The government today just amended an absolute duty on it contained in an Act of Parliament by a motion in the Commons. They did not amend the Act. They simply used their Commons majority to override the law. https://twitter.com/LordCFalconer/status/1415077620383985666
You misunderstand. We have to cut foreign aid so that we can have money for our own people. Like poor WWC school kids who go hungry in the holidays.
The problem with these claims is that a visit to any deprived area reveals obesity and overpriced grotty takeaways rather than hunger and rickets.
And the people who are least sympathetic to 'the poor cannot afford to eat' blather are the low paid who do feed their families properly.
If anyone doesn't believe me:
Obesity is fast becoming “a disease of England’s poorest people”, putting them at higher risk of dying from the biggest killer diseases, a new report from the King’s Fund warns.
There is a stark and widening gap between the number of people from deprived families who are dangerously overweight and those from better-off backgrounds, and the difference is particularly pronounced among women, the thinktank says.
Almost half of the fast-food outlets in England are in the most deprived parts of the country, figures show, raising fresh concerns about child obesity in poorer areas.
The most affluent 10% of England is home to just 3% of fast-food restaurants, chip shops and burger bars, and the poorest decile has 17%, according to the data from Public Health England (PHE).
Campaigners are demanding taxes on junk food after official figures showed that primary school children from poorer areas are twice as likely as those from wealthier ones to be obese.
Childhood obesity is set to increase so sharply among boys from poorer homes in England that three in five of them will be dangerously overweight by 2020, research shows.
But the number of well-off boys who are overweight or obese is expected to fall to one in six in that time, underlining that obesity’s already stark class divide will widen even further.
The reason is quite simple - the exercise culture.
Go out it in the morning and take a look at the people out jogging. Even in the poor parts of London, it's the well off people passing through.
The middle classes and above spend a fortune on keeping slim. Being over weight is considered a bit... chavy...
I don’t think this is true, or rather it is true but not the reason.
Exercise doesn’t really keep people slim, except at the margins.
The real issue is food, and middle class people - generally! - grow up with a healthier food culture.
The Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture and hence a higher tendency toward obesity.
And protein is also much more expensive than carbohydrate, and the latter is more filling - so the poorest have an economic and a cultural disposition to an obesogenic diet.
If we want to crack this nut, I believe it comes down to education, education, education.
I suggest that the 'Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture', certainly in England, is due to driving people off the land and into industrial work in the late 18th & throughout the 19th Centuries.
This is the traditional reason cited, and it certainly accounts for a lot. But it’s not the full story. Why is American food similarly “poor” when - until the later 19th century - it was fundamentally an agricultural country?
As I understand it, and I'm only an amateur historian, to some degree similar conditions applied in the US; either people 'out on the range', or crowded together in cities.
Losing weight requires eating fewer calories than you need to maintain your weight, gaining weight is the opposite.
People make it sound difficult - but that is the reality. I am not saying it is easy to lose weight or eat fewer calories but the process itself is not difficult.
If millions of people try to do something and a high proportion fail is that not pretty much textbook difficult?
It may not sound difficult, but it clearly is, otherwise there would not be a problem.
The process itself is not complicated, eat fewer calories than you need. But I completely agree - and I acknowledged I believed - that actually doing the process is hard
I think that is minimising it greatly. The process is not just about eating fewer calories, as your body then reacts to the calorie shortage and sends out various signals to the brain about what to eat next. Managing those signals seems key, and for many it needs complex advice, structure and guidance.
Losing weight requires eating fewer calories than you need to maintain your weight, gaining weight is the opposite.
People make it sound difficult - but that is the reality. I am not saying it is easy to lose weight or eat fewer calories but the process itself is not difficult.
If millions of people try to do something and a high proportion fail is that not pretty much textbook difficult?
It may not sound difficult, but it clearly is, otherwise there would not be a problem.
The process itself is not complicated, eat fewer calories than you need. But I completely agree - and I acknowledged I believed - that actually doing the process is hard
I think that is minimising it greatly. The process is not just about eating fewer calories, as your body then reacts to the calorie shortage and sends out various signals to the brain about what to eat next. Managing those signals seems key, and for many it needs complex advice, structure and guidance.
The process is not simple but complex.
I think we're essentially saying the same thing. My point was that to actually lose weight - and I agree I've put it badly - is to eat fewer calories than you consume. That element of it is simple and nothing else will work.
The government today just amended an absolute duty on it contained in an Act of Parliament by a motion in the Commons. They did not amend the Act. They simply used their Commons majority to override the law. https://twitter.com/LordCFalconer/status/1415077620383985666
You misunderstand. We have to cut foreign aid so that we can have money for our own people. Like poor WWC school kids who go hungry in the holidays.
The problem with these claims is that a visit to any deprived area reveals obesity and overpriced grotty takeaways rather than hunger and rickets.
And the people who are least sympathetic to 'the poor cannot afford to eat' blather are the low paid who do feed their families properly.
If anyone doesn't believe me:
Obesity is fast becoming “a disease of England’s poorest people”, putting them at higher risk of dying from the biggest killer diseases, a new report from the King’s Fund warns.
There is a stark and widening gap between the number of people from deprived families who are dangerously overweight and those from better-off backgrounds, and the difference is particularly pronounced among women, the thinktank says.
Almost half of the fast-food outlets in England are in the most deprived parts of the country, figures show, raising fresh concerns about child obesity in poorer areas.
The most affluent 10% of England is home to just 3% of fast-food restaurants, chip shops and burger bars, and the poorest decile has 17%, according to the data from Public Health England (PHE).
Campaigners are demanding taxes on junk food after official figures showed that primary school children from poorer areas are twice as likely as those from wealthier ones to be obese.
Childhood obesity is set to increase so sharply among boys from poorer homes in England that three in five of them will be dangerously overweight by 2020, research shows.
But the number of well-off boys who are overweight or obese is expected to fall to one in six in that time, underlining that obesity’s already stark class divide will widen even further.
The reason is quite simple - the exercise culture.
Go out it in the morning and take a look at the people out jogging. Even in the poor parts of London, it's the well off people passing through.
The middle classes and above spend a fortune on keeping slim. Being over weight is considered a bit... chavy...
I don’t think this is true, or rather it is true but not the reason.
Exercise doesn’t really keep people slim, except at the margins.
The real issue is food, and middle class people - generally! - grow up with a healthier food culture.
The Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture and hence a higher tendency toward obesity.
And protein is also much more expensive than carbohydrate, and the latter is more filling - so the poorest have an economic and a cultural disposition to an obesogenic diet.
If we want to crack this nut, I believe it comes down to education, education, education.
Agreed. Healthy eating need not be more expensive than fast food - but it does require time, effort and knowledge to cook healthy food for yourself. And there's very steep learning curve if you're starting from scratch with no help.
It is reported that BoZo did try and invite the England team to Downing Street and they told him to fuck off politely declined
Missed opportunity. They should have agreed as long as BoZo took the knee when they met...
I get this, but the issue has been muddied in this country by vandalism of statues (Colston in Bristol, and I can understand and sympathise with why, Churchill in London - no sympathy at all) and the sense that the troubles were about an American policeman murdering an American black man, and that it is wrong to conflate the issues in the two countries. I think the England have been brilliant and I sense that 90% of the country is behind their stance, but its not the case that all those who are not are just racist idiots.
To feed a family of four at McDonalds costs the better part of £20 nowadays.
To go to the Co-Op, or Aldi, or Tesco's and get some fresh veg and meat and prepare a fresh meal can be done considerably cheaper.
People are buying at McDonalds and others because its convenient, not because they can't afford to cook at home.
+1
People are going to McDonalds because they don't have time to cook at home. Both parents work all day and they don't have time to cook, it's quite simple.
This goes back to education again really, teach people how to cook meals quickly.
To feed a family of four at McDonalds costs the better part of £20 nowadays.
To go to the Co-Op, or Aldi, or Tesco's and get some fresh veg and meat and prepare a fresh meal can be done considerably cheaper.
People are buying at McDonalds and others because its convenient, not because they can't afford to cook at home.
And as people have pointed out earlier
1) People are not being taught how to cook
2) People who haven't been shown how to do things are often too scared to try to do those things themselves
3) People may not enjoy cooking and would rather watch TV - it's highly possible that cooking takes an hour and results in no thanks from the rest of the family.
You can see why people may go for the easier options.
I agree with all that. Its not easy to fix and isn't a case of "give people more money and they'll suddenly find the desire to spend an hour in the kitchen".
Suggesting like cooking lessons at schools etc are good ones.
As well a lot of cooking shows and recipes are unnecessarily complex because they're to appeal to foodies and/or people who can already cook. I have a lot of respect Marcus Rashford and one thing he has done is to launch a campaign aimed towards teaching the basics of how to cook. Very simple, very easy to follow, nutritious and tasty food as opposed to complicated recipes that rely upon skills people don't have.
This sort of education campaign is a really good idea and should be more widely supported every bit as the school meals issues etc that get most of the attention.
I think I might be changing my mind re lifting the restrictions
Just had a chat with one of my colleagues - his wife (double jabbed) just gone down with Covid
Another guy and his family in isolation as they went to a friends house on Sunday - the male friend went to footie Wednesday and now he and all his family have tested positive.
More people at my sons school have tested positive - some of them appear to have caught it from fag breaks - his school had bubbles to keep groups separate and that was the only time they mixed (in hind sight not the greatest of ideas)
This thing spreads fast
Yes, also anecdotally, a sensible colleague who is careful in her habits and has been jabbed has just gone down with Covid and is very ill. People who say "Oh, virtually nobody dies from it now so let's stop worrying" have a lot to answer for.
It's absolutely rife. An absolute disaster zone at my kids' schools. I recently needed to borrow a cat basket to go to the vet (cats have grown and can no longer share) and realised literally everyone I know with a cat in my town has covid. Most of them - adults, anyway - jabbed.
But I don't think the response should be to delay reopening. It's spreading like wildfire, and indubitably remains a very nasty disease - but our understanding is that due to the extent of vaccination of vulnerable groups, the NHS is no longer at risk and therefore those of us who rely on its services are no longer at risk.
If the risks back in 2020 had been those now, we would not be imposing the sort of restrictions we are under at the moment. We might be advising the vulnerable to shield, advising that masks might be advisable on public transport - exactly what is being advised after next Monday.
We would not be saying anything so draconian as no more than 6 people in your house, or making it illegal not to wear masks in certain circumstances.
The government today just amended an absolute duty on it contained in an Act of Parliament by a motion in the Commons. They did not amend the Act. They simply used their Commons majority to override the law. https://twitter.com/LordCFalconer/status/1415077620383985666
You misunderstand. We have to cut foreign aid so that we can have money for our own people. Like poor WWC school kids who go hungry in the holidays.
The problem with these claims is that a visit to any deprived area reveals obesity and overpriced grotty takeaways rather than hunger and rickets.
And the people who are least sympathetic to 'the poor cannot afford to eat' blather are the low paid who do feed their families properly.
If anyone doesn't believe me:
Obesity is fast becoming “a disease of England’s poorest people”, putting them at higher risk of dying from the biggest killer diseases, a new report from the King’s Fund warns.
There is a stark and widening gap between the number of people from deprived families who are dangerously overweight and those from better-off backgrounds, and the difference is particularly pronounced among women, the thinktank says.
Almost half of the fast-food outlets in England are in the most deprived parts of the country, figures show, raising fresh concerns about child obesity in poorer areas.
The most affluent 10% of England is home to just 3% of fast-food restaurants, chip shops and burger bars, and the poorest decile has 17%, according to the data from Public Health England (PHE).
Campaigners are demanding taxes on junk food after official figures showed that primary school children from poorer areas are twice as likely as those from wealthier ones to be obese.
Childhood obesity is set to increase so sharply among boys from poorer homes in England that three in five of them will be dangerously overweight by 2020, research shows.
But the number of well-off boys who are overweight or obese is expected to fall to one in six in that time, underlining that obesity’s already stark class divide will widen even further.
The reason is quite simple - the exercise culture.
Go out it in the morning and take a look at the people out jogging. Even in the poor parts of London, it's the well off people passing through.
The middle classes and above spend a fortune on keeping slim. Being over weight is considered a bit... chavy...
I don’t think this is true, or rather it is true but not the reason.
Exercise doesn’t really keep people slim, except at the margins.
The real issue is food, and middle class people - generally! - grow up with a healthier food culture.
The Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture and hence a higher tendency toward obesity.
And protein is also much more expensive than carbohydrate, and the latter is more filling - so the poorest have an economic and a cultural disposition to an obesogenic diet.
If we want to crack this nut, I believe it comes down to education, education, education.
I suggest that the 'Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture', certainly in England, is due to driving people off the land and into industrial work in the late 18th & throughout the 19th Centuries.
This is the traditional reason cited, and it certainly accounts for a lot. But it’s not the full story. Why is American food similarly “poor” when - until the later 19th century - it was fundamentally an agricultural country?
As I understand it, and I'm only an amateur historian, to some degree similar conditions applied in the US; either people 'out on the range', or crowded together in cities.
Ok what about NZ? Food growing up was abysmal. You could pretty much only buy one type of cheese.
My guess:
1. English climate 2. Protestantism 3. Industrialisation/urbanisation.
(1) and (2) conspired to create a generally sub-par Anglo food culture. (3) was the nail in the coffin from a U.K. point of view.
On the brighter side, the U.K. does good piquant sauces and pastes: think worcestershire, hot english mustard, marmite, anchovy relish.
I'd wish everyone a 'Good Morning" as usual, but looking at both Ms Cyclefree's leader and what happened yesterday it isn't really, is it? We appear to have a mean-minded, indeed cruel, group of people in Government. If the RNLI is concerned about a proposal, then I would really hope that it's reconsidered. But there is, so far, no sign of that.
I have great respect for @Cyclefree but the issue with the RNLI and rescue at sea will need to be addressed, but I can say with certainty that my son, who has just joined the RNLI following a long tradition of both our families involvement in the sea and fishing for generations, will not be thinking that he will be imprisoned for saving any life at sea
Indeed as a family the RNLI and our local hospice benefit from all our charity support but then maybe that is understandable
My wife has lost family members at sea and a nephew in the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988 and the absence of their recovery leaves a terrible yearning of loss
We all thank your son and his colleagues for their service. Your initial response though was instructive. Fingers in ears, eyes closed, la la la its not true.
This government - YOUR government, your party - want to send your son to jail for being a hero.
And still you support them.
The government has repeatedly said that is not their intention
Fingers in ears, eyes closed, la la la it’s not true.
You continue to accuse them despite reasonable argument that you position is utter bollocks
If hyperpartisan critics of the government need to rely on clear lies and misinterpretations to criticise the government then clearly the government is doing a good job.
They've got no legitimate criticisms so make transparently fake ones instead. Then wonder why 12 points behind in the polls.
The thing to look at in all these laws is would you be comfortable for this legislation to be in the toolkit of your opponents.
So, what would a Corbyn government potentially have done with the online safety bill and what could that mean for freedom of speech among right wingers? What might UKIP do with the 'RNLI bill'?
Relying on the good sense of governments and prosecutors is to rely on election of governments with good sense and prosecutors that remain independent.
We've seen with some of the abuses of terror legislation how things, once law, can be misused and creep into areas that the original drafters of the bills would never have supported.
I've already said I've got more concerns over the online harms bill, as described. Though others have said the bill is not really as described, I don't know enough to comment further on that.
The RNLI issue is a clear lie though.
The interesting thing is that nobody seems to be debating the real principle behind the law and instead debating an already dismissed wilful misinterpretation.
The question to answer is Should people trafficking be a criminal offence, even if "for profit" can not be proven?
Why is the RNLI issue a clear lie? I have not read the bill so I don't know, but Cyclefree's analysis seems quite clear.
I take your point that when debated this may be cleared up, BUT I have already given an example of something I am involved in which confirms Cyclefree's point - It matters not a jot what the minister says, it is what is in the Act that counts as I know to the cost of 3000+ people I am fighting for in a similar unrelated situation.
Because as others have already pointed out
The Home Office have already said these provisions do not apply to the RNLI.
The Human Rights Act would trump this legislation and would protect the RNLI too.
International Maritime Law makes rescues a legal duty that can't be made illegal. That is domestic law too.
The Bill needs to go through Committee etc were amendments can be made if necessary, with the Government already having said (see (1)) that this is not targetting the RNLI.
And more points have been made too. Its nonsense.
1) Is incorrect as I have already pointed out. The Home Office can say what they like, it has no effect as Cyclefree pointed out and as I know from bitter experience (see my posts). 2) and 3) puts you in a position of laws conflicting. It is effectively the same as 1) except the position is in doubt rather than being certain. Slightly better but you don't want to be in that fight. 4) I accept, but then I said that in my post, but this sort of thing just results in a terrible muddle, with loopholes and unintended consequences as I pointed out in my example and as others have also done.
1 is not incorrect when it feeds into 2, 3 and 4 - or when people are falsely claiming that the opposite of 1 is the intention despite all evidence to the contrary.
Given there is a clear intention not to have this apply to the RNLI, universally agreed, and given that existing laws would protect the RNLI, it would not be beyond the wit of man to come up with an amendment in committee if needed.
But its worth noting the RNLI themselves aren't really objecting - others who are routinely partisan pointscoring critics of the government are doing so on their behalf.
I take your point Philip IF it gets amended accordingly, but I have already said that.
But you would have thought they would have spotted these bear traps wouldn't you? And these bear traps do get missed. This one might get caught, but in catching that do they create another? By the way that is exactly what happened in the case I am fighting on behalf of 3000+ people; they plugged a holes and created a bigger one. It is a common flaw; you plug one hole and create two more that you don't see at the time.
So yes it is definitely not beyond the wit of man to come up with a solution and I am as certain as I can be that several unspotted problems will be caused as a consequence, because they always are.
Governments ties themselves in knots passing this sort of legislation.
The only thing worse than PB anti-woke chat is PB cooking-doesn't-take-time-or-capital-expenditure chat.
A bag of carrots costs 50p doncha know! Great. I’ll just bring them in the microwave for 2 mins on high.
My favourite is the weekly recipe plans that would either induce either scurvy or beriberi.
Scurvy is bloody tricky, because fresh meat (except guinea-pig meat) contains juuust enough vitamin C to stave it off. Amundsen shot seals and escaped scurvy, Scott opened tins and did not. This is reason no 1,453 for thinking Scott was a complete cnt and Amundsen was not.
To feed a family of four at McDonalds costs the better part of £20 nowadays.
To go to the Co-Op, or Aldi, or Tesco's and get some fresh veg and meat and prepare a fresh meal can be done considerably cheaper.
People are buying at McDonalds and others because its convenient, not because they can't afford to cook at home.
+1
People are going to McDonalds because they don't have time to cook at home. Both parents work all day and they don't have time to cook, it's quite simple.
This goes back to education again really, teach people how to cook meals quickly.
No they're not.
People are going to McDonalds because they don't have the desire to cook at home.
Going out of your way to go to McDonalds is more time consuming than cooking a simple meal at home.
Heck even going for a simple, carby meal at home that is not as healthy as a plate of vegetables but much more healthy than McDonalds. It costs ~£1 to £2 to do Beans on Toast for a family of 4 and it takes less than five minutes to do so.
Preparing a salad can be done in less than five minutes too.
I'd wish everyone a 'Good Morning" as usual, but looking at both Ms Cyclefree's leader and what happened yesterday it isn't really, is it? We appear to have a mean-minded, indeed cruel, group of people in Government. If the RNLI is concerned about a proposal, then I would really hope that it's reconsidered. But there is, so far, no sign of that.
I have great respect for @Cyclefree but the issue with the RNLI and rescue at sea will need to be addressed, but I can say with certainty that my son, who has just joined the RNLI following a long tradition of both our families involvement in the sea and fishing for generations, will not be thinking that he will be imprisoned for saving any life at sea
Indeed as a family the RNLI and our local hospice benefit from all our charity support but then maybe that is understandable
My wife has lost family members at sea and a nephew in the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988 and the absence of their recovery leaves a terrible yearning of loss
We all thank your son and his colleagues for their service. Your initial response though was instructive. Fingers in ears, eyes closed, la la la its not true.
This government - YOUR government, your party - want to send your son to jail for being a hero.
And still you support them.
The government has repeatedly said that is not their intention
Fingers in ears, eyes closed, la la la it’s not true.
You continue to accuse them despite reasonable argument that you position is utter bollocks
If hyperpartisan critics of the government need to rely on clear lies and misinterpretations to criticise the government then clearly the government is doing a good job.
They've got no legitimate criticisms so make transparently fake ones instead. Then wonder why 12 points behind in the polls.
The thing to look at in all these laws is would you be comfortable for this legislation to be in the toolkit of your opponents.
So, what would a Corbyn government potentially have done with the online safety bill and what could that mean for freedom of speech among right wingers? What might UKIP do with the 'RNLI bill'?
Relying on the good sense of governments and prosecutors is to rely on election of governments with good sense and prosecutors that remain independent.
We've seen with some of the abuses of terror legislation how things, once law, can be misused and creep into areas that the original drafters of the bills would never have supported.
I've already said I've got more concerns over the online harms bill, as described. Though others have said the bill is not really as described, I don't know enough to comment further on that.
The RNLI issue is a clear lie though.
The interesting thing is that nobody seems to be debating the real principle behind the law and instead debating an already dismissed wilful misinterpretation.
The question to answer is Should people trafficking be a criminal offence, even if "for profit" can not be proven?
Why is the RNLI issue a clear lie? I have not read the bill so I don't know, but Cyclefree's analysis seems quite clear.
I take your point that when debated this may be cleared up, BUT I have already given an example of something I am involved in which confirms Cyclefree's point - It matters not a jot what the minister says, it is what is in the Act that counts as I know to the cost of 3000+ people I am fighting for in a similar unrelated situation.
Because as others have already pointed out
The Home Office have already said these provisions do not apply to the RNLI.
The Human Rights Act would trump this legislation and would protect the RNLI too.
International Maritime Law makes rescues a legal duty that can't be made illegal. That is domestic law too.
The Bill needs to go through Committee etc were amendments can be made if necessary, with the Government already having said (see (1)) that this is not targetting the RNLI.
And more points have been made too. Its nonsense.
1) Is incorrect as I have already pointed out. The Home Office can say what they like, it has no effect as Cyclefree pointed out and as I know from bitter experience (see my posts). 2) and 3) puts you in a position of laws conflicting. It is effectively the same as 1) except the position is in doubt rather than being certain. Slightly better but you don't want to be in that fight. 4) I accept, but then I said that in my post, but this sort of thing just results in a terrible muddle, with loopholes and unintended consequences as I pointed out in my example and as others have also done.
1 is not incorrect when it feeds into 2, 3 and 4 - or when people are falsely claiming that the opposite of 1 is the intention despite all evidence to the contrary.
Given there is a clear intention not to have this apply to the RNLI, universally agreed, and given that existing laws would protect the RNLI, it would not be beyond the wit of man to come up with an amendment in committee if needed.
But its worth noting the RNLI themselves aren't really objecting - others who are routinely partisan pointscoring critics of the government are doing so on their behalf.
I take your point Philip IF it gets amended accordingly, but I have already said that.
But you would have thought they would have spotted these bear traps wouldn't you? And these bear traps do get missed. This one might get caught, but in catching that do they create another? By the way that is exactly what happened in the case I am fighting on behalf of 3000+ people; they plugged a holes and created a bigger one. It is a common flaw; you plug one hole and create two more that you don't see at the time.
So yes it is definitely not beyond the wit of man to come up with a solution and I am as certain as I can be that several unspotted problems will be caused as a consequence, because they always are.
Governments ties themselves in knots passing this sort of legislation.
The law of unintended consequences can happen almost any time you pass legislation, of course. But to listen to some people today you'd come away thinking that stopping the RNLI is the intended consequence of this legislation, that is absolutely categorically untrue.
The only thing worse than PB anti-woke chat is PB cooking-doesn't-take-time-or-capital-expenditure chat.
A bag of carrots costs 50p doncha know! Great. I’ll just bring them in the microwave for 2 mins on high.
My favourite is the weekly recipe plans that would either induce either scurvy or beriberi.
Scurvy is bloody tricky, because fresh meat (except guinea-pig meat) contains juuust enough vitamin C to stave it off. Amundsen shot seals and escaped scurvy, Scott opened tins and did not. This is reason no 1,453 for thinking Scott was a complete cnt and Amundsen was not.
To be fair to Scott, he didn't know. The *science* of scurvy was some things seemed to work. Some things worked and then stopped working.
As Dominic Lawson wrote in his latest Sunday Times column, the official policy is herd immunity, but no-one's allowed to admit that it is because it doesn't look good.
We should absolutely not be lifting the mask laws, keep them in place.
I warned a few weeks ago about how we're going in the wrong direction, I just have a bad a feeling like I had before. And many here ridiculed me when I called for previous lockdowns but if you'd followed my timing we'd have been in a much better position.
I hope and think you are wrong. Peoples behaviour is for the most part already past the 19th. Not everyone for sure, but most. I think cases will peak in the next month, and some more people will die. I suspect most who do with be unvaccinated or single jabbed, but some older folk will have had both and still die (possibly with covid whilst dying of heart disease). I hope people will be sensible with masks in crowded places, and you know, I think most will.
To feed a family of four at McDonalds costs the better part of £20 nowadays.
To go to the Co-Op, or Aldi, or Tesco's and get some fresh veg and meat and prepare a fresh meal can be done considerably cheaper.
People are buying at McDonalds and others because its convenient, not because they can't afford to cook at home.
+1
People are going to McDonalds because they don't have time to cook at home. Both parents work all day and they don't have time to cook, it's quite simple.
This goes back to education again really, teach people how to cook meals quickly.
The government today just amended an absolute duty on it contained in an Act of Parliament by a motion in the Commons. They did not amend the Act. They simply used their Commons majority to override the law. https://twitter.com/LordCFalconer/status/1415077620383985666
You misunderstand. We have to cut foreign aid so that we can have money for our own people. Like poor WWC school kids who go hungry in the holidays.
The problem with these claims is that a visit to any deprived area reveals obesity and overpriced grotty takeaways rather than hunger and rickets.
And the people who are least sympathetic to 'the poor cannot afford to eat' blather are the low paid who do feed their families properly.
If anyone doesn't believe me:
Obesity is fast becoming “a disease of England’s poorest people”, putting them at higher risk of dying from the biggest killer diseases, a new report from the King’s Fund warns.
There is a stark and widening gap between the number of people from deprived families who are dangerously overweight and those from better-off backgrounds, and the difference is particularly pronounced among women, the thinktank says.
Almost half of the fast-food outlets in England are in the most deprived parts of the country, figures show, raising fresh concerns about child obesity in poorer areas.
The most affluent 10% of England is home to just 3% of fast-food restaurants, chip shops and burger bars, and the poorest decile has 17%, according to the data from Public Health England (PHE).
Campaigners are demanding taxes on junk food after official figures showed that primary school children from poorer areas are twice as likely as those from wealthier ones to be obese.
Childhood obesity is set to increase so sharply among boys from poorer homes in England that three in five of them will be dangerously overweight by 2020, research shows.
But the number of well-off boys who are overweight or obese is expected to fall to one in six in that time, underlining that obesity’s already stark class divide will widen even further.
The reason is quite simple - the exercise culture.
Go out it in the morning and take a look at the people out jogging. Even in the poor parts of London, it's the well off people passing through.
The middle classes and above spend a fortune on keeping slim. Being over weight is considered a bit... chavy...
I don’t think this is true, or rather it is true but not the reason.
Exercise doesn’t really keep people slim, except at the margins.
The real issue is food, and middle class people - generally! - grow up with a healthier food culture.
The Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture and hence a higher tendency toward obesity.
And protein is also much more expensive than carbohydrate, and the latter is more filling - so the poorest have an economic and a cultural disposition to an obesogenic diet.
If we want to crack this nut, I believe it comes down to education, education, education.
I suggest that the 'Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture', certainly in England, is due to driving people off the land and into industrial work in the late 18th & throughout the 19th Centuries.
This is the traditional reason cited, and it certainly accounts for a lot. But it’s not the full story. Why is American food similarly “poor” when - until the later 19th century - it was fundamentally an agricultural country?
As I understand it, and I'm only an amateur historian, to some degree similar conditions applied in the US; either people 'out on the range', or crowded together in cities.
Recently read an interesting account of WW2 and food. One thesis was that modern Amwerican food is in part a derivative from that period - mass catering to a common palate in messhalls and factory canteens. Fried chicken, etc. I don't know enouigh to judge, though.
To feed a family of four at McDonalds costs the better part of £20 nowadays.
To go to the Co-Op, or Aldi, or Tesco's and get some fresh veg and meat and prepare a fresh meal can be done considerably cheaper.
People are buying at McDonalds and others because its convenient, not because they can't afford to cook at home.
And as people have pointed out earlier
1) People are not being taught how to cook
2) People who haven't been shown how to do things are often too scared to try to do those things themselves
3) People may not enjoy cooking and would rather watch TV - it's highly possible that cooking takes an hour and results in no thanks from the rest of the family.
You can see why people may go for the easier options.
You make it sound like rocket science. Only a few decades ago the vast majority of people cooked for themselves all the time.
With regard to the 'cheap food' debate, I wondered a few years ago whether the government could run its own food bank. Buy lots of cheap, healthy food and distribute it via supermarket delivery services to people who are in supposed food poverty. If it was scaled up, the cost could be minimal, a few quid per recipient per week. It would serve both health and economic objectives.
I have often wondered about the inefficiency of food banks. Were I to ever be in a position where I needed to use my local foodbank, which is on an out of town main road, I would need to get a bus which would cost about £5 return. I would need to wait and go through some sort of counselling by an unqualified volunteer. The operation needs a business premises, which is a cost, and relies on donations of food which must be random and unpredictable.
Yet I am sure they do it far cheaper and more efficiently than any Government would. Can you imagine the Govt budget for the admin and the number of civil servants they would put on it. Has any Govt ever done anything cheaply?
If it is a charity, then they are unlikely to pay much in the way of Business Rates of course, which is a cost to the public.
A common charity 'argument' is 'give us your shop at no/low rent to save on the rates'.
To feed a family of four at McDonalds costs the better part of £20 nowadays.
To go to the Co-Op, or Aldi, or Tesco's and get some fresh veg and meat and prepare a fresh meal can be done considerably cheaper.
People are buying at McDonalds and others because its convenient, not because they can't afford to cook at home.
And as people have pointed out earlier
1) People are not being taught how to cook
2) People who haven't been shown how to do things are often too scared to try to do those things themselves
3) People may not enjoy cooking and would rather watch TV - it's highly possible that cooking takes an hour and results in no thanks from the rest of the family.
You can see why people may go for the easier options.
You make it sound like rocket science. Only a few decades ago the vast majority of people cooked for themselves all the time.
Yep and the wife stayed at home from 9 to 5 while hubby worked.
I thought the whole point of extending free school meals throughout the school holidays was because children were going hungry.
Yes, I totally agree with you. As I have mentioned before, benefits in the hols are the same as in termtime, which is why the added cost of feeding the kids instead of FSM cause the problems.
The government today just amended an absolute duty on it contained in an Act of Parliament by a motion in the Commons. They did not amend the Act. They simply used their Commons majority to override the law. https://twitter.com/LordCFalconer/status/1415077620383985666
You misunderstand. We have to cut foreign aid so that we can have money for our own people. Like poor WWC school kids who go hungry in the holidays.
The problem with these claims is that a visit to any deprived area reveals obesity and overpriced grotty takeaways rather than hunger and rickets.
And the people who are least sympathetic to 'the poor cannot afford to eat' blather are the low paid who do feed their families properly.
If anyone doesn't believe me:
Obesity is fast becoming “a disease of England’s poorest people”, putting them at higher risk of dying from the biggest killer diseases, a new report from the King’s Fund warns.
There is a stark and widening gap between the number of people from deprived families who are dangerously overweight and those from better-off backgrounds, and the difference is particularly pronounced among women, the thinktank says.
Almost half of the fast-food outlets in England are in the most deprived parts of the country, figures show, raising fresh concerns about child obesity in poorer areas.
The most affluent 10% of England is home to just 3% of fast-food restaurants, chip shops and burger bars, and the poorest decile has 17%, according to the data from Public Health England (PHE).
Campaigners are demanding taxes on junk food after official figures showed that primary school children from poorer areas are twice as likely as those from wealthier ones to be obese.
Childhood obesity is set to increase so sharply among boys from poorer homes in England that three in five of them will be dangerously overweight by 2020, research shows.
But the number of well-off boys who are overweight or obese is expected to fall to one in six in that time, underlining that obesity’s already stark class divide will widen even further.
The reason is quite simple - the exercise culture.
Go out it in the morning and take a look at the people out jogging. Even in the poor parts of London, it's the well off people passing through.
The middle classes and above spend a fortune on keeping slim. Being over weight is considered a bit... chavy...
I don’t think this is true, or rather it is true but not the reason.
Exercise doesn’t really keep people slim, except at the margins.
The real issue is food, and middle class people - generally! - grow up with a healthier food culture.
The Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture and hence a higher tendency toward obesity.
And protein is also much more expensive than carbohydrate, and the latter is more filling - so the poorest have an economic and a cultural disposition to an obesogenic diet.
If we want to crack this nut, I believe it comes down to education, education, education.
I suggest that the 'Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture', certainly in England, is due to driving people off the land and into industrial work in the late 18th & throughout the 19th Centuries.
This is the traditional reason cited, and it certainly accounts for a lot. But it’s not the full story. Why is American food similarly “poor” when - until the later 19th century - it was fundamentally an agricultural country?
As I understand it, and I'm only an amateur historian, to some degree similar conditions applied in the US; either people 'out on the range', or crowded together in cities.
Ok what about NZ? Food growing up was abysmal. You could pretty much only buy one type of cheese.
My guess:
1. English climate 2. Protestantism 3. Industrialisation/urbanisation.
(1) and (2) conspired to create a generally sub-par Anglo food culture. (3) was the nail in the coffin from a U.K. point of view.
On the brighter side, the U.K. does good piquant sauces and pastes: think worcestershire, hot english mustard, marmite, anchovy relish.
Some say WWII rationing stuffed food up. There is a long tradition of good food in the UK... And some of it has come back.
When I grew up, sausages either came from a proper butcher or were dire, horrible things. The Yes Minister episode on the "British Offal Fat Tube" was simply true. Now you can get come quite reasonable stuff in the supermarkets...
To feed a family of four at McDonalds costs the better part of £20 nowadays.
To go to the Co-Op, or Aldi, or Tesco's and get some fresh veg and meat and prepare a fresh meal can be done considerably cheaper.
People are buying at McDonalds and others because its convenient, not because they can't afford to cook at home.
And as people have pointed out earlier
1) People are not being taught how to cook
2) People who haven't been shown how to do things are often too scared to try to do those things themselves
3) People may not enjoy cooking and would rather watch TV - it's highly possible that cooking takes an hour and results in no thanks from the rest of the family.
You can see why people may go for the easier options.
You make it sound like rocket science. Only a few decades ago the vast majority of people cooked for themselves all the time.
People are not cooking at home because they can afford not to do so, not because they have no alternative.
I used to work with someone who made no secret of the fact he had takeaways all 3 meals a day. He never cooked at home. Breakfast and lunch were takeaways from a cafe seven days a week.
The government today just amended an absolute duty on it contained in an Act of Parliament by a motion in the Commons. They did not amend the Act. They simply used their Commons majority to override the law. https://twitter.com/LordCFalconer/status/1415077620383985666
You misunderstand. We have to cut foreign aid so that we can have money for our own people. Like poor WWC school kids who go hungry in the holidays.
The problem with these claims is that a visit to any deprived area reveals obesity and overpriced grotty takeaways rather than hunger and rickets.
And the people who are least sympathetic to 'the poor cannot afford to eat' blather are the low paid who do feed their families properly.
Crap food is cheaper than high quality fresh food.
Also since 1987 no school has taught people to cook - which is a problem for a lot of people who didn't have parents with the time or inclination to do so.
People were being taught how to cook at my school in the 1990s.
I'd wish everyone a 'Good Morning" as usual, but looking at both Ms Cyclefree's leader and what happened yesterday it isn't really, is it? We appear to have a mean-minded, indeed cruel, group of people in Government. If the RNLI is concerned about a proposal, then I would really hope that it's reconsidered. But there is, so far, no sign of that.
I have great respect for @Cyclefree but the issue with the RNLI and rescue at sea will need to be addressed, but I can say with certainty that my son, who has just joined the RNLI following a long tradition of both our families involvement in the sea and fishing for generations, will not be thinking that he will be imprisoned for saving any life at sea
Indeed as a family the RNLI and our local hospice benefit from all our charity support but then maybe that is understandable
My wife has lost family members at sea and a nephew in the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988 and the absence of their recovery leaves a terrible yearning of loss
We all thank your son and his colleagues for their service. Your initial response though was instructive. Fingers in ears, eyes closed, la la la its not true.
This government - YOUR government, your party - want to send your son to jail for being a hero.
And still you support them.
The government has repeatedly said that is not their intention
Fingers in ears, eyes closed, la la la it’s not true.
You continue to accuse them despite reasonable argument that you position is utter bollocks
If hyperpartisan critics of the government need to rely on clear lies and misinterpretations to criticise the government then clearly the government is doing a good job.
They've got no legitimate criticisms so make transparently fake ones instead. Then wonder why 12 points behind in the polls.
The thing to look at in all these laws is would you be comfortable for this legislation to be in the toolkit of your opponents.
So, what would a Corbyn government potentially have done with the online safety bill and what could that mean for freedom of speech among right wingers? What might UKIP do with the 'RNLI bill'?
Relying on the good sense of governments and prosecutors is to rely on election of governments with good sense and prosecutors that remain independent.
We've seen with some of the abuses of terror legislation how things, once law, can be misused and creep into areas that the original drafters of the bills would never have supported.
I've already said I've got more concerns over the online harms bill, as described. Though others have said the bill is not really as described, I don't know enough to comment further on that.
The RNLI issue is a clear lie though.
The interesting thing is that nobody seems to be debating the real principle behind the law and instead debating an already dismissed wilful misinterpretation.
The question to answer is Should people trafficking be a criminal offence, even if "for profit" can not be proven?
Why is the RNLI issue a clear lie? I have not read the bill so I don't know, but Cyclefree's analysis seems quite clear.
I take your point that when debated this may be cleared up, BUT I have already given an example of something I am involved in which confirms Cyclefree's point - It matters not a jot what the minister says, it is what is in the Act that counts as I know to the cost of 3000+ people I am fighting for in a similar unrelated situation.
Because as others have already pointed out
The Home Office have already said these provisions do not apply to the RNLI.
The Human Rights Act would trump this legislation and would protect the RNLI too.
International Maritime Law makes rescues a legal duty that can't be made illegal. That is domestic law too.
The Bill needs to go through Committee etc were amendments can be made if necessary, with the Government already having said (see (1)) that this is not targetting the RNLI.
And more points have been made too. Its nonsense.
1) Is incorrect as I have already pointed out. The Home Office can say what they like, it has no effect as Cyclefree pointed out and as I know from bitter experience (see my posts). 2) and 3) puts you in a position of laws conflicting. It is effectively the same as 1) except the position is in doubt rather than being certain. Slightly better but you don't want to be in that fight. 4) I accept, but then I said that in my post, but this sort of thing just results in a terrible muddle, with loopholes and unintended consequences as I pointed out in my example and as others have also done.
1 is not incorrect when it feeds into 2, 3 and 4 - or when people are falsely claiming that the opposite of 1 is the intention despite all evidence to the contrary.
Given there is a clear intention not to have this apply to the RNLI, universally agreed, and given that existing laws would protect the RNLI, it would not be beyond the wit of man to come up with an amendment in committee if needed.
But its worth noting the RNLI themselves aren't really objecting - others who are routinely partisan pointscoring critics of the government are doing so on their behalf.
I take your point Philip IF it gets amended accordingly, but I have already said that.
But you would have thought they would have spotted these bear traps wouldn't you? And these bear traps do get missed. This one might get caught, but in catching that do they create another? By the way that is exactly what happened in the case I am fighting on behalf of 3000+ people; they plugged a holes and created a bigger one. It is a common flaw; you plug one hole and create two more that you don't see at the time.
So yes it is definitely not beyond the wit of man to come up with a solution and I am as certain as I can be that several unspotted problems will be caused as a consequence, because they always are.
Governments ties themselves in knots passing this sort of legislation.
You don't think things through. Say you have a dinghy full of people in the English channel in good weather with everything a bit borderline: might be overloaded or just very full, has food water and fuel but maybe not enough, has chart and compass but the skipper looks a bit vague about using them. Does the lifeboat take them in tow? If it does does the same boat, same situation, turn up the following day in hope of a tow? Does the lifeboat refuse because We did you yesterday? And so on.
The government today just amended an absolute duty on it contained in an Act of Parliament by a motion in the Commons. They did not amend the Act. They simply used their Commons majority to override the law. https://twitter.com/LordCFalconer/status/1415077620383985666
You misunderstand. We have to cut foreign aid so that we can have money for our own people. Like poor WWC school kids who go hungry in the holidays.
The problem with these claims is that a visit to any deprived area reveals obesity and overpriced grotty takeaways rather than hunger and rickets.
And the people who are least sympathetic to 'the poor cannot afford to eat' blather are the low paid who do feed their families properly.
If anyone doesn't believe me:
Obesity is fast becoming “a disease of England’s poorest people”, putting them at higher risk of dying from the biggest killer diseases, a new report from the King’s Fund warns.
There is a stark and widening gap between the number of people from deprived families who are dangerously overweight and those from better-off backgrounds, and the difference is particularly pronounced among women, the thinktank says.
Almost half of the fast-food outlets in England are in the most deprived parts of the country, figures show, raising fresh concerns about child obesity in poorer areas.
The most affluent 10% of England is home to just 3% of fast-food restaurants, chip shops and burger bars, and the poorest decile has 17%, according to the data from Public Health England (PHE).
Campaigners are demanding taxes on junk food after official figures showed that primary school children from poorer areas are twice as likely as those from wealthier ones to be obese.
Childhood obesity is set to increase so sharply among boys from poorer homes in England that three in five of them will be dangerously overweight by 2020, research shows.
But the number of well-off boys who are overweight or obese is expected to fall to one in six in that time, underlining that obesity’s already stark class divide will widen even further.
The reason is quite simple - the exercise culture.
Go out it in the morning and take a look at the people out jogging. Even in the poor parts of London, it's the well off people passing through.
The middle classes and above spend a fortune on keeping slim. Being over weight is considered a bit... chavy...
I don’t think this is true, or rather it is true but not the reason.
Exercise doesn’t really keep people slim, except at the margins.
The real issue is food, and middle class people - generally! - grow up with a healthier food culture.
The Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture and hence a higher tendency toward obesity.
And protein is also much more expensive than carbohydrate, and the latter is more filling - so the poorest have an economic and a cultural disposition to an obesogenic diet.
If we want to crack this nut, I believe it comes down to education, education, education.
I suggest that the 'Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture', certainly in England, is due to driving people off the land and into industrial work in the late 18th & throughout the 19th Centuries.
This is the traditional reason cited, and it certainly accounts for a lot. But it’s not the full story. Why is American food similarly “poor” when - until the later 19th century - it was fundamentally an agricultural country?
As I understand it, and I'm only an amateur historian, to some degree similar conditions applied in the US; either people 'out on the range', or crowded together in cities.
Ok what about NZ? Food growing up was abysmal. You could pretty much only buy one type of cheese.
My guess:
1. English climate 2. Protestantism 3. Industrialisation/urbanisation.
(1) and (2) conspired to create a generally sub-par Anglo food culture. (3) was the nail in the coffin from a U.K. point of view.
On the brighter side, the U.K. does good piquant sauces and pastes: think worcestershire, hot english mustard, marmite, anchovy relish.
You don't invent sauces like that unless the underlying foodstuff is shit.
First I needed to lose 1.5 stone so I have initiated a soup and fruit diet and very strictly followed
It is hard, but in the first week I took off 8 lbs (just over half a stone) and hope to have hit my target by the end of the month
The first meat I will eat in six weeks will be at my sons wedding on the 31st July but I am already feeling the benefit
And on the RNLI I have sent @Cyclefree article to my mp, who as most of you know is a personnal friend, and he has instructed his assistant to review the article and seek clarification from the Home Office
I will comment further once I have received a response
Losing weight requires eating fewer calories than you need to maintain your weight, gaining weight is the opposite.
People make it sound difficult - but that is the reality. I am not saying it is easy to lose weight or eat fewer calories but the process itself is not difficult.
If millions of people try to do something and a high proportion fail is that not pretty much textbook difficult?
It may not sound difficult, but it clearly is, otherwise there would not be a problem.
The process itself is not complicated, eat fewer calories than you need. But I completely agree - and I acknowledged I believed - that actually doing the process is hard
I think that is minimising it greatly. The process is not just about eating fewer calories, as your body then reacts to the calorie shortage and sends out various signals to the brain about what to eat next. Managing those signals seems key, and for many it needs complex advice, structure and guidance.
The process is not simple but complex.
I think we're essentially saying the same thing. My point was that to actually lose weight - and I agree I've put it badly - is to eat fewer calories than you consume. That element of it is simple and nothing else will work.
Nope - still wrong. Its is far too complex. The idea of calories is fundamentally wrong. Do you know how a calorific content is worked out? By burning and seeing the energy released. If you eat mainly sugar, almost all the 'calories' are available to the body. If you eat mainly plants, its not, as quite a lot gets chucked out at the other end. In reality putting on weight, losing weight is mindblowingly complex. There have been incredible studies done - such as force feeding for months, yet the gain in weight is modest, and certainly not equivalent to the increased calories. Similar for restricted diet. Our bodies tend to certain set points. I lost around three stone during chemotherapy, then regained it in months when back home, but didn't get heavier than I started. There is huge science emerging based on gut bacteria. Its believed that eating a very varied diet increases the right bacteria in the gut and helps. Its is not a simple as eat less, lose weight. It just isn't. And lastly, even if it was, some people are hungry all the time, some are not. A great study on kids is to let them eat as much as they want, then put them in a room with sweets and toys. About half will totally ignore the sweets, about half will eat them. My wife has no interest in food when not hungry or when tired - I can eat whenever. Its not simple.
To feed a family of four at McDonalds costs the better part of £20 nowadays.
To go to the Co-Op, or Aldi, or Tesco's and get some fresh veg and meat and prepare a fresh meal can be done considerably cheaper.
People are buying at McDonalds and others because its convenient, not because they can't afford to cook at home.
+1
People are going to McDonalds because they don't have time to cook at home. Both parents work all day and they don't have time to cook, it's quite simple.
This goes back to education again really, teach people how to cook meals quickly.
Cook a veg and chicken stir fry in about 10 mins. How close do they live to Macdonalds? its an excuse, not a reason.
Losing weight requires eating fewer calories than you need to maintain your weight, gaining weight is the opposite.
People make it sound difficult - but that is the reality. I am not saying it is easy to lose weight or eat fewer calories but the process itself is not difficult.
If millions of people try to do something and a high proportion fail is that not pretty much textbook difficult?
It may not sound difficult, but it clearly is, otherwise there would not be a problem.
The process itself is not complicated, eat fewer calories than you need. But I completely agree - and I acknowledged I believed - that actually doing the process is hard
I think that is minimising it greatly. The process is not just about eating fewer calories, as your body then reacts to the calorie shortage and sends out various signals to the brain about what to eat next. Managing those signals seems key, and for many it needs complex advice, structure and guidance.
The process is not simple but complex.
I think we're essentially saying the same thing. My point was that to actually lose weight - and I agree I've put it badly - is to eat fewer calories than you consume. That element of it is simple and nothing else will work.
Nope - still wrong. Its is far too complex. The idea of calories is fundamentally wrong. Do you know how a calorific content is worked out? By burning and seeing the energy released. If you eat mainly sugar, almost all the 'calories' are available to the body. If you eat mainly plants, its not, as quite a lot gets chucked out at the other end. In reality putting on weight, losing weight is mindblowingly complex. There have been incredible studies done - such as force feeding for months, yet the gain in weight is modest, and certainly not equivalent to the increased calories. Similar for restricted diet. Our bodies tend to certain set points. I lost around three stone during chemotherapy, then regained it in months when back home, but didn't get heavier than I started. There is huge science emerging based on gut bacteria. Its believed that eating a very varied diet increases the right bacteria in the gut and helps. Its is not a simple as eat less, lose weight. It just isn't. And lastly, even if it was, some people are hungry all the time, some are not. A great study on kids is to let them eat as much as they want, then put them in a room with sweets and toys. About half will totally ignore the sweets, about half will eat them. My wife has no interest in food when not hungry or when tired - I can eat whenever. Its not simple.
One of the most annoying things is people who eat continually. do no exercise at all and stay slim.
The government today just amended an absolute duty on it contained in an Act of Parliament by a motion in the Commons. They did not amend the Act. They simply used their Commons majority to override the law. https://twitter.com/LordCFalconer/status/1415077620383985666
You misunderstand. We have to cut foreign aid so that we can have money for our own people. Like poor WWC school kids who go hungry in the holidays.
The problem with these claims is that a visit to any deprived area reveals obesity and overpriced grotty takeaways rather than hunger and rickets.
And the people who are least sympathetic to 'the poor cannot afford to eat' blather are the low paid who do feed their families properly.
If anyone doesn't believe me:
Obesity is fast becoming “a disease of England’s poorest people”, putting them at higher risk of dying from the biggest killer diseases, a new report from the King’s Fund warns.
There is a stark and widening gap between the number of people from deprived families who are dangerously overweight and those from better-off backgrounds, and the difference is particularly pronounced among women, the thinktank says.
Almost half of the fast-food outlets in England are in the most deprived parts of the country, figures show, raising fresh concerns about child obesity in poorer areas.
The most affluent 10% of England is home to just 3% of fast-food restaurants, chip shops and burger bars, and the poorest decile has 17%, according to the data from Public Health England (PHE).
Campaigners are demanding taxes on junk food after official figures showed that primary school children from poorer areas are twice as likely as those from wealthier ones to be obese.
Childhood obesity is set to increase so sharply among boys from poorer homes in England that three in five of them will be dangerously overweight by 2020, research shows.
But the number of well-off boys who are overweight or obese is expected to fall to one in six in that time, underlining that obesity’s already stark class divide will widen even further.
The reason is quite simple - the exercise culture.
Go out it in the morning and take a look at the people out jogging. Even in the poor parts of London, it's the well off people passing through.
The middle classes and above spend a fortune on keeping slim. Being over weight is considered a bit... chavy...
I don’t think this is true, or rather it is true but not the reason.
Exercise doesn’t really keep people slim, except at the margins.
The real issue is food, and middle class people - generally! - grow up with a healthier food culture.
The Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture and hence a higher tendency toward obesity.
And protein is also much more expensive than carbohydrate, and the latter is more filling - so the poorest have an economic and a cultural disposition to an obesogenic diet.
If we want to crack this nut, I believe it comes down to education, education, education.
I suggest that the 'Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture', certainly in England, is due to driving people off the land and into industrial work in the late 18th & throughout the 19th Centuries.
This is the traditional reason cited, and it certainly accounts for a lot. But it’s not the full story. Why is American food similarly “poor” when - until the later 19th century - it was fundamentally an agricultural country?
As I understand it, and I'm only an amateur historian, to some degree similar conditions applied in the US; either people 'out on the range', or crowded together in cities.
Ok what about NZ? Food growing up was abysmal. You could pretty much only buy one type of cheese.
My guess:
1. English climate 2. Protestantism 3. Industrialisation/urbanisation.
(1) and (2) conspired to create a generally sub-par Anglo food culture. (3) was the nail in the coffin from a U.K. point of view.
On the brighter side, the U.K. does good piquant sauces and pastes: think worcestershire, hot english mustard, marmite, anchovy relish.
Some say WWII rationing stuffed food up. There is a long tradition of good food in the UK... And some of it has come back.
When I grew up, sausages either came from a proper butcher or were dire, horrible things. The Yes Minister episode on the "British Offal Fat Tube" was simply true. Now you can get come quite reasonable stuff in the supermarkets...
I’m a big exponent of English food today. However, the reality is that English food has traditionally been a sub-par and long the butt of others’ jokes.
England is (was?) very good at inventing team sports, parliamentary democracy, garden design, and literature. Good sense of humour, probably to deal with class anxiety.
Not that great on on visual art, and classical music. At least compared to the neighbours.
I think I might be changing my mind re lifting the restrictions
Just had a chat with one of my colleagues - his wife (double jabbed) just gone down with Covid
Given that we currently have a relatively high number of cases, the chances of knowing people in your extended circle who this happens to are statistically quite high even if the risk to any given individual is low.
I think I might be changing my mind re lifting the restrictions
Just had a chat with one of my colleagues - his wife (double jabbed) just gone down with Covid
Another guy and his family in isolation as they went to a friends house on Sunday - the male friend went to footie Wednesday and now he and all his family have tested positive.
More people at my sons school have tested positive - some of them appear to have caught it from fag breaks - his school had bubbles to keep groups separate and that was the only time they mixed (in hind sight not the greatest of ideas)
This thing spreads fast
Yes, also anecdotally, a sensible colleague who is careful in her habits and has been jabbed has just gone down with Covid and is very ill. People who say "Oh, virtually nobody dies from it now so let's stop worrying" have a lot to answer for.
It's absolutely rife. An absolute disaster zone at my kids' schools. I recently needed to borrow a cat basket to go to the vet (cats have grown and can no longer share) and realised literally everyone I know with a cat in my town has covid. Most of them - adults, anyway - jabbed.
But I don't think the response should be to delay reopening. It's spreading like wildfire, and indubitably remains a very nasty disease - but our understanding is that due to the extent of vaccination of vulnerable groups, the NHS is no longer at risk and therefore those of us who rely on its services are no longer at risk.
If the risks back in 2020 had been those now, we would not be imposing the sort of restrictions we are under at the moment. We might be advising the vulnerable to shield, advising that masks might be advisable on public transport - exactly what is being advised after next Monday.
We would not be saying anything so draconian as no more than 6 people in your house, or making it illegal not to wear masks in certain circumstances.
I have to question the "NHS is not at risk" line. Various hospitals are at absolute breaking point - a deadly combination of a spike in hospitalisations and staff having to self-isolate.
As an example. RVI in Newcastle has 9.5% of nurses self-isolating and thus not working. "The hospital is on its knees" from a senior Doctor there. Staff now being instructed to delete the track and trace app for fear that very quickly they won't have sufficient staff to be safe.
And this is before we unmask and unlock and prompt a huge surge.
The government today just amended an absolute duty on it contained in an Act of Parliament by a motion in the Commons. They did not amend the Act. They simply used their Commons majority to override the law. https://twitter.com/LordCFalconer/status/1415077620383985666
You misunderstand. We have to cut foreign aid so that we can have money for our own people. Like poor WWC school kids who go hungry in the holidays.
The problem with these claims is that a visit to any deprived area reveals obesity and overpriced grotty takeaways rather than hunger and rickets.
And the people who are least sympathetic to 'the poor cannot afford to eat' blather are the low paid who do feed their families properly.
If anyone doesn't believe me:
Obesity is fast becoming “a disease of England’s poorest people”, putting them at higher risk of dying from the biggest killer diseases, a new report from the King’s Fund warns.
There is a stark and widening gap between the number of people from deprived families who are dangerously overweight and those from better-off backgrounds, and the difference is particularly pronounced among women, the thinktank says.
Almost half of the fast-food outlets in England are in the most deprived parts of the country, figures show, raising fresh concerns about child obesity in poorer areas.
The most affluent 10% of England is home to just 3% of fast-food restaurants, chip shops and burger bars, and the poorest decile has 17%, according to the data from Public Health England (PHE).
Campaigners are demanding taxes on junk food after official figures showed that primary school children from poorer areas are twice as likely as those from wealthier ones to be obese.
Childhood obesity is set to increase so sharply among boys from poorer homes in England that three in five of them will be dangerously overweight by 2020, research shows.
But the number of well-off boys who are overweight or obese is expected to fall to one in six in that time, underlining that obesity’s already stark class divide will widen even further.
The reason is quite simple - the exercise culture.
Go out it in the morning and take a look at the people out jogging. Even in the poor parts of London, it's the well off people passing through.
The middle classes and above spend a fortune on keeping slim. Being over weight is considered a bit... chavy...
I don’t think this is true, or rather it is true but not the reason.
Exercise doesn’t really keep people slim, except at the margins.
The real issue is food, and middle class people - generally! - grow up with a healthier food culture.
The Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture and hence a higher tendency toward obesity.
And protein is also much more expensive than carbohydrate, and the latter is more filling - so the poorest have an economic and a cultural disposition to an obesogenic diet.
If we want to crack this nut, I believe it comes down to education, education, education.
I suggest that the 'Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture', certainly in England, is due to driving people off the land and into industrial work in the late 18th & throughout the 19th Centuries.
This is the traditional reason cited, and it certainly accounts for a lot. But it’s not the full story. Why is American food similarly “poor” when - until the later 19th century - it was fundamentally an agricultural country?
As I understand it, and I'm only an amateur historian, to some degree similar conditions applied in the US; either people 'out on the range', or crowded together in cities.
Ok what about NZ? Food growing up was abysmal. You could pretty much only buy one type of cheese.
My guess:
1. English climate 2. Protestantism 3. Industrialisation/urbanisation.
(1) and (2) conspired to create a generally sub-par Anglo food culture. (3) was the nail in the coffin from a U.K. point of view.
On the brighter side, the U.K. does good piquant sauces and pastes: think worcestershire, hot english mustard, marmite, anchovy relish.
Think Maori food was OK, although there's little native animal protein. British settlers were often, although by no means exclusively, from an urban background, AIUI. So I'd agree about 3.
Not sure about Protestantism; do you mean tasty food was sinful?
First I needed to lose 1.5 stone so I have initiated a soup and fruit diet and very strictly followed
It is hard, but in the first week I took off 8 lbs (just over half a stone) and hope to have hit my target by the end of the month
The first meat I will eat in six weeks will be at my sons wedding on the 31st July but I am already feeling the benefit
And on the RNLI I have sent @Cyclefree article to my mp, who as most of you know is a personnal friend, and he has instructed his assistant to review the article and seek clarification from the Home Office
I will comment further once I have received a response
8 lbs is a lot Big-G. Hopefully the rest is at a more sustainable pace?
I think I might be changing my mind re lifting the restrictions
Just had a chat with one of my colleagues - his wife (double jabbed) just gone down with Covid
Another guy and his family in isolation as they went to a friends house on Sunday - the male friend went to footie Wednesday and now he and all his family have tested positive.
More people at my sons school have tested positive - some of them appear to have caught it from fag breaks - his school had bubbles to keep groups separate and that was the only time they mixed (in hind sight not the greatest of ideas)
This thing spreads fast
Yes, also anecdotally, a sensible colleague who is careful in her habits and has been jabbed has just gone down with Covid and is very ill. People who say "Oh, virtually nobody dies from it now so let's stop worrying" have a lot to answer for.
It's absolutely rife. An absolute disaster zone at my kids' schools. I recently needed to borrow a cat basket to go to the vet (cats have grown and can no longer share) and realised literally everyone I know with a cat in my town has covid. Most of them - adults, anyway - jabbed.
But I don't think the response should be to delay reopening. It's spreading like wildfire, and indubitably remains a very nasty disease - but our understanding is that due to the extent of vaccination of vulnerable groups, the NHS is no longer at risk and therefore those of us who rely on its services are no longer at risk.
If the risks back in 2020 had been those now, we would not be imposing the sort of restrictions we are under at the moment. We might be advising the vulnerable to shield, advising that masks might be advisable on public transport - exactly what is being advised after next Monday.
We would not be saying anything so draconian as no more than 6 people in your house, or making it illegal not to wear masks in certain circumstances.
I have to question the "NHS is not at risk" line. Various hospitals are at absolute breaking point - a deadly combination of a spike in hospitalisations and staff having to self-isolate.
As an example. RVI in Newcastle has 9.5% of nurses self-isolating and thus not working. "The hospital is on its knees" from a senior Doctor there. Staff now being instructed to delete the track and trace app for fear that very quickly they won't have sufficient staff to be safe.
And this is before we unmask and unlock and prompt a huge surge.
Time to end self-isolation. Solve the problem there.
We should absolutely not be lifting the mask laws, keep them in place.
I warned a few weeks ago about how we're going in the wrong direction, I just have a bad a feeling like I had before. And many here ridiculed me when I called for previous lockdowns but if you'd followed my timing we'd have been in a much better position.
The default should be freedom. I'd want something more concrete than a bad feeling before I backed its continued suspension.
I also don't agree that we'd be in a much better position if we'd locked down more or harder. We'd just have fewer with antibodies once delta arrived. (Not that we knew that at the time.) Pandemics are complex and riven with unintended and unforeseen consequences, and it is mildly delusional to think that you can simply do action a to result in outcome b. I will agree with Matt Hancock that the only thing you can be sure will work is vaccines.
I do think numbers of positives will increase significantly after the 19th. I don't think numbers of hospitalisations will get out of control.
The purpose of lockdowns was to stop the NHS getting overwhelmed and therefore causing excess deaths by not being able to do its usual job. There is no real indication that this will happen after the 19th. Therefore, cry freedom (cautiously).
I will happily concede, because I am not in a courtroom and this shouldn't be about winning the argument (as I mock the likes of Pagel for falling back on more and more tenuous arguments for the position she wants to hold) that I will pretty much always be arguing for freedom. Two months ago I was arguing for freedom on the basis of the above and also that covid was at such low levels we didn't need to be so cautious. The latter is clearly no longer the case.
Lawyer here. The only part I disagree with Cyclefree’s over is her interpretation of subsection 3. I think the concern about the RNLI is slightly overstated (but not misplaced at all) given the RNLI is likely a non profit that aims to assist asylum seekers (specifically those in distress at sea) and thus exempted by section 25(A)(3)?
I think I might be changing my mind re lifting the restrictions
Just had a chat with one of my colleagues - his wife (double jabbed) just gone down with Covid
Another guy and his family in isolation as they went to a friends house on Sunday - the male friend went to footie Wednesday and now he and all his family have tested positive.
More people at my sons school have tested positive - some of them appear to have caught it from fag breaks - his school had bubbles to keep groups separate and that was the only time they mixed (in hind sight not the greatest of ideas)
This thing spreads fast
Yes, also anecdotally, a sensible colleague who is careful in her habits and has been jabbed has just gone down with Covid and is very ill. People who say "Oh, virtually nobody dies from it now so let's stop worrying" have a lot to answer for.
It's absolutely rife. An absolute disaster zone at my kids' schools. I recently needed to borrow a cat basket to go to the vet (cats have grown and can no longer share) and realised literally everyone I know with a cat in my town has covid. Most of them - adults, anyway - jabbed.
But I don't think the response should be to delay reopening. It's spreading like wildfire, and indubitably remains a very nasty disease - but our understanding is that due to the extent of vaccination of vulnerable groups, the NHS is no longer at risk and therefore those of us who rely on its services are no longer at risk.
If the risks back in 2020 had been those now, we would not be imposing the sort of restrictions we are under at the moment. We might be advising the vulnerable to shield, advising that masks might be advisable on public transport - exactly what is being advised after next Monday.
We would not be saying anything so draconian as no more than 6 people in your house, or making it illegal not to wear masks in certain circumstances.
I have to question the "NHS is not at risk" line. Various hospitals are at absolute breaking point - a deadly combination of a spike in hospitalisations and staff having to self-isolate.
As an example. RVI in Newcastle has 9.5% of nurses self-isolating and thus not working. "The hospital is on its knees" from a senior Doctor there. Staff now being instructed to delete the track and trace app for fear that very quickly they won't have sufficient staff to be safe.
And this is before we unmask and unlock and prompt a huge surge.
The key to this is to stop isolating double jabbed staff. Let the test before work - if clear, in they come.
Losing weight requires eating fewer calories than you need to maintain your weight, gaining weight is the opposite.
People make it sound difficult - but that is the reality. I am not saying it is easy to lose weight or eat fewer calories but the process itself is not difficult.
If millions of people try to do something and a high proportion fail is that not pretty much textbook difficult?
It may not sound difficult, but it clearly is, otherwise there would not be a problem.
The process itself is not complicated, eat fewer calories than you need. But I completely agree - and I acknowledged I believed - that actually doing the process is hard
I think that is minimising it greatly. The process is not just about eating fewer calories, as your body then reacts to the calorie shortage and sends out various signals to the brain about what to eat next. Managing those signals seems key, and for many it needs complex advice, structure and guidance.
The process is not simple but complex.
I think we're essentially saying the same thing. My point was that to actually lose weight - and I agree I've put it badly - is to eat fewer calories than you consume. That element of it is simple and nothing else will work.
Nope - still wrong. Its is far too complex. The idea of calories is fundamentally wrong. Do you know how a calorific content is worked out? By burning and seeing the energy released. If you eat mainly sugar, almost all the 'calories' are available to the body. If you eat mainly plants, its not, as quite a lot gets chucked out at the other end. In reality putting on weight, losing weight is mindblowingly complex. There have been incredible studies done - such as force feeding for months, yet the gain in weight is modest, and certainly not equivalent to the increased calories. Similar for restricted diet. Our bodies tend to certain set points. I lost around three stone during chemotherapy, then regained it in months when back home, but didn't get heavier than I started. There is huge science emerging based on gut bacteria. Its believed that eating a very varied diet increases the right bacteria in the gut and helps. Its is not a simple as eat less, lose weight. It just isn't. And lastly, even if it was, some people are hungry all the time, some are not. A great study on kids is to let them eat as much as they want, then put them in a room with sweets and toys. About half will totally ignore the sweets, about half will eat them. My wife has no interest in food when not hungry or when tired - I can eat whenever. Its not simple.
One of the most annoying things is people who eat continually. do no exercise at all and stay slim.
To feed a family of four at McDonalds costs the better part of £20 nowadays.
To go to the Co-Op, or Aldi, or Tesco's and get some fresh veg and meat and prepare a fresh meal can be done considerably cheaper.
People are buying at McDonalds and others because its convenient, not because they can't afford to cook at home.
And as people have pointed out earlier
1) People are not being taught how to cook
2) People who haven't been shown how to do things are often too scared to try to do those things themselves
3) People may not enjoy cooking and would rather watch TV - it's highly possible that cooking takes an hour and results in no thanks from the rest of the family.
You can see why people may go for the easier options.
You make it sound like rocket science. Only a few decades ago the vast majority of people cooked for themselves all the time.
Yep and the wife stayed at home from 9 to 5 while hubby worked.
Depending on social status. Quite a few working women in, for examples, mill towns.
To feed a family of four at McDonalds costs the better part of £20 nowadays.
To go to the Co-Op, or Aldi, or Tesco's and get some fresh veg and meat and prepare a fresh meal can be done considerably cheaper.
People are buying at McDonalds and others because its convenient, not because they can't afford to cook at home.
And as people have pointed out earlier
1) People are not being taught how to cook
2) People who haven't been shown how to do things are often too scared to try to do those things themselves
3) People may not enjoy cooking and would rather watch TV - it's highly possible that cooking takes an hour and results in no thanks from the rest of the family.
You can see why people may go for the easier options.
You make it sound like rocket science. Only a few decades ago the vast majority of people cooked for themselves all the time.
Yep and the wife stayed at home from 9 to 5 while hubby worked.
I work and generally cook for the family.
Cooking can be done while doing other things. That is a skill I was taught by my mother. Hence the modern style of kitchen - open planned onto the living/eating area. So that the cook(s) can participate in family life....
First I needed to lose 1.5 stone so I have initiated a soup and fruit diet and very strictly followed
It is hard, but in the first week I took off 8 lbs (just over half a stone) and hope to have hit my target by the end of the month
The first meat I will eat in six weeks will be at my sons wedding on the 31st July but I am already feeling the benefit
And on the RNLI I have sent @Cyclefree article to my mp, who as most of you know is a personnal friend, and he has instructed his assistant to review the article and seek clarification from the Home Office
I will comment further once I have received a response
To feed a family of four at McDonalds costs the better part of £20 nowadays.
To go to the Co-Op, or Aldi, or Tesco's and get some fresh veg and meat and prepare a fresh meal can be done considerably cheaper.
People are buying at McDonalds and others because its convenient, not because they can't afford to cook at home.
+1
People are going to McDonalds because they don't have time to cook at home. Both parents work all day and they don't have time to cook, it's quite simple.
This goes back to education again really, teach people how to cook meals quickly.
No they're not.
People are going to McDonalds because they don't have the desire to cook at home.
Going out of your way to go to McDonalds is more time consuming than cooking a simple meal at home.
Heck even going for a simple, carby meal at home that is not as healthy as a plate of vegetables but much more healthy than McDonalds. It costs ~£1 to £2 to do Beans on Toast for a family of 4 and it takes less than five minutes to do so.
Preparing a salad can be done in less than five minutes too.
Its just about desire.
Desire and ability and taste.
Once you're into the habit of McDonalds or supermarket ready meals with kids I imagine it's hard to break - the fat, sugar, salt combos taste great to children and the really easy healthier options are a bit bland if your taste buds are used to salt/sugar overload.* A simple salad or even beans on toast won't be that great, the kids will kick off and the time and effort spent seems wasted (and the money if it doesn't get eaten).
Now, you can do amazing things with cheap ingredients. Dhal, veggie currys, pasta-based dishes (even a siple tomato sauce can be delicious), but it does take a bit of time and effort to learn that and, cooked badly, no one's going to want to eat some bland soggy (or hard) lentils.
We were poor growing up, but in the always healthy food on the table category. Tasted awful, looking back - over-boiled veg, some hunk of overcooked meat, but it was what we knew and we ate it and it contained what we needed to be healthy. I didn't learn how to cook properly until at uni and I was in a corridor with people from India, Pakistan, Africa, Italy, it was quite an education. Now my wife and I have the time, money and interest to try new things and our kids love pasta and homemade pizza and curry. My son won't eat shop chips (we try and persuade him to, which seems wrong! I think because they're too bland).
We need better cooking classes for all at school - good, tasty, healthy meals that can be made for nothing, but that's a long term solution. For those who struggle now, we need a simplified, cheaper hello fresh type approach (could be via supermarkets to cut out delivey costs and some basic choices of food types rather than pick every recipe) maybe incentivised by getting much more to spend directly on that compared to benefits - X in cash or 2X for recipe food boxes.
* Had some friends in a previous job who we had dinner with a lot - they cooked/we cooked. Good cook but, to our taste, oversalted everything, to the extent it was sometimes hard to eat - you become acustomed to salt levels. We don't put salt on veg for cooking, my parents do and when we visit I can really taste it, although I never tasted it as a kid (and added more on the plate!).
The government today just amended an absolute duty on it contained in an Act of Parliament by a motion in the Commons. They did not amend the Act. They simply used their Commons majority to override the law. https://twitter.com/LordCFalconer/status/1415077620383985666
You misunderstand. We have to cut foreign aid so that we can have money for our own people. Like poor WWC school kids who go hungry in the holidays.
The problem with these claims is that a visit to any deprived area reveals obesity and overpriced grotty takeaways rather than hunger and rickets.
And the people who are least sympathetic to 'the poor cannot afford to eat' blather are the low paid who do feed their families properly.
If anyone doesn't believe me:
Obesity is fast becoming “a disease of England’s poorest people”, putting them at higher risk of dying from the biggest killer diseases, a new report from the King’s Fund warns.
There is a stark and widening gap between the number of people from deprived families who are dangerously overweight and those from better-off backgrounds, and the difference is particularly pronounced among women, the thinktank says.
Almost half of the fast-food outlets in England are in the most deprived parts of the country, figures show, raising fresh concerns about child obesity in poorer areas.
The most affluent 10% of England is home to just 3% of fast-food restaurants, chip shops and burger bars, and the poorest decile has 17%, according to the data from Public Health England (PHE).
Campaigners are demanding taxes on junk food after official figures showed that primary school children from poorer areas are twice as likely as those from wealthier ones to be obese.
Childhood obesity is set to increase so sharply among boys from poorer homes in England that three in five of them will be dangerously overweight by 2020, research shows.
But the number of well-off boys who are overweight or obese is expected to fall to one in six in that time, underlining that obesity’s already stark class divide will widen even further.
The reason is quite simple - the exercise culture.
Go out it in the morning and take a look at the people out jogging. Even in the poor parts of London, it's the well off people passing through.
The middle classes and above spend a fortune on keeping slim. Being over weight is considered a bit... chavy...
I don’t think this is true, or rather it is true but not the reason.
Exercise doesn’t really keep people slim, except at the margins.
The real issue is food, and middle class people - generally! - grow up with a healthier food culture.
The Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture and hence a higher tendency toward obesity.
And protein is also much more expensive than carbohydrate, and the latter is more filling - so the poorest have an economic and a cultural disposition to an obesogenic diet.
If we want to crack this nut, I believe it comes down to education, education, education.
I suggest that the 'Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture', certainly in England, is due to driving people off the land and into industrial work in the late 18th & throughout the 19th Centuries.
This is the traditional reason cited, and it certainly accounts for a lot. But it’s not the full story. Why is American food similarly “poor” when - until the later 19th century - it was fundamentally an agricultural country?
As I understand it, and I'm only an amateur historian, to some degree similar conditions applied in the US; either people 'out on the range', or crowded together in cities.
Ok what about NZ? Food growing up was abysmal. You could pretty much only buy one type of cheese.
My guess:
1. English climate 2. Protestantism 3. Industrialisation/urbanisation.
(1) and (2) conspired to create a generally sub-par Anglo food culture. (3) was the nail in the coffin from a U.K. point of view.
On the brighter side, the U.K. does good piquant sauces and pastes: think worcestershire, hot english mustard, marmite, anchovy relish.
Some say WWII rationing stuffed food up. There is a long tradition of good food in the UK... And some of it has come back.
When I grew up, sausages either came from a proper butcher or were dire, horrible things. The Yes Minister episode on the "British Offal Fat Tube" was simply true. Now you can get come quite reasonable stuff in the supermarkets...
I’m a big exponent of English food today. However, the reality is that English food has traditionally been a sub-par and long the butt of others’ jokes.
England is (was?) very good at inventing team sports, parliamentary democracy, garden design, and literature. Good sense of humour, probably to deal with class anxiety.
Not that great on on visual art, and classical music. At least compared to the neighbours.
Very poor on food.
A fair summary. (Though I'd argue that class anxiety and humour both stem from something else the English excel at: awkwardness).
Today, England is fine for food. In tourist areas and comfortable remainia, you can't go two miles without finding somewhere enticing to eat. Many parts of England, you might have to look a bit harder, but you'll still find somewhere good if you are pointed in the right direction. This is very much a product of my lifetime though - traditionally, it hasn't been the case. But - this only really applies to meals. England has always held its own at confectionery. Our cakes have always been as good as any and better than many.
Lawyer here. The only part I disagree with Cyclefree’s over is her interpretation of subsection 3. I think the concern about the RNLI is slightly overstated (but not misplaced at all) given the RNLI is likely a non profit that aims to assist asylum seekers (specifically those in distress at sea) and thus exempted by section 25(A)(3)?
Agree that it creates confusion and thus an intolerable situation for the RNLI though.
Any government that wants to lose the next election by 300 seats will make sure that lifeboatmen go to prison for saving people from drowning.
To repeat myself
You don't think things through. Say you have a dinghy full of people in the English channel in good weather with everything a bit borderline: might be overloaded or just very full, has food water and fuel but maybe not enough, has chart and compass but the skipper looks a bit vague about using them. Does the lifeboat take them in tow? If it does does the same boat, same situation, turn up the following day in hope of a tow? Does the lifeboat refuse because We did you yesterday? And so on.
It isn't going to be a "Grace Darling is innocent" scenario.
The government today just amended an absolute duty on it contained in an Act of Parliament by a motion in the Commons. They did not amend the Act. They simply used their Commons majority to override the law. https://twitter.com/LordCFalconer/status/1415077620383985666
You misunderstand. We have to cut foreign aid so that we can have money for our own people. Like poor WWC school kids who go hungry in the holidays.
The problem with these claims is that a visit to any deprived area reveals obesity and overpriced grotty takeaways rather than hunger and rickets.
And the people who are least sympathetic to 'the poor cannot afford to eat' blather are the low paid who do feed their families properly.
If anyone doesn't believe me:
Obesity is fast becoming “a disease of England’s poorest people”, putting them at higher risk of dying from the biggest killer diseases, a new report from the King’s Fund warns.
There is a stark and widening gap between the number of people from deprived families who are dangerously overweight and those from better-off backgrounds, and the difference is particularly pronounced among women, the thinktank says.
Almost half of the fast-food outlets in England are in the most deprived parts of the country, figures show, raising fresh concerns about child obesity in poorer areas.
The most affluent 10% of England is home to just 3% of fast-food restaurants, chip shops and burger bars, and the poorest decile has 17%, according to the data from Public Health England (PHE).
Campaigners are demanding taxes on junk food after official figures showed that primary school children from poorer areas are twice as likely as those from wealthier ones to be obese.
Childhood obesity is set to increase so sharply among boys from poorer homes in England that three in five of them will be dangerously overweight by 2020, research shows.
But the number of well-off boys who are overweight or obese is expected to fall to one in six in that time, underlining that obesity’s already stark class divide will widen even further.
The reason is quite simple - the exercise culture.
Go out it in the morning and take a look at the people out jogging. Even in the poor parts of London, it's the well off people passing through.
The middle classes and above spend a fortune on keeping slim. Being over weight is considered a bit... chavy...
I don’t think this is true, or rather it is true but not the reason.
Exercise doesn’t really keep people slim, except at the margins.
The real issue is food, and middle class people - generally! - grow up with a healthier food culture.
The Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture and hence a higher tendency toward obesity.
And protein is also much more expensive than carbohydrate, and the latter is more filling - so the poorest have an economic and a cultural disposition to an obesogenic diet.
If we want to crack this nut, I believe it comes down to education, education, education.
I suggest that the 'Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture', certainly in England, is due to driving people off the land and into industrial work in the late 18th & throughout the 19th Centuries.
This is the traditional reason cited, and it certainly accounts for a lot. But it’s not the full story. Why is American food similarly “poor” when - until the later 19th century - it was fundamentally an agricultural country?
As I understand it, and I'm only an amateur historian, to some degree similar conditions applied in the US; either people 'out on the range', or crowded together in cities.
Ok what about NZ? Food growing up was abysmal. You could pretty much only buy one type of cheese.
My guess:
1. English climate 2. Protestantism 3. Industrialisation/urbanisation.
(1) and (2) conspired to create a generally sub-par Anglo food culture. (3) was the nail in the coffin from a U.K. point of view.
On the brighter side, the U.K. does good piquant sauces and pastes: think worcestershire, hot english mustard, marmite, anchovy relish.
Think Maori food was OK, although there's little native animal protein. British settlers were often, although by no means exclusively, from an urban background, AIUI. So I'd agree about 3.
Not sure about Protestantism; do you mean tasty food was sinful?
Would definitely not agree about marmite, though.
Maori food was incredibly basic. There is essentially no Maori “cuisine” which has survived to the modern day.
I don’t think British settlers *were* from a very urban background actually - at least before WW2.
Tended to be more rural types who thought they could at least have a go at farming.
First I needed to lose 1.5 stone so I have initiated a soup and fruit diet and very strictly followed
It is hard, but in the first week I took off 8 lbs (just over half a stone) and hope to have hit my target by the end of the month
The first meat I will eat in six weeks will be at my sons wedding on the 31st July but I am already feeling the benefit
And on the RNLI I have sent @Cyclefree article to my mp, who as most of you know is a personnal friend, and he has instructed his assistant to review the article and seek clarification from the Home Office
I will comment further once I have received a response
8 lbs is a lot Big-G. Hopefully the rest is at a more sustainable pace?
Yes even I was surprised but I gave up smoking 20 years ago and it is that same will power that is needed and of course once I have achieved my weight I will go back to a more normal diet
To feed a family of four at McDonalds costs the better part of £20 nowadays.
To go to the Co-Op, or Aldi, or Tesco's and get some fresh veg and meat and prepare a fresh meal can be done considerably cheaper.
People are buying at McDonalds and others because its convenient, not because they can't afford to cook at home.
And as people have pointed out earlier
1) People are not being taught how to cook
2) People who haven't been shown how to do things are often too scared to try to do those things themselves
3) People may not enjoy cooking and would rather watch TV - it's highly possible that cooking takes an hour and results in no thanks from the rest of the family.
You can see why people may go for the easier options.
You make it sound like rocket science. Only a few decades ago the vast majority of people cooked for themselves all the time.
Yep and the wife stayed at home from 9 to 5 while hubby worked.
Depending on social status. Quite a few working women in, for examples, mill towns.
Am currently reading a book on England between the wars. The working wife thing was very much a textile / Lancashire thing, apparently.
I'd wish everyone a 'Good Morning" as usual, but looking at both Ms Cyclefree's leader and what happened yesterday it isn't really, is it? We appear to have a mean-minded, indeed cruel, group of people in Government. If the RNLI is concerned about a proposal, then I would really hope that it's reconsidered. But there is, so far, no sign of that.
I have great respect for @Cyclefree but the issue with the RNLI and rescue at sea will need to be addressed, but I can say with certainty that my son, who has just joined the RNLI following a long tradition of both our families involvement in the sea and fishing for generations, will not be thinking that he will be imprisoned for saving any life at sea
Indeed as a family the RNLI and our local hospice benefit from all our charity support but then maybe that is understandable
My wife has lost family members at sea and a nephew in the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988 and the absence of their recovery leaves a terrible yearning of loss
We all thank your son and his colleagues for their service. Your initial response though was instructive. Fingers in ears, eyes closed, la la la its not true.
This government - YOUR government, your party - want to send your son to jail for being a hero.
And still you support them.
The government has repeatedly said that is not their intention
Fingers in ears, eyes closed, la la la it’s not true.
You continue to accuse them despite reasonable argument that you position is utter bollocks
If hyperpartisan critics of the government need to rely on clear lies and misinterpretations to criticise the government then clearly the government is doing a good job.
They've got no legitimate criticisms so make transparently fake ones instead. Then wonder why 12 points behind in the polls.
The thing to look at in all these laws is would you be comfortable for this legislation to be in the toolkit of your opponents.
So, what would a Corbyn government potentially have done with the online safety bill and what could that mean for freedom of speech among right wingers? What might UKIP do with the 'RNLI bill'?
Relying on the good sense of governments and prosecutors is to rely on election of governments with good sense and prosecutors that remain independent.
We've seen with some of the abuses of terror legislation how things, once law, can be misused and creep into areas that the original drafters of the bills would never have supported.
I've already said I've got more concerns over the online harms bill, as described. Though others have said the bill is not really as described, I don't know enough to comment further on that.
The RNLI issue is a clear lie though.
The interesting thing is that nobody seems to be debating the real principle behind the law and instead debating an already dismissed wilful misinterpretation.
The question to answer is Should people trafficking be a criminal offence, even if "for profit" can not be proven?
Why is the RNLI issue a clear lie? I have not read the bill so I don't know, but Cyclefree's analysis seems quite clear.
I take your point that when debated this may be cleared up, BUT I have already given an example of something I am involved in which confirms Cyclefree's point - It matters not a jot what the minister says, it is what is in the Act that counts as I know to the cost of 3000+ people I am fighting for in a similar unrelated situation.
Because as others have already pointed out
The Home Office have already said these provisions do not apply to the RNLI.
The Human Rights Act would trump this legislation and would protect the RNLI too.
International Maritime Law makes rescues a legal duty that can't be made illegal. That is domestic law too.
The Bill needs to go through Committee etc were amendments can be made if necessary, with the Government already having said (see (1)) that this is not targetting the RNLI.
And more points have been made too. Its nonsense.
1) Is incorrect as I have already pointed out. The Home Office can say what they like, it has no effect as Cyclefree pointed out and as I know from bitter experience (see my posts). 2) and 3) puts you in a position of laws conflicting. It is effectively the same as 1) except the position is in doubt rather than being certain. Slightly better but you don't want to be in that fight. 4) I accept, but then I said that in my post, but this sort of thing just results in a terrible muddle, with loopholes and unintended consequences as I pointed out in my example and as others have also done.
1 is not incorrect when it feeds into 2, 3 and 4 - or when people are falsely claiming that the opposite of 1 is the intention despite all evidence to the contrary.
Given there is a clear intention not to have this apply to the RNLI, universally agreed, and given that existing laws would protect the RNLI, it would not be beyond the wit of man to come up with an amendment in committee if needed.
But its worth noting the RNLI themselves aren't really objecting - others who are routinely partisan pointscoring critics of the government are doing so on their behalf.
I take your point Philip IF it gets amended accordingly, but I have already said that.
But you would have thought they would have spotted these bear traps wouldn't you? And these bear traps do get missed. This one might get caught, but in catching that do they create another? By the way that is exactly what happened in the case I am fighting on behalf of 3000+ people; they plugged a holes and created a bigger one. It is a common flaw; you plug one hole and create two more that you don't see at the time.
So yes it is definitely not beyond the wit of man to come up with a solution and I am as certain as I can be that several unspotted problems will be caused as a consequence, because they always are.
Governments ties themselves in knots passing this sort of legislation.
You don't think things through. Say you have a dinghy full of people in the English channel in good weather with everything a bit borderline: might be overloaded or just very full, has food water and fuel but maybe not enough, has chart and compass but the skipper looks a bit vague about using them. Does the lifeboat take them in tow? If it does does the same boat, same situation, turn up the following day in hope of a tow? Does the lifeboat refuse because We did you yesterday? And so on.
I have absolutely no idea what you point is and clearly you haven't been following the debate between me and Philip because that has been about the wording of the Act and the unintended consequences of it.
We haven't been discussing the overall issue of how you solve the boat people in the channel problem itself (although obvious the Act is intended to do so in some way) I haven't even read the Act so I can't comment. I was simply discussing the specific issue and my experience of similar unrelated circumstances which is don't pass laws that cause you bigger problems down the line.
But on the specific issue you raise (which has absolutely nothing to do with what we were discussing) if a lifeboat is sent out and the life boat skipper deems the boat they have been sent to is at risk then of course they save them, even though the consequences may be others will follow.
And just to reiterate I suspect @Philip_Thompson won't disagree with that either, because at no point did he say so. His point was that the risk of the RLNI being prosecuted was a red herring and it was that we were discussing.
First I needed to lose 1.5 stone so I have initiated a soup and fruit diet and very strictly followed
It is hard, but in the first week I took off 8 lbs (just over half a stone) and hope to have hit my target by the end of the month
The first meat I will eat in six weeks will be at my sons wedding on the 31st July but I am already feeling the benefit
And on the RNLI I have sent @Cyclefree article to my mp, who as most of you know is a personnal friend, and he has instructed his assistant to review the article and seek clarification from the Home Office
I will comment further once I have received a response
Well done on both!
Thank you and further to the RNLI I have now e mailed the whole of @Cyclefree article to my MP and have received an acknowledgement from him
If nothing else this morning has raised an issue that I intend pursuing as my son, as a crew member of the RNLI would be directly affected
I think I might be changing my mind re lifting the restrictions
Just had a chat with one of my colleagues - his wife (double jabbed) just gone down with Covid
Another guy and his family in isolation as they went to a friends house on Sunday - the male friend went to footie Wednesday and now he and all his family have tested positive.
More people at my sons school have tested positive - some of them appear to have caught it from fag breaks - his school had bubbles to keep groups separate and that was the only time they mixed (in hind sight not the greatest of ideas)
This thing spreads fast
Yes, also anecdotally, a sensible colleague who is careful in her habits and has been jabbed has just gone down with Covid and is very ill. People who say "Oh, virtually nobody dies from it now so let's stop worrying" have a lot to answer for.
What should we do then? Delay? Go back? Keep the current level of restrictions for good?
Need to spend £40 in free bets by end today. Any tips?
Load up your betfair account and back/lay the horses to extract ~£35 from the free bets - would be my recommendation. The longer odds the better, subject to bankroll because the stake isn’t usually returned on free bet winnings.
Google “matched betting” for the specifics. I recommend MSE’s archived forums.
First I needed to lose 1.5 stone so I have initiated a soup and fruit diet and very strictly followed
It is hard, but in the first week I took off 8 lbs (just over half a stone) and hope to have hit my target by the end of the month
The first meat I will eat in six weeks will be at my sons wedding on the 31st July but I am already feeling the benefit
And on the RNLI I have sent @Cyclefree article to my mp, who as most of you know is a personnal friend, and he has instructed his assistant to review the article and seek clarification from the Home Office
I will comment further once I have received a response
Well done on both!
Thank you and further to the RNLI I have now e mailed the whole of @Cyclefree article to my MP and have received an acknowledgement from him
If nothing else this morning has raised an issue that I intend pursuing as my son, as a crew member of the RNLI would be directly affected
I'd wish everyone a 'Good Morning" as usual, but looking at both Ms Cyclefree's leader and what happened yesterday it isn't really, is it? We appear to have a mean-minded, indeed cruel, group of people in Government. If the RNLI is concerned about a proposal, then I would really hope that it's reconsidered. But there is, so far, no sign of that.
I have great respect for @Cyclefree but the issue with the RNLI and rescue at sea will need to be addressed, but I can say with certainty that my son, who has just joined the RNLI following a long tradition of both our families involvement in the sea and fishing for generations, will not be thinking that he will be imprisoned for saving any life at sea
Indeed as a family the RNLI and our local hospice benefit from all our charity support but then maybe that is understandable
My wife has lost family members at sea and a nephew in the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988 and the absence of their recovery leaves a terrible yearning of loss
We all thank your son and his colleagues for their service. Your initial response though was instructive. Fingers in ears, eyes closed, la la la its not true.
This government - YOUR government, your party - want to send your son to jail for being a hero.
And still you support them.
The government has repeatedly said that is not their intention
Fingers in ears, eyes closed, la la la it’s not true.
You continue to accuse them despite reasonable argument that you position is utter bollocks
If hyperpartisan critics of the government need to rely on clear lies and misinterpretations to criticise the government then clearly the government is doing a good job.
They've got no legitimate criticisms so make transparently fake ones instead. Then wonder why 12 points behind in the polls.
The thing to look at in all these laws is would you be comfortable for this legislation to be in the toolkit of your opponents.
So, what would a Corbyn government potentially have done with the online safety bill and what could that mean for freedom of speech among right wingers? What might UKIP do with the 'RNLI bill'?
Relying on the good sense of governments and prosecutors is to rely on election of governments with good sense and prosecutors that remain independent.
We've seen with some of the abuses of terror legislation how things, once law, can be misused and creep into areas that the original drafters of the bills would never have supported.
I've already said I've got more concerns over the online harms bill, as described. Though others have said the bill is not really as described, I don't know enough to comment further on that.
The RNLI issue is a clear lie though.
The interesting thing is that nobody seems to be debating the real principle behind the law and instead debating an already dismissed wilful misinterpretation.
The question to answer is Should people trafficking be a criminal offence, even if "for profit" can not be proven?
Why is the RNLI issue a clear lie? I have not read the bill so I don't know, but Cyclefree's analysis seems quite clear.
I take your point that when debated this may be cleared up, BUT I have already given an example of something I am involved in which confirms Cyclefree's point - It matters not a jot what the minister says, it is what is in the Act that counts as I know to the cost of 3000+ people I am fighting for in a similar unrelated situation.
Because as others have already pointed out
The Home Office have already said these provisions do not apply to the RNLI.
The Human Rights Act would trump this legislation and would protect the RNLI too.
International Maritime Law makes rescues a legal duty that can't be made illegal. That is domestic law too.
The Bill needs to go through Committee etc were amendments can be made if necessary, with the Government already having said (see (1)) that this is not targetting the RNLI.
And more points have been made too. Its nonsense.
1) Is incorrect as I have already pointed out. The Home Office can say what they like, it has no effect as Cyclefree pointed out and as I know from bitter experience (see my posts). 2) and 3) puts you in a position of laws conflicting. It is effectively the same as 1) except the position is in doubt rather than being certain. Slightly better but you don't want to be in that fight. 4) I accept, but then I said that in my post, but this sort of thing just results in a terrible muddle, with loopholes and unintended consequences as I pointed out in my example and as others have also done.
1 is not incorrect when it feeds into 2, 3 and 4 - or when people are falsely claiming that the opposite of 1 is the intention despite all evidence to the contrary.
Given there is a clear intention not to have this apply to the RNLI, universally agreed, and given that existing laws would protect the RNLI, it would not be beyond the wit of man to come up with an amendment in committee if needed.
But its worth noting the RNLI themselves aren't really objecting - others who are routinely partisan pointscoring critics of the government are doing so on their behalf.
I take your point Philip IF it gets amended accordingly, but I have already said that.
But you would have thought they would have spotted these bear traps wouldn't you? And these bear traps do get missed. This one might get caught, but in catching that do they create another? By the way that is exactly what happened in the case I am fighting on behalf of 3000+ people; they plugged a holes and created a bigger one. It is a common flaw; you plug one hole and create two more that you don't see at the time.
So yes it is definitely not beyond the wit of man to come up with a solution and I am as certain as I can be that several unspotted problems will be caused as a consequence, because they always are.
Governments ties themselves in knots passing this sort of legislation.
You don't think things through. Say you have a dinghy full of people in the English channel in good weather with everything a bit borderline: might be overloaded or just very full, has food water and fuel but maybe not enough, has chart and compass but the skipper looks a bit vague about using them. Does the lifeboat take them in tow? If it does does the same boat, same situation, turn up the following day in hope of a tow? Does the lifeboat refuse because We did you yesterday? And so on.
I have absolutely no idea what you point is and clearly you haven't been following the debate between me and Philip because that has been about the wording of the Act and the unintended consequences of it.
We haven't been discussing the overall issue of how you solve the boat people in the channel problem itself (although obvious the Act is intended to do so in some way) I haven't even read the Act so I can't comment. I was simply discussing the specific issue and my experience of similar unrelated circumstances which is don't pass laws that cause you bigger problems down the line.
But on the specific issue you raise (which has absolutely nothing to do with what we were discussing) if a lifeboat is sent out and the life boat skipper deems the boat they have been sent to is at risk then of course they save them, even though the consequences may be others will follow.
And just to reiterate I suspect Philip won't disagree with that either, because at no point did he say so. His point was that the risk of the RLNI being prosecuted was a red herring and it was that we were discussing.
Surely you can see that a law is a bad law (or at least incredibly badly phrased) if the solution to a highlighted problem is "in some circumstances we won't enforce the the law as written".
As that is the get out clause the people who can't see the problem are claiming.
To feed a family of four at McDonalds costs the better part of £20 nowadays.
To go to the Co-Op, or Aldi, or Tesco's and get some fresh veg and meat and prepare a fresh meal can be done considerably cheaper.
People are buying at McDonalds and others because its convenient, not because they can't afford to cook at home.
+1
People are going to McDonalds because they don't have time to cook at home. Both parents work all day and they don't have time to cook, it's quite simple.
This goes back to education again really, teach people how to cook meals quickly.
No they're not.
People are going to McDonalds because they don't have the desire to cook at home.
Going out of your way to go to McDonalds is more time consuming than cooking a simple meal at home.
Heck even going for a simple, carby meal at home that is not as healthy as a plate of vegetables but much more healthy than McDonalds. It costs ~£1 to £2 to do Beans on Toast for a family of 4 and it takes less than five minutes to do so.
Preparing a salad can be done in less than five minutes too.
Its just about desire.
Desire and ability and taste.
Once you're into the habit of McDonalds or supermarket ready meals with kids I imagine it's hard to break - the fat, sugar, salt combos taste great to children and the really easy healthier options are a bit bland if your taste buds are used to salt/sugar overload.* A simple salad or even beans on toast won't be that great, the kids will kick off and the time and effort spent seems wasted (and the money if it doesn't get eaten).
Now, you can do amazing things with cheap ingredients. Dhal, veggie currys, pasta-based dishes (even a siple tomato sauce can be delicious), but it does take a bit of time and effort to learn that and, cooked badly, no one's going to want to eat some bland soggy (or hard) lentils.
We were poor growing up, but in the always healthy food on the table category. Tasted awful, looking back - over-boiled veg, some hunk of overcooked meat, but it was what we knew and we ate it and it contained what we needed to be healthy. I didn't learn how to cook properly until at uni and I was in a corridor with people from India, Pakistan, Africa, Italy, it was quite an education. Now my wife and I have the time, money and interest to try new things and our kids love pasta and homemade pizza and curry. My son won't eat shop chips (we try and persuade him to, which seems wrong! I think because they're too bland).
We need better cooking classes for all at school - good, tasty, healthy meals that can be made for nothing, but that's a long term solution. For those who struggle now, we need a simplified, cheaper hello fresh type approach (could be via supermarkets to cut out delivey costs and some basic choices of food types rather than pick every recipe) maybe incentivised by getting much more to spend directly on that compared to benefits - X in cash or 2X for recipe food boxes.
* Had some friends in a previous job who we had dinner with a lot - they cooked/we cooked. Good cook but, to our taste, oversalted everything, to the extent it was sometimes hard to eat - you become acustomed to salt levels. We don't put salt on veg for cooking, my parents do and when we visit I can really taste it, although I never tasted it as a kid (and added more on the plate!).
Kids kicking off is another issue. Quite frankly parenting is the issue.
Kids kick off, its what they do. Not giving in to them is difficult but important.
Kids need to learn that the meal mummy and daddy prepared is what they're having and kicking off won't give another option.
Again when people were poorer and had no alternative that was easier to do. Kids who kicked off didn't eat, got hungry then had to eat their dinner. Nowadays it's too easy to have an alternative or snacks instead.
First I needed to lose 1.5 stone so I have initiated a soup and fruit diet and very strictly followed
It is hard, but in the first week I took off 8 lbs (just over half a stone) and hope to have hit my target by the end of the month
The first meat I will eat in six weeks will be at my sons wedding on the 31st July but I am already feeling the benefit
And on the RNLI I have sent @Cyclefree article to my mp, who as most of you know is a personnal friend, and he has instructed his assistant to review the article and seek clarification from the Home Office
I will comment further once I have received a response
Well done on both!
Thank you and further to the RNLI I have now e mailed the whole of @Cyclefree article to my MP and have received an acknowledgement from him
If nothing else this morning has raised an issue that I intend pursuing as my son, as a crew member of the RNLI would be directly affected
That's a good and useful thing to do.
Edit: do let us know what happens.
Thank you
I will most certainly do so as we just have to resolve this
As you know I have a very personal interest in this subject
The government today just amended an absolute duty on it contained in an Act of Parliament by a motion in the Commons. They did not amend the Act. They simply used their Commons majority to override the law. https://twitter.com/LordCFalconer/status/1415077620383985666
You misunderstand. We have to cut foreign aid so that we can have money for our own people. Like poor WWC school kids who go hungry in the holidays.
The problem with these claims is that a visit to any deprived area reveals obesity and overpriced grotty takeaways rather than hunger and rickets.
And the people who are least sympathetic to 'the poor cannot afford to eat' blather are the low paid who do feed their families properly.
If anyone doesn't believe me:
Obesity is fast becoming “a disease of England’s poorest people”, putting them at higher risk of dying from the biggest killer diseases, a new report from the King’s Fund warns.
There is a stark and widening gap between the number of people from deprived families who are dangerously overweight and those from better-off backgrounds, and the difference is particularly pronounced among women, the thinktank says.
Almost half of the fast-food outlets in England are in the most deprived parts of the country, figures show, raising fresh concerns about child obesity in poorer areas.
The most affluent 10% of England is home to just 3% of fast-food restaurants, chip shops and burger bars, and the poorest decile has 17%, according to the data from Public Health England (PHE).
Campaigners are demanding taxes on junk food after official figures showed that primary school children from poorer areas are twice as likely as those from wealthier ones to be obese.
Childhood obesity is set to increase so sharply among boys from poorer homes in England that three in five of them will be dangerously overweight by 2020, research shows.
But the number of well-off boys who are overweight or obese is expected to fall to one in six in that time, underlining that obesity’s already stark class divide will widen even further.
The reason is quite simple - the exercise culture.
Go out it in the morning and take a look at the people out jogging. Even in the poor parts of London, it's the well off people passing through.
The middle classes and above spend a fortune on keeping slim. Being over weight is considered a bit... chavy...
I don’t think this is true, or rather it is true but not the reason.
Exercise doesn’t really keep people slim, except at the margins.
The real issue is food, and middle class people - generally! - grow up with a healthier food culture.
The Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture and hence a higher tendency toward obesity.
And protein is also much more expensive than carbohydrate, and the latter is more filling - so the poorest have an economic and a cultural disposition to an obesogenic diet.
If we want to crack this nut, I believe it comes down to education, education, education.
I suggest that the 'Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture', certainly in England, is due to driving people off the land and into industrial work in the late 18th & throughout the 19th Centuries.
This is the traditional reason cited, and it certainly accounts for a lot. But it’s not the full story. Why is American food similarly “poor” when - until the later 19th century - it was fundamentally an agricultural country?
As I understand it, and I'm only an amateur historian, to some degree similar conditions applied in the US; either people 'out on the range', or crowded together in cities.
Ok what about NZ? Food growing up was abysmal. You could pretty much only buy one type of cheese.
My guess:
1. English climate 2. Protestantism 3. Industrialisation/urbanisation.
(1) and (2) conspired to create a generally sub-par Anglo food culture. (3) was the nail in the coffin from a U.K. point of view.
On the brighter side, the U.K. does good piquant sauces and pastes: think worcestershire, hot english mustard, marmite, anchovy relish.
Think Maori food was OK, although there's little native animal protein. British settlers were often, although by no means exclusively, from an urban background, AIUI. So I'd agree about 3.
Not sure about Protestantism; do you mean tasty food was sinful?
Would definitely not agree about marmite, though.
Maori food was incredibly basic. There is essentially no Maori “cuisine” which has survived to the modern day.
I don’t think British settlers *were* from a very urban background actually - at least before WW2.
Tended to be more rural types who thought they could at least have a go at farming.
I have a book on this somewhere...
Ah, obliged. Thanks. Always willing to learn.
Have a cousin who worked for one of the Maori tribes, and to be fair he's never mentioned their food. Must ask.
Lawyer here. The only part I disagree with Cyclefree’s over is her interpretation of subsection 3. I think the concern about the RNLI is slightly overstated (but not misplaced at all) given the RNLI is likely a non profit that aims to assist asylum seekers (specifically those in distress at sea) and thus exempted by section 25(A)(3)?
Agree that it creates confusion and thus an intolerable situation for the RNLI though.
Any government that wants to lose the next election by 300 seats will make sure that lifeboatmen go to prison for saving people from drowning.
To repeat myself
You don't think things through. Say you have a dinghy full of people in the English channel in good weather with everything a bit borderline: might be overloaded or just very full, has food water and fuel but maybe not enough, has chart and compass but the skipper looks a bit vague about using them. Does the lifeboat take them in tow? If it does does the same boat, same situation, turn up the following day in hope of a tow? Does the lifeboat refuse because We did you yesterday? And so on.
It isn't going to be a "Grace Darling is innocent" scenario.
Exactly. And that is before someone on the dingy declares an emergency. Or even creates emergencies - this has occurred and been filmed in the Med.
The government today just amended an absolute duty on it contained in an Act of Parliament by a motion in the Commons. They did not amend the Act. They simply used their Commons majority to override the law. https://twitter.com/LordCFalconer/status/1415077620383985666
You misunderstand. We have to cut foreign aid so that we can have money for our own people. Like poor WWC school kids who go hungry in the holidays.
The problem with these claims is that a visit to any deprived area reveals obesity and overpriced grotty takeaways rather than hunger and rickets.
And the people who are least sympathetic to 'the poor cannot afford to eat' blather are the low paid who do feed their families properly.
If anyone doesn't believe me:
... Childhood obesity is set to increase so sharply among boys from poorer homes in England that three in five of them will be dangerously overweight by 2020, research shows.
But the number of well-off boys who are overweight or obese is expected to fall to one in six in that time, underlining that obesity’s already stark class divide will widen even further.
1 - These are articles going back for nearly a decade, and we have interventions on obesity. Have these helped?
2 - That last one I have not snipped is interesting, as it includes a checkable claim. This is 2021 - are three in five of boys in poorer homes "dangerously overweight"?
3 - Checking the link on "research" in the original piece, the source actually says:
"Stark new figures from the Obesity Health Alliance, released on World Obesity Day, show a looming significant weight gap between the poorest and wealthiest primary-school aged boys living in England.
Three in five (60%) of the most deprived boys aged 5-11 are predicted to be overweight or obese by 2020, compared to about one in six (16%) of boys in the most affluent group [1]."
The Guardian inserted "dangerously" before "overweight", when it was not present in the original. "Dangerously" is akin to the medical term "morbidly" which is used for the most threatening cases.
For me that's a measure of the Guardian, and why I trust the damned thing as far as I could catapult Eric Pickles with a rubber band.
Ryan Chan 陳家翹 @ryankakiuchan Replying to @ryankakiuchan Another bad news: British Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and strike group hit with 'major' Covid outbreak after Cyprus shore leave, includes at least 100 double-jabbed crew.
I'd wish everyone a 'Good Morning" as usual, but looking at both Ms Cyclefree's leader and what happened yesterday it isn't really, is it? We appear to have a mean-minded, indeed cruel, group of people in Government. If the RNLI is concerned about a proposal, then I would really hope that it's reconsidered. But there is, so far, no sign of that.
I have great respect for @Cyclefree but the issue with the RNLI and rescue at sea will need to be addressed, but I can say with certainty that my son, who has just joined the RNLI following a long tradition of both our families involvement in the sea and fishing for generations, will not be thinking that he will be imprisoned for saving any life at sea
Indeed as a family the RNLI and our local hospice benefit from all our charity support but then maybe that is understandable
My wife has lost family members at sea and a nephew in the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988 and the absence of their recovery leaves a terrible yearning of loss
We all thank your son and his colleagues for their service. Your initial response though was instructive. Fingers in ears, eyes closed, la la la its not true.
This government - YOUR government, your party - want to send your son to jail for being a hero.
And still you support them.
The government has repeatedly said that is not their intention
Fingers in ears, eyes closed, la la la it’s not true.
You continue to accuse them despite reasonable argument that you position is utter bollocks
If hyperpartisan critics of the government need to rely on clear lies and misinterpretations to criticise the government then clearly the government is doing a good job.
They've got no legitimate criticisms so make transparently fake ones instead. Then wonder why 12 points behind in the polls.
The thing to look at in all these laws is would you be comfortable for this legislation to be in the toolkit of your opponents.
So, what would a Corbyn government potentially have done with the online safety bill and what could that mean for freedom of speech among right wingers? What might UKIP do with the 'RNLI bill'?
Relying on the good sense of governments and prosecutors is to rely on election of governments with good sense and prosecutors that remain independent.
We've seen with some of the abuses of terror legislation how things, once law, can be misused and creep into areas that the original drafters of the bills would never have supported.
I've already said I've got more concerns over the online harms bill, as described. Though others have said the bill is not really as described, I don't know enough to comment further on that.
The RNLI issue is a clear lie though.
The interesting thing is that nobody seems to be debating the real principle behind the law and instead debating an already dismissed wilful misinterpretation.
The question to answer is Should people trafficking be a criminal offence, even if "for profit" can not be proven?
Why is the RNLI issue a clear lie? I have not read the bill so I don't know, but Cyclefree's analysis seems quite clear.
I take your point that when debated this may be cleared up, BUT I have already given an example of something I am involved in which confirms Cyclefree's point - It matters not a jot what the minister says, it is what is in the Act that counts as I know to the cost of 3000+ people I am fighting for in a similar unrelated situation.
Because as others have already pointed out
The Home Office have already said these provisions do not apply to the RNLI.
The Human Rights Act would trump this legislation and would protect the RNLI too.
International Maritime Law makes rescues a legal duty that can't be made illegal. That is domestic law too.
The Bill needs to go through Committee etc were amendments can be made if necessary, with the Government already having said (see (1)) that this is not targetting the RNLI.
And more points have been made too. Its nonsense.
1) Is incorrect as I have already pointed out. The Home Office can say what they like, it has no effect as Cyclefree pointed out and as I know from bitter experience (see my posts). 2) and 3) puts you in a position of laws conflicting. It is effectively the same as 1) except the position is in doubt rather than being certain. Slightly better but you don't want to be in that fight. 4) I accept, but then I said that in my post, but this sort of thing just results in a terrible muddle, with loopholes and unintended consequences as I pointed out in my example and as others have also done.
1 is not incorrect when it feeds into 2, 3 and 4 - or when people are falsely claiming that the opposite of 1 is the intention despite all evidence to the contrary.
Given there is a clear intention not to have this apply to the RNLI, universally agreed, and given that existing laws would protect the RNLI, it would not be beyond the wit of man to come up with an amendment in committee if needed.
But its worth noting the RNLI themselves aren't really objecting - others who are routinely partisan pointscoring critics of the government are doing so on their behalf.
I take your point Philip IF it gets amended accordingly, but I have already said that.
But you would have thought they would have spotted these bear traps wouldn't you? And these bear traps do get missed. This one might get caught, but in catching that do they create another? By the way that is exactly what happened in the case I am fighting on behalf of 3000+ people; they plugged a holes and created a bigger one. It is a common flaw; you plug one hole and create two more that you don't see at the time.
So yes it is definitely not beyond the wit of man to come up with a solution and I am as certain as I can be that several unspotted problems will be caused as a consequence, because they always are.
Governments ties themselves in knots passing this sort of legislation.
You don't think things through. Say you have a dinghy full of people in the English channel in good weather with everything a bit borderline: might be overloaded or just very full, has food water and fuel but maybe not enough, has chart and compass but the skipper looks a bit vague about using them. Does the lifeboat take them in tow? If it does does the same boat, same situation, turn up the following day in hope of a tow? Does the lifeboat refuse because We did you yesterday? And so on.
I have absolutely no idea what you point is and clearly you haven't been following the debate between me and Philip because that has been about the wording of the Act and the unintended consequences of it.
We haven't been discussing the overall issue of how you solve the boat people in the channel problem itself (although obvious the Act is intended to do so in some way) I haven't even read the Act so I can't comment. I was simply discussing the specific issue and my experience of similar unrelated circumstances which is don't pass laws that cause you bigger problems down the line.
But on the specific issue you raise (which has absolutely nothing to do with what we were discussing) if a lifeboat is sent out and the life boat skipper deems the boat they have been sent to is at risk then of course they save them, even though the consequences may be others will follow.
And just to reiterate I suspect Philip won't disagree with that either, because at no point did he say so. His point was that the risk of the RLNI being prosecuted was a red herring and it was that we were discussing.
But that was exactly the point of my post, with the proviso that it was meant to be addressed to Philip, not you. He thinks the RNLI will be protected by the duty to save life at sea. They will not in all cases because a lot of what they do is helping out idiots who were never in danger in the first place. They are therefore highly vulnerable to the legislation as drafted.
To feed a family of four at McDonalds costs the better part of £20 nowadays.
To go to the Co-Op, or Aldi, or Tesco's and get some fresh veg and meat and prepare a fresh meal can be done considerably cheaper.
People are buying at McDonalds and others because its convenient, not because they can't afford to cook at home.
+1
People are going to McDonalds because they don't have time to cook at home. Both parents work all day and they don't have time to cook, it's quite simple.
This goes back to education again really, teach people how to cook meals quickly.
No they're not.
People are going to McDonalds because they don't have the desire to cook at home.
Going out of your way to go to McDonalds is more time consuming than cooking a simple meal at home.
Heck even going for a simple, carby meal at home that is not as healthy as a plate of vegetables but much more healthy than McDonalds. It costs ~£1 to £2 to do Beans on Toast for a family of 4 and it takes less than five minutes to do so.
Preparing a salad can be done in less than five minutes too.
Its just about desire.
Desire and ability and taste.
Once you're into the habit of McDonalds or supermarket ready meals with kids I imagine it's hard to break - the fat, sugar, salt combos taste great to children and the really easy healthier options are a bit bland if your taste buds are used to salt/sugar overload.* A simple salad or even beans on toast won't be that great, the kids will kick off and the time and effort spent seems wasted (and the money if it doesn't get eaten).
Now, you can do amazing things with cheap ingredients. Dhal, veggie currys, pasta-based dishes (even a siple tomato sauce can be delicious), but it does take a bit of time and effort to learn that and, cooked badly, no one's going to want to eat some bland soggy (or hard) lentils.
We were poor growing up, but in the always healthy food on the table category. Tasted awful, looking back - over-boiled veg, some hunk of overcooked meat, but it was what we knew and we ate it and it contained what we needed to be healthy. I didn't learn how to cook properly until at uni and I was in a corridor with people from India, Pakistan, Africa, Italy, it was quite an education. Now my wife and I have the time, money and interest to try new things and our kids love pasta and homemade pizza and curry. My son won't eat shop chips (we try and persuade him to, which seems wrong! I think because they're too bland).
We need better cooking classes for all at school - good, tasty, healthy meals that can be made for nothing, but that's a long term solution. For those who struggle now, we need a simplified, cheaper hello fresh type approach (could be via supermarkets to cut out delivey costs and some basic choices of food types rather than pick every recipe) maybe incentivised by getting much more to spend directly on that compared to benefits - X in cash or 2X for recipe food boxes.
* Had some friends in a previous job who we had dinner with a lot - they cooked/we cooked. Good cook but, to our taste, oversalted everything, to the extent it was sometimes hard to eat - you become acustomed to salt levels. We don't put salt on veg for cooking, my parents do and when we visit I can really taste it, although I never tasted it as a kid (and added more on the plate!).
One fun thing to do, is when you are having people round to eat, is to share out the food preparation - did this quite a bit in my 20s & 30s. So 6 people would team up in pairs (typically), each to do part of the meal.
Lots of experiments that went wrong - but learnt alot, and was good, cheap fun.
I'd wish everyone a 'Good Morning" as usual, but looking at both Ms Cyclefree's leader and what happened yesterday it isn't really, is it? We appear to have a mean-minded, indeed cruel, group of people in Government. If the RNLI is concerned about a proposal, then I would really hope that it's reconsidered. But there is, so far, no sign of that.
I have great respect for @Cyclefree but the issue with the RNLI and rescue at sea will need to be addressed, but I can say with certainty that my son, who has just joined the RNLI following a long tradition of both our families involvement in the sea and fishing for generations, will not be thinking that he will be imprisoned for saving any life at sea
Indeed as a family the RNLI and our local hospice benefit from all our charity support but then maybe that is understandable
My wife has lost family members at sea and a nephew in the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988 and the absence of their recovery leaves a terrible yearning of loss
We all thank your son and his colleagues for their service. Your initial response though was instructive. Fingers in ears, eyes closed, la la la its not true.
This government - YOUR government, your party - want to send your son to jail for being a hero.
And still you support them.
The government has repeatedly said that is not their intention
Fingers in ears, eyes closed, la la la it’s not true.
You continue to accuse them despite reasonable argument that you position is utter bollocks
If hyperpartisan critics of the government need to rely on clear lies and misinterpretations to criticise the government then clearly the government is doing a good job.
They've got no legitimate criticisms so make transparently fake ones instead. Then wonder why 12 points behind in the polls.
The thing to look at in all these laws is would you be comfortable for this legislation to be in the toolkit of your opponents.
So, what would a Corbyn government potentially have done with the online safety bill and what could that mean for freedom of speech among right wingers? What might UKIP do with the 'RNLI bill'?
Relying on the good sense of governments and prosecutors is to rely on election of governments with good sense and prosecutors that remain independent.
We've seen with some of the abuses of terror legislation how things, once law, can be misused and creep into areas that the original drafters of the bills would never have supported.
I've already said I've got more concerns over the online harms bill, as described. Though others have said the bill is not really as described, I don't know enough to comment further on that.
The RNLI issue is a clear lie though.
The interesting thing is that nobody seems to be debating the real principle behind the law and instead debating an already dismissed wilful misinterpretation.
The question to answer is Should people trafficking be a criminal offence, even if "for profit" can not be proven?
Why is the RNLI issue a clear lie? I have not read the bill so I don't know, but Cyclefree's analysis seems quite clear.
I take your point that when debated this may be cleared up, BUT I have already given an example of something I am involved in which confirms Cyclefree's point - It matters not a jot what the minister says, it is what is in the Act that counts as I know to the cost of 3000+ people I am fighting for in a similar unrelated situation.
Because as others have already pointed out
The Home Office have already said these provisions do not apply to the RNLI.
The Human Rights Act would trump this legislation and would protect the RNLI too.
International Maritime Law makes rescues a legal duty that can't be made illegal. That is domestic law too.
The Bill needs to go through Committee etc were amendments can be made if necessary, with the Government already having said (see (1)) that this is not targetting the RNLI.
And more points have been made too. Its nonsense.
1) Is incorrect as I have already pointed out. The Home Office can say what they like, it has no effect as Cyclefree pointed out and as I know from bitter experience (see my posts). 2) and 3) puts you in a position of laws conflicting. It is effectively the same as 1) except the position is in doubt rather than being certain. Slightly better but you don't want to be in that fight. 4) I accept, but then I said that in my post, but this sort of thing just results in a terrible muddle, with loopholes and unintended consequences as I pointed out in my example and as others have also done.
1 is not incorrect when it feeds into 2, 3 and 4 - or when people are falsely claiming that the opposite of 1 is the intention despite all evidence to the contrary.
Given there is a clear intention not to have this apply to the RNLI, universally agreed, and given that existing laws would protect the RNLI, it would not be beyond the wit of man to come up with an amendment in committee if needed.
But its worth noting the RNLI themselves aren't really objecting - others who are routinely partisan pointscoring critics of the government are doing so on their behalf.
I take your point Philip IF it gets amended accordingly, but I have already said that.
But you would have thought they would have spotted these bear traps wouldn't you? And these bear traps do get missed. This one might get caught, but in catching that do they create another? By the way that is exactly what happened in the case I am fighting on behalf of 3000+ people; they plugged a holes and created a bigger one. It is a common flaw; you plug one hole and create two more that you don't see at the time.
So yes it is definitely not beyond the wit of man to come up with a solution and I am as certain as I can be that several unspotted problems will be caused as a consequence, because they always are.
Governments ties themselves in knots passing this sort of legislation.
You don't think things through. Say you have a dinghy full of people in the English channel in good weather with everything a bit borderline: might be overloaded or just very full, has food water and fuel but maybe not enough, has chart and compass but the skipper looks a bit vague about using them. Does the lifeboat take them in tow? If it does does the same boat, same situation, turn up the following day in hope of a tow? Does the lifeboat refuse because We did you yesterday? And so on.
I have absolutely no idea what you point is and clearly you haven't been following the debate between me and Philip because that has been about the wording of the Act and the unintended consequences of it.
We haven't been discussing the overall issue of how you solve the boat people in the channel problem itself (although obvious the Act is intended to do so in some way) I haven't even read the Act so I can't comment. I was simply discussing the specific issue and my experience of similar unrelated circumstances which is don't pass laws that cause you bigger problems down the line.
But on the specific issue you raise (which has absolutely nothing to do with what we were discussing) if a lifeboat is sent out and the life boat skipper deems the boat they have been sent to is at risk then of course they save them, even though the consequences may be others will follow.
And just to reiterate I suspect Philip won't disagree with that either, because at no point did he say so. His point was that the risk of the RLNI being prosecuted was a red herring and it was that we were discussing.
Surely you can see that a law is a bad law (or at least incredibly badly phrased) if the solution to a highlighted problem is "in some circumstances we won't enforce the the law as written".
As that is the get out clause the people who can't see the problem are claiming.
100% agree.
I could have saved myself so much time if I had thought of typing that rather than all the convoluted drivel I typed.
I think I might be changing my mind re lifting the restrictions
Just had a chat with one of my colleagues - his wife (double jabbed) just gone down with Covid
Another guy and his family in isolation as they went to a friends house on Sunday - the male friend went to footie Wednesday and now he and all his family have tested positive.
More people at my sons school have tested positive - some of them appear to have caught it from fag breaks - his school had bubbles to keep groups separate and that was the only time they mixed (in hind sight not the greatest of ideas)
This thing spreads fast
Yes, also anecdotally, a sensible colleague who is careful in her habits and has been jabbed has just gone down with Covid and is very ill. People who say "Oh, virtually nobody dies from it now so let's stop worrying" have a lot to answer for.
It's absolutely rife. An absolute disaster zone at my kids' schools. I recently needed to borrow a cat basket to go to the vet (cats have grown and can no longer share) and realised literally everyone I know with a cat in my town has covid. Most of them - adults, anyway - jabbed.
But I don't think the response should be to delay reopening. It's spreading like wildfire, and indubitably remains a very nasty disease - but our understanding is that due to the extent of vaccination of vulnerable groups, the NHS is no longer at risk and therefore those of us who rely on its services are no longer at risk.
If the risks back in 2020 had been those now, we would not be imposing the sort of restrictions we are under at the moment. We might be advising the vulnerable to shield, advising that masks might be advisable on public transport - exactly what is being advised after next Monday.
We would not be saying anything so draconian as no more than 6 people in your house, or making it illegal not to wear masks in certain circumstances.
I have to question the "NHS is not at risk" line. Various hospitals are at absolute breaking point - a deadly combination of a spike in hospitalisations and staff having to self-isolate.
As an example. RVI in Newcastle has 9.5% of nurses self-isolating and thus not working. "The hospital is on its knees" from a senior Doctor there. Staff now being instructed to delete the track and trace app for fear that very quickly they won't have sufficient staff to be safe.
And this is before we unmask and unlock and prompt a huge surge.
The key to this is to stop isolating double jabbed staff. Let the test before work - if clear, in they come.
The problem is that we have growing examples of (a) double-jabbed getting sick with Covid and (b) double-jabbed can transmit Covid
We're back to rhetoric vs reality. Being double-jabbed does not make you immune. Allowing Covid to run through our hospitals, transmitted via the medical staff would be fucking stupid.
Ryan Chan 陳家翹 @ryankakiuchan Replying to @ryankakiuchan Another bad news: British Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and strike group hit with 'major' Covid outbreak after Cyprus shore leave, includes at least 100 double-jabbed crew.
First I needed to lose 1.5 stone so I have initiated a soup and fruit diet and very strictly followed
It is hard, but in the first week I took off 8 lbs (just over half a stone) and hope to have hit my target by the end of the month
The first meat I will eat in six weeks will be at my sons wedding on the 31st July but I am already feeling the benefit
And on the RNLI I have sent @Cyclefree article to my mp, who as most of you know is a personnal friend, and he has instructed his assistant to review the article and seek clarification from the Home Office
I will comment further once I have received a response
Well done on both!
Thank you and further to the RNLI I have now e mailed the whole of @Cyclefree article to my MP and have received an acknowledgement from him
If nothing else this morning has raised an issue that I intend pursuing as my son, as a crew member of the RNLI would be directly affected
I am glad that you have finally woken up to that realisation.
To feed a family of four at McDonalds costs the better part of £20 nowadays.
To go to the Co-Op, or Aldi, or Tesco's and get some fresh veg and meat and prepare a fresh meal can be done considerably cheaper.
People are buying at McDonalds and others because its convenient, not because they can't afford to cook at home.
And as people have pointed out earlier
1) People are not being taught how to cook
2) People who haven't been shown how to do things are often too scared to try to do those things themselves
3) People may not enjoy cooking and would rather watch TV - it's highly possible that cooking takes an hour and results in no thanks from the rest of the family.
You can see why people may go for the easier options.
You make it sound like rocket science. Only a few decades ago the vast majority of people cooked for themselves all the time.
Yep and the wife stayed at home from 9 to 5 while hubby worked.
Depending on social status. Quite a few working women in, for examples, mill towns.
Am currently reading a book on England between the wars. The working wife thing was very much a textile / Lancashire thing, apparently.
To be fair, for most of of my Welsh mining forebears the census returns for the wives show that they were engaged on 'wifely duties' 'unpaid house keeping' or similar.
Ryan Chan 陳家翹 @ryankakiuchan Replying to @ryankakiuchan Another bad news: British Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and strike group hit with 'major' Covid outbreak after Cyprus shore leave, includes at least 100 double-jabbed crew.
'includes at least 100 double-jabbed crew'?
That's sub optimal.
I think that the interesting point is whether they will be severe or mild impact on the individual.
I believe the crew is around 800 plus air group, btw.
Ryan Chan 陳家翹 @ryankakiuchan Replying to @ryankakiuchan Another bad news: British Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and strike group hit with 'major' Covid outbreak after Cyprus shore leave, includes at least 100 double-jabbed crew.
'includes at least 100 double-jabbed crew'?
That's sub optimal.
Oh fuck. Those pesky known unknowns.
At a random guess, they are doing frequent screening testing on the crew. Given the confined situation, potential problems etc, it would be the obvious thing to do.
So hopefully most of those cases are extremely mild/asymptomatic - which is what we expect.
The vaccines are very good at the hospitalisation/death bit. The catching and passing on COVID, less so. Which is why we are where we are.
I'd wish everyone a 'Good Morning" as usual, but looking at both Ms Cyclefree's leader and what happened yesterday it isn't really, is it? We appear to have a mean-minded, indeed cruel, group of people in Government. If the RNLI is concerned about a proposal, then I would really hope that it's reconsidered. But there is, so far, no sign of that.
I have great respect for @Cyclefree but the issue with the RNLI and rescue at sea will need to be addressed, but I can say with certainty that my son, who has just joined the RNLI following a long tradition of both our families involvement in the sea and fishing for generations, will not be thinking that he will be imprisoned for saving any life at sea
Indeed as a family the RNLI and our local hospice benefit from all our charity support but then maybe that is understandable
My wife has lost family members at sea and a nephew in the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988 and the absence of their recovery leaves a terrible yearning of loss
We all thank your son and his colleagues for their service. Your initial response though was instructive. Fingers in ears, eyes closed, la la la its not true.
This government - YOUR government, your party - want to send your son to jail for being a hero.
And still you support them.
The government has repeatedly said that is not their intention
Fingers in ears, eyes closed, la la la it’s not true.
You continue to accuse them despite reasonable argument that you position is utter bollocks
If hyperpartisan critics of the government need to rely on clear lies and misinterpretations to criticise the government then clearly the government is doing a good job.
They've got no legitimate criticisms so make transparently fake ones instead. Then wonder why 12 points behind in the polls.
The thing to look at in all these laws is would you be comfortable for this legislation to be in the toolkit of your opponents.
So, what would a Corbyn government potentially have done with the online safety bill and what could that mean for freedom of speech among right wingers? What might UKIP do with the 'RNLI bill'?
Relying on the good sense of governments and prosecutors is to rely on election of governments with good sense and prosecutors that remain independent.
We've seen with some of the abuses of terror legislation how things, once law, can be misused and creep into areas that the original drafters of the bills would never have supported.
I've already said I've got more concerns over the online harms bill, as described. Though others have said the bill is not really as described, I don't know enough to comment further on that.
The RNLI issue is a clear lie though.
The interesting thing is that nobody seems to be debating the real principle behind the law and instead debating an already dismissed wilful misinterpretation.
The question to answer is Should people trafficking be a criminal offence, even if "for profit" can not be proven?
Why is the RNLI issue a clear lie? I have not read the bill so I don't know, but Cyclefree's analysis seems quite clear.
I take your point that when debated this may be cleared up, BUT I have already given an example of something I am involved in which confirms Cyclefree's point - It matters not a jot what the minister says, it is what is in the Act that counts as I know to the cost of 3000+ people I am fighting for in a similar unrelated situation.
Because as others have already pointed out
The Home Office have already said these provisions do not apply to the RNLI.
The Human Rights Act would trump this legislation and would protect the RNLI too.
International Maritime Law makes rescues a legal duty that can't be made illegal. That is domestic law too.
The Bill needs to go through Committee etc were amendments can be made if necessary, with the Government already having said (see (1)) that this is not targetting the RNLI.
And more points have been made too. Its nonsense.
1) Is incorrect as I have already pointed out. The Home Office can say what they like, it has no effect as Cyclefree pointed out and as I know from bitter experience (see my posts). 2) and 3) puts you in a position of laws conflicting. It is effectively the same as 1) except the position is in doubt rather than being certain. Slightly better but you don't want to be in that fight. 4) I accept, but then I said that in my post, but this sort of thing just results in a terrible muddle, with loopholes and unintended consequences as I pointed out in my example and as others have also done.
1 is not incorrect when it feeds into 2, 3 and 4 - or when people are falsely claiming that the opposite of 1 is the intention despite all evidence to the contrary.
Given there is a clear intention not to have this apply to the RNLI, universally agreed, and given that existing laws would protect the RNLI, it would not be beyond the wit of man to come up with an amendment in committee if needed.
But its worth noting the RNLI themselves aren't really objecting - others who are routinely partisan pointscoring critics of the government are doing so on their behalf.
I take your point Philip IF it gets amended accordingly, but I have already said that.
But you would have thought they would have spotted these bear traps wouldn't you? And these bear traps do get missed. This one might get caught, but in catching that do they create another? By the way that is exactly what happened in the case I am fighting on behalf of 3000+ people; they plugged a holes and created a bigger one. It is a common flaw; you plug one hole and create two more that you don't see at the time.
So yes it is definitely not beyond the wit of man to come up with a solution and I am as certain as I can be that several unspotted problems will be caused as a consequence, because they always are.
Governments ties themselves in knots passing this sort of legislation.
You don't think things through. Say you have a dinghy full of people in the English channel in good weather with everything a bit borderline: might be overloaded or just very full, has food water and fuel but maybe not enough, has chart and compass but the skipper looks a bit vague about using them. Does the lifeboat take them in tow? If it does does the same boat, same situation, turn up the following day in hope of a tow? Does the lifeboat refuse because We did you yesterday? And so on.
I have absolutely no idea what you point is and clearly you haven't been following the debate between me and Philip because that has been about the wording of the Act and the unintended consequences of it.
We haven't been discussing the overall issue of how you solve the boat people in the channel problem itself (although obvious the Act is intended to do so in some way) I haven't even read the Act so I can't comment. I was simply discussing the specific issue and my experience of similar unrelated circumstances which is don't pass laws that cause you bigger problems down the line.
But on the specific issue you raise (which has absolutely nothing to do with what we were discussing) if a lifeboat is sent out and the life boat skipper deems the boat they have been sent to is at risk then of course they save them, even though the consequences may be others will follow.
And just to reiterate I suspect Philip won't disagree with that either, because at no point did he say so. His point was that the risk of the RLNI being prosecuted was a red herring and it was that we were discussing.
But that was exactly the point of my post, with the proviso that it was meant to be addressed to Philip, not you. He thinks the RNLI will be protected by the duty to save life at sea. They will not in all cases because a lot of what they do is helping out idiots who were never in danger in the first place. They are therefore highly vulnerable to the legislation as drafted.
Opps sorry @IshmaelZ . Thought it was aimed at me which is why it didn't seem to make sense to me. Context is everything.
Re your clarification yes I agree, although not the unintended consequences I thought of, but it is the unintended consequences you don't think of that come back and bite you.
Ryan Chan 陳家翹 @ryankakiuchan Replying to @ryankakiuchan Another bad news: British Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and strike group hit with 'major' Covid outbreak after Cyprus shore leave, includes at least 100 double-jabbed crew.
'includes at least 100 double-jabbed crew'?
That's sub optimal.
Brenda's War Canoes have always been disease incubators. Covid will rip through the ship in no time.
I think I might be changing my mind re lifting the restrictions
Just had a chat with one of my colleagues - his wife (double jabbed) just gone down with Covid
Another guy and his family in isolation as they went to a friends house on Sunday - the male friend went to footie Wednesday and now he and all his family have tested positive.
More people at my sons school have tested positive - some of them appear to have caught it from fag breaks - his school had bubbles to keep groups separate and that was the only time they mixed (in hind sight not the greatest of ideas)
This thing spreads fast
Yes, also anecdotally, a sensible colleague who is careful in her habits and has been jabbed has just gone down with Covid and is very ill. People who say "Oh, virtually nobody dies from it now so let's stop worrying" have a lot to answer for.
That is frankly a ridiculous statement.
From the latest PHE reports, a total of 117 double jabbed people have died in 6 months.....those are the facts. Unless you think PHE are lying. This number will increase, but it is a fraction of what it was before vaccination. CFR was beteen 0.1 and 0.2% no vaccine, i believe the latest estimate is 0.0085% if double jabbed.
You are a bright bloke, you must surely understand when it is stated a vaccine is 80% efficient against infection, that means there are still going to be significant number of infections.
The point is being double jabbed then also massively reduces chance thay covid goes south and you end up in hospital and even more so dying from it.
Ryan Chan 陳家翹 @ryankakiuchan Replying to @ryankakiuchan Another bad news: British Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and strike group hit with 'major' Covid outbreak after Cyprus shore leave, includes at least 100 double-jabbed crew.
'includes at least 100 double-jabbed crew'?
That's sub optimal.
I think that the interesting point is whether they will be severe or mild impact on the individuals. The whole lot were double-jabbed.
I believe the crew is around 800 plus air group, btw.
Quite who made the decision to allow them to go clubbing in Cyprus like that...
I believe the crew is around 800 plus air group, btw.
Plus a few hundred civvie contractors because the Admiralty lied about the actual crewing requirements until the ships got to the too-late-cancel phase.
To feed a family of four at McDonalds costs the better part of £20 nowadays.
To go to the Co-Op, or Aldi, or Tesco's and get some fresh veg and meat and prepare a fresh meal can be done considerably cheaper.
People are buying at McDonalds and others because its convenient, not because they can't afford to cook at home.
+1
People are going to McDonalds because they don't have time to cook at home. Both parents work all day and they don't have time to cook, it's quite simple.
This goes back to education again really, teach people how to cook meals quickly.
No they're not.
People are going to McDonalds because they don't have the desire to cook at home.
Going out of your way to go to McDonalds is more time consuming than cooking a simple meal at home.
Heck even going for a simple, carby meal at home that is not as healthy as a plate of vegetables but much more healthy than McDonalds. It costs ~£1 to £2 to do Beans on Toast for a family of 4 and it takes less than five minutes to do so.
Preparing a salad can be done in less than five minutes too.
Its just about desire.
Desire and ability and taste.
Once you're into the habit of McDonalds or supermarket ready meals with kids I imagine it's hard to break - the fat, sugar, salt combos taste great to children and the really easy healthier options are a bit bland if your taste buds are used to salt/sugar overload.* A simple salad or even beans on toast won't be that great, the kids will kick off and the time and effort spent seems wasted (and the money if it doesn't get eaten).
Now, you can do amazing things with cheap ingredients. Dhal, veggie currys, pasta-based dishes (even a siple tomato sauce can be delicious), but it does take a bit of time and effort to learn that and, cooked badly, no one's going to want to eat some bland soggy (or hard) lentils.
We were poor growing up, but in the always healthy food on the table category. Tasted awful, looking back - over-boiled veg, some hunk of overcooked meat, but it was what we knew and we ate it and it contained what we needed to be healthy. I didn't learn how to cook properly until at uni and I was in a corridor with people from India, Pakistan, Africa, Italy, it was quite an education. Now my wife and I have the time, money and interest to try new things and our kids love pasta and homemade pizza and curry. My son won't eat shop chips (we try and persuade him to, which seems wrong! I think because they're too bland).
We need better cooking classes for all at school - good, tasty, healthy meals that can be made for nothing, but that's a long term solution. For those who struggle now, we need a simplified, cheaper hello fresh type approach (could be via supermarkets to cut out delivey costs and some basic choices of food types rather than pick every recipe) maybe incentivised by getting much more to spend directly on that compared to benefits - X in cash or 2X for recipe food boxes.
* Had some friends in a previous job who we had dinner with a lot - they cooked/we cooked. Good cook but, to our taste, oversalted everything, to the extent it was sometimes hard to eat - you become acustomed to salt levels. We don't put salt on veg for cooking, my parents do and when we visit I can really taste it, although I never tasted it as a kid (and added more on the plate!).
Kids kicking off is another issue. Quite frankly parenting is the issue.
Kids kick off, its what they do. Not giving in to them is difficult but important.
Kids need to learn that the meal mummy and daddy prepared is what they're having and kicking off won't give another option.
Again when people were poorer and had no alternative that was easier to do. Kids who kicked off didn't eat, got hungry then had to eat their dinner. Nowadays it's too easy to have an alternative or snacks instead.
Yep. This was a source of some friction between my wife and I for a time - our eldest was a bit of a tricky eater, right from weaning. When he as old enough to speak and kick off she was always determined that he should eat, even if it meant offering something else or gimmicks such a spoon feeding him when he was quite capable of feeding himself etc etc. We had a period of about a year when he and I ate together once a week without her (she was later back from work) and I wouldn't do any of those things. The first time I'd finished my dinner and was washing up before he started eating, but it quickly changed and I had very little trouble on those days for the rest of the year, although he would still kick off other days, but that gradually decreased too. One of the few times (possibly the only!) where I've been right in an argument about parenting. We still had issues after that, of course, and two-three times he went to bed having eaten no dinner at all, but it had to be done. Now if he refuses to eat, it's normally due to some other upset and my wife deals with that situation much better than me.
Number 2 eats everything. Weaning with her was a complete revelation as she just ate everything. We went in with lower expectations and probably much more relaxed, which maybe helped. Or maybe they're just different.
I think I might be changing my mind re lifting the restrictions
Just had a chat with one of my colleagues - his wife (double jabbed) just gone down with Covid
Another guy and his family in isolation as they went to a friends house on Sunday - the male friend went to footie Wednesday and now he and all his family have tested positive.
More people at my sons school have tested positive - some of them appear to have caught it from fag breaks - his school had bubbles to keep groups separate and that was the only time they mixed (in hind sight not the greatest of ideas)
This thing spreads fast
Yes, also anecdotally, a sensible colleague who is careful in her habits and has been jabbed has just gone down with Covid and is very ill. People who say "Oh, virtually nobody dies from it now so let's stop worrying" have a lot to answer for.
Difficult one. No vaccine is 100% guaranteed. We all know that. A small percentage will still catch Covid and may be quite ill. A tiny number will surely die. We cannot keep the country closed on that basis. I'm due for my 2nd jab on Saturday but I know the odds after that. Really when a vaccine is 85%+ effective it is down to individuals what risks they take and waht precautions they continue to use. Surely that has to be right.
To feed a family of four at McDonalds costs the better part of £20 nowadays.
To go to the Co-Op, or Aldi, or Tesco's and get some fresh veg and meat and prepare a fresh meal can be done considerably cheaper.
People are buying at McDonalds and others because its convenient, not because they can't afford to cook at home.
And as people have pointed out earlier
1) People are not being taught how to cook
2) People who haven't been shown how to do things are often too scared to try to do those things themselves
3) People may not enjoy cooking and would rather watch TV - it's highly possible that cooking takes an hour and results in no thanks from the rest of the family.
You can see why people may go for the easier options.
You make it sound like rocket science. Only a few decades ago the vast majority of people cooked for themselves all the time.
Quite I've cooked for most of my adult life and for the vast majority of meals form raw materials to table is less than 30 minutes - the rest spend a little longer in the oven but require no chef input.
re @Big_G_NorthWales I too have lost 7lbs in just over a week, by way of a pretty unremarkable diet. I am psyching myself up for the weight to go up again and the associated frustration. It really takes a month or so before a sustainable diet really gets going in my experience.
I would appreciate any recommendations for a book about nutrition? I have worked on the understanding that to lose weight you need to burn more calories than you consume, but I suspect there is a lot more to it than that.
The government today just amended an absolute duty on it contained in an Act of Parliament by a motion in the Commons. They did not amend the Act. They simply used their Commons majority to override the law. https://twitter.com/LordCFalconer/status/1415077620383985666
You misunderstand. We have to cut foreign aid so that we can have money for our own people. Like poor WWC school kids who go hungry in the holidays.
The problem with these claims is that a visit to any deprived area reveals obesity and overpriced grotty takeaways rather than hunger and rickets.
And the people who are least sympathetic to 'the poor cannot afford to eat' blather are the low paid who do feed their families properly.
If anyone doesn't believe me:
Obesity is fast becoming “a disease of England’s poorest people”, putting them at higher risk of dying from the biggest killer diseases, a new report from the King’s Fund warns.
There is a stark and widening gap between the number of people from deprived families who are dangerously overweight and those from better-off backgrounds, and the difference is particularly pronounced among women, the thinktank says.
Almost half of the fast-food outlets in England are in the most deprived parts of the country, figures show, raising fresh concerns about child obesity in poorer areas.
The most affluent 10% of England is home to just 3% of fast-food restaurants, chip shops and burger bars, and the poorest decile has 17%, according to the data from Public Health England (PHE).
Campaigners are demanding taxes on junk food after official figures showed that primary school children from poorer areas are twice as likely as those from wealthier ones to be obese.
Childhood obesity is set to increase so sharply among boys from poorer homes in England that three in five of them will be dangerously overweight by 2020, research shows.
But the number of well-off boys who are overweight or obese is expected to fall to one in six in that time, underlining that obesity’s already stark class divide will widen even further.
The reason is quite simple - the exercise culture.
Go out it in the morning and take a look at the people out jogging. Even in the poor parts of London, it's the well off people passing through.
The middle classes and above spend a fortune on keeping slim. Being over weight is considered a bit... chavy...
I don’t think this is true, or rather it is true but not the reason.
Exercise doesn’t really keep people slim, except at the margins.
The real issue is food, and middle class people - generally! - grow up with a healthier food culture.
The Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture and hence a higher tendency toward obesity.
And protein is also much more expensive than carbohydrate, and the latter is more filling - so the poorest have an economic and a cultural disposition to an obesogenic diet.
If we want to crack this nut, I believe it comes down to education, education, education.
I suggest that the 'Anglo cultures generally have a poorer food culture', certainly in England, is due to driving people off the land and into industrial work in the late 18th & throughout the 19th Centuries.
This is the traditional reason cited, and it certainly accounts for a lot. But it’s not the full story. Why is American food similarly “poor” when - until the later 19th century - it was fundamentally an agricultural country?
As I understand it, and I'm only an amateur historian, to some degree similar conditions applied in the US; either people 'out on the range', or crowded together in cities.
Ok what about NZ? Food growing up was abysmal. You could pretty much only buy one type of cheese.
My guess:
1. English climate 2. Protestantism 3. Industrialisation/urbanisation.
(1) and (2) conspired to create a generally sub-par Anglo food culture. (3) was the nail in the coffin from a U.K. point of view.
On the brighter side, the U.K. does good piquant sauces and pastes: think worcestershire, hot english mustard, marmite, anchovy relish.
Think Maori food was OK, although there's little native animal protein. British settlers were often, although by no means exclusively, from an urban background, AIUI. So I'd agree about 3.
Not sure about Protestantism; do you mean tasty food was sinful?
Would definitely not agree about marmite, though.
Maori food was incredibly basic. There is essentially no Maori “cuisine” which has survived to the modern day.
I don’t think British settlers *were* from a very urban background actually - at least before WW2.
Tended to be more rural types who thought they could at least have a go at farming.
I have a book on this somewhere...
Ah, obliged. Thanks. Always willing to learn.
Have a cousin who worked for one of the Maori tribes, and to be fair he's never mentioned their food. Must ask.
I believe part of their problem was they polished off the moa fairly soon after arriving on the islands and there were never any mammals, so limited raw material.
I believe the crew is around 800 plus air group, btw.
Plus a few hundred civvie contractors because the Admiralty lied about the actual crewing requirements until the ships got to the too-late-cancel phase.
Do they come under naval discipline for such things as mutiny, compulsory jabs, etc.?
Indeed is covid a compulsory jab in the Andrew? Or does one get volunteered by the RPO? I have no idea, actually.
Ryan Chan 陳家翹 @ryankakiuchan Replying to @ryankakiuchan Another bad news: British Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and strike group hit with 'major' Covid outbreak after Cyprus shore leave, includes at least 100 double-jabbed crew.
'includes at least 100 double-jabbed crew'?
That's sub optimal.
Btw it occurred to me that a 'Hong Kong Oriental Daily Newspaper international news correspondent' might have some unusual pressures on them so checked back on that thread. It seems innocuous, pretty much puff pieces for the RN. If it’s black propaganda, it’s at the subtle end.
I think I might be changing my mind re lifting the restrictions
Just had a chat with one of my colleagues - his wife (double jabbed) just gone down with Covid
Another guy and his family in isolation as they went to a friends house on Sunday - the male friend went to footie Wednesday and now he and all his family have tested positive.
More people at my sons school have tested positive - some of them appear to have caught it from fag breaks - his school had bubbles to keep groups separate and that was the only time they mixed (in hind sight not the greatest of ideas)
This thing spreads fast
Yes, also anecdotally, a sensible colleague who is careful in her habits and has been jabbed has just gone down with Covid and is very ill. People who say "Oh, virtually nobody dies from it now so let's stop worrying" have a lot to answer for.
A total of 117 double jabbed people have died in 6 months.....those are the facts. Unless you think PHE are lying.
You are a bright bloke, you must surely understand when it is stated a vaccine is 80% efficient against infection, that means there are still going to be significant number of infections.
The point is being double jabbed then also massively reduces chance thay covid goes south and you end up in hospital and even more so dying from it.
I'd love to know what the critics think the alternative is. The vaccines are as good as it gets, hanging on for even better vaccines is basically a non-starter. The current restrictions are ineffective against Delta, in fact it's debatable that any NPIs we have used up til now will stop Delta, so maintaining ineffective restrictions is close to pointless. Even countries that have so far had a "good pandemic" are now getting largish outbreaks thanks to the much higher transmisibility of Delta, and Delta won't be the end-point for the virus it will likely become fitter yet.
So what is the alternative plan? Chinese style lockdowns for months on end? Permanently closing whole swathes of the economy? Remote education and work indefinitely?
Nobody likes the situation we are in, and I would love there to be a better plan than vaccinating and reopening, but I don't see it. We've basically reached our limits for fighting the virus, about the only thing that might change that is a super-effective therapy, but how long do we wait for that? It could be years away, or never arrive.
To feed a family of four at McDonalds costs the better part of £20 nowadays.
To go to the Co-Op, or Aldi, or Tesco's and get some fresh veg and meat and prepare a fresh meal can be done considerably cheaper.
People are buying at McDonalds and others because its convenient, not because they can't afford to cook at home.
+1
People are going to McDonalds because they don't have time to cook at home. Both parents work all day and they don't have time to cook, it's quite simple.
This goes back to education again really, teach people how to cook meals quickly.
No they're not.
People are going to McDonalds because they don't have the desire to cook at home.
Going out of your way to go to McDonalds is more time consuming than cooking a simple meal at home.
Heck even going for a simple, carby meal at home that is not as healthy as a plate of vegetables but much more healthy than McDonalds. It costs ~£1 to £2 to do Beans on Toast for a family of 4 and it takes less than five minutes to do so.
Preparing a salad can be done in less than five minutes too.
Its just about desire.
Desire and ability and taste.
Once you're into the habit of McDonalds or supermarket ready meals with kids I imagine it's hard to break - the fat, sugar, salt combos taste great to children and the really easy healthier options are a bit bland if your taste buds are used to salt/sugar overload.* A simple salad or even beans on toast won't be that great, the kids will kick off and the time and effort spent seems wasted (and the money if it doesn't get eaten).
Now, you can do amazing things with cheap ingredients. Dhal, veggie currys, pasta-based dishes (even a siple tomato sauce can be delicious), but it does take a bit of time and effort to learn that and, cooked badly, no one's going to want to eat some bland soggy (or hard) lentils.
We were poor growing up, but in the always healthy food on the table category. Tasted awful, looking back - over-boiled veg, some hunk of overcooked meat, but it was what we knew and we ate it and it contained what we needed to be healthy. I didn't learn how to cook properly until at uni and I was in a corridor with people from India, Pakistan, Africa, Italy, it was quite an education. Now my wife and I have the time, money and interest to try new things and our kids love pasta and homemade pizza and curry. My son won't eat shop chips (we try and persuade him to, which seems wrong! I think because they're too bland).
We need better cooking classes for all at school - good, tasty, healthy meals that can be made for nothing, but that's a long term solution. For those who struggle now, we need a simplified, cheaper hello fresh type approach (could be via supermarkets to cut out delivey costs and some basic choices of food types rather than pick every recipe) maybe incentivised by getting much more to spend directly on that compared to benefits - X in cash or 2X for recipe food boxes.
* Had some friends in a previous job who we had dinner with a lot - they cooked/we cooked. Good cook but, to our taste, oversalted everything, to the extent it was sometimes hard to eat - you become acustomed to salt levels. We don't put salt on veg for cooking, my parents do and when we visit I can really taste it, although I never tasted it as a kid (and added more on the plate!).
Kids kicking off is another issue. Quite frankly parenting is the issue.
Kids kick off, its what they do. Not giving in to them is difficult but important.
Kids need to learn that the meal mummy and daddy prepared is what they're having and kicking off won't give another option.
Again when people were poorer and had no alternative that was easier to do. Kids who kicked off didn't eat, got hungry then had to eat their dinner. Nowadays it's too easy to have an alternative or snacks instead.
Yep. This was a source of some friction between my wife and I for a time - our eldest was a bit of a tricky eater, right from weaning. When he as old enough to speak and kick off she was always determined that he should eat, even if it meant offering something else or gimmicks such a spoon feeding him when he was quite capable of feeding himself etc etc. We had a period of about a year when he and I ate together once a week without her (she was later back from work) and I wouldn't do any of those things. The first time I'd finished my dinner and was washing up before he started eating, but it quickly changed and I had very little trouble on those days for the rest of the year, although he would still kick off other days, but that gradually decreased too. One of the few times (possibly the only!) where I've been right in an argument about parenting. We still had issues after that, of course, and two-three times he went to bed having eaten no dinner at all, but it had to be done. Now if he refuses to eat, it's normally due to some other upset and my wife deals with that situation much better than me.
Number 2 eats everything. Weaning with her was a complete revelation as she just ate everything. We went in with lower expectations and probably much more relaxed, which maybe helped. Or maybe they're just different.
Father-in-law was described as a faddy eater; never ate meat, never ate potatoes other than as mash or chips and dozens of other things, including, notably, pasta. How he managed in the war, during his time in the RAF we don't know. We knew Alzheimers had really got him when we arrived in the Care Home one day to find him, in his late 70's, eating spaghetti on toast! No-one else in the family took after him except his eldest gt-grandson (whom he never knew) who as a child was incredibly awkward. His mother, our daughter tried everything but he just wouldn't. However, he improved when he went to Uni and had to cook for himself and now he's married he and his wife seem to eat totally normally
Comments
That people would rather spend the time watching Netflix than in the kitchen preparing food is an issue not easily fixed.
The process is not simple but complex.
Healthy eating need not be more expensive than fast food - but it does require time, effort and knowledge to cook healthy food for yourself. And there's very steep learning curve if you're starting from scratch with no help.
I think the England have been brilliant and I sense that 90% of the country is behind their stance, but its not the case that all those who are not are just racist idiots.
This goes back to education again really, teach people how to cook meals quickly.
Suggesting like cooking lessons at schools etc are good ones.
As well a lot of cooking shows and recipes are unnecessarily complex because they're to appeal to foodies and/or people who can already cook. I have a lot of respect Marcus Rashford and one thing he has done is to launch a campaign aimed towards teaching the basics of how to cook. Very simple, very easy to follow, nutritious and tasty food as opposed to complicated recipes that rely upon skills people don't have.
This sort of education campaign is a really good idea and should be more widely supported every bit as the school meals issues etc that get most of the attention.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/marcus-rashford-tom-kerridge-budget-cooking-b931063.html
But I don't think the response should be to delay reopening. It's spreading like wildfire, and indubitably remains a very nasty disease - but our understanding is that due to the extent of vaccination of vulnerable groups, the NHS is no longer at risk and therefore those of us who rely on its services are no longer at risk.
If the risks back in 2020 had been those now, we would not be imposing the sort of restrictions we are under at the moment. We might be advising the vulnerable to shield, advising that masks might be advisable on public transport - exactly what is being advised after next Monday.
We would not be saying anything so draconian as no more than 6 people in your house, or making it illegal not to wear masks in certain circumstances.
Food growing up was abysmal.
You could pretty much only buy one type of cheese.
My guess:
1. English climate
2. Protestantism
3. Industrialisation/urbanisation.
(1) and (2) conspired to create a generally sub-par Anglo food culture. (3) was the nail in the coffin from a U.K. point of view.
On the brighter side, the U.K. does good piquant sauces and pastes: think worcestershire, hot english mustard, marmite, anchovy relish.
But you would have thought they would have spotted these bear traps wouldn't you? And these bear traps do get missed. This one might get caught, but in catching that do they create another? By the way that is exactly what happened in the case I am fighting on behalf of 3000+ people; they plugged a holes and created a bigger one. It is a common flaw; you plug one hole and create two more that you don't see at the time.
So yes it is definitely not beyond the wit of man to come up with a solution and I am as certain as I can be that several unspotted problems will be caused as a consequence, because they always are.
Governments ties themselves in knots passing this sort of legislation.
People are going to McDonalds because they don't have the desire to cook at home.
Going out of your way to go to McDonalds is more time consuming than cooking a simple meal at home.
Heck even going for a simple, carby meal at home that is not as healthy as a plate of vegetables but much more healthy than McDonalds. It costs ~£1 to £2 to do Beans on Toast for a family of 4 and it takes less than five minutes to do so.
Preparing a salad can be done in less than five minutes too.
Its just about desire.
https://twitter.com/SpankTheBookies/status/1415066558490087427?s=20
They are quite clear about it:
https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/product/hamburger.html
A common charity 'argument' is 'give us your shop at no/low rent to save on the rates'.
I'm keeping well out of it - trying to keep the lifeboatmen out of prison is quite enough for me today.
When I grew up, sausages either came from a proper butcher or were dire, horrible things. The Yes Minister episode on the "British Offal Fat Tube" was simply true. Now you can get come quite reasonable stuff in the supermarkets...
I used to work with someone who made no secret of the fact he had takeaways all 3 meals a day. He never cooked at home. Breakfast and lunch were takeaways from a cafe seven days a week.
In the past, people couldn't afford to do that.
First I needed to lose 1.5 stone so I have initiated a soup and fruit diet and very strictly followed
It is hard, but in the first week I took off 8 lbs (just over half a stone) and hope to have hit my target by the end of the month
The first meat I will eat in six weeks will be at my sons wedding on the 31st July but I am already feeling the benefit
And on the RNLI I have sent @Cyclefree article to my mp, who as most of you know is a personnal friend, and he has instructed his assistant to review the article and seek clarification from the Home Office
I will comment further once I have received a response
There is huge science emerging based on gut bacteria. Its believed that eating a very varied diet increases the right bacteria in the gut and helps.
Its is not a simple as eat less, lose weight. It just isn't.
And lastly, even if it was, some people are hungry all the time, some are not. A great study on kids is to let them eat as much as they want, then put them in a room with sweets and toys. About half will totally ignore the sweets, about half will eat them. My wife has no interest in food when not hungry or when tired - I can eat whenever.
Its not simple.
However, the reality is that English food has traditionally been a sub-par and long the butt of others’ jokes.
England is (was?) very good at inventing team sports, parliamentary democracy, garden design, and literature. Good sense of humour, probably to deal with class anxiety.
Not that great on on visual art, and classical music. At least compared to the neighbours.
Very poor on food.
As an example. RVI in Newcastle has 9.5% of nurses self-isolating and thus not working. "The hospital is on its knees" from a senior Doctor there. Staff now being instructed to delete the track and trace app for fear that very quickly they won't have sufficient staff to be safe.
And this is before we unmask and unlock and prompt a huge surge.
So I'd agree about 3.
Not sure about Protestantism; do you mean tasty food was sinful?
Would definitely not agree about marmite, though.
I also don't agree that we'd be in a much better position if we'd locked down more or harder. We'd just have fewer with antibodies once delta arrived. (Not that we knew that at the time.) Pandemics are complex and riven with unintended and unforeseen consequences, and it is mildly delusional to think that you can simply do action a to result in outcome b. I will agree with Matt Hancock that the only thing you can be sure will work is vaccines.
I do think numbers of positives will increase significantly after the 19th. I don't think numbers of hospitalisations will get out of control.
The purpose of lockdowns was to stop the NHS getting overwhelmed and therefore causing excess deaths by not being able to do its usual job. There is no real indication that this will happen after the 19th. Therefore, cry freedom (cautiously).
I will happily concede, because I am not in a courtroom and this shouldn't be about winning the argument (as I mock the likes of Pagel for falling back on more and more tenuous arguments for the position she wants to hold) that I will pretty much always be arguing for freedom. Two months ago I was arguing for freedom on the basis of the above and also that covid was at such low levels we didn't need to be so cautious. The latter is clearly no longer the case.
Airbridges just don't work.
Cooking can be done while doing other things. That is a skill I was taught by my mother. Hence the modern style of kitchen - open planned onto the living/eating area. So that the cook(s) can participate in family life....
Once you're into the habit of McDonalds or supermarket ready meals with kids I imagine it's hard to break - the fat, sugar, salt combos taste great to children and the really easy healthier options are a bit bland if your taste buds are used to salt/sugar overload.* A simple salad or even beans on toast won't be that great, the kids will kick off and the time and effort spent seems wasted (and the money if it doesn't get eaten).
Now, you can do amazing things with cheap ingredients. Dhal, veggie currys, pasta-based dishes (even a siple tomato sauce can be delicious), but it does take a bit of time and effort to learn that and, cooked badly, no one's going to want to eat some bland soggy (or hard) lentils.
We were poor growing up, but in the always healthy food on the table category. Tasted awful, looking back - over-boiled veg, some hunk of overcooked meat, but it was what we knew and we ate it and it contained what we needed to be healthy. I didn't learn how to cook properly until at uni and I was in a corridor with people from India, Pakistan, Africa, Italy, it was quite an education. Now my wife and I have the time, money and interest to try new things and our kids love pasta and homemade pizza and curry. My son won't eat shop chips (we try and persuade him to, which seems wrong! I think because they're too bland).
We need better cooking classes for all at school - good, tasty, healthy meals that can be made for nothing, but that's a long term solution. For those who struggle now, we need a simplified, cheaper hello fresh type approach (could be via supermarkets to cut out delivey costs and some basic choices of food types rather than pick every recipe) maybe incentivised by getting much more to spend directly on that compared to benefits - X in cash or 2X for recipe food boxes.
* Had some friends in a previous job who we had dinner with a lot - they cooked/we cooked. Good cook but, to our taste, oversalted everything, to the extent it was sometimes hard to eat - you become acustomed to salt levels. We don't put salt on veg for cooking, my parents do and when we visit I can really taste it, although I never tasted it as a kid (and added more on the plate!).
Today, England is fine for food. In tourist areas and comfortable remainia, you can't go two miles without finding somewhere enticing to eat. Many parts of England, you might have to look a bit harder, but you'll still find somewhere good if you are pointed in the right direction. This is very much a product of my lifetime though - traditionally, it hasn't been the case.
But - this only really applies to meals. England has always held its own at confectionery. Our cakes have always been as good as any and better than many.
You don't think things through. Say you have a dinghy full of people in the English channel in good weather with everything a bit borderline: might be overloaded or just very full, has food water and fuel but maybe not enough, has chart and compass but the skipper looks a bit vague about using them. Does the lifeboat take them in tow? If it does does the same boat, same situation, turn up the following day in hope of a tow? Does the lifeboat refuse because We did you yesterday? And so on.
It isn't going to be a "Grace Darling is innocent" scenario.
There is essentially no Maori “cuisine” which has survived to the modern day.
I don’t think British settlers *were* from a very urban background actually - at least before WW2.
Tended to be more rural types who thought they could at least have a go at farming.
I have a book on this somewhere...
Need to spend £40 in free bets by end today. Any tips?
We haven't been discussing the overall issue of how you solve the boat people in the channel problem itself (although obvious the Act is intended to do so in some way) I haven't even read the Act so I can't comment. I was simply discussing the specific issue and my experience of similar unrelated circumstances which is don't pass laws that cause you bigger problems down the line.
But on the specific issue you raise (which has absolutely nothing to do with what we were discussing) if a lifeboat is sent out and the life boat skipper deems the boat they have been sent to is at risk then of course they save them, even though the consequences may be others will follow.
And just to reiterate I suspect @Philip_Thompson won't disagree with that either, because at no point did he say so. His point was that the risk of the RLNI being prosecuted was a red herring and it was that we were discussing.
If nothing else this morning has raised an issue that I intend pursuing as my son, as a crew member of the RNLI would be directly affected
Google “matched betting” for the specifics. I recommend MSE’s archived forums.
Edit: do let us know what happens.
As that is the get out clause the people who can't see the problem are claiming.
Kids kick off, its what they do. Not giving in to them is difficult but important.
Kids need to learn that the meal mummy and daddy prepared is what they're having and kicking off won't give another option.
Again when people were poorer and had no alternative that was easier to do. Kids who kicked off didn't eat, got hungry then had to eat their dinner. Nowadays it's too easy to have an alternative or snacks instead.
I will most certainly do so as we just have to resolve this
As you know I have a very personal interest in this subject
Have a cousin who worked for one of the Maori tribes, and to be fair he's never mentioned their food. Must ask.
1 - These are articles going back for nearly a decade, and we have interventions on obesity. Have these helped?
2 - That last one I have not snipped is interesting, as it includes a checkable claim. This is 2021 - are three in five of boys in poorer homes "dangerously overweight"?
3 - Checking the link on "research" in the original piece, the source actually says:
"Stark new figures from the Obesity Health Alliance, released on World Obesity Day, show a looming significant weight gap between the poorest and wealthiest primary-school aged boys living in England.
Three in five (60%) of the most deprived boys aged 5-11 are predicted to be overweight or obese by 2020, compared to about one in six (16%) of boys in the most affluent group [1]."
The Guardian inserted "dangerously" before "overweight", when it was not present in the original. "Dangerously" is akin to the medical term "morbidly" which is used for the most threatening cases.
For me that's a measure of the Guardian, and why I trust the damned thing as far as I could catapult Eric Pickles with a rubber band.
Be pleased to be proved wrong on point 3.
Racists do not like being called racist. Taking the knee calls them out. So they boo.
@ryankakiuchan
Replying to
@ryankakiuchan
Another bad news: British Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and strike group hit with 'major' Covid outbreak after Cyprus shore leave, includes at least 100 double-jabbed crew.
'includes at least 100 double-jabbed crew'?
That's sub optimal.
Lots of experiments that went wrong - but learnt alot, and was good, cheap fun.
I could have saved myself so much time if I had thought of typing that rather than all the convoluted drivel I typed.
We're back to rhetoric vs reality. Being double-jabbed does not make you immune. Allowing Covid to run through our hospitals, transmitted via the medical staff would be fucking stupid.
I believe the crew is around 800 plus air group, btw.
So hopefully most of those cases are extremely mild/asymptomatic - which is what we expect.
The vaccines are very good at the hospitalisation/death bit. The catching and passing on COVID, less so. Which is why we are where we are.
Re your clarification yes I agree, although not the unintended consequences I thought of, but it is the unintended consequences you don't think of that come back and bite you.
From the latest PHE reports, a total of 117 double jabbed people have died in 6 months.....those are the facts. Unless you think PHE are lying. This number will increase, but it is a fraction of what it was before vaccination. CFR was beteen 0.1 and 0.2% no vaccine, i believe the latest estimate is 0.0085% if double jabbed.
You are a bright bloke, you must surely understand when it is stated a vaccine is 80% efficient against infection, that means there are still going to be significant number of infections.
The point is being double jabbed then also massively reduces chance thay covid goes south and you end up in hospital and even more so dying from it.
I believe the crew is around 800 plus air group, btw.
Quite who made the decision to allow them to go clubbing in Cyprus like that...
Number 2 eats everything. Weaning with her was a complete revelation as she just ate everything. We went in with lower expectations and probably much more relaxed, which maybe helped. Or maybe they're just different.
I would appreciate any recommendations for a book about nutrition? I have worked on the understanding that to lose weight you need to burn more calories than you consume, but I suspect there is a lot more to it than that.
Indeed is covid a compulsory jab in the Andrew? Or does one get volunteered by the RPO? I have no idea, actually.
Also....again reinfection is incredibly rare and shown to be in all but a tiny tiny minority very very mild.
So what is the alternative plan? Chinese style lockdowns for months on end? Permanently closing whole swathes of the economy? Remote education and work indefinitely?
Nobody likes the situation we are in, and I would love there to be a better plan than vaccinating and reopening, but I don't see it. We've basically reached our limits for fighting the virus, about the only thing that might change that is a super-effective therapy, but how long do we wait for that? It could be years away, or never arrive.
No-one else in the family took after him except his eldest gt-grandson (whom he never knew) who as a child was incredibly awkward. His mother, our daughter tried everything but he just wouldn't. However, he improved when he went to Uni and had to cook for himself and now he's married he and his wife seem to eat totally normally