One of the BBC News paper reviewers just said the expected relaxing of rules for weddings may not go ahead either.
The report suggests the 30 guest limit will be increased but it is unlikely to lead to an unlimited number of wedding guests being allowed
So, 50 allowed at a wedding, 50,000 at a football match?
I may be wrong, but I'm not entirely convinced that Sir Patrick Vallance helped to inform that particular stroke of genius.
50 for indoor receptions, 100 for outdoors maybe what we are looking at.
Football stadiums are of course still not full capacity either
The only half full thing is a misnomer, many of them are not full all the time! These stadiums are a Covid does not exist palooza.
I note what black rook said about they haven’t flagged up bad test data as super spreading events, but the community situation changes by the week, suddenly they do become a spreading event but how many weeks later do we learn this?
Plus the argument should we have delayed wedding parties for cricket parties or done both together or the weddings first, other than indoor outdoor argument?
One of the BBC News paper reviewers just said the expected relaxing of rules for weddings may not go ahead either.
The report suggests the 30 guest limit will be increased but it is unlikely to lead to an unlimited number of wedding guests being allowed
So, 50 allowed at a wedding, 50,000 at a football match?
I may be wrong, but I'm not entirely convinced that Sir Patrick Vallance helped to inform that particular stroke of genius.
50 for indoor receptions, 100 for outdoors maybe what we are looking at.
Football stadiums are of course still not full capacity either
My original point stands. 51 people at a wedding: no, no, panic, panic, Covid, disaster, Plague, DEATH!!!!
50,000 football fans bellowing at the top of their lungs for a couple of hours: oh, OK then.
They've not a bloody clue what they're doing. No, scrub that: they do know what they're doing, it's just nothing that will actually contribute significantly to public health. It's all performative. Something must be done-ism. We let the Indian Plague in, now a handful of old people in Lancashire have died so the whole nation must be punished for our stupidity. Or made to suffer so they understand how seriously we're taking all of this. Or flogged so that our elderly, Covid hermit supporters will nod in smug approval. Or something like that.
Remember there is another issue. 50,000 fans outdoors in the stands not too bad, however they all ram together on the tube to get there and coming out the stadoim, in thst queue the police form as you head to back to the tube, etc.
One of the BBC News paper reviewers just said the expected relaxing of rules for weddings may not go ahead either.
The report suggests the 30 guest limit will be increased but it is unlikely to lead to an unlimited number of wedding guests being allowed
So, 50 allowed at a wedding, 50,000 at a football match?
I may be wrong, but I'm not entirely convinced that Sir Patrick Vallance helped to inform that particular stroke of genius.
50 for indoor receptions, 100 for outdoors maybe what we are looking at.
Football stadiums are of course still not full capacity either
My original point stands. 51 people at a wedding: no, no, panic, panic, Covid, disaster, Plague, DEATH!!!!
50,000 football fans bellowing at the top of their lungs for a couple of hours: oh, OK then.
They've not a bloody clue what they're doing. No, scrub that: they do know what they're doing, it's just nothing that will actually contribute significantly to public health. It's all performative. Something must be done-ism. We let the Indian Plague in, now a handful of old people in Lancashire have died so the whole nation must be punished for our stupidity. Or made to suffer so they understand how seriously we're taking all of this. Or flogged so that our elderly, Covid hermit supporters will nod in smug approval. Or something like that.
Remember there is another issue. 50,000 fans outdoors in the stands not too bad, however they all ram together on the tube to get there and coming out the stadium, in that queue the police form as you head to back to the tube, etc.
Very true of course. So if masks and social distancing on public transport are still considered essential, those kinds of events really shouldn't be taking place at all. Because distancing on a jam packed tube train is impossible, and who is going to make tens of thousands of pissed up football fans wear their gags the whole time?
But no, little piddling weddings = lethal, massive gigantic boozed up footy matches = perfectly OK. Because locking the crowds out of the latter would make us look as if we'd lost control of the pandemic (again) at home, and make us look ridiculous abroad.
As I said, all politics, naff all to do with public health.
Gareth Southgate to put balance before ‘fantasy’ in England side for Croatia
Gareth Southgate has no intention of picking a “fantasy football” line-up at Euro 2020 and is preparing to omit a couple of fan favourites in Sunday’s opening game against Croatia.
The manager is leaning towards using 4-3-3 at Wembley, with Raheem Sterling set to start despite indifferent form for Manchester City in recent months. Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford face a fight to make the XI, with Southgate prioritising the balance of his selection.
It will be Rice, Henderson, Mount, Sterling, Kane, Rashford...no Foden, no Grealish, no Sancho.
Foden, EPL British player of the season, Grealish brilliant in the warm up games...no you sit there and warm that bench. While the ball goes side to side to side to side...very slowly.
I disagree.
We know Croatia well from recent meetings.
First of all you match up your opponents, you don’t allow them a spare man for press or receive pass in the middle in particular.
A back 4 with high line against Croatia as they don’t have pace to hurt that as France or Belgium would, where we have to play deeper.
Now we have matched them up and have the right shape we can look at personnel to get the draw we need. A couple who can sit and protect the defence is a no brainier for this match. That only leaves 4 slots for creativity, where you can rotate with the bench.
Foden and Grealish are the players in form, not Sterling or Rashford.
True.
And even with a question over Grealish fitness, he can still start in my opinion.
It’s true managers like to work with players they know well. And form v number of caps and experience. So that is where Foden and Grealish start on bench.
It’s also true Mount is a better player than both, assist the other Saturday impressed you did it not? Kane, Sterling, Mount, and perhaps Rashford from right as the four creative players in a 4 2 1 3
That what Southgate will go with...but Foden has to play. He has shown at the highest level in Europe, he is up there with the best of them, he's got the complete game. Neither Rashford nor Sterling has his game.
He will also play a half fit Henderson and the limited Rice. Bellingham is better than Rice.
Again I am not arguing and agreeing, that he will pick on experience and caps.
Foden is an exciting young talent, will be interesting what happens with the game time he does get.
I was watching a televised championship game a few years ago, and thought that bloke right of midfield is having a solid game, who is he? And the bloke turned out to,be a 16yr old kid. Again will be interesting to note what Bellingham does with his game time.
One of the BBC News paper reviewers just said the expected relaxing of rules for weddings may not go ahead either.
The report suggests the 30 guest limit will be increased but it is unlikely to lead to an unlimited number of wedding guests being allowed
So, 50 allowed at a wedding, 50,000 at a football match?
I may be wrong, but I'm not entirely convinced that Sir Patrick Vallance helped to inform that particular stroke of genius.
50 for indoor receptions, 100 for outdoors maybe what we are looking at.
Football stadiums are of course still not full capacity either
My original point stands. 51 people at a wedding: no, no, panic, panic, Covid, disaster, Plague, DEATH!!!!
50,000 football fans bellowing at the top of their lungs for a couple of hours: oh, OK then.
They've not a bloody clue what they're doing. No, scrub that: they do know what they're doing, it's just nothing that will actually contribute significantly to public health. It's all performative. Something must be done-ism. We let the Indian Plague in, now a handful of old people in Lancashire have died so the whole nation must be punished for our stupidity. Or made to suffer so they understand how seriously we're taking all of this. Or flogged so that our elderly, Covid hermit supporters will nod in smug approval. Or something like that.
Remember there is another issue. 50,000 fans outdoors in the stands not too bad, however they all ram together on the tube to get there and coming out the stadium, in that queue the police form as you head to back to the tube, etc.
Very true of course. So if masks and social distancing on public transport are still considered essential, those kinds of events really shouldn't be taking place at all. Because distancing on a jam packed tube train is impossible, and who is going to make tens of thousands of pissed up football fans wear their gags the whole time?
But no, little piddling weddings = lethal, massive gigantic boozed up footy matches = perfectly OK. Because locking the crowds out of the latter would make us look as if we'd lost control of the pandemic (again) at home, and make us look ridiculous abroad.
As I said, all politics, naff all to do with public health.
There is another inconsistency....big fan gatherings for the footy at big pub gardens, as we now see every tournament, ok.....less people at a wedding, no no.
One of the BBC News paper reviewers just said the expected relaxing of rules for weddings may not go ahead either.
The report suggests the 30 guest limit will be increased but it is unlikely to lead to an unlimited number of wedding guests being allowed
So, 50 allowed at a wedding, 50,000 at a football match?
I may be wrong, but I'm not entirely convinced that Sir Patrick Vallance helped to inform that particular stroke of genius.
50 for indoor receptions, 100 for outdoors maybe what we are looking at.
Football stadiums are of course still not full capacity either
My original point stands. 51 people at a wedding: no, no, panic, panic, Covid, disaster, Plague, DEATH!!!!
50,000 football fans bellowing at the top of their lungs for a couple of hours: oh, OK then.
They've not a bloody clue what they're doing. No, scrub that: they do know what they're doing, it's just nothing that will actually contribute significantly to public health. It's all performative. Something must be done-ism. We let the Indian Plague in, now a handful of old people in Lancashire have died so the whole nation must be punished for our stupidity. Or made to suffer so they understand how seriously we're taking all of this. Or flogged so that our elderly, Covid hermit supporters will nod in smug approval. Or something like that.
Remember there is another issue. 50,000 fans outdoors in the stands not too bad, however they all ram together on the tube to get there and coming out the stadium, in that queue the police form as you head to back to the tube, etc.
Very true of course. So if masks and social distancing on public transport are still considered essential, those kinds of events really shouldn't be taking place at all. Because distancing on a jam packed tube train is impossible, and who is going to make tens of thousands of pissed up football fans wear their gags the whole time?
But no, little piddling weddings = lethal, massive gigantic boozed up footy matches = perfectly OK. Because locking the crowds out of the latter would make us look as if we'd lost control of the pandemic (again) at home, and make us look ridiculous abroad.
As I said, all politics, naff all to do with public health.
It is politics. Just like an Emperor throwing games in the Coliseum, when the original riots had been about food shortages.
But even so, what’s wrong with governments doing good politics?
Its direction of travel seems to be principally in the direction of transmissibility, which may (as the article infers) end up being something of a blessing for most of us, but a catastrophe for less well inoculated countries.
A blessing here, save for the poor sods who croak, because it may get so infectious that it sprays itself around everybody in unavoidable locations like essential workplaces and shops, so everyone gets it and the pandemic (and the wretched lockdowns) finally end with something very close to 100% infection; an utter disaster for poorly protected populations, for obvious reasons.
One of the BBC News paper reviewers just said the expected relaxing of rules for weddings may not go ahead either.
The report suggests the 30 guest limit will be increased but it is unlikely to lead to an unlimited number of wedding guests being allowed
So, 50 allowed at a wedding, 50,000 at a football match?
I may be wrong, but I'm not entirely convinced that Sir Patrick Vallance helped to inform that particular stroke of genius.
50 for indoor receptions, 100 for outdoors maybe what we are looking at.
Football stadiums are of course still not full capacity either
My original point stands. 51 people at a wedding: no, no, panic, panic, Covid, disaster, Plague, DEATH!!!!
50,000 football fans bellowing at the top of their lungs for a couple of hours: oh, OK then.
They've not a bloody clue what they're doing. No, scrub that: they do know what they're doing, it's just nothing that will actually contribute significantly to public health. It's all performative. Something must be done-ism. We let the Indian Plague in, now a handful of old people in Lancashire have died so the whole nation must be punished for our stupidity. Or made to suffer so they understand how seriously we're taking all of this. Or flogged so that our elderly, Covid hermit supporters will nod in smug approval. Or something like that.
Remember there is another issue. 50,000 fans outdoors in the stands not too bad, however they all ram together on the tube to get there and coming out the stadium, in that queue the police form as you head to back to the tube, etc.
Very true of course. So if masks and social distancing on public transport are still considered essential, those kinds of events really shouldn't be taking place at all. Because distancing on a jam packed tube train is impossible, and who is going to make tens of thousands of pissed up football fans wear their gags the whole time?
But no, little piddling weddings = lethal, massive gigantic boozed up footy matches = perfectly OK. Because locking the crowds out of the latter would make us look as if we'd lost control of the pandemic (again) at home, and make us look ridiculous abroad.
As I said, all politics, naff all to do with public health.
It is politics. Just like an Emperor throwing games in the Coliseum, when the original riots had been about food shortages.
But even so, what’s wrong with governments doing good politics?
It's the fact that the douchebags keep on dressing up the restrictions as something necessary to save lives, when at least a substantial fraction of them are about showing that they are doing something about the stupid Plague, at considerable economic cost to the country and huge personal cost to many individuals, rather than being of any public health benefit. It might be good politics, but it doesn't mean they aren't douchebags.
Gareth Southgate to put balance before ‘fantasy’ in England side for Croatia
Gareth Southgate has no intention of picking a “fantasy football” line-up at Euro 2020 and is preparing to omit a couple of fan favourites in Sunday’s opening game against Croatia.
The manager is leaning towards using 4-3-3 at Wembley, with Raheem Sterling set to start despite indifferent form for Manchester City in recent months. Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford face a fight to make the XI, with Southgate prioritising the balance of his selection.
It will be Rice, Henderson, Mount, Sterling, Kane, Rashford...no Foden, no Grealish, no Sancho.
Foden, EPL British player of the season, Grealish brilliant in the warm up games...no you sit there and warm that bench. While the ball goes side to side to side to side...very slowly.
I disagree.
We know Croatia well from recent meetings.
First of all you match up your opponents, you don’t allow them a spare man for press or receive pass in the middle in particular.
A back 4 with high line against Croatia as they don’t have pace to hurt that as France or Belgium would, where we have to play deeper.
Now we have matched them up and have the right shape we can look at personnel to get the draw we need. A couple who can sit and protect the defence is a no brainier for this match. That only leaves 4 slots for creativity, where you can rotate with the bench.
Foden and Grealish are the players in form, not Sterling or Rashford.
True.
And even with a question over Grealish fitness, he can still start in my opinion.
It’s true managers like to work with players they know well. And form v number of caps and experience. So that is where Foden and Grealish start on bench.
It’s also true Mount is a better player than both, assist the other Saturday impressed you did it not? Kane, Sterling, Mount, and perhaps Rashford from right as the four creative players in a 4 2 1 3
That what Southgate will go with...but Foden has to play. He has shown at the highest level in Europe, he is up there with the best of them, he's got the complete game. Neither Rashford nor Sterling has his game.
He will also play a half fit Henderson and the limited Rice. Bellingham is better than Rice.
Again I am not arguing and agreeing, that he will pick on experience and caps.
Foden is an exciting young talent, will be interesting what happens with the game time he does get.
I was watching a televised championship game a few years ago, and thought that bloke right of midfield is having a solid game, who is he? And the bloke turned out to,be a 16yr old kid. Again will be interesting to note what Bellingham does with his game time.
Rice is better than limited.
The analysis done by all the stat heads is Rice is limited. Apparently Lampard wanted to sign him for Chelsea and their analysis team had a fit, produced all these charts to show him all the weaknesses in his game and how they thought it was highly unlikely he could be significantly improved. Their recommendation was do not buy, unless absolute bargain...and remember Chelsea is a team who play Jorginho in that role, not exactly a world beater.
Its direction of travel seems to be principally in the direction of transmissibility, which may (as the article infers) end up being something of a blessing for most of us, but a catastrophe for less well inoculated countries.
A blessing here, save for the poor sods who croak, because it may get so infectious that it sprays itself around everybody in unavoidable locations like essential workplaces and shops, so everyone gets it and the pandemic (and the wretched lockdowns) finally end with something very close to 100% infection; an utter disaster for poorly protected populations, for obvious reasons.
“ less well inoculated countries. “
This is good getting beyond our disappointment of no business as normal at least just yet, to think what now happens say in sub Saharan Africa where about 1% has been jabbed.
I’ve never said stop jabbing and give them all away, just asked, what’s the line? We are now jabbing or close to jabbing our not at great risk, just nice to have to support total freedom day, can we not share with sub Saharan Africa at the same time? Adults there can now die very quickly in huge numbers 😕
Gareth Southgate to put balance before ‘fantasy’ in England side for Croatia
Gareth Southgate has no intention of picking a “fantasy football” line-up at Euro 2020 and is preparing to omit a couple of fan favourites in Sunday’s opening game against Croatia.
The manager is leaning towards using 4-3-3 at Wembley, with Raheem Sterling set to start despite indifferent form for Manchester City in recent months. Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford face a fight to make the XI, with Southgate prioritising the balance of his selection.
It will be Rice, Henderson, Mount, Sterling, Kane, Rashford...no Foden, no Grealish, no Sancho.
Foden, EPL British player of the season, Grealish brilliant in the warm up games...no you sit there and warm that bench. While the ball goes side to side to side to side...very slowly.
I disagree.
We know Croatia well from recent meetings.
First of all you match up your opponents, you don’t allow them a spare man for press or receive pass in the middle in particular.
A back 4 with high line against Croatia as they don’t have pace to hurt that as France or Belgium would, where we have to play deeper.
Now we have matched them up and have the right shape we can look at personnel to get the draw we need. A couple who can sit and protect the defence is a no brainier for this match. That only leaves 4 slots for creativity, where you can rotate with the bench.
Foden and Grealish are the players in form, not Sterling or Rashford.
True.
And even with a question over Grealish fitness, he can still start in my opinion.
It’s true managers like to work with players they know well. And form v number of caps and experience. So that is where Foden and Grealish start on bench.
It’s also true Mount is a better player than both, assist the other Saturday impressed you did it not? Kane, Sterling, Mount, and perhaps Rashford from right as the four creative players in a 4 2 1 3
That what Southgate will go with...but Foden has to play. He has shown at the highest level in Europe, he is up there with the best of them, he's got the complete game. Neither Rashford nor Sterling has his game.
He will also play a half fit Henderson and the limited Rice. Bellingham is better than Rice.
Again I am not arguing and agreeing, that he will pick on experience and caps.
Foden is an exciting young talent, will be interesting what happens with the game time he does get.
I was watching a televised championship game a few years ago, and thought that bloke right of midfield is having a solid game, who is he? And the bloke turned out to,be a 16yr old kid. Again will be interesting to note what Bellingham does with his game time.
Rice is better than limited.
The analysis done by all the stat heads is Rice is limited. Apparently Lampard wanted to sign him for Chelsea and their analysis team had a fit, produced all these charts to show him all the weaknesses in his game and how they thought it was highly unlikely he could be significantly improved.
I still can't get my head around Nigeria....literally never any COVID...yes a younger population, yes I doubt theytest that much, but its a populous country, there will be limited social distancing, etc not that dissimilar to India.
Gareth Southgate to put balance before ‘fantasy’ in England side for Croatia
Gareth Southgate has no intention of picking a “fantasy football” line-up at Euro 2020 and is preparing to omit a couple of fan favourites in Sunday’s opening game against Croatia.
The manager is leaning towards using 4-3-3 at Wembley, with Raheem Sterling set to start despite indifferent form for Manchester City in recent months. Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford face a fight to make the XI, with Southgate prioritising the balance of his selection.
It will be Rice, Henderson, Mount, Sterling, Kane, Rashford...no Foden, no Grealish, no Sancho.
Foden, EPL British player of the season, Grealish brilliant in the warm up games...no you sit there and warm that bench. While the ball goes side to side to side to side...very slowly.
I disagree.
We know Croatia well from recent meetings.
First of all you match up your opponents, you don’t allow them a spare man for press or receive pass in the middle in particular.
A back 4 with high line against Croatia as they don’t have pace to hurt that as France or Belgium would, where we have to play deeper.
Now we have matched them up and have the right shape we can look at personnel to get the draw we need. A couple who can sit and protect the defence is a no brainier for this match. That only leaves 4 slots for creativity, where you can rotate with the bench.
Foden and Grealish are the players in form, not Sterling or Rashford.
True.
And even with a question over Grealish fitness, he can still start in my opinion.
It’s true managers like to work with players they know well. And form v number of caps and experience. So that is where Foden and Grealish start on bench.
It’s also true Mount is a better player than both, assist the other Saturday impressed you did it not? Kane, Sterling, Mount, and perhaps Rashford from right as the four creative players in a 4 2 1 3
That what Southgate will go with...but Foden has to play. He has shown at the highest level in Europe, he is up there with the best of them, he's got the complete game. Neither Rashford nor Sterling has his game.
He will also play a half fit Henderson and the limited Rice. Bellingham is better than Rice.
Again I am not arguing and agreeing, that he will pick on experience and caps.
Foden is an exciting young talent, will be interesting what happens with the game time he does get.
I was watching a televised championship game a few years ago, and thought that bloke right of midfield is having a solid game, who is he? And the bloke turned out to,be a 16yr old kid. Again will be interesting to note what Bellingham does with his game time.
Rice is better than limited.
The analysis done by all the stat heads is Rice is limited. Apparently Lampard wanted to sign him for Chelsea and their analysis team had a fit, produced all these charts to show him all the weaknesses in his game and how they thought it was highly unlikely he could be significantly improved.
The England analysts can’t agree then? 🙂
I know which ones I back.
Actually be interesting to know how sophisticated they are. We know top EPL teams have astro-physic types crunching their numbers, they have incredible level of data collection plus they buy in from a load of sources.
In comparison Italy only just signed up to get StatsBomb data the other day.
I know Sam Billings said IPL analytics is ahead of anything at international level cricket.
One of the BBC News paper reviewers just said the expected relaxing of rules for weddings may not go ahead either.
The report suggests the 30 guest limit will be increased but it is unlikely to lead to an unlimited number of wedding guests being allowed
So, 50 allowed at a wedding, 50,000 at a football match?
I may be wrong, but I'm not entirely convinced that Sir Patrick Vallance helped to inform that particular stroke of genius.
50 for indoor receptions, 100 for outdoors maybe what we are looking at.
Football stadiums are of course still not full capacity either
My original point stands. 51 people at a wedding: no, no, panic, panic, Covid, disaster, Plague, DEATH!!!!
50,000 football fans bellowing at the top of their lungs for a couple of hours: oh, OK then.
They've not a bloody clue what they're doing. No, scrub that: they do know what they're doing, it's just nothing that will actually contribute significantly to public health. It's all performative. Something must be done-ism. We let the Indian Plague in, now a handful of old people in Lancashire have died so the whole nation must be punished for our stupidity. Or made to suffer so they understand how seriously we're taking all of this. Or flogged so that our elderly, Covid hermit supporters will nod in smug approval. Or something like that.
Remember there is another issue. 50,000 fans outdoors in the stands not too bad, however they all ram together on the tube to get there and coming out the stadium, in that queue the police form as you head to back to the tube, etc.
Very true of course. So if masks and social distancing on public transport are still considered essential, those kinds of events really shouldn't be taking place at all. Because distancing on a jam packed tube train is impossible, and who is going to make tens of thousands of pissed up football fans wear their gags the whole time?
But no, little piddling weddings = lethal, massive gigantic boozed up footy matches = perfectly OK. Because locking the crowds out of the latter would make us look as if we'd lost control of the pandemic (again) at home, and make us look ridiculous abroad.
As I said, all politics, naff all to do with public health.
It is politics. Just like an Emperor throwing games in the Coliseum, when the original riots had been about food shortages.
But even so, what’s wrong with governments doing good politics?
It's the fact that the douchebags keep on dressing up the restrictions as something necessary to save lives, when at least a substantial fraction of them are about showing that they are doing something about the stupid Plague, at considerable economic cost to the country and huge personal cost to many individuals, rather than being of any public health benefit. It might be good politics, but it doesn't mean they aren't douchebags.
“ It might be good politics, but it doesn't mean they aren't douchebags‘.
Are you stealing lines from a Sky Original or HBO Rome production?
Gareth Southgate to put balance before ‘fantasy’ in England side for Croatia
Gareth Southgate has no intention of picking a “fantasy football” line-up at Euro 2020 and is preparing to omit a couple of fan favourites in Sunday’s opening game against Croatia.
The manager is leaning towards using 4-3-3 at Wembley, with Raheem Sterling set to start despite indifferent form for Manchester City in recent months. Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford face a fight to make the XI, with Southgate prioritising the balance of his selection.
It will be Rice, Henderson, Mount, Sterling, Kane, Rashford...no Foden, no Grealish, no Sancho.
Foden, EPL British player of the season, Grealish brilliant in the warm up games...no you sit there and warm that bench. While the ball goes side to side to side to side...very slowly.
I disagree.
We know Croatia well from recent meetings.
First of all you match up your opponents, you don’t allow them a spare man for press or receive pass in the middle in particular.
A back 4 with high line against Croatia as they don’t have pace to hurt that as France or Belgium would, where we have to play deeper.
Now we have matched them up and have the right shape we can look at personnel to get the draw we need. A couple who can sit and protect the defence is a no brainier for this match. That only leaves 4 slots for creativity, where you can rotate with the bench.
Foden and Grealish are the players in form, not Sterling or Rashford.
True.
And even with a question over Grealish fitness, he can still start in my opinion.
It’s true managers like to work with players they know well. And form v number of caps and experience. So that is where Foden and Grealish start on bench.
It’s also true Mount is a better player than both, assist the other Saturday impressed you did it not? Kane, Sterling, Mount, and perhaps Rashford from right as the four creative players in a 4 2 1 3
That what Southgate will go with...but Foden has to play. He has shown at the highest level in Europe, he is up there with the best of them, he's got the complete game. Neither Rashford nor Sterling has his game.
He will also play a half fit Henderson and the limited Rice. Bellingham is better than Rice.
Again I am not arguing and agreeing, that he will pick on experience and caps.
Foden is an exciting young talent, will be interesting what happens with the game time he does get.
I was watching a televised championship game a few years ago, and thought that bloke right of midfield is having a solid game, who is he? And the bloke turned out to,be a 16yr old kid. Again will be interesting to note what Bellingham does with his game time.
Rice is better than limited.
The analysis done by all the stat heads is Rice is limited. Apparently Lampard wanted to sign him for Chelsea and their analysis team had a fit, produced all these charts to show him all the weaknesses in his game and how they thought it was highly unlikely he could be significantly improved.
The England analysts can’t agree then? 🙂
I know which ones I back.
Actually be interesting to know how sophisticated they are. We know top EPL teams have astro-physic types crunching their numbers, they have incredible level of data collection plus they buy in from a load of sources.
In comparison Italy only just signed up to get StatsBomb data the other day.
I wouldn’t diss the analytical work the scientists do.
Funny things though these tournaments. Players who were naff all year in the PL suddenly look like world beaters.
Gareth Southgate to put balance before ‘fantasy’ in England side for Croatia
Gareth Southgate has no intention of picking a “fantasy football” line-up at Euro 2020 and is preparing to omit a couple of fan favourites in Sunday’s opening game against Croatia.
The manager is leaning towards using 4-3-3 at Wembley, with Raheem Sterling set to start despite indifferent form for Manchester City in recent months. Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford face a fight to make the XI, with Southgate prioritising the balance of his selection.
It will be Rice, Henderson, Mount, Sterling, Kane, Rashford...no Foden, no Grealish, no Sancho.
Foden, EPL British player of the season, Grealish brilliant in the warm up games...no you sit there and warm that bench. While the ball goes side to side to side to side...very slowly.
I disagree.
We know Croatia well from recent meetings.
First of all you match up your opponents, you don’t allow them a spare man for press or receive pass in the middle in particular.
A back 4 with high line against Croatia as they don’t have pace to hurt that as France or Belgium would, where we have to play deeper.
Now we have matched them up and have the right shape we can look at personnel to get the draw we need. A couple who can sit and protect the defence is a no brainier for this match. That only leaves 4 slots for creativity, where you can rotate with the bench.
Foden and Grealish are the players in form, not Sterling or Rashford.
True.
And even with a question over Grealish fitness, he can still start in my opinion.
It’s true managers like to work with players they know well. And form v number of caps and experience. So that is where Foden and Grealish start on bench.
It’s also true Mount is a better player than both, assist the other Saturday impressed you did it not? Kane, Sterling, Mount, and perhaps Rashford from right as the four creative players in a 4 2 1 3
That what Southgate will go with...but Foden has to play. He has shown at the highest level in Europe, he is up there with the best of them, he's got the complete game. Neither Rashford nor Sterling has his game.
He will also play a half fit Henderson and the limited Rice. Bellingham is better than Rice.
Again I am not arguing and agreeing, that he will pick on experience and caps.
Foden is an exciting young talent, will be interesting what happens with the game time he does get.
I was watching a televised championship game a few years ago, and thought that bloke right of midfield is having a solid game, who is he? And the bloke turned out to,be a 16yr old kid. Again will be interesting to note what Bellingham does with his game time.
Rice is better than limited.
The analysis done by all the stat heads is Rice is limited. Apparently Lampard wanted to sign him for Chelsea and their analysis team had a fit, produced all these charts to show him all the weaknesses in his game and how they thought it was highly unlikely he could be significantly improved.
The England analysts can’t agree then? 🙂
I know which ones I back.
Actually be interesting to know how sophisticated they are. We know top EPL teams have astro-physic types crunching their numbers, they have incredible level of data collection plus they buy in from a load of sources.
In comparison Italy only just signed up to get StatsBomb data the other day.
I wouldn’t diss the analytical work the scientists do.
Funny things though these tournaments. Players who were naff all year in the PL suddenly look like world beaters.
I actually don't know what level they operate at international level these days. A few years ago they were behind and propagated some right old flawed rubbish e.g. around penalties, they clearly didn't understand game theory nor the law of small numbers.
What I do know is Liverpool and Barcelona in particular are miles ahead of everybody else.
I still can't get my head around Nigeria....literally never any COVID...yes a younger population, yes I doubt theytest that much, but its a populous country, there will be limited social distancing, etc not that dissimilar to India.
The average age in Nigeria is only 18 and the average life expectancy is only 54 so they have very few over 80s percentage of population wise.
Nigeria's death rate per million from Covid is just 10 compared to a global average of 487.5 and in India their death rate per million while a bit higher is also still below the global average at 264.
Covid remains a disease which has hit the interconnected West hardest eg 1,847 deaths per million in the US, 1875 in the UK and 2102 in Italy as well as parts of Latin America like Brazil which has had 2,263 deaths per million because the West has the highest number of over 70s and over 80s and even in Brazil life expectancy is 76. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Africa has been relatively little affected by Covid percentage of population wise, though once the vast majority of UK adults have had both jabs we should still provide some to the developing world
One of the BBC News paper reviewers just said the expected relaxing of rules for weddings may not go ahead either.
The report suggests the 30 guest limit will be increased but it is unlikely to lead to an unlimited number of wedding guests being allowed
So, 50 allowed at a wedding, 50,000 at a football match?
I may be wrong, but I'm not entirely convinced that Sir Patrick Vallance helped to inform that particular stroke of genius.
50 for indoor receptions, 100 for outdoors maybe what we are looking at.
Football stadiums are of course still not full capacity either
My original point stands. 51 people at a wedding: no, no, panic, panic, Covid, disaster, Plague, DEATH!!!!
50,000 football fans bellowing at the top of their lungs for a couple of hours: oh, OK then.
They've not a bloody clue what they're doing. No, scrub that: they do know what they're doing, it's just nothing that will actually contribute significantly to public health. It's all performative. Something must be done-ism. We let the Indian Plague in, now a handful of old people in Lancashire have died so the whole nation must be punished for our stupidity. Or made to suffer so they understand how seriously we're taking all of this. Or flogged so that our elderly, Covid hermit supporters will nod in smug approval. Or something like that.
Remember there is another issue. 50,000 fans outdoors in the stands not too bad, however they all ram together on the tube to get there and coming out the stadium, in that queue the police form as you head to back to the tube, etc.
Very true of course. So if masks and social distancing on public transport are still considered essential, those kinds of events really shouldn't be taking place at all. Because distancing on a jam packed tube train is impossible, and who is going to make tens of thousands of pissed up football fans wear their gags the whole time?
But no, little piddling weddings = lethal, massive gigantic boozed up footy matches = perfectly OK. Because locking the crowds out of the latter would make us look as if we'd lost control of the pandemic (again) at home, and make us look ridiculous abroad.
As I said, all politics, naff all to do with public health.
These events are taking place because everyone has to take a test beforehand. But I can't see why the entire population can't do the same thing anyway. Take a test, and live a normal life as long as the result of the test is negative.
I still can't get my head around Nigeria....literally never any COVID...yes a younger population, yes I doubt theytest that much, but its a populous country, there will be limited social distancing, etc not that dissimilar to India.
Luck, youth and sunlight.
Less international travel - fewer holidaymakers and tourists, and Lagos is not exactly a business hub. Plus, there's not a lot of new oil stuff there at the moment. Result - not a lot of seeding.
Does anyone know why it seems to be assumed by a lot of people that an electronic certificate (for something like a Covid-19 vaccine) is more reliable than a paper certificate? I can't see what the logic is.
Does anyone know why it seems to be assumed by a lot of people that an electronic certificate (for something like a Covid-19 vaccine) is more reliable than a paper certificate? I can't see what the logic is.
Well, an electronic certificate can be a QR code that links to medical records. Now, of course, people can still share QR codes, but a combination of a form of ID and a QR code is probably reasonably fraud resistant and not particularly inconvenient.
Just 48 hours ago, Govt sources briefed The Times that weddings were going to be spared from guest limits after 21 June, giving hope to approx 50,000 couples due to get married in the coming weeks.
The Department for Health is now reported to have killed that idea. So very cruel"
Does anyone know why it seems to be assumed by a lot of people that an electronic certificate (for something like a Covid-19 vaccine) is more reliable than a paper certificate? I can't see what the logic is.
Well, an electronic certificate can be a QR code that links to medical records. Now, of course, people can still share QR codes, but a combination of a form of ID and a QR code is probably reasonably fraud resistant and not particularly inconvenient.
Exactly and a very very small price to pay for freedom.
We use ID checks for lots of other activities, from boarding a plane to picking up a parcel.
I suggested a week or two back that we have passed peak Boris.
In hindsight we will look back to one minute before the Dominic Cummings testimony as the zenith of Conservative performance under Boris Johnson. That's not because Dom's testimony was 'that' important but because it coincided with several other things starting to go wrong for Johnson.
The delay to freedom day is a very grim moment and disastrous for people personally and businesses economically. I was assured this wouldn't happen because that's why we stopped international travel, so it was claimed by some on here.
We have NOT been vaccinating anything like fast enough. Our self-congratulatory hubris is coming back to bite us. We should have been offering 24/7 jabs to Uni students in their towns and we should have been jabbing at 1 million a day.
Then there is the serious trouble looming over the EU and Northern Ireland. There are parts of Brexit which are beginning to unravel. Allied to which, the union is in trouble.
As ever Boris Johnson has taken his eye off the ball. He's great with boundless optimism when everything is going swimmingly. Now we are going to start to see what he is really like: when the pressure is on and things are unravelling.
In the absence of the new variant there would be no debate, we’d definitely be opening up. We have a widely seeded Delta/Indian variant because Boris wanted a trade deal with India. And can we then ask ourselves why he wanted a trade deal with India, why we are looking for new trade deals?
As for those who are saying “cases don’t matter”, hospitalisations do matter, and in the North West they are rising alarmingly.
We are paying the price for Johnson’s failures in respect of the border because he wanted a bloody trade deal.
I’m just resigned to this farrago of incompetence. I can’t even get angry anymore. Hopefully the slowdown in rate of case growth means that we are closer to the peak than feared but I’m not betting the house on that. I’m just praying this, in terms of restrictions, is as bad as it gets.
For me, the link between Covid-19 and deaths has been broken thanks to the vaccines.
That's what we should focus on.
Hospitalisations are also important surely?
They are. Hospitalisation numbers are encouraging, but people in government have stopped caring about them,
Again, I refer to these charts from the NW showing an ominous trajectory
Graphs based on percentages are potentially misleadingly scary if you're starting from a much lower base. The fact that deaths are not following the same pattern is significant.
I don’t think anyone thinks deaths will be as bad this time around, not from Covid anyway.
People clearly do think that, as they are saying that by claiming it will be as bad as previous waves.
No, they are saying as many cases as in previous waves, I can’t see many references (outside the usual suspects) regarding deaths. All the indications show that cases could be as bad, hospitalisations too, but deaths have, thankfully, not shown much of a rise at all.
How in the name of God can the hospitalisations get as bad as last time? The overwhelming majority of the vulnerable half of the population has been double-jabbed, providing high levels of protection against symptomatic illness and very high levels of protection against severe illness. Hospitalisation amongst younger age groups is comparatively uncommon, the bulk of the fortysomethings have also had at least one dose plus time for it to work, and where younger people are being admitted they are typically less seriously ill, require less care and stay for shorter periods.
We have heard as much from the Chief Exec of NHS Providers. We have seen as much in the hospitalisation stats from Bolton.
How are we going to end up back in January? It's literally incredible.
It’s happening. Sure, Bolton’s looking good, but hospitalisations in the NW as a whole are starting to track exactly the numbers at the start of the second wave. There is not an insignificant level of vaccine escape with this new variant and over 2 million over 50s are not yet fully vaccinated - this 47 year old is not happy he’s only had one dose given it’s only 33% effective at one dose compared to two.
I don’t like this situation either. I just want to burn my mask and get a train into town. If we had kept Delta out we wouldn’t be in this piss poor situation. But hospitalisations are rising. Numbers on ventilators are rising. Both exponentially. You can’t just shrug your shoulders at that. Blame Johnson for sure, not for this decision, but for the one he failed to take in March or early April. It’s on him.
Sorry, your vaccine escape number is clearly tosh.
5% of cases come from people who are double jabbed. 50% of the population producing 5% of the cases means it is north of 90% effective after two jabs.
*And* it's those with the weakest immune systems who've been double jabbed, so real (whole population) vaccine efficacy is more like 92-93%.
That being said, it is slightly concerning that the new variant causes more cases in the single jabbed. Now, we do need to be slightly careful here because: (a) some people will have caught Delta before receiving their vaccination and (b) AZN takes a significant period of time for protection to build. But, even accounting for those factors, it's probably still 75%+ effective at reducing symptomatic infections, and 85-90% for serious Covid.
Ultimately, I'd focus on a single metric: number of people in hospital. If that is growing at above 35% week-over-week, we have a serious problem, and we're going to have full hospitals before everyone is fully protected.
But if it's growing at 20% or less, then the virus will run out of hosts long before it the numbers in hospital overwhelm the NHS.
Where are we? Week-over-week in England, numbers in hospital are up less than 10%. Even in the North West it - just - below 35%.
Final point: there is a real disconnect between admissions and numbers in hospital right now compared to the last two waves. Simply, (on average) people are spending less time in hospital. That's extremely good news.
A few minutes looking at the actual data and doing some simple calculations shows this.
But how many politicians do so ?
They're much more impressed with scary graphs.
Unfortunately it is not up to the politicians to look at the data. It is up to the specialists they employ who then translate it into easily digestible mush for the politicians. The issue seems to be that there is a phalanx of “experts” who see value in prolonging this power grab.
That the politicians are too dumb and cowardly to understand this is an unfortunate, but not unexpected, issue.
Gareth Southgate to put balance before ‘fantasy’ in England side for Croatia
Gareth Southgate has no intention of picking a “fantasy football” line-up at Euro 2020 and is preparing to omit a couple of fan favourites in Sunday’s opening game against Croatia.
The manager is leaning towards using 4-3-3 at Wembley, with Raheem Sterling set to start despite indifferent form for Manchester City in recent months. Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford face a fight to make the XI, with Southgate prioritising the balance of his selection.
It will be Rice, Henderson, Mount, Sterling, Kane, Rashford...no Foden, no Grealish, no Sancho.
Foden, EPL British player of the season, Grealish brilliant in the warm up games...no you sit there and warm that bench. While the ball goes side to side to side to side...very slowly.
I disagree.
We know Croatia well from recent meetings.
First of all you match up your opponents, you don’t allow them a spare man for press or receive pass in the middle in particular.
A back 4 with high line against Croatia as they don’t have pace to hurt that as France or Belgium would, where we have to play deeper.
Now we have matched them up and have the right shape we can look at personnel to get the draw we need. A couple who can sit and protect the defence is a no brainier for this match. That only leaves 4 slots for creativity, where you can rotate with the bench.
Foden and Grealish are the players in form, not Sterling or Rashford.
Southgate should have a red nose and be carrying a bucket of whitewash
I wake to find that gullible, left, woke, useless, remainer ****s are somehow responsible for our lying, backsliding betrayer of a pm. Imagine my surprise!
I wake to find that gullible, left, woke, useless, remainer ****s are somehow responsible for our lying, backsliding betrayer of a pm. Imagine my surprise!
If you are talking about the Tory government then, yes.
One of the BBC News paper reviewers just said the expected relaxing of rules for weddings may not go ahead either.
The report suggests the 30 guest limit will be increased but it is unlikely to lead to an unlimited number of wedding guests being allowed
So, 50 allowed at a wedding, 50,000 at a football match?
I may be wrong, but I'm not entirely convinced that Sir Patrick Vallance helped to inform that particular stroke of genius.
50 for indoor receptions, 100 for outdoors maybe what we are looking at.
Football stadiums are of course still not full capacity either
My original point stands. 51 people at a wedding: no, no, panic, panic, Covid, disaster, Plague, DEATH!!!!
50,000 football fans bellowing at the top of their lungs for a couple of hours: oh, OK then.
They've not a bloody clue what they're doing. No, scrub that: they do know what they're doing, it's just nothing that will actually contribute significantly to public health. It's all performative. Something must be done-ism. We let the Indian Plague in, now a handful of old people in Lancashire have died so the whole nation must be punished for our stupidity. Or made to suffer so they understand how seriously we're taking all of this. Or flogged so that our elderly, Covid hermit supporters will nod in smug approval. Or something like that.
Remember there is another issue. 50,000 fans outdoors in the stands not too bad, however they all ram together on the tube to get there and coming out the stadium, in that queue the police form as you head to back to the tube, etc.
Very true of course. So if masks and social distancing on public transport are still considered essential, those kinds of events really shouldn't be taking place at all. Because distancing on a jam packed tube train is impossible, and who is going to make tens of thousands of pissed up football fans wear their gags the whole time?
But no, little piddling weddings = lethal, massive gigantic boozed up footy matches = perfectly OK. Because locking the crowds out of the latter would make us look as if we'd lost control of the pandemic (again) at home, and make us look ridiculous abroad.
As I said, all politics, naff all to do with public health.
It is politics. Just like an Emperor throwing games in the Coliseum, when the original riots had been about food shortages.
But even so, what’s wrong with governments doing good politics?
It's the fact that the douchebags keep on dressing up the restrictions as something necessary to save lives, when at least a substantial fraction of them are about showing that they are doing something about the stupid Plague, at considerable economic cost to the country and huge personal cost to many individuals, rather than being of any public health benefit. It might be good politics, but it doesn't mean they aren't douchebags.
“ It might be good politics, but it doesn't mean they aren't douchebags‘.
Are you stealing lines from a Sky Original or HBO Rome production?
I still can't get my head around Nigeria....literally never any COVID...yes a younger population, yes I doubt theytest that much, but its a populous country, there will be limited social distancing, etc not that dissimilar to India.
One of our staff lost 3 family members in a week to it back in his home village in Nigeria. I find that difficult to reconcile with the official figures.
Nigeria has a young population with nearly half the population under 18, but even so.
I suggested a week or two back that we have passed peak Boris.
In hindsight we will look back to one minute before the Dominic Cummings testimony as the zenith of Conservative performance under Boris Johnson. That's not because Dom's testimony was 'that' important but because it coincided with several other things starting to go wrong for Johnson.
The delay to freedom day is a very grim moment and disastrous for people personally and businesses economically. I was assured this wouldn't happen because that's why we stopped international travel, so it was claimed by some on here.
We have NOT been vaccinating anything like fast enough. Our self-congratulatory hubris is coming back to bite us. We should have been offering 24/7 jabs to Uni students in their towns and we should have been jabbing at 1 million a day.
Then there is the serious trouble looming over the EU and Northern Ireland. There are parts of Brexit which are beginning to unravel. Allied to which, the union is in trouble.
As ever Boris Johnson has taken his eye off the ball. He's great with boundless optimism when everything is going swimmingly. Now we are going to start to see what he is really like: when the pressure is on and things are unravelling.
Well he had a dry-run at it last year and was found wanting.
P.S. A UK honour for AOC caught my eye, then I realised it was a knighthood for a disgraced Lloyds Banker.
One of the BBC News paper reviewers just said the expected relaxing of rules for weddings may not go ahead either.
The report suggests the 30 guest limit will be increased but it is unlikely to lead to an unlimited number of wedding guests being allowed
So, 50 allowed at a wedding, 50,000 at a football match?
I may be wrong, but I'm not entirely convinced that Sir Patrick Vallance helped to inform that particular stroke of genius.
50 for indoor receptions, 100 for outdoors maybe what we are looking at.
Football stadiums are of course still not full capacity either
My original point stands. 51 people at a wedding: no, no, panic, panic, Covid, disaster, Plague, DEATH!!!!
50,000 football fans bellowing at the top of their lungs for a couple of hours: oh, OK then.
They've not a bloody clue what they're doing. No, scrub that: they do know what they're doing, it's just nothing that will actually contribute significantly to public health. It's all performative. Something must be done-ism. We let the Indian Plague in, now a handful of old people in Lancashire have died so the whole nation must be punished for our stupidity. Or made to suffer so they understand how seriously we're taking all of this. Or flogged so that our elderly, Covid hermit supporters will nod in smug approval. Or something like that.
Remember there is another issue. 50,000 fans outdoors in the stands not too bad, however they all ram together on the tube to get there and coming out the stadium, in that queue the police form as you head to back to the tube, etc.
Very true of course. So if masks and social distancing on public transport are still considered essential, those kinds of events really shouldn't be taking place at all. Because distancing on a jam packed tube train is impossible, and who is going to make tens of thousands of pissed up football fans wear their gags the whole time?
But no, little piddling weddings = lethal, massive gigantic boozed up footy matches = perfectly OK. Because locking the crowds out of the latter would make us look as if we'd lost control of the pandemic (again) at home, and make us look ridiculous abroad.
As I said, all politics, naff all to do with public health.
These events are taking place because everyone has to take a test beforehand. But I can't see why the entire population can't do the same thing anyway. Take a test, and live a normal life as long as the result of the test is negative.
Lateral flow tests aren't reliable enough (indeed, one of the major suppliers to the NHS has just been condemned as churning out useless junk that should be binned by the US regulator); daily PCR capacity will cover less than 1% of the population and obviously requires one to post the test off to a laboratory and wait however long for the result to come back.
Testing has its place but ultimately the only thing that could've got us out of this was the vaccination program. Now that the Government has effectively written it off as worthless, we are lost. This will only end when the Government does.
Gareth Southgate to put balance before ‘fantasy’ in England side for Croatia
Gareth Southgate has no intention of picking a “fantasy football” line-up at Euro 2020 and is preparing to omit a couple of fan favourites in Sunday’s opening game against Croatia.
The manager is leaning towards using 4-3-3 at Wembley, with Raheem Sterling set to start despite indifferent form for Manchester City in recent months. Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford face a fight to make the XI, with Southgate prioritising the balance of his selection.
It will be Rice, Henderson, Mount, Sterling, Kane, Rashford...no Foden, no Grealish, no Sancho.
Foden, EPL British player of the season, Grealish brilliant in the warm up games...no you sit there and warm that bench. While the ball goes side to side to side to side...very slowly.
I disagree.
We know Croatia well from recent meetings.
First of all you match up your opponents, you don’t allow them a spare man for press or receive pass in the middle in particular.
A back 4 with high line against Croatia as they don’t have pace to hurt that as France or Belgium would, where we have to play deeper.
Now we have matched them up and have the right shape we can look at personnel to get the draw we need. A couple who can sit and protect the defence is a no brainier for this match. That only leaves 4 slots for creativity, where you can rotate with the bench.
Foden and Grealish are the players in form, not Sterling or Rashford.
Southgate should have a red nose and be carrying a bucket of whitewash
He got us to our second best World Cup level in our history, albeit with a fortunate run of opponents. So cut him and the guys some slack, knee and all.
A team is not just about stuffing in every "star", it is about cohesion and style of play. A team is more than the sum of its parts. That said, I am not optomistic.
The delay to freedom is an appalling prospect, putting us out of line even with countries behind us with the vaccination.
I almost wish I voted Tory so that the promise never to vote for them again carried some consequence.
Me too. Sadly, there appears to be no parliamentary opposition. SKS is looking like a chicken scratching in the dirt, LDs are concentrating on NIMBYism, and the SNP are running round saying “it was only resting in my account.”
So what is was freedom day supposed to bring? In so far as I can tell for me personally it means being compelled to restart a 4hr commute. Not a huge amount of freedom. Couldn’t give a stuff about wearing a mask.
Gareth Southgate to put balance before ‘fantasy’ in England side for Croatia
Gareth Southgate has no intention of picking a “fantasy football” line-up at Euro 2020 and is preparing to omit a couple of fan favourites in Sunday’s opening game against Croatia.
The manager is leaning towards using 4-3-3 at Wembley, with Raheem Sterling set to start despite indifferent form for Manchester City in recent months. Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford face a fight to make the XI, with Southgate prioritising the balance of his selection.
It will be Rice, Henderson, Mount, Sterling, Kane, Rashford...no Foden, no Grealish, no Sancho.
Foden, EPL British player of the season, Grealish brilliant in the warm up games...no you sit there and warm that bench. While the ball goes side to side to side to side...very slowly.
I disagree.
We know Croatia well from recent meetings.
First of all you match up your opponents, you don’t allow them a spare man for press or receive pass in the middle in particular.
A back 4 with high line against Croatia as they don’t have pace to hurt that as France or Belgium would, where we have to play deeper.
Now we have matched them up and have the right shape we can look at personnel to get the draw we need. A couple who can sit and protect the defence is a no brainier for this match. That only leaves 4 slots for creativity, where you can rotate with the bench.
Foden and Grealish are the players in form, not Sterling or Rashford.
Southgate should have a red nose and be carrying a bucket of whitewash
He got us to our second best World Cup level in our history, albeit with a fortunate run of opponents. So cut him and the guys some slack, knee and all.
A team is not just about stuffing in every "star", it is about cohesion and style of play. A team is more than the sum of its parts. That said, I am not optomistic.
I really think, lucky as he was previously, he has absolutely no ingenuity or bravery. It is not the players, it is him. He is the John Major of football management.
The German numbers are a sad reflection on what we have done to our reputation in Europe, especially as most Germans are natural Anglophiles. Fewer than half of Germans now see us as a friend or ally, and a quarter think we are an enemy or competitor.
I still can't get my head around Nigeria....literally never any COVID...yes a younger population, yes I doubt theytest that much, but its a populous country, there will be limited social distancing, etc not that dissimilar to India.
One of our staff lost 3 family members in a week to it back in his home village in Nigeria. I find that difficult to reconcile with the official figures.
Nigeria has a young population with nearly half the population under 18, but even so.
Nigeria is testing at just over 10,000 per million. India is testing at 25 times this level; don't look for it you won't find it
The German numbers are a sad reflection on what we have done to our reputation in Europe, especially as most Germans are natural Anglophiles. Fewer than half of Germans now see us as a friend or ally, and a quarter think we are an enemy or competitor.
Of course they see us us as a competitor. As they should. It does not have a negative connotation. They would say the same about any other major nation.
We are living under a corrupt Government with a police state mentality.
Translation: Extinction Rebellion really clutching at straws now.
A Statement of Truth from the Chief Constable with the couple of text messages deleted when his phone reset to factory settings should suffice - XR lawyers seem to be wanting the Court to make a rather bizarre assumption. *If* the reset cannot be shown be suspicious, and if indeed they cannot be recovered.
The German numbers are a sad reflection on what we have done to our reputation in Europe, especially as most Germans are natural Anglophiles. Fewer than half of Germans now see us as a friend or ally, and a quarter think we are an enemy or competitor.
The Brexiteers are busy salting the earth so as to ensure that we won't be allowed back. It is deliberate policy, such as reneging on the Irish Protocol. No one allies with a nation that refuses to keep its word.
The German numbers are a sad reflection on what we have done to our reputation in Europe, especially as most Germans are natural Anglophiles. Fewer than half of Germans now see us as a friend or ally, and a quarter think we are an enemy or competitor.
Of course they see us us as a competitor. As they should. It does not have a negative connotation. They would say the same about any other major nation.
I don't think they would. In the context of the question, which is about international relations not economics, it is obvious that competitor has a negative connotation.
One of the BBC News paper reviewers just said the expected relaxing of rules for weddings may not go ahead either.
The report suggests the 30 guest limit will be increased but it is unlikely to lead to an unlimited number of wedding guests being allowed
So, 50 allowed at a wedding, 50,000 at a football match?
I may be wrong, but I'm not entirely convinced that Sir Patrick Vallance helped to inform that particular stroke of genius.
50 for indoor receptions, 100 for outdoors maybe what we are looking at.
Football stadiums are of course still not full capacity either
My original point stands. 51 people at a wedding: no, no, panic, panic, Covid, disaster, Plague, DEATH!!!!
50,000 football fans bellowing at the top of their lungs for a couple of hours: oh, OK then.
They've not a bloody clue what they're doing. No, scrub that: they do know what they're doing, it's just nothing that will actually contribute significantly to public health. It's all performative. Something must be done-ism. We let the Indian Plague in, now a handful of old people in Lancashire have died so the whole nation must be punished for our stupidity. Or made to suffer so they understand how seriously we're taking all of this. Or flogged so that our elderly, Covid hermit supporters will nod in smug approval. Or something like that.
Remember there is another issue. 50,000 fans outdoors in the stands not too bad, however they all ram together on the tube to get there and coming out the stadium, in that queue the police form as you head to back to the tube, etc.
Very true of course. So if masks and social distancing on public transport are still considered essential, those kinds of events really shouldn't be taking place at all. Because distancing on a jam packed tube train is impossible, and who is going to make tens of thousands of pissed up football fans wear their gags the whole time?
But no, little piddling weddings = lethal, massive gigantic boozed up footy matches = perfectly OK. Because locking the crowds out of the latter would make us look as if we'd lost control of the pandemic (again) at home, and make us look ridiculous abroad.
As I said, all politics, naff all to do with public health.
These events are taking place because everyone has to take a test beforehand. But I can't see why the entire population can't do the same thing anyway. Take a test, and live a normal life as long as the result of the test is negative.
Lateral flow tests aren't reliable enough (indeed, one of the major suppliers to the NHS has just been condemned as churning out useless junk that should be binned by the US regulator); daily PCR capacity will cover less than 1% of the population and obviously requires one to post the test off to a laboratory and wait however long for the result to come back.
Testing has its place but ultimately the only thing that could've got us out of this was the vaccination program. Now that the Government has effectively written it off as worthless, we are lost. This will only end when the Government does.
Reading across US usage of a test straight to UK usage is rather a large assumption.
I suggested a week or two back that we have passed peak Boris.
In hindsight we will look back to one minute before the Dominic Cummings testimony as the zenith of Conservative performance under Boris Johnson. That's not because Dom's testimony was 'that' important but because it coincided with several other things starting to go wrong for Johnson.
The delay to freedom day is a very grim moment and disastrous for people personally and businesses economically. I was assured this wouldn't happen because that's why we stopped international travel, so it was claimed by some on here.
We have NOT been vaccinating anything like fast enough. Our self-congratulatory hubris is coming back to bite us. We should have been offering 24/7 jabs to Uni students in their towns and we should have been jabbing at 1 million a day.
Then there is the serious trouble looming over the EU and Northern Ireland. There are parts of Brexit which are beginning to unravel. Allied to which, the union is in trouble.
As ever Boris Johnson has taken his eye off the ball. He's great with boundless optimism when everything is going swimmingly. Now we are going to start to see what he is really like: when the pressure is on and things are unravelling.
Well, hopefully at the end of all of this the Union will burn along with Johnson's reputation. Firstly, Scotland is terminally divided and its politics are stuck in a rut over the constitution, that can only be resolved by independence, and also a large fraction of the Scottish population doesn't much like the English, to put it mildly. That's no basis for the continuation of the country.
Secondly, Scottish secession kills the UK and leaves the NI Unionists with no Union to belong to. Their geographical and cultural links are with Scotland; there'll be no appetite at all in England to hang on to the province. So, it can be cut off through a variety of means: retention of formal sovereignty, whilst allowing the territory to pass into the care of the European Commission in practice; through Irish reunification; independence for NI; or floating it off as a crown dependency like a kind of giant Isle of Man. The principle point of friction between London and the EU is thus immediately resolved, opening the door to better relations and dispensing with ridiculous threats of sausage trade wars.
Thirdly, if (as much polling in the past suggests) Tory politicians and their membership are truly committed to the Union, its destruction will hurt them. Really hurt them. That's good. They deserve it.
Finally, Boris Johnson goes down as the Prime Minister who destroyed the UK - a destructive, useless, ignominious fool. He deserves that.
The big problem is that Johnson won't advance a Section 30 order so long as he is Prime Minister, and the legal referendum that could, with a Yes vote, be harnessed as an instrument to destroy him cannot be held without one. How to get around this...?
Imagine if the poll was carried out in the UK. A lot more antipathy I expect against countries due to lingering Brexit jingoistic sentiment, except against Bulgaria, who will be popular on account of his work on Wimbledon common.
The German numbers are a sad reflection on what we have done to our reputation in Europe, especially as most Germans are natural Anglophiles. Fewer than half of Germans now see us as a friend or ally, and a quarter think we are an enemy or competitor.
6% of Germans think "For you Tommy, the war is not yet over...we still can go to extra time and penalties for the win!"
The German numbers are a sad reflection on what we have done to our reputation in Europe, especially as most Germans are natural Anglophiles. Fewer than half of Germans now see us as a friend or ally, and a quarter think we are an enemy or competitor.
The Brexiteers are busy salting the earth so as to ensure that we won't be allowed back. It is deliberate policy, such as reneging on the Irish Protocol. No one allies with a nation that refuses to keep its word.
The German numbers are a sad reflection on what we have done to our reputation in Europe, especially as most Germans are natural Anglophiles. Fewer than half of Germans now see us as a friend or ally, and a quarter think we are an enemy or competitor.
Of course they see us us as a competitor. As they should. It does not have a negative connotation. They would say the same about any other major nation.
I don't think they would. In the context of the question, which is about international relations not economics, it is obvious that competitor has a negative connotation.
I don’t believe so. A competitor is a term of respect.
The German numbers are a sad reflection on what we have done to our reputation in Europe, especially as most Germans are natural Anglophiles. Fewer than half of Germans now see us as a friend or ally, and a quarter think we are an enemy or competitor.
6% of Germans think "For you Tommy, the war is not yet over...we still can go to extra time and penalties for the win!"
Farage and co still use spitfires in their politics.
So what is was freedom day supposed to bring? In so far as I can tell for me personally it means being compelled to restart a 4hr commute. Not a huge amount of freedom. Couldn’t give a stuff about wearing a mask.
Went in yesterday for a meeting. I had a 6 hour "experience" due to a signalling FUBAR at Surbiton. Ended up having to come back via Paddington and Reading.
Imagine if the poll was carried out in the UK. A lot more antipathy I expect against countries due to lingering Brexit jingoistic sentiment, except against Bulgaria, who will be popular on account of his work on Wimbledon common.
The German scores surprised me.
But then, given that all they want to do is buy Russian gas and sell their kit to China without having to worry about "values", maybe not.
We are living under a corrupt Government with a police state mentality.
Translation: Extinction Rebellion really clutching at straws now.
A Statement of Truth from the Chief Constable with the couple of text messages deleted when his phone reset to factory settings should suffice - XR lawyers seem to be wanting the Court to make a rather bizarre assumption. *If* the reset cannot be shown be suspicious, and if indeed they cannot be recovered.
Personally, I can't wait for a few of the leading XR activists to be clapped in irons.
Imagine if the poll was carried out in the UK. A lot more antipathy I expect against countries due to lingering Brexit jingoistic sentiment, except against Bulgaria, who will be popular on account of his work on Wimbledon common.
The German scores surprised me.
But then, given that all they want to do is buy Russian gas and sell their kit to China without having to worry about "values", maybe not.
There might be some of that to it, although we also have to remember that Germany has, historically at least, been especially committed to the European project. That's partly to do with their past, but it also serves their interests very well, of course. Consequently, an awful lot of Germans probably still struggle to comprehend why we left.
So what is was freedom day supposed to bring? In so far as I can tell for me personally it means being compelled to restart a 4hr commute. Not a huge amount of freedom. Couldn’t give a stuff about wearing a mask.
Went in yesterday for a meeting. I had a 6 hour "experience" due to a signalling FUBAR at Surbiton. Ended up having to come back via Paddington and Reading.
Almost made me nostalgic.
I went in a couple of weeks ago. I was so out of practice. I took the timetable literally, rather than the vague expression of intent it is. What a fool. The nostalgia came back and then left quickly, unlike the train I was on.
It’s an important aspect to the politics of freedom day, that for many, Freedom day is anything but freedom.
So what is was freedom day supposed to bring? In so far as I can tell for me personally it means being compelled to restart a 4hr commute. Not a huge amount of freedom. Couldn’t give a stuff about wearing a mask.
Went in yesterday for a meeting. I had a 6 hour "experience" due to a signalling FUBAR at Surbiton. Ended up having to come back via Paddington and Reading.
Almost made me nostalgic.
Whenever I hear or read of Surbiton I always think of “The Good Life”. Also I walk past Osborne Road every day and it never fails to make me think “George Osborne. What a gobshite.”
Imagine if the poll was carried out in the UK. A lot more antipathy I expect against countries due to lingering Brexit jingoistic sentiment, except against Bulgaria, who will be popular on account of his work on Wimbledon common.
The German scores surprised me.
But then, given that all they want to do is buy Russian gas and sell their kit to China without having to worry about "values", maybe not.
I suspect language nuance and timing pays a part. I work have a lot of German colleagues. Generally they are hugely competitive and treat us with respect and befuddlement. They are currently looking forward to the football. Ask them right now and we are definitely adversaries.
The potential delay to opening up on 21st June once again shows how fortunate we have been with the vaccine roll-out. The default UK government position is to mess things up disastrously. Thankfully, the vaccine programme has been the one exception.
We are living under a corrupt Government with a police state mentality.
Translation: Extinction Rebellion really clutching at straws now.
A Statement of Truth from the Chief Constable with the couple of text messages deleted when his phone reset to factory settings should suffice - XR lawyers seem to be wanting the Court to make a rather bizarre assumption. *If* the reset cannot be shown be suspicious, and if indeed they cannot be recovered.
Personally, I can't wait for a few of the leading XR activists to be clapped in irons.
It wouldn't surprise me to see them acquitted because of government incompetence, like those who damaged the Shell building:
So what is was freedom day supposed to bring? In so far as I can tell for me personally it means being compelled to restart a 4hr commute. Not a huge amount of freedom. Couldn’t give a stuff about wearing a mask.
Went in yesterday for a meeting. I had a 6 hour "experience" due to a signalling FUBAR at Surbiton. Ended up having to come back via Paddington and Reading.
Almost made me nostalgic.
I went in a couple of weeks ago. I was so out of practice. I took the timetable literally, rather than the vague expression of intent it is. What a fool. The nostalgia came back and then left quickly, unlike the train I was on.
It’s an important aspect to the politics of freedom day, that for many, Freedom day is anything but freedom.
Trains are absolutely hopeless. The operators are incapable of getting anything right. There's always, always a problem. Engineering works at inconvenient times, the drivers not turning up so half of them are cancelled, the power cables falling down so half of them are cancelled, long, stifling journeys (struggling to breathe in a ghastly mask) on hot, sweaty replacement buses. I've suffered all of it in the last couple of weeks, just through leisure travel. I don't know how anybody coped with commuting, and I don't blame anyone who, having escaped from it through WFH, never, ever wants to do it again.
Of course, there's no reason why we couldn't have got rid of masks and social distancing in most circumstances, whilst leaving evil masks on trains and the WFH instruction in place. I think that's the end point that most of us were expecting. But no, it's all going to drag on and on for years now.
Have I understood this right? That one doze of Pfizer is only 33% effective defence against Delta vs 80% of original Covid?
I think this is driving their hesitancy. A lot of people out there with one shot in the arm, many of whom (not me) now think they are immune as the 2nd dose is "just a booster".
The solution of course was to vaccinate faster as various people have been pointing out when looking at dropping daily jab rates.
And once again this was avoidable. Not letting in dangerous new strains was the whole purpose in closing borders and having travel restrictions. We still have the latter but liar opted not to red list India despite Delta tearing it up and being told firmly to do so. Because he had to look the Big man and get a trade deal (which they weren't going to offer in a way he could accept but never mind).
Why can't we unlock? Because Boris Johnson is Prime Minister. Suck it up people, you voted for it, remember?
So what is was freedom day supposed to bring? In so far as I can tell for me personally it means being compelled to restart a 4hr commute. Not a huge amount of freedom. Couldn’t give a stuff about wearing a mask.
Went in yesterday for a meeting. I had a 6 hour "experience" due to a signalling FUBAR at Surbiton. Ended up having to come back via Paddington and Reading.
Almost made me nostalgic.
I went in a couple of weeks ago. I was so out of practice. I took the timetable literally, rather than the vague expression of intent it is. What a fool. The nostalgia came back and then left quickly, unlike the train I was on.
It’s an important aspect to the politics of freedom day, that for many, Freedom day is anything but freedom.
It's the sheer volume of the guard's tedious and endless announcements that got to me.
I had to literally put fingers in my ears. He must have turned it up to 120dB.
The German numbers are a sad reflection on what we have done to our reputation in Europe, especially as most Germans are natural Anglophiles. Fewer than half of Germans now see us as a friend or ally, and a quarter think we are an enemy or competitor.
Imagine if the poll was carried out in the UK. A lot more antipathy I expect against countries due to lingering Brexit jingoistic sentiment, except against Bulgaria, who will be popular on account of his work on Wimbledon common.
The German scores surprised me.
But then, given that all they want to do is buy Russian gas and sell their kit to China without having to worry about "values", maybe not.
There might be some of that to it, although we also have to remember that Germany has, historically at least, been especially committed to the European project. That's partly to do with their past, but it also serves their interests very well, of course. Consequently, an awful lot of Germans probably still struggle to comprehend why we left.
So what is was freedom day supposed to bring? In so far as I can tell for me personally it means being compelled to restart a 4hr commute. Not a huge amount of freedom. Couldn’t give a stuff about wearing a mask.
Went in yesterday for a meeting. I had a 6 hour "experience" due to a signalling FUBAR at Surbiton. Ended up having to come back via Paddington and Reading.
Almost made me nostalgic.
Ouch! 65.6% cancelled or 30+ mins late on the Farnham/Alton service yesterday.
Have I understood this right? That one doze of Pfizer is only 33% effective defence against Delta vs 80% of original Covid?
I think this is driving their hesitancy. A lot of people out there with one shot in the arm, many of whom (not me) now think they are immune as the 2nd dose is "just a booster".
The solution of course was to vaccinate faster as various people have been pointing out when looking at dropping daily jab rates.
And once again this was avoidable. Not letting in dangerous new strains was the whole purpose in closing borders and having travel restrictions. We still have the latter but liar opted not to red list India despite Delta tearing it up and being told firmly to do so. Because he had to look the Big man and get a trade deal (which they weren't going to offer in a way he could accept but never mind).
Why can't we unlock? Because Boris Johnson is Prime Minister. Suck it up people, you voted for it, remember?
Unfortunately your conclusion will always butt up against the alternative: would we have been any better off going through this with Jeremy Corbyn at the helm?
The people of this country must all have been mass murderers in a previous life. Either that or Covid was more lethal than we all realised, we all died of it in March 2020, and we are now in some twisted kind of Hell where lockdown (and the rule of Boris) goes on for eternity.
Imagine if the poll was carried out in the UK. A lot more antipathy I expect against countries due to lingering Brexit jingoistic sentiment, except against Bulgaria, who will be popular on account of his work on Wimbledon common.
The German scores surprised me.
But then, given that all they want to do is buy Russian gas and sell their kit to China without having to worry about "values", maybe not.
There might be some of that to it, although we also have to remember that Germany has, historically at least, been especially committed to the European project. That's partly to do with their past, but it also serves their interests very well, of course. Consequently, an awful lot of Germans probably still struggle to comprehend why we left.
Yes, but I don't see why that doesn't carry over to Scandinavia and the Netherlands.
It does seem to be at least partly a cultural and values fit.
So what is was freedom day supposed to bring? In so far as I can tell for me personally it means being compelled to restart a 4hr commute. Not a huge amount of freedom. Couldn’t give a stuff about wearing a mask.
Went in yesterday for a meeting. I had a 6 hour "experience" due to a signalling FUBAR at Surbiton. Ended up having to come back via Paddington and Reading.
Almost made me nostalgic.
Ouch! 65.6% cancelled or 30+ mins late on the Farnham/Alton service yesterday.
That's my line.
Literally my fifth time in a year and I get that as a gift. 🙄
I suggested a week or two back that we have passed peak Boris.
In hindsight we will look back to one minute before the Dominic Cummings testimony as the zenith of Conservative performance under Boris Johnson. That's not because Dom's testimony was 'that' important but because it coincided with several other things starting to go wrong for Johnson.
The delay to freedom day is a very grim moment and disastrous for people personally and businesses economically. I was assured this wouldn't happen because that's why we stopped international travel, so it was claimed by some on here.
We have NOT been vaccinating anything like fast enough. Our self-congratulatory hubris is coming back to bite us. We should have been offering 24/7 jabs to Uni students in their towns and we should have been jabbing at 1 million a day.
Then there is the serious trouble looming over the EU and Northern Ireland. There are parts of Brexit which are beginning to unravel. Allied to which, the union is in trouble.
As ever Boris Johnson has taken his eye off the ball. He's great with boundless optimism when everything is going swimmingly. Now we are going to start to see what he is really like: when the pressure is on and things are unravelling.
Well, hopefully at the end of all of this the Union will burn along with Johnson's reputation. Firstly, Scotland is terminally divided and its politics are stuck in a rut over the constitution, that can only be resolved by independence, and also a large fraction of the Scottish population doesn't much like the English, to put it mildly. That's no basis for the continuation of the country.
Secondly, Scottish secession kills the UK and leaves the NI Unionists with no Union to belong to. Their geographical and cultural links are with Scotland; there'll be no appetite at all in England to hang on to the province. So, it can be cut off through a variety of means: retention of formal sovereignty, whilst allowing the territory to pass into the care of the European Commission in practice; through Irish reunification; independence for NI; or floating it off as a crown dependency like a kind of giant Isle of Man. The principle point of friction between London and the EU is thus immediately resolved, opening the door to better relations and dispensing with ridiculous threats of sausage trade wars.
Thirdly, if (as much polling in the past suggests) Tory politicians and their membership are truly committed to the Union, its destruction will hurt them. Really hurt them. That's good. They deserve it.
Finally, Boris Johnson goes down as the Prime Minister who destroyed the UK - a destructive, useless, ignominious fool. He deserves that.
The big problem is that Johnson won't advance a Section 30 order so long as he is Prime Minister, and the legal referendum that could, with a Yes vote, be harnessed as an instrument to destroy him cannot be held without one. How to get around this...?
How about a post-UK Celtic alliance? Scotland and NI are old allies as noted. A confederal group of Scotland, NI, ROI in the EU, an Atlantic version of the Visegrad group. Though as I have noted before the more interesting questions in the post-UK settlement will be what to do with the Isle of Man and the Bailiwicks.
Imagine if the poll was carried out in the UK. A lot more antipathy I expect against countries due to lingering Brexit jingoistic sentiment, except against Bulgaria, who will be popular on account of his work on Wimbledon common.
We are living under a corrupt Government with a police state mentality.
Translation: Extinction Rebellion really clutching at straws now.
A Statement of Truth from the Chief Constable with the couple of text messages deleted when his phone reset to factory settings should suffice - XR lawyers seem to be wanting the Court to make a rather bizarre assumption. *If* the reset cannot be shown be suspicious, and if indeed they cannot be recovered.
Personally, I can't wait for a few of the leading XR activists to be clapped in irons.
It wouldn't surprise me to see them acquitted because of government incompetence, like those who damaged the Shell building:
Imagine if the poll was carried out in the UK. A lot more antipathy I expect against countries due to lingering Brexit jingoistic sentiment, except against Bulgaria, who will be popular on account of his work on Wimbledon common.
People really do know jack about Bulgaria.
They are a deeply pragmatic people, who understand why we left at some level; just look at how low their anti figures are.
The low ally figures are because they don't think we know or care about them, which is probably true.
We are living under a corrupt Government with a police state mentality.
Translation: Extinction Rebellion really clutching at straws now.
A Statement of Truth from the Chief Constable with the couple of text messages deleted when his phone reset to factory settings should suffice - XR lawyers seem to be wanting the Court to make a rather bizarre assumption. *If* the reset cannot be shown be suspicious, and if indeed they cannot be recovered.
Personally, I can't wait for a few of the leading XR activists to be clapped in irons.
It wouldn't surprise me to see them acquitted because of government incompetence, like those who damaged the Shell building:
Yes, that case was was a Jury acting along the lines of the Penn case, a key point in English law which means that juries can acquit whatever the judge thinks.
Have I understood this right? That one doze of Pfizer is only 33% effective defence against Delta vs 80% of original Covid?
I think this is driving their hesitancy. A lot of people out there with one shot in the arm, many of whom (not me) now think they are immune as the 2nd dose is "just a booster".
The solution of course was to vaccinate faster as various people have been pointing out when looking at dropping daily jab rates.
And once again this was avoidable. Not letting in dangerous new strains was the whole purpose in closing borders and having travel restrictions. We still have the latter but liar opted not to red list India despite Delta tearing it up and being told firmly to do so. Because he had to look the Big man and get a trade deal (which they weren't going to offer in a way he could accept but never mind).
Why can't we unlock? Because Boris Johnson is Prime Minister. Suck it up people, you voted for it, remember?
Unfortunately your conclusion will always butt up against the alternative: would we have been any better off going through this with Jeremy Corbyn at the helm?
The people of this country must all have been mass murderers in a previous life. Either that or Covid was more lethal than we all realised, we all died of it in March 2020, and we are now in some twisted kind of Hell where lockdown (and the rule of Boris) goes on for eternity.
Good God no. As DomCum said, when your choice is the Clown or Corbyn the political system is broken. That was in 2019 though. Here in mid-2021 we have virulent opponents of a whole string of government policies who express their displeasure by voting for them anyway. Which again is proof of the broken polity.
The German numbers are a sad reflection on what we have done to our reputation in Europe, especially as most Germans are natural Anglophiles. Fewer than half of Germans now see us as a friend or ally, and a quarter think we are an enemy or competitor.
The Portugal one is the saddest. Our oldest ally.
Yes, but what have we done in terms of alliance with Portugal in modern times? A few seaplane bases in the Azores 70 years ago.
There's a walk in event in Mansfield being advertised for anyone over 25 to get a first jab at the weekend and it is guaranteed to be Pfizer interestingly.
A lot of people seem to feel that the experts of sage etc want to keep us locked down as they are enjoying the power. Could it not be instead that the experts are simply (and justifiably) scared that if they advise opening up and things go wrong again that when there is a public enquiry then they are the ones in the firing line?
Maybe they need some sort of indemnification as, whilst to me they have likely done the best they can with the info they had, to a lot of people they will be criminals and the media will be all over them after an inquiry....
If your finger is on the button and you know that if you press it at the wrong time you are going to be scapegoated then you are going to be extra careful about when you press it.
Everyone looking for people to blame can’t help make decision making neutral.
The German numbers are a sad reflection on what we have done to our reputation in Europe, especially as most Germans are natural Anglophiles. Fewer than half of Germans now see us as a friend or ally, and a quarter think we are an enemy or competitor.
6% of Germans think "For you Tommy, the war is not yet over...we still can go to extra time and penalties for the win!"
The German numbers are a sad reflection on what we have done to our reputation in Europe, especially as most Germans are natural Anglophiles. Fewer than half of Germans now see us as a friend or ally, and a quarter think we are an enemy or competitor.
Of course it has nothing to do with other countries views, its all Britain's fault..... jeez
Is it really a surprise that European countries see the UK negatively? It isn't Brexit that has caused this, its what we have done after Brexit. And the vaccine war with the EU where they slagged off our patriotic Oxford vaccine and then we quietly agree there are problems and restrict who gets it. We have acted like absolute twats.
As with America under Biden there is a way to rebuild after disastrous clown government so we will rebuild international relations. That could be done fairly soon if the Tories tempt shagger away with a Lecture / Totty tour and install someone serious into the top job. Sunak or perhaps Hunt can undo the stupid and the world will like a less twatty arrogant Britain again.
A lot of people seem to feel that the experts of sage etc want to keep us locked down as they are enjoying the power. Could it not be instead that the experts are simply (and justifiably) scared that if they advise opening up and things go wrong again that when there is a public enquiry then they are the ones in the firing line?
Maybe they need some sort of indemnification as, whilst to me they have likely done the best they can with the info they had, to a lot of people they will be criminals and the media will be all over them after an inquiry....
If your finger is on the button and you know that if you press it at the wrong time you are going to be scapegoated then you are going to be extra careful about when you press it.
Everyone looking for people to blame can’t help make decision making neutral.
That's a good point.
They aren't incentivised to take risks, they have a secure job whilst it lasts but, if they get it wrong, the blowback on them personally could be immense.
Have I understood this right? That one doze of Pfizer is only 33% effective defence against Delta vs 80% of original Covid?
I think this is driving their hesitancy. A lot of people out there with one shot in the arm, many of whom (not me) now think they are immune as the 2nd dose is "just a booster".
The solution of course was to vaccinate faster as various people have been pointing out when looking at dropping daily jab rates.
And once again this was avoidable. Not letting in dangerous new strains was the whole purpose in closing borders and having travel restrictions. We still have the latter but liar opted not to red list India despite Delta tearing it up and being told firmly to do so. Because he had to look the Big man and get a trade deal (which they weren't going to offer in a way he could accept but never mind).
Why can't we unlock? Because Boris Johnson is Prime Minister. Suck it up people, you voted for it, remember?
Unfortunately your conclusion will always butt up against the alternative: would we have been any better off going through this with Jeremy Corbyn at the helm?
The people of this country must all have been mass murderers in a previous life. Either that or Covid was more lethal than we all realised, we all died of it in March 2020, and we are now in some twisted kind of Hell where lockdown (and the rule of Boris) goes on for eternity.
Good God no. As DomCum said, when your choice is the Clown or Corbyn the political system is broken. That was in 2019 though. Here in mid-2021 we have virulent opponents of a whole string of government policies who express their displeasure by voting for them anyway. Which again is proof of the broken polity.
The tension in the Tories between "pull up the drawbridge" red wallers wanting protectionism and pork barrelling and the traditional Tory party of business enterprise and individualism is going to be one of the more interesting threads of politics of the next few years. Not least because with a moribund opposition* internal factions become important in a defacto one party state.
*sooner or later the opposition will regenerate, but no sign of that at present.
The German numbers are a sad reflection on what we have done to our reputation in Europe, especially as most Germans are natural Anglophiles. Fewer than half of Germans now see us as a friend or ally, and a quarter think we are an enemy or competitor.
Of course it has nothing to do with other countries views, its all Britain's fault..... jeez
Its a particularly twisted interpretation of events where it is the European countries who have changed and thus driven the new views of Britain and not the other way round.
Science guy on R4 saying that it looks like this delta variant is more transmissible in children and YAs.
Experience with past variants is that they always look more transmissible at first, and that the vaccines seem less effective, but as the data gets updated week after week it becomes more modest.
Adam Brooks @EssexPR · 2h Many businesses are back on full rent, but still at reduced capacities, their bounce back loan payments have now started. Many in Hospitality sold tickets to events after June 21st, many have stocked up and staffed for it.
The one thing that will torpedo this Government below the waterline is economic collapse.
We need huge numbers of businesses to go to the wall through this. Mass unemployment. The money markets to see that Britain's a turkey and stop lending Sunak the money.
National bankruptcy and a trip to the Gnomes of Zurich, holding out the begging bowl. It's the only way we're ever getting out of this.
Bring it on.
That's nuts. Even if you think a delay is overcautious, it doesn't mean there's no end in sight. We're are almost at herd immunity.
A few percent makes the difference to the point opening up cannot happen? And since we need booster shots apparently no doubt herd immunity will be argued as not sufficient either.
That's the thing with exponential growth, it happens very quickly.
Not necessarily. I have £1k in a bank account receiving 0.1% compound interest. It is growing exponentially but I am not planning on retirement just yet.
The German numbers are a sad reflection on what we have done to our reputation in Europe, especially as most Germans are natural Anglophiles. Fewer than half of Germans now see us as a friend or ally, and a quarter think we are an enemy or competitor.
Of course it has nothing to do with other countries views, its all Britain's fault..... jeez
Its a particularly twisted interpretation of events where it is the European countries who have changed and thus driven the new views of Britain and not the other way round.
Yes. Surely the whole point of Brexit was to decouple ourselves from our natural allies on the continental mainland?
Is it really a surprise that European countries see the UK negatively? It isn't Brexit that has caused this, its what we have done after Brexit. And the vaccine war with the EU where they slagged off our patriotic Oxford vaccine and then we quietly agree there are problems and restrict who gets it. We have acted like absolute twats.
As with America under Biden there is a way to rebuild after disastrous clown government so we will rebuild international relations. That could be done fairly soon if the Tories tempt shagger away with a Lecture / Totty tour and install someone serious into the top job. Sunak or perhaps Hunt can undo the stupid and the world will like a less twatty arrogant Britain again.
I believe Johnson now owns the Conservative Party. So any replacement is Johnsonian. If he goes sooner, the PM is possibly Sunak, but if it is later, it is Patel...and the circus goes on.
Adam Brooks @EssexPR · 2h Many businesses are back on full rent, but still at reduced capacities, their bounce back loan payments have now started. Many in Hospitality sold tickets to events after June 21st, many have stocked up and staffed for it.
The one thing that will torpedo this Government below the waterline is economic collapse.
We need huge numbers of businesses to go to the wall through this. Mass unemployment. The money markets to see that Britain's a turkey and stop lending Sunak the money.
National bankruptcy and a trip to the Gnomes of Zurich, holding out the begging bowl. It's the only way we're ever getting out of this.
Bring it on.
That's nuts. Even if you think a delay is overcautious, it doesn't mean there's no end in sight. We're are almost at herd immunity.
IT DOESN'T FUCKING WELL MATTER ANYMORE
They're not interested in "herd immunity". In their minds it doesn't even exist. They keep wibbling on about "the vaccines not offering 100% protection." They want Zero Covid. They want Zero Death.
No level of vaccination will ever be good enough. There'll always be an excuse for more restrictions. There'll always be an excuse for more delay.
Lockdown only ends with the destruction of this Government. And I can't see how that happens any other way but broad scale economic ruin.
Negative equity and 15% interest rates killed off John Major. We may need something worse to shift Johnson. Whatever it takes. We need to get rid of him.
You are sounding unhinged again. I will give you odds of 10/1 on their still being legal domestic restrictions by end of Sept.
Your £1 against my £10.
I know I do. And I really, REALLY hope I'm wrong. I'd love to be proven totally wrong. I'd delight in it. There would be an explosion of relief and joy from this general direction if the first delay also turns out to be the last.
But you do understand why I don't trust Boris Johnson - surely you must?
God yes. The bloke's an utter charlatan. If it worked for him politically he'd reimpose hard lockdown and keep it there for years. I just think you're misreading the situation. A short pause in the roadmap is one thing. A tortured and prolonged twilight to the pandemic is quite another. He won't be doing what you fear. It won't play out like that. I absolutely promise you and that's not something I do lightly. If you won't take my bet, take my promise.
It is obvious that his instincts are very strongly against lockdown, and that if he is forced into lockdown extensions it will be out of necessity. This site is collectively singing from a hymn sheet which says "Are we nearly there, daddy?" and then "But daddy, you PROMISED we were nearly there" and refuses to recognize the exigencies of life. The Tory Party did not invent the virus and has next to no control over how it behaves. Especially not once lockdown has been removed from its toolkit by pb fiat.
Adam Brooks @EssexPR · 2h Many businesses are back on full rent, but still at reduced capacities, their bounce back loan payments have now started. Many in Hospitality sold tickets to events after June 21st, many have stocked up and staffed for it.
The one thing that will torpedo this Government below the waterline is economic collapse.
We need huge numbers of businesses to go to the wall through this. Mass unemployment. The money markets to see that Britain's a turkey and stop lending Sunak the money.
National bankruptcy and a trip to the Gnomes of Zurich, holding out the begging bowl. It's the only way we're ever getting out of this.
Bring it on.
That's nuts. Even if you think a delay is overcautious, it doesn't mean there's no end in sight. We're are almost at herd immunity.
IT DOESN'T FUCKING WELL MATTER ANYMORE
They're not interested in "herd immunity". In their minds it doesn't even exist. They keep wibbling on about "the vaccines not offering 100% protection." They want Zero Covid. They want Zero Death.
No level of vaccination will ever be good enough. There'll always be an excuse for more restrictions. There'll always be an excuse for more delay.
Lockdown only ends with the destruction of this Government. And I can't see how that happens any other way but broad scale economic ruin.
Negative equity and 15% interest rates killed off John Major. We may need something worse to shift Johnson. Whatever it takes. We need to get rid of him.
You are sounding unhinged again. I will give you odds of 10/1 on their still being legal domestic restrictions by end of Sept.
Your £1 against my £10.
I know I do. And I really, REALLY hope I'm wrong. I'd love to be proven totally wrong. I'd delight in it. There would be an explosion of relief and joy from this general direction if the first delay also turns out to be the last.
But you do understand why I don't trust Boris Johnson - surely you must?
God yes. The bloke's an utter charlatan. If it worked for him politically he'd reimpose hard lockdown and keep it there for years. I just think you're misreading the situation. A short pause in the roadmap is one thing. A tortured and prolonged twilight to the pandemic is quite another. He won't be doing what you fear. It won't play out like that. I absolutely promise you and that's not something I do lightly. If you won't take my bet, take my promise.
It is obvious that his instincts are very strongly against lockdown, and that if he is forced into lockdown extensions it will be out of necessity. This site is collectively singing from a hymn sheet which says "Are we nearly there, daddy?" and then "But daddy, you PROMISED we were nearly there" and refuses to recognize the exigencies of life. The Tory Party did not invent the virus and has next to no control over how it behaves. Especially not once lockdown has been removed from its toolkit by pb fiat.
They had control over travel restrictions with India, which they failed to exercise.
Imagine if the poll was carried out in the UK. A lot more antipathy I expect against countries due to lingering Brexit jingoistic sentiment, except against Bulgaria, who will be popular on account of his work on Wimbledon common.
I doubt that. In most cases I suspect the figures will be broadly similar. Be quite interesting to see.
Science guy on R4 saying that it looks like this delta variant is more transmissible in children and YAs.
Experience with past variants is that they always look more transmissible at first, and that the vaccines seem less effective, but as the data gets updated week after week it becomes more modest.
Yes, and I think that is fairly obviously caused by the environment where the variant is first detected. In the case of the delta variant, for example, this was in a section of the community with an unusual number of both multigenerational families and a lower than average level of vaccinations. Ideal conditions for rapid growth. As the variant spreads out into the more general community the recorded transmissibility falls back towards the mean. No doubt the virus is seeking to improve transmissibility but so far it seems incremental.
Dealing with the virus isn’t really a competition but many of us pointed out that the UK’s vaccine rollout was much better than others. The assumption was we’d get out of lockdown ahead of them. But the delay in restricting travel from India means that this now won’t happen. https://twitter.com/DavidGauke/status/1403617838972248065
Comments
I note what black rook said about they haven’t flagged up bad test data as super spreading events, but the community situation changes by the week, suddenly they do become a spreading event but how many weeks later do we learn this?
Plus the argument should we have delayed wedding parties for cricket parties or done both together or the weddings first, other than indoor outdoor argument?
The government is considering delaying the lifting of England's remaining Covid restrictions by up to four weeks, sources have told the BBC.
What we mean is we read it in the Guardian.
But no, little piddling weddings = lethal, massive gigantic boozed up footy matches = perfectly OK. Because locking the crowds out of the latter would make us look as if we'd lost control of the pandemic (again) at home, and make us look ridiculous abroad.
As I said, all politics, naff all to do with public health.
BBC News - Covid: Is there a limit to how much worse variants can get?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57431420
Foden is an exciting young talent, will be interesting what happens with the game time he does get.
I was watching a televised championship game a few years ago, and thought that bloke right of midfield is having a solid game, who is he? And the bloke turned out to,be a 16yr old kid. Again will be interesting to note what Bellingham does with his game time.
Rice is better than limited.
But even so, what’s wrong with governments doing good politics?
A blessing here, save for the poor sods who croak, because it may get so infectious that it sprays itself around everybody in unavoidable locations like essential workplaces and shops, so everyone gets it and the pandemic (and the wretched lockdowns) finally end with something very close to 100% infection; an utter disaster for poorly protected populations, for obvious reasons.
This is good getting beyond our disappointment of no business as normal at least just yet, to think what now happens say in sub Saharan Africa where about 1% has been jabbed.
I’ve never said stop jabbing and give them all away, just asked, what’s the line? We are now jabbing or close to jabbing our not at great risk, just nice to have to support total freedom day, can we not share with sub Saharan Africa at the same time? Adults there can now die very quickly in huge numbers 😕
Actually be interesting to know how sophisticated they are. We know top EPL teams have astro-physic types crunching their numbers, they have incredible level of data collection plus they buy in from a load of sources.
In comparison Italy only just signed up to get StatsBomb data the other day.
I know Sam Billings said IPL analytics is ahead of anything at international level cricket.
Are you stealing lines from a Sky Original or HBO Rome production?
Funny things though these tournaments. Players who were naff all year in the PL suddenly look like world beaters.
What I do know is Liverpool and Barcelona in particular are miles ahead of everybody else.
Nigeria's death rate per million from Covid is just 10 compared to a global average of 487.5 and in India their death rate per million while a bit higher is also still below the global average at 264.
Covid remains a disease which has hit the interconnected West hardest eg 1,847 deaths per million in the US, 1875 in the UK and 2102 in Italy as well as parts of Latin America like Brazil which has had 2,263 deaths per million because the West has the highest number of over 70s and over 80s and even in Brazil life expectancy is 76.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Africa has been relatively little affected by Covid percentage of population wise, though once the vast majority of UK adults have had both jabs we should still provide some to the developing world
Less international travel - fewer holidaymakers and tourists, and Lagos is not exactly a business hub. Plus, there's not a lot of new oil stuff there at the moment. Result - not a lot of seeding.
And sunshine is a great disenfectant.
Mark Harper
@Mark_J_Harper
Just 48 hours ago, Govt sources briefed The Times that weddings were going to be spared from guest limits after 21 June, giving hope to approx 50,000 couples due to get married in the coming weeks.
The Department for Health is now reported to have killed that idea. So very cruel"
https://twitter.com/Mark_J_Harper/status/1403463098405695496
We use ID checks for lots of other activities, from boarding a plane to picking up a parcel.
In hindsight we will look back to one minute before the Dominic Cummings testimony as the zenith of Conservative performance under Boris Johnson. That's not because Dom's testimony was 'that' important but because it coincided with several other things starting to go wrong for Johnson.
The delay to freedom day is a very grim moment and disastrous for people personally and businesses economically. I was assured this wouldn't happen because that's why we stopped international travel, so it was claimed by some on here.
We have NOT been vaccinating anything like fast enough. Our self-congratulatory hubris is coming back to bite us. We should have been offering 24/7 jabs to Uni students in their towns and we should have been jabbing at 1 million a day.
Then there is the serious trouble looming over the EU and Northern Ireland. There are parts of Brexit which are beginning to unravel. Allied to which, the union is in trouble.
As ever Boris Johnson has taken his eye off the ball. He's great with boundless optimism when everything is going swimmingly. Now we are going to start to see what he is really like: when the pressure is on and things are unravelling.
That the politicians are too dumb and cowardly to understand this is an unfortunate, but not unexpected, issue.
There's been a massive irretrievable data loss.
That is the fucking rabbit hole we are down.
And I remember we leavers were scorned for disregarding “experts” as biased.
Imagine my surprise!
I almost wish I voted Tory so that the promise never to vote for them again carried some consequence.
Nigeria has a young population with nearly half the population under 18, but even so.
P.S. A UK honour for AOC caught my eye, then I realised it was a knighthood for a disgraced Lloyds Banker.
Testing has its place but ultimately the only thing that could've got us out of this was the vaccination program. Now that the Government has effectively written it off as worthless, we are lost. This will only end when the Government does.
A team is not just about stuffing in every "star", it is about cohesion and style of play. A team is more than the sum of its parts. That said, I am not optomistic.
Sadly, there appears to be no parliamentary opposition. SKS is looking like a chicken scratching in the dirt, LDs are concentrating on NIMBYism, and the SNP are running round saying “it was only resting in my account.”
We are goosed.
iswas freedom day supposed to bring? In so far as I can tell for me personally it means being compelled to restart a 4hr commute. Not a huge amount of freedom. Couldn’t give a stuff about wearing a mask.A Statement of Truth from the Chief Constable with the couple of text messages deleted when his phone reset to factory settings should suffice - XR lawyers seem to be wanting the Court to make a rather bizarre assumption. *If* the reset cannot be shown be suspicious, and if indeed they cannot be recovered.
Secondly, Scottish secession kills the UK and leaves the NI Unionists with no Union to belong to. Their geographical and cultural links are with Scotland; there'll be no appetite at all in England to hang on to the province. So, it can be cut off through a variety of means: retention of formal sovereignty, whilst allowing the territory to pass into the care of the European Commission in practice; through Irish reunification; independence for NI; or floating it off as a crown dependency like a kind of giant Isle of Man. The principle point of friction between London and the EU is thus immediately resolved, opening the door to better relations and dispensing with ridiculous threats of sausage trade wars.
Thirdly, if (as much polling in the past suggests) Tory politicians and their membership are truly committed to the Union, its destruction will hurt them. Really hurt them. That's good. They deserve it.
Finally, Boris Johnson goes down as the Prime Minister who destroyed the UK - a destructive, useless, ignominious fool. He deserves that.
The big problem is that Johnson won't advance a Section 30 order so long as he is Prime Minister, and the legal referendum that could, with a Yes vote, be harnessed as an instrument to destroy him cannot be held without one. How to get around this...?
Almost made me nostalgic.
But then, given that all they want to do is buy Russian gas and sell their kit to China without having to worry about "values", maybe not.
It’s an important aspect to the politics of freedom day, that for many, Freedom day is anything but freedom.
Also I walk past Osborne Road every day and it never fails to make me think “George Osborne. What a gobshite.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/23/jury-acquits-extinction-rebellion-protesters-despite-no-defence-in-law
Of course, there's no reason why we couldn't have got rid of masks and social distancing in most circumstances, whilst leaving evil masks on trains and the WFH instruction in place. I think that's the end point that most of us were expecting. But no, it's all going to drag on and on for years now.
All down to Boris Johnson. All his fault.
I think this is driving their hesitancy. A lot of people out there with one shot in the arm, many of whom (not me) now think they are immune as the 2nd dose is "just a booster".
The solution of course was to vaccinate faster as various people have been pointing out when looking at dropping daily jab rates.
And once again this was avoidable. Not letting in dangerous new strains was the whole purpose in closing borders and having travel restrictions. We still have the latter but liar opted not to red list India despite Delta tearing it up and being told firmly to do so. Because he had to look the Big man and get a trade deal (which they weren't going to offer in a way he could accept but never mind).
Why can't we unlock? Because Boris Johnson is Prime Minister. Suck it up people, you voted for it, remember?
I had to literally put fingers in my ears. He must have turned it up to 120dB.
https://www.dw.com/en/eu-launches-infringement-proceedings-against-germany-for-bond-buying-challenge/a-57826186
That will be noticed should it proceed. AIUI for Germany that is like going for the Queen.
The people of this country must all have been mass murderers in a previous life. Either that or Covid was more lethal than we all realised, we all died of it in March 2020, and we are now in some twisted kind of Hell where lockdown (and the rule of Boris) goes on for eternity.
It does seem to be at least partly a cultural and values fit.
Literally my fifth time in a year and I get that as a gift. 🙄
I've no idea.
It just sounds like a wet jury to me.
They are a deeply pragmatic people, who understand why we left at some level; just look at how low their anti figures are.
The low ally figures are because they don't think we know or care about them, which is probably true.
We would be less locked down
The vax program would have been behind
https://www.1215.org/lawnotes/lawnotes/penntrial.htm
But it wouldn't surprise me if this XR case collapses because of government incompetence at disclosure.
Maybe they need some sort of indemnification as, whilst to me they have likely done the best they can with the info they had, to a lot of people they will be criminals and the media will be all over them after an inquiry....
If your finger is on the button and you know that if you press it at the wrong time you are going to be scapegoated then you are going to be extra careful about when you press it.
Everyone looking for people to blame can’t help make decision making neutral.
As with America under Biden there is a way to rebuild after disastrous clown government so we will rebuild international relations. That could be done fairly soon if the Tories tempt shagger away with a Lecture / Totty tour and install someone serious into the top job. Sunak or perhaps Hunt can undo the stupid and the world will like a less twatty arrogant Britain again.
They aren't incentivised to take risks, they have a secure job whilst it lasts but, if they get it wrong, the blowback on them personally could be immense.
So, they'll tend to be very conservative.
*sooner or later the opposition will regenerate, but no sign of that at present.
https://twitter.com/DavidGauke/status/1403617838972248065
Will the Prime Minister ever learn not to govern by wishful thinking alone? That six week delay in closing borders with India is exactly why we cannot unlock fully now. This is on him. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/11/covid-cases-in-england-rising-at-fastest-rate-since-winter-wave?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other