusual for that time and general topic of indyref) that true federalism was a non-runner in the UK because of precisely what you say, plus the political unacceptability of breaking up England a la Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy.
This is one reason why Gordon Brown's repeated Interventions with promises of more federalism have not, er, had much effect.
England doesn't need to be broken up within a Federal system, and the more it is broken up within that system, the more it dominates, as the 'more Englands' there are, the more they can out-vote the other home nations. Indeed, if England is broken up in a way that is commensurate with its population size, it totally swamps the other home nations, and defeats the entire object of federalisation. It becomes Westminster MPs mark 2.
I've made this argument to you a few times, and you've never made a counter-argument, so I'm surprised that you persist in the nonsense that England would need to be broken up to make a federal system work.
Hmm, that actually assumes a homogeneous England. If it is, then you are quite right. But if not, not.
You do realise you're undermining the SNP's whole argument on the hopelessness of Scotland's position wrt Westminster by saying that? English MP's aren't 'homogenous' either. Yet it's portrayed as Scotland being overruled by England.
That's because there is a majoritarian phenomenon in England under FPTP at Westminster, ie the Tories usually winning being part of it. PR would put a very different perspective on the entire matter.
Just a reminder that lockdown in Scotland only happened after lockdown in England. Every criticism Cummings makes of Johnson and the British Government applies equally to Sturgeon and the Scottish Government.
Just a reminder that lockdown in Scotland only happened after lockdown in England. Every criticism Cummings makes of Johnson and the British Government applies equally to Sturgeon and the Scottish Government.
"The India travel ban set off a tribal response in the community. ‘Why were those Australians even in India?’, people asked. ‘If they selfishly decided to travel, then why are they surprised that there are consequences?’ "
Describes plenty on here.
Yes it's a brilliant article and explains the time-bomb that is Zero Covid. Hopefully NZ won't be quite as extreme.
Cummings says he was tempted to resign last summer. But various people said he should stay because Covid was going to get worse in the autumn. He says people said he should try to stay “to control the shopping trolley [Boris Johnson]”.
Cummings trying to exempt Gove of responsibility after a direct question from a labour mp
This just shows where Cummings loyalty lies
Ah just as I wrote my reply Give gets mentioned :-)
Given that it seems from Cummings evidence that most of the cabinet were excluded from decision making on this, it is probably quite easy for him to exempt Give - and most of the rest of them.
We’ve all wondered why they didn’t close the borders. Now we know. It was The Woke. Closing borders is ‘racist’
This is pretty explosive stuff now
That was always the most obvious thing about the whole saga.
The interesting thing is that hardly anyone accuses New Zealand and Australia of being racist when they closed their borders.
It is the single biggest government failure. Perhaps in modern British history. Keeping the borders open surely killed tens of thousands and took 5% off GDP
We need to know exactly how much ‘fear of racism’ contributed to this and then the whole culture that perpetuates this toxic drivel needs to be extirpated
As I asked on a previous thread, What exactly do you mean by "closing the borders"? We are a major travel hub - do you mean that UK citizens abroad shouldn't have been allowed to return home, people with close family abroad not allowed to visit (either way) even in end of life scenarios, business travel reasons cancelled, journalists and news organisations not allowed to travel, HGV drivers not able to ply their trade?
This is not easy, practically, economically and on principle.
The government has massively cut international travel throughout all of this. And when you look at the traffic light rules now they are pretty draconian aren't they? Even visiting a green list country means a PCR test before leaving the UK plus a test within 72 hours of return to the UK plus a further PCR test two days after return - plus compulsory mask-wearing on route. Amber means all that plus a 4th PCR test 8 days after return plus quarantine. Red means all that plus quarantine in a government prescribed hotel (at traveller's expense).
I mean exactly that. Just close the fucking borders. To everyone, bar absolutely essential trade (and make HGV drivers stay in a bubble).
Australia did it, and it works. East Asia did it, and they are major travel hubs. Yes it is hurtful and painful; dying is worse
I'm sorry Leon but that's ridiculous. Australia has behaved abominably to its own citizens. Seems they have been more authoritarian than even we have.
I have a daughter in Australia, and a daughter in the UK. The former is now much freer than the latter, the former lives in an economy which is virtually unharmed, the latter lives in the UK
That said, I don't agree with the insane over-reactions now going on in Oz. And they have been rubbish at vaccines
Yep. One of my best mates lives in Sydney. Over the past week he has posted pictures of his vacation in Tasmania, including visits to plenty of restaurants and bars, his daughters packed indoor 21st birthday party, and massive crowds at sporting events. Apart from the travel bans, they are living more normally than us, and have been largely throughout.
We’ve all wondered why they didn’t close the borders. Now we know. It was The Woke. Closing borders is ‘racist’
This is pretty explosive stuff now
That was always the most obvious thing about the whole saga.
The interesting thing is that hardly anyone accuses New Zealand and Australia of being racist when they closed their borders.
It is the single biggest government failure. Perhaps in modern British history. Keeping the borders open surely killed tens of thousands and took 5% off GDP
We need to know exactly how much ‘fear of racism’ contributed to this and then the whole culture that perpetuates this toxic drivel needs to be extirpated
As I asked on a previous thread, What exactly do you mean by "closing the borders"? We are a major travel hub - do you mean that UK citizens abroad shouldn't have been allowed to return home, people with close family abroad not allowed to visit (either way) even in end of life scenarios, business travel reasons cancelled, journalists and news organisations not allowed to travel, HGV drivers not able to ply their trade?
This is not easy, practically, economically and on principle.
The government has massively cut international travel throughout all of this. And when you look at the traffic light rules now they are pretty draconian aren't they? Even visiting a green list country means a PCR test before leaving the UK plus a test within 72 hours of return to the UK plus a further PCR test two days after return - plus compulsory mask-wearing on route. Amber means all that plus a 4th PCR test 8 days after return plus quarantine. Red means all that plus quarantine in a government prescribed hotel (at traveller's expense).
I mean exactly that. Just close the fucking borders. To everyone, bar absolutely essential trade (and make HGV drivers stay in a bubble).
Australia did it, and it works. East Asia did it, and they are major travel hubs. Yes it is hurtful and painful; dying is worse
I'm sorry Leon but that's ridiculous. Australia has behaved abominably to its own citizens. Seems they have been more authoritarian than even we have.
I have a daughter in Australia, and a daughter in the UK. The former is now much freer than the latter, the former lives in an economy which is virtually unharmed, the latter lives in the UK
That said, I don't agree with the insane over-reactions now going on in Oz. And they have been rubbish at vaccines
Yep. One of my best mates lives in Sydney. Over the past week he has posted pictures of his vacation in Tasmania, including visits to plenty of restaurants and bars, his daughters packed indoor 21st birthday party, and maskless crowds at sporting events. Apart from the travel bans, they are living more normally than us, and have been largely throughout.
Apart from the hugely lengthy Melbourne lockdown? (112 days if you've forgotten...)
BREAKING: Switzerland cancels ratification of framework agreement with EU. "Based on the results of negotiations in recent months, the [Swiss] Federal Council has determined that the talks with the EU ... haven't led to the necessary solutions," said Swiss President Guy Parmelin.
Can anyone translate that out of gibberish for me?
It reads that relevant new medical device will not be approved, and that the bureaucracy is being directed to assume that any devices that have been approved are deemed to be suddenly unsafe.
In effect the EuCo is making it's own citizens suffer because the Swiss Government has refused to lick EuCo boot on a different point.
ISTM to be the same technique used a few years ago when they withdrew recognition for certain education things, and support for Swiss students in the EU on courses were withdrawn id-stream.
BREAKING: Switzerland cancels ratification of framework agreement with EU. "Based on the results of negotiations in recent months, the [Swiss] Federal Council has determined that the talks with the EU ... haven't led to the necessary solutions," said Swiss President Guy Parmelin.
Not really, our deal has better flexibility that EFTA membership and we have completely escaped ECJ jurisdiction which EFTA membership would still have, though to a lesser degree than EEA membership.
Hang on: if we were just party to the EFTA part (i.e. trade with Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein), then we'd be bound to follow the decisions of the EFTA Court, but the ECJ wouldn't have a say would it? It'd only be if we wanted to be a part of EFTA/EEA that would be an issue. And given we (like Switzerland) have our own separate side deal with the EU, that probably wouldn't be an issue.
If some think that the EU is the same as the EEA, the CU, EFTA etc then of course we would be bound by the ECJ. Just as having left and become a 3rd country we are definitely not bound by the WTO no siree.
I don't understand the point you are making. If we are members of EFTA but not of the EEA then we are neither bound by the ECJ or the EFTA court - the latter is specifically set up to adjudicate on EFTA decisions related to the EEA and has no jurisdiction to deal with more general EFTA matters which are outside the EEA.
And of course we are party to WTO rules as long as we are a member.
We’ve all wondered why they didn’t close the borders. Now we know. It was The Woke. Closing borders is ‘racist’
This is pretty explosive stuff now
That was always the most obvious thing about the whole saga.
The interesting thing is that hardly anyone accuses New Zealand and Australia of being racist when they closed their borders.
It is the single biggest government failure. Perhaps in modern British history. Keeping the borders open surely killed tens of thousands and took 5% off GDP
We need to know exactly how much ‘fear of racism’ contributed to this and then the whole culture that perpetuates this toxic drivel needs to be extirpated
As I asked on a previous thread, What exactly do you mean by "closing the borders"? We are a major travel hub - do you mean that UK citizens abroad shouldn't have been allowed to return home, people with close family abroad not allowed to visit (either way) even in end of life scenarios, business travel reasons cancelled, journalists and news organisations not allowed to travel, HGV drivers not able to ply their trade?
This is not easy, practically, economically and on principle.
The government has massively cut international travel throughout all of this. And when you look at the traffic light rules now they are pretty draconian aren't they? Even visiting a green list country means a PCR test before leaving the UK plus a test within 72 hours of return to the UK plus a further PCR test two days after return - plus compulsory mask-wearing on route. Amber means all that plus a 4th PCR test 8 days after return plus quarantine. Red means all that plus quarantine in a government prescribed hotel (at traveller's expense).
I mean exactly that. Just close the fucking borders. To everyone, bar absolutely essential trade (and make HGV drivers stay in a bubble).
Australia did it, and it works. East Asia did it, and they are major travel hubs. Yes it is hurtful and painful; dying is worse
I'm sorry Leon but that's ridiculous. Australia has behaved abominably to its own citizens. Seems they have been more authoritarian than even we have.
I have a daughter in Australia, and a daughter in the UK. The former is now much freer than the latter, the former lives in an economy which is virtually unharmed, the latter lives in the UK
That said, I don't agree with the insane over-reactions now going on in Oz. And they have been rubbish at vaccines
Yep. One of my best mates lives in Sydney. Over the past week he has posted pictures of his vacation in Tasmania, including visits to plenty of restaurants and bars, his daughters packed indoor 21st birthday party, and massive crowds at sporting events. Apart from the travel bans, they are living more normally than us, and have been largely throughout.
Of course. My Aussie family sends me the same depressing photos (depressing for a European)
Most Brits would take Australia's Closed Borders Strategy. Add in our vaccine drive, and Korea's test and trace, and there, you have the right response to the pandemic
It means some Brits would end up stuck in India or America or wherever. Sorry. That's tough, but it's better than 200,000 dead
BREAKING: Switzerland cancels ratification of framework agreement with EU. "Based on the results of negotiations in recent months, the [Swiss] Federal Council has determined that the talks with the EU ... haven't led to the necessary solutions," said Swiss President Guy Parmelin.
Not really, our deal has better flexibility that EFTA membership and we have completely escaped ECJ jurisdiction which EFTA membership would still have, though to a lesser degree than EEA membership.
Hang on: if we were just party to the EFTA part (i.e. trade with Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein), then we'd be bound to follow the decisions of the EFTA Court, but the ECJ wouldn't have a say would it? It'd only be if we wanted to be a part of EFTA/EEA that would be an issue. And given we (like Switzerland) have our own separate side deal with the EU, that probably wouldn't be an issue.
If some think that the EU is the same as the EEA, the CU, EFTA etc then of course we would be bound by the ECJ. Just as having left and become a 3rd country we are definitely not bound by the WTO no siree.
I don't understand the point you are making. If we are members of EFTA but not of the EEA then we are neither bound by the ECJ or the EFTA court - the latter is specifically set up to adjudicate on EFTA decisions related to the EEA and has no jurisdiction to deal with more general EFTA matters which are outside the EEA.
And of course we are party to WTO rules as long as we are a member.
My point was sarcasm. Some people insist we would always have been slaves of the feared ECJ had we not become a 3rd country, and that we can just ignore WTO rules now having done so.
The best strategy would have been a combination of Australia/NZ lockdown last year and UK vaccines this year.
But it's been difficult for Aus/NZ to get hold of vaccines as quickly as Europe. Can't really blame them for that.
If true, you can only say that with the benefit on hindsight. The government were quite rightly running with the assumption that there would be no vaccine in 2020 - possibly not in 2021 either - possibly never.
I've seen multiple references to the vaccine bounce that Johnson and the Tories have got. Looking at this graph, maybe that is wrong. Maybe it was Labour who got a virus bounce ...
BREAKING: Switzerland cancels ratification of framework agreement with EU. "Based on the results of negotiations in recent months, the [Swiss] Federal Council has determined that the talks with the EU ... haven't led to the necessary solutions," said Swiss President Guy Parmelin.
I think both Norway and Switzerland are going to have to join the EU and sooner rather than later. Meanwhile our mickey mouse trade deals with economies we can´t actually do much trade with do not make up for the total shambles of the collapse in EU/UK trade. Then in 5 years time, when we ask to effectively rejoin, we get locked out and the EFTA half way house is not available. That really is shooting yourself in the foot.
Shocker: Man sacked by PM is bitter about being sacked and lashes out at team he was part of.
Hmm... think much of this is already priced in, and many people will view Cummings evidence as somewhat tainted by his sacking and his trip up North.
It's the revelations about the dog that will be most damaging.
If people do think that then they are bloody stupid.
I didn't say they were correct in their analysis, but I do think there will be a bit of prurient interest form within the village, but a large slug of "meh", too. But being mean about a dog...that's not cricket.
BREAKING: Switzerland cancels ratification of framework agreement with EU. "Based on the results of negotiations in recent months, the [Swiss] Federal Council has determined that the talks with the EU ... haven't led to the necessary solutions," said Swiss President Guy Parmelin.
Not really, our deal has better flexibility that EFTA membership and we have completely escaped ECJ jurisdiction which EFTA membership would still have, though to a lesser degree than EEA membership.
Hang on: if we were just party to the EFTA part (i.e. trade with Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein), then we'd be bound to follow the decisions of the EFTA Court, but the ECJ wouldn't have a say would it? It'd only be if we wanted to be a part of EFTA/EEA that would be an issue. And given we (like Switzerland) have our own separate side deal with the EU, that probably wouldn't be an issue.
If some think that the EU is the same as the EEA, the CU, EFTA etc then of course we would be bound by the ECJ. Just as having left and become a 3rd country we are definitely not bound by the WTO no siree.
I don't understand the point you are making. If we are members of EFTA but not of the EEA then we are neither bound by the ECJ or the EFTA court - the latter is specifically set up to adjudicate on EFTA decisions related to the EEA and has no jurisdiction to deal with more general EFTA matters which are outside the EEA.
And of course we are party to WTO rules as long as we are a member.
My point was sarcasm. Some people insist we would always have been slaves of the feared ECJ had we not become a 3rd country, and that we can just ignore WTO rules now having done so.
Apologies I missed the point. A limit of the internet not of your writing.
As you probably know I am a big advocate of EFTA membership. Since I am in favour of open borders I would also have ben happy with EEA membership. CU membership is just impossible due to the EUs own treaty rules.
Higher in Bolton, natch. But we also know we are past the peak in terms of positive tests in Bolton, so hopefully see that peak soon in hospitalisations. Likely there will be a ripple-out effect; Chorley, Preston, Rossendale still rising quite steeply. But if they follow the same pattern - and there is no reason to think that they won't - they'll be peaking soon too.
England hospitalisations continue to creep up. 98 were admitted on Monday versus 74 the week before. The seven-day average is now 88 vs 74 the previous week.
Total beds occupied has dropped to 745 though, the lowest since 13 September
Odds are this storm will pass over in a couple of days and the press will move on to whatever the next big source of excitement is (probably Greece and Spain being green listed for travel, or something.)
Plague gets declared effectively over on June 21st. Hancock gets moved at the next reshuffle, page is turned.
Comments
https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/str_eu-switzerlandnoifa_factsheet_final.pdf
“STUDENTS LINKED ARMS BUT WERE MOWN DOWN INCLUDING SOLDIERS. APCS THEN RAN OVER BODIES TIME AND TIME AGAIN TO MAKE QUOTE PIE UNQUOTE AND REMAINS COLLECTED BY BULLDOZER. REMAINS INCINERATED AND THEN HOSED DOWN DRAINS.”
It would be ethically and administratively trivial for the Chinese Communist Party to have drastically under reported covid deaths all around the country. Which I am certain that they did, going all the way back to 2019. At least.
I would wet my pants laughing to see BJ say he didn’t close the borders because he was running scared of Woke.
https://twitter.com/quatremer/status/1397558202674319361?s=20
Australia did it, and it works. East Asia did it, and they are major travel hubs. Yes it is hurtful and painful; dying is worse
France to impose mandatory quarantine on UK arrivals
As we know, hundreds of thousands of people in India have Covid. It isn't going away. Sounds like you want to completely ban them from coming here. How long for? As I say, Covid isn't going anywhere. Think of all the family in the UK who have close relatives in India, how long do you want to deprive them of seeing loved ones?
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#global-vaccinations
Criticisms he raises will need looking into and many might be valid, we should not shoot the messenger, but theres no getting away from the fact he is in general not to be trusted given his history of leaking and political machinations, and he clearly has a massive personal axe to grind, hence his attempt at humility act at the start (I say act as it is out of character, massively so).
The man is inherently untrustworthy. It's a shame someone even a smidge more credible were not the one saying it. I'd double check if he said my name was kle4.
Vs March 2019:
EU Imports March 2020 -26%, March 2021 -29%
EU Exports March 2020 -29%, March 2021 -21%
ROW Imports March 2020 -12%, March 2021 +2%
ROW Exports March 2020 -12%, March 2021 -10%
Carol Monaghan (SNP) asks how a previous PM would have dealt with this (the prospect of another lockdown).
Cummings says if you took “anybody at random from the kind of top 1% competent people in this country” they would do things differently.
Q: Was it arrogance or complacency?
Cummings says Boris Johnson is misunderstood. People think that after he fell ill, he took it more seriously. But he thought that the first lockdown was a mistake. And he thought he had been gamed into ordering it.
Q: Did you hear him say that he would rather see the bodies pile high than order another lockdown?
Cummings says there are different versions of this. There was a version in the Sunday Times that was not correct. But he says the BBC version was correct.
He says: “I heard that in the PM’s study.”
He says this was at a different point. This was on 31 October.
Here is the BBC version of the story. And this is how it starts:
'Boris Johnson said he would rather see “bodies pile high” than take the country into a third lockdown, sources familiar with the conversations have told the BBC.
The remarks were said to have been made last autumn, just as England went into a second lockdown.'
This piece of evidence from Cummings is important because Johnson specifically denied saying this, or anything to this effect, in the House of Commons. Cummings is the first on-the-record witness to contradict him.
NZ ware actually late to lock down and travel bans, at least in calendar date wise. Jesindar was IIRC the last head of government to still go on an international travel. I remember a friend of mind who is a paid up member of the NZ Labour party sharing a thing on Facebook, just after the UK started its Lockdown saying NZ was not implanting a Lockdown because it will not work and NZ labour understand science!! (they changed there opinions when the lockdown happened, I mean when the facts changed)
NZ did well, for a few reasons:
By chance the virus got there late,
It got there in the southern Summer so spread slowly
The nation is low density even the big city of Auckland, so speeds more slowly
Being remote, they have few visitors arriving per day even if they tend to stay a long time.
New Zealanders sore what was going on in the rest of the would so adopted some social distancing voluntarily e.g. not shaking hands/ working form home, while there where very few caing in NZ.
As a result of all of the above, they where able to make a short but extreme Lockdown work,
This does not mean Jacinda does not deserve some prase, she does, she made it work, but it should also be put in to context.
Isolated, fearful and unfree – Australia may never be the same again.
JAMES BOLT"
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/05/26/australias-zero-covid-nightmare/
(from this https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/15/boris-johnson-pandemic-britain-christmas-covid) https://twitter.com/rafaelbehr/status/1397565150379614218/photo/1
But he says his relationship with the PM had deteriorated. “Fundamentally I regarded him as unfit for the job,” says Cummings.
https://unherd.com/2021/05/what-if-there-was-a-lab-leak/
He says his own view was that waiting was a mistake, because keeping Hancock in place would give him more time to mess things up.
"The India travel ban set off a tribal response in the community. ‘Why were those Australians even in India?’, people asked. ‘If they selfishly decided to travel, then why are they surprised that there are consequences?’ "
Describes plenty on here.
That said, I don't agree with the insane over-reactions now going on in Oz. And they have been rubbish at vaccines
I'm surprised Jeremy doesn't recall its title & contents - he was Health Secretary at the time. Odd that?
https://twitter.com/BarristersHorse/status/1397566423074021380?s=20
https://twitter.com/ianssmart/status/1397501139701096450?s=20
I wonder why????
But it's been difficult for Aus/NZ to get hold of vaccines as quickly as Europe. Can't really blame them for that.
This just shows where Cummings loyalty lies
Given that it seems from Cummings evidence that most of the cabinet were excluded from decision making on this, it is probably quite easy for him to exempt Give - and most of the rest of them.
Apart from the travel bans, they are living more normally than us, and have been largely throughout.
It reads that relevant new medical device will not be approved, and that the bureaucracy is being directed to assume that any devices that have been approved are deemed to be suddenly unsafe.
In effect the EuCo is making it's own citizens suffer because the Swiss Government has refused to lick EuCo boot on a different point.
ISTM to be the same technique used a few years ago when they withdrew recognition for certain education things, and support for Swiss students in the EU on courses were withdrawn id-stream.
And of course we are party to WTO rules as long as we are a member.
Most Brits would take Australia's Closed Borders Strategy. Add in our vaccine drive, and Korea's test and trace, and there, you have the right response to the pandemic
It means some Brits would end up stuck in India or America or wherever. Sorry. That's tough, but it's better than 200,000 dead
Hmm... think much of this is already priced in, and many people will view Cummings evidence as somewhat tainted by his sacking and his trip up North.
It's the revelations about the dog that will be most damaging.
Cummings says there were powerful voices in the Treasury who were worried about the first lockdown. But he says the chancellor never tried to stop it.
Q: Some people will be thinking you are betting on a Rishi Sunak administration?
Cummings says everyone, including his wife, thinks the less everyone hears from him in the future, the better.
The trap is clear: he’s waiting for denial before he publishes them.
https://twitter.com/RupertMyers/status/1397570320010293249?s=20
The development of vaccines changed everything.
DC, almost inaudibly. "No".
https://twitter.com/alexhern/status/1397444592748929024/photo/1
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-03-french-covid-jabs-britain-weeks.html
As you probably know I am a big advocate of EFTA membership. Since I am in favour of open borders I would also have ben happy with EEA membership. CU membership is just impossible due to the EUs own treaty rules.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare
Higher in Bolton, natch. But we also know we are past the peak in terms of positive tests in Bolton, so hopefully see that peak soon in hospitalisations. Likely there will be a ripple-out effect; Chorley, Preston, Rossendale still rising quite steeply. But if they follow the same pattern - and there is no reason to think that they won't - they'll be peaking soon too.
Total beds occupied has dropped to 745 though, the lowest since 13 September
https://twitter.com/fact_covid/status/1397574897518448649?s=20
Plague gets declared effectively over on June 21st. Hancock gets moved at the next reshuffle, page is turned.