I have my eye on Nicholas Dupont-Aignan. He sticks around, and he tries various things. (He's an énarque too.)
Some of his moves are not so intelligently conceived, but one day one of them (especially if he buys some decent advice) might work, and all of a sudden we'll find he's in the peloton (in 2017 he didn't get into it but he was the leading non-member) and then he's in the Elysée. Interesting from a betting POV. He had the skill to make himself very popular in Yerres too.
(Macron is unlikely to get impeached quite just yet, and if he ever does it probably won't be over lockdown, but after an impeachment conviction it would be Senate President Gérard Larcher - like NDA a big fan of General de Gaulle - who took over.)
That's OK. A five month old Daily Distress article is doubtless no less accurate or current than one published in today's paper.
@Leon, Experienced torturers know that you can inflict immense pain on a person, without endangering their life. For example, you can repeatedly electrocute someone over the course of several hours, without their dying, so long as you use a weak current.
Ugh
How can people resist this, and stay quiet? People who can endure torture and remain defiant must have incredible willpower. And I mean incredible. I find it hard to believe anyone could suffer truly extreme pain (eg something like kidney stones) without blabbing
TBH that account looks possibly bowdlerised (ie it was more serious than documented), but there is no easy way to tell.
On of the more detailed accounts of torture in interrogation I have seen from the French resistance was in the book The White Rabbit, involving repeated near-drowning and beatings. Suspect that there are many more.
There's controversy over Atkins' accounts, in particular.
Wartime accounts from the Far East are horrific. But we hear far more from treatment of Westerners compared to treatment of native people.
The Knights of Bushido is very unpleasant reading.
Yes. Contemporary accounts have a completely understandable faux-cheerfulness about them - imo a way of self-distancing. Totally understandable of course, like people not talking about their experiences in WW1 - I had a grandfather (not known to me personally - died when I was young) who was like that.
A couple of years ago, I just had to give up reading a book about the Sack of Nanking, it was so nauseating (and the author wasn't writing for titillation, it was all very sober). Nemesis, by Max Hastings, is a difficult read in places, for similar reasons.
I remember watching the first ISIS videos and being harrowed and disturbed for days. I felt it was my duty to watch the horror to understand the phenomenon
After about a year I could watch one of their worst without flinching or even caring (beyond obvious profound sympathy for the victims of this fascist evil)
I still don’t know if what happened to me was good or bad. Was I dehumanized? Maybe. Coarsened, perhaps. And yet ISIS also lost the power to shock and terrify me, I just saw them as the degraded perverts they are.
I am certain they realised this, which is why the ISIS butchers kept trying evermore ingenious ways of slaughtering people on camera, as they struggled to maintain their satanic and scary image. But of course they failed and now most of them are satisfyingly dead.
@Leon, Experienced torturers know that you can inflict immense pain on a person, without endangering their life. For example, you can repeatedly electrocute someone over the course of several hours, without their dying, so long as you use a weak current.
Ugh
How can people resist this, and stay quiet? People who can endure torture and remain defiant must have incredible willpower. And I mean incredible. I find it hard to believe anyone could suffer truly extreme pain (eg something like kidney stones) without blabbing
TBH that account looks possibly bowdlerised (ie it was more serious than documented), but there is no easy way to tell.
On of the more detailed accounts of torture in interrogation I have seen from the French resistance was in the book The White Rabbit, involving repeated near-drowning and beatings. Suspect that there are many more.
There's controversy over Atkins' accounts, in particular.
Wartime accounts from the Far East are horrific. But we hear far more from treatment of Westerners compared to treatment of native people.
The Knights of Bushido is very unpleasant reading.
Yes. Contemporary accounts have a completely understandable faux-cheerfulness about them - imo a way of self-distancing. Totally understandable of course, like people not talking about their experiences in WW1 - I had a grandfather (not known to me personally - died when I was young) who was like that.
A couple of years ago, I just had to give up reading a book about the Sack of Nanking, it was so nauseating (and the author wasn't writing for titillation, it was all very sober). Nemesis, by Max Hastings, is a difficult read in places, for similar reasons.
Try reading Christina Lamb's book: "Our Bodies. Their Battlefields."
And yet we need to know about these things if we are to have a chance of stopping them.
My very first lecture on forensics when I was training for the Bar was about a woman who had been raped with a broken bottle. It was before lunch. None of us felt like eating. You need a strong stomach for some criminal / family work. I only did a bit of it and it can be very disturbing.
Does this mean the likes of the US and Israel are going to need to do another round of jabs?
That's not proven, so far Pfizer and Moderna with a 3/4 week gap has proven to give very good long term protection with no noticeable drop off in efficacy.
The comparison between Canada and the USA will give useful data over dosage gaps.
Donald Trump is the fourth worst American President according to C-Span's regular survey of historians.
Barack Obama is the only living former-President to scrape into the top ten.
1 Abraham Lincoln 2 George Washington 3 Franklin D. Roosevelt 4 Theodore Roosevelt 5 Dwight D. Eisenhower 6 Harry S. Truman 7 Thomas Jefferson 8 John F. Kennedy 9 Ronald Reagan 10 Barack Obama
Having debated torture a little, I need to reread this book - because for us surely the important thing is that it is still happening in *our* world.
The "look inside" section contains an important reflection, particularly asking what has happened to *our* ethics where we need to reflect on torture in the Mau Mau rebellion, the Indochinese war, more recent thinks such as waterboarding, conflict in Ireland, and so on. Including torture in criminal organisations.
Donald Trump is the fourth worst American President according to C-Span's regular survey of historians.
Barack Obama is the only living former-President to scrape into the top ten.
1 Abraham Lincoln 2 George Washington 3 Franklin D. Roosevelt 4 Theodore Roosevelt 5 Dwight D. Eisenhower 6 Harry S. Truman 7 Thomas Jefferson 8 John F. Kennedy 9 Ronald Reagan 10 Barack Obama
Donald Trump is the fourth worst American President according to C-Span's regular survey of historians.
Barack Obama is the only living former-President to scrape into the top ten.
1 Abraham Lincoln 2 George Washington 3 Franklin D. Roosevelt 4 Theodore Roosevelt 5 Dwight D. Eisenhower 6 Harry S. Truman 7 Thomas Jefferson 8 John F. Kennedy 9 Ronald Reagan 10 Barack Obama
Rupert Pearse @rupert_pearse · 4h Friends working in NHS hospitals across the UK tell me most COVID in-patients are not vaccinated, or have an illness which affects their immune system. But some are young fit (unvaccinated) patients in their 20’s and 30’s. We may be seeing more pregnant patients than before.
We are planning for a peak of hospital admissions around early August.
@Leon, Experienced torturers know that you can inflict immense pain on a person, without endangering their life. For example, you can repeatedly electrocute someone over the course of several hours, without their dying, so long as you use a weak current.
Ugh
How can people resist this, and stay quiet? People who can endure torture and remain defiant must have incredible willpower. And I mean incredible. I find it hard to believe anyone could suffer truly extreme pain (eg something like kidney stones) without blabbing
TBH that account looks possibly bowdlerised (ie it was more serious than documented), but there is no easy way to tell.
On of the more detailed accounts of torture in interrogation I have seen from the French resistance was in the book The White Rabbit, involving repeated near-drowning and beatings. Suspect that there are many more.
There's controversy over Atkins' accounts, in particular.
Wartime accounts from the Far East are horrific. But we hear far more from treatment of Westerners compared to treatment of native people.
The Knights of Bushido is very unpleasant reading.
Yes. Contemporary accounts have a completely understandable faux-cheerfulness about them - imo a way of self-distancing. Totally understandable of course, like people not talking about their experiences in WW1 - I had a grandfather (not known to me personally - died when I was young) who was like that.
A couple of years ago, I just had to give up reading a book about the Sack of Nanking, it was so nauseating (and the author wasn't writing for titillation, it was all very sober). Nemesis, by Max Hastings, is a difficult read in places, for similar reasons.
Try reading Christina Lamb's book: "Our Bodies. Their Battlefields."
And yet we need to know about these things if we are to have a chance of stopping them.
My very first lecture on forensics when I was training for the Bar was about a woman who had been raped with a broken bottle. It was before lunch. None of us felt like eating. You need a strong stomach for some criminal / family work. I only did a bit of it and it can be very disturbing.
A particular level of hell is reserved for books which report this sort of thing *approvingly* in a fictional context - I came across one by a current US author from a few years ago which describes with relish how the CIA practice(d?) extraordinary rendition in order to torture the suspect in Syria (then a pro-US country). A Swiss politician tries to intervene during an emergency stop en route and is portrayed as a bumbling bureaucrat getting in the way of the mission.
Even those who argue that torture is sometimes necessary usually draw the line at enjoying it. But some authors really don't.
I’ve had just about enough of these Covid-19 travel restrictions
*stares out of window*
My, Penarth isn't what it was. I blame climate change.
I guess Jonanthan Porritts warning that they'll be growing palm trees on the beaches in Britain has come to pass...
It's an odd comment - you'd think he'd never been to Torquay!
There are palm trees in Largs, and that's a lot further north than Torquay.
Indeed, and Inverewe in Ross-shire - but presumably less likely than Torquay to be known to Mr Porritt, I suppose.
Pedantry:
Inverewe gardens are great (outside the midge season), but there ain't no palms there. Nor in Torquay, for that matter.
The species planted there is Cordyline Australis and is native to New Zealand. It actually doesn't like tropical weather, although harsh frosts do damage it.
If there is a flourishing palm tree in inverewe that is waaaaaay north of anywhere in Ireland. Tho the debate might be about definitions - planted versus self-seeded etc
However a palm in Norway would similarly beat Scotland
And with that contribution to the most fascinating debate in the history of Pb, I’m heading out into that Majorcan sun
Waiting in a pretty long queue with my wife for her second Moderna jab. Wait time of around 2h at the moment and the queue is getting longer. It's surely time for the government to remove the 12 and 8 week restrictions for Pfizer and Moderna people. Let people book themselves in as early as they can get an appointment.
Funnily enough got my Moderna second dose at a walk in clinic in Tottenham today, cut three weeks off the waiting time as I'm pretty keen on being exempt from contact tracing come the 19th.
@Leon, Experienced torturers know that you can inflict immense pain on a person, without endangering their life. For example, you can repeatedly electrocute someone over the course of several hours, without their dying, so long as you use a weak current.
Ugh
How can people resist this, and stay quiet? People who can endure torture and remain defiant must have incredible willpower. And I mean incredible. I find it hard to believe anyone could suffer truly extreme pain (eg something like kidney stones) without blabbing
TBH that account looks possibly bowdlerised (ie it was more serious than documented), but there is no easy way to tell.
On of the more detailed accounts of torture in interrogation I have seen from the French resistance was in the book The White Rabbit, involving repeated near-drowning and beatings. Suspect that there are many more.
There's controversy over Atkins' accounts, in particular.
Wartime accounts from the Far East are horrific. But we hear far more from treatment of Westerners compared to treatment of native people.
The Knights of Bushido is very unpleasant reading.
Yes. Contemporary accounts have a completely understandable faux-cheerfulness about them - imo a way of self-distancing. Totally understandable of course, like people not talking about their experiences in WW1 - I had a grandfather (not known to me personally - died when I was young) who was like that.
A couple of years ago, I just had to give up reading a book about the Sack of Nanking, it was so nauseating (and the author wasn't writing for titillation, it was all very sober). Nemesis, by Max Hastings, is a difficult read in places, for similar reasons.
Try reading Christina Lamb's book: "Our Bodies. Their Battlefields."
And yet we need to know about these things if we are to have a chance of stopping them.
My very first lecture on forensics when I was training for the Bar was about a woman who had been raped with a broken bottle. It was before lunch. None of us felt like eating. You need a strong stomach for some criminal / family work. I only did a bit of it and it can be very disturbing.
A particular level of hell is reserved for books which report this sort of thing *approvingly* in a fictional context - I came across one by a current US author from a few years ago which describes with relish how the CIA practice(d?) extraordinary rendition in order to torture the suspect in Syria (then a pro-US country). A Swiss politician tries to intervene during an emergency stop en route and is portrayed as a bumbling bureaucrat getting in the way of the mission.
Even those who argue that torture is sometimes necessary usually draw the line at enjoying it. But some authors really don't.
I tend to avoid such books. I have reached the Wentworth Prison episode in Outlander, which I am enjoying, and am being a bit of a coward even about watching that 'cos it's not going to be fluffy stuff.
I tend to take up my knitting on such occasions so that I can concentrate firmly on the wool rather than on the screen when it all gets a bit much.
If there is a flourishing palm tree in inverewe that is waaaaaay north of anywhere in Ireland. Tho the debate might be about definitions - planted versus self-seeded etc
However a palm in Norway would similarly beat Scotland
And with that contribution to the most fascinating debate in the history of Pb, I’m heading out into that Majorcan sun
Mad dogs and dildo knappers go out in the midday sun?
Waiting in a pretty long queue with my wife for her second Moderna jab. Wait time of around 2h at the moment and the queue is getting longer. It's surely time for the government to remove the 12 and 8 week restrictions for Pfizer and Moderna people. Let people book themselves in as early as they can get an appointment.
I’m in the 15 min cool off now. Islington. Walked into the Design Centre at 9:05, jabbed at 9:10.
Is that doing Moderna? Because that was my experience with Pfizer. There's loads more places doing it.
Yeh, Moderna. I actually asked why there were no queues...
Because it's not been properly advertised. Ridiculous. If we'd known we would have just gone there, it's closer than here.
Actually I wonder if we were at the same place, Somerset Gardens Pharmacy. My wife got done at the same time, nearly 2h wait (and we arrived at opening time).
@Leon, Experienced torturers know that you can inflict immense pain on a person, without endangering their life. For example, you can repeatedly electrocute someone over the course of several hours, without their dying, so long as you use a weak current.
Ugh
How can people resist this, and stay quiet? People who can endure torture and remain defiant must have incredible willpower. And I mean incredible. I find it hard to believe anyone could suffer truly extreme pain (eg something like kidney stones) without blabbing
TBH that account looks possibly bowdlerised (ie it was more serious than documented), but there is no easy way to tell.
On of the more detailed accounts of torture in interrogation I have seen from the French resistance was in the book The White Rabbit, involving repeated near-drowning and beatings. Suspect that there are many more.
There's controversy over Atkins' accounts, in particular.
Wartime accounts from the Far East are horrific. But we hear far more from treatment of Westerners compared to treatment of native people.
The Knights of Bushido is very unpleasant reading.
Yes. Contemporary accounts have a completely understandable faux-cheerfulness about them - imo a way of self-distancing. Totally understandable of course, like people not talking about their experiences in WW1 - I had a grandfather (not known to me personally - died when I was young) who was like that.
A couple of years ago, I just had to give up reading a book about the Sack of Nanking, it was so nauseating (and the author wasn't writing for titillation, it was all very sober). Nemesis, by Max Hastings, is a difficult read in places, for similar reasons.
Try reading Christina Lamb's book: "Our Bodies. Their Battlefields."
And yet we need to know about these things if we are to have a chance of stopping them.
My very first lecture on forensics when I was training for the Bar was about a woman who had been raped with a broken bottle. It was before lunch. None of us felt like eating. You need a strong stomach for some criminal / family work. I only did a bit of it and it can be very disturbing.
A particular level of hell is reserved for books which report this sort of thing *approvingly* in a fictional context - I came across one by a current US author from a few years ago which describes with relish how the CIA practice(d?) extraordinary rendition in order to torture the suspect in Syria (then a pro-US country). A Swiss politician tries to intervene during an emergency stop en route and is portrayed as a bumbling bureaucrat getting in the way of the mission.
Even those who argue that torture is sometimes necessary usually draw the line at enjoying it. But some authors really don't.
I'm not sure I agree with that. People use fiction as an outlet in many ways, and sometimes it will be to push a view that is abhorrent, or just with a sort of morbid enjoyment of fictional (albeit based on things that really happen) horrible things, of bad people doing bad things, or arguing some things are good which, most of us, think is bad. Fiction aimed at children upwards can involve the brutal and disproportionate revenge ot those who transgressed the heroes in what is objectively wrong, but vicariously enjoyed by the author and audience. Diana Gabbaldon from the Outlander series must, on some level, enjoy writing about rape for example given how often it happens or nearly happens, albeit it's hardly approving.
A cavalier or even approving attitude toward torture and killing is incredibly common in fiction of all sorts of mediums, and whilst I know you are talking about a specific kind of situation, I think 'special place in hell' is a bit strong for somthing that is very common, even if it is considered wrong.
A weird case a few years ago was some people getting squeamish about a torture scene in GTA5, a series where casual murder (and accidental vehicular homicide) is as common as breathing, presumably due to the manner of depiction (on a general point video game violence is not 'real' violence anymore than most TV and film violence is not real - it's done in a way that is in no way realistic, which we can all recognise, hence why it does not have that much effect).
F1: backed Bottas for pole each way at 9 (9.5 with boost, third the odds top 2). I reckon Verstappen's highly likely to get pole and it's 50/50 which Mercedes is next.
Last time out Bottas was faster in every qualifying session than Hamilton.
@Leon, Experienced torturers know that you can inflict immense pain on a person, without endangering their life. For example, you can repeatedly electrocute someone over the course of several hours, without their dying, so long as you use a weak current.
Ugh
How can people resist this, and stay quiet? People who can endure torture and remain defiant must have incredible willpower. And I mean incredible. I find it hard to believe anyone could suffer truly extreme pain (eg something like kidney stones) without blabbing
But if they do exist: chapeau
I understand it’s largely training
It’s why “name rank and number” is drilled into you - it’s a response that become automatic and consistent and doesn’t require thought
And D.o.B. That's the Geneva Convention, Article 17 "Four".
I did 'Conduct After Capture' training but the only instruments of duress at the instructors' disposal were sleep deprivation, hypothermia and mock executions. As I had been to boarding school in Yorkshire I was inured to this.
We seem to have moved beyond gender equality to saying that women are better than men, and no percentage of the former can be high enough.
It's a view but let's not pretend it's consistent.
I think though that men need to up their game. Women are often out competing us, despite male privilege still in many areas. Medicine is just one of many fields where female abilities with academic and interpersonal skills are ahead of males.
It is no good sitting in some incel bunker, men need to put some effort in.
I don't think that will happen. Men and women will be living in their own echo chambers pretty soon.
@Leon, Experienced torturers know that you can inflict immense pain on a person, without endangering their life. For example, you can repeatedly electrocute someone over the course of several hours, without their dying, so long as you use a weak current.
Ugh
How can people resist this, and stay quiet? People who can endure torture and remain defiant must have incredible willpower. And I mean incredible. I find it hard to believe anyone could suffer truly extreme pain (eg something like kidney stones) without blabbing
But if they do exist: chapeau
I understand it’s largely training
It’s why “name rank and number” is drilled into you - it’s a response that become automatic and consistent and doesn’t require thought
And D.o.B. That's the Geneva Convention, Article 17 "Four".
I did 'Conduct After Capture' training but the only instruments of duress at the instructors' disposal were sleep deprivation, hypothermia and mock executions. As I had been to boarding school in Yorkshire I was inured to this.
I’m glad to hear your school stopped at mock executions.
Dr. Foxy, aye. But liking a particular sport or period of history is fundamentally different to claiming you don't belong to either gender in vague and strange ways.
Ironically, perhaps, I strongly agree with you on sexual stereotypes, to the extent that some people now think if a chap's into sewing or a girl's into engineering then they're 'really' the other sex.
I'd support the right of a knowing adult to transition, though once again that's beyond me, but marketing this stuff to kids is deeply disturbing, as is the degradation of women's sport and having rapists sent to women's prison when they choose to identify that way.
A very disturbing judgment yesterday in the High Court about transwomen and prisons, essentially saying, that yes rights for men claiming to be women did harm women but too bad, their rights overrode those of women. So a man claiming to be a woman and convicted of sexual offences against women can demand to be put in a woman's prison even though the court accepted that this made women prisoners feel unsafe and put them at risk of attack.
Lovely.
The case was a judicial review which limits what a court can actually do as the test is whether the prison service has taken into account all the relevant factors in coming to its decision not whether the decision is necessarily right or, indeed, desirable. But the consequence is that once again women's safeguarding is taken less seriously than it should be. Because self-ID is, frankly, a crock of shit. Gender dysphoria is a real thing and people with it are no threat to anyone. But people who claim to have it without more are completely undermining the very real needs of trans people.
Interestingly, as in the Keira Bell case, it appears that the Prison Service has not been collecting data on who in prison is or is not trans and, following this judgment, they will have to do so. Similar to the lack of evidence for some of the medical treatment given to allegedly trans children.
It is alarming when policies with significant consequences for individuals and societies are taken with very little or no data or evidence in support.
The irony about self-ID is that it is fundamentally rooted in old-fashioned stereotypes which feminism has tried hard to overcome. It is also inherently homophobic. After all, if gender is a choice why shouldn't sexuality also be a choice? Which is exactly the argument that a lot of people used against gay people - that homosexuality is a choice and that they had made the wrong choice of an evil lifestyle. Whereas it isn't. And they haven't.
I don't see a clear difference in essence between "Self ID" and a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria. The latter involves medical professionals but at its heart is the testimony of the individual that they are male having being born female, or vice versa. There's no objective physical test. We're in the realms of feelings. I feel therefore I am.
This doesn't mean it's a choice. Homosexuality is also a matter of feelings and Self-ID but it isn't defined as a choice. The vast vast majority of those who say they have gender dysphoria aren't faking it. There'll be those who are confused and have other issues bleeding into their distress, but so what. That's the nature of these things. The point is, it's real. It isn't a bunch of people posing around trying to make themselves interesting or intent on causing aggravation and menace. They have a condition for which gender transformation is the main redress.
There's nothing new about transgender. Laws and language change but it's been around for ever. Rejecting the theological extremes - gender is fluid and purely optional like choosing what hat to wear today vs gender is fixed irredeemably at birth by your genitals - all we're really talking about is 2 things.
Should the process of transition be made quicker and kinder?
What protections are needed for female only spaces and sport?
To which I say -
Yes to the first. The changes to the GRA (now shelved) weren't some crazy invention of the outre, woke left. They were consensus, supported cross party, by a female Conservative PM (Mrs May), by the medical profession. All been souped up and demonized in the 'culture war' and it's a shame imo that we can't get back to approx that. Self-ID as the basis for the process with some limits and controls TBC. It's about where we should be on a spectrum ranging from transition being 100% Self-ID to being completely outlawed. There are countries in both camps. Where should we be? For me, closer to the first. It will help a group of people and harm nobody.
And re the second. TBC - and needed in certain areas esp (imo) sport and refuges - but for heaven's sake let's arrive at a solution based on reality not on the assumption that there are hordes of men just waiting for the chance to become fake women so that they can terrorize other proper women, or creep them out, or cheat them out of an Olympic medal.
So, like I said, I agree and disagree with you on this. Probably more of the 'd' if we're honest.
Very similar questions to Hancock around the timing of affairs, civil service appointments, covid rule breaking etc.
So far, we don’t have hard evidence of any of that. Only Twitter rumours, and most Twitter rumours are as ill-informed and stupid as the average judge.
With Hancock, it was to put it mildly a little different.
@Leon, Experienced torturers know that you can inflict immense pain on a person, without endangering their life. For example, you can repeatedly electrocute someone over the course of several hours, without their dying, so long as you use a weak current.
Ugh
How can people resist this, and stay quiet? People who can endure torture and remain defiant must have incredible willpower. And I mean incredible. I find it hard to believe anyone could suffer truly extreme pain (eg something like kidney stones) without blabbing
But if they do exist: chapeau
I understand it’s largely training
It’s why “name rank and number” is drilled into you - it’s a response that become automatic and consistent and doesn’t require thought
And D.o.B. That's the Geneva Convention, Article 17 "Four".
I did 'Conduct After Capture' training but the only instruments of duress at the instructors' disposal were sleep deprivation, hypothermia and mock executions. As I had been to boarding school in Yorkshire I was inured to this.
Reminds me of a line from one of Ben Elton's books, Past Mortem, where a Peer was discovered alive after months of torment, and later remarked that 'attending a public school was excellent training for being trapped in a torture chamber by a sadistic lunatic'.
Very similar questions to Hancock around the timing of affairs, civil service appointments, covid rule breaking etc.
So far, we don’t have hard evidence of any of that. Only Twitter rumours, and most Twitter rumours are as ill-informed and stupid as the average judge.
With Hancock, it was to put it mildly a little different.
There are some daft rumours/jokes on Twitter.
Darren Grimshaw and Anne Widdecombe are my two favourites.
Waiting in a pretty long queue with my wife for her second Moderna jab. Wait time of around 2h at the moment and the queue is getting longer. It's surely time for the government to remove the 12 and 8 week restrictions for Pfizer and Moderna people. Let people book themselves in as early as they can get an appointment.
Funnily enough got my Moderna second dose at a walk in clinic in Tottenham today, cut three weeks off the waiting time as I'm pretty keen on being exempt from contact tracing come the 19th.
I'm not sure I agree with that. People use fiction as an outlet in many ways, and sometimes it will be to push a view that is abhorrent, or just with a sort of morbid enjoyment of fictional (albeit based on things that really happen) horrible things, of bad people doing bad things, or arguing some things are good which, most of us, think is bad. Fiction aimed at children upwards can involve the brutal and disproportionate revenge ot those who transgressed the heroes in what is objectively wrong, but vicariously enjoyed by the author and audience. Diana Gabbaldon from the Outlander series must, on some level, enjoy writing about rape for example given how often it happens or nearly happens, albeit it's hardly approving.
A cavalier or even approving attitude toward torture and killing is incredibly common in fiction of all sorts of mediums, and whilst I know you are talking about a specific kind of situation, I think 'special place in hell' is a bit strong for somthing that is very common, even if it is considered wrong.
A weird case a few years ago was some people getting squeamish about a torture scene in GTA5, a series where casual murder (and accidental vehicular homicide) is as common as breathing, presumably due to the manner of depiction (on a general point video game violence is not 'real' violence anymore than most TV and film violence is not real - it's done in a way that is in no way realistic, which we can all recognise, hence why it does not have that much effect).
I enjoy writing fanfiction, set in worlds at war. Torture is an inevitable part of that, and something that the "good guys" are bound to practice, unless you want to write them as boy scouts, who are not interesting characters. There's a narrow line where you have to keep people true to the values of their world, without glorifying its worst aspects.
Very similar questions to Hancock around the timing of affairs, civil service appointments, covid rule breaking etc.
Hopefully he gets shoved out of government. He's a liability and a fully signed up lockdown forever wanker. I'd genuinely love it if he's been breaking lockdown rules to visit his mistress also. Especially now that Hancock has set the standard of having to resign afterwards.
On torture (It's what people are discussing) I wonder if future historians will note how the torture porn fad in Hollywood seemed to follow very quickly from the scandals around Guantanamo and extraordinary rendition.
Very similar questions to Hancock around the timing of affairs, civil service appointments, covid rule breaking etc.
Hopefully he gets shoved out of government. He's a liability and a fully signed up lockdown forever wanker. I'd genuinely love it if he's been breaking lockdown rules to visit his mistress also. Especially now that Hancock has set the standard of having to resign afterwards.
I was proved right about the personality flaws of Cummings.
I’m now being proved right about Gove as well.
I’ll be wrong one day, but it’s fun while it lasts.
Very similar questions to Hancock around the timing of affairs, civil service appointments, covid rule breaking etc.
Hopefully he gets shoved out of government. He's a liability and a fully signed up lockdown forever wanker. I'd genuinely love it if he's been breaking lockdown rules to visit his mistress also. Especially now that Hancock has set the standard of having to resign afterwards.
The irony is that Gove comes across as the sort of nerdy man who'd be quite happy to be running the government 24/7 from his own bedroom.
Waiting in a pretty long queue with my wife for her second Moderna jab. Wait time of around 2h at the moment and the queue is getting longer. It's surely time for the government to remove the 12 and 8 week restrictions for Pfizer and Moderna people. Let people book themselves in as early as they can get an appointment.
I’m in the 15 min cool off now. Islington. Walked into the Design Centre at 9:05, jabbed at 9:10.
Is that doing Moderna? Because that was my experience with Pfizer. There's loads more places doing it.
Yeh, Moderna. I actually asked why there were no queues...
Because it's not been properly advertised. Ridiculous. If we'd known we would have just gone there, it's closer than here.
Actually I wonder if we were at the same place, Somerset Gardens Pharmacy. My wife got done at the same time, nearly 2h wait (and we arrived at opening time).
Lol we actually were at the same place. She got hers done at about 11:15 so we must have been a few places behind you in the queue. Lucky as well because after her they were about to stop doing Moderna doses for the day.
Donald Trump is the fourth worst American President according to C-Span's regular survey of historians.
Barack Obama is the only living former-President to scrape into the top ten.
1 Abraham Lincoln 2 George Washington 3 Franklin D. Roosevelt 4 Theodore Roosevelt 5 Dwight D. Eisenhower 6 Harry S. Truman 7 Thomas Jefferson 8 John F. Kennedy 9 Ronald Reagan 10 Barack Obama
Assassination was a wise career move for JFK by the look of it. He wouldn't have got that high up the list without it.
Being half-black and liberal probably is too, as Obama achieved essentially nothing in eight years apart from limited healthcare reform.
No, I would place Obama (and Bill Clinton) higher.
I am always amazed how much people write off Obama's record. Obamacare might be "limited" compared to utopian progressive dreams, but it transformed the US Healthcare system, not just extending the number covered but also the quality for those who had coverage. He also revamped the US financial sector, ended the Iraq war, caused big reforms in education and the biggest infrastructure investment since the New Deal.
Very similar questions to Hancock around the timing of affairs, civil service appointments, covid rule breaking etc.
Hopefully he gets shoved out of government. He's a liability and a fully signed up lockdown forever wanker. I'd genuinely love it if he's been breaking lockdown rules to visit his mistress also. Especially now that Hancock has set the standard of having to resign afterwards.
Very similar questions to Hancock around the timing of affairs, civil service appointments, covid rule breaking etc.
Hopefully he gets shoved out of government. He's a liability and a fully signed up lockdown forever wanker. I'd genuinely love it if he's been breaking lockdown rules to visit his mistress also. Especially now that Hancock has set the standard of having to resign afterwards.
There's a lot to criticize about Gove, but being willing to protect human life during a once in a century pandemic isn't one of them.
Waiting in a pretty long queue with my wife for her second Moderna jab. Wait time of around 2h at the moment and the queue is getting longer. It's surely time for the government to remove the 12 and 8 week restrictions for Pfizer and Moderna people. Let people book themselves in as early as they can get an appointment.
I’m in the 15 min cool off now. Islington. Walked into the Design Centre at 9:05, jabbed at 9:10.
Is that doing Moderna? Because that was my experience with Pfizer. There's loads more places doing it.
Yeh, Moderna. I actually asked why there were no queues...
Because it's not been properly advertised. Ridiculous. If we'd known we would have just gone there, it's closer than here.
Actually I wonder if we were at the same place, Somerset Gardens Pharmacy. My wife got done at the same time, nearly 2h wait (and we arrived at opening time).
Lol we actually were at the same place. She got hers done at about 11:15 so we must have been a few places behind you in the queue. Lucky as well because after her they were about to stop doing Moderna doses for the day.
I saw a couple I know well getting their first vaccines in April. Come Thursday I go for my second vaccine and there they are again about ten places in front of me. I know myself and the husband are about the same age.
Here in Wales we're doing it all through mass vaccination centres.
Very similar questions to Hancock around the timing of affairs, civil service appointments, covid rule breaking etc.
Hopefully he gets shoved out of government. He's a liability and a fully signed up lockdown forever wanker. I'd genuinely love it if he's been breaking lockdown rules to visit his mistress also. Especially now that Hancock has set the standard of having to resign afterwards.
I was proved right about the personality flaws of Cummings.
I’m now being proved right about Gove as well.
I’ll be wrong one day, but it’s fun while it lasts.
Fish in a barrel innit. Identify a Tory politician without a personality flaw and we'll all be impressed.
Very similar questions to Hancock around the timing of affairs, civil service appointments, covid rule breaking etc.
Hopefully he gets shoved out of government. He's a liability and a fully signed up lockdown forever wanker. I'd genuinely love it if he's been breaking lockdown rules to visit his mistress also. Especially now that Hancock has set the standard of having to resign afterwards.
I was proved right about the personality flaws of Cummings.
I’m now being proved right about Gove as well.
I’ll be wrong one day, but it’s fun while it lasts.
Waiting in a pretty long queue with my wife for her second Moderna jab. Wait time of around 2h at the moment and the queue is getting longer. It's surely time for the government to remove the 12 and 8 week restrictions for Pfizer and Moderna people. Let people book themselves in as early as they can get an appointment.
I’m in the 15 min cool off now. Islington. Walked into the Design Centre at 9:05, jabbed at 9:10.
Is that doing Moderna? Because that was my experience with Pfizer. There's loads more places doing it.
Yeh, Moderna. I actually asked why there were no queues...
Because it's not been properly advertised. Ridiculous. If we'd known we would have just gone there, it's closer than here.
Actually I wonder if we were at the same place, Somerset Gardens Pharmacy. My wife got done at the same time, nearly 2h wait (and we arrived at opening time).
Lol we actually were at the same place. She got hers done at about 11:15 so we must have been a few places behind you in the queue. Lucky as well because after her they were about to stop doing Moderna doses for the day.
What a small world! If I'd known I'd have suggested grabbing a pint afterwards.
Waiting in a pretty long queue with my wife for her second Moderna jab. Wait time of around 2h at the moment and the queue is getting longer. It's surely time for the government to remove the 12 and 8 week restrictions for Pfizer and Moderna people. Let people book themselves in as early as they can get an appointment.
I’m in the 15 min cool off now. Islington. Walked into the Design Centre at 9:05, jabbed at 9:10.
Is that doing Moderna? Because that was my experience with Pfizer. There's loads more places doing it.
Yeh, Moderna. I actually asked why there were no queues...
Because it's not been properly advertised. Ridiculous. If we'd known we would have just gone there, it's closer than here.
Actually I wonder if we were at the same place, Somerset Gardens Pharmacy. My wife got done at the same time, nearly 2h wait (and we arrived at opening time).
Lol we actually were at the same place. She got hers done at about 11:15 so we must have been a few places behind you in the queue. Lucky as well because after her they were about to stop doing Moderna doses for the day.
What a small world! If I'd known I'd have suggested grabbing a pint afterwards.
Supposed to be going to a wedding reception tonight at a brewery. I'm told the football will not be on.
Might pretend I have Covid...
Trying to pretend that something of importance to the guests isn’t happening, usually doesn’t work out. Someone will have an iPad with a data plan, even if it means half the guests end up in the car park watching the screen. Better to embrace the match, and have the formal parts of the day over before it starts.
Very similar questions to Hancock around the timing of affairs, civil service appointments, covid rule breaking etc.
Hopefully he gets shoved out of government. He's a liability and a fully signed up lockdown forever wanker. I'd genuinely love it if he's been breaking lockdown rules to visit his mistress also. Especially now that Hancock has set the standard of having to resign afterwards.
There's a lot to criticize about Gove, but being willing to protect human life during a once in a century pandemic isn't one of them.
The problem with Gove wasn't that he was willing, it's that he was positively excited at the thought of keeping people locked in their houses forever.
Supposed to be going to a wedding reception tonight at a brewery. I'm told the football will not be on.
Might pretend I have Covid...
Trying to pretend that something of importance to the guests isn’t happening, usually doesn’t work out. Someone will have an iPad with a data plan, even if it means half the guests end up in the car park watching the screen. Better to embrace the match, and have the formal parts of the day over before it starts.
It sounds like someone actually hasn’t been able to organise a piss up in a brewery
Just found out that for tonight's England v Ukraine match, the referee, both assistant referees and the VA referee are all German. What could possibly go wrong?
Supposed to be going to a wedding reception tonight at a brewery. I'm told the football will not be on.
Might pretend I have Covid...
From what I've heard the atmosphere at a wedding reception where there are attempts to ban watching a major sporting event is always bad. People drift away somewhere to check what is happening, or catch an illicit five minutes, and the bride is furious at everyone for trying to do so.
I expect there are videos that will show you how to use the lemon/orange juice to fake a positive LFT...
Very similar questions to Hancock around the timing of affairs, civil service appointments, covid rule breaking etc.
Hopefully he gets shoved out of government. He's a liability and a fully signed up lockdown forever wanker. I'd genuinely love it if he's been breaking lockdown rules to visit his mistress also. Especially now that Hancock has set the standard of having to resign afterwards.
I was proved right about the personality flaws of Cummings.
I’m now being proved right about Gove as well.
I’ll be wrong one day, but it’s fun while it lasts.
Fish in a barrel innit. Identify a Tory politician without a personality flaw and we'll all be impressed.
The late Peter Temple-Morris was our Conservative MP for Leominster. He was genuinely a gentleman and a scholar... then again he did cross the floor. Peter Temple-Morris, Labour MP for Leominster, who'd have thought it?
‘ 🗳 The party still has a long way to go to recover from its 2019 election defeat
📉 Elections expert @michaelthrasher points out that Labour's vote share has fallen in the last 12 by-elections, and the party “remains in crisis management mode”’
Rupert Pearse @rupert_pearse · 4h Friends working in NHS hospitals across the UK tell me most COVID in-patients are not vaccinated, or have an illness which affects their immune system. But some are young fit (unvaccinated) patients in their 20’s and 30’s. We may be seeing more pregnant patients than before.
We are planning for a peak of hospital admissions around early August.
That’s the biggest risk of this exit wave strategy IMV - I’m not sure I’ve seen data on the impact of COVID on unborn children
Supposed to be going to a wedding reception tonight at a brewery. I'm told the football will not be on.
Might pretend I have Covid...
From what I've heard the atmosphere at a wedding reception where there are attempts to ban watching a major sporting event is always bad. People drift away somewhere to check what is happening, or catch an illicit five minutes, and the bride is furious at everyone for trying to do so.
I expect there are videos that will show you how to use the lemon/orange juice to fake a positive LFT...
Go on then.
After you have attended but before it finishes.
Ping the whole lot
Make the bridegroom isolate from the Mother-in-Law. An extra 2 weeks' grace.
Media reporting confusion and chaos over timing of 2nd jabs. This is what happens when everybody starts deciding to doing their own thing on an adhoc basis.
Why is stopping an Amazon warehouse so popular in B&S? A massive Amazon site has opened up in Grays, Thurrock, and local people are earning great dough there apparently. I thought it would be a great boost for downtrodden areas
If BoZo gave a shit about the Union, he wouldn't do stupid shit like this
Or put a border down the Irish Sea, obviously...
Boris offered best wishes to Scotland and Wales before every match.
A hard border with Ireland would have seen far more desire for Irish unity than the current situation and Boris is trying to minimise or remove any Irish Sea checks.
Boris will continue to ban an indyref2 and as Union matters are reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act 1998 there is sod all the Nationalists can do about it
Rupert Pearse @rupert_pearse · 4h Friends working in NHS hospitals across the UK tell me most COVID in-patients are not vaccinated, or have an illness which affects their immune system. But some are young fit (unvaccinated) patients in their 20’s and 30’s. We may be seeing more pregnant patients than before.
We are planning for a peak of hospital admissions around early August.
That’s the biggest risk of this exit wave strategy IMV - I’m not sure I’ve seen data on the impact of COVID on unborn children
Or the jab. My gf is not having the vaccine until the baby is born
"Doctors call for 'targeted Covid measures' to stay after July 19: BMA urges government to KEEP mask rules after Freedom Day to control 'alarming' rise in cases
YouGov poll says more than half of voters back the end of restrictions on July 19"
"Doctors call for 'targeted Covid measures' to stay after July 19: BMA urges government to KEEP mask rules after Freedom Day to control 'alarming' rise in cases
YouGov poll says more than half of voters back the end of restrictions on July 19"
I'm not sure the BMA has covered itself in glory across this pandemic.
On the end of restrictions, I've seen a huge shift in the people I know towards a full release. Everyone my age (early 30s) seems to have turned off contact tracing on the NHS app, my martial arts classes seem to have stopped worrying about social distancing etc.
If nothing else, I suspect that at this rate July 19th won't have much impact on transmission anyway.
Very similar questions to Hancock around the timing of affairs, civil service appointments, covid rule breaking etc.
Hopefully he gets shoved out of government. He's a liability and a fully signed up lockdown forever wanker. I'd genuinely love it if he's been breaking lockdown rules to visit his mistress also. Especially now that Hancock has set the standard of having to resign afterwards.
There's a lot to criticize about Gove, but being willing to protect human life during a once in a century pandemic isn't one of them.
The problem with Gove wasn't that he was willing, it's that he was positively excited at the thought of keeping other people locked in their houses forever.
Edit: extra word added.
Isn't Gove (plus Jack and Ross) also supporting allowing non-English MPs to vote on England only laws ?
Apparently the Matt Hancock story was part of a plot to sabotage the Tories in Batley and Spen so that Keir Starmer would be able to cling on as Labour leader.
@mattzarb The Sun sat on the Hancock affair story, releasing it the weekend before the Batley and Spen byelection. The Tories lost the seat by just over 300 votes and as a result Starmer wasn’t pressured to resign. Labour now ambles along with an extremely unpopular leader and no policies
Just found out that for tonight's England v Ukraine match, the referee, both assistant referees and the VA referee are all German. What could possibly go wrong?
They may also be under instruction not to piss off Moscow by favouring Ukraine! An oil pipeline could depend on it 😆.
"Doctors call for 'targeted Covid measures' to stay after July 19: BMA urges government to KEEP mask rules after Freedom Day to control 'alarming' rise in cases
YouGov poll says more than half of voters back the end of restrictions on July 19"
I'm not sure the BMA has covered itself in glory across this pandemic.
On the end of restrictions, I've seen a huge shift in the people I know towards a full release. Everyone my age (early 30s) seems to have turned off contact tracing on the NHS app, my martial arts classes seem to have stopped worrying about social distancing etc.
If nothing else, I suspect that at this rate July 19th won't have much impact on transmission anyway.
Besides, it's frankly hard to understand how getting rid of everything but masks in some settings in a couple of weeks is supposed to "control" a rise in cases that is "alarming" now.
Apparently the Matt Hancock story was part of a plot to sabotage the Tories in Batley and Spen so that Keir Starmer would be able to cling on as Labour leader.
@mattzarb The Sun sat on the Hancock affair story, releasing it the weekend before the Batley and Spen byelection. The Tories lost the seat by just over 300 votes and as a result Starmer wasn’t pressured to resign. Labour now ambles along with an extremely unpopular leader and no policies
I don't buy such a claim. It might well work out that way, but losing a winnable seat would surely not be sensibly tossed away based on an assumption of how things might go if the Tories lost.
If nothing else there's no guarantee he would have gone if they'd lost, so all that might have happened was a ramping up of internal party tensions.
Comments
After about a year I could watch one of their worst without flinching or even caring (beyond obvious profound sympathy for the victims of this fascist evil)
I still don’t know if what happened to me was good or bad. Was I dehumanized? Maybe. Coarsened, perhaps. And yet ISIS also lost the power to shock and terrify me, I just saw them as the degraded perverts they are.
I am certain they realised this, which is why the ISIS butchers kept trying evermore ingenious ways of slaughtering people on camera, as they struggled to maintain their satanic and scary image. But of course they failed and now most of them are satisfyingly dead.
And yet we need to know about these things if we are to have a chance of stopping them.
My very first lecture on forensics when I was training for the Bar was about a woman who had been raped with a broken bottle. It was before lunch. None of us felt like eating. You need a strong stomach for some criminal / family work. I only did a bit of it and it can be very disturbing.
The "look inside" section contains an important reflection, particularly asking what has happened to *our* ethics where we need to reflect on torture in the Mau Mau rebellion, the Indochinese war, more recent thinks such as waterboarding, conflict in Ireland, and so on. Including torture in criminal organisations.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Listener-James-Sullivan/dp/0877939438
‘Wuhan scientists ‘could be executed and blamed for Covid lab leak', expert says
mirror.co.uk/news/world-new…’
https://twitter.com/dailymirror/status/1410678341166895106?s=21
The main contenders are in Ireland, Scotland, and Norway
@rupert_pearse
·
4h
Friends working in NHS hospitals across the UK tell me most COVID in-patients are not vaccinated, or have an illness which affects their immune system. But some are young fit (unvaccinated) patients in their 20’s and 30’s. We may be seeing more pregnant patients than before.
We are planning for a peak of hospital admissions around early August.
Even those who argue that torture is sometimes necessary usually draw the line at enjoying it. But some authors really don't.
Inverewe gardens are great (outside the midge season), but there ain't no palms there. Nor in Torquay, for that matter.
The species planted there is Cordyline Australis and is native to New Zealand. It actually doesn't like tropical weather, although harsh frosts do damage it.
However a palm in Norway would similarly beat Scotland
And with that contribution to the most fascinating debate in the history of Pb, I’m heading out into that Majorcan sun
I tend to take up my knitting on such occasions so that I can concentrate firmly on the wool rather than on the screen when it all gets a bit much.
A cavalier or even approving attitude toward torture and killing is incredibly common in fiction of all sorts of mediums, and whilst I know you are talking about a specific kind of situation, I think 'special place in hell' is a bit strong for somthing that is very common, even if it is considered wrong.
A weird case a few years ago was some people getting squeamish about a torture scene in GTA5, a series where casual murder (and accidental vehicular homicide) is as common as breathing, presumably due to the manner of depiction (on a general point video game violence is not 'real' violence anymore than most TV and film violence is not real - it's done in a way that is in no way realistic, which we can all recognise, hence why it does not have that much effect).
Betting PostF1: backed Bottas for pole each way at 9 (9.5 with boost, third the odds top 2). I reckon Verstappen's highly likely to get pole and it's 50/50 which Mercedes is next.
Last time out Bottas was faster in every qualifying session than Hamilton.
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2021/07/austria-pre-qualifying-2021.html
I did 'Conduct After Capture' training but the only instruments of duress at the instructors' disposal were sleep deprivation, hypothermia and mock executions. As I had been to boarding school in Yorkshire I was inured to this.
Not really, have a lovely time! 😀
Very similar questions to Hancock around the timing of affairs, civil service appointments, covid rule breaking etc.
This doesn't mean it's a choice. Homosexuality is also a matter of feelings and Self-ID but it isn't defined as a choice. The vast vast majority of those who say they have gender dysphoria aren't faking it. There'll be those who are confused and have other issues bleeding into their distress, but so what. That's the nature of these things. The point is, it's real. It isn't a bunch of people posing around trying to make themselves interesting or intent on causing aggravation and menace. They have a condition for which gender transformation is the main redress.
There's nothing new about transgender. Laws and language change but it's been around for ever. Rejecting the theological extremes - gender is fluid and purely optional like choosing what hat to wear today vs gender is fixed irredeemably at birth by your genitals - all we're really talking about is 2 things.
Should the process of transition be made quicker and kinder?
What protections are needed for female only spaces and sport?
To which I say -
Yes to the first. The changes to the GRA (now shelved) weren't some crazy invention of the outre, woke left. They were consensus, supported cross party, by a female Conservative PM (Mrs May), by the medical profession. All been souped up and demonized in the 'culture war' and it's a shame imo that we can't get back to approx that. Self-ID as the basis for the process with some limits and controls TBC. It's about where we should be on a spectrum ranging from transition being 100% Self-ID to being completely outlawed. There are countries in both camps. Where should we be? For me, closer to the first. It will help a group of people and harm nobody.
And re the second. TBC - and needed in certain areas esp (imo) sport and refuges - but for heaven's sake let's arrive at a solution based on reality not on the assumption that there are hordes of men just waiting for the chance to become fake women so that they can terrorize other proper women, or creep them out, or cheat them out of an Olympic medal.
So, like I said, I agree and disagree with you on this. Probably more of the 'd' if we're honest.
With Hancock, it was to put it mildly a little different.
Darren Grimshaw and Anne Widdecombe are my two favourites.
Might pretend I have Covid...
I'm not sure I agree with that. People use fiction as an outlet in many ways, and sometimes it will be to push a view that is abhorrent, or just with a sort of morbid enjoyment of fictional (albeit based on things that really happen) horrible things, of bad people doing bad things, or arguing some things are good which, most of us, think is bad. Fiction aimed at children upwards can involve the brutal and disproportionate revenge ot those who transgressed the heroes in what is objectively wrong, but vicariously enjoyed by the author and audience. Diana Gabbaldon from the Outlander series must, on some level, enjoy writing about rape for example given how often it happens or nearly happens, albeit it's hardly approving.
A cavalier or even approving attitude toward torture and killing is incredibly common in fiction of all sorts of mediums, and whilst I know you are talking about a specific kind of situation, I think 'special place in hell' is a bit strong for somthing that is very common, even if it is considered wrong.
A weird case a few years ago was some people getting squeamish about a torture scene in GTA5, a series where casual murder (and accidental vehicular homicide) is as common as breathing, presumably due to the manner of depiction (on a general point video game violence is not 'real' violence anymore than most TV and film violence is not real - it's done in a way that is in no way realistic, which we can all recognise, hence why it does not have that much effect).
I enjoy writing fanfiction, set in worlds at war. Torture is an inevitable part of that, and something that the "good guys" are bound to practice, unless you want to write them as boy scouts, who are not interesting characters. There's a narrow line where you have to keep people true to the values of their world, without glorifying its worst aspects.
I’m now being proved right about Gove as well.
I’ll be wrong one day, but it’s fun while it lasts.
"More than 7,000 captive Ethiopian soldiers are marched through the streets of Tigray"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2021/07/03/7000-captive-ethiopian-soldiers-marched-streets-tigray/
Er...
Here in Wales we're doing it all through mass vaccination centres.
Also, he’s the only one who seems to give a shit about the Union.
He also avoided a No Deal Brexit which would have been the biggest threat to the Union in both Scotland and Ireland
the referee, both assistant referees and the VA referee are all German.
What could possibly go wrong?
Or put a border down the Irish Sea, obviously...
I asked the kid who was guiding me around what the biggest difference between the school (Michaela) and his old school.
His response: bullying isn’t allowed here.
I expect there are videos that will show you how to use the lemon/orange juice to fake a positive LFT...
‘ 🗳 The party still has a long way to go to recover from its 2019 election defeat
📉 Elections expert @michaelthrasher points out that Labour's vote share has fallen in the last 12 by-elections, and the party “remains in crisis management mode”’
https://twitter.com/politicshome/status/1411244487133761540?s=21
After you have attended but before it finishes.
Ping the whole lot
Make the bridegroom isolate from the Mother-in-Law. An extra 2 weeks' grace.
https://twitter.com/jimwaterson/status/1411288242444550146?s=19
Media reporting confusion and chaos over timing of 2nd jabs. This is what happens when everybody starts deciding to doing their own thing on an adhoc basis.
👇Read @Alain_Tolhurst;s full analysis of the Starmer’s challenge ahead👇
https://twitter.com/politicshome/status/1411244054449381379?s=21
A hard border with Ireland would have seen far more desire for Irish unity than the current situation and Boris is trying to minimise or remove any Irish Sea checks.
Boris will continue to ban an indyref2 and as Union matters are reserved to Westminster under the Scotland Act 1998 there is sod all the Nationalists can do about it
YouGov poll says more than half of voters back the end of restrictions on July 19"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9751577/Voters-ready-July-19-fears-Covid-surge-means-wear-masks.html
On the end of restrictions, I've seen a huge shift in the people I know towards a full release. Everyone my age (early 30s) seems to have turned off contact tracing on the NHS app, my martial arts classes seem to have stopped worrying about social distancing etc.
If nothing else, I suspect that at this rate July 19th won't have much impact on transmission anyway.
Isn't Gove (plus Jack and Ross) also supporting allowing non-English MPs to vote on England only laws ?
@mattzarb
The Sun sat on the Hancock affair story, releasing it the weekend before the Batley and Spen byelection. The Tories lost the seat by just over 300 votes and as a result Starmer wasn’t pressured to resign. Labour now ambles along with an extremely unpopular leader and no policies
https://twitter.com/mattzarb/status/1411282961077522438
If nothing else there's no guarantee he would have gone if they'd lost, so all that might have happened was a ramping up of internal party tensions.