That article is one of the scariest things I have read in a long time. The capital flight from Scotland if this looks close to coming to pass would be irreparable. Our tax base could seriously collapse and the implied threat of stealing pensions to bank this madness will result in not only the money but many people leaving the country.
O/t, of course, but glad to see you back Mr L. I've only just looked back in today....... gym and a bit of shopping ..... so don't know if you're still in hospital, back at home & resting or back to normality. Hope it's the latter, and best wishes.
Back home and resting OKC. Thanks for the good wishes. I was genuinely lifted by the concern and interest shown on this site when things were difficult. Communities take lots of different forms these days but this is one of the better ones.
Just hard nosed punters worried about losing the insight into scots law issues
Just had a message to say that Javid says that the camera which caught Hancock has been disabled. Wonder why he's bothered!
Hmm. My understanding was that - after initial speculation that the camera which had caught Hancock was some hi-spec spy kit, it turned out to be the actual security camera installed years ago for reasons of security. It wasn't even particularly unobtrusive. It's been doing a dull job without incident for years until this brouhaha. If you accept the need for security cameras per se in government buildings - which I suppose I do, without giving it too much thought - it's presence as a functioning piece of kit seems uncontroversial. Just find other places for your illicit clinches. Also just found out that Matt Hancock is a) younger than me (this is depressing - but maybe I no longer look like the 33 year old that remains resolutely my mental picture of myself, even after a year of zoom calls and autobarbery), b) from Cheshire (hooray! or, maybe boo! - hooray for Cheshire, at any rate) and c) was in the year below my brother-in-law at school. I wonder if he knew him? He's never said up until now.
Journalists needs to ask Leadbetter and Starmer about that leaflet. By producing such a horror leaflet, Labour certainly can't claim any sort of moral high ground over Galloway or the Tories now.
Revealed: I understand Nissan will confirm as soon as this week details of its EV strategy for the UK, including the construction of a battery gigafactory in Sunderland - paving the way for thousands of the Japanese company's electric cars to be built in Britain every year. https://twitter.com/MarkKleinmanSky/status/1409455006600814596
Are Nissan Renault planning to spend any money investing in their drivetrain? A gigafactory in Sunderland only works if they have an EV to sell that doesn't have decade old technology like the Leaf. Even the Ariya has a claimed 3.5 miles / kWh which in reality will be closer to 3 miles - what is it with new EVs being released with such awful efficiency?
They have a choice - adapt or die. Nearly all the worlds car makers have finally made that choice...
No no, they didn;t adapt, they led. The Leaf was a mould-breaking car when it came out in 2011, as to a lesser extent was the Zoe. Its just that they're still making the same car, and it looks like the new one uses the same very old school tech that has been left behind by others.
People focus on range, and in doing so miss efficiency. We don't talk about fossil cars that way - its how much fuel do they burn not how big is the fuel talk. Should be the same for EVs, where some of the companies finally adapting to EVs are bringing in chronically poor inefficient supply chains. VW's build quality and efficiency is so poor with the ID3/4 its almost as if they want their EVs to fail.
You are right on efficiency. Demand level will be important in determining just how much electricity has to be generated, and so how many windfarms etc have to be built.
Currrently my panels do about 15-18k Tesla km of electricity per year; it would be very nice if all the electric cars were 3x as efficient as a Tesla-Tonka.
My take on doorstep run-ins was always to remember the need to get on and talk to the next person. Almost everyone has an opinion that is honestly gained no matter how mad it may be. You aren't going to win people over by telling them they should stop being lied to by the Daily Mail (as one example). if you run into an open racist like Claire Short in your example then note them off as against on the sheet and move on.
Yes, I agree, really. I had quite a sweet-natured encounter with one chap who said apologetically that he was going to vote Tory because he only had time to read the Mail, and if what they said about Labour was true then he was against it. He realised they were biased and it might not be true, but didn't have time to get a spread of views, he hoped I'd understand. I said "Fair enough, thank you for appreciating that there's more than one view" and, as you say, moved on.
Does this mean all the 'isn't Galloway awful' pearl clutchers will have to get off the outrage bus?
Galloway is awful. If he wasn't involved, trying to stoke exactly these sorts of divisions, Labour would have had the vote he's targeting sewn up and wouldn't have to resort to these sorts of tactics.
Anyway, Labour stooping to his level doesn't make Galloway any less awful.
Does rather make Labour look desperate. Galloway is clearly winning a lot more votes from them than suggested...
That article is one of the scariest things I have read in a long time. The capital flight from Scotland if this looks close to coming to pass would be irreparable. Our tax base could seriously collapse and the implied threat of stealing pensions to bank this madness will result in not only the money but many people leaving the country.
Leaving aside all the rest, I can see this one positively driving existing businesses away:
- A binding commitment on overseas companies under which they are obliged to offer first refusal to a management/worker takeover of a business in the event of the overseas owners deciding to close down production in Scotland. The commitment should also include a transfer or sharing of “intellectual property” (IP) such as product brands and patents.
The inevitable outcome if Scotland votes for independence will be slashed public spending in order to deal with the deficit. Tax rises would be suicidal as everyone significantly affected (high value individuals and business-owners) would simply hop over the border into the welcoming arms of rUK. This sort of madness, quoted above, would only accelerate the capital flight which would take place between the vote and actual independence.
(And, borrowing, of course, would hardly be an option.)
The Yes folk are really in a bind as IndyRef is impossible to win without persuading folk they will be better off. And its quite clear that the obvious would be the case, certainly for anyone dependent on the state to maintain their standard of living.
If I were Javid I wait until I'd had more than ten minutes briefing before giving such hostages to fortune.
Quite. Some are cynical about the use of data, but if it is data to drive things you cannot be so categorical.
This is a genuine chance to tell it like it is and reset expectations. Javid should say, yes we are having a 3rd wave but it is not causing the problems 1 and 2 did because of vaccination which has broken the link between infection and death. Yes the number of hospital admissions are increasing but from a miniscule base to merely tiny. The NHS is not at risk and that has always been the test. Yes, we are not going to eliminate Covid and we will still have deaths attributed to it. The risks do not, however, justify either lockdown or restrictions. So be careful out there, be sensible, but this is advice. The law is retreating from this space.
Does anyone know how the logistics of Priti's Rwandan Gulag are going to work? Are the demandeurs d'asile getting plucked off the beach Dungeness, put on a bus to Stansted and then a charter flight to Kigali?
If traffic is bad on the M20 there may be time for a legal appeal.
Like most of their proposals it won't go further than the initial headlines.
Do you reckon they would swap them for one of the islands? Then we could all go on holiday there without the Merkel/Macron axis stopping us.
My local Tesco store that's just been built is now advertising "free" charging for Volkswagen vehicles with its chargers. That seems like an interesting partnership, though I've no idea how long it would last as "free".
EU Commission on summer hols: 'The situation that applies to the UK at present is travellers who are fully vaccinated...should be allowed by Member States to arrive into the EU. This is something under constant review. We expect Member States to apply this recommendation fully.'....
....EU27 experts are meeting today to discuss whether to trigger an 'emergency brake' mechanism in the bloc's travel rules and designate the UK as 'variant area of concern'. That would allow Member States to temporarily suspend almost all inbound travel from Britain into the EU.
Emily Maitlis breached new BBC Twitter guidelines with 'clearly controversial' retweet of Piers Morgan-"If failing to quarantine properly is punishable by 10yrs in prison, what is the punishment for failing to properly protect the country from a pandemic?” https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/ecu/emily-maitlis-twitter-account-february-2021
Not really worth being on Twitter if you work at the BBC if you're going to end up in a four month internal investigation for this retweet. (This is one of first sanctions under new BBC social media rules, brought in after government kept getting angry at BBC Twitter accounts.) https://twitter.com/jimwaterson/status/1409450098292105217
BiB - seems sensible to me. Working at the BBC is a huge privilege, I doesn't seem like a huge sacrifice to have to be very careful about what you do on social media.
It’s been said so many times, but the whole lot of them need to get off Twitter and out into the real world. If the BBC can lead by example, then all the better.
Journalists needs to ask Leadbetter and Starmer about that leaflet. By producing such a horror leaflet, Labour certainly can't claim any sort of moral high ground over Galloway or the Tories now.
Indeed. Labour voters constantly use the moral high ground schtick to do down others - if they don’t denounce this leaflet (assuming it’s real) that line, their only line, of attack is done
This is where the multicultural experiment leads - English political parties playing Muslims, Hindus and Jews off each other. Feudalism as per pre Partioned India
People focus on range, and in doing so miss efficiency. We don't talk about fossil cars that way - its how much fuel do they burn not how big is the fuel talk. Should be the same for EVs, where some of the companies finally adapting to EVs are bringing in chronically poor inefficient supply chains. VW's build quality and efficiency is so poor with the ID3/4 its almost as if they want their EVs to fail.
Hyundai EVs are right up there with Tesla on efficiency and way better on build quality. If I just wanted transport that's what I'd get.
In other VW news I recently bought a 20,000km 4.0 WR8 engine from a B5 Passat. WHY?
OT but thouroughly enjoying Mick Herron's Slough House series about a bunch of MI5 rejects consigned to dead end jobs in a dingy office so they quit rather than go through the faff of firing them. Some wickedly drawn pen portraits of a female PM "who is the only person in the country who doesn't know she's temporary" and an ambitious politician who has the most tenuous of relationships with either the truth or fidelity. The operation is led by a corpulent, flatulent, alcoholic (to be played by Gary Oldman in the Apple TV series) who has the most glorious line in un-PC offensiveness....
I've read the series too, very good plot lines but the stand out moments are the "laugh-out-loud" ones, invariably from the mouth of Jackson Lamb (the character to be played by Gary Oldman)
Journalists needs to ask Leadbetter and Starmer about that leaflet. By producing such a horror leaflet, Labour certainly can't claim any sort of moral high ground over Galloway or the Tories now.
I think the Hindu vote for Labour is now going to go away. How dumb and just shitty can they be at this?
That article is one of the scariest things I have read in a long time. The capital flight from Scotland if this looks close to coming to pass would be irreparable. Our tax base could seriously collapse and the implied threat of stealing pensions to bank this madness will result in not only the money but many people leaving the country.
Leaving aside all the rest, I can see this one positively driving existing businesses away:
- A binding commitment on overseas companies under which they are obliged to offer first refusal to a management/worker takeover of a business in the event of the overseas owners deciding to close down production in Scotland. The commitment should also include a transfer or sharing of “intellectual property” (IP) such as product brands and patents.
The inevitable outcome if Scotland votes for independence will be slashed public spending in order to deal with the deficit. Tax rises would be suicidal as everyone significantly affected (high value individuals and business-owners) would simply hop over the border into the welcoming arms of rUK. This sort of madness, quoted above, would only accelerate the capital flight which would take place between the vote and actual independence.
(And, borrowing, of course, would hardly be an option.)
The Yes folk are really in a bind as IndyRef is impossible to win without persuading folk they will be better off. And its quite clear that the obvious would be the case, certainly for anyone dependent on the state to maintain their standard of living.
Quite a conundrum.
From my canvassing for BT, which was pretty extensive, I have no doubt at all that the biggest single issue resulting in the no vote was fear about what would happen to peoples' pensions. When you see the outriders of the Scottish government explaining that it will be the duty of pension fund managers to work constructively with the independent Scottish government to fund this brave new future I think that the independence referendum becomes unwinnable for yes. Its really not hard to sell the idea that these people want to steal your pension to fund their fantasy.
But this doesn't mean that having a government obsessed with independence, difference and making political points instead of running the country can't do a lot of damage anyway. They did in 2014 and they will again.
Does this mean all the 'isn't Galloway awful' pearl clutchers will have to get off the outrage bus?
Galloway is awful. If he wasn't involved, trying to stoke exactly these sorts of divisions, Labour would have had the vote he's targeting sewn up and wouldn't have to resort to these sorts of tactics.
Anyway, Labour stooping to his level doesn't make Galloway any less awful.
Does rather make Labour look desperate. Galloway is clearly winning a lot more votes from them than suggested...
I'm sure they're desperate. Galloway isn't trying to win; he's trying to make Labour lose by splitting their vote. And threatening to do the same thing in ~50 seats at the next GE, meaning Labour can't ever win again unless they buy him off somehow.
Whether he wants power for its own sake, or if he's trying to force Labour leftwards (or somethingwards, I don't know his agenda qualifies as left wing exactly), I have no idea, but the implied threat here is potentially existential.
Journalists needs to ask Leadbetter and Starmer about that leaflet. By producing such a horror leaflet, Labour certainly can't claim any sort of moral high ground over Galloway or the Tories now.
I think the Hindu vote for Labour is now going to go away. How dumb and just shitty can they be at this?
There's less Hindus than there are Muslims in the UK. Labour have always played the numbers game when it comes to winning migrant votes.
Scotrail might do better to concentrate on providing a good rail service instead of showing off their virtue and looking ignorant and discriminatory to boot.
EU Commission announces adoption of data adequacy re UK. Decisions include an unprecedented four-year 'sunset clause' and come into force today. Spokes: 'Personal data can now flow freely from the EU to the UK where it benefits from an essentially equivalent level of protection.'
Journalists needs to ask Leadbetter and Starmer about that leaflet. By producing such a horror leaflet, Labour certainly can't claim any sort of moral high ground over Galloway or the Tories now.
I think the Hindu vote for Labour is now going to go away. How dumb and just shitty can they be at this?
There's less Hindus than there are Muslims in the UK. Labour have always played the numbers game when it comes to winning migrant votes.
There are but deliberately, or stupidly, driving them away actually into the arms of the other party of government is insane. Worse than Thornberry and her flag tweet. It is becoming the kamikaze party.
If I were Javid I wait until I'd had more than ten minutes briefing before giving such hostages to fortune.
Quite. Some are cynical about the use of data, but if it is data to drive things you cannot be so categorical.
This is a genuine chance to tell it like it is and reset expectations. Javid should say, yes we are having a 3rd wave but it is not causing the problems 1 and 2 did because of vaccination which has broken the link between infection and death. Yes the number of hospital admissions are increasing but from a miniscule base to merely tiny. The NHS is not at risk and that has always been the test. Yes, we are not going to eliminate Covid and we will still have deaths attributed to it. The risks do not, however, justify either lockdown or restrictions. So be careful out there, be sensible, but this is advice. The law is retreating from this space.
The cleverest person in the room will be calling you moronic.
OT but thouroughly enjoying Mick Herron's Slough House series about a bunch of MI5 rejects consigned to dead end jobs in a dingy office so they quit rather than go through the faff of firing them. Some wickedly drawn pen portraits of a female PM "who is the only person in the country who doesn't know she's temporary" and an ambitious politician who has the most tenuous of relationships with either the truth or fidelity. The operation is led by a corpulent, flatulent, alcoholic (to be played by Gary Oldman in the Apple TV series) who has the most glorious line in un-PC offensiveness....
I've read the series too, very good plot lines but the stand out moments are the "laugh-out-loud" ones, invariably from the mouth of Jackson Lamb (the character to be played by Gary Oldman)
Two classics - both to Roddy Ho the British ethnically Chinese computer geek:
Lamb: Better get a move on then - chop chop! Ho - OK Lamb: Oh, I hope you didn't think I was being culturally insensitive using that term? Ho: - No problem Lamb: "It's just some of you Chinkies are so touchy".
And again to Ho, talking about a black colleague:
Lamb: "I just hope he doesn't do anything illegal, he's, well, you know... Ho: "Black" Lamb: "From the East End! Why are you immigrants so racist?" Ho: But......
If I were Javid I wait until I'd had more than ten minutes briefing before giving such hostages to fortune.
Quite. Some are cynical about the use of data, but if it is data to drive things you cannot be so categorical.
This is a genuine chance to tell it like it is and reset expectations. Javid should say, yes we are having a 3rd wave but it is not causing the problems 1 and 2 did because of vaccination which has broken the link between infection and death. Yes the number of hospital admissions are increasing but from a miniscule base to merely tiny. The NHS is not at risk and that has always been the test. Yes, we are not going to eliminate Covid and we will still have deaths attributed to it. The risks do not, however, justify either lockdown or restrictions. So be careful out there, be sensible, but this is advice. The law is retreating from this space.
Well said.
And that should be said now, not wait until the 19th.
If I were Javid I wait until I'd had more than ten minutes briefing before giving such hostages to fortune.
Quite. Some are cynical about the use of data, but if it is data to drive things you cannot be so categorical.
This is a genuine chance to tell it like it is and reset expectations. Javid should say, yes we are having a 3rd wave but it is not causing the problems 1 and 2 did because of vaccination which has broken the link between infection and death. Yes the number of hospital admissions are increasing but from a miniscule base to merely tiny. The NHS is not at risk and that has always been the test. Yes, we are not going to eliminate Covid and we will still have deaths attributed to it. The risks do not, however, justify either lockdown or restrictions. So be careful out there, be sensible, but this is advice. The law is retreating from this space.
The cleverest person in the room will be calling you moronic.
Journalists needs to ask Leadbetter and Starmer about that leaflet. By producing such a horror leaflet, Labour certainly can't claim any sort of moral high ground over Galloway or the Tories now.
I think the Hindu vote for Labour is now going to go away. How dumb and just shitty can they be at this?
There's less Hindus than there are Muslims in the UK. Labour have always played the numbers game when it comes to winning migrant votes.
There are but deliberately, or stupidly, driving them away actually into the arms of the other party of government is insane. Worse than Thornberry and her flag tweet. It is becoming the kamikaze party.
They've made their choice - Hindu Indians are white people, basically. Didn't you get the memo?
I make it 5m booster doses of AZ in August, 11m in September and another 12m in October. That covers all 50+ people, anyone under 40 in groups 2, 4 and 6 can get a Pfizer booster jab to avoid any side effects and that's only going to be 3-4m which will be easy to cover.
Hopefully the Saj is on the ball with this and ignores all of the calls to give out jabs to developing countries instead of doing boosters for old people here.
Scotrail might do better to concentrate on providing a good rail service instead of showing off their virtue and looking ignorant and discriminatory to boot.
In what way are ScotRail discriminatory? Do you support the request for a "Straight Pride" train?
My local Tesco store that's just been built is now advertising "free" charging for Volkswagen vehicles with its chargers. That seems like an interesting partnership, though I've no idea how long it would last as "free".
As it says the chargers are VW-sponsored PodPoint units. Anyone with the app and a cable can use them for free.
How long will they remain free? Depends on who is paying the bill - the site or the network? If the site then I can see how free charging is a pull vs no / paid charging at a different supermarket. If the network then not for long!
Fun problem. So many of these 7kW units are let unmaintained and unloved after install. They get vandalised and broken and then its not owned by the site its located on and its not owned by the network logo on the post who just do the billing and it stays broken.
Am starting to seriously wonder whether Hancock can hang on as an MP?
The Tories would just about hand on with the same swing to the Lib Dems as was achieved in Chesham and Amersham, and the LDs are starting from a much lower base here (And 3rd place) so such a swing is less likely. But I don't think more by-elections in southern defenses are wanted for the Tories.
Remember, the Lib Dems have very strong activist groups in Cambridgeshire, Essex and Norfolk. I'd take a punt at say 20/1. Remember, they don't have to win by 8,000. A couple of hundred will do.
EU Commission on summer hols: 'The situation that applies to the UK at present is travellers who are fully vaccinated...should be allowed by Member States to arrive into the EU. This is something under constant review. We expect Member States to apply this recommendation fully.'....
....EU27 experts are meeting today to discuss whether to trigger an 'emergency brake' mechanism in the bloc's travel rules and designate the UK as 'variant area of concern'. That would allow Member States to temporarily suspend almost all inbound travel from Britain into the EU.
Yes, but nobody sensible thinks re-joining is a medium-term option. An alternative reading is that 47% think we should be closer to the EU, and 42% think we shouldn't, with only 22% wanting us to move further out into the Atlantic (assuming that's what "more distant" means).
Bugger us moving further out into the Atlantic. We're going nowhere. If we want more distance then we'll just order Eurasia to shift off into the Pacific a bit more.
People focus on range, and in doing so miss efficiency. We don't talk about fossil cars that way - its how much fuel do they burn not how big is the fuel talk. Should be the same for EVs, where some of the companies finally adapting to EVs are bringing in chronically poor inefficient supply chains. VW's build quality and efficiency is so poor with the ID3/4 its almost as if they want their EVs to fail.
Hyundai EVs are right up there with Tesla on efficiency and way better on build quality. If I just wanted transport that's what I'd get.
In other VW news I recently bought a 20,000km 4.0 WR8 engine from a B5 Passat. WHY?
A friend used to work for a certain auto maker He described the comedy of the teardown of Teslas - the engineers rightfully sneered at some of the mechanicals.
But when it can to the electronics, he was astonished by the attitude - "We don't need to learn anything. It's just a battery and electric motors. Not real stuff like an ICE. We will just buy that from China."
So now not only are they ignoring anti-semitic attacks on their leader and homophobic attacks on their candidate, they're now making anti-hindu attacks of their own. Labour really are squalid.
My local Tesco store that's just been built is now advertising "free" charging for Volkswagen vehicles with its chargers. That seems like an interesting partnership, though I've no idea how long it would last as "free".
As it says the chargers are VW-sponsored PodPoint units. Anyone with the app and a cable can use them for free.
How long will they remain free? Depends on who is paying the bill - the site or the network? If the site then I can see how free charging is a pull vs no / paid charging at a different supermarket. If the network then not for long!
Fun problem. So many of these 7kW units are let unmaintained and unloved after install. They get vandalised and broken and then its not owned by the site its located on and its not owned by the network logo on the post who just do the billing and it stays broken.
The manufacturers really need to get together to sort out the EV infrastructure problem.
SMMT and DfT need to bang heads together to get it working properly, the infrastructure issues are a major barrier to EV adoption. Only Tesla have done it right.
Journalists needs to ask Leadbetter and Starmer about that leaflet. By producing such a horror leaflet, Labour certainly can't claim any sort of moral high ground over Galloway or the Tories now.
I think the Hindu vote for Labour is now going to go away. How dumb and just shitty can they be at this?
There's less Hindus than there are Muslims in the UK. Labour have always played the numbers game when it comes to winning migrant votes.
There are plenty of Hindus in the UK who are decent democratic liberals. They don't support a man who actively backed sectarian violence in Gujurat. Modi is worse than Trump.
People focus on range, and in doing so miss efficiency. We don't talk about fossil cars that way - its how much fuel do they burn not how big is the fuel talk. Should be the same for EVs, where some of the companies finally adapting to EVs are bringing in chronically poor inefficient supply chains. VW's build quality and efficiency is so poor with the ID3/4 its almost as if they want their EVs to fail.
Hyundai EVs are right up there with Tesla on efficiency and way better on build quality. If I just wanted transport that's what I'd get.
In other VW news I recently bought a 20,000km 4.0 WR8 engine from a B5 Passat. WHY?
We have a newly arrived Hyundai Ioniq EV for exactly that reason. Great car, nice to sit in, absurdly efficient. I'm back in (my second) Outlander PHEV and would love someone to produce an EV fullsize SUV that isn't posh twattery or as efficient as a brick dragging another brick.
EU Commission on summer hols: 'The situation that applies to the UK at present is travellers who are fully vaccinated...should be allowed by Member States to arrive into the EU. This is something under constant review. We expect Member States to apply this recommendation fully.'....
....EU27 experts are meeting today to discuss whether to trigger an 'emergency brake' mechanism in the bloc's travel rules and designate the UK as 'variant area of concern'. That would allow Member States to temporarily suspend almost all inbound travel from Britain into the EU.
Good for them! It is important that individual sovereign states can make the same free decisions about their border as we now do...
Considering how far behind us they are in vaccinations it makes perfect sense for them to be wanting to shut out British tourists carrying Delta with them, even as we ought to be lifting lockdown and letting Delta spread because the vaccine will do its job.
Totally O/T, I have been following the claim by Jim Bolger regarding doping in Irish Racing. If you remember Cheltenham this year Irish horses completely domintated and there were some jaw dropping levels of improvement by some horses. eg Flooring Porter in the Stayers Hurdle.
Now since Jim Bolgers statement the form of some of the top yards in Ireland has taken a complete nosedive and their horses are running dreadful.
Look at the Irish Derby at the weekend, the first three home were British trained and the O.Brien favourite finished tailed off.
There is definitely something going on.
Not convinced. For one thing, while Irish horses did clean up at Cheltenham, winners were spread around Ireland and not just the usual Willie/Gordon/Sneezy benefit. I'm not saying Irish racing is clean but that nothing much has changed. There may have been a low level "virus" in the big Irish yards, just as there seemed to be in the big British yards all last season.
EU Commission on summer hols: 'The situation that applies to the UK at present is travellers who are fully vaccinated...should be allowed by Member States to arrive into the EU. This is something under constant review. We expect Member States to apply this recommendation fully.'....
....EU27 experts are meeting today to discuss whether to trigger an 'emergency brake' mechanism in the bloc's travel rules and designate the UK as 'variant area of concern'. That would allow Member States to temporarily suspend almost all inbound travel from Britain into the EU.
Journalists needs to ask Leadbetter and Starmer about that leaflet. By producing such a horror leaflet, Labour certainly can't claim any sort of moral high ground over Galloway or the Tories now.
I think the Hindu vote for Labour is now going to go away. How dumb and just shitty can they be at this?
There's less Hindus than there are Muslims in the UK. Labour have always played the numbers game when it comes to winning migrant votes.
There are but deliberately, or stupidly, driving them away actually into the arms of the other party of government is insane. Worse than Thornberry and her flag tweet. It is becoming the kamikaze party.
They’re counting on it not being noticed. What odds on that leaflet being discussed on BBC or Sky News?
Does this mean all the 'isn't Galloway awful' pearl clutchers will have to get off the outrage bus?
Galloway is awful. If he wasn't involved, trying to stoke exactly these sorts of divisions, Labour would have had the vote he's targeting sewn up and wouldn't have to resort to these sorts of tactics.
Anyway, Labour stooping to his level doesn't make Galloway any less awful.
Does rather make Labour look desperate. Galloway is clearly winning a lot more votes from them than suggested...
I'm sure they're desperate. Galloway isn't trying to win; he's trying to make Labour lose by splitting their vote. And threatening to do the same thing in ~50 seats at the next GE, meaning Labour can't ever win again unless they buy him off somehow.
Whether he wants power for its own sake, or if he's trying to force Labour leftwards (or somethingwards, I don't know his agenda qualifies as left wing exactly), I have no idea, but the implied threat here is potentially existential.
Galloway is an agitator. He has no interest in power, only in making a name for himself making an argument. Championing the oppressed by ensuring they stay oppressed.
Anyone know the relative numbers who enter the UK on little boats, as opposed to coming on a plane as a tourist and then just forgetting to leave? Which seems like a much simpler way in.
The trouble with moving the checks to housing, employment and services is that it inconveniences us, not just them, and I suspect most of us aren't sufficiently bothered about immigration to tolerate that inconvenience.
An exception is rented housing, where the checks are ferocious. A relative in her 60s who was born in Scotland and has lived all her life in Britain (but who hadn't bothered to renew her passport as she doesn't travel) had to struggle for weeks to get an estate agent to accept that she had a right to live in Britain. The agent was apologetic since he could see and hear that she was Scottish, but said he'd lose his job and his company could lose its licence to operate unless they could show they had required absolute proof.
How did she get her rental in the end, please?
Well, she's my wife (we live apart), and I played the "don't be ridiculous, I'm a former MP and we've been married for 20 years and lived in different places across Britain" card - I don't usually use my former job to sound important but in this case it seemed justified. She dug out an expired copy of her passport and the agent surrendered. A coy of her birth certificate would I think have worked too, but would have taken time as the original was long since lost.
An expired passport should be accepted. You do not usually lose your right to live in the UK just because your passport expires.
My experience is that no-one accepts expired passports. I was even refused an IT certification exam because the vendor would not accept an expired passport. The fact that I worked for the company that owned this particular vendor made no difference.
This is one reason I am sensitive to photo ID requirements for voting. Lots of people who do not drive or take foreign holidays will not have photo ID.
Maybe Galloway won't struggle to trouble the main parties when it comes to the vote. In the meantime, he's finding it easy to assemble anti-LGBT groups from outside the constituency, encouraging them to intimidate the Labour candidate.
"A woman confronted the staff at the Wi Spa in Los Angeles after a man walked into the women's section with his genitals hanging out in front of girls. He identified as a "woman." The employees said he had a right to do that. The employees say that it's the law."
Get with the program gender critical women. This is the future. Bearded men explaining what it is to be a woman and what a woman is.
As if we haven't had men telling us that for centuries. And exposing themselves to us as well. And behaving like perverts etc.
Only now we're utterly fed up with it. So we say no to all this bullshit.
Yes, it is awful and if women dare to dissent against this bullshit they get attacked, no platformed, sacked and reviled by a tiny minority. Men who think they know what being a woman is.
I was fully on board with the trans lobby until I read of the cotton ceiling and lesbians being guilt shamed for not welcoming ‘girldick’.
Sorry… have I understood that correctly…
If a man self-identities as a woman, lesbians are supported to sleep with her?
Hmmm… 🤔
People sleep with who they want to if the desire is reciprocal. The biggest single exception is men forcing themselves on women in one way or another. The trans aspect to this is really lost in the margins. It's just that it has a certain prurient fascination.
Guilt shaming lesbians who don’t want to sleep with women who still have their male parts is not acceptable
And yet it is the logical consequence of self-id gender ideology.
No it isn't. Because they never have to sleep with anyone they don't want to. For whatever reason.
They don't. But they are being accused of transphobia and attacked. It is one reason why some lesbian groups have set up away from Stonewall and in opposition to it, precisely because they are worried about the consequences of self-id for lesbians.
This is a real issue for lesbians who feel that the demands of men wishing to transition are taking precedence over the rights of women and lesbians in particular.
I suspect we are largely in agreement here.
If a man wants to dress as a woman that is no problem. If a man want to live as a woman that is no problem. If a man wants to take part in women's sporting events that are restricted to women that is a problem. However he/she wishes to self identify, he/she does not qualify. The weight lifting thing in the Olympics is absurd. If a man wants to make use of "safe spaces" for women such as toilets, prisons, changing rooms there is a conflict of rights but in my view that conflict should be resolved in favour of those born with the sex of a women if they are at risk. That is why those spaces exist.
But no one, ever, is obliged to have sex with anyone else. That is all I was saying.
It is not quite that simple though is it. You meet someone in the bar you are attracted, you wine her and dine her over a couple of weeks then you find out she isn't a women/man depending on your gender.
At what point does it become incumbent on someone to mention it before it becomes deception? You whether he or she may be spending money on someone that you wouldn't have done if you had known up front. This sort of thing is going to crop up and I fully expect lawsuits about it.
Isn't the simplest way to simply employ the Croc Dundee greeting whenever you meet someone new?
Also legally is it even deception?
If a transwoman (biological man) identifies as and is legally a woman, even if they have a penis, then why would they need to say that they have a penis or are biologically a man?
Which is kind of messed up, but legally is there any grounds for it to be considered a deception?
That the girl you've picked up has a penis may be a bit more of a shock than that she has a third nipple or false leg, but is there any law that says it needs to be declared?
That was a woman posing as a man. She was acting fraudulently.
A transwoman is a biological man who is legally a woman. So if she calls herself a woman, the law agrees that she is a woman, so no deception has occurred.
If you disagree with that, surely that's an issue in the law, not the individual committing a crime?
No, the law doesn’t agree. Self ID is not the law yet.
The question was if they're legally a woman, not self-identifying as one.
You can in law now be legally a woman with a penis.
Ludicrous.. and conversely a man without one ?
Indeed. Men do now give birth.
How nice for them.
They might do.in the eyes of the law but most normal people will think.it ludicrous.
Am starting to seriously wonder whether Hancock can hang on as an MP?
The Tories would just about hand on with the same swing to the Lib Dems as was achieved in Chesham and Amersham, and the LDs are starting from a much lower base here (And 3rd place) so such a swing is less likely. But I don't think more by-elections in southern defenses are wanted for the Tories.
Remember, the Lib Dems have very strong activist groups in Cambridgeshire, Essex and Norfolk. I'd take a punt at say 20/1. Remember, they don't have to win by 8,000. A couple of hundred will do.
At an election held next month, a National Health Action Party candidate with active support from the Lib Dems and Greens, and tacit support from Labour could probably beat him. In three years' time... good luck with that.
Scotrail might do better to concentrate on providing a good rail service instead of showing off their virtue and looking ignorant and discriminatory to boot.
In what way are ScotRail discriminatory? Do you support the request for a "Straight Pride" train?
As I said, all this painting is silly. I would no more ask for this than to to go to the moon in a pea green boat. The customer making the request was being silly.
But they have taken a view without informing themselves and adopted a position which others might think discriminatory towards them eg by tweeting about gay and trans people being attacked without also mentioning that straight people have been attacked or threatened, in some cases by the very people Scotrail is praising.
Frankly it would be best if they didn't start mouthing off to customers in this way. It is not the job of a service provider to lecture a customer about politics. A polite "Our trains are for everyone all the time" would have made the point far better.
My local Tesco store that's just been built is now advertising "free" charging for Volkswagen vehicles with its chargers. That seems like an interesting partnership, though I've no idea how long it would last as "free".
As it says the chargers are VW-sponsored PodPoint units. Anyone with the app and a cable can use them for free.
How long will they remain free? Depends on who is paying the bill - the site or the network? If the site then I can see how free charging is a pull vs no / paid charging at a different supermarket. If the network then not for long!
Fun problem. So many of these 7kW units are let unmaintained and unloved after install. They get vandalised and broken and then its not owned by the site its located on and its not owned by the network logo on the post who just do the billing and it stays broken.
The manufacturers really need to get together to sort out the EV infrastructure problem.
SMMT and DfT need to bang heads together to get it working properly, the infrastructure issues are a major barrier to EV adoption. Only Tesla have done it right.
Have Tesla really done it right?
Looking at the map on Tesla's website I'm not seeing that many public superchargers available in the North or Wales.
Does this mean all the 'isn't Galloway awful' pearl clutchers will have to get off the outrage bus?
Galloway is awful. If he wasn't involved, trying to stoke exactly these sorts of divisions, Labour would have had the vote he's targeting sewn up and wouldn't have to resort to these sorts of tactics.
Anyway, Labour stooping to his level doesn't make Galloway any less awful.
Does rather make Labour look desperate. Galloway is clearly winning a lot more votes from them than suggested...
I'm sure they're desperate. Galloway isn't trying to win; he's trying to make Labour lose by splitting their vote. And threatening to do the same thing in ~50 seats at the next GE, meaning Labour can't ever win again unless they buy him off somehow.
Whether he wants power for its own sake, or if he's trying to force Labour leftwards (or somethingwards, I don't know his agenda qualifies as left wing exactly), I have no idea, but the implied threat here is potentially existential.
Galloway is an agitator. He has no interest in power, only in making a name for himself making an argument. Championing the oppressed by ensuring they stay oppressed.
Makes me wonder why he's not still in the Labour Party then?
"A woman confronted the staff at the Wi Spa in Los Angeles after a man walked into the women's section with his genitals hanging out in front of girls. He identified as a "woman." The employees said he had a right to do that. The employees say that it's the law."
Get with the program gender critical women. This is the future. Bearded men explaining what it is to be a woman and what a woman is.
As if we haven't had men telling us that for centuries. And exposing themselves to us as well. And behaving like perverts etc.
Only now we're utterly fed up with it. So we say no to all this bullshit.
Yes, it is awful and if women dare to dissent against this bullshit they get attacked, no platformed, sacked and reviled by a tiny minority. Men who think they know what being a woman is.
I was fully on board with the trans lobby until I read of the cotton ceiling and lesbians being guilt shamed for not welcoming ‘girldick’.
Sorry… have I understood that correctly…
If a man self-identities as a woman, lesbians are supported to sleep with her?
Hmmm… 🤔
People sleep with who they want to if the desire is reciprocal. The biggest single exception is men forcing themselves on women in one way or another. The trans aspect to this is really lost in the margins. It's just that it has a certain prurient fascination.
Guilt shaming lesbians who don’t want to sleep with women who still have their male parts is not acceptable
And yet it is the logical consequence of self-id gender ideology.
No it isn't. Because they never have to sleep with anyone they don't want to. For whatever reason.
They don't. But they are being accused of transphobia and attacked. It is one reason why some lesbian groups have set up away from Stonewall and in opposition to it, precisely because they are worried about the consequences of self-id for lesbians.
This is a real issue for lesbians who feel that the demands of men wishing to transition are taking precedence over the rights of women and lesbians in particular.
I suspect we are largely in agreement here.
If a man wants to dress as a woman that is no problem. If a man want to live as a woman that is no problem. If a man wants to take part in women's sporting events that are restricted to women that is a problem. However he/she wishes to self identify, he/she does not qualify. The weight lifting thing in the Olympics is absurd. If a man wants to make use of "safe spaces" for women such as toilets, prisons, changing rooms there is a conflict of rights but in my view that conflict should be resolved in favour of those born with the sex of a women if they are at risk. That is why those spaces exist.
But no one, ever, is obliged to have sex with anyone else. That is all I was saying.
It is not quite that simple though is it. You meet someone in the bar you are attracted, you wine her and dine her over a couple of weeks then you find out she isn't a women/man depending on your gender.
At what point does it become incumbent on someone to mention it before it becomes deception? You whether he or she may be spending money on someone that you wouldn't have done if you had known up front. This sort of thing is going to crop up and I fully expect lawsuits about it.
Isn't the simplest way to simply employ the Croc Dundee greeting whenever you meet someone new?
Also legally is it even deception?
If a transwoman (biological man) identifies as and is legally a woman, even if they have a penis, then why would they need to say that they have a penis or are biologically a man?
Which is kind of messed up, but legally is there any grounds for it to be considered a deception?
That the girl you've picked up has a penis may be a bit more of a shock than that she has a third nipple or false leg, but is there any law that says it needs to be declared?
That was a woman posing as a man. She was acting fraudulently.
A transwoman is a biological man who is legally a woman. So if she calls herself a woman, the law agrees that she is a woman, so no deception has occurred.
If you disagree with that, surely that's an issue in the law, not the individual committing a crime?
No, the law doesn’t agree. Self ID is not the law yet.
The question was if they're legally a woman, not self-identifying as one.
You can in law now be legally a woman with a penis.
Ludicrous.. and conversely a man without one ?
Indeed. Men do now give birth.
How nice for them.
They might do.in the eyes of the law but most normal people will think.it ludicrous.
I don't know what the precise facts were of the case that sparked this argument. I think in principle, if you say you're a woman, but fail to disclose the fact that you in fact have male genitalia, that could constitute a sexual assault by deception.
The concept of rape or sexual assault by deception is a very old one (The Return of Martin Guerre is a classic case).
Does this mean all the 'isn't Galloway awful' pearl clutchers will have to get off the outrage bus?
Galloway is awful. If he wasn't involved, trying to stoke exactly these sorts of divisions, Labour would have had the vote he's targeting sewn up and wouldn't have to resort to these sorts of tactics.
Anyway, Labour stooping to his level doesn't make Galloway any less awful.
Does rather make Labour look desperate. Galloway is clearly winning a lot more votes from them than suggested...
I'm sure they're desperate. Galloway isn't trying to win; he's trying to make Labour lose by splitting their vote. And threatening to do the same thing in ~50 seats at the next GE, meaning Labour can't ever win again unless they buy him off somehow.
Whether he wants power for its own sake, or if he's trying to force Labour leftwards (or somethingwards, I don't know his agenda qualifies as left wing exactly), I have no idea, but the implied threat here is potentially existential.
Galloway is an agitator. He has no interest in power, only in making a name for himself making an argument. Championing the oppressed by ensuring they stay oppressed.
Probably true. I would add also that there have been repeated allegations that he has profited (some say extensively) along the way, although I am unclear as to whether any of those allegations have ever been proven.
My local Tesco store that's just been built is now advertising "free" charging for Volkswagen vehicles with its chargers. That seems like an interesting partnership, though I've no idea how long it would last as "free".
As it says the chargers are VW-sponsored PodPoint units. Anyone with the app and a cable can use them for free.
How long will they remain free? Depends on who is paying the bill - the site or the network? If the site then I can see how free charging is a pull vs no / paid charging at a different supermarket. If the network then not for long!
Fun problem. So many of these 7kW units are let unmaintained and unloved after install. They get vandalised and broken and then its not owned by the site its located on and its not owned by the network logo on the post who just do the billing and it stays broken.
The manufacturers really need to get together to sort out the EV infrastructure problem.
SMMT and DfT need to bang heads together to get it working properly, the infrastructure issues are a major barrier to EV adoption. Only Tesla have done it right.
We ran a Leaf 2014 - 2017, I'm on my second PHEV and we've now got an Ioniq EV. Once you've had an electric drivetrain you never want to go back to a gearbox.
But - and its a big but - I am not going to rely on a charge network to get me anywhere, because there's no guarantee they will be delivering at the posted speed, available, or working at all. Add in the multiplicity of networks and batshit crazy "run a Roller for less" pricing and its game over.
Seriously looked at a Tesla twice now. The lack of an interior and horror show build quality out me off a 3 even before noting how small the thing is. Then a Polestar 2 until the reviews noted the awful inefficiency. Now waiting to see how the Ioniq 5 pans out.
Youngest's entire lower sixth told to isolate. Why? It seems that they can't take bags or phones into mocks. So they get piled up together outside the exam room. And the NHS app has pinged the absolute lot of them!
It has their imprint on it. Its published by the Labour candidate and their agent on behalf of the party. Both may detest this leaflet which they hadn't seen before the boxes of it get unloaded off the van. Doesn't matter, it is their leaflet which means it is serkeir's leaflet.
In other news a letter from my logistics friends in Zummerzet. They have had to increase driver wages by 12% to try and retain the ones they have left, with agency staff sought for the gaps at rates that are now 50% higher than they were. They warn that a price rise in transport rates of 6 - 10% is inevitable for worse service.
Scotrail might do better to concentrate on providing a good rail service instead of showing off their virtue and looking ignorant and discriminatory to boot.
In what way are ScotRail discriminatory? Do you support the request for a "Straight Pride" train?
As I said, all this painting is silly. I would no more ask for this than to to go to the moon in a pea green boat. The customer making the request was being silly.
But they have taken a view without informing themselves and adopted a position which others might think discriminatory towards them eg by tweeting about gay and trans people being attacked without also mentioning that straight people have been attacked or threatened, in some cases by the very people Scotrail is praising.
Frankly it would be best if they didn't start mouthing off to customers in this way. It is not the job of a service provider to lecture a customer about politics. A polite "Our trains are for everyone all the time" would have made the point far better.
Yes all our trains are for everyone is a great slogan.
However, your conflating straight people being attacked with gay and trans people being attacked is straight out of the "what about male victims of female rape/why don't we have men's month/etc" playbook.
You all of a sudden put yourself in the same (pea green) boat as a bunch of super undesirables.
My local Tesco store that's just been built is now advertising "free" charging for Volkswagen vehicles with its chargers. That seems like an interesting partnership, though I've no idea how long it would last as "free".
As it says the chargers are VW-sponsored PodPoint units. Anyone with the app and a cable can use them for free.
How long will they remain free? Depends on who is paying the bill - the site or the network? If the site then I can see how free charging is a pull vs no / paid charging at a different supermarket. If the network then not for long!
Fun problem. So many of these 7kW units are let unmaintained and unloved after install. They get vandalised and broken and then its not owned by the site its located on and its not owned by the network logo on the post who just do the billing and it stays broken.
The manufacturers really need to get together to sort out the EV infrastructure problem.
SMMT and DfT need to bang heads together to get it working properly, the infrastructure issues are a major barrier to EV adoption. Only Tesla have done it right.
Have Tesla really done it right?
Looking at the map on Tesla's website I'm not seeing that many public superchargers available in the North or Wales.
They’ve done it miles better than anyone else, certainly in terms of catering to the travelling salesman demographic. Lots of chargers on motorways and trunk roads, and many more at hotels and in public car parks. Their in-car system shows availability and waiting times, and the sat nav will plan your journey to the minute including stops, will re-route if chargers become unavailable.
Shame the cars are crap though, despite the good charging network.
As @RochdalePioneers outlines, if you don’t have a Tesla, you’re looking at chargers of variable speed, reliability, serviceability and pricing. One company quickly signed exclusive agreements with most of the motorway service stations, and charges you £60 to fill up your EV.
It has their imprint on it. Its published by the Labour candidate and their agent on behalf of the party. Both may detest this leaflet which they hadn't seen before the boxes of it get unloaded off the van. Doesn't matter, it is their leaflet which means it is serkeir's leaflet.
I wonder what labour say to voters in Ealing Southall...... LOL....
Journalists needs to ask Leadbetter and Starmer about that leaflet. By producing such a horror leaflet, Labour certainly can't claim any sort of moral high ground over Galloway or the Tories now.
I think the Hindu vote for Labour is now going to go away. How dumb and just shitty can they be at this?
There's less Hindus than there are Muslims in the UK. Labour have always played the numbers game when it comes to winning migrant votes.
There are but deliberately, or stupidly, driving them away actually into the arms of the other party of government is insane. Worse than Thornberry and her flag tweet. It is becoming the kamikaze party.
Would be fun to know if this Labour leaflet went to the whole constituency or was firectly targetted at the 20% flagged in the header.
As with Zac Goldsmith's same-thing-in-reverse leaflet in 2016 it will only have gone out to the target voters. Or more realistically to the area where the target voters largely live. Unless they have £ left to post them they will have had to get activists to post them. Imagine sticking that through the wrong letter box
Scotrail might do better to concentrate on providing a good rail service instead of showing off their virtue and looking ignorant and discriminatory to boot.
In what way are ScotRail discriminatory? Do you support the request for a "Straight Pride" train?
As I said, all this painting is silly. I would no more ask for this than to to go to the moon in a pea green boat. The customer making the request was being silly.
But they have taken a view without informing themselves and adopted a position which others might think discriminatory towards them eg by tweeting about gay and trans people being attacked without also mentioning that straight people have been attacked or threatened, in some cases by the very people Scotrail is praising.
Frankly it would be best if they didn't start mouthing off to customers in this way. It is not the job of a service provider to lecture a customer about politics. A polite "Our trains are for everyone all the time" would have made the point far better.
Totally O/T, I have been following the claim by Jim Bolger regarding doping in Irish Racing. If you remember Cheltenham this year Irish horses completely domintated and there were some jaw dropping levels of improvement by some horses. eg Flooring Porter in the Stayers Hurdle.
Now since Jim Bolgers statement the form of some of the top yards in Ireland has taken a complete nosedive and their horses are running dreadful.
Look at the Irish Derby at the weekend, the first three home were British trained and the O.Brien favourite finished tailed off.
There is definitely something going on.
Not convinced. For one thing, while Irish horses did clean up at Cheltenham, winners were spread around Ireland and not just the usual Willie/Gordon/Sneezy benefit. I'm not saying Irish racing is clean but that nothing much has changed. There may have been a low level "virus" in the big Irish yards, just as there seemed to be in the big British yards all last season.
If you look at the Irish Derby there were 11 runners, Aiden O Briens horses finished 7th, 8th, 10th & 11th, 9th place was filled by his son's Donnacha's horse.
There may be nothing to it and some Irish horses are running well, but many are running absolutely terribly.
Picking yourself in an all time greats line-up has an air of Geoffrey Boycott about it.
But if you are an all time great?
I recall some weird PSHE thing we had to do at school which was around friendship, and as well as an exercise involving ranking your friends in a concentric circle arrangement with yourself in the middle (guaranteed to cause arguments) there was something like a questionnaire to determine how good a friend you were, one of which was whether you thought you were better at, say, football, than your mates. Which some people honestly replied yes, which was not a good friend response apparently (I was not one who answered yes).
I cannot for the life of me remember what we were supposed to take away from it all, it was bizarre.
Yes, same here. But they know even less about the science and ethical concerns than I do. Peer pressure can't trump what is lowest risk approach for them. There will be arguments in households up and down the land over this.
I posted about this a couple of months ago. I have a 15 year old and a 17 year old, my default position is that I would not encourage them to be vaccinated until they are 18 and can make their own decision. But what if they demand to be vaccinated - do I refuse consent?
I hesitate to advise on someone else's family decisions, but I think at 15-17 with a potentially very serious illness around, it's reasonable to let them have the vaccination if they want to.
I would agree; I did in fact get my 17-year-old vaccinated (fell under Group 6 as he's severely autistic - which probably doesn't increase his risk of hospitalisation, but does increase it to his risk of exposure).
Chance of a 15-year-old being hospitalised: 2000 per million (female); 6000 per million(male) against original covid (Delta is reportedly twice as likely to hospitalise you, so double those). For a 17-year-old: 4000 per million (female); 6000 per million (male). Chance of myocarditis following covid for a young, healthy college-age athlete (which doesn't necessarily hospitalise you): Estimated between 10,000 per million and 30,000 per million.
Estimated chance of myocarditis following Pfizer vaccine: 16 per million. (NB - once again, this doesn't necessarily hospitalise you).
That's not taking into account Long Covid (and that a significant proportion of those hospitalised for covid will have long-term organ damage).
Everyone should make their own decision, but those are the best figures we've got at the moment. Given that Delta is so transmissible, I'm personally working on the default assumption that everyone will see the virus sooner or later. And, for me, as 16 is far lower than 10,000-30,000 (for direct comparability) and even far lower than 2,000-6,000 (or 4,000-12,000 if the hospitalisation risk is indeed doubled for Delta) to compare something less severe with full-on hospitalisation, that's what directs my decision.
(And for adverse effects that are far less - such as feeling rotten for 1-2 days (about 10% after vaccine); I think that should be compared with the chance of at least feeling really rotten for 2-3 weeks (about 60% after virus).
I do understand that others don't necessarily view things the same way.
Why the heck would you make Hezza Chancellor rather than Clarke? That's not a post he ever held, whereas Clarke did and did it well.
I suspect he likes what 'Hezza' has said in the last few years more than Clarke, even though the latter was hardly on board with things, so his merits are magnified in his mind.
It has their imprint on it. Its published by the Labour candidate and their agent on behalf of the party. Both may detest this leaflet which they hadn't seen before the boxes of it get unloaded off the van. Doesn't matter, it is their leaflet which means it is serkeir's leaflet.
Jesus wept, what the f*ck is Labour doing? Anyone with any common sense politically will know that the Tories will run with this when it comes to the GE in constituencies that have a large Indian-Hindu population like the Leicester and Harrow seats.
What it does tell me though is that Labour - and SKS in particular - is desperate to keep the seat. It also suggests that things are not going 100% well despite the ground reports.
Are they really? Silly if so - often people are sacked but everyone pretends they chose to resign, but the initial word on this one was it was indeed a resignation, and his letter was in that manner, you cannot revisit it.
Journalists needs to ask Leadbetter and Starmer about that leaflet. By producing such a horror leaflet, Labour certainly can't claim any sort of moral high ground over Galloway or the Tories now.
I think the Hindu vote for Labour is now going to go away. How dumb and just shitty can they be at this?
There's less Hindus than there are Muslims in the UK. Labour have always played the numbers game when it comes to winning migrant votes.
There are but deliberately, or stupidly, driving them away actually into the arms of the other party of government is insane. Worse than Thornberry and her flag tweet. It is becoming the kamikaze party.
Yes, same here. But they know even less about the science and ethical concerns than I do. Peer pressure can't trump what is lowest risk approach for them. There will be arguments in households up and down the land over this.
I posted about this a couple of months ago. I have a 15 year old and a 17 year old, my default position is that I would not encourage them to be vaccinated until they are 18 and can make their own decision. But what if they demand to be vaccinated - do I refuse consent?
I hesitate to advise on someone else's family decisions, but I think at 15-17 with a potentially very serious illness around, it's reasonable to let them have the vaccination if they want to.
I would agree; I did in fact get my 17-year-old vaccinated (fell under Group 6 as he's severely autistic - which probably doesn't increase his risk of hospitalisation, but does increase it to his risk of exposure).
Chance of a 15-year-old being hospitalised: 2000 per million (female); 6000 per million(male) against original covid (Delta is reportedly twice as likely to hospitalise you, so double those). For a 17-year-old: 4000 per million (female); 6000 per million (male). Chance of myocarditis following covid for a young, healthy college-age athlete (which doesn't necessarily hospitalise you): Estimated between 10,000 per million and 30,000 per million.
Estimated chance of myocarditis following Pfizer vaccine: 16 per million. (NB - once again, this doesn't necessarily hospitalise you).
That's not taking into account Long Covid (and that a significant proportion of those hospitalised for covid will have long-term organ damage).
Everyone should make their own decision, but those are the best figures we've got at the moment. Given that Delta is so transmissible, I'm personally working on the default assumption that everyone will see the virus sooner or later. And, for me, as 16 is far lower than 10,000-30,000 (for direct comparability) and even far lower than 2,000-6,000 (or 4,000-12,000 if the hospitalisation risk is indeed doubled for Delta) to compare something less severe with full-on hospitalisation, that's what directs my decision.
(And for adverse effects that are far less - such as feeling rotten for 1-2 days (about 10% after vaccine); I think that should be compared with the chance of at least feeling really rotten for 2-3 weeks (about 60% after virus).
I do understand that others don't necessarily view things the same way.
A good post, I don't think the scale of the risk differential between Covid (Without vaccination) and vaccination is set out clearly at all.
People focus on range, and in doing so miss efficiency. We don't talk about fossil cars that way - its how much fuel do they burn not how big is the fuel talk. Should be the same for EVs, where some of the companies finally adapting to EVs are bringing in chronically poor inefficient supply chains. VW's build quality and efficiency is so poor with the ID3/4 its almost as if they want their EVs to fail.
Hyundai EVs are right up there with Tesla on efficiency and way better on build quality. If I just wanted transport that's what I'd get.
In other VW news I recently bought a 20,000km 4.0 WR8 engine from a B5 Passat. WHY?
We have a newly arrived Hyundai Ioniq EV for exactly that reason. Great car, nice to sit in, absurdly efficient. I'm back in (my second) Outlander PHEV and would love someone to produce an EV fullsize SUV that isn't posh twattery or as efficient as a brick dragging another brick.
Some legacy OEMs are going to get crushed by the BEV revolution. I can't see all 14 Stellantis brands surviving.
My local Tesco store that's just been built is now advertising "free" charging for Volkswagen vehicles with its chargers. That seems like an interesting partnership, though I've no idea how long it would last as "free".
As it says the chargers are VW-sponsored PodPoint units. Anyone with the app and a cable can use them for free.
How long will they remain free? Depends on who is paying the bill - the site or the network? If the site then I can see how free charging is a pull vs no / paid charging at a different supermarket. If the network then not for long!
Fun problem. So many of these 7kW units are let unmaintained and unloved after install. They get vandalised and broken and then its not owned by the site its located on and its not owned by the network logo on the post who just do the billing and it stays broken.
The manufacturers really need to get together to sort out the EV infrastructure problem.
SMMT and DfT need to bang heads together to get it working properly, the infrastructure issues are a major barrier to EV adoption. Only Tesla have done it right.
We ran a Leaf 2014 - 2017, I'm on my second PHEV and we've now got an Ioniq EV. Once you've had an electric drivetrain you never want to go back to a gearbox.
But - and its a big but - I am not going to rely on a charge network to get me anywhere, because there's no guarantee they will be delivering at the posted speed, available, or working at all. Add in the multiplicity of networks and batshit crazy "run a Roller for less" pricing and its game over.
Seriously looked at a Tesla twice now. The lack of an interior and horror show build quality out me off a 3 even before noting how small the thing is. Then a Polestar 2 until the reviews noted the awful inefficiency. Now waiting to see how the Ioniq 5 pans out.
We are going BMW i4 for Mrs DA's next car. She wouldn't entertain anything but a BEV now she's had one for a few years.
"A woman confronted the staff at the Wi Spa in Los Angeles after a man walked into the women's section with his genitals hanging out in front of girls. He identified as a "woman." The employees said he had a right to do that. The employees say that it's the law."
Get with the program gender critical women. This is the future. Bearded men explaining what it is to be a woman and what a woman is.
As if we haven't had men telling us that for centuries. And exposing themselves to us as well. And behaving like perverts etc.
Only now we're utterly fed up with it. So we say no to all this bullshit.
Yes, it is awful and if women dare to dissent against this bullshit they get attacked, no platformed, sacked and reviled by a tiny minority. Men who think they know what being a woman is.
I was fully on board with the trans lobby until I read of the cotton ceiling and lesbians being guilt shamed for not welcoming ‘girldick’.
Sorry… have I understood that correctly…
If a man self-identities as a woman, lesbians are supported to sleep with her?
Hmmm… 🤔
People sleep with who they want to if the desire is reciprocal. The biggest single exception is men forcing themselves on women in one way or another. The trans aspect to this is really lost in the margins. It's just that it has a certain prurient fascination.
Guilt shaming lesbians who don’t want to sleep with women who still have their male parts is not acceptable
And yet it is the logical consequence of self-id gender ideology.
No it isn't. Because they never have to sleep with anyone they don't want to. For whatever reason.
They don't. But they are being accused of transphobia and attacked. It is one reason why some lesbian groups have set up away from Stonewall and in opposition to it, precisely because they are worried about the consequences of self-id for lesbians.
This is a real issue for lesbians who feel that the demands of men wishing to transition are taking precedence over the rights of women and lesbians in particular.
I suspect we are largely in agreement here.
If a man wants to dress as a woman that is no problem. If a man want to live as a woman that is no problem. If a man wants to take part in women's sporting events that are restricted to women that is a problem. However he/she wishes to self identify, he/she does not qualify. The weight lifting thing in the Olympics is absurd. If a man wants to make use of "safe spaces" for women such as toilets, prisons, changing rooms there is a conflict of rights but in my view that conflict should be resolved in favour of those born with the sex of a women if they are at risk. That is why those spaces exist.
But no one, ever, is obliged to have sex with anyone else. That is all I was saying.
It is not quite that simple though is it. You meet someone in the bar you are attracted, you wine her and dine her over a couple of weeks then you find out she isn't a women/man depending on your gender.
At what point does it become incumbent on someone to mention it before it becomes deception? You whether he or she may be spending money on someone that you wouldn't have done if you had known up front. This sort of thing is going to crop up and I fully expect lawsuits about it.
Isn't the simplest way to simply employ the Croc Dundee greeting whenever you meet someone new?
Also legally is it even deception?
If a transwoman (biological man) identifies as and is legally a woman, even if they have a penis, then why would they need to say that they have a penis or are biologically a man?
Which is kind of messed up, but legally is there any grounds for it to be considered a deception?
That the girl you've picked up has a penis may be a bit more of a shock than that she has a third nipple or false leg, but is there any law that says it needs to be declared?
That was a woman posing as a man. She was acting fraudulently.
A transwoman is a biological man who is legally a woman. So if she calls herself a woman, the law agrees that she is a woman, so no deception has occurred.
If you disagree with that, surely that's an issue in the law, not the individual committing a crime?
No, the law doesn’t agree. Self ID is not the law yet.
The question was if they're legally a woman, not self-identifying as one.
You can in law now be legally a woman with a penis.
Ludicrous.. and conversely a man without one ?
Indeed. Men do now give birth.
How nice for them.
They might do.in the eyes of the law but most normal people will think.it ludicrous.
Hardly ludicrous. Language and laws evolve but transgenderism is as old as the hills.
Scotrail might do better to concentrate on providing a good rail service instead of showing off their virtue and looking ignorant and discriminatory to boot.
In what way are ScotRail discriminatory? Do you support the request for a "Straight Pride" train?
As I said, all this painting is silly. I would no more ask for this than to to go to the moon in a pea green boat. The customer making the request was being silly.
But they have taken a view without informing themselves and adopted a position which others might think discriminatory towards them eg by tweeting about gay and trans people being attacked without also mentioning that straight people have been attacked or threatened, in some cases by the very people Scotrail is praising.
Frankly it would be best if they didn't start mouthing off to customers in this way. It is not the job of a service provider to lecture a customer about politics. A polite "Our trains are for everyone all the time" would have made the point far better.
Yes all our trains are for everyone is a great slogan.
However, your conflating straight people being attacked with gay and trans people being attacked is straight out of the "what about male victims of female rape/why don't we have men's month/etc" playbook.
You all of a sudden put yourself in the same (pea green) boat as a bunch of super undesirables.
No it isn't. Those super-undesirables you refer to are lesbians and women being attacked for wanting equality. It is outrageous and may even be a criminal offence that a there are threats to murder a well know female writer on the streets of London, with no-one apparently battling an eyelid.
You misrepresenting what I say and making a vague accusation about undesirables is straight out of the playbook of men trying to shut women up when they don't like what they have to say.
Comments
My understanding was that - after initial speculation that the camera which had caught Hancock was some hi-spec spy kit, it turned out to be the actual security camera installed years ago for reasons of security. It wasn't even particularly unobtrusive. It's been doing a dull job without incident for years until this brouhaha. If you accept the need for security cameras per se in government buildings - which I suppose I do, without giving it too much thought - it's presence as a functioning piece of kit seems uncontroversial. Just find other places for your illicit clinches.
Also just found out that Matt Hancock is a) younger than me (this is depressing - but maybe I no longer look like the 33 year old that remains resolutely my mental picture of myself, even after a year of zoom calls and autobarbery), b) from Cheshire (hooray! or, maybe boo! - hooray for Cheshire, at any rate) and c) was in the year below my brother-in-law at school. I wonder if he knew him? He's never said up until now.
Currrently my panels do about 15-18k Tesla km of electricity per year; it would be very nice if all the electric cars were 3x as efficient as a Tesla-Tonka.
(And, borrowing, of course, would hardly be an option.)
The Yes folk are really in a bind as IndyRef is impossible to win without persuading folk they will be better off. And its quite clear that the obvious would be the case, certainly for anyone dependent on the state to maintain their standard of living.
Quite a conundrum.
https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/electric/partnerships/tesco
https://order-order.com/2021/06/28/labours-own-divisive-campaigning-in-batley-revealed/
....EU27 experts are meeting today to discuss whether to trigger an 'emergency brake' mechanism in the bloc's travel rules and designate the UK as 'variant area of concern'. That would allow Member States to temporarily suspend almost all inbound travel from Britain into the EU.
https://twitter.com/nickgutteridge/status/1409465212609118208?s=20
This is where the multicultural experiment leads - English political parties playing Muslims, Hindus and Jews off each other. Feudalism as per pre Partioned India
In other VW news I recently bought a 20,000km 4.0 WR8 engine from a B5 Passat. WHY?
https://twitter.com/artconaghan/status/1409455340270272512
I'm from Northern Ireland. I thought living in England I would not have to deal with sectarianism. I was wrong. This Labour leaflet is appalling
But this doesn't mean that having a government obsessed with independence, difference and making political points instead of running the country can't do a lot of damage anyway. They did in 2014 and they will again.
Whether he wants power for its own sake, or if he's trying to force Labour leftwards (or somethingwards, I don't know his agenda qualifies as left wing exactly), I have no idea, but the implied threat here is potentially existential.
Not defending the leaflet, though. I’d rather our domestic politics was detached from this kind of foreign sectarian shite.
Both labour and the tories play the game when it suits them.
This - https://twitter.com/gettagripfolks/status/1408841958571773952?s=21 - happened in London this weekend.
In Paris lesbians were attacked by people on a Pride march. In Barcelona women were marching for equality and against a self-id law and were faced with protestors threatening them with death - https://twitter.com/hogotheforsaken/status/1409165277531676672?s=21
Scotrail might do better to concentrate on providing a good rail service instead of showing off their virtue and looking ignorant and discriminatory to boot.
In other absolutely great news! AZ as a booster for all 50+ should start in August for the double jabbed with anything.
Lamb: Better get a move on then - chop chop!
Ho - OK
Lamb: Oh, I hope you didn't think I was being culturally insensitive using that term?
Ho: - No problem
Lamb: "It's just some of you Chinkies are so touchy".
And again to Ho, talking about a black colleague:
Lamb: "I just hope he doesn't do anything illegal, he's, well, you know...
Ho: "Black"
Lamb: "From the East End! Why are you immigrants so racist?"
Ho: But......
And that should be said now, not wait until the 19th.
Hopefully the Saj is on the ball with this and ignores all of the calls to give out jabs to developing countries instead of doing boosters for old people here.
How long will they remain free? Depends on who is paying the bill - the site or the network? If the site then I can see how free charging is a pull vs no / paid charging at a different supermarket. If the network then not for long!
Fun problem. So many of these 7kW units are let unmaintained and unloved after install. They get vandalised and broken and then its not owned by the site its located on and its not owned by the network logo on the post who just do the billing and it stays broken.
But when it can to the electronics, he was astonished by the attitude - "We don't need to learn anything. It's just a battery and electric motors. Not real stuff like an ICE. We will just buy that from China."
SMMT and DfT need to bang heads together to get it working properly, the infrastructure issues are a major barrier to EV adoption. Only Tesla have done it right.
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1409470153214070795?s=20
This is one reason I am sensitive to photo ID requirements for voting. Lots of people who do not drive or take foreign holidays will not have photo ID.
But they have taken a view without informing themselves and adopted a position which others might think discriminatory towards them eg by tweeting about gay and trans people being attacked without also mentioning that straight people have been attacked or threatened, in some cases by the very people Scotrail is praising.
Frankly it would be best if they didn't start mouthing off to customers in this way. It is not the job of a service provider to lecture a customer about politics. A polite "Our trains are for everyone all the time" would have made the point far better.
Looking at the map on Tesla's website I'm not seeing that many public superchargers available in the North or Wales.
The concept of rape or sexual assault by deception is a very old one (The Return of Martin Guerre is a classic case).
But - and its a big but - I am not going to rely on a charge network to get me anywhere, because there's no guarantee they will be delivering at the posted speed, available, or working at all. Add in the multiplicity of networks and batshit crazy "run a Roller for less" pricing and its game over.
Seriously looked at a Tesla twice now. The lack of an interior and horror show build quality out me off a 3 even before noting how small the thing is. Then a Polestar 2 until the reviews noted the awful inefficiency. Now waiting to see how the Ioniq 5 pans out.
It seems that they can't take bags or phones into mocks. So they get piled up together outside the exam room. And the NHS app has pinged the absolute lot of them!
Yay!
However, your conflating straight people being attacked with gay and trans people being attacked is straight out of the "what about male victims of female rape/why don't we have men's month/etc" playbook.
You all of a sudden put yourself in the same (pea green) boat as a bunch of super undesirables.
Shame the cars are crap though, despite the good charging network.
As @RochdalePioneers outlines, if you don’t have a Tesla, you’re looking at chargers of variable speed, reliability, serviceability and pricing. One company quickly signed exclusive agreements with most of the motorway service stations, and charges you £60 to fill up your EV.
Fair play for including himself and not going with faux humility.
There may be nothing to it and some Irish horses are running well, but many are running absolutely terribly.
I recall some weird PSHE thing we had to do at school which was around friendship, and as well as an exercise involving ranking your friends in a concentric circle arrangement with yourself in the middle (guaranteed to cause arguments) there was something like a questionnaire to determine how good a friend you were, one of which was whether you thought you were better at, say, football, than your mates. Which some people honestly replied yes, which was not a good friend response apparently (I was not one who answered yes).
I cannot for the life of me remember what we were supposed to take away from it all, it was bizarre.
Chance of a 15-year-old being hospitalised: 2000 per million (female); 6000 per million(male) against original covid (Delta is reportedly twice as likely to hospitalise you, so double those).
For a 17-year-old: 4000 per million (female); 6000 per million (male).
Chance of myocarditis following covid for a young, healthy college-age athlete (which doesn't necessarily hospitalise you): Estimated between 10,000 per million and 30,000 per million.
Estimated chance of myocarditis following Pfizer vaccine: 16 per million.
(NB - once again, this doesn't necessarily hospitalise you).
That's not taking into account Long Covid (and that a significant proportion of those hospitalised for covid will have long-term organ damage).
Everyone should make their own decision, but those are the best figures we've got at the moment. Given that Delta is so transmissible, I'm personally working on the default assumption that everyone will see the virus sooner or later. And, for me, as 16 is far lower than 10,000-30,000 (for direct comparability) and even far lower than 2,000-6,000 (or 4,000-12,000 if the hospitalisation risk is indeed doubled for Delta) to compare something less severe with full-on hospitalisation, that's what directs my decision.
(And for adverse effects that are far less - such as feeling rotten for 1-2 days (about 10% after vaccine); I think that should be compared with the chance of at least feeling really rotten for 2-3 weeks (about 60% after virus).
I do understand that others don't necessarily view things the same way.
Yet now appears to be suggesting he sacked Matt Hancock on Saturday.
This feels very much like an attempt to rewrite history to cover up a bad misjudgement by PM. https://twitter.com/mirrorbreaking_/status/1409480063008055297
What it does tell me though is that Labour - and SKS in particular - is desperate to keep the seat. It also suggests that things are not going 100% well despite the ground reports.
I have written a lot on here - in this thread header, for instance - http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2019/03/21/rendering-unto-caesar/ - about the evil of attacks on gay people.
You misrepresenting what I say and making a vague accusation about undesirables is straight out of the playbook of men trying to shut women up when they don't like what they have to say.