Viewers are getting 2 feeds which will cover most of the events that most of the people are interested in. That would seem to me to cover the obligations of a public sector broadcaster. Why should we give taxpayers cash to a US billionaire?
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are going some now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
Javid was both right and wrong. Right in the sense that we are going to have to live with this virus and that means accepting some risk. Not living fearfully.
But wrong because some will have good reason to be more fearful than others and this is not some sort of failing on their part. Nor was it by those who died.
So he should have thought more carefully about the words he used - or got someone else to read it first who might have spotted how it would be read by some. But good that he has apologised.
Yes, I agree with this balanced view. As we emerge from the worst of the pandemic, it's important that we respect each other's judgments about what is and isn't safe for us - using language that seems to deride people who make different decisions just creates articial divisions. None of us (including, with respect, your mother) are as (relatively) safe as we were before the pandemic, so it's a matter of judgment. If she feels that a trip to Greece isn't worth the residual risk, shouldn't you perhaps accept that for now, and hope she feels more confident at a later time?
But we all express things badly sometimes - I wouldn't hold that against him.
Also to correct a mistake from me on PT. Quite a bad one. I said I have a predilection for carbonara and chips. This is not the case (as if). It's bolognese and chips. Getting my pasta sauces mixed up.
Have you tried adding pineapple to the bolognese recipe?
Get down to confession NOW! Thoughts like that indeed!
Robert Preston (I know, I know) is suggesting that the covid infections figures are not including people who have caught covid for a second time, so the figures being shown are understated
In case you didn’t know - and I didn’t till a senior government official told me - the daily tally of infections seriously understates the actual number of infections, because if you are sick with Covid19 today but had it any time in the past (even last spring) your new bout…
Any (probably @MaxPB) know if there is any truth in that statement
Isn't the number of reinfections less than 1% ?
Not to mention that almost all of those infected last spring wouldn't be counted as a reinfection as they were not officially infected.
I suspect higher than that. I know a few who have had it twice, including one double jabbed.
Further anecdata: I was working yesterday with a nurse whose sister, mother and neices have all tested positive, the 74 yr old mother poorly and at home. Sister and mother were both double jabbed with the extended interval. I think the vaccine is better at preventing hospitalisation than transmission. In time all the unvaxxed will get it, I suppose, probably the vaxxed too. Herd immunity seems a long way off.
Risky I know to make a medical point to a doctor but this piece would suggest we’re all going to get it, vaccines will only lessen the severity
"over their lifetime" is an incredibly long timeframe.
Its like saying you'll get the common cold or flu more than once over your lifetime. Viruses like this spread and mutate and respread.
Vaccines meaning that our immune system is primed and ready for the virus when we get infected means the vaccines are doing their job. The issue last year and last winter was that our immune systems were naive to the virus.
Seems Prof Peston is barking up a very small tree:
Richard 📊📉 @RP131 · 33m Replying to @Peston They do publish it, just not daily on the dashboard. Currently less than 1% (0.53%) of total positives represent people potentially getting it for the 2nd time. They could start publishing it daily but I'm not sure it would be as controversial as you're suggesting.
Peston’s a funny one this pandemic. I can’t say I blame him though given what happened to his wife - the immune suppressing drugs she would have been on would make anyone wary of such a nasty virus.
Robert Preston (I know, I know) is suggesting that the covid infections figures are not including people who have caught covid for a second time, so the figures being shown are understated
In case you didn’t know - and I didn’t till a senior government official told me - the daily tally of infections seriously understates the actual number of infections, because if you are sick with Covid19 today but had it any time in the past (even last spring) your new bout…
Any (probably @MaxPB) know if there is any truth in that statement
Isn't the number of reinfections less than 1% ?
Not to mention that almost all of those infected last spring wouldn't be counted as a reinfection as they were not officially infected.
I suspect higher than that. I know a few who have had it twice, including one double jabbed.
Further anecdata: I was working yesterday with a nurse whose sister, mother and neices have all tested positive, the 74 yr old mother poorly and at home. Sister and mother were both double jabbed with the extended interval. I think the vaccine is better at preventing hospitalisation than transmission. In time all the unvaxxed will get it, I suppose, probably the vaxxed too. Herd immunity seems a long way off.
Risky I know to make a medical point to a doctor but this piece would suggest we’re all going to get it, vaccines will only lessen the severity
"over their lifetime" is an incredibly long timeframe.
Its like saying you'll get the common cold or flu more than once over your lifetime. Viruses like this spread and mutate and respread.
Vaccines meaning that our immune system is primed and ready for the virus when we get infected means the vaccines are doing their job. The issue last year and last winter was that our immune systems were naive to the virus.
Seems Prof Peston is barking up a very small tree:
Richard 📊📉 @RP131 · 33m Replying to @Peston They do publish it, just not daily on the dashboard. Currently less than 1% (0.53%) of total positives represent people potentially getting it for the 2nd time. They could start publishing it daily but I'm not sure it would be as controversial as you're suggesting.
Peston is a joke - who can forget the missing telephone line incident!
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are going some now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
Javid was both right and wrong. Right in the sense that we are going to have to live with this virus and that means accepting some risk. Not living fearfully.
But wrong because some will have good reason to be more fearful than others and this is not some sort of failing on their part. Nor was it by those who died.
So he should have thought more carefully about the words he used - or got someone else to read it first who might have spotted how it would be read by some. But good that he has apologised.
Yes, I agree with this balanced view. As we emerge from the worst of the pandemic, it's important that we respect each other's judgments about what is and isn't safe for us - using language that seems to deride people who make different decisions just creates articial divisions.
But we all express things badly sometimes - I wouldn't hold that against him.
He’s actually gone up in my estimation. How many acts of contrition do we normally see from this Cabinet?
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
Agree with this. But note that it is not just fear of death which concerns some. Fear of lung damage is real. I was told by my consultant that I must avoid further damage to my lungs - and I try as far as possible. It was one reason why I was so anxious to get vaccinated and why I have been quite good about following the rules. And why my family boss me about if they think I'm being stupid. I would really rather not catch this - despite now being vaccinated because I simply can't afford more damage.
That said I am in a minority and I am determined anyway to live life as fully as I can. But we should be aware that fear or concern may be quite rational for some and we should not abuse them for that. (Not that you are - but you understand what I'm getting at, I hope.)
I think Aldemann based it on his own experiences of serving in Vietnam, returning to a different society to the one that he left. Certainly the book is of its time (!) in its attitudes to sex and homosexuality, but while the main character is non-plussed by the shift to homosexuality (encouraged by the earth government for population reasons) he shrugs and it doesn't particularly seem to bother him.
Older novels often have attitudes that are discordant with current times, and reasonable to critique these, but they don't invalidate the book entirely. Otherwise we would have to scrap most literature!
Ethan of Arthos, by the mildly liberal Lois Bujold McMaster (best known for the Miles Vorkosigan series), flirted with controversy by having a novel about an entirely male gay planet, terrified of women, needing to contact other planets for urgent survival reasons. I thought it was charming , funny and successfully avoiding all the obvious traps; gay friends quite liked it but were more equivocal. I'm not sure it would be well-received today.
Sounds interesting. I shall add it to my classic sci-fi reading list. I like sci-fi that uses the format to explore ideas via alternative worlds.
I read Edmund Coopers "Who Needs Men?" some decades ago, about a future Britain where the remaining men are being hunted down by lesbian exterminators as an irredeemable violent threat. The sexual politics of that are more than a bit dubious, particularly when one of the hunters is converted to heterosexuality by meeting a real man!
Sci fi does seem a particularly male genre, so nice to get a female recommendation.
Becky Chambers, if 'the long way tona snall angry planet' 'record of a space born few' and 'a closed and common orbit' is good.
Fantasy used to be pretty male dominated but theres loads of great female authors now.
Robert Preston (I know, I know) is suggesting that the covid infections figures are not including people who have caught covid for a second time, so the figures being shown are understated
In case you didn’t know - and I didn’t till a senior government official told me - the daily tally of infections seriously understates the actual number of infections, because if you are sick with Covid19 today but had it any time in the past (even last spring) your new bout…
Any (probably @MaxPB) know if there is any truth in that statement
Isn't the number of reinfections less than 1% ?
Not to mention that almost all of those infected last spring wouldn't be counted as a reinfection as they were not officially infected.
I suspect higher than that. I know a few who have had it twice, including one double jabbed.
Further anecdata: I was working yesterday with a nurse whose sister, mother and neices have all tested positive, the 74 yr old mother poorly and at home. Sister and mother were both double jabbed with the extended interval. I think the vaccine is better at preventing hospitalisation than transmission. In time all the unvaxxed will get it, I suppose, probably the vaxxed too. Herd immunity seems a long way off.
Risky I know to make a medical point to a doctor but this piece would suggest we’re all going to get it, vaccines will only lessen the severity
"over their lifetime" is an incredibly long timeframe.
Its like saying you'll get the common cold or flu more than once over your lifetime. Viruses like this spread and mutate and respread.
Vaccines meaning that our immune system is primed and ready for the virus when we get infected means the vaccines are doing their job. The issue last year and last winter was that our immune systems were naive to the virus.
Seems Prof Peston is barking up a very small tree:
Richard 📊📉 @RP131 · 33m Replying to @Peston They do publish it, just not daily on the dashboard. Currently less than 1% (0.53%) of total positives represent people potentially getting it for the 2nd time. They could start publishing it daily but I'm not sure it would be as controversial as you're suggesting.
That figure would suggest that around 200 re-infections are happening in the UK each day, potentially many more as testing was Quote poor in the first wave, so many undocumented first cases.
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
You might as well blame all governments everywhere because I've seen no discernible differences in attitude here in Spain where masks remain compulsory in all settings where you cannot keep 1.5m distance, and in all places of business, transport, on entering restaurants, bars, etc. I could go on. Any pretence that the UK has uniquely scaremongered is really not the case. I think you also have to understand the different mindset of those of us for whom, statistically, this has always been very much a life and death threat. Vaccines are making a huge difference to this but it will take a little time.
Interesting Covid news on the golfer Jon Rahm. He tested positive last month. Missed a tournament. Came back and won the US Open. Then played our Open. Has now tested positive again.
Also to correct a mistake from me on PT. Quite a bad one. I said I have a predilection for carbonara and chips. This is not the case (as if). It's bolognese and chips. Getting my pasta sauces mixed up.
You can take kinabalu out of 1980s South Yorkshire but you can't take 1980s South Yorkshire out of kinabalu.
At least have gnocchi with your pasta sauce - you'll find half a dozen varieties at Morrisons.
Anyone know why Allegra Stratton was fired? I didn't realise she'd gone though it does explain certain things
Because a daily press conference allowed the press to ask questions on a daily basis and those questions might be awkward questions.
The fact they would actually be why can't I go to my villa in (insert country here) is neither here nor there.
Funny how when the government was proposing televised daily press conferences the response was that it was a way of hiding from scrutiny.
When the government scrapped televised daily press conferences the response was that it was a way of hiding from scrutiny.
Personally I found the notion of televised daily press conferences a good way to add scrutiny, so I agree with the logic of the second statement. But its funny to see some people (not necessarily yourself) pivot instantly from the first to the second.
Robert Preston (I know, I know) is suggesting that the covid infections figures are not including people who have caught covid for a second time, so the figures being shown are understated
In case you didn’t know - and I didn’t till a senior government official told me - the daily tally of infections seriously understates the actual number of infections, because if you are sick with Covid19 today but had it any time in the past (even last spring) your new bout…
Any (probably @MaxPB) know if there is any truth in that statement
Isn't the number of reinfections less than 1% ?
Not to mention that almost all of those infected last spring wouldn't be counted as a reinfection as they were not officially infected.
I suspect higher than that. I know a few who have had it twice, including one double jabbed.
Further anecdata: I was working yesterday with a nurse whose sister, mother and neices have all tested positive, the 74 yr old mother poorly and at home. Sister and mother were both double jabbed with the extended interval. I think the vaccine is better at preventing hospitalisation than transmission. In time all the unvaxxed will get it, I suppose, probably the vaxxed too. Herd immunity seems a long way off.
Risky I know to make a medical point to a doctor but this piece would suggest we’re all going to get it, vaccines will only lessen the severity
"over their lifetime" is an incredibly long timeframe.
Its like saying you'll get the common cold or flu more than once over your lifetime. Viruses like this spread and mutate and respread.
Vaccines meaning that our immune system is primed and ready for the virus when we get infected means the vaccines are doing their job. The issue last year and last winter was that our immune systems were naive to the virus.
Seems Prof Peston is barking up a very small tree:
Richard 📊📉 @RP131 · 33m Replying to @Peston They do publish it, just not daily on the dashboard. Currently less than 1% (0.53%) of total positives represent people potentially getting it for the 2nd time. They could start publishing it daily but I'm not sure it would be as controversial as you're suggesting.
That figure would suggest that around 200 re-infections are happening in the UK each day, potentially many more as testing was Quote poor in the first wave, so many undocumented first cases.
ONS have also been tracking this via their surveying. Again won't be 100% perfect, but they find very small numbers and all bar a tiny tiny amount, extremely low viral low and very minor symptoms.
It really doesn't seem like something that Peston could be scaring people about.
I think Aldemann based it on his own experiences of serving in Vietnam, returning to a different society to the one that he left. Certainly the book is of its time (!) in its attitudes to sex and homosexuality, but while the main character is non-plussed by the shift to homosexuality (encouraged by the earth government for population reasons) he shrugs and it doesn't particularly seem to bother him.
Older novels often have attitudes that are discordant with current times, and reasonable to critique these, but they don't invalidate the book entirely. Otherwise we would have to scrap most literature!
Ethan of Arthos, by the mildly liberal Lois Bujold McMaster (best known for the Miles Vorkosigan series), flirted with controversy by having a novel about an entirely male gay planet, terrified of women, needing to contact other planets for urgent survival reasons. I thought it was charming , funny and successfully avoiding all the obvious traps; gay friends quite liked it but were more equivocal. I'm not sure it would be well-received today.
Sounds interesting. I shall add it to my classic sci-fi reading list. I like sci-fi that uses the format to explore ideas via alternative worlds.
I read Edmund Coopers "Who Needs Men?" some decades ago, about a future Britain where the remaining men are being hunted down by lesbian exterminators as an irredeemable violent threat. The sexual politics of that are more than a bit dubious, particularly when one of the hunters is converted to heterosexuality by meeting a real man!
Sci fi does seem a particularly male genre, so nice to get a female recommendation.
Becky Chambers, if 'the long way tona snall angry planet' 'record of a space born few' and 'a closed and common orbit' is good.
Fantasy used to be pretty male dominated but theres loads of great female authors now.
Her Wayfayers series is very good although you are missing the last one "The galaxy, and the world within" which only came out recently. "To be Taught if Fortunate" is also good, but be warned Becky's use of they rather than him / her in her very latest novella "Psalm for the wild Built" is disconcerting though although the written is her usual brilliance.
Katherine Addison's Goblin Emperor is a similar type of great read.
Pressing the like button is not enough to show my agreement.
I wonder if there will be medium-long term differences between people who have stayed in their own homes for the last year plus and those who effectively carried on as normal because of their work types.
Pitching to the two extremes doesn't make an argument. The vast majority are, at their own pace and in their own way, getting on with their lives and being as risk averse as they choose rather than as you or @MaxPB would dictate.
Apart from the fact it's almost impossible to book a UK holiday because everyone else is so terrified of and cowering from the virus they have decided to go on holiday to be safe, life for me is almost what it is going to be post the pandemic.
Everyone has to find their own level of safety and security and I do agree a lot of media misinformation (primarily from the Daily Fail) has been hugely unhelpful but Javid's use of the word "cower" was ill-advised. That said, he's apologised so we can all move on (masked or otherwise).
Murphy was leader of Scottish Labour in 2014-15. The complete collapse of SLAB was after The Vow, not because of Blair.
Reeves has a point - any party that is negative and apologetic is in for a kicking. I'm not saying such a strategy will revive them, but you can't say that a similar strategy caused their cataclysm.
It is not universally accepted by psephologists that “The Vow” was the key problem.
‘The Vow was "not a decisive factor" in Scotland voting no to independence‘
What it doesn't say is that, as far as I can tell, Britain has been Biden's most reliable European ally in his recent moves to compete with China, and that Biden knows that. We haven't seen the anti-British Irish President of the US that some feared, because Biden is sensible enough to recognise that he needs Britain, when his alternative European allies are much less willing to stand up to China.
How he must rue that we can't use our voice in support of his from within the EU.
Biden is not anti-British. Indeed one of his strengths is his ability to build consensus and conciliate. I would expect his approach to China to be similar, including both building a supporting network of allies, but also conciliation with China.
I think that the right Realpolitik approach. I don't think China would respond as well to the stick as to the carrot in terms of mending its ways.
Do you know whether our recognition of the Government of China is de facto or de jure? I don't, and I'm not sure where I would find out.
We’ve recognised the PRC over the Republic of China (Taiwan) as the de jure government since at least 13 March 1972 when we exchanged ambassadors. Prior to that, in October 1971, the U.K. voted to seat the PRC in the UN General Assembly and Security Council when it voted in favour of UN resolution 2758 (1971) recognizing the People's Republic of China as "the only legitimate representative of China".
Both CCP and KMT claimed to represent the entirety of China, though perhaps Taipei has dropped that now. It would be absurd though to deny that Beijing represents the country that may well be the biggest economy in the world shortly.
Xi is a bit of a departure from previous CCP leaders, in degree if not in style. If we want to contain China (war would be a disaster) then we need to end our dependence on Chinese exports and capital. As @rcs1000 has shown on a number of occasions, the way to do that is by increasing our savings rate.
While the old colonial powers and Taiwan may be united against China, the emerging economies of the world are ambivalent at best. This isn't the 19th Century any more.
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
There needs to be an inquiry into the level of fear used by the government during this crisis, and whether it was appropriate.
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
Agree with this. But note that it is not just fear of death which concerns some. Fear of lung damage is real. I was told by my consultant that I must avoid further damage to my lungs - and I try as far as possible. It was one reason why I was so anxious to get vaccinated and why I have been quite good about following the rules. And why my family boss me about if they think I'm being stupid. I would really rather not catch this - despite now being vaccinated because I simply can't afford more damage.
That said I am in a minority and I am determined anyway to live life as fully as I can. But we should be aware that fear or concern may be quite rational for some and we should not abuse them for that. (Not that you are - but you understand what I'm getting at, I hope.)
A good point, and one reason that I am keen to avoid it is that I see many vulnerable patients every day. I would feel awful if I gave them a potentially fatal infection.
On top of that, many activities are simply not enjoyable at present. If I go out, or abroad, I want to enjoy myself not be concerned about the antisocial behaviour of others.
The qualifying threshold to enjoy an activity has gone up a fair bit. I am not inclined to go to the Charity Shield match in 13 days for much that reason. Not helped that ticket details are not yet out.
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are going some now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
Javid was both right and wrong. Right in the sense that we are going to have to live with this virus and that means accepting some risk. Not living fearfully.
But wrong because some will have good reason to be more fearful than others and this is not some sort of failing on their part. Nor was it by those who died.
So he should have thought more carefully about the words he used - or got someone else to read it first who might have spotted how it would be read by some. But good that he has apologised.
Everyone needs to take their own decisions based on their own circumstances and with the relevant information.
Which is why 'one size fits all' advice and demands that the government give specific advice to every conceivable situation don't work.
Labour must go full on against the SNP and Independence, that is the only way in which it will not be in the same position as Ed M 2015
Huh? They’ve been full on against the SNP and independence since the 1960s, including under Ed M. What Labour need is fresh thinking, not the same old tosh.
Scottish Labour won their largest percentage of Scottish seats under Blair, in 1997 and 2001 (56 out of 72 available back then). Under Corbyn, they collapsed!
I think Aldemann based it on his own experiences of serving in Vietnam, returning to a different society to the one that he left. Certainly the book is of its time (!) in its attitudes to sex and homosexuality, but while the main character is non-plussed by the shift to homosexuality (encouraged by the earth government for population reasons) he shrugs and it doesn't particularly seem to bother him.
Older novels often have attitudes that are discordant with current times, and reasonable to critique these, but they don't invalidate the book entirely. Otherwise we would have to scrap most literature!
Ethan of Arthos, by the mildly liberal Lois Bujold McMaster (best known for the Miles Vorkosigan series), flirted with controversy by having a novel about an entirely male gay planet, terrified of women, needing to contact other planets for urgent survival reasons. I thought it was charming , funny and successfully avoiding all the obvious traps; gay friends quite liked it but were more equivocal. I'm not sure it would be well-received today.
Sounds interesting. I shall add it to my classic sci-fi reading list. I like sci-fi that uses the format to explore ideas via alternative worlds.
I read Edmund Coopers "Who Needs Men?" some decades ago, about a future Britain where the remaining men are being hunted down by lesbian exterminators as an irredeemable violent threat. The sexual politics of that are more than a bit dubious, particularly when one of the hunters is converted to heterosexuality by meeting a real man!
Sci fi does seem a particularly male genre, so nice to get a female recommendation.
Becky Chambers, if 'the long way tona snall angry planet' 'record of a space born few' and 'a closed and common orbit' is good.
Fantasy used to be pretty male dominated but theres loads of great female authors now.
Her Wayfayers series is very good although you are missing the last one "The galaxy, and the world within" which only came out recently. "To be Taught if Fortunate" is also good, but be warned Becky's use of they rather than him / her in her very latest novella "Psalm for the wild Built" is disconcerting though although the written is her usual brilliance.
Katherine Addison's Goblin Emperor is a similar type of great read.
Not missing, just not read The Galaxy Within yet!
To be taught if fortunate was decent, but more like a novella.
Murphy was leader of Scottish Labour in 2014-15. The complete collapse of SLAB was after The Vow, not because of Blair.
Reeves has a point - any party that is negative and apologetic is in for a kicking. I'm not saying such a strategy will revive them, but you can't say that a similar strategy caused their cataclysm.
It is not universally accepted by psephologists that “The Vow” was the key problem.
‘The Vow was "not a decisive factor" in Scotland voting no to independence‘
The key reason for the collapse of Scottish Labour and the Scottish Liberal Democrats was their collaboration with the Conservative Party.
They had, of course, been collaborating with the Tories behind the scenes for decades, but it was a strategic mistake to make the alliance public.
Was it their collaboration with the Tories?
Or was it that the 45% who voted Yes then voted SNP afterwards and the Tories were neither here nor there in that calculation?
Plus the raison d'etre of Labour (vote Labour to stop the Tories) was abolished by the fact that a tactical anti-Tory vote was to now vote SNP instead - and Labour were an empty husk once they lost that.
Also to correct a mistake from me on PT. Quite a bad one. I said I have a predilection for carbonara and chips. This is not the case (as if). It's bolognese and chips. Getting my pasta sauces mixed up.
Have you tried adding pineapple to the bolognese recipe?
I've no ideological objection to that - but me and pineapples don't get on too well.
Please don't add pineapple to bolognese. Or, indeed, any other pasta sauce.
Just don't.
If you want to add one pizza agreement to pasta, then make it spicy sausage. Or cheese.
I think Aldemann based it on his own experiences of serving in Vietnam, returning to a different society to the one that he left. Certainly the book is of its time (!) in its attitudes to sex and homosexuality, but while the main character is non-plussed by the shift to homosexuality (encouraged by the earth government for population reasons) he shrugs and it doesn't particularly seem to bother him.
Older novels often have attitudes that are discordant with current times, and reasonable to critique these, but they don't invalidate the book entirely. Otherwise we would have to scrap most literature!
Ethan of Arthos, by the mildly liberal Lois Bujold McMaster (best known for the Miles Vorkosigan series), flirted with controversy by having a novel about an entirely male gay planet, terrified of women, needing to contact other planets for urgent survival reasons. I thought it was charming , funny and successfully avoiding all the obvious traps; gay friends quite liked it but were more equivocal. I'm not sure it would be well-received today.
Sounds interesting. I shall add it to my classic sci-fi reading list. I like sci-fi that uses the format to explore ideas via alternative worlds.
I read Edmund Coopers "Who Needs Men?" some decades ago, about a future Britain where the remaining men are being hunted down by lesbian exterminators as an irredeemable violent threat. The sexual politics of that are more than a bit dubious, particularly when one of the hunters is converted to heterosexuality by meeting a real man!
Sci fi does seem a particularly male genre, so nice to get a female recommendation.
Becky Chambers, if 'the long way tona snall angry planet' 'record of a space born few' and 'a closed and common orbit' is good.
Fantasy used to be pretty male dominated but theres loads of great female authors now.
Her Wayfayers series is very good although you are missing the last one "The galaxy, and the world within" which only came out recently. "To be Taught if Fortunate" is also good, but be warned Becky's use of they rather than him / her in her very latest novella "Psalm for the wild Built" is disconcerting though although the written is her usual brilliance.
Katherine Addison's Goblin Emperor is a similar type of great read.
Not missing, just not read The Galaxy Within yet!
To be taught if fortunate was decent, but more like a novella.
Not all stories need to be a full size novel, it's just a shame that is where the money is.
Martha Wells's Murderbot diaries are great but their UK pricing is painfully high for what you get.
Murphy was leader of Scottish Labour in 2014-15. The complete collapse of SLAB was after The Vow, not because of Blair.
Reeves has a point - any party that is negative and apologetic is in for a kicking. I'm not saying such a strategy will revive them, but you can't say that a similar strategy caused their cataclysm.
It is not universally accepted by psephologists that “The Vow” was the key problem.
‘The Vow was "not a decisive factor" in Scotland voting no to independence‘
What I found shocking was not the murder but the recent and extreme destruction of memorials relating to this hideous act. Its a brilliant, if somewhat depressing, read showing the shadow of history and how it still haunts the current community.
Thanks. Very grim and moving. And really not so long ago. Another black life that mattered only after it was brutally ended - and only then because of people brave and determined enough not to let things lie.
Labour must go full on against the SNP and Independence, that is the only way in which it will not be in the same position as Ed M 2015
Huh? They’ve been full on against the SNP and independence since the 1960s, including under Ed M. What Labour need is fresh thinking, not the same old tosh.
Labour did fine in Scotland until “fresh thinking” Corbyn came along.
I think Aldemann based it on his own experiences of serving in Vietnam, returning to a different society to the one that he left. Certainly the book is of its time (!) in its attitudes to sex and homosexuality, but while the main character is non-plussed by the shift to homosexuality (encouraged by the earth government for population reasons) he shrugs and it doesn't particularly seem to bother him.
Older novels often have attitudes that are discordant with current times, and reasonable to critique these, but they don't invalidate the book entirely. Otherwise we would have to scrap most literature!
Ethan of Arthos, by the mildly liberal Lois Bujold McMaster (best known for the Miles Vorkosigan series), flirted with controversy by having a novel about an entirely male gay planet, terrified of women, needing to contact other planets for urgent survival reasons. I thought it was charming , funny and successfully avoiding all the obvious traps; gay friends quite liked it but were more equivocal. I'm not sure it would be well-received today.
Sounds interesting. I shall add it to my classic sci-fi reading list. I like sci-fi that uses the format to explore ideas via alternative worlds.
I read Edmund Coopers "Who Needs Men?" some decades ago, about a future Britain where the remaining men are being hunted down by lesbian exterminators as an irredeemable violent threat. The sexual politics of that are more than a bit dubious, particularly when one of the hunters is converted to heterosexuality by meeting a real man!
Sci fi does seem a particularly male genre, so nice to get a female recommendation.
Becky Chambers, if 'the long way tona snall angry planet' 'record of a space born few' and 'a closed and common orbit' is good.
Fantasy used to be pretty male dominated but theres loads of great female authors now.
Her Wayfayers series is very good although you are missing the last one "The galaxy, and the world within" which only came out recently. "To be Taught if Fortunate" is also good, but be warned Becky's use of they rather than him / her in her very latest novella "Psalm for the wild Built" is disconcerting though although the written is her usual brilliance.
Katherine Addison's Goblin Emperor is a similar type of great read.
Not missing, just not read The Galaxy Within yet!
To be taught if fortunate was decent, but more like a novella.
Not all stories need to be a full size novel, it's just a shame that is where the money is.
Martha Wells's Murderbot diaries are great but their UK pricing is painfully high for what you get.
There seems to be an increase in authors releasing short story collections - Joe Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence and Stephen Baxter spring to mind recently - but I find such collections hit or miss. I only really enjoyed about a third of the ones in the Complete Robot collection.
Pressing the like button is not enough to show my agreement.
I wonder if there will be medium-long term differences between people who have stayed in their own homes for the last year plus and those who effectively carried on as normal because of their work types.
Pitching to the two extremes doesn't make an argument. The vast majority are, at their own pace and in their own way, getting on with their lives and being as risk averse as they choose rather than as you or @MaxPB would dictate.
Apart from the fact it's almost impossible to book a UK holiday because everyone else is so terrified of and cowering from the virus they have decided to go on holiday to be safe, life for me is almost what it is going to be post the pandemic.
Everyone has to find their own level of safety and security and I do agree a lot of media misinformation (primarily from the Daily Fail) has been hugely unhelpful but Javid's use of the word "cower" was ill-advised. That said, he's apologised so we can all move on (masked or otherwise).
I'm not dictating anything to anyone.
What I support is people making their own decisions based on their own circumstances and with all the available information.
But the problem is that its a lot easier to scare people than reassure them once they've been scared.
Scottish Labour won their largest percentage of Scottish seats under Blair, in 1997 and 2001 (56 out of 72 available back then). Under Corbyn, they collapsed!
Yes, you’re quite right Sunil: Blairism was a triumph in Scotland. Rachel Reeves is an insightful political giant. I know and understand nothing about Scottish electoral history, nor electoral behaviour. I’m very sorry to have wasted your time.
Scottish Labour won their largest percentage of Scottish seats under Blair, in 1997 and 2001 (56 out of 72 available back then). Under Corbyn, they collapsed!
Yes, you’re quite right Sunil: Blairism was a triumph in Scotland. Rachel Reeves is an insightful political giant. I know and understand nothing about Scottish electoral history, nor electoral behaviour. I’m very sorry to have wasted your time.
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
Agree with this. But note that it is not just fear of death which concerns some. Fear of lung damage is real. I was told by my consultant that I must avoid further damage to my lungs - and I try as far as possible. It was one reason why I was so anxious to get vaccinated and why I have been quite good about following the rules. And why my family boss me about if they think I'm being stupid. I would really rather not catch this - despite now being vaccinated because I simply can't afford more damage.
That said I am in a minority and I am determined anyway to live life as fully as I can. But we should be aware that fear or concern may be quite rational for some and we should not abuse them for that. (Not that you are - but you understand what I'm getting at, I hope.)
And for people who have underlying conditions I completely understand being a bit careful. What we've got is a large proportion of the nation who are perfectly healthy that are now fearful of normal life. The state has used the tool of fear to keep people indoors and now is belatedly realising it can't simply flip a switch and turn the clock back. @stodge has been saying this for a year or so already and he's right.
The question is how do you run a country when 10-15% of it doesn't want to take part in normal life when none of them have anything to fear from it. You just have to hope that FOMO will drive people to get back to normal. My aunt (mum's sister) is going to Portugal next month so hopefully that will help her realise there's nothing to fear from travel but who knows.
NEW: people worry when they hear "40% of hospitalisations are fully vaxxed", but this chart shows that's actually good news.
The more people you vaccinate, the higher their share of hospitalisations, but the *total* number in hospital is a fraction of what it would otherwise be https://t.co/rPVbvl8zTW
What I found shocking was not the murder but the recent and extreme destruction of memorials relating to this hideous act. Its a brilliant, if somewhat depressing, read showing the shadow of history and how it still haunts the current community.
Mr Ed will be around shortly to hand-wave that there is nothing to see here.
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
Agree with this. But note that it is not just fear of death which concerns some. Fear of lung damage is real. I was told by my consultant that I must avoid further damage to my lungs - and I try as far as possible. It was one reason why I was so anxious to get vaccinated and why I have been quite good about following the rules. And why my family boss me about if they think I'm being stupid. I would really rather not catch this - despite now being vaccinated because I simply can't afford more damage.
That said I am in a minority and I am determined anyway to live life as fully as I can. But we should be aware that fear or concern may be quite rational for some and we should not abuse them for that. (Not that you are - but you understand what I'm getting at, I hope.)
And for people who have underlying conditions I completely understand being a bit careful. What we've got is a large proportion of the nation who are perfectly healthy that are now fearful of normal life. The state has used the tool of fear to keep people indoors and now is belatedly realising it can't simply flip a switch and turn the clock back. @stodge has been saying this for a year or so already and he's right.
The question is how do you run a country when 10-15% of it doesn't want to take part in normal life when none of them have anything to fear from it. You just have to hope that FOMO will drive people to get back to normal. My aunt (mum's sister) is going to Portugal next month so hopefully that will help her realise there's nothing to fear from travel but who knows.
You want a democracy driving its people by fear? Look at Australia. They are now stuck in lockdown for a good few months at least. They’re essentially doing the equivalent of our Tiers system but within the single metropolitan area of Sydney. It didn’t work for us with Alpha and it’s not going to work for them with Delta.
Pressing the like button is not enough to show my agreement.
I wonder if there will be medium-long term differences between people who have stayed in their own homes for the last year plus and those who effectively carried on as normal because of their work types.
Pitching to the two extremes doesn't make an argument. The vast majority are, at their own pace and in their own way, getting on with their lives and being as risk averse as they choose rather than as you or @MaxPB would dictate.
Apart from the fact it's almost impossible to book a UK holiday because everyone else is so terrified of and cowering from the virus they have decided to go on holiday to be safe, life for me is almost what it is going to be post the pandemic.
Everyone has to find their own level of safety and security and I do agree a lot of media misinformation (primarily from the Daily Fail) has been hugely unhelpful but Javid's use of the word "cower" was ill-advised. That said, he's apologised so we can all move on (masked or otherwise).
The u3a, whose membership is well over a million, all at least 55, is interesting in this context. Looks like most of the local Groups (there are over 1000) are starting up again, albeit with 'prospective attendance varying from 50% upwards. Big problem, from which the one's I belong are suffering, is the availability and requirements of venues. Our membership was about 300 and each month we used to pack 100+ people into a hall, around its maximum. If we have to social distance then a meeting will have to be limited to 60-70 at that hall and there aren't any bigger ones locally. Our interest groups have the same problem; thus our Wine Appreciation Group, whose dozen or so members used to meet convivially in a fairly small room is restarting in a few days in someone's garden but we've no idea where we're going from there.
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
There needs to be an inquiry into the level of fear used by the government during this crisis, and whether it was appropriate.
No there should not - at least not in those loeaded terms.
Scottish Labour won their largest percentage of Scottish seats under Blair, in 1997 and 2001 (56 out of 72 available back then). Under Corbyn, they collapsed!
Yes, you’re quite right Sunil: Blairism was a triumph in Scotland. Rachel Reeves is an insightful political giant. I know and understand nothing about Scottish electoral history, nor electoral behaviour. I’m very sorry to have wasted your time.
Happy to help you out with the electoral facts, Stuart!
And there was more bat shit craziness too from Icke, Hopkins and Piers Corbyn. Satanic plots and 5g masts etc.
These guys are nuts - but it notable that a movement which dabbles in quasi fascism uses Nazi slurs against its innocent targets.
They seem confused on the Nazis. Are they 'warning from history' or role models?
Seriously, these people are either mentally ill, if they believe what they're saying, or morally ill if they don't. It's mad or bad and it can be hard to say which. Maybe it doesn't matter.
Murphy was leader of Scottish Labour in 2014-15. The complete collapse of SLAB was after The Vow, not because of Blair.
Reeves has a point - any party that is negative and apologetic is in for a kicking. I'm not saying such a strategy will revive them, but you can't say that a similar strategy caused their cataclysm.
It is not universally accepted by psephologists that “The Vow” was the key problem.
‘The Vow was "not a decisive factor" in Scotland voting no to independence‘
The key reason for the collapse of Scottish Labour and the Scottish Liberal Democrats was their collaboration with the Conservative Party.
They had, of course, been collaborating with the Tories behind the scenes for decades, but it was a strategic mistake to make the alliance public.
Ultimately they agree on unionism, I'm not sure how one meaningfully avoids association with each other when that issue arises.
Hence why it is in the interests of the Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party to keep the Union front and centre: it boosts their own vote and suppresses the Scottish Labour and SLD vote. That it also threatens the Union itself is a secondary consideration.
Labour must go full on against the SNP and Independence, that is the only way in which it will not be in the same position as Ed M 2015
Huh? They’ve been full on against the SNP and independence since the 1960s, including under Ed M. What Labour need is fresh thinking, not the same old tosh.
Labour did fine in Scotland until “fresh thinking” Corbyn came along.
I meant fresh thinking on the constitution rather than fresh thinking on the sane-bonkers axis.
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
Agree with this. But note that it is not just fear of death which concerns some. Fear of lung damage is real. I was told by my consultant that I must avoid further damage to my lungs - and I try as far as possible. It was one reason why I was so anxious to get vaccinated and why I have been quite good about following the rules. And why my family boss me about if they think I'm being stupid. I would really rather not catch this - despite now being vaccinated because I simply can't afford more damage.
That said I am in a minority and I am determined anyway to live life as fully as I can. But we should be aware that fear or concern may be quite rational for some and we should not abuse them for that. (Not that you are - but you understand what I'm getting at, I hope.)
And for people who have underlying conditions I completely understand being a bit careful. What we've got is a large proportion of the nation who are perfectly healthy that are now fearful of normal life. The state has used the tool of fear to keep people indoors and now is belatedly realising it can't simply flip a switch and turn the clock back. @stodge has been saying this for a year or so already and he's right.
The question is how do you run a country when 10-15% of it doesn't want to take part in normal life when none of them have anything to fear from it. You just have to hope that FOMO will drive people to get back to normal. My aunt (mum's sister) is going to Portugal next month so hopefully that will help her realise there's nothing to fear from travel but who knows.
Covid sent government 'nudging' in to overdrive. People were nudged in to being terrified of the virus (Stay home, save lives, don't kill granny etc), now a small proportion of people are afraid to go out at all and want permanent restrictions, which now actually seems to be costing the government its popularity and eroding its poll leads as it tries to open up the economy. The problem is the policy of using behavioural science on the part of the state to manipulate peoples behaviour, from the outset a shady business - it was always likely to have perverse consequences.
What it doesn't say is that, as far as I can tell, Britain has been Biden's most reliable European ally in his recent moves to compete with China, and that Biden knows that. We haven't seen the anti-British Irish President of the US that some feared, because Biden is sensible enough to recognise that he needs Britain, when his alternative European allies are much less willing to stand up to China.
How he must rue that we can't use our voice in support of his from within the EU.
Biden is not anti-British. Indeed one of his strengths is his ability to build consensus and conciliate. I would expect his approach to China to be similar, including both building a supporting network of allies, but also conciliation with China.
I think that the right Realpolitik approach. I don't think China would respond as well to the stick as to the carrot in terms of mending its ways.
It's too late for us to use the carrot to encourage China to mend its ways, because China doesn't need the carrot anymore. It's now strong enough to get what it wants and we didn't use that leverage when it might have been effective - because we were too busy competing with each other for a slice of the China economy.
Biden realises this and there's not much sign of conciliation in his approach to China.
But neither will he needlessly antagonise them to bolster his ego. China is simply too large a part of the world economy not to do business with it, but there is a growing realisation that need not be entirely on their terms.
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are going some now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
Javid was both right and wrong. Right in the sense that we are going to have to live with this virus and that means accepting some risk. Not living fearfully.
But wrong because some will have good reason to be more fearful than others and this is not some sort of failing on their part. Nor was it by those who died.
So he should have thought more carefully about the words he used - or got someone else to read it first who might have spotted how it would be read by some. But good that he has apologised.
Yes, I agree with this balanced view. As we emerge from the worst of the pandemic, it's important that we respect each other's judgments about what is and isn't safe for us - using language that seems to deride people who make different decisions just creates articial divisions.
But we all express things badly sometimes - I wouldn't hold that against him.
He’s actually gone up in my estimation. How many acts of contrition do we normally see from this Cabinet?
Yes, regardless of whether Sajid was right to apologise for the use of 'cower' (I think he was), according to my comprehensive records this is the first time that anybody in the current Cabinet has apologised for anything (not including Hancock, ex-cabinet).
It sets a dangerous precedent if it becomes contagious. If this level of apology is reached for the mere misuse of a word, what sort of apology can we expect from Jenrick, Patel, Williamson, Johnson and others over their well-documented and somewhat graver misdemeanours? Resignations?
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
Agree with this. But note that it is not just fear of death which concerns some. Fear of lung damage is real. I was told by my consultant that I must avoid further damage to my lungs - and I try as far as possible. It was one reason why I was so anxious to get vaccinated and why I have been quite good about following the rules. And why my family boss me about if they think I'm being stupid. I would really rather not catch this - despite now being vaccinated because I simply can't afford more damage.
That said I am in a minority and I am determined anyway to live life as fully as I can. But we should be aware that fear or concern may be quite rational for some and we should not abuse them for that. (Not that you are - but you understand what I'm getting at, I hope.)
And for people who have underlying conditions I completely understand being a bit careful. What we've got is a large proportion of the nation who are perfectly healthy that are now fearful of normal life. The state has used the tool of fear to keep people indoors and now is belatedly realising it can't simply flip a switch and turn the clock back. @stodge has been saying this for a year or so already and he's right.
The question is how do you run a country when 10-15% of it doesn't want to take part in normal life when none of them have anything to fear from it. You just have to hope that FOMO will drive people to get back to normal. My aunt (mum's sister) is going to Portugal next month so hopefully that will help her realise there's nothing to fear from travel but who knows.
You want a democracy driving its people by fear? Look at Australia. They are now stuck in lockdown for a good few months at least. They’re essentially doing the equivalent of our Tiers system but within the single metropolitan area of Sydney. It didn’t work for us with Alpha and it’s not going to work for them with Delta.
Yes, Australia has made serious missteps in the last year wrt vaccines and now they are paying the price. I don't see how either Australia or NZ ever really become normal. One of my colleagues is a Kiwi and he was in despair at the idea that St Jacinda wants to build a permanent quarantine centre for people to do 14 days on arrival.
Labour must go full on against the SNP and Independence, that is the only way in which it will not be in the same position as Ed M 2015
Huh? They’ve been full on against the SNP and independence since the 1960s, including under Ed M. What Labour need is fresh thinking, not the same old tosh.
Labour did fine in Scotland until “fresh thinking” Corbyn came along.
I meant fresh thinking on the constitution rather than fresh thinking on the sane-bonkers axis.
And by “fresh thinking” you mean “support independence” of course.
Outrage Bus running out of juice? The Guardian reports the Commons Library research commissioned by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus, which Layla (Moran) chairs, which shows that the number of positive cases tested for variants has fallen dramatically.
The results suggest that in the three weeks to 17 March, there were an estimated 1,769 to 1,827 positive tests from people entering the UK from red list countries, of which somewhere between 63% and 68% were sequenced to determine the variant involved.
By contrast in the three weeks to 30 June, there were an estimated 445 to 507 positive tests from people entering the UK from red list countries, with estimates of the proportion sequenced ranging from 12% to 33%.
Layla highlighted the dangers of this:
“These figures are truly staggering and make a mockery of the UK government’s claim to be a global leader in genome sequencing,“ said Moran, adding the rise in the Beta variant in Europe should “be setting alarm bells ringing in government”.
I make that a 70% fall from March to June to about 23 people per day, who are all required to quarantine for 10 days in a quarantine hotel anyway and have a negative test on day 8 before they get out.
The sky's not falling in, Goosey-Loosey.
Time for the LDs to start going for all those policy ideas.
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
Agree with this. But note that it is not just fear of death which concerns some. Fear of lung damage is real. I was told by my consultant that I must avoid further damage to my lungs - and I try as far as possible. It was one reason why I was so anxious to get vaccinated and why I have been quite good about following the rules. And why my family boss me about if they think I'm being stupid. I would really rather not catch this - despite now being vaccinated because I simply can't afford more damage.
That said I am in a minority and I am determined anyway to live life as fully as I can. But we should be aware that fear or concern may be quite rational for some and we should not abuse them for that. (Not that you are - but you understand what I'm getting at, I hope.)
And for people who have underlying conditions I completely understand being a bit careful. What we've got is a large proportion of the nation who are perfectly healthy that are now fearful of normal life. The state has used the tool of fear to keep people indoors and now is belatedly realising it can't simply flip a switch and turn the clock back. @stodge has been saying this for a year or so already and he's right.
The question is how do you run a country when 10-15% of it doesn't want to take part in normal life when none of them have anything to fear from it. You just have to hope that FOMO will drive people to get back to normal. My aunt (mum's sister) is going to Portugal next month so hopefully that will help her realise there's nothing to fear from travel but who knows.
You want a democracy driving its people by fear? Look at Australia. They are now stuck in lockdown for a good few months at least. They’re essentially doing the equivalent of our Tiers system but within the single metropolitan area of Sydney. It didn’t work for us with Alpha and it’s not going to work for them with Delta.
Yes, Australia has made serious missteps in the last year wrt vaccines and now they are paying the price. I don't see how either Australia or NZ ever really become normal. One of my colleagues is a Kiwi and he was in despair at the idea that St Jacinda wants to build a permanent quarantine centre for people to do 14 days on arrival.
I keep getting adverts for holidays in NZ run on YouTube....has anybody told NZ tourism they might be wasting quite a lot of money?
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
Agree with this. But note that it is not just fear of death which concerns some. Fear of lung damage is real. I was told by my consultant that I must avoid further damage to my lungs - and I try as far as possible. It was one reason why I was so anxious to get vaccinated and why I have been quite good about following the rules. And why my family boss me about if they think I'm being stupid. I would really rather not catch this - despite now being vaccinated because I simply can't afford more damage.
That said I am in a minority and I am determined anyway to live life as fully as I can. But we should be aware that fear or concern may be quite rational for some and we should not abuse them for that. (Not that you are - but you understand what I'm getting at, I hope.)
And for people who have underlying conditions I completely understand being a bit careful. What we've got is a large proportion of the nation who are perfectly healthy that are now fearful of normal life. The state has used the tool of fear to keep people indoors and now is belatedly realising it can't simply flip a switch and turn the clock back. @stodge has been saying this for a year or so already and he's right.
The question is how do you run a country when 10-15% of it doesn't want to take part in normal life when none of them have anything to fear from it. You just have to hope that FOMO will drive people to get back to normal. My aunt (mum's sister) is going to Portugal next month so hopefully that will help her realise there's nothing to fear from travel but who knows.
You want a democracy driving its people by fear? Look at Australia. They are now stuck in lockdown for a good few months at least. They’re essentially doing the equivalent of our Tiers system but within the single metropolitan area of Sydney. It didn’t work for us with Alpha and it’s not going to work for them with Delta.
Yes, Australia has made serious missteps in the last year wrt vaccines and now they are paying the price. I don't see how either Australia or NZ ever really become normal. One of my colleagues is a Kiwi and he was in despair at the idea that St Jacinda wants to build a permanent quarantine centre for people to do 14 days on arrival.
The cat’s out of the bag in Australia. Anyway, they’ve 11 years to sort things out before the Brisbane Olympics - unless they want to be competing against themselves.
Murphy was leader of Scottish Labour in 2014-15. The complete collapse of SLAB was after The Vow, not because of Blair.
Reeves has a point - any party that is negative and apologetic is in for a kicking. I'm not saying such a strategy will revive them, but you can't say that a similar strategy caused their cataclysm.
It is not universally accepted by psephologists that “The Vow” was the key problem.
‘The Vow was "not a decisive factor" in Scotland voting no to independence‘
The key reason for the collapse of Scottish Labour and the Scottish Liberal Democrats was their collaboration with the Conservative Party.
They had, of course, been collaborating with the Tories behind the scenes for decades, but it was a strategic mistake to make the alliance public.
So not Blair then.
What you could have pointed at Blair about was the collapse in contacts from Labour activists. From what I read / heard they stopped doing things like knocking on doors and instead assumed they were set for life.
Outrage Bus running out of juice? The Guardian reports the Commons Library research commissioned by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus, which Layla (Moran) chairs, which shows that the number of positive cases tested for variants has fallen dramatically.
The results suggest that in the three weeks to 17 March, there were an estimated 1,769 to 1,827 positive tests from people entering the UK from red list countries, of which somewhere between 63% and 68% were sequenced to determine the variant involved.
By contrast in the three weeks to 30 June, there were an estimated 445 to 507 positive tests from people entering the UK from red list countries, with estimates of the proportion sequenced ranging from 12% to 33%.
Layla highlighted the dangers of this:
“These figures are truly staggering and make a mockery of the UK government’s claim to be a global leader in genome sequencing,“ said Moran, adding the rise in the Beta variant in Europe should “be setting alarm bells ringing in government”.
I make that a 70% fall from March to June to about 23 people per day, who are all required to quarantine for 10 days in a quarantine hotel anyway and have a negative test on day 8 before they get out.
The sky's not falling in, Goosey-Loosey.
Time for the LDs to start going for all those policy ideas.
I think Aldemann based it on his own experiences of serving in Vietnam, returning to a different society to the one that he left. Certainly the book is of its time (!) in its attitudes to sex and homosexuality, but while the main character is non-plussed by the shift to homosexuality (encouraged by the earth government for population reasons) he shrugs and it doesn't particularly seem to bother him.
Older novels often have attitudes that are discordant with current times, and reasonable to critique these, but they don't invalidate the book entirely. Otherwise we would have to scrap most literature!
Ethan of Arthos, by the mildly liberal Lois Bujold McMaster (best known for the Miles Vorkosigan series), flirted with controversy by having a novel about an entirely male gay planet, terrified of women, needing to contact other planets for urgent survival reasons. I thought it was charming , funny and successfully avoiding all the obvious traps; gay friends quite liked it but were more equivocal. I'm not sure it would be well-received today.
Sounds interesting. I shall add it to my classic sci-fi reading list. I like sci-fi that uses the format to explore ideas via alternative worlds.
I read Edmund Coopers "Who Needs Men?" some decades ago, about a future Britain where the remaining men are being hunted down by lesbian exterminators as an irredeemable violent threat. The sexual politics of that are more than a bit dubious, particularly when one of the hunters is converted to heterosexuality by meeting a real man!
Sci fi does seem a particularly male genre, so nice to get a female recommendation.
Becky Chambers, if 'the long way tona snall angry planet' 'record of a space born few' and 'a closed and common orbit' is good.
Fantasy used to be pretty male dominated but theres loads of great female authors now.
Her Wayfayers series is very good although you are missing the last one "The galaxy, and the world within" which only came out recently. "To be Taught if Fortunate" is also good, but be warned Becky's use of they rather than him / her in her very latest novella "Psalm for the wild Built" is disconcerting though although the written is her usual brilliance.
Katherine Addison's Goblin Emperor is a similar type of great read.
Scottish Labour won their largest percentage of Scottish seats under Blair, in 1997 and 2001 (56 out of 72 available back then). Under Corbyn, they collapsed!
Yes, you’re quite right Sunil: Blairism was a triumph in Scotland. Rachel Reeves is an insightful political giant. I know and understand nothing about Scottish electoral history, nor electoral behaviour. I’m very sorry to have wasted your time.
Happy to help you out with the electoral facts, Stuart!
Would you like me to post the results of Canadian elections 1953 to 1988 to prove how the Conservative Party was going to emerge victorious from the 1993 general election?
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
I broadly agree with this and I feel it myself personally. For me I think the messaging on masks is important. As long as the government (in Westminster or Holyrood) is telling me that it's not safe to go out without wearing a mask the message I am hearing is that it's not safe to go out.
I know life isn't that simple, but public relations are. If the vaccines have ended the emergency then the public advice needs to reflect that, otherwise they don't have a chance of coaxing the anxious back out again.
Do you have any evidence? Or are you just throwing mud?
For someone not a member of the Tory Party you do seem to over-react to words like "Corruption". It is at best ill-advised to take donations from Russians after openly covering up Russian involvement, just as it was ill advised to take donations from people awarded PPE contracts without tender. Or PPE.
You are quick to bleat that it is legal. Fine. Legal it may be, but morally it is wrong. You are not a Tory member. But you are a Man of Influence in the party (with people approaching you over PPE contracts) and a Reputation to Protect. So your own personal morality is clear and scrupulously protected - glad to hear it.
So why can you not see that the people in the party of which you are not a member but apparently are seen to be able to influence are doing the wrong thing?
Scottish Labour won their largest percentage of Scottish seats under Blair, in 1997 and 2001 (56 out of 72 available back then). Under Corbyn, they collapsed!
Yes, you’re quite right Sunil: Blairism was a triumph in Scotland. Rachel Reeves is an insightful political giant. I know and understand nothing about Scottish electoral history, nor electoral behaviour. I’m very sorry to have wasted your time.
Happy to help you out with the electoral facts, Stuart!
Would you like me to post the results of Canadian elections 1953 to 1988 to prove how the Conservative Party was going to emerge victorious from the 1993 general election?
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are going some now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
Javid was both right and wrong. Right in the sense that we are going to have to live with this virus and that means accepting some risk. Not living fearfully.
But wrong because some will have good reason to be more fearful than others and this is not some sort of failing on their part. Nor was it by those who died.
So he should have thought more carefully about the words he used - or got someone else to read it first who might have spotted how it would be read by some. But good that he has apologised.
Yes, I agree with this balanced view. As we emerge from the worst of the pandemic, it's important that we respect each other's judgments about what is and isn't safe for us - using language that seems to deride people who make different decisions just creates articial divisions.
But we all express things badly sometimes - I wouldn't hold that against him.
He’s actually gone up in my estimation. How many acts of contrition do we normally see from this Cabinet?
Yes, regardless of whether Sajid was right to apologise for the use of 'cower' (I think he was), according to my comprehensive records this is the first time that anybody in the current Cabinet has apologised for anything (not including Hancock, ex-cabinet).
It sets a dangerous precedent if it becomes contagious. If this level of apology is reached for the mere misuse of a word, what sort of apology can we expect from Jenrick, Patel, Williamson, Johnson and others over their well-documented and somewhat graver misdemeanours? Resignations?
More likely that Javid will have to resign for bringing the Clown Posse into disrepute.
Labour must go full on against the SNP and Independence, that is the only way in which it will not be in the same position as Ed M 2015
Huh? They’ve been full on against the SNP and independence since the 1960s, including under Ed M. What Labour need is fresh thinking, not the same old tosh.
Labour did fine in Scotland until “fresh thinking” Corbyn came along.
I meant fresh thinking on the constitution rather than fresh thinking on the sane-bonkers axis.
And by “fresh thinking” you mean “support independence” of course.
Nope. There are lots of things Unionists could do to improve the popularity of the Union. That they are not even talking about these things, let alone implementing them, pleases me no end.
Johnson cannot stop being Johnson. His ratings will move up and down. The concern for the country - if not the Tories, who are not interested in the country - is that the government is entirely incoherent because Johnson is Johnson. Javid and Sunak are clearly manoeuvring for what they believe is a leadership election that will come sooner rather than later, while we have genuine simpletons in control of education and the Home Office. The challenges are coming thick and fast - and will only intensify come the autumn, when it looks like Lord Frost and his boss are intent on another battle with the EU. We are going to get more divided over the coming period, not less.
Peston said on Thursday, throughout his career, be that in journalism or in politics, whenever he is on the ropes, Johnson picks fights with the EU. It is his safety net. From his fictional ban of pink sausages to his renegotiation of the NI Protocol, this wizard wheeze serves to secure his tenure in his job and bolster his popularity.
Yes, Brexit is not Done, it is the Forever War.
I imagine people will be flocking to see The Forever Purge in cinemas - it's about a corrupt elite being destroyed as they cannot control what they unleashed.
I haven't seen it, my reference was to the classic Sci-fi antiwar novel "The Forever War" in which the earth government keeps a pointless war going against an overhyped enemy partly because it finds it economically useful, and partly out of habit and sunk costs.
Yes, a good novel, though I wonder how the section where the protagonist (who is experiencing time differently) finds himself in a period where being gay is near universal and practically mandatory would fly now.
The sequel Forever Free was terrible. My copy comes with Forever Peace, which is apparently not actually connected.
I think Aldemann based it on his own experiences of serving in Vietnam, returning to a different society to the one that he left. Certainly the book is of its time (!) in its attitudes to sex and homosexuality, but while the main character is non-plussed by the shift to homosexuality (encouraged by the earth government for population reasons) he shrugs and it doesn't particularly seem to bother him.
Older novels often have attitudes that are discordant with current times, and reasonable to critique these, but they don't invalidate the book entirely. Otherwise we would have to scrap most literature!
Oh I agree completely, but I bet in these finger wagging times many would disagree.
We’re almost at the stage where anything produced or published a decade ago comes with a trigger warning.
Labour must go full on against the SNP and Independence, that is the only way in which it will not be in the same position as Ed M 2015
Huh? They’ve been full on against the SNP and independence since the 1960s, including under Ed M. What Labour need is fresh thinking, not the same old tosh.
Labour did fine in Scotland until “fresh thinking” Corbyn came along.
I meant fresh thinking on the constitution rather than fresh thinking on the sane-bonkers axis.
It's notable that Labour's high point in Scotland was when they were proactive on the constitution, and the slide downward went hand in hand with obstructionism and paralysis. Never let it be forgotten that in the post 2014 consultation SLab recommended the least new powers in a new Scotland bill, fewer than the SCons!
Main problem is that people like Dewar and Cook really believed in devolution while their pygmy successors just see it a a block to indy, its development to be grindingly extruded when required.
I think Aldemann based it on his own experiences of serving in Vietnam, returning to a different society to the one that he left. Certainly the book is of its time (!) in its attitudes to sex and homosexuality, but while the main character is non-plussed by the shift to homosexuality (encouraged by the earth government for population reasons) he shrugs and it doesn't particularly seem to bother him.
Older novels often have attitudes that are discordant with current times, and reasonable to critique these, but they don't invalidate the book entirely. Otherwise we would have to scrap most literature!
Ethan of Arthos, by the mildly liberal Lois Bujold McMaster (best known for the Miles Vorkosigan series), flirted with controversy by having a novel about an entirely male gay planet, terrified of women, needing to contact other planets for urgent survival reasons. I thought it was charming , funny and successfully avoiding all the obvious traps; gay friends quite liked it but were more equivocal. I'm not sure it would be well-received today.
I’m sure Ursula Le Guin (an author who could be either brilliant or awful, IMHO) would get it in the neck for her portrayal of gay men, as would Frank Herbert.
I guess some of our Scottish friends on here will bemoan me talking about this, as I generally disagree with them on independence probably don't know enough about Scotland, but I really think they missed a trick in 2014.
If independence is won, it would be a seismic event for Scotland - good or bad - and the quest for it needs to be commemorated. A year or more before a referendum, I would hold meetings all over the country - from Islesburgh Community Centre to Coldingham village hall, and everywhere in between. Invite people who want independence to sign their names on sheets of paper, which will then be bound into books for posterity. Millions of names, every one (Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse excepted) vowing their support for an independent country.
Names and a book that will last hundreds of years, and show the basis for their new-won independence.
Yes, it can be done on the Internet, but that's cr@p. It means nothing. This will be ink on paper, for posterity. A real, solid meaning.
Scottish Labour won their largest percentage of Scottish seats under Blair, in 1997 and 2001 (56 out of 72 available back then). Under Corbyn, they collapsed!
Yes, you’re quite right Sunil: Blairism was a triumph in Scotland. Rachel Reeves is an insightful political giant. I know and understand nothing about Scottish electoral history, nor electoral behaviour. I’m very sorry to have wasted your time.
Happy to help you out with the electoral facts, Stuart!
Would you like me to post the results of Canadian elections 1953 to 1988 to prove how the Conservative Party was going to emerge victorious from the 1993 general election?
It was actually @Theuniondivvie upthread making it appear that Rachel Reeves' Blairism is somehow a bad thing, when, as you both well know, Blair achieved record seat tallies in Scotland in 1997 and 2001.
BTW, despite (or because of, perchance?) Labour's "collaboration" with the Tories in 2014, Miliband still won 40 Scottish seats at the 2015 GE.
I think Aldemann based it on his own experiences of serving in Vietnam, returning to a different society to the one that he left. Certainly the book is of its time (!) in its attitudes to sex and homosexuality, but while the main character is non-plussed by the shift to homosexuality (encouraged by the earth government for population reasons) he shrugs and it doesn't particularly seem to bother him.
Older novels often have attitudes that are discordant with current times, and reasonable to critique these, but they don't invalidate the book entirely. Otherwise we would have to scrap most literature!
Ethan of Arthos, by the mildly liberal Lois Bujold McMaster (best known for the Miles Vorkosigan series), flirted with controversy by having a novel about an entirely male gay planet, terrified of women, needing to contact other planets for urgent survival reasons. I thought it was charming , funny and successfully avoiding all the obvious traps; gay friends quite liked it but were more equivocal. I'm not sure it would be well-received today.
Sounds interesting. I shall add it to my classic sci-fi reading list. I like sci-fi that uses the format to explore ideas via alternative worlds.
I read Edmund Coopers "Who Needs Men?" some decades ago, about a future Britain where the remaining men are being hunted down by lesbian exterminators as an irredeemable violent threat. The sexual politics of that are more than a bit dubious, particularly when one of the hunters is converted to heterosexuality by meeting a real man!
Sci fi does seem a particularly male genre, so nice to get a female recommendation.
Becky Chambers, if 'the long way tona snall angry planet' 'record of a space born few' and 'a closed and common orbit' is good.
Fantasy used to be pretty male dominated but theres loads of great female authors now.
Her Wayfayers series is very good although you are missing the last one "The galaxy, and the world within" which only came out recently. "To be Taught if Fortunate" is also good, but be warned Becky's use of they rather than him / her in her very latest novella "Psalm for the wild Built" is disconcerting though although the written is her usual brilliance.
Katherine Addison's Goblin Emperor is a similar type of great read.
Not missing, just not read The Galaxy Within yet!
To be taught if fortunate was decent, but more like a novella.
Not all stories need to be a full size novel, it's just a shame that is where the money is.
Martha Wells's Murderbot diaries are great but their UK pricing is painfully high for what you get.
There seems to be an increase in authors releasing short story collections - Joe Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence and Stephen Baxter spring to mind recently - but I find such collections hit or miss. I only really enjoyed about a third of the ones in the Complete Robot collection.
I prefer Joe Abercrombie’s novels to his short stories.
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are going some now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
Javid was both right and wrong. Right in the sense that we are going to have to live with this virus and that means accepting some risk. Not living fearfully.
But wrong because some will have good reason to be more fearful than others and this is not some sort of failing on their part. Nor was it by those who died.
So he should have thought more carefully about the words he used - or got someone else to read it first who might have spotted how it would be read by some. But good that he has apologised.
Yes, I agree with this balanced view. As we emerge from the worst of the pandemic, it's important that we respect each other's judgments about what is and isn't safe for us - using language that seems to deride people who make different decisions just creates articial divisions.
But we all express things badly sometimes - I wouldn't hold that against him.
He’s actually gone up in my estimation. How many acts of contrition do we normally see from this Cabinet?
Yes, I didn't really expect him to apologize. It was (for me) cringeful language but I took it to be an integral part of the message - that Matt was a wimp but things are gonna change around this place now because the Saj is here and he takes no shit.
NEW: people worry when they hear "40% of hospitalisations are fully vaxxed", but this chart shows that's actually good news.
The more people you vaccinate, the higher their share of hospitalisations, but the *total* number in hospital is a fraction of what it would otherwise be https://t.co/rPVbvl8zTW
Someone posted a good and related comment about vax and hospital the other day. Almost everyone who ends up in hospital following a road accident was wearing a seatbelt.
Bhutan is interesting, because its foreign relations were limited by being successively under British "guidance" from 1910 to 1949, and then India from 1949 until 2007.
Do you have any evidence? Or are you just throwing mud?
I have some professional knowledge of some of the individuals who have donated money to the Tory party. This is not clean money. The people are not people with whom any reputable organisation should want to associate with in any capacity.
Corruption is not the charge - at least not without evidence. Gross naivety and foolishness certainly are.
Russia is not our friend. You do not become extremely wealthy in Russia by being purer than pure. A healthy degree of scepticism is needed when such people start waving large sums of money at you.
The Spectator @spectator · 20h "I thought it would take two years for a vaccination passport scheme to morph into a Chinese-style social credit system. In fact, it took two weeks." - Ross Clark
We must resist this looming privacy disaster. So wish I wasn't having to rely on Starmer to block this.
I guess some of our Scottish friends on here will bemoan me talking about this, as I generally disagree with them on independence probably don't know enough about Scotland, but I really think they missed a trick in 2014.
If independence is won, it would be a seismic event for Scotland - good or bad - and the quest for it needs to be commemorated. A year or more before a referendum, I would hold meetings all over the country - from Islesburgh Community Centre to Coldingham village hall, and everywhere in between. Invite people who want independence to sign their names on sheets of paper, which will then be bound into books for posterity. Millions of names, every one (Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse excepted) vowing their support for an independent country.
Names and a book that will last hundreds of years, and show the basis for their new-won independence.
Yes, it can be done on the Internet, but that's cr@p. It means nothing. This will be ink on paper, for posterity. A real, solid meaning.
Given the number of high profile bullshittery Peston has put out during this pandemic, you would think he might double check some of his conspiracy theories before blurting out another load of bollocks on Twitter.
Given the number of high profile bullshittery Peston has put out during this pandemic, you would think he might double check some of his conspiracy theories before blurting out another load of bollocks on Twitter.
It's becoming embarrassing now. "seriously underrepresent" == less than 1% !!!
Scottish Labour won their largest percentage of Scottish seats under Blair, in 1997 and 2001 (56 out of 72 available back then). Under Corbyn, they collapsed!
The Spectator @spectator · 20h "I thought it would take two years for a vaccination passport scheme to morph into a Chinese-style social credit system. In fact, it took two weeks." - Ross Clark
We must resist this looming privacy disaster. So wish I wasn't having to rely on Starmer to block this.
Fingers crossed it’s simply a tactic to increase vaccine rates (I wouldn’t have done it, personally). But it might cause trouble on the Tory benches if they are for real.
Yeah - the EU/U.K. pissing contest over vaccine rates has serious consequences for us all. We are all, in the west, in a privileged position. It’s the rest of the planet we need to worry about.
NEW: people worry when they hear "40% of hospitalisations are fully vaxxed", but this chart shows that's actually good news.
The more people you vaccinate, the higher their share of hospitalisations, but the *total* number in hospital is a fraction of what it would otherwise be https://t.co/rPVbvl8zTW
Someone posted a good and related comment about vax and hospital the other day. Almost everyone who ends up in hospital following a road accident was wearing a seatbelt.
That was me (I think). I posted it as a good example of how you can jump to the wrong conclusion by illogically interpreting stats. I posted it in a hope of trying to explain to NerysHughs his ongoing misinterpretation of a different stat about PPE that he doesn't understand at all by showing this really obviously useless one.
This particular stat was the percentage of people who had died of the delta variant who had been double jabbed compared to overall deaths of the delta variant (can't remember the number now but it was very high). If you misinterpret it, it looks bad, but of course (as per your seat belt example) that percentage would be high. In fact if everyone was double jabbed it would be 100% even if only one person had died. It is a meaningless stat.
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are going some now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
Javid was both right and wrong. Right in the sense that we are going to have to live with this virus and that means accepting some risk. Not living fearfully.
But wrong because some will have good reason to be more fearful than others and this is not some sort of failing on their part. Nor was it by those who died.
So he should have thought more carefully about the words he used - or got someone else to read it first who might have spotted how it would be read by some. But good that he has apologised.
Yes, I agree with this balanced view. As we emerge from the worst of the pandemic, it's important that we respect each other's judgments about what is and isn't safe for us - using language that seems to deride people who make different decisions just creates articial divisions.
But we all express things badly sometimes - I wouldn't hold that against him.
He’s actually gone up in my estimation. How many acts of contrition do we normally see from this Cabinet?
Yes, regardless of whether Sajid was right to apologise for the use of 'cower' (I think he was), according to my comprehensive records this is the first time that anybody in the current Cabinet has apologised for anything (not including Hancock, ex-cabinet).
It sets a dangerous precedent if it becomes contagious. If this level of apology is reached for the mere misuse of a word, what sort of apology can we expect from Jenrick, Patel, Williamson, Johnson and others over their well-documented and somewhat graver misdemeanours? Resignations?
More likely that Javid will have to resign for bringing the Clown Posse into disrepute.
Though having walked, then been brought back, Saj is less sackable than most.
And if the Conservative Party were to decide it wanted someone different- but not that different- then Javid suddenly fits the bill better than, say, Sunak.
Have we heard a peep from Rishi since he made exactly the same mistake as BoJo last Sunday?
It's sad he's been censored because he's right. People are cowering from the virus now that they've been double jabbed. It's the fault of the government and specifically Matt Hancock who has made us into a nation if craven wretches waiting for the state to tell us what we can and can't do.
I fear that my mum will never really mentally recover from being scared of the virus. For 18 months the government has fed her a diet of fear and uncertainty and now she doesn't really ever want to go out, my sister wants to plan a family holiday to Greece but my mum is flatly refusing because she might catch the virus on the plane or in Greece or in the airport. She's double jabbed with Pfizer and has no other health conditions. No amount of reasoning is working to get her to understand that she's now in no real danger.
It made me so very happy when Hancock was forced out and replaced by Javid who doesn't talk about "our" NHS or wear that idiotic NHS pin on his lapel. I hold Hancock responsible for my mum's fearful mental state and the mental state of millions of other people across the nation who are going some now living in a permanent state of worry that they might die from something that won't kill them now that they're vaccinated.
Javid was both right and wrong. Right in the sense that we are going to have to live with this virus and that means accepting some risk. Not living fearfully.
But wrong because some will have good reason to be more fearful than others and this is not some sort of failing on their part. Nor was it by those who died.
So he should have thought more carefully about the words he used - or got someone else to read it first who might have spotted how it would be read by some. But good that he has apologised.
Yes, I agree with this balanced view. As we emerge from the worst of the pandemic, it's important that we respect each other's judgments about what is and isn't safe for us - using language that seems to deride people who make different decisions just creates articial divisions.
But we all express things badly sometimes - I wouldn't hold that against him.
He’s actually gone up in my estimation. How many acts of contrition do we normally see from this Cabinet?
Yes, regardless of whether Sajid was right to apologise for the use of 'cower' (I think he was), according to my comprehensive records this is the first time that anybody in the current Cabinet has apologised for anything (not including Hancock, ex-cabinet).
It sets a dangerous precedent if it becomes contagious. If this level of apology is reached for the mere misuse of a word, what sort of apology can we expect from Jenrick, Patel, Williamson, Johnson and others over their well-documented and somewhat graver misdemeanours? Resignations?
More likely that Javid will have to resign for bringing the Clown Posse into disrepute.
Though having walked, then been brought back, Saj is less sackable than most.
And if the Conservative Party were to decide it wanted someone different- but not that different- then Javid suddenly fits the bill better than, say, Sunak.
Have we heard a peep from Rishi since he made exactly the same mistake as BoJo last Sunday?
An apology makes him stand out from Johnson and Sunak. Uses an insensitive word - apologises. Considered using an isolation escape route until it proved to be a PR catastrophe and then lied about it - no apology.
Comments
Viewers are getting 2 feeds which will cover most of the events that most of the people are interested in. That would seem to me to cover the obligations of a public sector broadcaster. Why should we give taxpayers cash to a US billionaire?
But we all express things badly sometimes - I wouldn't hold that against him.
The fact they would actually be why can't I go to my villa in (insert country here) is neither here nor there.
Corruption.
That said I am in a minority and I am determined anyway to live life as fully as I can. But we should be aware that fear or concern may be quite rational for some and we should not abuse them for that. (Not that you are - but you understand what I'm getting at, I hope.)
Fantasy used to be pretty male dominated but theres loads of great female authors now.
At least have gnocchi with your pasta sauce - you'll find half a dozen varieties at Morrisons.
When the government scrapped televised daily press conferences the response was that it was a way of hiding from scrutiny.
Personally I found the notion of televised daily press conferences a good way to add scrutiny, so I agree with the logic of the second statement. But its funny to see some people (not necessarily yourself) pivot instantly from the first to the second.
It really doesn't seem like something that Peston could be scaring people about.
Katherine Addison's Goblin Emperor is a similar type of great read.
Apart from the fact it's almost impossible to book a UK holiday because everyone else is so terrified of and cowering from the virus they have decided to go on holiday to be safe, life for me is almost what it is going to be post the pandemic.
Everyone has to find their own level of safety and security and I do agree a lot of media misinformation (primarily from the Daily Fail) has been hugely unhelpful but Javid's use of the word "cower" was ill-advised. That said, he's apologised so we can all move on (masked or otherwise).
‘The Vow was "not a decisive factor" in Scotland voting no to independence‘
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/scotland-blog/2015/mar/26/the-vow-was-not-a-decisive-factor-in-scots-voting-no-to-indepedence
The key reason for the collapse of Scottish Labour and the Scottish Liberal Democrats was their collaboration with the Conservative Party.
They had, of course, been collaborating with the Tories behind the scenes for decades, but it was a strategic mistake to make the alliance public.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-india-move-tens-of-thousands-of-troops-to-the-border-in-largest-buildup-in-decades-11625218201
On top of that, many activities are simply not enjoyable at present. If I go out, or abroad, I want to enjoy myself not be concerned about the antisocial behaviour of others.
The qualifying threshold to enjoy an activity has gone up a fair bit. I am not inclined to go to the Charity Shield match in 13 days for much that reason. Not helped that ticket details are not yet out.
Which is why 'one size fits all' advice and demands that the government give specific advice to every conceivable situation don't work.
@Theuniondivvie
Scottish Labour won their largest percentage of Scottish seats under Blair, in 1997 and 2001 (56 out of 72 available back then). Under Corbyn, they collapsed!
To be taught if fortunate was decent, but more like a novella.
Or was it that the 45% who voted Yes then voted SNP afterwards and the Tories were neither here nor there in that calculation?
Plus the raison d'etre of Labour (vote Labour to stop the Tories) was abolished by the fact that a tactical anti-Tory vote was to now vote SNP instead - and Labour were an empty husk once they lost that.
https://twitter.com/RP131/status/1419236888934764547?s=19
https://twitter.com/RP131/status/1419237806757531649?s=19
Peston should stick to trying to understand how mirrors work.
Martha Wells's Murderbot diaries are great but their UK pricing is painfully high for what you get.
What I support is people making their own decisions based on their own circumstances and with all the available information.
But the problem is that its a lot easier to scare people than reassure them once they've been scared.
The question is how do you run a country when 10-15% of it doesn't want to take part in normal life when none of them have anything to fear from it. You just have to hope that FOMO will drive people to get back to normal. My aunt (mum's sister) is going to Portugal next month so hopefully that will help her realise there's nothing to fear from travel but who knows.
Do you have any evidence? Or are you just throwing mud?
NEW: people worry when they hear "40% of hospitalisations are fully vaxxed", but this chart shows that's actually good news.
The more people you vaccinate, the higher their share of hospitalisations, but the *total* number in hospital is a fraction of what it would otherwise be https://t.co/rPVbvl8zTW
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1418952126244478977?s=19
Bit complicated for Prof Peston though.....
"60 years ago, scientists let a farm field rewild – here’s what happened"
https://theconversation.com/monks-wood-wilderness-60-years-ago-scientists-let-a-farm-field-rewild-heres-what-happened-163406
Seriously, these people are either mentally ill, if they believe what they're saying, or morally ill if they don't. It's mad or bad and it can be hard to say which. Maybe it doesn't matter.
China is simply too large a part of the world economy not to do business with it, but there is a growing realisation that need not be entirely on their terms.
It sets a dangerous precedent if it becomes contagious. If this level of apology is reached for the mere misuse of a word, what sort of apology can we expect from Jenrick, Patel, Williamson, Johnson and others over their well-documented and somewhat graver misdemeanours? Resignations?
The Guardian reports the Commons Library research commissioned by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus, which Layla (Moran) chairs, which shows that the number of positive cases tested for variants has fallen dramatically.
The results suggest that in the three weeks to 17 March, there were an estimated 1,769 to 1,827 positive tests from people entering the UK from red list countries, of which somewhere between 63% and 68% were sequenced to determine the variant involved.
By contrast in the three weeks to 30 June, there were an estimated 445 to 507 positive tests from people entering the UK from red list countries, with estimates of the proportion sequenced ranging from 12% to 33%.
Layla highlighted the dangers of this:
“These figures are truly staggering and make a mockery of the UK government’s claim to be a global leader in genome sequencing,“ said Moran, adding the rise in the Beta variant in Europe should “be setting alarm bells ringing in government”.
“Yet instead ministers are dismantling our defences against the virus and opening the floodgates to new variants,” she said.
https://www.libdemvoice.org/layla-slams-government-for-opening-floodgates-to-new-variants-and-failing-to-protect-troops-68271.html
I make that a 70% fall from March to June to about 23 people per day, who are all required to quarantine for 10 days in a quarantine hotel anyway and have a negative test on day 8 before they get out.
The sky's not falling in, Goosey-Loosey.
Time for the LDs to start going for all those policy ideas.
What you could have pointed at Blair about was the collapse in contacts from Labour activists. From what I read / heard they stopped doing things like knocking on doors and instead assumed they were set for life.
I know life isn't that simple, but public relations are. If the vaccines have ended the emergency then the public advice needs to reflect that, otherwise they don't have a chance of coaxing the anxious back out again.
You are quick to bleat that it is legal. Fine. Legal it may be, but morally it is wrong. You are not a Tory member. But you are a Man of Influence in the party (with people approaching you over PPE contracts) and a Reputation to Protect. So your own personal morality is clear and scrupulously protected - glad to hear it.
So why can you not see that the people in the party of which you are not a member but apparently are seen to be able to influence are doing the wrong thing?
Trivia: very interesting that Bhutan is the only country never formally to have recognised either China or Taiwan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_limited_recognition
Main problem is that people like Dewar and Cook really believed in devolution while their pygmy successors just see it a a block to indy, its development to be grindingly extruded when required.
I guess some of our Scottish friends on here will bemoan me talking about this, as I generally disagree with them on independence probably don't know enough about Scotland, but I really think they missed a trick in 2014.
If independence is won, it would be a seismic event for Scotland - good or bad - and the quest for it needs to be commemorated. A year or more before a referendum, I would hold meetings all over the country - from
Islesburgh Community Centre to Coldingham village hall, and everywhere in between. Invite people who want independence to sign their names on sheets of paper, which will then be bound into books for posterity. Millions of names, every one (Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse excepted) vowing their support for an independent country.
Names and a book that will last hundreds of years, and show the basis for their new-won independence.
Yes, it can be done on the Internet, but that's cr@p. It means nothing. This will be ink on paper, for posterity. A real, solid meaning.
BTW, despite (or because of, perchance?) Labour's "collaboration" with the Tories in 2014, Miliband still won 40 Scottish seats at the 2015 GE.
Corruption is not the charge - at least not without evidence. Gross naivety and foolishness certainly are.
Russia is not our friend. You do not become extremely wealthy in Russia by being purer than pure. A healthy degree of scepticism is needed when such people start waving large sums of money at you.
@spectator
·
20h
"I thought it would take two years for a vaccination passport scheme to morph into a Chinese-style social credit system. In fact, it took two weeks." - Ross Clark
We must resist this looming privacy disaster. So wish I wasn't having to rely on Starmer to block this.
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1418652824192290817
This particular stat was the percentage of people who had died of the delta variant who had been double jabbed compared to overall deaths of the delta variant (can't remember the number now but it was very high). If you misinterpret it, it looks bad, but of course (as per your seat belt example) that percentage would be high. In fact if everyone was double jabbed it would be 100% even if only one person had died. It is a meaningless stat.
And if the Conservative Party were to decide it wanted someone different- but not that different- then Javid suddenly fits the bill better than, say, Sunak.
Have we heard a peep from Rishi since he made exactly the same mistake as BoJo last Sunday?