I googled uk nato special relationship and couldnt find relevant story #
The US think they can push us around and treat us like shit and we'll always be there to support them in their endless, stupid and pointless wars... well it's time to say no!
Boris has made a good but it's time to go further... They treat us with the respect we deserve as the only NATO member that always supports them in whatever stupid policy they have... Or we're done!
Could you please tell us, precisely what you are talking about?
US: We're going to go to war with Afghanistan (for no reason other than we want to bomb the crap out of someone)
France: Hmmmmmmmm....
Germany: Hmmmmmmmm....
UK: Lets Gooooooooooooo....!!!!!!!
The Germans (through the NATO ISAF) and French (through Ops Pamir and Herakles) were heavily involved in Afghanistan. The CdG battle group was also in the Indian Ocean contributing tacair for most of the 2001/2 winter.
The French stepped in the shit in the Uzbin Valley but, in stark contrast to certain other allied forces, did demonstrate a capacity to learn and change. They very sensibly stopped having anything to do with the ANA or any other Afghan forces which stopped intel leaks and Green-on-Blue incidents.
The French and Belgians are also very active against Islamists in the Sahel.
Personally, I think that NATO is a cold war relic, and long overdue for disbanding.
NATO is a cold war relic but must not be disbanded. It keeps America invested in Europe, where it turns out Putin's Russian Bear is not a teddy bear.
I googled uk nato special relationship and couldnt find relevant story #
The US think they can push us around and treat us like shit and we'll always be there to support them in their endless, stupid and pointless wars... well it's time to say no!
Boris has made a good but it's time to go further... They treat us with the respect we deserve as the only NATO member that always supports them in whatever stupid policy they have... Or we're done!
Could you please tell us, precisely what you are talking about?
US: We're going to go to war with Afghanistan (for no reason other than we want to bomb the crap out of someone)
France: Hmmmmmmmm....
Germany: Hmmmmmmmm....
UK: Lets Gooooooooooooo....!!!!!!!
The Germans (through the NATO ISAF) and French (through Ops Pamir and Herakles) were heavily involved in Afghanistan. The CdG battle group was also in the Indian Ocean contributing tacair for most of the 2001/2 winter.
The French stepped in the shit in the Uzbin Valley but, in stark contrast to certain other allied forces, did demonstrate a capacity to learn and change. They very sensibly stopped having anything to do with the ANA or any other Afghan forces which stopped intel leaks and Green-on-Blue incidents.
The French and Belgians are also very active against Islamists in the Sahel.
Personally, I think that NATO is a cold war relic, and long overdue for disbanding.
You want to help Putin that much?
Ideally it should have been disbanded around 1990.
Why? You think Russia isn't a threat? Or anyone else?
I googled uk nato special relationship and couldnt find relevant story #
The US think they can push us around and treat us like shit and we'll always be there to support them in their endless, stupid and pointless wars... well it's time to say no!
Boris has made a good but it's time to go further... They treat us with the respect we deserve as the only NATO member that always supports them in whatever stupid policy they have... Or we're done!
Could you please tell us, precisely what you are talking about?
US: We're going to go to war with Afghanistan (for no reason other than we want to bomb the crap out of someone)
France: Hmmmmmmmm....
Germany: Hmmmmmmmm....
UK: Lets Gooooooooooooo....!!!!!!!
The Germans (through the NATO ISAF) and French (through Ops Pamir and Herakles) were heavily involved in Afghanistan. The CdG battle group was also in the Indian Ocean contributing tacair for most of the 2001/2 winter.
The French stepped in the shit in the Uzbin Valley but, in stark contrast to certain other allied forces, did demonstrate a capacity to learn and change. They very sensibly stopped having anything to do with the ANA or any other Afghan forces which stopped intel leaks and Green-on-Blue incidents.
The French and Belgians are also very active against Islamists in the Sahel.
Personally, I think that NATO is a cold war relic, and long overdue for disbanding.
You want to help Putin that much?
Ideally it should have been disbanded around 1990.
That was the time to disband it, but that moment has long passed.
It is tragic what happened to Russia after communism failed.
Of the many qualms I have about this tory administration, bribing voters is low down. Why so? Because it has gone on since the dawn of political democracy, in every country including ours.
I guess additionally that if I ranked the honesty and morality of professions, at the bottom would be bankers and estate agents. And then in a separate table all to themselves, far far beneath, in some infernal dungeon, there would be MPs and politicians.
In some ways the blatancy of this is to be welcomed. I'd rather see the cash above the table than underneath it.
Not recently; not here. .
I'm sorry but that's staggeringly naive.
I studied politics 40 years ago and corruption was systemic then, as now. Dear old Wilson had his beer and sandwich sessions with the unions (and the unions are some of the most corrupt organisations in the country), Thatcher had the newspaper magnates, which Tony Blair then aped with Murdoch, who gave him free holidays until he started shagging his wife. There have been motorways built and car factories (deLorean who was an utter crook for example), constituencies favoured, duck houses and cash for questions, and honour bribes, and blind eyes turned (Maxwell). I could go on and on and on and on and on.
Corruption in British politics has been utterly systemic for donkey's years. It's just that when the cash is flaunted above the table rather than underneath it you notice and seem shocked.
It has been ever thus.
Well, yes, if all those things are corrupt then corruption is endemic but it seems to me you are comparing apples to oranges. Beer and sandwiches dates from when governments would seek to end strikes, which ended under Mrs Thatcher, and which also involved negotiation with management. Partisan newspapers may be deplorable (or a fine illustration of the power of a free press) but again this is not the same thing. Government investment in marginal constituencies was a running gag in Yes, Minister but what we now see is systematic abuse.
If we're quoting Yes, Minister then surely this is an example of an irregular verb?
I am aiming help at towns that need it. You are investing in marginal constituencies. He is corruptly engaged in systematic abuse.
On deLorean - did he give anything to the Government ministers/civil servants involved? And given the location of the factory, the locals were hardly likely to start voting for a mainland party....
My point is that it's always been going on. It's just now more open and obvious.
Arguably that's a good thing.
I mentioned DeLorean as one tiny example (he wouldn't have liked the word 'tiny' being applied to his tool making). Do you really think that when Jim Callaghan handed over millions of taxpayers' money to a West Belfast suburb that had never made cars that it was done just to help poor people out of a hole? Of course not! It was bribery. They hoped to lift the area out of the hands of the IRA and win nationalist support. £84 million was pumped into it by the UK Gov't, the value of which today would be hundreds of millions of quid.
For goodness sake you must have lived under a stone if you think British politics has been clean.
It has been filthy dirty for donkeys years. Just that Boris is brazen enough to plonk his todger on the table and do it 'en plein air.'
Welcome to the real world.
I really do not see how De Lorean can be called a bribe. A failed investment, perhaps even a foolish one, but not a bribe, and surely its intentions were noble.
There is a thing now with Public Sector projects that the contractor carrying out the work must make a contribution for "Social Value" and this will make up 10% of the award decision. Now you may think Social Value would be to employ local people, clean up an area, help a local charity etc and if you read the Government guidance on Social Value that is exactly what it says. However if you want to get the full 10% mark then you have to provide something free to the Public Sector body, such as IT equipment or the like. The higher the value of the "Social Value" donation the higher mark you get. If you state that 4 of your guys are going to volunteer for a weekend to help a local charity you get a very low score, if you say that you are going to provide £10,000 of IT equipment you get a high score.
it just legalised bribary to win a contract.
Introduced under the coalition. I agree - it sounds 'interesting'. Very like bidding for Govt research contracts - the need is to find the current organisational erogenous zone and provide perceived value for lower cost. Valid approach?
eg:
3.3 Case studies A number of helpful case studies can be found in Lord Young’s review of the Social Value Act. Two examples from the report are included below.
Value for money: Circle Housing
Circle Housing’s repairs and maintenance service is on track to realise around £80 million worth of cost saving over 10 years, subject to market conditions and fluctuations. They have rationalised their contracts whilst mandating social objectives within their procurement model, for example, securing 1 apprenticeship for every £0.5 million worth of contract. This has led to social value being created through the supply chain and funded by the supplier, which would have otherwise been funded by Circle Housing.
Circle Housing also used monetary values or financial proxies from the HM Treasury Green Book to calculate their social return on investment (SROI).
For 1 of their 80 employment and skills programmes, they have calculated an SROI of £5.40 (£75,470 divided by £14,000 gives a ratio of 1 to 5.4):
input: £14,000 (£10,000 fund plus £4,000 staff costs) output: £12,000 from Job Centre Plus to support programme; 80 people supported outcome: 10 into employment including 3 NEETs, 22 put through accredited training, 13 into further education, 25 into volunteering/work placements, 30 increased confidence in their abilities impact: £29,141 jobseekers allowance savings, £16,500 for young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEETs), £5,131 for NVQ level 1 accreditation, £12,698 reduced NHS cost for depression (identified at start)
Innovative provision: Lambeth Council
Lambeth Council had £20,000 to spend on youth offending services. Instead of taking the traditional approach of buying in a youth offending service, they decided to bring together young offenders to work with the council on a grant fund. The young people decided the outcomes for the grant, evaluated bids, and selected the winner – a project that would involve the whole community in a talent competition. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-value-act-information-and-resources/social-value-act-information-and-resources
I mentioned DeLorean as one tiny example (he wouldn't have liked the word 'tiny' being applied to his tool making). Do you really think that when Jim Callaghan handed over millions of taxpayers' money to a West Belfast suburb that had never made cars that it was done just to help poor people out of a hole? Of course not! It was bribery. They hoped to lift the area out of the hands of the IRA and win nationalist support. £84 million was pumped into it by the UK Gov't, the value of which today would be hundreds of millions of quid.
They are at it again. The job of designing and building the UK's new uncrewed combat aircraft has been given to Spirit in Belfast on the basis that they used to make bits for Bombardier's business jets.
Well, at least they aren't giving it to "Bloody Awful and expense"...
I googled uk nato special relationship and couldnt find relevant story #
The US think they can push us around and treat us like shit and we'll always be there to support them in their endless, stupid and pointless wars... well it's time to say no!
Boris has made a good but it's time to go further... They treat us with the respect we deserve as the only NATO member that always supports them in whatever stupid policy they have... Or we're done!
Could you please tell us, precisely what you are talking about?
US: We're going to go to war with Afghanistan (for no reason other than we want to bomb the crap out of someone)
France: Hmmmmmmmm....
Germany: Hmmmmmmmm....
UK: Lets Gooooooooooooo....!!!!!!!
The Germans (through the NATO ISAF) and French (through Ops Pamir and Herakles) were heavily involved in Afghanistan. The CdG battle group was also in the Indian Ocean contributing tacair for most of the 2001/2 winter.
The French stepped in the shit in the Uzbin Valley but, in stark contrast to certain other allied forces, did demonstrate a capacity to learn and change. They very sensibly stopped having anything to do with the ANA or any other Afghan forces which stopped intel leaks and Green-on-Blue incidents.
The French and Belgians are also very active against Islamists in the Sahel.
Personally, I think that NATO is a cold war relic, and long overdue for disbanding.
You want to help Putin that much?
Ideally it should have been disbanded around 1990.
Why? You think Russia isn't a threat? Or anyone else?
If Russia is a threat why are we so casual about the PM receiving anonymous cash bungs, particularly when we know he has charged a Putin connection hundreds of thousands to play tennis with him and that Putin connection has also paid to get time with May and Cameron?
Of course Russia is a threat, but this far out of its borders it is far more likely to be through corruption and destabilisation than soldiers or bombs.
As of 26 May, an estimated 14.0 million first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and 24.3 million first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca had been administered, and around 10.6 million and 13.4 million second doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca respectively.
With regards to the ongoing discussion on CRT. Apparently a US battalion commander is under investigation for comments including “If you are white, you are part of the problem”. It is, for those who know about these things, the 1-8 “fighting eagles infantry. His comments do not seem to be being met with unalloyed enthusiasm by this serving under him.
That quoted comment from the commander is, for want of a better word, racist.
Another case of 'they are exactly what they accuse you of'.
I've generally switched off from all this (by logging out of twitter) but some things you can't help notice, like the Yale psychiatrist who admitted to fantasies about shooting white people in a public university seminar. Maybe she should get together with the battalion commander cited above.
All normal. Just people getting on with their jobs. Nothing at all to see here. Or - if you are Philip Thompson - it is the rebirth of Western Civilisation!
There was a good piece in an Australian magazine the other day, which argues well the point that a lot of the problems in Western society are much more about class than race.
That was a large part of the recent derided government race enquiry, whose conclusions are being ignored.
I would agree that class is a bigger issue than race, but they do heavily interest.
At risk of doxxing myself as some sort of Bennite Corbanista, at least so far as education is concerned, class is a far bigger issue than race, and working class BAME communities have worse outcomes than middle class BAME communities, as do White working class communities.
As of 26 May, an estimated 14.0 million first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and 24.3 million first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca had been administered, and around 10.6 million and 13.4 million second doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca respectively.
That seeks like good news. I was worried we were going to see vaccinations slow down due to running out of ability to use AZN but if ther are 9.9 million second AZN jabs outstanding (including my own) and only 2.6 million Pfizer seconds outstanding, then that seems like really good news.
I googled uk nato special relationship and couldnt find relevant story #
The US think they can push us around and treat us like shit and we'll always be there to support them in their endless, stupid and pointless wars... well it's time to say no!
Boris has made a good but it's time to go further... They treat us with the respect we deserve as the only NATO member that always supports them in whatever stupid policy they have... Or we're done!
Could you please tell us, precisely what you are talking about?
US: We're going to go to war with Afghanistan (for no reason other than we want to bomb the crap out of someone)
France: Hmmmmmmmm....
Germany: Hmmmmmmmm....
UK: Lets Gooooooooooooo....!!!!!!!
The Germans (through the NATO ISAF) and French (through Ops Pamir and Herakles) were heavily involved in Afghanistan. The CdG battle group was also in the Indian Ocean contributing tacair for most of the 2001/2 winter.
The French stepped in the shit in the Uzbin Valley but, in stark contrast to certain other allied forces, did demonstrate a capacity to learn and change. They very sensibly stopped having anything to do with the ANA or any other Afghan forces which stopped intel leaks and Green-on-Blue incidents.
The French and Belgians are also very active against Islamists in the Sahel.
Personally, I think that NATO is a cold war relic, and long overdue for disbanding.
You want to help Putin that much?
Ideally it should have been disbanded around 1990.
Why? You think Russia isn't a threat? Or anyone else?
But - when critical race theory and other woke ideas are rolled out in Russia/China - there will surely be no need for NATO, or armed conflict of any sort. It is really just a matter of time! History is on our side!
I googled uk nato special relationship and couldnt find relevant story #
The US think they can push us around and treat us like shit and we'll always be there to support them in their endless, stupid and pointless wars... well it's time to say no!
Boris has made a good but it's time to go further... They treat us with the respect we deserve as the only NATO member that always supports them in whatever stupid policy they have... Or we're done!
Could you please tell us, precisely what you are talking about?
US: We're going to go to war with Afghanistan (for no reason other than we want to bomb the crap out of someone)
France: Hmmmmmmmm....
Germany: Hmmmmmmmm....
UK: Lets Gooooooooooooo....!!!!!!!
The Germans (through the NATO ISAF) and French (through Ops Pamir and Herakles) were heavily involved in Afghanistan. The CdG battle group was also in the Indian Ocean contributing tacair for most of the 2001/2 winter.
The French stepped in the shit in the Uzbin Valley but, in stark contrast to certain other allied forces, did demonstrate a capacity to learn and change. They very sensibly stopped having anything to do with the ANA or any other Afghan forces which stopped intel leaks and Green-on-Blue incidents.
The French and Belgians are also very active against Islamists in the Sahel.
Personally, I think that NATO is a cold war relic, and long overdue for disbanding.
You want to help Putin that much?
Ideally it should have been disbanded around 1990.
Why? You think Russia isn't a threat? Or anyone else?
If Russia is a threat why are we so casual about the PM receiving anonymous cash bungs, particularly when we know he has charged a Putin connection hundreds of thousands to play tennis with him and that Putin connection has also paid to get time with May and Cameron?
Of course Russia is a threat, but this far out of its borders it is far more likely to be through corruption and destabilisation than soldiers or bombs.
Not to mention Russian troll farms and other interference in Western politics.
With regards to the ongoing discussion on CRT. Apparently a US battalion commander is under investigation for comments including “If you are white, you are part of the problem”. It is, for those who know about these things, the 1-8 “fighting eagles infantry. His comments do not seem to be being met with unalloyed enthusiasm by this serving under him.
That quoted comment from the commander is, for want of a better word, racist.
Another case of 'they are exactly what they accuse you of'.
I've generally switched off from all this (by logging out of twitter) but some things you can't help notice, like the Yale psychiatrist who admitted to fantasies about shooting white people in a public university seminar. Maybe she should get together with the battalion commander cited above.
All normal. Just people getting on with their jobs. Nothing at all to see here. Or - if you are Philip Thompson - it is the rebirth of Western Civilisation!
There was a good piece in an Australian magazine the other day, which argues well the point that a lot of the problems in Western society are much more about class than race.
That was a large part of the recent derided government race enquiry, whose conclusions are being ignored.
I would agree that class is a bigger issue than race, but they do heavily interest.
At risk of doxxing myself as some sort of Bennite Corbanista, at least so far as education is concerned, class is a far bigger issue than race, and working class BAME communities have worse outcomes than middle class BAME communities, as do White working class communities.
A perceptive friend once observed that in the USA race trumps class, while in the UK, class trumps race.
I googled uk nato special relationship and couldnt find relevant story #
The US think they can push us around and treat us like shit and we'll always be there to support them in their endless, stupid and pointless wars... well it's time to say no!
Boris has made a good but it's time to go further... They treat us with the respect we deserve as the only NATO member that always supports them in whatever stupid policy they have... Or we're done!
Could you please tell us, precisely what you are talking about?
US: We're going to go to war with Afghanistan (for no reason other than we want to bomb the crap out of someone)
France: Hmmmmmmmm....
Germany: Hmmmmmmmm....
UK: Lets Gooooooooooooo....!!!!!!!
The Germans (through the NATO ISAF) and French (through Ops Pamir and Herakles) were heavily involved in Afghanistan. The CdG battle group was also in the Indian Ocean contributing tacair for most of the 2001/2 winter.
The French stepped in the shit in the Uzbin Valley but, in stark contrast to certain other allied forces, did demonstrate a capacity to learn and change. They very sensibly stopped having anything to do with the ANA or any other Afghan forces which stopped intel leaks and Green-on-Blue incidents.
The French and Belgians are also very active against Islamists in the Sahel.
Personally, I think that NATO is a cold war relic, and long overdue for disbanding.
NATO is a cold war relic but must not be disbanded. It keeps America invested in Europe, where it turns out Putin's Russian Bear is not a teddy bear.
Wonder if Uncle Joe might have anything to say, on the subject of the new German gas pipeline from Russia?
With regards to the ongoing discussion on CRT. Apparently a US battalion commander is under investigation for comments including “If you are white, you are part of the problem”. It is, for those who know about these things, the 1-8 “fighting eagles infantry. His comments do not seem to be being met with unalloyed enthusiasm by this serving under him.
That quoted comment from the commander is, for want of a better word, racist.
Another case of 'they are exactly what they accuse you of'.
I've generally switched off from all this (by logging out of twitter) but some things you can't help notice, like the Yale psychiatrist who admitted to fantasies about shooting white people in a public university seminar. Maybe she should get together with the battalion commander cited above.
All normal. Just people getting on with their jobs. Nothing at all to see here. Or - if you are Philip Thompson - it is the rebirth of Western Civilisation!
There was a good piece in an Australian magazine the other day, which argues well the point that a lot of the problems in Western society are much more about class than race.
That was a large part of the recent derided government race enquiry, whose conclusions are being ignored.
I would agree that class is a bigger issue than race, but they do heavily interest.
At risk of doxxing myself as some sort of Bennite Corbanista, at least so far as education is concerned, class is a far bigger issue than race, and working class BAME communities have worse outcomes than middle class BAME communities, as do White working class communities.
That is, simply, what a number of detailed reports into education have found. I would just add that in this case "class" is defined as "how much money you have". Very Roman....
The only vaguely controversial bit, which had faded a bit with age, was that the most disadvantaged segment of the "white" group was right at the bottom.
As usual with these aggregations, looking at the components is important. There are massive differential outcomes within the "BAME" group. Which is not surprising, since the concept of BAME was invented to hide and muddy the waters on various issues.
With regards to the ongoing discussion on CRT. Apparently a US battalion commander is under investigation for comments including “If you are white, you are part of the problem”. It is, for those who know about these things, the 1-8 “fighting eagles infantry. His comments do not seem to be being met with unalloyed enthusiasm by this serving under him.
That quoted comment from the commander is, for want of a better word, racist.
Another case of 'they are exactly what they accuse you of'.
I've generally switched off from all this (by logging out of twitter) but some things you can't help notice, like the Yale psychiatrist who admitted to fantasies about shooting white people in a public university seminar. Maybe she should get together with the battalion commander cited above.
All normal. Just people getting on with their jobs. Nothing at all to see here. Or - if you are Philip Thompson - it is the rebirth of Western Civilisation!
There was a good piece in an Australian magazine the other day, which argues well the point that a lot of the problems in Western society are much more about class than race.
That was a large part of the recent derided government race enquiry, whose conclusions are being ignored.
I would agree that class is a bigger issue than race, but they do heavily interest.
At risk of doxxing myself as some sort of Bennite Corbanista, at least so far as education is concerned, class is a far bigger issue than race, and working class BAME communities have worse outcomes than middle class BAME communities, as do White working class communities.
A perceptive friend once observed that in the USA race trumps class, while in the UK, class trumps race.
In the UK, *money* trumps race.
If a Somali family moves into the next house... Dad runs a business empire, mum is a lady who lunches and sends their daughters go to the £30K a year private school down the road. No tut tutting at the local golf club - Dad will probably be invited for membership.
As of 26 May, an estimated 14.0 million first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and 24.3 million first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca had been administered, and around 10.6 million and 13.4 million second doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca respectively. Edit 0.4 m Moderna 1sts
That seeks like good news. I was worried we were going to see vaccinations slow down due to running out of ability to use AZN but if ther are 9.9 million second AZN jabs outstanding (including my own) and only 2.6 million Pfizer seconds outstanding, then that seems like really good news.
Updated 29 April 2021 (Using wayback machine)
This safety update report is based on detailed analysis of data up to 21 April 2021. At this date, an estimated 11.2 million first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and 22 million first doses of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine had been administered, and around 6.8 million and 4.4 million second doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine respectively. An approximate 0.1 million first doses of the Moderna vaccine have also now been administered.
So the change in 1 month was :
+2.3 million Az firsts +2.8 million Pfizer firsts +3.8 million Pfizer seconds +9 million Az seconds +0.3 million Moderna firsts
Reported 21st April 33,257,651 11,192,601 Reported 26th May 38,614,683 24,043,956
As of 26 May, an estimated 14.0 million first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and 24.3 million first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca had been administered, and around 10.6 million and 13.4 million second doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca respectively.
That seeks like good news. I was worried we were going to see vaccinations slow down due to running out of ability to use AZN but if ther are 9.9 million second AZN jabs outstanding (including my own) and only 2.6 million Pfizer seconds outstanding, then that seems like really good news.
The issue is that we are now moving into the age groups that are not going to be offered AZN.
And another example of journalists being more like political activists
And there is zero evidence that the conversation ever happened
The conversation being reported is evidence that it happened. If you mean there is no proof, you might be right although there could be a recording.
No. Journalists have made things up in the past. This is such a perfectly crafted anti-Tory/anti-Brexit nugget that I am sceptical of its origins
ICYMI, this is what we are talking about, from Politico's London Playbook and tweeted by Marina Hyde:-
Fighting talk: One Conservative Brexiteer said Biden should row in behind Britain and not the EU in the dispute to break the deadlock. “America should remember who their allies are,” the person told Playbook. Asked what Johnson should tell Biden, the MP added: “Unfortunately he’s so senile that he probably won’t remember what we tell him anyway. Unless an aide is listening I’m not sure he’s going to remember for very long.” Erm. Wow. https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/politico-london-playbook-bojo-meets-jobi-on-the-ground-at-the-g7-dom-vs-matt-round-2/
I hate this Government. Hate it. Because of the political decision to let Delta/Indian Variant seed here by failing to close the borders we are, instead of lifting restrictions, about to go backwards. I don’t think I can bear another lockdown. But in two, three weeks the NHS will not be able to cope with this
Of the many qualms I have about this tory administration, bribing voters is low down. Why so? Because it has gone on since the dawn of political democracy, in every country including ours.
I guess additionally that if I ranked the honesty and morality of professions, at the bottom would be bankers and estate agents. And then in a separate table all to themselves, far far beneath, in some infernal dungeon, there would be MPs and politicians.
In some ways the blatancy of this is to be welcomed. I'd rather see the cash above the table than underneath it.
Not recently; not here. .
I'm sorry but that's staggeringly naive.
I studied politics 40 years ago and corruption was systemic then, as now. Dear old Wilson had his beer and sandwich sessions with the unions (and the unions are some of the most corrupt organisations in the country), Thatcher had the newspaper magnates, which Tony Blair then aped with Murdoch, who gave him free holidays until he started shagging his wife. There have been motorways built and car factories (deLorean who was an utter crook for example), constituencies favoured, duck houses and cash for questions, and honour bribes, and blind eyes turned (Maxwell). I could go on and on and on and on and on.
Corruption in British politics has been utterly systemic for donkey's years. It's just that when the cash is flaunted above the table rather than underneath it you notice and seem shocked.
It has been ever thus.
You could say: there's a corruption problem in the UK in the same way that there's a problem with insects in September/October. It may exist but it's not very serious compared to most countries.
When I saw that Keir was introducing self-ID for trans yesterday, my heart sank.
In what possible universe is this a good position to stake out during a key by-election.
The government is fighting a culture war, and winning.
Keir is an idiot. He must stand down immediately after Batley & Spen which is increasingly looking like a loss (I previously had it as a win).
Anyone know what would count as a middle way moderate inclusive position that all thoughtful sides can agree on, and what it would look like?
I think one element would be no medically unsupervised treatment by parents with puberty-blockers of their children below the age of 16. Should arguably be 18, as that is where the rule on "who is a child" is generally in law these days, though this boundary is muddy and inconsistent.
With regards to the ongoing discussion on CRT. Apparently a US battalion commander is under investigation for comments including “If you are white, you are part of the problem”. It is, for those who know about these things, the 1-8 “fighting eagles infantry. His comments do not seem to be being met with unalloyed enthusiasm by this serving under him.
That quoted comment from the commander is, for want of a better word, racist.
Another case of 'they are exactly what they accuse you of'.
I've generally switched off from all this (by logging out of twitter) but some things you can't help notice, like the Yale psychiatrist who admitted to fantasies about shooting white people in a public university seminar. Maybe she should get together with the battalion commander cited above.
All normal. Just people getting on with their jobs. Nothing at all to see here. Or - if you are Philip Thompson - it is the rebirth of Western Civilisation!
There was a good piece in an Australian magazine the other day, which argues well the point that a lot of the problems in Western society are much more about class than race.
That was a large part of the recent derided government race enquiry, whose conclusions are being ignored.
I would agree that class is a bigger issue than race, but they do heavily interest.
At risk of doxxing myself as some sort of Bennite Corbanista, at least so far as education is concerned, class is a far bigger issue than race, and working class BAME communities have worse outcomes than middle class BAME communities, as do White working class communities.
That doesn’t have to be the case.
I am spending a morning next week with Katherine Birbalsingh to see the work she is doing at Michaela (my wife is a fan) so will be interesting… but she is getting very good results from a BAME working class group of kids
With regards to the ongoing discussion on CRT. Apparently a US battalion commander is under investigation for comments including “If you are white, you are part of the problem”. It is, for those who know about these things, the 1-8 “fighting eagles infantry. His comments do not seem to be being met with unalloyed enthusiasm by this serving under him.
That quoted comment from the commander is, for want of a better word, racist.
Another case of 'they are exactly what they accuse you of'.
I've generally switched off from all this (by logging out of twitter) but some things you can't help notice, like the Yale psychiatrist who admitted to fantasies about shooting white people in a public university seminar. Maybe she should get together with the battalion commander cited above.
All normal. Just people getting on with their jobs. Nothing at all to see here. Or - if you are Philip Thompson - it is the rebirth of Western Civilisation!
There was a good piece in an Australian magazine the other day, which argues well the point that a lot of the problems in Western society are much more about class than race.
That was a large part of the recent derided government race enquiry, whose conclusions are being ignored.
I would agree that class is a bigger issue than race, but they do heavily interest.
At risk of doxxing myself as some sort of Bennite Corbanista, at least so far as education is concerned, class is a far bigger issue than race, and working class BAME communities have worse outcomes than middle class BAME communities, as do White working class communities.
That doesn’t have to be the case.
I am spending a morning next week with Katherine Birbalsingh to see the work she is doing at Michaela (my wife is a fan) so will be interesting… but she is getting very good results from a BAME working class group of kids
She’s awesome, we need more teachers like Katherine.
Mr. Seal, that's cases. I'd want to see the figures for cases with serious symptoms and deaths. Those matter more than the total number of cases.
I'd take 100% infection if 0% had serious symptoms.
As I say, that won’t show up for two or three weeks, and I fear it will. It takes time from testing to hospitalisation. Those hospitalised today will have caught it, at least, 7 days ago.
I googled uk nato special relationship and couldnt find relevant story #
The US think they can push us around and treat us like shit and we'll always be there to support them in their endless, stupid and pointless wars... well it's time to say no!
Boris has made a good but it's time to go further... They treat us with the respect we deserve as the only NATO member that always supports them in whatever stupid policy they have... Or we're done!
Could you please tell us, precisely what you are talking about?
US: We're going to go to war with Afghanistan (for no reason other than we want to bomb the crap out of someone)
France: Hmmmmmmmm....
Germany: Hmmmmmmmm....
UK: Lets Gooooooooooooo....!!!!!!!
The Germans (through the NATO ISAF) and French (through Ops Pamir and Herakles) were heavily involved in Afghanistan. The CdG battle group was also in the Indian Ocean contributing tacair for most of the 2001/2 winter.
The French stepped in the shit in the Uzbin Valley but, in stark contrast to certain other allied forces, did demonstrate a capacity to learn and change. They very sensibly stopped having anything to do with the ANA or any other Afghan forces which stopped intel leaks and Green-on-Blue incidents.
The French and Belgians are also very active against Islamists in the Sahel.
Personally, I think that NATO is a cold war relic, and long overdue for disbanding.
You want to help Putin that much?
Ideally it should have been disbanded around 1990.
One of post-WWII's biggest errors was not to welcome Russia into the global fold after the dissolution of the USSR.
I hate this Government. Hate it. Because of the political decision to let Delta/Indian Variant seed here by failing to close the borders we are, instead of lifting restrictions, about to go backwards. I don’t think I can bear another lockdown. But in two, three weeks the NHS will not be able to cope with this
Where is the evidence that the NHS will be overwhelmed in two to three weeks?
And another example of journalists being more like political activists
And there is zero evidence that the conversation ever happened
The conversation being reported is evidence that it happened. If you mean there is no proof, you might be right although there could be a recording.
No. Journalists have made things up in the past. This is such a perfectly crafted anti-Tory/anti-Brexit nugget that I am sceptical of its origins
ICYMI, this is what we are talking about, from Politico's London Playbook and tweeted by Marina Hyde:-
Fighting talk: One Conservative Brexiteer said Biden should row in behind Britain and not the EU in the dispute to break the deadlock. “America should remember who their allies are,” the person told Playbook. Asked what Johnson should tell Biden, the MP added: “Unfortunately he’s so senile that he probably won’t remember what we tell him anyway. Unless an aide is listening I’m not sure he’s going to remember for very long.” Erm. Wow. https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/politico-london-playbook-bojo-meets-jobi-on-the-ground-at-the-g7-dom-vs-matt-round-2/
"Donald Moss will discuss whiteness as a condition one first acquires and then one has--a malignant, parasitic-like condition to which “white” people have a particular susceptibility. He describes the condition as being foundational, generating characteristic ways of being in one’s body, in one’s mind, and in one’s world: Parasitic whiteness renders its hosts’ appetites voracious, insatiable, and perverse; these deformed appetites particularly target non-white people; and, once established, these appetites are nearly impossible to eliminate"
Not sure what that has got to do with black lives matter mate
Black Lives Matter, or is it Black Lives mAttEr, I dunno, is a Marxist organisation which aims to defund the police, deconstruct the family and destroy any self-respect white people have by instilling an intrinsic guilt about racism, which can never be erased. If you deny your racism you are a racist, if you admit you are racist, get down on your knees
Fuck it. It is loathsome. White people conquered the world, and invented modernity. I will never be ashamed of this, as a white person, because I didn't do it; in the end I will take pride in it, as a race, if necessary
Because that is the end of this hideous divisiveness: White Pride. Maybe that is what they want
Well, I was with you until the end of the first paragraph.
I think some of the fanatics behind this want racial strife in the same way the old lot wanted class strife, because they thought it'd bring about The Revolution.
That (white pride) is the elephant trap that they want you to fall in to, thus proving them right all along.
What is quite interesting is that it hasn't happened. There is no outburst of white pride. People agree with black lives matter because for the most part, they want to move on from racism. However, they have no real understanding of the post marxist agenda of the actual organisation, which is exploiting peoples sympathy towards getting rid of racism. Thats the problem. How to break the link.
It is of course a common tactic of extremist organisations to attach themselves to, and try to parasite on, popular movements ("entryism"). The Socialist Workers Party did so in the Miner's Strike for instance, and Class War did with the poll tax riots. You got neo-Nazi groups trying to infilrate UKIP and the Conservative Party too.
That is their only tactic without significant popular support in this country, as we have an excellent voting system that ruthlessly punishes cranks and nutters, so they will never hold the balance of power in coalition governments, which is their other route to influence.
Yep. The problem is a bit deeper than that though. The 'Black Lives Matter' organisation are a small part of the problem. The bigger problem is the ideas connected to identity politics, which emphasise racial differences, and link these to outcomes and experiences. They have infiltrated all political parties, and have become deeply entrenched in our legal system. They have largely conquered universities. They are largely running unopposed through schools and businesses. This way of thinking inherently makes racial equality impossible. It purports to promote equality, but then turns everything in to a conflict about race, to which there seems to be no real answer or point other than to promote an endless power struggle between different racial groups.
It needs to be hammered intellectually (easy if opposition is not shouted down) especially in academia. Aggressive woke academics need their pathetic charlatan drivel exposed, dismantled and ridiculed.
This won't happen any time soon due to the fact that the woke have taken over most social science departments at universities, and because they have found ways to protect these theories from intellectual criticism.
Its hard to see what the answer is but unless some radical action is taken universties will become pointless because they are just being used as a way of legitimising propoganda and ideological drivel. I've already given up on going in to the academy because it will be starting from a bad place and carrying out a rear guard action from there.
If anyone is interested in this, the book Cynical Theories by James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose is a must read and explains the situation brilliantly (albeit incredibly depressing )
Ultimately I am less pessimistic. I believe it will collapse from the inside, due to its ridiculous contradictions. ie how do you simultaneously obsess about race and skin colour, yet deny that race is a biological fact, just a social construct? If you can self identify as black then you are black, etc etc, soon everyone will self identify as black the same way kids are now genderqueer. The idiocy will implode, and once these ideologies unravel it happens quickly
My fear is the damage these sinister theories will do on the way to their doom. I can easily see white America electing a more effective demagogue than Trump. I can see White Pride becoming a very real thing, pretty damn soon, across the West. The stirrings are audible
I too hope it will implode, but I think you are underestimating the tribal element and sense of belonging attached to it; the sea of hopelessness that it recruits from, and the use of technology in its propogation (and the control it exerts over technology in general). It isn't obviously imploding and its outrageous contradictions should be obvious, it should just be laughed out of existence as it would have been 20 years ago. But lots of otherwise smart people on here pronounce themselves as woke and believe it to be the reinvention of western civilisation. How do you explain that?
Decadence and ease
But that is ending. And how
Wokeness will eat its own children, like all Revolutions. We just have to hunker down, and undermine it quietly
Nearly 14C in the fog this morning; I've not seen that before - foggy mornings by the sea are normally cold
Here in the middle of the country the temperature didn't dip below 19 degrees last night. One of those nights you wish you'd been staying in a hotel with air conditioning.
And another example of journalists being more like political activists
And there is zero evidence that the conversation ever happened
The conversation being reported is evidence that it happened. If you mean there is no proof, you might be right although there could be a recording.
No. Journalists have made things up in the past. This is such a perfectly crafted anti-Tory/anti-Brexit nugget that I am sceptical of its origins
ICYMI, this is what we are talking about, from Politico's London Playbook and tweeted by Marina Hyde:-
Fighting talk: One Conservative Brexiteer said Biden should row in behind Britain and not the EU in the dispute to break the deadlock. “America should remember who their allies are,” the person told Playbook. Asked what Johnson should tell Biden, the MP added: “Unfortunately he’s so senile that he probably won’t remember what we tell him anyway. Unless an aide is listening I’m not sure he’s going to remember for very long.” Erm. Wow. https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/politico-london-playbook-bojo-meets-jobi-on-the-ground-at-the-g7-dom-vs-matt-round-2/
Yes. Unsourced, explosive, offensive and targeted at Tories and Brexiteers.
I hate this Government. Hate it. Because of the political decision to let Delta/Indian Variant seed here by failing to close the borders we are, instead of lifting restrictions, about to go backwards. I don’t think I can bear another lockdown. But in two, three weeks the NHS will not be able to cope with this
Do we have our first 'the NHS will collapse this month' prediction ?
Perhaps you'd like to give us a prediction of how many covid patients are currently in Bolton, Blackburn (East Lancs) and Bedfordshire hospitals.
WRT Universities, it really is a case of 'what department'.
When we had the strikes here in 2020 and 2019, the physical sciences more or less carried on as normal. When we collected a list of sessions missed and deadlines affected, it was a Beadle handful.
Languages? Social Science?
Yeah, whole term broadly written off.
It was always telling that I'd be into the office and out again in the evening without once passing the picket line.
I hate this Government. Hate it. Because of the political decision to let Delta/Indian Variant seed here by failing to close the borders we are, instead of lifting restrictions, about to go backwards. I don’t think I can bear another lockdown. But in two, three weeks the NHS will not be able to cope with this
Agree 100% about the decision not to stop flights as soon as the variant was identified.
I hate this Government. Hate it. Because of the political decision to let Delta/Indian Variant seed here by failing to close the borders we are, instead of lifting restrictions, about to go backwards. I don’t think I can bear another lockdown. But in two, three weeks the NHS will not be able to cope with this
Do we have our first 'the NHS will collapse this month' prediction ?
Perhaps you'd like to give us a prediction of how many covid patients are currently in Bolton, Blackburn (East Lancs) and Bedfordshire hospitals.
Okay. I’m going to stay off Covid Twitter and repeating stuff back on here and just see how it plays out.
When I saw that Keir was introducing self-ID for trans yesterday, my heart sank.
In what possible universe is this a good position to stake out during a key by-election.
The government is fighting a culture war, and winning.
Keir is an idiot. He must stand down immediately after Batley & Spen which is increasingly looking like a loss (I previously had it as a win).
Anyone know what would count as a middle way moderate inclusive position that all thoughtful sides can agree on, and what it would look like?
I think one element would be no medically unsupervised treatment by parents with puberty-blockers of their children below the age of 16. Should arguably be 18, as that is where the rule on "who is a child" is generally in law these days, though this boundary is muddy and inconsistent.
We used to have great fun with age of consent and parental involvement issues when I worked with Family Planning teams. Who should, who shouldn't, why not and so on.
Generally speaking they were probably the most practical, down to earth and overall sensible group of people, though, that I ever worked with, and while some might argue with decisions made, they always had the best interests of the client (usually, but not invariably, a girl) at the forefront of their minds.
And another example of journalists being more like political activists
And there is zero evidence that the conversation ever happened
The conversation being reported is evidence that it happened. If you mean there is no proof, you might be right although there could be a recording.
No. Journalists have made things up in the past. This is such a perfectly crafted anti-Tory/anti-Brexit nugget that I am sceptical of its origins
ICYMI, this is what we are talking about, from Politico's London Playbook and tweeted by Marina Hyde:-
Fighting talk: One Conservative Brexiteer said Biden should row in behind Britain and not the EU in the dispute to break the deadlock. “America should remember who their allies are,” the person told Playbook. Asked what Johnson should tell Biden, the MP added: “Unfortunately he’s so senile that he probably won’t remember what we tell him anyway. Unless an aide is listening I’m not sure he’s going to remember for very long.” Erm. Wow. https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/politico-london-playbook-bojo-meets-jobi-on-the-ground-at-the-g7-dom-vs-matt-round-2/
Bridgen/Francois or made up?
Apart from the bit about senile, the last two sentences could apply to our PM. Probably in, fact, more than to the POTUS.
As of 26 May, an estimated 14.0 million first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and 24.3 million first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca had been administered, and around 10.6 million and 13.4 million second doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca respectively.
That seeks like good news. I was worried we were going to see vaccinations slow down due to running out of ability to use AZN but if ther are 9.9 million second AZN jabs outstanding (including my own) and only 2.6 million Pfizer seconds outstanding, then that seems like really good news.
The issue is that we are now moving into the age groups that are not going to be offered AZN.
Precisely. Which is why it's good news if the second backlog is AZN and not Pfizer.
If we had a backlog of Pfizer doses then we'd be up a brown creek without a paddle.
NATO is a cold war relic but must not be disbanded. It keeps America invested in Europe, where it turns out Putin's Russian Bear is not a teddy bear.
It's not really serving anybody's strategic interests at the moment. Apart from Putin's. He uses is it as external threat bent on the encirclement and destruction of Russia to justify internal oppression. Macron was right when he described it as 'Brain Dead'. Europe has no strategic autonomy and the US has a whole host of onerous obligations when it would rather focus on the Pacific.
It will probably eventually dissolve into a looser series of bilateral defence relationships rather than the fully integrated command structure we have now. Something like the QSD model the US has with India, Japan and Australia is the probably next stage.
Furthermore 1: in the languages and social sciences, the lines between research and activism become heavily, heavily blurred.
Furthermore 2: there is a phenomena of 'ideas laundering', where activist-based research is given the veneer of scholarship. I think that's where this On Having Whiteness paper comes in. Now this is published, someone else can build on it, refine the ideas, move things along another step.
Go off and see if you can find some of the first papers that come up with these topics.
So, if you're happy with labelling an entire ethnic group as parasites, I'm sure there's some history books I think you're just going to love.
Finally, what starts in the US inevitably finds its way here. Sod that its two different countries, with two starkly different histories, geographies , demographics, politics ...
As of 26 May, an estimated 14.0 million first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and 24.3 million first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca had been administered, and around 10.6 million and 13.4 million second doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca respectively.
That seeks like good news. I was worried we were going to see vaccinations slow down due to running out of ability to use AZN but if ther are 9.9 million second AZN jabs outstanding (including my own) and only 2.6 million Pfizer seconds outstanding, then that seems like really good news.
The issue is that we are now moving into the age groups that are not going to be offered AZN.
Precisely. Which is why it's good news if the second backlog is AZN and not Pfizer.
If we had a backlog of Pfizer doses then we'd be up a brown creek without a paddle.
The question is how much Pfizer is turning up, when, going forward from this point.
Mr. Seal, that's cases. I'd want to see the figures for cases with serious symptoms and deaths. Those matter more than the total number of cases.
I'd take 100% infection if 0% had serious symptoms.
and
are of interest.
Very useful. Taking the second graph and shifting it left by a week (and scaling vertically), it's reasonably close (albeit somewhat shallower on average, I think) and just getting to the point where the younger cases inflected and jumped upwards (31st of May). One week from now, we should have a good handle on how the admissions will go in following (to whatever degree) the cases. Very handwavy, and could be far too oversimplified (especially given the different populations of the age bands):
And another example of journalists being more like political activists
And there is zero evidence that the conversation ever happened
The conversation being reported is evidence that it happened. If you mean there is no proof, you might be right although there could be a recording.
No. Journalists have made things up in the past. This is such a perfectly crafted anti-Tory/anti-Brexit nugget that I am sceptical of its origins
ICYMI, this is what we are talking about, from Politico's London Playbook and tweeted by Marina Hyde:-
Fighting talk: One Conservative Brexiteer said Biden should row in behind Britain and not the EU in the dispute to break the deadlock. “America should remember who their allies are,” the person told Playbook. Asked what Johnson should tell Biden, the MP added: “Unfortunately he’s so senile that he probably won’t remember what we tell him anyway. Unless an aide is listening I’m not sure he’s going to remember for very long.” Erm. Wow. https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/politico-london-playbook-bojo-meets-jobi-on-the-ground-at-the-g7-dom-vs-matt-round-2/
Bridgen/Francois or made up?
More likely Francois 'The Inflatable Reservist' than Bridgen as it doesn't explicitly mention The Great Patriotic War and is therefore unlikely to be the words of the failed Royal Marine.
I hate this Government. Hate it. Because of the political decision to let Delta/Indian Variant seed here by failing to close the borders we are, instead of lifting restrictions, about to go backwards. I don’t think I can bear another lockdown. But in two, three weeks the NHS will not be able to cope with this
Agree 100% about the decision not to stop flights as soon as the variant was identified.
So you are saying that British citizens must be prevented from returning to the UK? Because many of those flying to the UK were indeed British citizens, fleeing from the Covid-ravaged sub-Continent. And there are lots of routes to get here from taking one or two stops along the way if you tried.
I suspect if there were easy answers on this one, Captain Hindsight would be telling us all about them.
Rights and wrongs aside, it’s strange how much of the commentary about the protocol bypasses the reality that it is itself disruptive for Northern Ireland, given the strength of opposition, and stretches the GFA very thin indeed, as Rory Montgomery has noted.
"The government is fighting a culture war, and winning."
or
"My lot fighting a culture war, and losing. Because we just. can't. help. ourselves. "
Hodges puts it better:
"The next few years is going to solely consist of the Left charging headlong into the Valley of Death, then angrily tweeting “Its an outrage!!! The Russian guns are firing at us!!!!”."
Interesting. Not having the tables in front of me are trans people really "one of the most discriminated against" in the UK?
I suppose if the proportion of trans people who are discriminated against is higher that the proportion of other minorities then perhaps. Who has the stats?
I mean of course one trans person discriminated against is one too much but what a strange thing for SKS to say.
Finally, what starts in the US inevitably finds its way here. Sod that its two different countries, with two starkly different histories, geographies , demographics, politics ...
BJ, the 1918 flu epidemic and the 2008 financial crisis, all the good stuff started in America.
As of 26 May, an estimated 14.0 million first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and 24.3 million first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca had been administered, and around 10.6 million and 13.4 million second doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca respectively.
That seeks like good news. I was worried we were going to see vaccinations slow down due to running out of ability to use AZN but if ther are 9.9 million second AZN jabs outstanding (including my own) and only 2.6 million Pfizer seconds outstanding, then that seems like really good news.
The issue is that we are now moving into the age groups that are not going to be offered AZN.
Precisely. Which is why it's good news if the second backlog is AZN and not Pfizer.
If we had a backlog of Pfizer doses then we'd be up a brown creek without a paddle.
The question is how much Pfizer is turning up, when, going forward from this point.
Oh indeed for the first doses, and Moderna.
But yesterday it was being suggested we had five million AZN doses and nothing to do with it. If there's a ten million backlog in AZN second doses then that's something to do with the AZN doses at least, so good news.
Better than if Pfizer was turning up but reserved for second doses and no second AZN was due. Make sense?
And another example of journalists being more like political activists
And there is zero evidence that the conversation ever happened
The conversation being reported is evidence that it happened. If you mean there is no proof, you might be right although there could be a recording.
No. Journalists have made things up in the past. This is such a perfectly crafted anti-Tory/anti-Brexit nugget that I am sceptical of its origins
ICYMI, this is what we are talking about, from Politico's London Playbook and tweeted by Marina Hyde:-
Fighting talk: One Conservative Brexiteer said Biden should row in behind Britain and not the EU in the dispute to break the deadlock. “America should remember who their allies are,” the person told Playbook. Asked what Johnson should tell Biden, the MP added: “Unfortunately he’s so senile that he probably won’t remember what we tell him anyway. Unless an aide is listening I’m not sure he’s going to remember for very long.” Erm. Wow. https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/politico-london-playbook-bojo-meets-jobi-on-the-ground-at-the-g7-dom-vs-matt-round-2/
Yes. Unsourced, explosive, offensive and targeted at Tories and Brexiteers.
Really depends whether this is being said on the record by Lord Clarke or off the record by the assistant secretary of Bootle and Walton Conservative association during a game of darts. Not much to see.
However, on the bigger issue. The UK has, of course, been shafted, mostly under TMs watch, on the island of Ireland issue, to the extent that it is unsustainable, which means it was folly to go there.
If nothing else in comprehensible sadly the return to violence in the province will, if nothing is done, be unmistakeable. From a Unionist point of view (one with which I have almost no sympathy, being a supporter of a united Ireland) the deal is a clear step, without consent, away from the union. Sausagegate is required to make the truth clear and simple.
If one turned the tables and said that the right deal for no border within Ireland is one in which the whole of the British Isles is to be treated as a single unit, and the the de facto (no de iure) boundary is between the whole island of Ireland the the rest of the EU, the EU would not accept it for an instant.
That is what they are asking us to accept. Naturally we should not have done so, but we are where we are. The status quo is literally incendiary.
I hate this Government. Hate it. Because of the political decision to let Delta/Indian Variant seed here by failing to close the borders we are, instead of lifting restrictions, about to go backwards. I don’t think I can bear another lockdown. But in two, three weeks the NHS will not be able to cope with this
Do we have our first 'the NHS will collapse this month' prediction ?
Perhaps you'd like to give us a prediction of how many covid patients are currently in Bolton, Blackburn (East Lancs) and Bedfordshire hospitals.
Okay. I’m going to stay off Covid Twitter and repeating stuff back on here and just see how it plays out.
The hospital data today will give a good indication of how it is playing out.
Mr. Seal, that's cases. I'd want to see the figures for cases with serious symptoms and deaths. Those matter more than the total number of cases.
I'd take 100% infection if 0% had serious symptoms.
and
are of interest.
Very useful. Taking the second graph and shifting it left by a week (and scaling vertically), it's reasonably close (albeit somewhat shallower on average, I think) and just getting to the point where the younger cases inflected and jumped upwards (31st of May). One week from now, we should have a good handle on how the admissions will go in following (to whatever degree) the cases. Very handwavy, and could be far too oversimplified (especially given the different populations of the age bands):
Useful but an age band of 18-64 for hospitalisation is very wide indeed. Not the fault of the compiler of course! It would be helpful if the NHS could break it down a bit.
Furthermore 1: in the languages and social sciences, the lines between research and activism become heavily, heavily blurred.
Furthermore 2: there is a phenomena of 'ideas laundering', where activist-based research is given the veneer of scholarship. I think that's where this On Having Whiteness paper comes in. Now this is published, someone else can build on it, refine the ideas, move things along another step.
Go off and see if you can find some of the first papers that come up with these topics.
So, if you're happy with labelling an entire ethnic group as parasites, I'm sure there's some history books I think you're just going to love.
On Having Whiteness reads uncannily like late stage, delirious anti-Semitism under the Nazis. The language of pestilence, the hunger for vengeance, it is all there
As of 26 May, an estimated 14.0 million first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and 24.3 million first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca had been administered, and around 10.6 million and 13.4 million second doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca respectively.
That seeks like good news. I was worried we were going to see vaccinations slow down due to running out of ability to use AZN but if ther are 9.9 million second AZN jabs outstanding (including my own) and only 2.6 million Pfizer seconds outstanding, then that seems like really good news.
The issue is that we are now moving into the age groups that are not going to be offered AZN.
Precisely. Which is why it's good news if the second backlog is AZN and not Pfizer.
If we had a backlog of Pfizer doses then we'd be up a brown creek without a paddle.
Not quite. We've got plenty of AZN- both in the system and coming out of the factory. We would be in real trouble for fortysomethings awaiting their second doses if that were running short, but it probably isn't.
The trouble is the younger people. Now we need to vaccinate them as well to get to herd immunity. Young people generally don't get that sick themselves, but they can pass the virus back on to older people who can't have the vaccine, or for whom their immunity hasn't quite taken hold.
The current UK plan is not to use AZN on younger people. All the shouting earlier in the year ended up at "maybe those nervous Europeans have got a bit of a point". But if we have to use imported mRNA jabs on youngsters, then we only have about 200k jabs a day to work with for now, and the programme will slow considerably.
There's a possibility that we've got the wrong type of vaccines. Loads of the one we'd prefer not to use, and only a steady trickle of the one we'd prefer to use. We don't know, because- unlike our neighbours- the UK isn't publishing its delivery data, so this is all inferred from the scraps that are published.
I hate this Government. Hate it. Because of the political decision to let Delta/Indian Variant seed here by failing to close the borders we are, instead of lifting restrictions, about to go backwards. I don’t think I can bear another lockdown. But in two, three weeks the NHS will not be able to cope with this
Agree 100% about the decision not to stop flights as soon as the variant was identified.
So you are saying that British citizens must be prevented from returning to the UK? Because many of those flying to the UK were indeed British citizens, fleeing from the Covid-ravaged sub-Continent. And there are lots of routes to get here from taking one or two stops along the way if you tried.
I suspect if there were easy answers on this one, Captain Hindsight would be telling us all about them.
Yes, stop them coming back. Stop all flights
We had the vaccine, we had a way out once. Stopping all flights (apart from absolute essential workers) would have been a time-limited thing, not a zero Covid national quarantine policy like NZ
Once the jabs are all done by the summer, open up again
On the trans issue. One of our granddaughters, half way through her GSCE course, has in her 'friendship group' a 'boy' who is, apparently, in the process of becoming a girl, to the extent that now he is known by his preferred female name. We've seen photo's and he can do a really good job with a make-up kit; beautifully tapered eyebrows, lipstick neatly applied and so on. From granddaughter's reports, as far as the girls are concerned (it's a private, largely female school) 'he's' one of them.
As a career objective wants, apparently, to go to the US and learn to be a film/tv make up artist
With regards to the ongoing discussion on CRT. Apparently a US battalion commander is under investigation for comments including “If you are white, you are part of the problem”. It is, for those who know about these things, the 1-8 “fighting eagles infantry. His comments do not seem to be being met with unalloyed enthusiasm by this serving under him.
That quoted comment from the commander is, for want of a better word, racist.
Another case of 'they are exactly what they accuse you of'.
I've generally switched off from all this (by logging out of twitter) but some things you can't help notice, like the Yale psychiatrist who admitted to fantasies about shooting white people in a public university seminar. Maybe she should get together with the battalion commander cited above.
All normal. Just people getting on with their jobs. Nothing at all to see here. Or - if you are Philip Thompson - it is the rebirth of Western Civilisation!
There was a good piece in an Australian magazine the other day, which argues well the point that a lot of the problems in Western society are much more about class than race.
That was a large part of the recent derided government race enquiry, whose conclusions are being ignored.
I would agree that class is a bigger issue than race, but they do heavily interest.
At risk of doxxing myself as some sort of Bennite Corbanista, at least so far as education is concerned, class is a far bigger issue than race, and working class BAME communities have worse outcomes than middle class BAME communities, as do White working class communities.
That doesn’t have to be the case.
I am spending a morning next week with Katherine Birbalsingh to see the work she is doing at Michaela (my wife is a fan) so will be interesting… but she is getting very good results from a BAME working class group of kids
Katherine Birbalsingh is brilliant, I am a big fan as well. I particularly like her theory that all people are a bit racist. The sad reality is that we all probably make judgements about groups based on physical characteristics, even if it is only at a subconscious level.
Mr. Seal, that's cases. I'd want to see the figures for cases with serious symptoms and deaths. Those matter more than the total number of cases.
I'd take 100% infection if 0% had serious symptoms.
and
are of interest.
Very useful. Taking the second graph and shifting it left by a week (and scaling vertically), it's reasonably close (albeit somewhat shallower on average, I think) and just getting to the point where the younger cases inflected and jumped upwards (31st of May). One week from now, we should have a good handle on how the admissions will go in following (to whatever degree) the cases. Very handwavy, and could be far too oversimplified (especially given the different populations of the age bands):
What is this phrase “handwavy” I have never heard anyone use it but you. What on Earth does it mean?
As of 26 May, an estimated 14.0 million first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and 24.3 million first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca had been administered, and around 10.6 million and 13.4 million second doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca respectively.
That seeks like good news. I was worried we were going to see vaccinations slow down due to running out of ability to use AZN but if ther are 9.9 million second AZN jabs outstanding (including my own) and only 2.6 million Pfizer seconds outstanding, then that seems like really good news.
The issue is that we are now moving into the age groups that are not going to be offered AZN.
Precisely. Which is why it's good news if the second backlog is AZN and not Pfizer.
If we had a backlog of Pfizer doses then we'd be up a brown creek without a paddle.
Not quite. We've got plenty of AZN- both in the system and coming out of the factory. We would be in real trouble for fortysomethings awaiting their second doses if that were running short, but it probably isn't.
The trouble is the younger people. Now we need to vaccinate them as well to get to herd immunity. Young people generally don't get that sick themselves, but they can pass the virus back on to older people who can't have the vaccine, or for whom their immunity hasn't quite taken hold.
The current UK plan is not to use AZN on younger people. All the shouting earlier in the year ended up at "maybe those nervous Europeans have got a bit of a point". But if we have to use imported mRNA jabs on youngsters, then we only have about 200k jabs a day to work with for now, and the programme will slow considerably.
There's a possibility that we've got the wrong type of vaccines. Loads of the one we'd prefer not to use, and only a steady trickle of the one we'd prefer to use. We don't know, because- unlike our neighbours- the UK isn't publishing its delivery data, so this is all inferred from the scraps that are published.
It's would be good to know definitively.
The thing is we're nearing the end game already. We've already vaccinated all the vulnerable that can be vaccinated and haven't refused it, we've got 80% with antibodies amongst the adult population which will provide enough herd immunity to prevent the NHS ever being overwhelmed again (though there's certainly pockets of the population that are vulnerable, especially in the youngest or areas where antivaxx is more of a thing).
200k first doses per day isn't something we've had in a long time as an average. So if second doses can be the AZN for next few weeks and first doses Pfizer then it's quite possible we can keep up current vaccination numbers until the vaccine has been made available to all 18+
Getting 12-17 done probably won't occur any time soon but lets be honest, the main time that will matter is for September not now. Getting them done before schools go back, or even potentially at school when they go back (will make it quite easy operationally if there can be a vaccination drive at school) will sort that out.
When I saw that Keir was introducing self-ID for trans yesterday, my heart sank.
In what possible universe is this a good position to stake out during a key by-election.
The government is fighting a culture war, and winning.
Keir is an idiot. He must stand down immediately after Batley & Spen which is increasingly looking like a loss (I previously had it as a win).
Anyone know what would count as a middle way moderate inclusive position that all thoughtful sides can agree on, and what it would look like?
On the trans issue?
Take the politics out of it and get the medical professionals involved. If there is a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria then proceed from there.
Sighhhhhhh
A major part of the free and frank exchange of views on this issue, is the behaviour and attitudes of the medical profession, both individually and corporately.
Quite simply, they aren't independent, perfect philosopher kings, and are not seen as such.
More of that Wokeness that doesn't exist, apparently
White feminists are being told, at Oxfam, that reporting rape is bad for black people
"Summarising the book’s central premise, the Oxfam document says white feminists need to ask themselves whether they are causing harm when they fight sexual violence.
"It then links to Prof Phipps’s Twitter account and a thread which summarises the main themes of the book, including: “White feminist tears deploy white woundedness, and the sympathy it generates, to hide the harms we perpetuate through white supremacy.”"
**
"Imagine, just imagine, thinking that women reporting rape CAUSES rape, and that women who report rape are horrible, bad people who want to harm men. (At least if the women are white, that is.) I can't imagine thinking anything this deranged, indeed wicked"
With regards to the ongoing discussion on CRT. Apparently a US battalion commander is under investigation for comments including “If you are white, you are part of the problem”. It is, for those who know about these things, the 1-8 “fighting eagles infantry. His comments do not seem to be being met with unalloyed enthusiasm by this serving under him.
That quoted comment from the commander is, for want of a better word, racist.
Another case of 'they are exactly what they accuse you of'.
I've generally switched off from all this (by logging out of twitter) but some things you can't help notice, like the Yale psychiatrist who admitted to fantasies about shooting white people in a public university seminar. Maybe she should get together with the battalion commander cited above.
All normal. Just people getting on with their jobs. Nothing at all to see here. Or - if you are Philip Thompson - it is the rebirth of Western Civilisation!
There was a good piece in an Australian magazine the other day, which argues well the point that a lot of the problems in Western society are much more about class than race.
When I saw that Keir was introducing self-ID for trans yesterday, my heart sank.
In what possible universe is this a good position to stake out during a key by-election.
The government is fighting a culture war, and winning.
Keir is an idiot. He must stand down immediately after Batley & Spen which is increasingly looking like a loss (I previously had it as a win).
So you're saying it could be the cis of death for poor old Kier?
One hopes.
As others pointed out, presciently, he is a dud. He is a dud now, and will remain a dud.
It’s not his fault, he’s in many ways great casting for a Labour leader. But he clearly lacks retail appeal; his strategy is unfathomable; his comms not up to much.
Mr. Seal, that's cases. I'd want to see the figures for cases with serious symptoms and deaths. Those matter more than the total number of cases.
I'd take 100% infection if 0% had serious symptoms.
and
are of interest.
Very useful. Taking the second graph and shifting it left by a week (and scaling vertically), it's reasonably close (albeit somewhat shallower on average, I think) and just getting to the point where the younger cases inflected and jumped upwards (31st of May). One week from now, we should have a good handle on how the admissions will go in following (to whatever degree) the cases. Very handwavy, and could be far too oversimplified (especially given the different populations of the age bands):
Useful but an age band of 18-64 for hospitalisation is very wide indeed. Not the fault of the compiler of course! It would be helpful if the NHS could break it down a bit.
The 18-64 annoyed me enough to actually ask the dashboard people if there was anything they can do. Apparently that's the way the data is aggregated much higher up in the health care system. Changing it would involve getting sign off all over the place, apparently. I was asking for the same age bands as the age/death stats - 5 year increments - for both admissions and cases....
And another example of journalists being more like political activists
And there is zero evidence that the conversation ever happened
The conversation being reported is evidence that it happened. If you mean there is no proof, you might be right although there could be a recording.
No. Journalists have made things up in the past. This is such a perfectly crafted anti-Tory/anti-Brexit nugget that I am sceptical of its origins
ICYMI, this is what we are talking about, from Politico's London Playbook and tweeted by Marina Hyde:-
Fighting talk: One Conservative Brexiteer said Biden should row in behind Britain and not the EU in the dispute to break the deadlock. “America should remember who their allies are,” the person told Playbook. Asked what Johnson should tell Biden, the MP added: “Unfortunately he’s so senile that he probably won’t remember what we tell him anyway. Unless an aide is listening I’m not sure he’s going to remember for very long.” Erm. Wow. https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/politico-london-playbook-bojo-meets-jobi-on-the-ground-at-the-g7-dom-vs-matt-round-2/
Yes. Unsourced, explosive, offensive and targeted at Tories and Brexiteers.
Really depends whether this is being said on the record by Lord Clarke or off the record by the assistant secretary of Bootle and Walton Conservative association during a game of darts. Not much to see.
However, on the bigger issue. The UK has, of course, been shafted, mostly under TMs watch, on the island of Ireland issue, to the extent that it is unsustainable, which means it was folly to go there.
If nothing else in comprehensible sadly the return to violence in the province will, if nothing is done, be unmistakeable. From a Unionist point of view (one with which I have almost no sympathy, being a supporter of a united Ireland) the deal is a clear step, without consent, away from the union. Sausagegate is required to make the truth clear and simple.
If one turned the tables and said that the right deal for no border within Ireland is one in which the whole of the British Isles is to be treated as a single unit, and the the de facto (no de iure) boundary is between the whole island of Ireland the the rest of the EU, the EU would not accept it for an instant.
That is what they are asking us to accept. Naturally we should not have done so, but we are where we are. The status quo is literally incendiary.
Consent was the big argument - stormont can reject it in 3.5 years
NATO is a cold war relic but must not be disbanded. It keeps America invested in Europe, where it turns out Putin's Russian Bear is not a teddy bear.
It's not really serving anybody's strategic interests at the moment. Apart from Putin's. He uses is it as external threat bent on the encirclement and destruction of Russia to justify internal oppression. Macron was right when he described it as 'Brain Dead'. Europe has no strategic autonomy and the US has a whole host of onerous obligations when it would rather focus on the Pacific.
It will probably eventually dissolve into a looser series of bilateral defence relationships rather than the fully integrated command structure we have now. Something like the QSD model the US has with India, Japan and Australia is the probably next stage.
I think that's a stretch.
Without NATO Putin would have tried to pick apart at the Baltic States and would play one European country off against the other.
With regards to the ongoing discussion on CRT. Apparently a US battalion commander is under investigation for comments including “If you are white, you are part of the problem”. It is, for those who know about these things, the 1-8 “fighting eagles infantry. His comments do not seem to be being met with unalloyed enthusiasm by this serving under him.
That quoted comment from the commander is, for want of a better word, racist.
Another case of 'they are exactly what they accuse you of'.
I've generally switched off from all this (by logging out of twitter) but some things you can't help notice, like the Yale psychiatrist who admitted to fantasies about shooting white people in a public university seminar. Maybe she should get together with the battalion commander cited above.
All normal. Just people getting on with their jobs. Nothing at all to see here. Or - if you are Philip Thompson - it is the rebirth of Western Civilisation!
There was a good piece in an Australian magazine the other day, which argues well the point that a lot of the problems in Western society are much more about class than race.
That was a large part of the recent derided government race enquiry, whose conclusions are being ignored.
I would agree that class is a bigger issue than race, but they do heavily interest.
At risk of doxxing myself as some sort of Bennite Corbanista, at least so far as education is concerned, class is a far bigger issue than race, and working class BAME communities have worse outcomes than middle class BAME communities, as do White working class communities.
That doesn’t have to be the case.
I am spending a morning next week with Katherine Birbalsingh to see the work she is doing at Michaela (my wife is a fan) so will be interesting… but she is getting very good results from a BAME working class group of kids
Katherine Birbalsingh is brilliant, I am a big fan as well. I particularly like her theory that all people are a bit racist. The sad reality is that we all probably make judgements about groups based on physical characteristics, even if it is only at a subconscious level.
Yes but we need another word for this very human phenomenon, it is not even ultimately about recent but about comfort with “like” versus “not-like”.
“Racism” conjures up the full spectrum of horrors from Ollie Robinson’s tweets right through to the ku klux klan on horseback, carrying torches.
With regards to the ongoing discussion on CRT. Apparently a US battalion commander is under investigation for comments including “If you are white, you are part of the problem”. It is, for those who know about these things, the 1-8 “fighting eagles infantry. His comments do not seem to be being met with unalloyed enthusiasm by this serving under him.
That quoted comment from the commander is, for want of a better word, racist.
Another case of 'they are exactly what they accuse you of'.
I've generally switched off from all this (by logging out of twitter) but some things you can't help notice, like the Yale psychiatrist who admitted to fantasies about shooting white people in a public university seminar. Maybe she should get together with the battalion commander cited above.
All normal. Just people getting on with their jobs. Nothing at all to see here. Or - if you are Philip Thompson - it is the rebirth of Western Civilisation!
There was a good piece in an Australian magazine the other day, which argues well the point that a lot of the problems in Western society are much more about class than race.
That was a large part of the recent derided government race enquiry, whose conclusions are being ignored.
I would agree that class is a bigger issue than race, but they do heavily interest.
It does you credit that the conclusions you drew on this were fairer and more nuanced than I might have expected.
Bravo.
I agree that not enough is being done on the report, and it can't just gather dust.
Class will never be addressed because that means actually doing something that costs money, whereas “racism” can be “addressed” via symbolic displays of rhetoric.
And another example of journalists being more like political activists
And there is zero evidence that the conversation ever happened
The conversation being reported is evidence that it happened. If you mean there is no proof, you might be right although there could be a recording.
No. Journalists have made things up in the past. This is such a perfectly crafted anti-Tory/anti-Brexit nugget that I am sceptical of its origins
ICYMI, this is what we are talking about, from Politico's London Playbook and tweeted by Marina Hyde:-
Fighting talk: One Conservative Brexiteer said Biden should row in behind Britain and not the EU in the dispute to break the deadlock. “America should remember who their allies are,” the person told Playbook. Asked what Johnson should tell Biden, the MP added: “Unfortunately he’s so senile that he probably won’t remember what we tell him anyway. Unless an aide is listening I’m not sure he’s going to remember for very long.” Erm. Wow. https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/politico-london-playbook-bojo-meets-jobi-on-the-ground-at-the-g7-dom-vs-matt-round-2/
Yes. Unsourced, explosive, offensive and targeted at Tories and Brexiteers.
Really depends whether this is being said on the record by Lord Clarke or off the record by the assistant secretary of Bootle and Walton Conservative association during a game of darts. Not much to see.
However, on the bigger issue. The UK has, of course, been shafted, mostly under TMs watch, on the island of Ireland issue, to the extent that it is unsustainable, which means it was folly to go there.
If nothing else in comprehensible sadly the return to violence in the province will, if nothing is done, be unmistakeable. From a Unionist point of view (one with which I have almost no sympathy, being a supporter of a united Ireland) the deal is a clear step, without consent, away from the union. Sausagegate is required to make the truth clear and simple.
If one turned the tables and said that the right deal for no border within Ireland is one in which the whole of the British Isles is to be treated as a single unit, and the the de facto (no de iure) boundary is between the whole island of Ireland the the rest of the EU, the EU would not accept it for an instant.
That is what they are asking us to accept. Naturally we should not have done so, but we are where we are. The status quo is literally incendiary.
Consent was the big argument - stormont can reject it in 3.5 years
It doesn't appear the EU is factoring this into their calculations.....
Nearly 14C in the fog this morning; I've not seen that before - foggy mornings by the sea are normally cold
Here in the middle of the country the temperature didn't dip below 19 degrees last night. One of those nights you wish you'd been staying in a hotel with air conditioning.
We bought a small air conditioning unit last year. Invaluable for nights like that!
Comments
It is tragic what happened to Russia after communism failed.
eg:
3.3 Case studies
A number of helpful case studies can be found in Lord Young’s review of the Social Value Act. Two examples from the report are included below.
Value for money: Circle Housing
Circle Housing’s repairs and maintenance service is on track to realise around £80 million worth of cost saving over 10 years, subject to market conditions and fluctuations. They have rationalised their contracts whilst mandating social objectives within their procurement model, for example, securing 1 apprenticeship for every £0.5 million worth of contract. This has led to social value being created through the supply chain and funded by the supplier, which would have otherwise been funded by Circle Housing.
Circle Housing also used monetary values or financial proxies from the HM Treasury Green Book to calculate their social return on investment (SROI).
For 1 of their 80 employment and skills programmes, they have calculated an SROI of £5.40 (£75,470 divided by £14,000 gives a ratio of 1 to 5.4):
input: £14,000 (£10,000 fund plus £4,000 staff costs)
output: £12,000 from Job Centre Plus to support programme; 80 people supported
outcome: 10 into employment including 3 NEETs, 22 put through accredited training, 13 into further education, 25 into volunteering/work placements, 30 increased confidence in their abilities
impact: £29,141 jobseekers allowance savings, £16,500 for young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEETs), £5,131 for NVQ level 1 accreditation, £12,698 reduced NHS cost for depression (identified at start)
Innovative provision: Lambeth Council
Lambeth Council had £20,000 to spend on youth offending services. Instead of taking the traditional approach of buying in a youth offending service, they decided to bring together young offenders to work with the council on a grant fund. The young people decided the outcomes for the grant, evaluated bids, and selected the winner – a project that would involve the whole community in a talent competition.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-value-act-information-and-resources/social-value-act-information-and-resources
Of course Russia is a threat, but this far out of its borders it is far more likely to be through corruption and destabilisation than soldiers or bombs.
In what possible universe is this a good position to stake out during a key by-election.
The government is fighting a culture war, and winning.
Keir is an idiot. He must stand down immediately after Batley & Spen which is increasingly looking like a loss (I previously had it as a win).
As of 26 May, an estimated 14.0 million first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and 24.3 million first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine AstraZeneca had been administered, and around 10.6 million and 13.4 million second doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca respectively.
“It would be nice to have him,
“But he’s got his own idea of what he is worth and we have a slightly different idea of what he’s worth...”
https://www.standard.co.uk/insider/andrew-neil-gb-news-launch-piers-morgan-b939419.html
This is the sort of issue Keir (or a key spokesman) should be making the running on, not trans self-ID.
The only vaguely controversial bit, which had faded a bit with age, was that the most disadvantaged segment of the "white" group was right at the bottom.
As usual with these aggregations, looking at the components is important. There are massive differential outcomes within the "BAME" group. Which is not surprising, since the concept of BAME was invented to hide and muddy the waters on various issues.
If a Somali family moves into the next house... Dad runs a business empire, mum is a lady who lunches and sends their daughters go to the £30K a year private school down the road. No tut tutting at the local golf club - Dad will probably be invited for membership.
If they are on benefits....
This safety update report is based on detailed analysis of data up to 21 April 2021.
At this date, an estimated 11.2 million first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and 22 million first doses of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine had been administered, and around 6.8 million and 4.4 million second doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine respectively. An approximate 0.1 million first doses of the Moderna vaccine have also now been administered.
So the change in 1 month was :
+2.3 million Az firsts
+2.8 million Pfizer firsts
+3.8 million Pfizer seconds
+9 million Az seconds
+0.3 million Moderna firsts
Reported 21st April 33,257,651 11,192,601
Reported 26th May 38,614,683 24,043,956
All the figures do add through.
Looks like it'll be a good day to bowl at Edgbaston. Overcast, humid, etc. Not much sun until Saturday and Sunday.
Fighting talk: One Conservative Brexiteer said Biden should row in behind Britain and not the EU in the dispute to break the deadlock. “America should remember who their allies are,” the person told Playbook. Asked what Johnson should tell Biden, the MP added: “Unfortunately he’s so senile that he probably won’t remember what we tell him anyway. Unless an aide is listening I’m not sure he’s going to remember for very long.” Erm. Wow.
https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/politico-london-playbook-bojo-meets-jobi-on-the-ground-at-the-g7-dom-vs-matt-round-2/
@greenmiranda
As I was going to St Ives,
I met a man with several wives and an undisclosed number of children
I'd take 100% infection if 0% had serious symptoms.
I am spending a morning next week with Katherine Birbalsingh to see the work she is doing at Michaela (my wife is a fan) so will be interesting… but she is getting very good results from a BAME working class group of kids
and
are of interest.
Perhaps you'd like to give us a prediction of how many covid patients are currently in Bolton, Blackburn (East Lancs) and Bedfordshire hospitals.
When we had the strikes here in 2020 and 2019, the physical sciences more or less carried on as normal. When we collected a list of sessions missed and deadlines affected, it was a Beadle handful.
Languages? Social Science?
Yeah, whole term broadly written off.
It was always telling that I'd be into the office and out again in the evening without once passing the picket line.
The first four groups were actually very Pfizer heavy - it is the 40 - 75 year olds that are very Az tilted.
Generally speaking they were probably the most practical, down to earth and overall sensible group of people, though, that I ever worked with, and while some might argue with decisions made, they always had the best interests of the client (usually, but not invariably, a girl) at the forefront of their minds.
Probably in, fact, more than to the POTUS.
If we had a backlog of Pfizer doses then we'd be up a brown creek without a paddle.
It will probably eventually dissolve into a looser series of bilateral defence relationships rather than the fully integrated command structure we have now. Something like the QSD model the US has with India, Japan and Australia is the probably next stage.
As US president takes back international spotlight, his French counterpart adjusts to new role.
https://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-joe-biden-relationship/
Furthermore 2: there is a phenomena of 'ideas laundering', where activist-based research is given the veneer of scholarship. I think that's where this On Having Whiteness paper comes in. Now this is published, someone else can build on it, refine the ideas, move things along another step.
Go off and see if you can find some of the first papers that come up with these topics.
So, if you're happy with labelling an entire ethnic group as parasites, I'm sure there's some history books I think you're just going to love.
One week from now, we should have a good handle on how the admissions will go in following (to whatever degree) the cases.
Very handwavy, and could be far too oversimplified (especially given the different populations of the age bands):
or
"My lot fighting a culture war, and losing. Because we just. can't. help. ourselves. "
I suspect if there were easy answers on this one, Captain Hindsight would be telling us all about them.
https://twitter.com/TomMcTague/status/1402898570668347397?s=20
"The next few years is going to solely consist of the Left charging headlong into the Valley of Death, then angrily tweeting “Its an outrage!!! The Russian guns are firing at us!!!!”."
I suppose if the proportion of trans people who are discriminated against is higher that the proportion of other minorities then perhaps. Who has the stats?
I mean of course one trans person discriminated against is one too much but what a strange thing for SKS to say.
Take the politics out of it and get the medical professionals involved. If there is a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria then proceed from there.
But yesterday it was being suggested we had five million AZN doses and nothing to do with it. If there's a ten million backlog in AZN second doses then that's something to do with the AZN doses at least, so good news.
Better than if Pfizer was turning up but reserved for second doses and no second AZN was due. Make sense?
However, on the bigger issue. The UK has, of course, been shafted, mostly under TMs watch, on the island of Ireland issue, to the extent that it is unsustainable, which means it was folly to go there.
If nothing else in comprehensible sadly the return to violence in the province will, if nothing is done, be unmistakeable. From a Unionist point of view (one with which I have almost no sympathy, being a supporter of a united Ireland) the deal is a clear step, without consent, away from the union. Sausagegate is required to make the truth clear and simple.
If one turned the tables and said that the right deal for no border within Ireland is one in which the whole of the British Isles is to be treated as a single unit, and the the de facto (no de iure) boundary is between the whole island of Ireland the the rest of the EU, the EU would not accept it for an instant.
That is what they are asking us to accept. Naturally we should not have done so, but we are where we are. The status quo is literally incendiary.
We've got plenty of AZN- both in the system and coming out of the factory. We would be in real trouble for fortysomethings awaiting their second doses if that were running short, but it probably isn't.
The trouble is the younger people. Now we need to vaccinate them as well to get to herd immunity. Young people generally don't get that sick themselves, but they can pass the virus back on to older people who can't have the vaccine, or for whom their immunity hasn't quite taken hold.
The current UK plan is not to use AZN on younger people. All the shouting earlier in the year ended up at "maybe those nervous Europeans have got a bit of a point". But if we have to use imported mRNA jabs on youngsters, then we only have about 200k jabs a day to work with for now, and the programme will slow considerably.
There's a possibility that we've got the wrong type of vaccines. Loads of the one we'd prefer not to use, and only a steady trickle of the one we'd prefer to use. We don't know, because- unlike our neighbours- the UK isn't publishing its delivery data, so this is all inferred from the scraps that are published.
It's would be good to know definitively.
We had the vaccine, we had a way out once. Stopping all flights (apart from absolute essential workers) would have been a time-limited thing, not a zero Covid national quarantine policy like NZ
Once the jabs are all done by the summer, open up again
Instead, we seeded Delta across the land
From granddaughter's reports, as far as the girls are concerned (it's a private, largely female school) 'he's' one of them.
As a career objective wants, apparently, to go to the US and learn to be a film/tv make up artist
Unisex is a bit non gender specific innit?
None.
200k first doses per day isn't something we've had in a long time as an average. So if second doses can be the AZN for next few weeks and first doses Pfizer then it's quite possible we can keep up current vaccination numbers until the vaccine has been made available to all 18+
Getting 12-17 done probably won't occur any time soon but lets be honest, the main time that will matter is for September not now. Getting them done before schools go back, or even potentially at school when they go back (will make it quite easy operationally if there can be a vaccination drive at school) will sort that out.
A major part of the free and frank exchange of views on this issue, is the behaviour and attitudes of the medical profession, both individually and corporately.
Quite simply, they aren't independent, perfect philosopher kings, and are not seen as such.
White feminists are being told, at Oxfam, that reporting rape is bad for black people
"Summarising the book’s central premise, the Oxfam document says white feminists need to ask themselves whether they are causing harm when they fight sexual violence.
"It then links to Prof Phipps’s Twitter account and a thread which summarises the main themes of the book, including: “White feminist tears deploy white woundedness, and the sympathy it generates, to hide the harms we perpetuate through white supremacy.”"
**
"Imagine, just imagine, thinking that women reporting rape CAUSES rape, and that women who report rape are horrible, bad people who want to harm men. (At least if the women are white, that is.) I can't imagine thinking anything this deranged, indeed wicked"
https://twitter.com/HJoyceGender/status/1402748538849746950?s=20
Bravo.
I agree that not enough is being done on the report, and it can't just gather dust.
As others pointed out, presciently, he is a dud.
He is a dud now, and will remain a dud.
It’s not his fault, he’s in many ways great casting for a Labour leader. But he clearly lacks retail appeal; his strategy is unfathomable; his comms not up to much.
Get rid.
Without NATO Putin would have tried to pick apart at the Baltic States and would play one European country off against the other.
“Racism” conjures up the full spectrum of horrors from Ollie Robinson’s tweets right through to the ku klux klan on horseback, carrying torches.
Edit required.