Slightly O/T but my wife has had a much more negative reaction to her second dose of vaccine than she did to her first. She has been seriously off her feet for the last 3 days, sick, achy and very, very tired. Almost no response at all to her first dose. I didn't expect this.
Did she have Pfizer? That's within the range of expected reactions if she did.
So the government is establishing that it is being "extremely cautious" (Jenrick, R4 today) in putting Portugal on the amber list.
Although he couldn't confirm one case of the "Nepal" mutation they are stopping travel to Portugal "just in case". Not anywhere else currently on the green list, just Portugal. Why not everywhere else?
As such, no action is now off the table.
If the nation (and PB especially) is ready to accept "extreme caution" and "just in case" then it will welcome with open arms an extension to lockdown on June 21st and much more besides.
Why? Because ratings. So we are getting what we want. Rejoice.
With any other government if they twatted about with people's lives and with business and with jobs there would be Hell To Pay. This lot? I absolutely won't put it past them doing the full unlock on time and in full, spinning that "we had to fight really hard to do this for you" and blame the scientists for being worrysome botherers.
At which point Cocky and Philip and the red wall show their displeasure by voting Tory.
tbf who else do you vote for? Reform? The Daily Mail?
There is always Galloway's exciting new Strasserite project.
Appealing in equal measure to the SWP and the EDL. The man's a genius.
Slightly O/T but my wife has had a much more negative reaction to her second dose of vaccine than she did to her first. She has been seriously off her feet for the last 3 days, sick, achy and very, very tired. Almost no response at all to her first dose. I didn't expect this.
It sounds as though it's just as well my next vaccine isn't due until the summer holidays.
Going to be a right bugger for cover next term if that feeds through all staff jabbed before me though.
I am interested in what is planned for June 21st. Are people really expecting everything to end in terms of Social Distancing and masks etc? Certainly there are no plans for my hospital to do this. I just expect the final restrictions on businesses to end.
Social distancing certainly. The plan is for no mandated capacity restrictions in venues from 21st. I’m sure some venues will keep some restrictions in place voluntarily, and that places like hospitals might keep their own rules.
The crux of the problem that @Cocky_cockney raises is that this government is functionally incompetent. I have been banging the drum for ages that "we won, we're popular, it doesn't matter" isn't good enough. Lies, corruption, incompetence, strategy based on newspaper headlines - this isn't how good government is done.
Since the start it has been blindingly obvious this clowncar government don't know how to communicate. Guidance that is contradicted one minister on the radio to the next that contradicts the law. A new 5 stage plan launched at 3.5. Regional tiers supposedly all the same but the rules are different in each place affected.
So it isn't a surprise that we're here. If you are double vaccinated then why do you need to isolate for 10 days and take 3 tests to come back from countries who have less pox than we do? Its illogical and stupid. They declared that 6 people in a choir couldn't meet covid secure in a venue to sing, but bands can play with the audience singing along. Who makes this shit up?
Fundamentally they do it and they get away with it because @Philip_Thompson and @Cocky_cockney etc rightly tear chunks of the government but vote for it anyway. They think you are stupid and tret you accordingly.
Don't be silly. The ones that are stupid are those who secretly disagree with the government but profess they agree with it and vote for it anyway, because its their party so is never wrong.
Why do you condemn people who aren't party loyalists always towing the party line? It shows an independence of thought that in my opinion should always be to people's credit. Unless you're a party hack loyalist no individual voter will ever agree with 100% of what any party, any government, is doing and a failure to say what you disagree with makes you a stooge to be taken for granted.
If other parties want my vote they can win it. Same as the Tories. I can and have voted for parties other than the Tories twice before (2001 GE and 2019 EP).
Slightly O/T but my wife has had a much more negative reaction to her second dose of vaccine than she did to her first. She has been seriously off her feet for the last 3 days, sick, achy and very, very tired. Almost no response at all to her first dose. I didn't expect this.
Did she have Pfizer? That's within the range of expected reactions if she did.
No AZ both times. Its still relatively normal but I sort of expected the response to the first dose to be the larger of the two.
Mirror poll reveals 81% back isolation for everyone on UK return
Looks like the government may have made a popular decision.
100% of people say to the Government to make a bl**dy decision and stick with it, not introduce rules which will inevitably if trusted result of n costing people 100s or 1000s of pounds due to following their advice.
So the media and Mike Smithson having spent the last year complaining that the government is too slow to take unpopular action are now complaining that the government is too fast to take unpopular action.
The government was too slow to apply restrictions a year ago, and are too slow to remove restrictions right now.
It's classic cognitive dissonance, and being slow to assimilate new information.
They were too slow to put restrictions on travel to India only two months ago.
Slightly O/T but my wife has had a much more negative reaction to her second dose of vaccine than she did to her first. She has been seriously off her feet for the last 3 days, sick, achy and very, very tired. Almost no response at all to her first dose. I didn't expect this.
That's because her immune system is working. And it's always the second dose that gets you.
I didn't know that. Well, there's something to look forward to.
Mirror poll reveals 81% back isolation for everyone on UK return
Looks like the government may have made a popular decision.
Outside this forum and in the populace at large I expect this will be seen as a responsible decision and of course nearly 70% say they have no interest in holidaying abroad this year
The 81% does not surprise me, and does indicate the vast majority are far more wary then many on here, no doubt softened up to that by the media and Independent Sage incessant demands for delays to the 21st June
The crux of the problem that @Cocky_cockney raises is that this government is functionally incompetent. I have been banging the drum for ages that "we won, we're popular, it doesn't matter" isn't good enough. Lies, corruption, incompetence, strategy based on newspaper headlines - this isn't how good government is done.
Since the start it has been blindingly obvious this clowncar government don't know how to communicate. Guidance that is contradicted one minister on the radio to the next that contradicts the law. A new 5 stage plan launched at 3.5. Regional tiers supposedly all the same but the rules are different in each place affected.
So it isn't a surprise that we're here. If you are double vaccinated then why do you need to isolate for 10 days and take 3 tests to come back from countries who have less pox than we do? Its illogical and stupid. They declared that 6 people in a choir couldn't meet covid secure in a venue to sing, but bands can play with the audience singing along. Who makes this shit up?
Fundamentally they do it and they get away with it because @Philip_Thompson and @Cocky_cockney etc rightly tear chunks of the government but vote for it anyway. They think you are stupid and tret you accordingly.
All valid criticisms. But have you examined the Scottish approach in your time there? The levels seem every bit as convoluted and confusing as anything in England. Why the eff is level 0 not normality? Do you need to go to level -1? Fundamentally this is a very difficult time to be in government. We have people all pulling in different directions. We are still hearing the shrill - "Why didn't we keep the India variant out by closing the borders" at the same time as "Why are we shutting to Portugal?" - when the reason given is exactly what the government is accused of NOT doing for India.
I get that you hate the Tory government, and I share your frustration at the messaging, which has been sclerotic, but this has been an unprecedented health emergency, and we are not at the end yet (near, but not there).
Bit confused about why this government drunk on power and crushing our freedoms in thrall to over cautious scientists decided to do fuck all in September last year allowing the Autumn and winter surges to sweep the nation.
Mirror poll reveals 81% back isolation for everyone on UK return
Looks like the government may have made a popular decision.
The 'front pages' are no more Britain than Twitter is.
The 'front pages' and response if 21 June does not go ahead is going to be far, far more severe.
One thing to watch out for is Rishi Sunak's reaction. 21st June is as popular as he's ever going to be. If it's delayed, and he resigns in protest on the grounds that continuing with unnecessary restrictions is economic suicide, not only do Harper and Baker have the perfect excuse to move against Johnson, but the party also has a plausible alternative leader - indeed, under those circumstances Sunak might be the Howard candidate.
I don't say it's likely, but it's one thing to keep an eye on.
Slightly O/T but my wife has had a much more negative reaction to her second dose of vaccine than she did to her first. She has been seriously off her feet for the last 3 days, sick, achy and very, very tired. Almost no response at all to her first dose. I didn't expect this.
That's because her immune system is working. And it's always the second dose that gets you.
The consensus appears to be that the AZN is more commonly worse at first dose and Pfizer at second. Certainly it was that way around both for me (AZN) and my mother (Pfizer)
Slightly O/T but my wife has had a much more negative reaction to her second dose of vaccine than she did to her first. She has been seriously off her feet for the last 3 days, sick, achy and very, very tired. Almost no response at all to her first dose. I didn't expect this.
Did she have Pfizer? That's within the range of expected reactions if she did.
No AZ both times. Its still relatively normal but I sort of expected the response to the first dose to be the larger of the two.
Even with AZ it's within the expected range of reactions, maybe at the worse end of them though. It's good news as her body is producing a pretty strong immune response to the second dose which isn't as common for AZ as it is for Pfizer.
So the government is establishing that it is being "extremely cautious" (Jenrick, R4 today) in putting Portugal on the amber list.
Although he couldn't confirm one case of the "Nepal" mutation they are stopping travel to Portugal "just in case". Not anywhere else currently on the green list, just Portugal. Why not everywhere else?
As such, no action is now off the table.
If the nation (and PB especially) is ready to accept "extreme caution" and "just in case" then it will welcome with open arms an extension to lockdown on June 21st and much more besides.
Why? Because ratings. So we are getting what we want. Rejoice.
With any other government if they twatted about with people's lives and with business and with jobs there would be Hell To Pay. This lot? I absolutely won't put it past them doing the full unlock on time and in full, spinning that "we had to fight really hard to do this for you" and blame the scientists for being worrysome botherers.
At which point Cocky and Philip and the red wall show their displeasure by voting Tory.
tbf who else do you vote for? Reform? The Daily Mail?
There is always Galloway's exciting new Strasserite project.
Slightly O/T but my wife has had a much more negative reaction to her second dose of vaccine than she did to her first. She has been seriously off her feet for the last 3 days, sick, achy and very, very tired. Almost no response at all to her first dose. I didn't expect this.
That's because her immune system is working. And it's always the second dose that gets you.
The first dose got me at 3am this morning! Good Lord, I’ve honestly never felt as bad in my life
Looks like Lord Frost is indeed buggering up on the protocol and the EU are considering retaliation measures.
The reality was that the NI protocol was never acceptable and was never going to work. It was accepted to get the deal over the line but I seriously question if we ever meant it or whether we expected the "temporary" derogations to go on indefinitely.
I therefore do not think that Frost has "buggered up" the protocol, he has simply said that it will not work and is not acceptable to us. That puts us in breach but finding a response to that by the EU that does not amount to self harm will be tricky.
The EU has run a surplus of the thick end of £90bn of surplus in goods with the UK for a long time. That is starting to change fairly fast and the more restrictions they put on the faster it will change. If, as was being alleged yesterday, they allow "red tape" to increase the cost of food supplied by them we will simply buy our food somewhere else. The EU is currently losing far more trade than we are. Do they really want to make that even worse?
I was reading yesterday that Tesco have given up on the challenge of making their existing supply chain work for NI. Currently you supply products into GB national distribution centres who consolidate loads to go to the outlying regional DCs in northern Scotland, RoI and NI. That is no longer an option for NI, so they're now passing the impossible problem to suppliers - we have to ship to NI for them.
As with "just buy our food somewhere else" this won't work in the real world as consumers won't pay a lot more for less choice of lower quality stuff. In NI they will cease being supplied from GB and be supplied instead from RoI - cue violence from unionists British goods become an expensive rarity. And for GB? If we could source all the food we need from not the EU at the same price it would already have happened.
Final Q - when the UK signs a deal that doesn't work, isn't acceptable and immediately gets torn up by us, how does that help our negotiation stance with regards to deals with the rest of the world? You can't trust us to agree a deal as we've just shown that not only do we not know what we're signing, we simply rip it up and blame the other side.
Personally I would not have signed a deal with the NI protocol. But I understand why they did. If we hadn't there would be no supply problems to NI from GB at all.
Well Johnson only had four options:
1) delay Brexit 2) land border in Ireland (No Deal) 3) Border in the Irish Sea 4) May's Deal (which he voted for at third reading)
1) would have destroyed him. Going for 4) probably too. 2) would have been chaotic and impossible to enforce, so he went for 3) with the plan to ignore it.
It was interesting to hear of the border battles in The Road to Partition last night.
Mirror poll reveals 81% back isolation for everyone on UK return
Looks like the government may have made a popular decision.
100% of people say to the Government to make a bl**dy decision and stick with it, not introduce rules which will inevitably if trusted result of n costing people 100s or 1000s of pounds due to following their advice.
Disagreed, I don't say that.
I've been slamming the government hard for its cowardice in the farcically slow pace of lifting restrictions and part of that has frankly been caused by the notion that steps taken are "irreversible". Once you make something "irreversible" then you need to be much, much more certain before doing it, meaning you can't do it when you should. It raises the evidence for lifting restrictions from beyond balance of probabilities, to beyond a reasonable dooubt.
If you are capable of doing something when you probably should rather than definitely can you must by defintion be prepared to change your mind.
Slightly O/T but my wife has had a much more negative reaction to her second dose of vaccine than she did to her first. She has been seriously off her feet for the last 3 days, sick, achy and very, very tired. Almost no response at all to her first dose. I didn't expect this.
That's because her immune system is working. And it's always the second dose that gets you.
The consensus appears to be that the AZN is more commonly worse at first dose and Pfizer at second. Certainly it was that way around both for me (AZN) and my mother (Pfizer)
It hardly bothered me either dose. No worse than a mild hangover either time.
So the government is establishing that it is being "extremely cautious" (Jenrick, R4 today) in putting Portugal on the amber list.
Although he couldn't confirm one case of the "Nepal" mutation they are stopping travel to Portugal "just in case". Not anywhere else currently on the green list, just Portugal. Why not everywhere else?
As such, no action is now off the table.
If the nation (and PB especially) is ready to accept "extreme caution" and "just in case" then it will welcome with open arms an extension to lockdown on June 21st and much more besides.
Why? Because ratings. So we are getting what we want. Rejoice.
With any other government if they twatted about with people's lives and with business and with jobs there would be Hell To Pay. This lot? I absolutely won't put it past them doing the full unlock on time and in full, spinning that "we had to fight really hard to do this for you" and blame the scientists for being worrysome botherers.
At which point Cocky and Philip and the red wall show their displeasure by voting Tory.
tbf who else do you vote for? Reform? The Daily Mail?
There is always Galloway's exciting new Strasserite project.
LOL at those front pages, a totally out of touch media who think that the most important thing in a global pandemic is spending a week on a beach somewhere. How’s about removing domestic restrictions first, so the vaccination success can be built on by getting the economy moving?
If this was out of the blue then you would have a point. It isn't though. The clowncar seem obsessed about the desire of the proles to go to Benidorm and for the right sort to be able to do global business trip unimpeded. Last summer we had Ester McVile embarassing herself extolling the virtues of "staycations" https://twitter.com/EstherMcVey1/status/1289185662483087361 - that won't do for this year hence the clowncar telling the papers that people will be allowed to travel because thats what the Boris vaccine is for.
In reality foreign travel should remain heavily restricted. Business or family only, no jollies. In practice thats what it is, but with endless shite about BOOK NOW because they don't want to bail out the travel industry any more.
They really missed the ball. A pandemic plus Brexit - what a glorious opportunity to have pushed the virtues of holidaying in Britain. Which would have meant all the tough border restrictions the clowncar seem incapable of doing in practice despite the "take back control" guff and that psychotic Patel doing her "arrest a darky" photoshoot. But it could have been done.
Cummings was right wasn't he? Functional incompetence.
Well, he should certainly know what that looks like...
I do keep banging on about this - but a staycation - inasmuch as we can assign definite meaning to horrible portmanteau neologisms - is a holiday IN YOUR OWN HOME, not a holiday in your own country. A holiday in your own country is just a holiday, same as millions upon millions of Brits take each year. There is a little bit of snobbery about the idea that a holiday doesn't count unless its abroad. But I suspect a holiday in the UK is the norm. At least, it seems to be in middle-class-parentland.
LOL at those front pages, a totally out of touch media who think that the most important thing in a global pandemic is spending a week on a beach somewhere. How’s about removing domestic restrictions first, so the vaccination success can be built on by getting the economy moving?
An excellent notion. What then was the traffic light system about ?
LOL at those front pages, a totally out of touch media who think that the most important thing in a global pandemic is spending a week on a beach somewhere. How’s about removing domestic restrictions first, so the vaccination success can be built on by getting the economy moving?
If this was out of the blue then you would have a point. It isn't though. The clowncar seem obsessed about the desire of the proles to go to Benidorm and for the right sort to be able to do global business trip unimpeded. Last summer we had Ester McVile embarassing herself extolling the virtues of "staycations" https://twitter.com/EstherMcVey1/status/1289185662483087361 - that won't do for this year hence the clowncar telling the papers that people will be allowed to travel because thats what the Boris vaccine is for.
In reality foreign travel should remain heavily restricted. Business or family only, no jollies. In practice thats what it is, but with endless shite about BOOK NOW because they don't want to bail out the travel industry any more.
They really missed the ball. A pandemic plus Brexit - what a glorious opportunity to have pushed the virtues of holidaying in Britain. Which would have meant all the tough border restrictions the clowncar seem incapable of doing in practice despite the "take back control" guff and that psychotic Patel doing her "arrest a darky" photoshoot. But it could have been done.
Cummings was right wasn't he? Functional incompetence.
I’ve been saying for ages that Cummings was right. Now, he probably wasn’t the right person to be driving the reforms, but they definitely need to be made.
To be fair, they have been talking about domestic holidays, it’s just that the media are obsessed by foreign holidays (and the travel industry is one of very few that still spends a lot of money on advertising in newspapers and on TV).
It’s really irritating, as someone stuck abroad who hasn’t seen his parents for two years, that the media are prioritising a week on a beach over business and personal travel.
I can understand the government's decision. Until at least 2/3 of UK adults have had a second jab then there is simply too high a risk for the unvaccinated and those who have only had 1 jab from the Indian and other potential variants. Therefore they want to minimise foreign travel to only nations which have double vaccinated almost all their population or have barely any cases now at all.
However, Reform UK's candidate in Chesham and Amersham is certainly pushing hard a demand for a full return to all freedoms on June 21st
I am interested in what is planned for June 21st. Are people really expecting everything to end in terms of Social Distancing and masks etc? Certainly there are no plans for my hospital to do this. I just expect the final restrictions on businesses to end.
I think a lot of people expect social distancing to end then, indeed it's the main thing people expect to end. It is a massive pain and blockage on the path to normality, and with Covid rates so low it's just not worth it. You're not ending restrictions on businesses if you keep it.
Masks I can see people putting up with if they have to, or voluntarily as guidance, but social distancing? It has to stop already.
I suspect the biggest driver of the government's overseas travel policy is to make us spend our money in the UK and not abroad.
They daren't actually tell us this is the plan so instead they put as many obstacles as they can in the way of going abroad to the point where it becomes almost impossible for the average family. Meanwhile the wealthy will no doubt continue jetting wherever they please on "essential" business.
Mirror poll reveals 81% back isolation for everyone on UK return
Looks like the government may have made a popular decision.
The 'front pages' are no more Britain than Twitter is.
The 'front pages' and response if 21 June does not go ahead is going to be far, far more severe.
One thing to watch out for is Rishi Sunak's reaction. 21st June is as popular as he's ever going to be. If it's delayed, and he resigns in protest on the grounds that continuing with unnecessary restrictions is economic suicide, not only do Harper and Baker have the perfect excuse to move against Johnson, but the party also has a plausible alternative leader - indeed, under those circumstances Sunak might be the Howard candidate.
I don't say it's likely, but it's one thing to keep an eye on.
A scientist on Sky just now has said moving Portugal to amber is the correct decision to enable the UK to open on the 21st June
LOL at those front pages, a totally out of touch media who think that the most important thing in a global pandemic is spending a week on a beach somewhere. How’s about removing domestic restrictions first, so the vaccination success can be built on by getting the economy moving?
If this was out of the blue then you would have a point. It isn't though. The clowncar seem obsessed about the desire of the proles to go to Benidorm and for the right sort to be able to do global business trip unimpeded. Last summer we had Ester McVile embarassing herself extolling the virtues of "staycations" https://twitter.com/EstherMcVey1/status/1289185662483087361 - that won't do for this year hence the clowncar telling the papers that people will be allowed to travel because thats what the Boris vaccine is for.
In reality foreign travel should remain heavily restricted. Business or family only, no jollies. In practice thats what it is, but with endless shite about BOOK NOW because they don't want to bail out the travel industry any more.
They really missed the ball. A pandemic plus Brexit - what a glorious opportunity to have pushed the virtues of holidaying in Britain. Which would have meant all the tough border restrictions the clowncar seem incapable of doing in practice despite the "take back control" guff and that psychotic Patel doing her "arrest a darky" photoshoot. But it could have been done.
Cummings was right wasn't he? Functional incompetence.
Well, he should certainly know what that looks like...
I do keep banging on about this - but a staycation - inasmuch as we can assign definite meaning to horrible portmanteau neologisms - is a holiday IN YOUR OWN HOME, not a holiday in your own country. A holiday in your own country is just a holiday, same as millions upon millions of Brits take each year. There is a little bit of snobbery about the idea that a holiday doesn't count unless its abroad. But I suspect a holiday in the UK is the norm. At least, it seems to be in middle-class-parentland.
What about if you take an internal trip with a broad? Does that count?
So instead of using the joint committee to work for a solution they are going to use it to shout at the UK? That’s constructive.
And it’s laughably one sided reporting… the state frustration at “refusal to consider an SPS agreement” but forget to add the words “containing dynamic alignment”. The UL would be fine with an SPS agreement based on alignment
Their stock answer is "that's Brexit" which, through the beauty of confirmation bias, means they don't have to accept any responsibility whatsoever for the implications of their own actions, nor consider any innovative solutions or show any flexibility. The hope is (still, of course) that they can use the NI protocol to crowbar the UK into closer alignment.
So the government is establishing that it is being "extremely cautious" (Jenrick, R4 today) in putting Portugal on the amber list.
Although he couldn't confirm one case of the "Nepal" mutation they are stopping travel to Portugal "just in case". Not anywhere else currently on the green list, just Portugal. Why not everywhere else?
As such, no action is now off the table.
If the nation (and PB especially) is ready to accept "extreme caution" and "just in case" then it will welcome with open arms an extension to lockdown on June 21st and much more besides.
Why? Because ratings. So we are getting what we want. Rejoice.
Yep. Anyone who thinks continuing with plans for June 21st is consistent with acting with “extreme caution” isn’t thinking straight. I wouldn’t be surprised if all the comment from Johnson down about “nothing in the data to prevent June 21st” is a deliberate strategy to suddenly notice something in the data on June 13th...
“And with the greatest of reluctance...”
Although you would have thought Johnson of all people would have got this breaking up with partners down to a tee.
I think all the evidence is that his break ups are famously acrimonious. The next one could be real popcorn time.
Indeed yes. Which one gets the house? The incumbent Prime Minister, or Boris Johnson?
If I were Carrie Antoinette, I'd be having a good look at the detail of those 'Henry VIII clauses' the government smuggled into law not that far back, just to be safe....
Bit confused about why this government drunk on power and crushing our freedoms in thrall to over cautious scientists decided to do fuck all in September last year allowing the Autumn and winter surges to sweep the nation.
Because they didn't do fuck all. They introduced the rule of 6, tiers and more. The rules were practically changing every couple of weeks, which is them doing things. 🤦♂️
Looks like Lord Frost is indeed buggering up on the protocol and the EU are considering retaliation measures.
The reality was that the NI protocol was never acceptable and was never going to work. It was accepted to get the deal over the line but I seriously question if we ever meant it or whether we expected the "temporary" derogations to go on indefinitely.
I therefore do not think that Frost has "buggered up" the protocol, he has simply said that it will not work and is not acceptable to us. That puts us in breach but finding a response to that by the EU that does not amount to self harm will be tricky.
The EU has run a surplus of the thick end of £90bn of surplus in goods with the UK for a long time. That is starting to change fairly fast and the more restrictions they put on the faster it will change. If, as was being alleged yesterday, they allow "red tape" to increase the cost of food supplied by them we will simply buy our food somewhere else. The EU is currently losing far more trade than we are. Do they really want to make that even worse?
It’s Frost’s protocol that he is now saying won’t work. That’s either gross incompetence or gross deceit.
I don't think that's entirely accurate. I think you should allow for the distinct possibility that it's both.
You could bet your shirt on it being both.
I'll cheerfully bet the one I'm wearing now, because it's old, tatty and covered in paint (a skirting board needed doing).
Mirror poll reveals 81% back isolation for everyone on UK return
Looks like the government may have made a popular decision.
100% of people say to the Government to make a bl**dy decision and stick with it, not introduce rules which will inevitably if trusted result of n costing people 100s or 1000s of pounds due to following their advice.
Yes, it is the random rule changes that get people. How much food and beer is Ms @Cyclefree Jr supposed to order for 2 weeks time, for example? People need to be able to plan.
In Israel, CV19 is completely defeated. Despite reopening to (vaccinated) tourists and their children, total cases are a dozen a day. They are maybe six weeks ahead of us in terms of vaccination numbers.
In the US, which is still well behind the UK in terms of doses administered per person, and which is flattening out, there is not the slightest suggestion restrictions will continue. And hospitalisations and deaths continue to collapse. Nobody seems the slightest bit concerned about young people and antivaxxers getting Covid.
Across the EU, restrictions are being dismantled, with one or two countries (like Denmark) having essentially removed all measures. There too there is now a decoupling: the numbers in hospital with CV19 are falling, even as case loads (mostly among the young and not even single jabbed) have risen.
No-one outside the UK (and genuine hotspots like South America and India) is thinking about doing anything other than returning to normal.
In our case, it's a case of once bitten twice shy.
LOL at those front pages, a totally out of touch media who think that the most important thing in a global pandemic is spending a week on a beach somewhere. How’s about removing domestic restrictions first, so the vaccination success can be built on by getting the economy moving?
If this was out of the blue then you would have a point. It isn't though. The clowncar seem obsessed about the desire of the proles to go to Benidorm and for the right sort to be able to do global business trip unimpeded. Last summer we had Ester McVile embarassing herself extolling the virtues of "staycations" https://twitter.com/EstherMcVey1/status/1289185662483087361 - that won't do for this year hence the clowncar telling the papers that people will be allowed to travel because thats what the Boris vaccine is for.
In reality foreign travel should remain heavily restricted. Business or family only, no jollies. In practice thats what it is, but with endless shite about BOOK NOW because they don't want to bail out the travel industry any more.
They really missed the ball. A pandemic plus Brexit - what a glorious opportunity to have pushed the virtues of holidaying in Britain. Which would have meant all the tough border restrictions the clowncar seem incapable of doing in practice despite the "take back control" guff and that psychotic Patel doing her "arrest a darky" photoshoot. But it could have been done.
Cummings was right wasn't he? Functional incompetence.
Well, he should certainly know what that looks like...
I do keep banging on about this - but a staycation - inasmuch as we can assign definite meaning to horrible portmanteau neologisms - is a holiday IN YOUR OWN HOME, not a holiday in your own country. A holiday in your own country is just a holiday, same as millions upon millions of Brits take each year. There is a little bit of snobbery about the idea that a holiday doesn't count unless its abroad. But I suspect a holiday in the UK is the norm. At least, it seems to be in middle-class-parentland.
What about if you take an internal trip with a broad? Does that count?
In Israel, CV19 is completely defeated. Despite reopening to (vaccinated) tourists and their children, total cases are a dozen a day. They are maybe six weeks ahead of us in terms of vaccination numbers.
In the US, which is still well behind the UK in terms of doses administered per person, and which is flattening out, there is not the slightest suggestion restrictions will continue. And hospitalisations and deaths continue to collapse. Nobody seems the slightest bit concerned about young people and antivaxxers getting Covid.
Across the EU, restrictions are being dismantled, with one or two countries (like Denmark) having essentially removed all measures. There too there is now a decoupling: the numbers in hospital with CV19 are falling, even as case loads (mostly among the young and not even single jabbed) have risen.
No-one outside the UK (and genuine hotspots like South America and India) is thinking about doing anything other than returning to normal.
Not true in France where Macron has tightened restrictions further, Australia effectively has banned all travel into and out of the country at the moment too
LOL at those front pages, a totally out of touch media who think that the most important thing in a global pandemic is spending a week on a beach somewhere. How’s about removing domestic restrictions first, so the vaccination success can be built on by getting the economy moving?
There is no pandemic anymore in the UK, in Israel or the US. There's increasingly not even a pandemic in the EU.
Everyone except the UK government seems to have realised this.
SAGE are ultra-conservative. The reality is that the experiences of the last 14 months will have given it a risk culture that is now strongly entrenched through its group dynamic.
They should thank the current incumbents for their service, and refresh the pot.
Of course the very slow rate of vaccination is not willfulness by the government. What has happened is that after a period where we almost took it for granted that they would roll a 6 every time on vaccinations they have come up with a couple of 1s in that large volumes of vaccine that they expected to have has not arrived. I suppose statistically this was likely to happen at some point but the timing is seriously disappointing and I find it bizarre that we can have front pages like those in the thread header with so little discussion of it.
Trouble with using the "bad luck" excuse (which seems pretty valid) is that it means acknowledging that some of the UK's success earlier was down to good luck- not just perfect judgement. (This isn't to say that the UK's judgement wasn't good, but that wasn't the while story.) For example, we got an early start to Pfizer deliveries, but numbers have been flat since then. France, on the other hand did 700k jabs yesterday, and will be needing to find a million arms a day soon. Given that the UK's key insight was that it was right to spend on vaccines like Bunter in a tuckshop, why didn't we order more?
Slightly O/T but my wife has had a much more negative reaction to her second dose of vaccine than she did to her first. She has been seriously off her feet for the last 3 days, sick, achy and very, very tired. Almost no response at all to her first dose. I didn't expect this.
The variation in response is strange. I had a very bad 24 hours after the first dose; had the second yesterday - and nothing at all.
Looks like Lord Frost is indeed buggering up on the protocol and the EU are considering retaliation measures.
The reality was that the NI protocol was never acceptable and was never going to work. It was accepted to get the deal over the line but I seriously question if we ever meant it or whether we expected the "temporary" derogations to go on indefinitely.
I therefore do not think that Frost has "buggered up" the protocol, he has simply said that it will not work and is not acceptable to us. That puts us in breach but finding a response to that by the EU that does not amount to self harm will be tricky.
The EU has run a surplus of the thick end of £90bn of surplus in goods with the UK for a long time. That is starting to change fairly fast and the more restrictions they put on the faster it will change. If, as was being alleged yesterday, they allow "red tape" to increase the cost of food supplied by them we will simply buy our food somewhere else. The EU is currently losing far more trade than we are. Do they really want to make that even worse?
I was reading yesterday that Tesco have given up on the challenge of making their existing supply chain work for NI. Currently you supply products into GB national distribution centres who consolidate loads to go to the outlying regional DCs in northern Scotland, RoI and NI. That is no longer an option for NI, so they're now passing the impossible problem to suppliers - we have to ship to NI for them.
As with "just buy our food somewhere else" this won't work in the real world as consumers won't pay a lot more for less choice of lower quality stuff. In NI they will cease being supplied from GB and be supplied instead from RoI - cue violence from unionists British goods become an expensive rarity. And for GB? If we could source all the food we need from not the EU at the same price it would already have happened.
Final Q - when the UK signs a deal that doesn't work, isn't acceptable and immediately gets torn up by us, how does that help our negotiation stance with regards to deals with the rest of the world? You can't trust us to agree a deal as we've just shown that not only do we not know what we're signing, we simply rip it up and blame the other side.
Personally I would not have signed a deal with the NI protocol. But I understand why they did. If we hadn't there would be no supply problems to NI from GB at all.
Well Johnson only had four options:
1) delay Brexit 2) land border in Ireland (No Deal) 3) Border in the Irish Sea 4) May's Deal (which he voted for at third reading)
1) would have destroyed him. Going for 4) probably too. 2) would have been chaotic and impossible to enforce, so he went for 3) with the plan to ignore it.
It was interesting to hear of the border battles in The Road to Partition last night.
The solution to NI has always been to split the difference.
F1: Put a small sum on Norris to win each way in Azerbaijan at 29. He's driven well all year, the car was better than expected in Monaco and will be better in Azerbaijan due to the straight, and the race sometimes sees farcically high DNF rates.
Anyone been watching the vg Road to Partition on BBC2? I knew some of the events but it was striking how close to a Balkan style situation Ireland was in 1916-22: murder, assassination, massacres, rebellion, civil war, ethnic cleansing, state killing. As one historian put it (I paraphrase), partition was not a solution rather it put the problem in a deep freeze, and sooner or later problems have to come out of the deep freeze.
Yes but putting them in the deep freeze was better than a civil war lasting decades in Northern Ireland which would have been the outcome without partition
In Israel, CV19 is completely defeated. Despite reopening to (vaccinated) tourists and their children, total cases are a dozen a day. They are maybe six weeks ahead of us in terms of vaccination numbers.
In the US, which is still well behind the UK in terms of doses administered per person, and which is flattening out, there is not the slightest suggestion restrictions will continue. And hospitalisations and deaths continue to collapse. Nobody seems the slightest bit concerned about young people and antivaxxers getting Covid.
Across the EU, restrictions are being dismantled, with one or two countries (like Denmark) having essentially removed all measures. There too there is now a decoupling: the numbers in hospital with CV19 are falling, even as case loads (mostly among the young and not even single jabbed) have risen.
No-one outside the UK (and genuine hotspots like South America and India) is thinking about doing anything other than returning to normal.
I think we need to decouple what the shrill media/iSAGE etc are yelling and what the government(s) are doing. I still expect English restrictions to (mostly) go on the 21st. You can imagine masks may yet remain in clinical settings and possibly on public transport. But as many in the gov have said - there is nothing in the data to suggest we need to not relax on the 21st.
We are paying the price for a fixation on positive tests - now that should NOT be the indicator of concern as the vaccines have done their job for the vulnerable. Testing everyone twice a week makes sense in a non-vaccine world. Now it is muddying he waters.
Looks like Lord Frost is indeed buggering up on the protocol and the EU are considering retaliation measures.
The reality was that the NI protocol was never acceptable and was never going to work. It was accepted to get the deal over the line but I seriously question if we ever meant it or whether we expected the "temporary" derogations to go on indefinitely.
I therefore do not think that Frost has "buggered up" the protocol, he has simply said that it will not work and is not acceptable to us. That puts us in breach but finding a response to that by the EU that does not amount to self harm will be tricky.
The EU has run a surplus of the thick end of £90bn of surplus in goods with the UK for a long time. That is starting to change fairly fast and the more restrictions they put on the faster it will change. If, as was being alleged yesterday, they allow "red tape" to increase the cost of food supplied by them we will simply buy our food somewhere else. The EU is currently losing far more trade than we are. Do they really want to make that even worse?
It’s Frost’s protocol that he is now saying won’t work. That’s either gross incompetence or gross deceit.
I don't think that's entirely accurate. I think you should allow for the distinct possibility that it's both.
You could bet your shirt on it being both.
I'll cheerfully bet the one I'm wearing now, because it's old, tatty and covered in paint (a skirting board needed doing).
Bit confused about why this government drunk on power and crushing our freedoms in thrall to over cautious scientists decided to do fuck all in September last year allowing the Autumn and winter surges to sweep the nation.
As I said upthread, slow learners. So slow, that the lesson has changed.
Mirror poll reveals 81% back isolation for everyone on UK return
Looks like the government may have made a popular decision.
The 'front pages' are no more Britain than Twitter is.
The 'front pages' and response if 21 June does not go ahead is going to be far, far more severe.
One thing to watch out for is Rishi Sunak's reaction. 21st June is as popular as he's ever going to be. If it's delayed, and he resigns in protest on the grounds that continuing with unnecessary restrictions is economic suicide, not only do Harper and Baker have the perfect excuse to move against Johnson, but the party also has a plausible alternative leader - indeed, under those circumstances Sunak might be the Howard candidate.
I don't say it's likely, but it's one thing to keep an eye on.
A scientist on Sky just now has said moving Portugal to amber is the correct decision to enable the UK to open on the 21st June
Are we seeing a change in the narrative
Close our borders to enable the 21st June
I think there is something in that. However I think the odds of 21 June happening to any meaningful degree are now 60/40 against. The decision that should be preoccupying the front pages is the India red list decision. We would not have kept Delta out forever but we sure as hell might have been able to delay widespread seeding until more of the population had been double vaccinated. I think we are looking at September for Step 4 now with some rolling back of Step 3 in the meantime because of the inexplicable delay over India.
I am interested in what is planned for June 21st. Are people really expecting everything to end in terms of Social Distancing and masks etc? Certainly there are no plans for my hospital to do this. I just expect the final restrictions on businesses to end.
I think a lot of people expect social distancing to end then, indeed it's the main thing people expect to end. It is a massive pain and blockage on the path to normality, and with Covid rates so low it's just not worth it. You're not ending restrictions on businesses if you keep it.
Masks I can see people putting up with if they have to, or voluntarily as guidance, but social distancing? It has to stop already.
We've got a baptism booked in for November (cancelled from original date in May last year). The church told us that it's max 30 people and have already sent us a form to provide their names and addresses for Covid track and trace. We've tactfully told them that we'll do that, if required, nearer the time. Our assumption is that there won't be 30 person limit and no need for names to be taken; the chruch warden is a wee bit of a jobsworth!
Looks like Lord Frost is indeed buggering up on the protocol and the EU are considering retaliation measures.
The reality was that the NI protocol was never acceptable and was never going to work. It was accepted to get the deal over the line but I seriously question if we ever meant it or whether we expected the "temporary" derogations to go on indefinitely.
I therefore do not think that Frost has "buggered up" the protocol, he has simply said that it will not work and is not acceptable to us. That puts us in breach but finding a response to that by the EU that does not amount to self harm will be tricky.
The EU has run a surplus of the thick end of £90bn of surplus in goods with the UK for a long time. That is starting to change fairly fast and the more restrictions they put on the faster it will change. If, as was being alleged yesterday, they allow "red tape" to increase the cost of food supplied by them we will simply buy our food somewhere else. The EU is currently losing far more trade than we are. Do they really want to make that even worse?
I was reading yesterday that Tesco have given up on the challenge of making their existing supply chain work for NI. Currently you supply products into GB national distribution centres who consolidate loads to go to the outlying regional DCs in northern Scotland, RoI and NI. That is no longer an option for NI, so they're now passing the impossible problem to suppliers - we have to ship to NI for them.
As with "just buy our food somewhere else" this won't work in the real world as consumers won't pay a lot more for less choice of lower quality stuff. In NI they will cease being supplied from GB and be supplied instead from RoI - cue violence from unionists British goods become an expensive rarity. And for GB? If we could source all the food we need from not the EU at the same price it would already have happened.
Final Q - when the UK signs a deal that doesn't work, isn't acceptable and immediately gets torn up by us, how does that help our negotiation stance with regards to deals with the rest of the world? You can't trust us to agree a deal as we've just shown that not only do we not know what we're signing, we simply rip it up and blame the other side.
Personally I would not have signed a deal with the NI protocol. But I understand why they did. If we hadn't there would be no supply problems to NI from GB at all.
Well Johnson only had four options:
1) delay Brexit 2) land border in Ireland (No Deal) 3) Border in the Irish Sea 4) May's Deal (which he voted for at third reading)
1) would have destroyed him. Going for 4) probably too. 2) would have been chaotic and impossible to enforce, so he went for 3) with the plan to ignore it.
It was interesting to hear of the border battles in The Road to Partition last night.
Indeed and had Boris chosen 1 he would not have regained the voters from the Brexit Party he needed to beat Corbyn, had he chosen 2 then there would now be a clear majority in Northern Ireland for a United Ireland and also probably 60%+ support for independence in Scotland as a result of a No Deal outcome.
4 in my view was still better than 3 for the UK and the economy but not for the Tory Party in the sense Boris would not have won the clear majority he did in 2019 to defeat Corbyn had he stuck with May's Deal. Ironically if Starmer does become PM in 2024 he would now probably return the UK to something close to May's Deal after all
Slightly O/T but my wife has had a much more negative reaction to her second dose of vaccine than she did to her first. She has been seriously off her feet for the last 3 days, sick, achy and very, very tired. Almost no response at all to her first dose. I didn't expect this.
That's not good. Mrs RP was really ill for 36 hours after 1st AZ and I know she isn't alone in that. 2nd jab should be easier surely...?
I can understand the government's decision. Until at least 2/3 of UK adults have had a second jab then there is simply too high a risk for the unvaccinated and those who have only had 1 jab from the Indian and other potential variants. Therefore they want to minimise foreign travel to only nations which have double vaccinated almost all their population or have barely any cases now at all....
Can you then explain the point of traffic light system ?
Mirror poll reveals 81% back isolation for everyone on UK return
Looks like the government may have made a popular decision.
100% of people say to the Government to make a bl**dy decision and stick with it, not introduce rules which will inevitably if trusted result of n costing people 100s or 1000s of pounds due to following their advice.
Yes, it is the random rule changes that get people. How much food and beer is Ms @Cyclefree Jr supposed to order for 2 weeks time, for example? People need to be able to plan.
That's why a week's notice rather than a day's notice is given for each step surely?
Fresh food and drink can be ordered, rested, tapped and ready with a week's notice.
Non-fresh food and drink can be ordered and ready any time.
LOL at those front pages, a totally out of touch media who think that the most important thing in a global pandemic is spending a week on a beach somewhere. How’s about removing domestic restrictions first, so the vaccination success can be built on by getting the economy moving?
If this was out of the blue then you would have a point. It isn't though. The clowncar seem obsessed about the desire of the proles to go to Benidorm and for the right sort to be able to do global business trip unimpeded. Last summer we had Ester McVile embarassing herself extolling the virtues of "staycations" https://twitter.com/EstherMcVey1/status/1289185662483087361 - that won't do for this year hence the clowncar telling the papers that people will be allowed to travel because thats what the Boris vaccine is for.
In reality foreign travel should remain heavily restricted. Business or family only, no jollies. In practice thats what it is, but with endless shite about BOOK NOW because they don't want to bail out the travel industry any more.
They really missed the ball. A pandemic plus Brexit - what a glorious opportunity to have pushed the virtues of holidaying in Britain. Which would have meant all the tough border restrictions the clowncar seem incapable of doing in practice despite the "take back control" guff and that psychotic Patel doing her "arrest a darky" photoshoot. But it could have been done.
Cummings was right wasn't he? Functional incompetence.
Well, he should certainly know what that looks like...
I do keep banging on about this - but a staycation - inasmuch as we can assign definite meaning to horrible portmanteau neologisms - is a holiday IN YOUR OWN HOME, not a holiday in your own country. A holiday in your own country is just a holiday, same as millions upon millions of Brits take each year. There is a little bit of snobbery about the idea that a holiday doesn't count unless its abroad. But I suspect a holiday in the UK is the norm. At least, it seems to be in middle-class-parentland.
In my experience, domestic holidays have long been popular with the upper and upper middle classes. Cornwall, Isle of Wight and North Norfolk are all Chelsea-on-Sea in the summer, though a lot of the other end of the market too in static caravans. It is those in the middle incomes who seem to go abroad in the summer.
Looks like Lord Frost is indeed buggering up on the protocol and the EU are considering retaliation measures.
The reality was that the NI protocol was never acceptable and was never going to work. It was accepted to get the deal over the line but I seriously question if we ever meant it or whether we expected the "temporary" derogations to go on indefinitely.
I therefore do not think that Frost has "buggered up" the protocol, he has simply said that it will not work and is not acceptable to us. That puts us in breach but finding a response to that by the EU that does not amount to self harm will be tricky.
The EU has run a surplus of the thick end of £90bn of surplus in goods with the UK for a long time. That is starting to change fairly fast and the more restrictions they put on the faster it will change. If, as was being alleged yesterday, they allow "red tape" to increase the cost of food supplied by them we will simply buy our food somewhere else. The EU is currently losing far more trade than we are. Do they really want to make that even worse?
I was reading yesterday that Tesco have given up on the challenge of making their existing supply chain work for NI. Currently you supply products into GB national distribution centres who consolidate loads to go to the outlying regional DCs in northern Scotland, RoI and NI. That is no longer an option for NI, so they're now passing the impossible problem to suppliers - we have to ship to NI for them.
As with "just buy our food somewhere else" this won't work in the real world as consumers won't pay a lot more for less choice of lower quality stuff. In NI they will cease being supplied from GB and be supplied instead from RoI - cue violence from unionists British goods become an expensive rarity. And for GB? If we could source all the food we need from not the EU at the same price it would already have happened.
Final Q - when the UK signs a deal that doesn't work, isn't acceptable and immediately gets torn up by us, how does that help our negotiation stance with regards to deals with the rest of the world? You can't trust us to agree a deal as we've just shown that not only do we not know what we're signing, we simply rip it up and blame the other side.
Personally I would not have signed a deal with the NI protocol. But I understand why they did. If we hadn't there would be no supply problems to NI from GB at all.
Well Johnson only had four options:
1) delay Brexit 2) land border in Ireland (No Deal) 3) Border in the Irish Sea 4) May's Deal (which he voted for at third reading)
1) would have destroyed him. Going for 4) probably too. 2) would have been chaotic and impossible to enforce, so he went for 3) with the plan to ignore it.
It was interesting to hear of the border battles in The Road to Partition last night.
Indeed and had Boris chosen 1 he would not have regained voters from the Brexit Party, had he chosen 2 then there would now be a clear majority in Ireland for a United Ireland and also probably 60%+ support for independence in Scotland as a result of a No Deal outcome.
4 in my view was still better than 3 for the UK and the economy but not for the Tory Party in the sense Boris would not have won the clear majority he did in 2019 to defeat Corbyn had he stuck with May's Deal. Ironically if Starmer does become PM in 2024 he would probably return the UK to something close to May's Deal after all
Ummm - aren't we all forgetting that he did delay Brexit?
Childishly, incompetently, on the orders of PArliament etc etc but he did hit the pause button.
Slightly O/T but my wife has had a much more negative reaction to her second dose of vaccine than she did to her first. She has been seriously off her feet for the last 3 days, sick, achy and very, very tired. Almost no response at all to her first dose. I didn't expect this.
That's because her immune system is working. And it's always the second dose that gets you.
The first dose got me at 3am this morning! Good Lord, I’ve honestly never felt as bad in my life
I had my first Pfizer vaccine on Tuesday and passed out 2 minutes after. I was carried to a bed and recovered about 15 minutes afterwards. My vaccine center was a little cottage hospital and I was sat in a chair in the courtyard to recover like an elderly invalid. Interestingly there were two other people my own age sat there with a similar reaction.
I recovered quickly so no complaints but the nurse said they've been seeing this reaction a lot more now they're doing more young people. They think it might be due to either dehydration or an empty stomach (both would have applied to me). Might be worth warning any 30 somethings you know to have a good breakfast and drink enough water before going
I can understand the government's decision. Until at least 2/3 of UK adults have had a second jab then there is simply too high a risk for the unvaccinated and those who have only had 1 jab from the Indian and other potential variants. Therefore they want to minimise foreign travel to only nations which have double vaccinated almost all their population or have barely any cases now at all....
Can you then explain the point of traffic light system ?
Green is countries with double vaccinations or barely any cases (which now no longer includes Portugal). Red is countries where its a major problem. Amber is everyone else.
Traffic lights don't stay green forever. That's surely a part of the paradigm people who aren't deliberately being fools understand?
Slightly O/T but my wife has had a much more negative reaction to her second dose of vaccine than she did to her first. She has been seriously off her feet for the last 3 days, sick, achy and very, very tired. Almost no response at all to her first dose. I didn't expect this.
That's not good. Mrs RP was really ill for 36 hours after 1st AZ and I know she isn't alone in that. 2nd jab should be easier surely...?
Just talking to friends it seems quite random - sometimes unpleasant as David says, but normally OK within a couple of days. Hope Mrfs DL will feel better very soon.
Looks like Lord Frost is indeed buggering up on the protocol and the EU are considering retaliation measures.
The reality was that the NI protocol was never acceptable and was never going to work. It was accepted to get the deal over the line but I seriously question if we ever meant it or whether we expected the "temporary" derogations to go on indefinitely.
I therefore do not think that Frost has "buggered up" the protocol, he has simply said that it will not work and is not acceptable to us. That puts us in breach but finding a response to that by the EU that does not amount to self harm will be tricky.
The EU has run a surplus of the thick end of £90bn of surplus in goods with the UK for a long time. That is starting to change fairly fast and the more restrictions they put on the faster it will change. If, as was being alleged yesterday, they allow "red tape" to increase the cost of food supplied by them we will simply buy our food somewhere else. The EU is currently losing far more trade than we are. Do they really want to make that even worse?
I was reading yesterday that Tesco have given up on the challenge of making their existing supply chain work for NI. Currently you supply products into GB national distribution centres who consolidate loads to go to the outlying regional DCs in northern Scotland, RoI and NI. That is no longer an option for NI, so they're now passing the impossible problem to suppliers - we have to ship to NI for them.
As with "just buy our food somewhere else" this won't work in the real world as consumers won't pay a lot more for less choice of lower quality stuff. In NI they will cease being supplied from GB and be supplied instead from RoI - cue violence from unionists British goods become an expensive rarity. And for GB? If we could source all the food we need from not the EU at the same price it would already have happened.
Final Q - when the UK signs a deal that doesn't work, isn't acceptable and immediately gets torn up by us, how does that help our negotiation stance with regards to deals with the rest of the world? You can't trust us to agree a deal as we've just shown that not only do we not know what we're signing, we simply rip it up and blame the other side.
Personally I would not have signed a deal with the NI protocol. But I understand why they did. If we hadn't there would be no supply problems to NI from GB at all.
We signed a deal which semi-detached NI from GB. My EORI number allows me to import from the EU to GB. When I want to start supplying NI I will need a separate EORI license, and the checking of paperwork on anything that isn't a uniform load utterly knackers cross border traffic.
The reality is that the clowncar signed the deal with the NI Protocal and *didn't know* what it meant, how things worked before and how they would work afterwards. They signed away part of the UK because stupid.
F1: Put a small sum on Norris to win each way in Azerbaijan at 29. He's driven well all year, the car was better than expected in Monaco and will be better in Azerbaijan due to the straight, and the race sometimes sees farcically high DNF rates.
Not a bad notion. He's got a genuine podium chance, I think.
I am interested in what is planned for June 21st. Are people really expecting everything to end in terms of Social Distancing and masks etc? Certainly there are no plans for my hospital to do this. I just expect the final restrictions on businesses to end.
I think clinical settings will still keep some measures, probably until we have genuinely vaccinated the over 16's of the country, but no social distancing and masks for pubs etc. Also - I expect workplaces may still choose to ask staff to do things, but it won't be a legal issue.
The crux of the problem that @Cocky_cockney raises is that this government is functionally incompetent. I have been banging the drum for ages that "we won, we're popular, it doesn't matter" isn't good enough. Lies, corruption, incompetence, strategy based on newspaper headlines - this isn't how good government is done.
Since the start it has been blindingly obvious this clowncar government don't know how to communicate. Guidance that is contradicted one minister on the radio to the next that contradicts the law. A new 5 stage plan launched at 3.5. Regional tiers supposedly all the same but the rules are different in each place affected.
So it isn't a surprise that we're here. If you are double vaccinated then why do you need to isolate for 10 days and take 3 tests to come back from countries who have less pox than we do? Its illogical and stupid. They declared that 6 people in a choir couldn't meet covid secure in a venue to sing, but bands can play with the audience singing along. Who makes this shit up?
Fundamentally they do it and they get away with it because @Philip_Thompson and @Cocky_cockney etc rightly tear chunks of the government but vote for it anyway. They think you are stupid and tret you accordingly.
All valid criticisms. But have you examined the Scottish approach in your time there? The levels seem every bit as convoluted and confusing as anything in England. Why the eff is level 0 not normality? Do you need to go to level -1? Fundamentally this is a very difficult time to be in government. We have people all pulling in different directions. We are still hearing the shrill - "Why didn't we keep the India variant out by closing the borders" at the same time as "Why are we shutting to Portugal?" - when the reason given is exactly what the government is accused of NOT doing for India.
I get that you hate the Tory government, and I share your frustration at the messaging, which has been sclerotic, but this has been an unprecedented health emergency, and we are not at the end yet (near, but not there).
I voted LibDem / LibDem in the elections. I did not give my support to the McClowncar so none of their actions are on me. South of the wall plenty of people tear chunks off the utter incompetence of the Tories and yet vote Tory for more incompetence.
So the government is establishing that it is being "extremely cautious" (Jenrick, R4 today) in putting Portugal on the amber list.
Although he couldn't confirm one case of the "Nepal" mutation they are stopping travel to Portugal "just in case". Not anywhere else currently on the green list, just Portugal. Why not everywhere else?
As such, no action is now off the table.
If the nation (and PB especially) is ready to accept "extreme caution" and "just in case" then it will welcome with open arms an extension to lockdown on June 21st and much more besides.
Why? Because ratings. So we are getting what we want. Rejoice.
Yep. Anyone who thinks continuing with plans for June 21st is consistent with acting with “extreme caution” isn’t thinking straight. I wouldn’t be surprised if all the comment from Johnson down about “nothing in the data to prevent June 21st” is a deliberate strategy to suddenly notice something in the data on June 13th...
“And with the greatest of reluctance...”
Although you would have thought Johnson of all people would have got this breaking up with partners down to a tee.
I think all the evidence is that his break ups are famously acrimonious. The next one could be real popcorn time.
Indeed yes. Which one gets the house? The incumbent Prime Minister, or Boris Johnson?
If I were Carrie Antoinette, I'd be having a good look at the detail of those 'Henry VIII clauses' the government smuggled into law not that far back, just to be safe....
I must admit that I rather liked Carrie's rented wedding dress, but now it does strike me as having a whiff of La Petit Trianon about it. With the violinist at the reception, I am sure she is trolling us now.
The crux of the problem that @Cocky_cockney raises is that this government is functionally incompetent. I have been banging the drum for ages that "we won, we're popular, it doesn't matter" isn't good enough. Lies, corruption, incompetence, strategy based on newspaper headlines - this isn't how good government is done.
Since the start it has been blindingly obvious this clowncar government don't know how to communicate. Guidance that is contradicted one minister on the radio to the next that contradicts the law. A new 5 stage plan launched at 3.5. Regional tiers supposedly all the same but the rules are different in each place affected.
So it isn't a surprise that we're here. If you are double vaccinated then why do you need to isolate for 10 days and take 3 tests to come back from countries who have less pox than we do? Its illogical and stupid. They declared that 6 people in a choir couldn't meet covid secure in a venue to sing, but bands can play with the audience singing along. Who makes this shit up?
Fundamentally they do it and they get away with it because @Philip_Thompson and @Cocky_cockney etc rightly tear chunks of the government but vote for it anyway. They think you are stupid and tret you accordingly.
All valid criticisms. But have you examined the Scottish approach in your time there? The levels seem every bit as convoluted and confusing as anything in England. Why the eff is level 0 not normality? Do you need to go to level -1? Fundamentally this is a very difficult time to be in government. We have people all pulling in different directions. We are still hearing the shrill - "Why didn't we keep the India variant out by closing the borders" at the same time as "Why are we shutting to Portugal?" - when the reason given is exactly what the government is accused of NOT doing for India.
I get that you hate the Tory government, and I share your frustration at the messaging, which has been sclerotic, but this has been an unprecedented health emergency, and we are not at the end yet (near, but not there).
I voted LibDem / LibDem in the elections. I did not give my support to the McClowncar so none of their actions are on me. South of the wall plenty of people tear chunks off the utter incompetence of the Tories and yet vote Tory for more incompetence.
You've not addressed the point why you expect everyone who votes for a party to be a party loyalist who pretends they agree with everything the party stands for.
In the real world no party is ever going to reflect people 100%.
My opinion is the government have made major mistakes, but is better than any other alternative. So who in your eyes, based on my opinion, should I vote for?
I am interested in what is planned for June 21st. Are people really expecting everything to end in terms of Social Distancing and masks etc? Certainly there are no plans for my hospital to do this. I just expect the final restrictions on businesses to end.
I think clinical settings will still keep some measures, probably until we have genuinely vaccinated the over 16's of the country, but no social distancing and masks for pubs etc. Also - I expect workplaces may still choose to ask staff to do things, but it won't be a legal issue.
Our university has just issued a roadmap that essentially aims for business as usual around September, in time for the new students' arrival.
More flexibiity from June 21 (fewer restrictions on numbers of people per corridor) but still mask use in shared offices for now. I'm neither in a shared office nor bothered about getting back in until other people are in and in-person meeting permitted (not much point sitting in my office on zoom meetings, rather than at home) so it doesn't really bother me, but I feel for some of those who do need to be in, either for work demands or due to home conditions.
Looks like Lord Frost is indeed buggering up on the protocol and the EU are considering retaliation measures.
The reality was that the NI protocol was never acceptable and was never going to work. It was accepted to get the deal over the line but I seriously question if we ever meant it or whether we expected the "temporary" derogations to go on indefinitely.
I therefore do not think that Frost has "buggered up" the protocol, he has simply said that it will not work and is not acceptable to us. That puts us in breach but finding a response to that by the EU that does not amount to self harm will be tricky.
The EU has run a surplus of the thick end of £90bn of surplus in goods with the UK for a long time. That is starting to change fairly fast and the more restrictions they put on the faster it will change. If, as was being alleged yesterday, they allow "red tape" to increase the cost of food supplied by them we will simply buy our food somewhere else. The EU is currently losing far more trade than we are. Do they really want to make that even worse?
I was reading yesterday that Tesco have given up on the challenge of making their existing supply chain work for NI. Currently you supply products into GB national distribution centres who consolidate loads to go to the outlying regional DCs in northern Scotland, RoI and NI. That is no longer an option for NI, so they're now passing the impossible problem to suppliers - we have to ship to NI for them.
As with "just buy our food somewhere else" this won't work in the real world as consumers won't pay a lot more for less choice of lower quality stuff. In NI they will cease being supplied from GB and be supplied instead from RoI - cue violence from unionists British goods become an expensive rarity. And for GB? If we could source all the food we need from not the EU at the same price it would already have happened.
Final Q - when the UK signs a deal that doesn't work, isn't acceptable and immediately gets torn up by us, how does that help our negotiation stance with regards to deals with the rest of the world? You can't trust us to agree a deal as we've just shown that not only do we not know what we're signing, we simply rip it up and blame the other side.
Personally I would not have signed a deal with the NI protocol. But I understand why they did. If we hadn't there would be no supply problems to NI from GB at all.
Well Johnson only had four options:
1) delay Brexit 2) land border in Ireland (No Deal) 3) Border in the Irish Sea 4) May's Deal (which he voted for at third reading)
1) would have destroyed him. Going for 4) probably too. 2) would have been chaotic and impossible to enforce, so he went for 3) with the plan to ignore it.
It was interesting to hear of the border battles in The Road to Partition last night.
Indeed and had Boris chosen 1 he would not have regained voters from the Brexit Party, had he chosen 2 then there would now be a clear majority in Ireland for a United Ireland and also probably 60%+ support for independence in Scotland as a result of a No Deal outcome.
4 in my view was still better than 3 for the UK and the economy but not for the Tory Party in the sense Boris would not have won the clear majority he did in 2019 to defeat Corbyn had he stuck with May's Deal. Ironically if Starmer does become PM in 2024 he would probably return the UK to something close to May's Deal after all
Ummm - aren't we all forgetting that he did delay Brexit?
Childishly, incompetently, on the orders of PArliament etc etc but he did hit the pause button.
He didn't, Parliament did.
Unlike May who personally asked the EU for multiple extensions, Boris merely faxed them Parliament's vote for an extension after he had already negotiated a harder Brexit deal than May had with the EU.
Mirror poll reveals 81% back isolation for everyone on UK return
Looks like the government may have made a popular decision.
The 'front pages' are no more Britain than Twitter is.
The 'front pages' and response if 21 June does not go ahead is going to be far, far more severe.
One thing to watch out for is Rishi Sunak's reaction. 21st June is as popular as he's ever going to be. If it's delayed, and he resigns in protest on the grounds that continuing with unnecessary restrictions is economic suicide, not only do Harper and Baker have the perfect excuse to move against Johnson, but the party also has a plausible alternative leader - indeed, under those circumstances Sunak might be the Howard candidate.
I don't say it's likely, but it's one thing to keep an eye on.
Its certainly a possibility. Sunak certainly doesn't need the money that comes with the job and politically speaking making a well timed and precisely targeted attack would pay out more than the CofE salary in the long run.
Come on Tories, you need Dishy as PM. Scrap the clowncar, remove the liars and charlatans from high office and deliver the kind of government you profess to support.
Slightly O/T but my wife has had a much more negative reaction to her second dose of vaccine than she did to her first. She has been seriously off her feet for the last 3 days, sick, achy and very, very tired. Almost no response at all to her first dose. I didn't expect this.
That's because her immune system is working. And it's always the second dose that gets you.
The first dose got me at 3am this morning! Good Lord, I’ve honestly never felt as bad in my life
My wife (41) also had an epic reaction to AZ. Started around 8 hours in and lasted around 3 days, gradually easing off.
I am interested in what is planned for June 21st. Are people really expecting everything to end in terms of Social Distancing and masks etc? Certainly there are no plans for my hospital to do this. I just expect the final restrictions on businesses to end.
I was expecting an end to those things in most places, with possible exceptions like the London Underground / masks.
Anyone been watching the vg Road to Partition on BBC2? I knew some of the events but it was striking how close to a Balkan style situation Ireland was in 1916-22: murder, assassination, massacres, rebellion, civil war, ethnic cleansing, state killing. As one historian put it (I paraphrase), partition was not a solution rather it put the problem in a deep freeze, and sooner or later problems have to come out of the deep freeze.
Yes, I hadn't realised the difficulties with the border going on into the mid-twenties, nor that we got the Irish Free State to agree the current border by forgiving them the Imperial War Debt. An interesting precedent.
Although as I recall they still had to pay pensions for those civil servants based in Ireland.
*Looks round expectantly for ballistic turnip incoming from Ayrshire*
More seriously, that was a good deal for the Irish Free State, because otherwise they would have ended up either with yet another war - which they really could have done without - or humiliation over the Boundary Commission (which to be blunt, hadn't covered itself in glory with its suggestions). No debt, no boundary commission, no war. When Cosgrave said he wanted 'a huge nought' he got three for the price of one. Man was a genius. We could do with somebody of his quality right now.
The losers were the Nationalists of Londonderry, Tyrone and Fermanagh, plus the Unionists of Donegal. Unfortunately, they ended up being pawns in a power play.
And they have been ever since.
once independent England will have to pay my pension.
"Deluded" doesn't quite cover it......how long do you think any rUK government would stay in power if it was seen shovelling money over the border to ungrateful Scots?
Slightly O/T but my wife has had a much more negative reaction to her second dose of vaccine than she did to her first. She has been seriously off her feet for the last 3 days, sick, achy and very, very tired. Almost no response at all to her first dose. I didn't expect this.
That's because her immune system is working. And it's always the second dose that gets you.
The first dose got me at 3am this morning! Good Lord, I’ve honestly never felt as bad in my life
I had my first Pfizer vaccine on Tuesday and passed out 2 minutes after. I was carried to a bed and recovered about 15 minutes afterwards. My vaccine center was a little cottage hospital and I was sat in a chair in the courtyard to recover like an elderly invalid. Interestingly there were two other people my own age sat there with a similar reaction.
I recovered quickly so no complaints but the nurse said they've been seeing this reaction a lot more now they're doing more young people. They think it might be due to either dehydration or an empty stomach (both would have applied to me). Might be worth warning any 30 somethings you know to have a good breakfast and drink enough water before going
I passed out at 330am on the way to the medicine cupboard to get some paracetamol. A surreal night, I don’t think I can really say I’ve felt properly ill before today. The paracetamol helped a lot though.
So the media and Mike Smithson having spent the last year complaining that the government is too slow to take unpopular action are now complaining that the government is too fast to take unpopular action.
Crucially the late unpopular precautions of last year had devastating consequences. Maybe their early unpopular action this time is wise, only time will tell. I suppose the common thread is that both now and last year u have been shrouded in uncertainty
So the government is establishing that it is being "extremely cautious" (Jenrick, R4 today) in putting Portugal on the amber list.
Although he couldn't confirm one case of the "Nepal" mutation they are stopping travel to Portugal "just in case". Not anywhere else currently on the green list, just Portugal. Why not everywhere else?
As such, no action is now off the table.
If the nation (and PB especially) is ready to accept "extreme caution" and "just in case" then it will welcome with open arms an extension to lockdown on June 21st and much more besides.
Why? Because ratings. So we are getting what we want. Rejoice.
With any other government if they twatted about with people's lives and with business and with jobs there would be Hell To Pay. This lot? I absolutely won't put it past them doing the full unlock on time and in full, spinning that "we had to fight really hard to do this for you" and blame the scientists for being worrysome botherers.
At which point Cocky and Philip and the red wall show their displeasure by voting Tory.
tbf who else do you vote for? Reform? The Daily Mail?
There is always Galloway's exciting new Strasserite project.
...but George has never done a day's hard graft in his life. Workers Party GB my ****!
Mirror poll reveals 81% back isolation for everyone on UK return
Looks like the government may have made a popular decision.
The 'front pages' are no more Britain than Twitter is.
The 'front pages' and response if 21 June does not go ahead is going to be far, far more severe.
One thing to watch out for is Rishi Sunak's reaction. 21st June is as popular as he's ever going to be. If it's delayed, and he resigns in protest on the grounds that continuing with unnecessary restrictions is economic suicide, not only do Harper and Baker have the perfect excuse to move against Johnson, but the party also has a plausible alternative leader - indeed, under those circumstances Sunak might be the Howard candidate.
I don't say it's likely, but it's one thing to keep an eye on.
Its certainly a possibility. Sunak certainly doesn't need the money that comes with the job and politically speaking making a well timed and precisely targeted attack would pay out more than the CofE salary in the long run.
Come on Tories, you need Dishy as PM. Scrap the clowncar, remove the liars and charlatans from high office and deliver the kind of government you profess to support.
Sunak won't have the support Boris does in the Red Wall in my view, certainly if he starts cutting spending and if he raises inheritance tax he will lose support in the South too.
Slightly O/T but my wife has had a much more negative reaction to her second dose of vaccine than she did to her first. She has been seriously off her feet for the last 3 days, sick, achy and very, very tired. Almost no response at all to her first dose. I didn't expect this.
That's because her immune system is working. And it's always the second dose that gets you.
The first dose got me at 3am this morning! Good Lord, I’ve honestly never felt as bad in my life
I had my first Pfizer vaccine on Tuesday and passed out 2 minutes after. I was carried to a bed and recovered about 15 minutes afterwards. My vaccine center was a little cottage hospital and I was sat in a chair in the courtyard to recover like an elderly invalid. Interestingly there were two other people my own age sat there with a similar reaction.
I recovered quickly so no complaints but the nurse said they've been seeing this reaction a lot more now they're doing more young people. They think it might be due to either dehydration or an empty stomach (both would have applied to me). Might be worth warning any 30 somethings you know to have a good breakfast and drink enough water before going
I got my 2nd AZ recently. I heard two theories from staff at the Francis Crick Institute
1. It is entirely random, they can't figure out who will get a bad reaction, and who won't
2. There IS a vague pattern. Young people suffer a bad reaction more often, probably because they have stronger immune systems
I got quite a sore arm after my first jab, but nothing else; my 2nd jab passed without any side-effects at all
Looks like Lord Frost is indeed buggering up on the protocol and the EU are considering retaliation measures.
The reality was that the NI protocol was never acceptable and was never going to work. It was accepted to get the deal over the line but I seriously question if we ever meant it or whether we expected the "temporary" derogations to go on indefinitely.
I therefore do not think that Frost has "buggered up" the protocol, he has simply said that it will not work and is not acceptable to us. That puts us in breach but finding a response to that by the EU that does not amount to self harm will be tricky.
The EU has run a surplus of the thick end of £90bn of surplus in goods with the UK for a long time. That is starting to change fairly fast and the more restrictions they put on the faster it will change. If, as was being alleged yesterday, they allow "red tape" to increase the cost of food supplied by them we will simply buy our food somewhere else. The EU is currently losing far more trade than we are. Do they really want to make that even worse?
It’s Frost’s protocol that he is now saying won’t work. That’s either gross incompetence or gross deceit.
I don't think that's entirely accurate. I think you should allow for the distinct possibility that it's both.
You could bet your shirt on it being both.
I'll cheerfully bet the one I'm wearing now, because it's old, tatty and covered in paint (a skirting board needed doing).
I'd have used a paintbrush, myself.
All the bristles had gone hard.
I'd use a water-based paint.
Or have 2 brushes.
Unless "bristles" is a reference to something else. :-)
I can understand the government's decision. Until at least 2/3 of UK adults have had a second jab then there is simply too high a risk for the unvaccinated and those who have only had 1 jab from the Indian and other potential variants. Therefore they want to minimise foreign travel to only nations which have double vaccinated almost all their population or have barely any cases now at all....
Can you then explain the point of traffic light system ?
Green is countries with double vaccinations or barely any cases (which now no longer includes Portugal). Red is countries where its a major problem. Amber is everyone else.
Traffic lights don't stay green forever. That's surely a part of the paradigm people who aren't deliberately being fools understand?
Is it really so foolish to think that a government which took weeks to introduce travel restrictions with India would spring this on you with 90 hours notice ? (FWIW, I have no intention of travelling overseas this year.)
The justification for the former restriction was far stronger and more urgent, as events have proved.
Mr. Stereodog, cheers for posting that. Will remember to have something to eat before my second jab.
Mr. B, I agree but the podium odds are trash, alas. 3 or 4, something like that.
It's a shame Perez underperformed in Monaco, if he'd done better I would've looked at backing him here as he's had a couple of podium finishes in the past, I think.
Anyone been watching the vg Road to Partition on BBC2? I knew some of the events but it was striking how close to a Balkan style situation Ireland was in 1916-22: murder, assassination, massacres, rebellion, civil war, ethnic cleansing, state killing. As one historian put it (I paraphrase), partition was not a solution rather it put the problem in a deep freeze, and sooner or later problems have to come out of the deep freeze.
Yes, I hadn't realised the difficulties with the border going on into the mid-twenties, nor that we got the Irish Free State to agree the current border by forgiving them the Imperial War Debt. An interesting precedent.
Although as I recall they still had to pay pensions for those civil servants based in Ireland.
*Looks round expectantly for ballistic turnip incoming from Ayrshire*
More seriously, that was a good deal for the Irish Free State, because otherwise they would have ended up either with yet another war - which they really could have done without - or humiliation over the Boundary Commission (which to be blunt, hadn't covered itself in glory with its suggestions). No debt, no boundary commission, no war. When Cosgrave said he wanted 'a huge nought' he got three for the price of one. Man was a genius. We could do with somebody of his quality right now.
The losers were the Nationalists of Londonderry, Tyrone and Fermanagh, plus the Unionists of Donegal. Unfortunately, they ended up being pawns in a power play.
And they have been ever since.
once independent England will have to pay my pension.
Mirror poll reveals 81% back isolation for everyone on UK return
Looks like the government may have made a popular decision.
The 'front pages' are no more Britain than Twitter is.
The 'front pages' and response if 21 June does not go ahead is going to be far, far more severe.
One thing to watch out for is Rishi Sunak's reaction. 21st June is as popular as he's ever going to be. If it's delayed, and he resigns in protest on the grounds that continuing with unnecessary restrictions is economic suicide, not only do Harper and Baker have the perfect excuse to move against Johnson, but the party also has a plausible alternative leader - indeed, under those circumstances Sunak might be the Howard candidate.
I don't say it's likely, but it's one thing to keep an eye on.
A scientist on Sky just now has said moving Portugal to amber is the correct decision to enable the UK to open on the 21st June
Are we seeing a change in the narrative
Close our borders to enable the 21st June
I think there is something in that. However I think the odds of 21 June happening to any meaningful degree are now 60/40 against. The decision that should be preoccupying the front pages is the India red list decision. We would not have kept Delta out forever but we sure as hell might have been able to delay widespread seeding until more of the population had been double vaccinated. I think we are looking at September for Step 4 now with some rolling back of Step 3 in the meantime because of the inexplicable delay over India.
Sorry - thats utter nonsense. The criteria have always been based on the effects on hospitalization and death, not just cases. There is NO sign that H and D are increasing significantly (more in Scotland if anything). The hot-spots are not in any different restrictions to the rest of England and the cases are falling, and hospitals have seen modest increases of mostly unvaccinated or at best single vaccinated (and we don't know how recently) poeple.
Hold your nerve, ignore the dying gasps of the monster that is iSAGE and get ready to live your life as normal soon. Since last friday i have played cricket, been to the pub and club for beers, been to a huge outdoor flea market with thousands of others, been for a meal in a nice pub with my 82 year old father and family and been at work helping a MSc student start her research project. The only thing that has not been normal is a mask requirment which I fully expect will be binned in 17 days time.
Of course the very slow rate of vaccination is not willfulness by the government. What has happened is that after a period where we almost took it for granted that they would roll a 6 every time on vaccinations they have come up with a couple of 1s in that large volumes of vaccine that they expected to have has not arrived. I suppose statistically this was likely to happen at some point but the timing is seriously disappointing and I find it bizarre that we can have front pages like those in the thread header with so little discussion of it.
Trouble with using the "bad luck" excuse (which seems pretty valid) is that it means acknowledging that some of the UK's success earlier was down to good luck- not just perfect judgement. (This isn't to say that the UK's judgement wasn't good, but that wasn't the while story.) For example, we got an early start to Pfizer deliveries, but numbers have been flat since then. France, on the other hand did 700k jabs yesterday, and will be needing to find a million arms a day soon. Given that the UK's key insight was that it was right to spend on vaccines like Bunter in a tuckshop, why didn't we order more?
We did - Moderna. I don't really believe we are supply constrained. This week has been affected by the BH and half term.
So the media and Mike Smithson having spent the last year complaining that the government is too slow to take unpopular action are now complaining that the government is too fast to take unpopular action.
Crucially the late unpopular precautions of last year had devastating consequences. Maybe their early unpopular action this time is wise, only time will tell. I suppose the common thread is that both now and last year u have been shrouded in uncertainty
So the government is establishing that it is being "extremely cautious" (Jenrick, R4 today) in putting Portugal on the amber list.
Although he couldn't confirm one case of the "Nepal" mutation they are stopping travel to Portugal "just in case". Not anywhere else currently on the green list, just Portugal. Why not everywhere else?
As such, no action is now off the table.
If the nation (and PB especially) is ready to accept "extreme caution" and "just in case" then it will welcome with open arms an extension to lockdown on June 21st and much more besides.
Why? Because ratings. So we are getting what we want. Rejoice.
With any other government if they twatted about with people's lives and with business and with jobs there would be Hell To Pay. This lot? I absolutely won't put it past them doing the full unlock on time and in full, spinning that "we had to fight really hard to do this for you" and blame the scientists for being worrysome botherers.
At which point Cocky and Philip and the red wall show their displeasure by voting Tory.
tbf who else do you vote for? Reform? The Daily Mail?
There is always Galloway's exciting new Strasserite project.
...but George has never done a day's hard graft in his life. Workers Party GB my ****!
Works better if you replace O and R with A and N, as I'm sure twitterers will soon be doing.
I think that what matters, in terms of public health risk, is not the vaccination status of the traveller, but the vaccination status of the country they have travelled from. Anyone returning to the UK from Israel - where 57% of the population is fully vaccinated - is a very minimal public health risk, regardless of whether they personally have been vaccinated. The same cannot be said for someone returning from Portugal, where only 19% of the population are fully vaccinated.
An individual who is fully vaccinated is personally at very low risk, but they are still a potential vector for the nightmare scenario of bringing a vaccine-resistant strain into the country. In a country where the level of vaccination is low, the identification of whether a new variant is vaccine-resistant is difficult, but for a country which has all but eliminated the virus due to vaccination, it would be obvious.
So I would open up travel to countries which have reached some threshold level of full vaccination. Maybe something like two-thirds of the adult population.
Early briefings of Pentagon ufo report. 1200 incidents detailed. Secret US tech ruled out in almost all cases. Foreign tech suspected in “some” cases. Characteristics of objects such that balloons and birds are ruled out.
Conclusion left hanging. Sounds like the conclusion is We don’t know what they are and do not speculate.
Which then presumably invites a new process, this time involving civilian scientists and engineers looking at data in a more transparent manner. Whether the Handsy in Chief has the marbles and courage to give a proper speech being honest about it all I doubt but perhaps he’ll surprise me.
The report says what that there are things on video that we can't explain with our current technology.
Which is rather a long way away from there are aliens out there.
No one, of course, has said there are Definitely Aliens Out There
Slightly O/T but my wife has had a much more negative reaction to her second dose of vaccine than she did to her first. She has been seriously off her feet for the last 3 days, sick, achy and very, very tired. Almost no response at all to her first dose. I didn't expect this.
That's because her immune system is working. And it's always the second dose that gets you.
The first dose got me at 3am this morning! Good Lord, I’ve honestly never felt as bad in my life
I had my first Pfizer vaccine on Tuesday and passed out 2 minutes after. I was carried to a bed and recovered about 15 minutes afterwards. My vaccine center was a little cottage hospital and I was sat in a chair in the courtyard to recover like an elderly invalid. Interestingly there were two other people my own age sat there with a similar reaction.
I recovered quickly so no complaints but the nurse said they've been seeing this reaction a lot more now they're doing more young people. They think it might be due to either dehydration or an empty stomach (both would have applied to me). Might be worth warning any 30 somethings you know to have a good breakfast and drink enough water before going
I got my 2nd AZ recently. I heard two theories from staff at the Francis Crick Institute
1. It is entirely random, they can't figure out who will get a bad reaction, and who won't
2. There IS a vague pattern. Young people suffer a bad reaction more often, probably because they have stronger immune systems
I got quite a sore arm after my first jab, but nothing else; my 2nd jab passed without any side-effects at all
Having been woken up by the factory manager of one of my clients reporting stupidity which I have now had to manage to their expectant UK customer and try and save them some face, I may be on here today a bit more than recent days. For some reason I am less motivated than I have been, perhaps I'll do work for the other client instead and enjoy the debate on here instead.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
On testing, there was something a few months ago, locally at least, to former NHS staff: did we fancy helping with the vaccination programme? Well, I'm a bit old and not as quick on my feet now, but I thought I'd sign up, do my bit, clerical or something. And I was used to dealing with the public, etc. So I volunteered. Bit of a hassle with lost emails, so things dragged on a bit, but eventually got almost to the badge and shift issuing stage when, 'no, sorry, programme slowing, don't need more staff.'
I am interested in what is planned for June 21st. Are people really expecting everything to end in terms of Social Distancing and masks etc? Certainly there are no plans for my hospital to do this. I just expect the final restrictions on businesses to end.
I think clinical settings will still keep some measures, probably until we have genuinely vaccinated the over 16's of the country, but no social distancing and masks for pubs etc. Also - I expect workplaces may still choose to ask staff to do things, but it won't be a legal issue.
Our university has just issued a roadmap that essentially aims for business as usual around September, in time for the new students' arrival.
More flexibiity from June 21 (fewer restrictions on numbers of people per corridor) but still mask use in shared offices for now. I'm neither in a shared office nor bothered about getting back in until other people are in and in-person meeting permitted (not much point sitting in my office on zoom meetings, rather than at home) so it doesn't really bother me, but I feel for some of those who do need to be in, either for work demands or due to home conditions.
Yep - same here for September, and we are planning teaching etc on that basis. I have a lot to do on campus (instruments, people to help and supervise) but have been since early Feb. We are using masks in extremely well ventilated labs (no point) and in corridors (sparsely occupied - no point) but I understand the caution, even if I don't agree.
Anyone been watching the vg Road to Partition on BBC2? I knew some of the events but it was striking how close to a Balkan style situation Ireland was in 1916-22: murder, assassination, massacres, rebellion, civil war, ethnic cleansing, state killing. As one historian put it (I paraphrase), partition was not a solution rather it put the problem in a deep freeze, and sooner or later problems have to come out of the deep freeze.
Didn't know about this, will watch it with interest. Thanks for the heads up.
U.S. Finds No Evidence of Alien Technology in Flying Objects, but Can’t Rule It Out, Either A new report concedes that much about the observed phenomena remains difficult to explain, including their acceleration, as well as ability to change direction and submerge.
Comments
Looks like the government may have made a popular decision.
Going to be a right bugger for cover next term if that feeds through all staff jabbed before me though.
And they are going to get it good and hard.
Why do you condemn people who aren't party loyalists always towing the party line? It shows an independence of thought that in my opinion should always be to people's credit. Unless you're a party hack loyalist no individual voter will ever agree with 100% of what any party, any government, is doing and a failure to say what you disagree with makes you a stooge to be taken for granted.
If other parties want my vote they can win it. Same as the Tories. I can and have voted for parties other than the Tories twice before (2001 GE and 2019 EP).
The 'front pages' and response if 21 June does not go ahead is going to be far, far more severe.
The 81% does not surprise me, and does indicate the vast majority are far more wary then many on here, no doubt softened up to that by the media and Independent Sage incessant demands for delays to the 21st June
I get that you hate the Tory government, and I share your frustration at the messaging, which has been sclerotic, but this has been an unprecedented health emergency, and we are not at the end yet (near, but not there).
I don't say it's likely, but it's one thing to keep an eye on.
Galloway's Rs with the sun shining out of it ...
(Get's coat)
1) delay Brexit
2) land border in Ireland (No Deal)
3) Border in the Irish Sea
4) May's Deal (which he voted for at third reading)
1) would have destroyed him. Going for 4) probably too. 2) would have been chaotic and impossible to enforce, so he went for 3) with the plan to ignore it.
It was interesting to hear of the border battles in The Road to Partition last night.
I've been slamming the government hard for its cowardice in the farcically slow pace of lifting restrictions and part of that has frankly been caused by the notion that steps taken are "irreversible". Once you make something "irreversible" then you need to be much, much more certain before doing it, meaning you can't do it when you should. It raises the evidence for lifting restrictions from beyond balance of probabilities, to beyond a reasonable dooubt.
If you are capable of doing something when you probably should rather than definitely can you must by defintion be prepared to change your mind.
There is a little bit of snobbery about the idea that a holiday doesn't count unless its abroad. But I suspect a holiday in the UK is the norm. At least, it seems to be in middle-class-parentland.
What then was the traffic light system about ?
To be fair, they have been talking about domestic holidays, it’s just that the media are obsessed by foreign holidays (and the travel industry is one of very few that still spends a lot of money on advertising in newspapers and on TV).
It’s really irritating, as someone stuck abroad who hasn’t seen his parents for two years, that the media are prioritising a week on a beach over business and personal travel.
However, Reform UK's candidate in Chesham and Amersham is certainly pushing hard a demand for a full return to all freedoms on June 21st
https://twitter.com/Alex4CandA/status/1399763556179062787?s=20
Masks I can see people putting up with if they have to, or voluntarily as guidance, but social distancing? It has to stop already.
They daren't actually tell us this is the plan so instead they put as many obstacles as they can in the way of going abroad to the point where it becomes almost impossible for the average family. Meanwhile the wealthy will no doubt continue jetting wherever they please on "essential" business.
Are we seeing a change in the narrative
Close our borders to enable the 21st June
They have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing.
Its not lockdown or nothing.
They should thank the current incumbents for their service, and refresh the pot.
(This isn't to say that the UK's judgement wasn't good, but that wasn't the while story.)
For example, we got an early start to Pfizer deliveries, but numbers have been flat since then. France, on the other hand did 700k jabs yesterday, and will be needing to find a million arms a day soon.
Given that the UK's key insight was that it was right to spend on vaccines like Bunter in a tuckshop, why didn't we order more?
I had a very bad 24 hours after the first dose; had the second yesterday - and nothing at all.
If it persists, get medical advice.
Two out of three. Fuck the workers.
We are paying the price for a fixation on positive tests - now that should NOT be the indicator of concern as the vaccines have done their job for the vulnerable. Testing everyone twice a week makes sense in a non-vaccine world. Now it is muddying he waters.
So slow, that the lesson has changed.
(Ouch, on the photo, that's awful.)
4 in my view was still better than 3 for the UK and the economy but not for the Tory Party in the sense Boris would not have won the clear majority he did in 2019 to defeat Corbyn had he stuck with May's Deal. Ironically if Starmer does become PM in 2024 he would now probably return the UK to something close to May's Deal after all
Fresh food and drink can be ordered, rested, tapped and ready with a week's notice.
Non-fresh food and drink can be ordered and ready any time.
Conversely, the best way to paint railings is to use a glove dipped in paint.
Childishly, incompetently, on the orders of PArliament etc etc but he did hit the pause button.
I recovered quickly so no complaints but the nurse said they've been seeing this reaction a lot more now they're doing more young people. They think it might be due to either dehydration or an empty stomach (both would have applied to me). Might be worth warning any 30 somethings you know to have a good breakfast and drink enough water before going
Red is countries where its a major problem.
Amber is everyone else.
Traffic lights don't stay green forever. That's surely a part of the paradigm people who aren't deliberately being fools understand?
The reality is that the clowncar signed the deal with the NI Protocal and *didn't know* what it meant, how things worked before and how they would work afterwards. They signed away part of the UK because stupid.
He's got a genuine podium chance, I think.
In the real world no party is ever going to reflect people 100%.
My opinion is the government have made major mistakes, but is better than any other alternative. So who in your eyes, based on my opinion, should I vote for?
More flexibiity from June 21 (fewer restrictions on numbers of people per corridor) but still mask use in shared offices for now. I'm neither in a shared office nor bothered about getting back in until other people are in and in-person meeting permitted (not much point sitting in my office on zoom meetings, rather than at home) so it doesn't really bother me, but I feel for some of those who do need to be in, either for work demands or due to home conditions.
Unlike May who personally asked the EU for multiple extensions, Boris merely faxed them Parliament's vote for an extension after he had already negotiated a harder Brexit deal than May had with the EU.
Come on Tories, you need Dishy as PM. Scrap the clowncar, remove the liars and charlatans from high office and deliver the kind of government you profess to support.
1. It is entirely random, they can't figure out who will get a bad reaction, and who won't
2. There IS a vague pattern. Young people suffer a bad reaction more often, probably because they have stronger immune systems
I got quite a sore arm after my first jab, but nothing else; my 2nd jab passed without any side-effects at all
Or have 2 brushes.
Unless "bristles" is a reference to something else. :-)
(FWIW, I have no intention of travelling overseas this year.)
The justification for the former restriction was far stronger and more urgent, as events have proved.
Mr. B, I agree but the podium odds are trash, alas. 3 or 4, something like that.
It's a shame Perez underperformed in Monaco, if he'd done better I would've looked at backing him here as he's had a couple of podium finishes in the past, I think.
Is this you?
Hold your nerve, ignore the dying gasps of the monster that is iSAGE and get ready to live your life as normal soon. Since last friday i have played cricket, been to the pub and club for beers, been to a huge outdoor flea market with thousands of others, been for a meal in a nice pub with my 82 year old father and family and been at work helping a MSc student start her research project. The only thing that has not been normal is a mask requirment which I fully expect will be binned in 17 days time.
An individual who is fully vaccinated is personally at very low risk, but they are still a potential vector for the nightmare scenario of bringing a vaccine-resistant strain into the country. In a country where the level of vaccination is low, the identification of whether a new variant is vaccine-resistant is difficult, but for a country which has all but eliminated the virus due to vaccination, it would be obvious.
So I would open up travel to countries which have reached some threshold level of full vaccination. Maybe something like two-thirds of the adult population.
As a complete aside I am seriously loving this house we bought in February. The ghosts are quite entertaining - an upstairs storeroom in the bank (attached to the house and now my office) appears to be the domain of a banker who died here at work in 1891. And the house part has a ghost who keeps presenting us with metal objects (screws etc) and last night had fun with the power.
Making tea for the kids (6pm). Downstairs power trips off. Head upstairs to the laundry room where the fuse box is. Tripped. Return partway along the upstairs corridor to shout downstairs to Mrs RP to check nothing had been plugged in that may have caused the trip. Turned back towards the room with the fuses which is literally at the end of the corridor which has 4 bedrooms off it to the right. See one of the kids going into the room, shout "oi!" and of course when I get there the room is empty and the switch has been reset!
Mrs RP has seen a figure in the house, my Sis-in-law who is sensitive to these things has seen and heard from them, this was the first time I had seen an actual ghost. In broad daylight whilst sober. It was triffic.
Well, I'm a bit old and not as quick on my feet now, but I thought I'd sign up, do my bit, clerical or something. And I was used to dealing with the public, etc. So I volunteered.
Bit of a hassle with lost emails, so things dragged on a bit, but eventually got almost to the badge and shift issuing stage when, 'no, sorry, programme slowing, don't need more staff.'
Just saying.
U.S. Finds No Evidence of Alien Technology in Flying Objects, but Can’t Rule It Out, Either
A new report concedes that much about the observed phenomena remains difficult to explain, including their acceleration, as well as ability to change direction and submerge.