I'm not gonna argue with you about Brexit. Enough for now. We can never agree. For me the sovereignty and democracy arguments trump the others, for you they don't. In the end there is no true answer, it is a matter of personal disposition
But I am going to argue with the idea that UK has a higher Covid death rate than the EU
There are 14 EU countries with higher death rates than the UK, including big countries like Spain, Poland and Italy. So we are behind most EU countries, If you take all of Europe - is that what you meant? - the UK is even further down the list
I tried to tell this to a lefty friend of mine the other day: that the UK death rate, while depressing, is not uniquely grim. He wasn't having it. "No, Britain has the worst death rate in the world!". It is some weird untrue meme which has got lodged in people's heads - it was true for about four days in January - yet it still clings on, despite ample proof that it is very wrong.
Proof is based on data and who needs that when you have faith.
Its similar to the bizarre obsession that there is a shortage of food in the supermarkets.
Or how the "there will be mass unemployment" morphed into "there's a labour shortage".
Straight out of Orwell - Oceania is at war with Eurasia morphs into Oceania is at war with Eastasia.
I can't say that I've experienced any difficulty buying food lately.
And, I'm old enough to remember when low unemployment was considered a deseirable thing.
I've not seen any food shortages since yesterday. Since most of us shop in one store, once a week, it is quite possible not to have been personally affected. Most of the problems are of distribution, rather than supply or panic buying, so it is likely that even if you can't buy flaked parmesan in one shop, it will be in stock next door.
Unfortunately flaked parmesan is not in stock at my local co-op, indeed it never has been as far as I can tell. They do have the powdered stuff that tasted of sawdust and smelly socks if that is any help to desperate PB parmesan hunters.
Some people here seem to have remarkably adventurous lives, if they have tried eating smelly socks!
I'm pleased to say Waitrose have an ample supply of Parmesan in big blocks. Little sign of shortages other than the normal low stock of some items after a busy day, probably because it's a town centre store and they are not allowed to have deliveries on Sunday. The one section that has been low for months, however, is the tinned fish section with some products going out of stock for weeks, annoyingly the sardines in olive oil which I rather like.
Isn't the point that as a Londoner Sean is not capable of actually grating his own?
What an extraordinary coincidence that the best person to be on the anti-sleaze watchdog just happened to be an old chum of Johnsons from his Bullingdon Club days.
However, I remember some Corbyn fans on here defending McDonnell employing Corbyn's son in a taxpayer-funded role. By an astonishing coincidence, the son of his best bud was the best candidate for the job.
(Hint, he wasn't.)
If we want to stop people hiring friends, family and chums to roles, especially to taxpayer-funded roles, then it needs to apply equally to all.
True but the two roles are hardly equivalent. Boris is not just hiring his old chum from the Buller, he is hiring him to judge whether it is appropriate to hire him, amongst other charges of sleaze against the government and Boris himself.
And the government has confirmed Boris did have the final say.
Actually, the Corbyn situation is worse: the new guy in the anti-sleaze watchdog had had a career outside of politics. Seb Corbyn ins an insider's insider. Aged 23, worked on his dad's campaign. Then went to work for his dad's best mate. Zero life experience outside of Cambridge and ultra-left politics.
And this from a party who got het up about MP's employing family, only to dodge it by getting their best mate's to employ their family. It's more than a little hypocritical.
No. This is not just another cronyism story. This is Boris choosing the referee. Boris appointed his old mucker to the body that will determine if the government or Boris personally has broken the rules. Remember the scene in The Untouchables when the bribed jury is switched?
Afghan government military spokesman on R4 just now saying the Taliban can’t take Lashkar Gah because too many of them are being killed. Shades of Vietnam body counts and the damn VC can’t win because we’re killing them all.
Rory Stewart's book on his travels through Afghanistan are a must-read IMO. One takeaway is that it is exceptionally difficult for us westerners to understand the worldview of the remote villagers and tribes. This is made worse by the fact that the NGOs are all in Kabul and the other large cities, whose inhabitants are often largely unaware of life in the provinces. Therefore Kabul becomes an echo-chamber of the way people want Afghanistan to be, rather than the way it is.
What an extraordinary coincidence that the best person to be on the anti-sleaze watchdog just happened to be an old chum of Johnsons from his Bullingdon Club days.
However, I remember some Corbyn fans on here defending McDonnell employing Corbyn's son in a taxpayer-funded role. By an astonishing coincidence, the son of his best bud was the best candidate for the job.
(Hint, he wasn't.)
If we want to stop people hiring friends, family and chums to roles, especially to taxpayer-funded roles, then it needs to apply equally to all.
I don't think I have ever defended cronyism in the Labour Party either.
The nepotism and Chumocracy does show how illusory "taking back control" was.
Jobs for the sons and daughters of friends is as old as jobs themselves. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't; sometimes it's not the best way of hiring someone but sometimes it can work. Rather depends on how how up the chain the job is.
That's the Indy. And there seems to be not a shred of actual evidence of malpractice.
Has anyone provided any evidence that Johnson had a corrupt role in the process, or how the process worked such that Johnson could manipulate it? Or that the member appointed is unfit to be on the Committee or is corrupt?
Or is this just Hoof-in-Mouth Rayner howling at the moon because it is Tuesday and she still does not have anything to say?
"You were in a student club with him 35 years ago" is some way beyond farfetched.
The only possible chink I can see is if the PM is supplied with say 50 names, from which he then gets to choose who he wants, and that would still require a lot more evidence that we have.
It's quite a dangerous argument to make because it shrinks the pool of acceptable candidates - 'No, you went to the same school when you were six!" - and undermines the expectation of personal integrity.
You don't think it's a remarkable coincidence the PM casts around for somebody for this ethics role, among a population of over sixty million people, and decides that the person best suited for the job is a chap he used to (checks notes) get pissed and smash up restaurants with? "Expectation of personal integrity" with Johnson? Now we know you're just trolling us.
I really don't believe that Biden will serve his whole term. He has moved on from incoherent to blithering idiot. No doubt he still has lucid moments but he is, in my view, not currently fit for the office he holds. So by 2024 I think we will have President Harris. If she's smart she will bring in Buttigieg as her VP and thus remove the risk of a challenge. He is so much more articulate than anyone I have seen on the American political scene since Bill Clinton was in his pomp.
If it is President Harris then there is a strong chance it will be hello again President Trump in 2024, as has been posted her approval ratings are abysmal compared to Biden.
She would be Hillary 2 and Trump would love to run against her
Why do you think Pete Buttigieg has got infrastructure - that was to ensure there was multiple plausible candidates for president were Biden not to run as everyone knew Harris wasn't that suitable.
I'm not gonna argue with you about Brexit. Enough for now. We can never agree. For me the sovereignty and democracy arguments trump the others, for you they don't. In the end there is no true answer, it is a matter of personal disposition
But I am going to argue with the idea that UK has a higher Covid death rate than the EU
There are 14 EU countries with higher death rates than the UK, including big countries like Spain, Poland and Italy. So we are behind most EU countries, If you take all of Europe - is that what you meant? - the UK is even further down the list
I tried to tell this to a lefty friend of mine the other day: that the UK death rate, while depressing, is not uniquely grim. He wasn't having it. "No, Britain has the worst death rate in the world!". It is some weird untrue meme which has got lodged in people's heads - it was true for about four days in January - yet it still clings on, despite ample proof that it is very wrong.
Proof is based on data and who needs that when you have faith.
Its similar to the bizarre obsession that there is a shortage of food in the supermarkets.
Or how the "there will be mass unemployment" morphed into "there's a labour shortage".
Straight out of Orwell - Oceania is at war with Eurasia morphs into Oceania is at war with Eastasia.
I can't say that I've experienced any difficulty buying food lately.
And, I'm old enough to remember when low unemployment was considered a deseirable thing.
I've not seen any food shortages since yesterday. Since most of us shop in one store, once a week, it is quite possible not to have been personally affected. Most of the problems are of distribution, rather than supply or panic buying, so it is likely that even if you can't buy flaked parmesan in one shop, it will be in stock next door.
Unfortunately flaked parmesan is not in stock at my local co-op, indeed it never has been as far as I can tell. They do have the powdered stuff that tasted of sawdust and smelly socks if that is any help to desperate PB parmesan hunters.
Some people here seem to have remarkably adventurous lives, if they have tried eating smelly socks!
I'm pleased to say Waitrose have an ample supply of Parmesan in big blocks. Little sign of shortages other than the normal low stock of some items after a busy day, probably because it's a town centre store and they are not allowed to have deliveries on Sunday. The one section that has been low for months, however, is the tinned fish section with some products going out of stock for weeks, annoyingly the sardines in olive oil which I rather like.
Isn't the point that as a Londoner Sean is not capable of actually grating his own?
Surely no one can count themselves to be successful in life if they have to flake their own parmesan?
Mr. Dickson, indeed. Worse still is the way Germany, France etc are still so foolish on this (and we came damned close to having Huawei embedded in our 5G network and that's still something that could happen).
The US largely seems to have woken up, and, to a lesser extent, the same's happened here. But Germany... between buying Russian gas, then attending Holocaust Memorial Events before signing up to deals with China, isn't exactly the moral leader some suggest.
Lots of states are doing it, not least in Africa.
Sweden, especially western Sweden - centred on Gothenburg - has very broad and deep commercial connections with China. Symbolised by the huge Volvo Cars deal, but that is merely the tip of an iceberg.
It causes serious problems for the politicians in Stockholm, who bravely try to confront China on a wide range of issues.
The Gothenburgers try to defend themselves by saying that they only deal with private companies, not the state itself. A partially successful strategy to date.
For the uninitiated, Gothenburg has always, from day one (1621), been about making cash, so the current popularity of Chinese deals is unsurprising. It is only the latest in a long list of dubious, but highly lucrative, activities over the past four centuries.
Stockholm by contrast is for the nobility and monarch, whereas Uppsala and Lund are for academia and the church. Malmö is just one of the crappier suburbs of Copenhagen. The rest of the country is forests and hillbillies.
There, you’ve had Sweden in a wildly unfair nutshell. Don’t say PB isn’t good value.
Interesting perspective Stuart. Having worked quite often in Sweden, and having some Swedish friends I am surprised they fall for the "private company" tosh. There are no private companies in China, and no private individuals. None of them can operate without the approval of the Chinese Communist Party, and I suspect all of the "self made men" (they will mainly be men) in China will have really been made by the CCP putting it's favourite sons in charge of the latest stolen IP.
What an extraordinary coincidence that the best person to be on the anti-sleaze watchdog just happened to be an old chum of Johnsons from his Bullingdon Club days.
However, I remember some Corbyn fans on here defending McDonnell employing Corbyn's son in a taxpayer-funded role. By an astonishing coincidence, the son of his best bud was the best candidate for the job.
(Hint, he wasn't.)
If we want to stop people hiring friends, family and chums to roles, especially to taxpayer-funded roles, then it needs to apply equally to all.
I don't think I have ever defended cronyism in the Labour Party either.
The nepotism and Chumocracy does show how illusory "taking back control" was.
Jobs for the sons and daughters of friends is as old as jobs themselves. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't; sometimes it's not the best way of hiring someone but sometimes it can work. Rather depends on how how up the chain the job is.
That's the Indy. And there seems to be not a shred of actual evidence of malpractice.
Has anyone provided any evidence that Johnson had a corrupt role in the process, or how the process worked such that Johnson could manipulate it? Or that the member appointed is unfit to be on the Committee or is corrupt?
Or is this just Hoof-in-Mouth Rayner howling at the moon because it is Tuesday and she still does not have anything to say?
"You were in a student club with him 35 years ago" is some way beyond farfetched.
The only possible chink I can see is if the PM is supplied with say 50 names, from which he then gets to choose who he wants, and that would still require a lot more evidence that we have.
It's quite a dangerous argument to make because it shrinks the pool of acceptable candidates - 'No, you went to the same school when you were six!" - and undermines the expectation of personal integrity.
The linked story includes:- In an answer slipped out after MPs went back to their constituencies for recess, [Cabinet Office minister Chloe] Smith acknowledged that Mr Johnson was given the ultimate say on which of the candidates to appoint following a shortlisting process led by Lord Evans, the chair of the committee.
Afghan government military spokesman on R4 just now saying the Taliban can’t take Lashkar Gah because too many of them are being killed. Shades of Vietnam body counts and the damn VC can’t win because we’re killing them all.
Rory Stewart's book on his travels through Afghanistan are a must-read IMO. One takeaway is that it is exceptionally difficult for us westerners to understand the worldview of the remote villagers and tribes. This is made worse by the fact that the NGOs are all in Kabul and the other large cities, whose inhabitants are often largely unaware of life in the provinces. Therefore Kabul becomes an echo-chamber of the way people want Afghanistan to be, rather than the way it is.
It is like watching the fall of South Vietnam again. Pity poor Afghanistan, and expect fresh waves of refugees.
Unless Kabul falls it won't be but if it does it would be a disaster for Biden-Harris. The only President to have lost a war on his watch since WW2 was Ford when Saigon fell and he failed to be re elected in 1976. Americans do not treat kindly Presidents who lose wars and at least Ford had the excuse the Democrats cut off funds for the Vietnam War he needed to continue, Biden-Harris' party controls Congress too. It was Biden's decision to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan.
However if Al Qaeda return we would have no alternative but to reinvade, or inevitably face Afghanistan being used again as a base for further terrorist attacks on the West and more 9/11s
I really don't believe that Biden will serve his whole term. He has moved on from incoherent to blithering idiot. No doubt he still has lucid moments but he is, in my view, not currently fit for the office he holds. So by 2024 I think we will have President Harris. If she's smart she will bring in Buttigieg as her VP and thus remove the risk of a challenge. He is so much more articulate than anyone I have seen on the American political scene since Bill Clinton was in his pomp.
If it is President Harris then there is a strong chance it will be hello again President Trump in 2024, as has been posted her approval ratings are abysmal compared to Biden.
She would be Hillary 2 and Trump would love to run against her
Why do you think Pete Buttigieg has got infrastructure - that was to ensure there was multiple plausible candidates for president were Biden not to run as everyone knew Harris wasn't that suitable.
There is no guarantee Buttigieg would get the nomination, certainly not against the incumbent VP/President he would likely fail to do so.
Plus he would also be challenged from the left by the likes of AOC as a corporate sell out
On the topic of incompetence and excess deaths, how many excess deaths do we think the whole AZN smearing debacle will actually cause? Looking at you Macron and Mr 8%.
Not so many, judging by the (rather impressive) French vaccination performance.
Which is not to diminish the criminal stupidity of Macron's comments.
That doesn't tell you much. They suspended vaccination for an entire week if memory serves. The number now is almost irrelevant.
I'm sure the number could be estimated quite well, based on the increased risk to those whose vaccination was delayed for a period, plus the number who were put off having a jab altogether (although the willingness in France to be vaccinated has I believe gone up overall since Macron's comments).
Then you have to add the knock-on effect of all this negative publicity on take-up around the world, especially in countries relying on COVAX. In the end we'll never know for certain, as we won't know what the take-up rates would have been without this unfortunate episode.
The most remarkable thing is that AZN and Pfizer have very similar safety profiles, and yet 99% of the negative coverage is on AZN.
Also remarkable that AZN is still not approved in the US.
This is in some ways an even worse fuck up than Macron’s comments. Azn is supposed to be the work horse of the world so the reticence to hold back approval in America is causing incalculable damage, given how much smaller countries pay attention to the US regulator. Compounded of course by the pig headedness of not at least giving it an exception status for foreigners visiting the US who have had it. And finally all the doses they had sitting there for months in fridges.
Had Trump overseen this, we’d never heard the end of it. I’m increasingly sure Biden’s term will go down as the worst they’ve ever had. Perhaps until Trump #2 next time!
The American regulator is responsible for American healthcare, not sending a message to some unspecified small country. The US has sufficient supply of the best vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna), so what's the emergency that would justify emergency-use approval of a shittier one?
First, there is now more than sufficient data for the FDA to have fully approved all the major vaccines. Secondly, referring to AZN as “a shittier one” is precisely the sort of stupidity folks like Macron have engaged in.
Macron is quoted as saying it was pretty much ineffective for old people, which isn't at all what I'm saying and doesn't seem to check out. But from the point of view of a country that already has Moderna and Pfizer, it seems, on available evidence, substantially less effective. Are you disagreeing with that, or are you just complaining that I said "shittier" rather than "less effective"?
Given the supplies of vaccine are limited even for first world countries, playing games with what are very effective vaccines indeed costs lives (and/or economies). South Korea is just the latest to find its vaccination efforts severely constrained: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2021/08/693_313239.htmll
I'm not gonna argue with you about Brexit. Enough for now. We can never agree. For me the sovereignty and democracy arguments trump the others, for you they don't. In the end there is no true answer, it is a matter of personal disposition
But I am going to argue with the idea that UK has a higher Covid death rate than the EU
There are 14 EU countries with higher death rates than the UK, including big countries like Spain, Poland and Italy. So we are behind most EU countries, If you take all of Europe - is that what you meant? - the UK is even further down the list
I tried to tell this to a lefty friend of mine the other day: that the UK death rate, while depressing, is not uniquely grim. He wasn't having it. "No, Britain has the worst death rate in the world!". It is some weird untrue meme which has got lodged in people's heads - it was true for about four days in January - yet it still clings on, despite ample proof that it is very wrong.
Proof is based on data and who needs that when you have faith.
Its similar to the bizarre obsession that there is a shortage of food in the supermarkets.
Or how the "there will be mass unemployment" morphed into "there's a labour shortage".
Straight out of Orwell - Oceania is at war with Eurasia morphs into Oceania is at war with Eastasia.
I can't say that I've experienced any difficulty buying food lately.
And, I'm old enough to remember when low unemployment was considered a deseirable thing.
I've not seen any food shortages since yesterday. Since most of us shop in one store, once a week, it is quite possible not to have been personally affected. Most of the problems are of distribution, rather than supply or panic buying, so it is likely that even if you can't buy flaked parmesan in one shop, it will be in stock next door.
Unfortunately flaked parmesan is not in stock at my local co-op, indeed it never has been as far as I can tell. They do have the powdered stuff that tasted of sawdust and smelly socks if that is any help to desperate PB parmesan hunters.
Some people here seem to have remarkably adventurous lives, if they have tried eating smelly socks!
I'm pleased to say Waitrose have an ample supply of Parmesan in big blocks. Little sign of shortages other than the normal low stock of some items after a busy day, probably because it's a town centre store and they are not allowed to have deliveries on Sunday. The one section that has been low for months, however, is the tinned fish section with some products going out of stock for weeks, annoyingly the sardines in olive oil which I rather like.
Isn't the point that as a Londoner Sean is not capable of actually grating his own?
Surely no one can count themselves to be successful in life if they have to flake their own parmesan?
Afghan government military spokesman on R4 just now saying the Taliban can’t take Lashkar Gah because too many of them are being killed. Shades of Vietnam body counts and the damn VC can’t win because we’re killing them all.
Rory Stewart's book on his travels through Afghanistan are a must-read IMO. One takeaway is that it is exceptionally difficult for us westerners to understand the worldview of the remote villagers and tribes. This is made worse by the fact that the NGOs are all in Kabul and the other large cities, whose inhabitants are often largely unaware of life in the provinces. Therefore Kabul becomes an echo-chamber of the way people want Afghanistan to be, rather than the way it is.
Another (British) interviewee on Today said the Taliban had to get with the programme because young, educated, urban Afghanis who live in a social media connected world were never going to accept their mediaeval world view. Sounded somewhat optimistic imho.
There also appear to be all sorts of Islamic extremist groups pouring into Afghanistan, they’ve had a dearth of recent opportunities to fight the good fight so are raring to go; doesn’t bode well. That’s how wee Osama Bin Laden got his start in life as I recall.
What an extraordinary coincidence that the best person to be on the anti-sleaze watchdog just happened to be an old chum of Johnsons from his Bullingdon Club days.
However, I remember some Corbyn fans on here defending McDonnell employing Corbyn's son in a taxpayer-funded role. By an astonishing coincidence, the son of his best bud was the best candidate for the job.
(Hint, he wasn't.)
If we want to stop people hiring friends, family and chums to roles, especially to taxpayer-funded roles, then it needs to apply equally to all.
I don't think I have ever defended cronyism in the Labour Party either.
The nepotism and Chumocracy does show how illusory "taking back control" was.
Jobs for the sons and daughters of friends is as old as jobs themselves. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't; sometimes it's not the best way of hiring someone but sometimes it can work. Rather depends on how how up the chain the job is.
That's the Indy. And there seems to be not a shred of actual evidence of malpractice.
Has anyone provided any evidence that Johnson had a corrupt role in the process, or how the process worked such that Johnson could manipulate it? Or that the member appointed is unfit to be on the Committee or is corrupt?
Or is this just Hoof-in-Mouth Rayner howling at the moon because it is Tuesday and she still does not have anything to say?
"You were in a student club with him 35 years ago" is some way beyond farfetched.
The only possible chink I can see is if the PM is supplied with say 50 names, from which he then gets to choose who he wants, and that would still require a lot more evidence that we have.
It's quite a dangerous argument to make because it shrinks the pool of acceptable candidates - 'No, you went to the same school when you were six!" - and undermines the expectation of personal integrity.
The linked story includes:- In an answer slipped out after MPs went back to their constituencies for recess, [Cabinet Office minister Chloe] Smith acknowledged that Mr Johnson was given the ultimate say on which of the candidates to appoint following a shortlisting process led by Lord Evans, the chair of the committee.
So yes, Boris did have a role. The role.
Not sure which is battier, attacking Johnson on umbrellas or defending him on this. If only dispassionate evaluation were an option.
What an extraordinary coincidence that the best person to be on the anti-sleaze watchdog just happened to be an old chum of Johnsons from his Bullingdon Club days.
However, I remember some Corbyn fans on here defending McDonnell employing Corbyn's son in a taxpayer-funded role. By an astonishing coincidence, the son of his best bud was the best candidate for the job.
(Hint, he wasn't.)
If we want to stop people hiring friends, family and chums to roles, especially to taxpayer-funded roles, then it needs to apply equally to all.
I don't think I have ever defended cronyism in the Labour Party either.
The nepotism and Chumocracy does show how illusory "taking back control" was.
Jobs for the sons and daughters of friends is as old as jobs themselves. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't; sometimes it's not the best way of hiring someone but sometimes it can work. Rather depends on how how up the chain the job is.
That's the Indy. And there seems to be not a shred of actual evidence of malpractice.
Has anyone provided any evidence that Johnson had a corrupt role in the process, or how the process worked such that Johnson could manipulate it? Or that the member appointed is unfit to be on the Committee or is corrupt?
Or is this just Hoof-in-Mouth Rayner howling at the moon because it is Tuesday and she still does not have anything to say?
"You were in a student club with him 35 years ago" is some way beyond farfetched.
The only possible chink I can see is if the PM is supplied with say 50 names, from which he then gets to choose who he wants, and that would still require a lot more evidence that we have.
It's quite a dangerous argument to make because it shrinks the pool of acceptable candidates - 'No, you went to the same school when you were six!" - and undermines the expectation of personal integrity.
Read it. 173 applicants, appointment made by the government after scrutiny by advisory panel. So exactly the scenario yield accept would stink, but about 3 and a half times worse. And a 20 person dining club at University is not equivalent to same school when you were six.
From a short list. Number on short list not specified. All on short list vetted as appropriate.
Mr Johnson was given the ultimate say on which of the candidates to appoint following a shortlisting process led by Lord Evans, the chair of the committee.
What an extraordinary coincidence that the best person to be on the anti-sleaze watchdog just happened to be an old chum of Johnsons from his Bullingdon Club days.
However, I remember some Corbyn fans on here defending McDonnell employing Corbyn's son in a taxpayer-funded role. By an astonishing coincidence, the son of his best bud was the best candidate for the job.
(Hint, he wasn't.)
If we want to stop people hiring friends, family and chums to roles, especially to taxpayer-funded roles, then it needs to apply equally to all.
True but the two roles are hardly equivalent. Boris is not just hiring his old chum from the Buller, he is hiring him to judge whether it is appropriate to hire him, amongst other charges of sleaze against the government and Boris himself.
And the government has confirmed Boris did have the final say.
Actually, the Corbyn situation is worse: the new guy in the anti-sleaze watchdog had had a career outside of politics. Seb Corbyn ins an insider's insider. Aged 23, worked on his dad's campaign. Then went to work for his dad's best mate. Zero life experience outside of Cambridge and ultra-left politics.
And this from a party who got het up about MP's employing family, only to dodge it by getting their best mate's to employ their family. It's more than a little hypocritical.
This is Boris choosing the referee.
Mr Johnson was given the ultimate say on which of the candidates to appoint following a shortlisting process led by Lord Evans, the chair of the committee.
I'm not gonna argue with you about Brexit. Enough for now. We can never agree. For me the sovereignty and democracy arguments trump the others, for you they don't. In the end there is no true answer, it is a matter of personal disposition
But I am going to argue with the idea that UK has a higher Covid death rate than the EU
There are 14 EU countries with higher death rates than the UK, including big countries like Spain, Poland and Italy. So we are behind most EU countries, If you take all of Europe - is that what you meant? - the UK is even further down the list
I tried to tell this to a lefty friend of mine the other day: that the UK death rate, while depressing, is not uniquely grim. He wasn't having it. "No, Britain has the worst death rate in the world!". It is some weird untrue meme which has got lodged in people's heads - it was true for about four days in January - yet it still clings on, despite ample proof that it is very wrong.
Proof is based on data and who needs that when you have faith.
Its similar to the bizarre obsession that there is a shortage of food in the supermarkets.
Or how the "there will be mass unemployment" morphed into "there's a labour shortage".
Straight out of Orwell - Oceania is at war with Eurasia morphs into Oceania is at war with Eastasia.
I can't say that I've experienced any difficulty buying food lately.
And, I'm old enough to remember when low unemployment was considered a deseirable thing.
I've not seen any food shortages since yesterday. Since most of us shop in one store, once a week, it is quite possible not to have been personally affected. Most of the problems are of distribution, rather than supply or panic buying, so it is likely that even if you can't buy flaked parmesan in one shop, it will be in stock next door.
Unfortunately flaked parmesan is not in stock at my local co-op, indeed it never has been as far as I can tell. They do have the powdered stuff that tasted of sawdust and smelly socks if that is any help to desperate PB parmesan hunters.
I recently noticed that Lidl sell vegan grated ‘Parmesan’ made largely of coconut oil. My curiosity wasn’t piqued enough to make a purchase.
On the topic of incompetence and excess deaths, how many excess deaths do we think the whole AZN smearing debacle will actually cause? Looking at you Macron and Mr 8%.
Not so many, judging by the (rather impressive) French vaccination performance.
Which is not to diminish the criminal stupidity of Macron's comments.
That doesn't tell you much. They suspended vaccination for an entire week if memory serves. The number now is almost irrelevant.
I'm sure the number could be estimated quite well, based on the increased risk to those whose vaccination was delayed for a period, plus the number who were put off having a jab altogether (although the willingness in France to be vaccinated has I believe gone up overall since Macron's comments).
Then you have to add the knock-on effect of all this negative publicity on take-up around the world, especially in countries relying on COVAX. In the end we'll never know for certain, as we won't know what the take-up rates would have been without this unfortunate episode.
The most remarkable thing is that AZN and Pfizer have very similar safety profiles, and yet 99% of the negative coverage is on AZN.
Also remarkable that AZN is still not approved in the US.
This is in some ways an even worse fuck up than Macron’s comments. Azn is supposed to be the work horse of the world so the reticence to hold back approval in America is causing incalculable damage, given how much smaller countries pay attention to the US regulator. Compounded of course by the pig headedness of not at least giving it an exception status for foreigners visiting the US who have had it. And finally all the doses they had sitting there for months in fridges.
Had Trump overseen this, we’d never heard the end of it. I’m increasingly sure Biden’s term will go down as the worst they’ve ever had. Perhaps until Trump #2 next time!
The American regulator is responsible for American healthcare, not sending a message to some unspecified small country. The US has sufficient supply of the best vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna), so what's the emergency that would justify emergency-use approval of a shittier one?
First, there is now more than sufficient data for the FDA to have fully approved all the major vaccines. Secondly, referring to AZN as “a shittier one” is precisely the sort of stupidity folks like Macron have engaged in.
Macron is quoted as saying it was pretty much ineffective for old people, which isn't at all what I'm saying and doesn't seem to check out. But from the point of view of a country that already has Moderna and Pfizer, it seems, on available evidence, substantially less effective. Are you disagreeing with that, or are you just complaining that I said "shittier" rather than "less effective"?
Given the supplies of vaccine are limited even for first world countries, playing games with what are very effective vaccines indeed costs lives (and/or economies). South Korea is just the latest to find its vaccination efforts severely constrained: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2021/08/693_313239.htmll
Sorry, who's playing games? Are you disagreeing that on available evidence Moderna/Pfizer seem to be more effective than AZ or not???
What an extraordinary coincidence that the best person to be on the anti-sleaze watchdog just happened to be an old chum of Johnsons from his Bullingdon Club days.
However, I remember some Corbyn fans on here defending McDonnell employing Corbyn's son in a taxpayer-funded role. By an astonishing coincidence, the son of his best bud was the best candidate for the job.
(Hint, he wasn't.)
If we want to stop people hiring friends, family and chums to roles, especially to taxpayer-funded roles, then it needs to apply equally to all.
I don't think I have ever defended cronyism in the Labour Party either.
The nepotism and Chumocracy does show how illusory "taking back control" was.
Jobs for the sons and daughters of friends is as old as jobs themselves. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't; sometimes it's not the best way of hiring someone but sometimes it can work. Rather depends on how how up the chain the job is.
That's the Indy. And there seems to be not a shred of actual evidence of malpractice.
Has anyone provided any evidence that Johnson had a corrupt role in the process, or how the process worked such that Johnson could manipulate it? Or that the member appointed is unfit to be on the Committee or is corrupt?
Or is this just Hoof-in-Mouth Rayner howling at the moon because it is Tuesday and she still does not have anything to say?
"You were in a student club with him 35 years ago" is some way beyond farfetched.
The only possible chink I can see is if the PM is supplied with say 50 names, from which he then gets to choose who he wants, and that would still require a lot more evidence that we have.
It's quite a dangerous argument to make because it shrinks the pool of acceptable candidates - 'No, you went to the same school when you were six!" - and undermines the expectation of personal integrity.
Read it. 173 applicants, appointment made by the government after scrutiny by advisory panel. So exactly the scenario yield accept would stink, but about 3 and a half times worse. And a 20 person dining club at University is not equivalent to same school when you were six.
From a short list. Number on short list not specified. All on short list vetted as appropriate.
Mr Johnson was given the ultimate say on which of the candidates to appoint following a shortlisting process led by Lord Evans, the chair of the committee.
This Lord Evans
On 21 October 2014, it was announced that he was to become a Crossbench life peer, having been nominated personally by the Prime Minister.[22] He was created Baron Evans of Weardale, of Toys Hill in the County of Kent, on 3 December 2014.[23] In January 2015 he was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Kent.[24] and on 1 November 2018 he was appointed Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life for a 5-year term.[25] In December 2018, following controversy about his paid business portfolio in light of his appointment to the Committee, it was announced that he would step down from his position as a Non-Executive Director with HSBC Holdings in early 2019.[26]
Nothing to worry about there, then. Sorry I suggested otherwise.
Afghan government military spokesman on R4 just now saying the Taliban can’t take Lashkar Gah because too many of them are being killed. Shades of Vietnam body counts and the damn VC can’t win because we’re killing them all.
Rory Stewart's book on his travels through Afghanistan are a must-read IMO. One takeaway is that it is exceptionally difficult for us westerners to understand the worldview of the remote villagers and tribes. This is made worse by the fact that the NGOs are all in Kabul and the other large cities, whose inhabitants are often largely unaware of life in the provinces. Therefore Kabul becomes an echo-chamber of the way people want Afghanistan to be, rather than the way it is.
Another (British) interviewee on Today said the Taliban had to get with the programme because young, educated, urban Afghanis who live in a social media connected world were never going to accept their mediaeval world view. Sounded somewhat optimistic imho.
There also appear to be all sorts of Islamic extremist groups pouring into Afghanistan, they’ve had a dearth of recent opportunities to fight the good fight so are raring to go. Doesn’t bode well.
Only positive sign is the Taliban v ISIS, Alien v Predator, conflict also going on
I really don't believe that Biden will serve his whole term. He has moved on from incoherent to blithering idiot. No doubt he still has lucid moments but he is, in my view, not currently fit for the office he holds. So by 2024 I think we will have President Harris. If she's smart she will bring in Buttigieg as her VP and thus remove the risk of a challenge. He is so much more articulate than anyone I have seen on the American political scene since Bill Clinton was in his pomp.
If it is President Harris then there is a strong chance it will be hello again President Trump in 2024, as has been posted her approval ratings are abysmal compared to Biden.
She would be Hillary 2 and Trump would love to run against her
Why do you think Pete Buttigieg has got infrastructure - that was to ensure there was multiple plausible candidates for president were Biden not to run as everyone knew Harris wasn't that suitable.
There is no guarantee Buttigieg would get the nomination, certainly not against the incumbent VP/President he would likely fail to do so.
Plus he would also be challenged from the left by the likes of AOC as a corporate sell out
The value might even be Joe Biden at 5/1 against. The market has decided Biden will not stand for a second term.
Just think of all the fun Trump is going to have taking down Fauci for funding the research that led to the covid era.
The Democrats need to wake up and take away the obvious fertile campaigning ground from Trump. Come out hard on a de-Sinofication of the Western economy and work with allies to unpick the insidious creep into our political, business and academic cultures. Reposition their security apparatus in recognition that they are currently losing the Second Cold War. And of course, there needs to be a full and public reckoning for the Americans implicated in the Wuhan lab scandal.
If they don’t do this, I don’t think it will much matter who Trump runs against, he will win. Which given his temperament, moves the second hand a bit closer to midnight on the doomsday clock.
Equally the Republican Party will rue the day they gave up the chance to bar him from future office.
R4 Oxford starting Phase I trial on administration of vaccine via nasal spray.
Also says "too soon to say" whether booster shots necessary. Pfizer has some data on decline of efficacy with 3 week gap - results will be different for longer Pfizer gaps and different vaccines. Also depends on what measure is considered - eg decline of antibody vs hospital admission.
What an extraordinary coincidence that the best person to be on the anti-sleaze watchdog just happened to be an old chum of Johnsons from his Bullingdon Club days.
However, I remember some Corbyn fans on here defending McDonnell employing Corbyn's son in a taxpayer-funded role. By an astonishing coincidence, the son of his best bud was the best candidate for the job.
(Hint, he wasn't.)
If we want to stop people hiring friends, family and chums to roles, especially to taxpayer-funded roles, then it needs to apply equally to all.
True but the two roles are hardly equivalent. Boris is not just hiring his old chum from the Buller, he is hiring him to judge whether it is appropriate to hire him, amongst other charges of sleaze against the government and Boris himself.
And the government has confirmed Boris did have the final say.
It's just how these people operate. They all know each other and give each other jobs. Britain is an oligarchy. If you're not in the club, you really are not coming in. The one Old Etonian that I know reasonably well works for another Old Etonian. I went to a comprehensive school and I have always found it much easier to find work abroad or in firms in the UK run by foreigners with an international workforce. Anyone who thinks this country is anything approaching a meritocracy is nuts.
I'm familiar with the temptations here. When I was first recruiting staff to work for me in 1997 I knew a number of people who I thought were highly competent and (consequently) had helped me get elected. Good at their jobs, able to get on well with me and the public, and very loyal - what was not to like? I recruited one by public advertisement and by contrast it wasn't a great success.
I think this is defensible for an MP's staff (and I will also defend employing spouses, as I did part-time for a while - who else is going to help cope with a constituent ringing up urgently late on Saturday evening, as frequently happened?). If they aren't very good then the public know exactly whom to blame. But for Government-appointed positions I think the balance tips - you need to have a transparent process, especially where significant public contracts are involved.
This is Germany trying to have it both ways, as usual. Berlin wants to deploy a frigate to support partners and push back against Beijing without upsetting Beijing. Turns out you can't do all things all the time, sometimes you've got to pick a side
Just think of all the fun Trump is going to have taking down Fauci for funding the research that led to the covid era.
The Democrats need to wake up and take away the obvious fertile campaigning ground from Trump. Come out hard on a de-Sinofication of the Western economy and work with allies to unpick the insidious creep into our political, business and academic cultures. Reposition their security apparatus in recognition that they are currently losing the Second Cold War. And of course, there needs to be a full and public reckoning for the Americans implicated in the Wuhan lab scandal.
If they don’t do this, I don’t think it will much matter who Trump runs against, he will win. Which given his temperament, moves the second hand a bit closer to midnight on the doomsday clock.
Equally the Republican Party will rue the day they gave up the chance to bar him from future office.
What a big mess.
The problem for the Republican Party is that their party membership is now overrun with Trump supporters.
Everyone saw that barring Trump from future office was a career limiting move as come the next election they wouldn't be the Republican candidate for their district / seat.
Afghan government military spokesman on R4 just now saying the Taliban can’t take Lashkar Gah because too many of them are being killed. Shades of Vietnam body counts and the damn VC can’t win because we’re killing them all.
Rory Stewart's book on his travels through Afghanistan are a must-read IMO. One takeaway is that it is exceptionally difficult for us westerners to understand the worldview of the remote villagers and tribes. This is made worse by the fact that the NGOs are all in Kabul and the other large cities, whose inhabitants are often largely unaware of life in the provinces. Therefore Kabul becomes an echo-chamber of the way people want Afghanistan to be, rather than the way it is.
Another (British) interviewee on Today said the Taliban had to get with the programme because young, educated, urban Afghanis who live in a social media connected world were never going to accept their mediaeval world view. Sounded somewhat optimistic imho.
There also appear to be all sorts of Islamic extremist groups pouring into Afghanistan, they’ve had a dearth of recent opportunities to fight the good fight so are raring to go; doesn’t bode well. That’s how wee Osama Bin Laden got his start in life as I recall.
It's why the comparison with Vietnam is a poor one - this is a genuine civil war, rather than one of independence against perceived colonialists. I'm not sure who will win, but the death cultists do have something of an inbuilt advantage.
On the topic of incompetence and excess deaths, how many excess deaths do we think the whole AZN smearing debacle will actually cause? Looking at you Macron and Mr 8%.
Not so many, judging by the (rather impressive) French vaccination performance.
Which is not to diminish the criminal stupidity of Macron's comments.
That doesn't tell you much. They suspended vaccination for an entire week if memory serves. The number now is almost irrelevant.
I'm sure the number could be estimated quite well, based on the increased risk to those whose vaccination was delayed for a period, plus the number who were put off having a jab altogether (although the willingness in France to be vaccinated has I believe gone up overall since Macron's comments).
Then you have to add the knock-on effect of all this negative publicity on take-up around the world, especially in countries relying on COVAX. In the end we'll never know for certain, as we won't know what the take-up rates would have been without this unfortunate episode.
The most remarkable thing is that AZN and Pfizer have very similar safety profiles, and yet 99% of the negative coverage is on AZN.
Also remarkable that AZN is still not approved in the US.
This is in some ways an even worse fuck up than Macron’s comments. Azn is supposed to be the work horse of the world so the reticence to hold back approval in America is causing incalculable damage, given how much smaller countries pay attention to the US regulator. Compounded of course by the pig headedness of not at least giving it an exception status for foreigners visiting the US who have had it. And finally all the doses they had sitting there for months in fridges.
Had Trump overseen this, we’d never heard the end of it. I’m increasingly sure Biden’s term will go down as the worst they’ve ever had. Perhaps until Trump #2 next time!
The American regulator is responsible for American healthcare, not sending a message to some unspecified small country. The US has sufficient supply of the best vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna), so what's the emergency that would justify emergency-use approval of a shittier one?
First, there is now more than sufficient data for the FDA to have fully approved all the major vaccines. Secondly, referring to AZN as “a shittier one” is precisely the sort of stupidity folks like Macron have engaged in.
Macron is quoted as saying it was pretty much ineffective for old people, which isn't at all what I'm saying and doesn't seem to check out. But from the point of view of a country that already has Moderna and Pfizer, it seems, on available evidence, substantially less effective. Are you disagreeing with that, or are you just complaining that I said "shittier" rather than "less effective"?
Given the supplies of vaccine are limited even for first world countries, playing games with what are very effective vaccines indeed costs lives (and/or economies). South Korea is just the latest to find its vaccination efforts severely constrained: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2021/08/693_313239.htmll
Sorry, who's playing games? Are you disagreeing that on available evidence Moderna/Pfizer seem to be more effective than AZ or not???
There's a marginal difference. A choice between no vaccine and vaccine is massively more consequential.
The reason the UK is in a far better position than many other countries is that we ignored such minor differences.
Sorry, who's playing games? Are you disagreeing that on available evidence Moderna/Pfizer seem to be more effective than AZ or not???
Overall, COVID-19 vaccination reduced the number of new SARS-CoV-2 infections, with the largest benefit received after two vaccinations and against symptomatic and high viral burden infections, and with no evidence of difference between the BNT162b2 [Pfizer] and ChAdOx1 [AZ} vaccines.
I really don't believe that Biden will serve his whole term. He has moved on from incoherent to blithering idiot. No doubt he still has lucid moments but he is, in my view, not currently fit for the office he holds. So by 2024 I think we will have President Harris. If she's smart she will bring in Buttigieg as her VP and thus remove the risk of a challenge. He is so much more articulate than anyone I have seen on the American political scene since Bill Clinton was in his pomp.
If it is President Harris then there is a strong chance it will be hello again President Trump in 2024, as has been posted her approval ratings are abysmal compared to Biden.
She would be Hillary 2 and Trump would love to run against her
Why do you think Pete Buttigieg has got infrastructure - that was to ensure there was multiple plausible candidates for president were Biden not to run as everyone knew Harris wasn't that suitable.
There is no guarantee Buttigieg would get the nomination, certainly not against the incumbent VP/President he would likely fail to do so.
Plus he would also be challenged from the left by the likes of AOC as a corporate sell out
AOC won't stand - she is very much in it for the long, long game - the fact you think she might shows how little you know about Democrat politics...
The shortage of foreign seasonal workers has forced some businesses in places like Old Orchard Beach, Maine, to limit their hours or close for an extra day a week.Tristan Spinski for The New York Times
Interesting how it handled moving from the original three protagonists*.
I've watched very, very little new TV for ages (F1 and the odd bit of news excepted), I think just Homeland and Game of Thrones, which I caught on DVD (and certainly didn't end as well as Homeland).
Edited extra bit: *to clarify, three protagonist setup, obviously two stuck around.
I really don't believe that Biden will serve his whole term. He has moved on from incoherent to blithering idiot. No doubt he still has lucid moments but he is, in my view, not currently fit for the office he holds. So by 2024 I think we will have President Harris. If she's smart she will bring in Buttigieg as her VP and thus remove the risk of a challenge. He is so much more articulate than anyone I have seen on the American political scene since Bill Clinton was in his pomp.
If it is President Harris then there is a strong chance it will be hello again President Trump in 2024, as has been posted her approval ratings are abysmal compared to Biden.
She would be Hillary 2 and Trump would love to run against her
Why do you think Pete Buttigieg has got infrastructure - that was to ensure there was multiple plausible candidates for president were Biden not to run as everyone knew Harris wasn't that suitable.
There is no guarantee Buttigieg would get the nomination, certainly not against the incumbent VP/President he would likely fail to do so.
Plus he would also be challenged from the left by the likes of AOC as a corporate sell out
AOC won't stand - she is very much in it for the long, long game - the fact you think she might shows how little you know about Democrat politics...
Of course she will stand if the President does not run for re election. In fact on the latest Democratic primary poll she does better than Buttigieg, though Harris is still well in front if Biden does not run again
On the topic of incompetence and excess deaths, how many excess deaths do we think the whole AZN smearing debacle will actually cause? Looking at you Macron and Mr 8%.
Not so many, judging by the (rather impressive) French vaccination performance.
Which is not to diminish the criminal stupidity of Macron's comments.
That doesn't tell you much. They suspended vaccination for an entire week if memory serves. The number now is almost irrelevant.
I'm sure the number could be estimated quite well, based on the increased risk to those whose vaccination was delayed for a period, plus the number who were put off having a jab altogether (although the willingness in France to be vaccinated has I believe gone up overall since Macron's comments).
Then you have to add the knock-on effect of all this negative publicity on take-up around the world, especially in countries relying on COVAX. In the end we'll never know for certain, as we won't know what the take-up rates would have been without this unfortunate episode.
The most remarkable thing is that AZN and Pfizer have very similar safety profiles, and yet 99% of the negative coverage is on AZN.
Also remarkable that AZN is still not approved in the US.
This is in some ways an even worse fuck up than Macron’s comments. Azn is supposed to be the work horse of the world so the reticence to hold back approval in America is causing incalculable damage, given how much smaller countries pay attention to the US regulator. Compounded of course by the pig headedness of not at least giving it an exception status for foreigners visiting the US who have had it. And finally all the doses they had sitting there for months in fridges.
Had Trump overseen this, we’d never heard the end of it. I’m increasingly sure Biden’s term will go down as the worst they’ve ever had. Perhaps until Trump #2 next time!
The American regulator is responsible for American healthcare, not sending a message to some unspecified small country. The US has sufficient supply of the best vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna), so what's the emergency that would justify emergency-use approval of a shittier one?
First, there is now more than sufficient data for the FDA to have fully approved all the major vaccines. Secondly, referring to AZN as “a shittier one” is precisely the sort of stupidity folks like Macron have engaged in.
Macron is quoted as saying it was pretty much ineffective for old people, which isn't at all what I'm saying and doesn't seem to check out. But from the point of view of a country that already has Moderna and Pfizer, it seems, on available evidence, substantially less effective. Are you disagreeing with that, or are you just complaining that I said "shittier" rather than "less effective"?
Given the supplies of vaccine are limited even for first world countries, playing games with what are very effective vaccines indeed costs lives (and/or economies). South Korea is just the latest to find its vaccination efforts severely constrained: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2021/08/693_313239.htmll
Sorry, who's playing games? Are you disagreeing that on available evidence Moderna/Pfizer seem to be more effective than AZ or not???
There's a marginal difference. A choice between no vaccine and vaccine is massively more consequential.
The UK study got 88% vs 60% against Delta; That's more than a marginal difference, it's pretty big.
It's of course true that the choice between no vaccine and vaccine is much more consequential. But where I came in was saying the US already has ample supply of Moderna and Pfizer, so they're not making the choice between no vaccine and vaccine, they're making a choice between a better vaccine and a worse vaccine.
On the topic of incompetence and excess deaths, how many excess deaths do we think the whole AZN smearing debacle will actually cause? Looking at you Macron and Mr 8%.
Not so many, judging by the (rather impressive) French vaccination performance.
Which is not to diminish the criminal stupidity of Macron's comments.
That doesn't tell you much. They suspended vaccination for an entire week if memory serves. The number now is almost irrelevant.
I'm sure the number could be estimated quite well, based on the increased risk to those whose vaccination was delayed for a period, plus the number who were put off having a jab altogether (although the willingness in France to be vaccinated has I believe gone up overall since Macron's comments).
Then you have to add the knock-on effect of all this negative publicity on take-up around the world, especially in countries relying on COVAX. In the end we'll never know for certain, as we won't know what the take-up rates would have been without this unfortunate episode.
The most remarkable thing is that AZN and Pfizer have very similar safety profiles, and yet 99% of the negative coverage is on AZN.
Also remarkable that AZN is still not approved in the US.
This is in some ways an even worse fuck up than Macron’s comments. Azn is supposed to be the work horse of the world so the reticence to hold back approval in America is causing incalculable damage, given how much smaller countries pay attention to the US regulator. Compounded of course by the pig headedness of not at least giving it an exception status for foreigners visiting the US who have had it. And finally all the doses they had sitting there for months in fridges.
Had Trump overseen this, we’d never heard the end of it. I’m increasingly sure Biden’s term will go down as the worst they’ve ever had. Perhaps until Trump #2 next time!
The American regulator is responsible for American healthcare, not sending a message to some unspecified small country. The US has sufficient supply of the best vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna), so what's the emergency that would justify emergency-use approval of a shittier one?
First, there is now more than sufficient data for the FDA to have fully approved all the major vaccines. Secondly, referring to AZN as “a shittier one” is precisely the sort of stupidity folks like Macron have engaged in.
Macron is quoted as saying it was pretty much ineffective for old people, which isn't at all what I'm saying and doesn't seem to check out. But from the point of view of a country that already has Moderna and Pfizer, it seems, on available evidence, substantially less effective. Are you disagreeing with that, or are you just complaining that I said "shittier" rather than "less effective"?
Given the supplies of vaccine are limited even for first world countries, playing games with what are very effective vaccines indeed costs lives (and/or economies). South Korea is just the latest to find its vaccination efforts severely constrained: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2021/08/693_313239.htmll
Sorry, who's playing games? Are you disagreeing that on available evidence Moderna/Pfizer seem to be more effective than AZ or not???
There's a marginal difference. A choice between no vaccine and vaccine is massively more consequential.
The UK study got 88% vs 60% against Delta; That's more than a marginal difference, it's pretty big.
It's of course true that the choice between no vaccine and vaccine is much more consequential. But where I came in was saying the US already has ample supply of Moderna and Pfizer, so they're not making the choice between no vaccine and vaccine, they're making a choice between a better vaccine and a worse vaccine.
96% vs 92% for hospitilisation sounds pretty similar:
I really don't believe that Biden will serve his whole term. He has moved on from incoherent to blithering idiot. No doubt he still has lucid moments but he is, in my view, not currently fit for the office he holds. So by 2024 I think we will have President Harris. If she's smart she will bring in Buttigieg as her VP and thus remove the risk of a challenge. He is so much more articulate than anyone I have seen on the American political scene since Bill Clinton was in his pomp.
If it is President Harris then there is a strong chance it will be hello again President Trump in 2024, as has been posted her approval ratings are abysmal compared to Biden.
She would be Hillary 2 and Trump would love to run against her
Why do you think Pete Buttigieg has got infrastructure - that was to ensure there was multiple plausible candidates for president were Biden not to run as everyone knew Harris wasn't that suitable.
There is no guarantee Buttigieg would get the nomination, certainly not against the incumbent VP/President he would likely fail to do so.
Plus he would also be challenged from the left by the likes of AOC as a corporate sell out
AOC won't stand - she is very much in it for the long, long game - the fact you think she might shows how little you know about Democrat politics...
Of course she will stand if the President does not run for re election. In fact on the latest Democratic primary poll she does better than Buttigieg, though Harris is still well in front if Biden does not run again
On the topic of incompetence and excess deaths, how many excess deaths do we think the whole AZN smearing debacle will actually cause? Looking at you Macron and Mr 8%.
Not so many, judging by the (rather impressive) French vaccination performance.
Which is not to diminish the criminal stupidity of Macron's comments.
That doesn't tell you much. They suspended vaccination for an entire week if memory serves. The number now is almost irrelevant.
I'm sure the number could be estimated quite well, based on the increased risk to those whose vaccination was delayed for a period, plus the number who were put off having a jab altogether (although the willingness in France to be vaccinated has I believe gone up overall since Macron's comments).
Then you have to add the knock-on effect of all this negative publicity on take-up around the world, especially in countries relying on COVAX. In the end we'll never know for certain, as we won't know what the take-up rates would have been without this unfortunate episode.
The most remarkable thing is that AZN and Pfizer have very similar safety profiles, and yet 99% of the negative coverage is on AZN.
Also remarkable that AZN is still not approved in the US.
This is in some ways an even worse fuck up than Macron’s comments. Azn is supposed to be the work horse of the world so the reticence to hold back approval in America is causing incalculable damage, given how much smaller countries pay attention to the US regulator. Compounded of course by the pig headedness of not at least giving it an exception status for foreigners visiting the US who have had it. And finally all the doses they had sitting there for months in fridges.
Had Trump overseen this, we’d never heard the end of it. I’m increasingly sure Biden’s term will go down as the worst they’ve ever had. Perhaps until Trump #2 next time!
The American regulator is responsible for American healthcare, not sending a message to some unspecified small country. The US has sufficient supply of the best vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna), so what's the emergency that would justify emergency-use approval of a shittier one?
First, there is now more than sufficient data for the FDA to have fully approved all the major vaccines. Secondly, referring to AZN as “a shittier one” is precisely the sort of stupidity folks like Macron have engaged in.
Macron is quoted as saying it was pretty much ineffective for old people, which isn't at all what I'm saying and doesn't seem to check out. But from the point of view of a country that already has Moderna and Pfizer, it seems, on available evidence, substantially less effective. Are you disagreeing with that, or are you just complaining that I said "shittier" rather than "less effective"?
Given the supplies of vaccine are limited even for first world countries, playing games with what are very effective vaccines indeed costs lives (and/or economies). South Korea is just the latest to find its vaccination efforts severely constrained: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2021/08/693_313239.htmll
Sorry, who's playing games? Are you disagreeing that on available evidence Moderna/Pfizer seem to be more effective than AZ or not???
There's a marginal difference. A choice between no vaccine and vaccine is massively more consequential.
The UK study got 88% vs 60% against Delta; That's more than a marginal difference, it's pretty big.
It's of course true that the choice between no vaccine and vaccine is much more consequential. But where I came in was saying the US already has ample supply of Moderna and Pfizer, so they're not making the choice between no vaccine and vaccine, they're making a choice between a better vaccine and a worse vaccine.
That was one study. There is a really big study running right now in the UK, and you know what, the really huge difference is vaccinated vs unvaccinated. You only need to look at the hospital and death stats for the two classes. In a sick way I have 'loved' the stories coming out from people who chose not to have the vaccine, begging for it as they are about to be ventilated, to be told it is too late. Sadly some of them have later died. It reminds me a bit of war stories of soldiers keeping firing until the last minute, before trying to surrender only to be told "too late chum".
(For total clarity, because the internet does not do nuance, I am not loving people dying...)
I really don't believe that Biden will serve his whole term. He has moved on from incoherent to blithering idiot. No doubt he still has lucid moments but he is, in my view, not currently fit for the office he holds. So by 2024 I think we will have President Harris. If she's smart she will bring in Buttigieg as her VP and thus remove the risk of a challenge. He is so much more articulate than anyone I have seen on the American political scene since Bill Clinton was in his pomp.
I’m glad someone on here recognises Biden is simply unfit for the job rather than the usual “ooh, isn’t he so refreshing” view you get on this site just because he isn’t Donald Trump. He’s clearly not 100% there on any unbiased interpretation and by 2024, unless they come up with a wonder treatment, it is going to be impossible to hide.
The Democrats realise Harris is a disaster, the problem is what to do with her. There is no doubt she wants the Presidency and, as a black woman, it is going to be very hard for anyone else to run against her, given the current identity politics view running the Democrats. Buttigieg being gay is not enough to overcome the fact he is a white male.
Getting rid of Trump was important, a point that I think you are reluctant to accept. His behaviour in respect of the invasion of the Capitol and his subsequent attempts to undermine the democratic process demonstrate per adventure that Americans were absolutely right to vote for Biden in overwhelming numbers. Even if he is increasingly senile he is not malevolent, dangerous and delusionary paranoid like Trump.
Hell of a poor choice though. Surely America can do better than this.
We can discuss re Trump until the cows come home. I don’t think he was perfect by any stretch of the imagination to put it mildly. However, the fact is a lot of the opposition to Trump was off his personality, not his achievements as President. No major wars, getting it right on China, tax reform and a booming economy pre-Covid were good achievements. And, as we are seeing with the debacle on the US border on immigration, he was far better than Biden on that too.
As for Biden not being malevolent, no he is not but he is complicit in going along with a political culture that is undermining American democracy. Many on here like to point at the Republicans only when it comes to the electoral system but the Democrats are as dirty as Hell on that one too. Go to California and see the effects of Ballot Harvesting. Or let’s discuss how the Hunter Biden details were suppressed pre-election to help Joe.
I’d agree it was a poor choice between the two but, unfortunately, that was the choice. I still think Biden was the poorer pick and nothing in his performance so far has changed that view.
Absolute cack. Your boy and his enablers tried to overturn democracy completely.
Top in-depth analysis there Nigel. Your use of multiple facts to demonstrate your argument is truly mind-blowing.
On the topic of incompetence and excess deaths, how many excess deaths do we think the whole AZN smearing debacle will actually cause? Looking at you Macron and Mr 8%.
Not so many, judging by the (rather impressive) French vaccination performance.
Which is not to diminish the criminal stupidity of Macron's comments.
That doesn't tell you much. They suspended vaccination for an entire week if memory serves. The number now is almost irrelevant.
I'm sure the number could be estimated quite well, based on the increased risk to those whose vaccination was delayed for a period, plus the number who were put off having a jab altogether (although the willingness in France to be vaccinated has I believe gone up overall since Macron's comments).
Then you have to add the knock-on effect of all this negative publicity on take-up around the world, especially in countries relying on COVAX. In the end we'll never know for certain, as we won't know what the take-up rates would have been without this unfortunate episode.
The most remarkable thing is that AZN and Pfizer have very similar safety profiles, and yet 99% of the negative coverage is on AZN.
Also remarkable that AZN is still not approved in the US.
This is in some ways an even worse fuck up than Macron’s comments. Azn is supposed to be the work horse of the world so the reticence to hold back approval in America is causing incalculable damage, given how much smaller countries pay attention to the US regulator. Compounded of course by the pig headedness of not at least giving it an exception status for foreigners visiting the US who have had it. And finally all the doses they had sitting there for months in fridges.
Had Trump overseen this, we’d never heard the end of it. I’m increasingly sure Biden’s term will go down as the worst they’ve ever had. Perhaps until Trump #2 next time!
The American regulator is responsible for American healthcare, not sending a message to some unspecified small country. The US has sufficient supply of the best vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna), so what's the emergency that would justify emergency-use approval of a shittier one?
First, there is now more than sufficient data for the FDA to have fully approved all the major vaccines. Secondly, referring to AZN as “a shittier one” is precisely the sort of stupidity folks like Macron have engaged in.
Macron is quoted as saying it was pretty much ineffective for old people, which isn't at all what I'm saying and doesn't seem to check out. But from the point of view of a country that already has Moderna and Pfizer, it seems, on available evidence, substantially less effective. Are you disagreeing with that, or are you just complaining that I said "shittier" rather than "less effective"?
It's not substantially less effective. Real world data shows very similar levels of efficacy for AZ and Pfizer and very little immunity fade for AZ compared to Pfizer.
The shortage of foreign seasonal workers has forced some businesses in places like Old Orchard Beach, Maine, to limit their hours or close for an extra day a week.Tristan Spinski for The New York Times
Not sure the US government has recently made it much harder for businesses to recruit temporary staff and to guarantee the food supply chain. The UK government has. It could be that there are significant gaps on the shelves of US supermarkets just as there are in British ones right now. Any news on that? It certainly doesn't seem to be happening in the rest of Europe.
Afghan government military spokesman on R4 just now saying the Taliban can’t take Lashkar Gah because too many of them are being killed. Shades of Vietnam body counts and the damn VC can’t win because we’re killing them all.
Rory Stewart's book on his travels through Afghanistan are a must-read IMO. One takeaway is that it is exceptionally difficult for us westerners to understand the worldview of the remote villagers and tribes. This is made worse by the fact that the NGOs are all in Kabul and the other large cities, whose inhabitants are often largely unaware of life in the provinces. Therefore Kabul becomes an echo-chamber of the way people want Afghanistan to be, rather than the way it is.
Another (British) interviewee on Today said the Taliban had to get with the programme because young, educated, urban Afghanis who live in a social media connected world were never going to accept their mediaeval world view. Sounded somewhat optimistic imho.
There also appear to be all sorts of Islamic extremist groups pouring into Afghanistan, they’ve had a dearth of recent opportunities to fight the good fight so are raring to go; doesn’t bode well. That’s how wee Osama Bin Laden got his start in life as I recall.
It's why the comparison with Vietnam is a poor one - this is a genuine civil war, rather than one of independence against perceived colonialists. I'm not sure who will win, but the death cultists do have something of an inbuilt advantage.
We've been here before. When the Soviets pulled out, people thought the Afghan regime would collapse, but they held out for over a year despite the US pouring money into the insurgency. Essentially a lot of the cities were pro-regime while most of the countryside was thoroughly religious and nationalist, with lots of warlords playing Game of Thrones politics to shift the balance. In the bizarre world of the Cold War, it seemed a good idea for the US to back the fundamentalists.
I really don't believe that Biden will serve his whole term. He has moved on from incoherent to blithering idiot. No doubt he still has lucid moments but he is, in my view, not currently fit for the office he holds. So by 2024 I think we will have President Harris. If she's smart she will bring in Buttigieg as her VP and thus remove the risk of a challenge. He is so much more articulate than anyone I have seen on the American political scene since Bill Clinton was in his pomp.
If it is President Harris then there is a strong chance it will be hello again President Trump in 2024, as has been posted her approval ratings are abysmal compared to Biden.
She would be Hillary 2 and Trump would love to run against her
Why do you think Pete Buttigieg has got infrastructure - that was to ensure there was multiple plausible candidates for president were Biden not to run as everyone knew Harris wasn't that suitable.
There is no guarantee Buttigieg would get the nomination, certainly not against the incumbent VP/President he would likely fail to do so.
Plus he would also be challenged from the left by the likes of AOC as a corporate sell out
AOC won't stand - she is very much in it for the long, long game - the fact you think she might shows how little you know about Democrat politics...
Of course she will stand if the President does not run for re election. In fact on the latest Democratic primary poll she does better than Buttigieg, though Harris is still well in front if Biden does not run again
While some of the Democrats are waking up a bit, the well educated white liberals who run the party still haven’t clocked that people of colour are not one big happy family. Pushing Harris and thinking she automatically wins the Hispanic vote because she is non-white is stupidity beyond belief.
On the topic of incompetence and excess deaths, how many excess deaths do we think the whole AZN smearing debacle will actually cause? Looking at you Macron and Mr 8%.
Not so many, judging by the (rather impressive) French vaccination performance.
Which is not to diminish the criminal stupidity of Macron's comments.
That doesn't tell you much. They suspended vaccination for an entire week if memory serves. The number now is almost irrelevant.
I'm sure the number could be estimated quite well, based on the increased risk to those whose vaccination was delayed for a period, plus the number who were put off having a jab altogether (although the willingness in France to be vaccinated has I believe gone up overall since Macron's comments).
Then you have to add the knock-on effect of all this negative publicity on take-up around the world, especially in countries relying on COVAX. In the end we'll never know for certain, as we won't know what the take-up rates would have been without this unfortunate episode.
The most remarkable thing is that AZN and Pfizer have very similar safety profiles, and yet 99% of the negative coverage is on AZN.
Also remarkable that AZN is still not approved in the US.
This is in some ways an even worse fuck up than Macron’s comments. Azn is supposed to be the work horse of the world so the reticence to hold back approval in America is causing incalculable damage, given how much smaller countries pay attention to the US regulator. Compounded of course by the pig headedness of not at least giving it an exception status for foreigners visiting the US who have had it. And finally all the doses they had sitting there for months in fridges.
Had Trump overseen this, we’d never heard the end of it. I’m increasingly sure Biden’s term will go down as the worst they’ve ever had. Perhaps until Trump #2 next time!
The American regulator is responsible for American healthcare, not sending a message to some unspecified small country. The US has sufficient supply of the best vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna), so what's the emergency that would justify emergency-use approval of a shittier one?
First, there is now more than sufficient data for the FDA to have fully approved all the major vaccines. Secondly, referring to AZN as “a shittier one” is precisely the sort of stupidity folks like Macron have engaged in.
Macron is quoted as saying it was pretty much ineffective for old people, which isn't at all what I'm saying and doesn't seem to check out. But from the point of view of a country that already has Moderna and Pfizer, it seems, on available evidence, substantially less effective. Are you disagreeing with that, or are you just complaining that I said "shittier" rather than "less effective"?
Given the supplies of vaccine are limited even for first world countries, playing games with what are very effective vaccines indeed costs lives (and/or economies). South Korea is just the latest to find its vaccination efforts severely constrained: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2021/08/693_313239.htmll
Sorry, who's playing games? Are you disagreeing that on available evidence Moderna/Pfizer seem to be more effective than AZ or not???
There's a marginal difference. A choice between no vaccine and vaccine is massively more consequential.
The UK study got 88% vs 60% against Delta; That's more than a marginal difference, it's pretty big.
It's of course true that the choice between no vaccine and vaccine is much more consequential. But where I came in was saying the US already has ample supply of Moderna and Pfizer, so they're not making the choice between no vaccine and vaccine, they're making a choice between a better vaccine and a worse vaccine.
96% vs 92% for hospitilisation sounds pretty similar:
If those figures were reliable (it may be at the limits of what you can reasonably measure, I'm not sure) it would be a pretty huge difference - it's twice as many people getting hospitalized! I appreciate everybody's plucky patriotic spirit but all things being equal, the Americans are obviously going to want to give Grandma the American one that makes her half as likely to end up in hospital...
On the topic of incompetence and excess deaths, how many excess deaths do we think the whole AZN smearing debacle will actually cause? Looking at you Macron and Mr 8%.
Not so many, judging by the (rather impressive) French vaccination performance.
Which is not to diminish the criminal stupidity of Macron's comments.
That doesn't tell you much. They suspended vaccination for an entire week if memory serves. The number now is almost irrelevant.
I'm sure the number could be estimated quite well, based on the increased risk to those whose vaccination was delayed for a period, plus the number who were put off having a jab altogether (although the willingness in France to be vaccinated has I believe gone up overall since Macron's comments).
Then you have to add the knock-on effect of all this negative publicity on take-up around the world, especially in countries relying on COVAX. In the end we'll never know for certain, as we won't know what the take-up rates would have been without this unfortunate episode.
The most remarkable thing is that AZN and Pfizer have very similar safety profiles, and yet 99% of the negative coverage is on AZN.
Also remarkable that AZN is still not approved in the US.
This is in some ways an even worse fuck up than Macron’s comments. Azn is supposed to be the work horse of the world so the reticence to hold back approval in America is causing incalculable damage, given how much smaller countries pay attention to the US regulator. Compounded of course by the pig headedness of not at least giving it an exception status for foreigners visiting the US who have had it. And finally all the doses they had sitting there for months in fridges.
Had Trump overseen this, we’d never heard the end of it. I’m increasingly sure Biden’s term will go down as the worst they’ve ever had. Perhaps until Trump #2 next time!
The American regulator is responsible for American healthcare, not sending a message to some unspecified small country. The US has sufficient supply of the best vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna), so what's the emergency that would justify emergency-use approval of a shittier one?
First, there is now more than sufficient data for the FDA to have fully approved all the major vaccines. Secondly, referring to AZN as “a shittier one” is precisely the sort of stupidity folks like Macron have engaged in.
Macron is quoted as saying it was pretty much ineffective for old people, which isn't at all what I'm saying and doesn't seem to check out. But from the point of view of a country that already has Moderna and Pfizer, it seems, on available evidence, substantially less effective. Are you disagreeing with that, or are you just complaining that I said "shittier" rather than "less effective"?
It's not substantially less effective. Real world data shows very similar levels of efficacy for AZ and Pfizer and very little immunity fade for AZ compared to Pfizer.
Also it's likely the US is actually getting a worse level of protection for Pfizer given their dosing interval.
On the topic of incompetence and excess deaths, how many excess deaths do we think the whole AZN smearing debacle will actually cause? Looking at you Macron and Mr 8%.
Not so many, judging by the (rather impressive) French vaccination performance.
Which is not to diminish the criminal stupidity of Macron's comments.
That doesn't tell you much. They suspended vaccination for an entire week if memory serves. The number now is almost irrelevant.
I'm sure the number could be estimated quite well, based on the increased risk to those whose vaccination was delayed for a period, plus the number who were put off having a jab altogether (although the willingness in France to be vaccinated has I believe gone up overall since Macron's comments).
Then you have to add the knock-on effect of all this negative publicity on take-up around the world, especially in countries relying on COVAX. In the end we'll never know for certain, as we won't know what the take-up rates would have been without this unfortunate episode.
The most remarkable thing is that AZN and Pfizer have very similar safety profiles, and yet 99% of the negative coverage is on AZN.
Also remarkable that AZN is still not approved in the US.
This is in some ways an even worse fuck up than Macron’s comments. Azn is supposed to be the work horse of the world so the reticence to hold back approval in America is causing incalculable damage, given how much smaller countries pay attention to the US regulator. Compounded of course by the pig headedness of not at least giving it an exception status for foreigners visiting the US who have had it. And finally all the doses they had sitting there for months in fridges.
Had Trump overseen this, we’d never heard the end of it. I’m increasingly sure Biden’s term will go down as the worst they’ve ever had. Perhaps until Trump #2 next time!
The American regulator is responsible for American healthcare, not sending a message to some unspecified small country. The US has sufficient supply of the best vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna), so what's the emergency that would justify emergency-use approval of a shittier one?
First, there is now more than sufficient data for the FDA to have fully approved all the major vaccines. Secondly, referring to AZN as “a shittier one” is precisely the sort of stupidity folks like Macron have engaged in.
Macron is quoted as saying it was pretty much ineffective for old people, which isn't at all what I'm saying and doesn't seem to check out. But from the point of view of a country that already has Moderna and Pfizer, it seems, on available evidence, substantially less effective. Are you disagreeing with that, or are you just complaining that I said "shittier" rather than "less effective"?
Given the supplies of vaccine are limited even for first world countries, playing games with what are very effective vaccines indeed costs lives (and/or economies). South Korea is just the latest to find its vaccination efforts severely constrained: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2021/08/693_313239.htmll
Sorry, who's playing games? Are you disagreeing that on available evidence Moderna/Pfizer seem to be more effective than AZ or not???
There's a marginal difference. A choice between no vaccine and vaccine is massively more consequential.
The UK study got 88% vs 60% against Delta; That's more than a marginal difference, it's pretty big.
It's of course true that the choice between no vaccine and vaccine is much more consequential. But where I came in was saying the US already has ample supply of Moderna and Pfizer, so they're not making the choice between no vaccine and vaccine, they're making a choice between a better vaccine and a worse vaccine.
96% vs 92% for hospitilisation sounds pretty similar:
If those figures were reliable (it may be at the limits of what you can reasonably measure, I'm not sure) it would be a pretty huge difference - it's twice as many people getting hospitalized! I appreciate everybody's plucky patriotic spirit but all things being equal, the Americans are obviously going to want to give Grandma the American one that makes her half as likely to end up in hospital...
Pretty similar as in within the margin of error. I don't think the number is known to less than a percent, for example.
Also, if they are reliable? Why are these not believable, but the other figures are?
Edit, you said reliable not "to be trusted", sorry.
Mr. Divvie, while fictional, it was telling that Homeland's last season focused on Afghanistan.
Aye, I watched and enjoyed it. While there was often a high tosh content, Homeland pretty much fell on the side of good tv I think.
Except the plot was even more ludicrous than most US series. If you suspended disbelief, it was a good watch, flagging a little in some of the later seasons.
Afghan government military spokesman on R4 just now saying the Taliban can’t take Lashkar Gah because too many of them are being killed. Shades of Vietnam body counts and the damn VC can’t win because we’re killing them all.
Rory Stewart's book on his travels through Afghanistan are a must-read IMO. One takeaway is that it is exceptionally difficult for us westerners to understand the worldview of the remote villagers and tribes. This is made worse by the fact that the NGOs are all in Kabul and the other large cities, whose inhabitants are often largely unaware of life in the provinces. Therefore Kabul becomes an echo-chamber of the way people want Afghanistan to be, rather than the way it is.
Another (British) interviewee on Today said the Taliban had to get with the programme because young, educated, urban Afghanis who live in a social media connected world were never going to accept their mediaeval world view. Sounded somewhat optimistic imho.
There also appear to be all sorts of Islamic extremist groups pouring into Afghanistan, they’ve had a dearth of recent opportunities to fight the good fight so are raring to go. Doesn’t bode well.
Only positive sign is the Taliban v ISIS, Alien v Predator, conflict also going on
What an extraordinary coincidence that the best person to be on the anti-sleaze watchdog just happened to be an old chum of Johnsons from his Bullingdon Club days.
However, I remember some Corbyn fans on here defending McDonnell employing Corbyn's son in a taxpayer-funded role. By an astonishing coincidence, the son of his best bud was the best candidate for the job.
(Hint, he wasn't.)
If we want to stop people hiring friends, family and chums to roles, especially to taxpayer-funded roles, then it needs to apply equally to all.
I don't think I have ever defended cronyism in the Labour Party either.
The nepotism and Chumocracy does show how illusory "taking back control" was.
Jobs for the sons and daughters of friends is as old as jobs themselves. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't; sometimes it's not the best way of hiring someone but sometimes it can work. Rather depends on how how up the chain the job is.
That's the Indy. And there seems to be not a shred of actual evidence of malpractice.
Has anyone provided any evidence that Johnson had a corrupt role in the process, or how the process worked such that Johnson could manipulate it? Or that the member appointed is unfit to be on the Committee or is corrupt?
Or is this just Hoof-in-Mouth Rayner howling at the moon because it is Tuesday and she still does not have anything to say?
"You were in a student club with him 35 years ago" is some way beyond farfetched.
The only possible chink I can see is if the PM is supplied with say 50 names, from which he then gets to choose who he wants, and that would still require a lot more evidence that we have.
It's quite a dangerous argument to make because it shrinks the pool of acceptable candidates - 'No, you went to the same school when you were six!" - and undermines the expectation of personal integrity.
Read it. 173 applicants, appointment made by the government after scrutiny by advisory panel. So exactly the scenario yield accept would stink, but about 3 and a half times worse. And a 20 person dining club at University is not equivalent to same school when you were six.
Read what?
The article does not fully describe the appointment process, nor does it link to a description of it, nor does it link to Rayner's written question which has nothing more. Not does it provide any evidence that the man is unfit for the role, or evidence of past questionable behaviour of lack of integrity.
The article does acknowledge that there is an independent shortlisting process. No mention of how long the shortlist is, either in the Indy or in Rayner's question.
The Indy mentions "scathing report from the Council of Europe" - also no link to evidence.
When I look it up 1 - The UK is one of few countries to have permitted publication of the evaluation report (may be affected by timings). 2 - The report is not 'scathing'. 3 - The report recognises that the UK is 10th in the 'least corrupt' ratings worldwide by Transparency International.
So at the moment it looks like the daily unevidenced smear from the Indy, and the daily mudslinging from Angela Rayner. But that is what they both do at present.
This is the same basis that all those untrue conspiracy theories on NHS Privatisation that were thrown at Jeremy Hunt - a prejudicial unevidenced assumption that proximity of whatever sort guarantees the existence of a corrupt relationship. It doesn't - ask Eoin Clarke about the blizzard of apologies he ended up issuing to avoid libel actions.
More interestingly, the article puts a question mark over APPGs - though on the very strange basis that 2nd job for MPs are in some way problematic per se.
On the topic of incompetence and excess deaths, how many excess deaths do we think the whole AZN smearing debacle will actually cause? Looking at you Macron and Mr 8%.
Not so many, judging by the (rather impressive) French vaccination performance.
Which is not to diminish the criminal stupidity of Macron's comments.
That doesn't tell you much. They suspended vaccination for an entire week if memory serves. The number now is almost irrelevant.
I'm sure the number could be estimated quite well, based on the increased risk to those whose vaccination was delayed for a period, plus the number who were put off having a jab altogether (although the willingness in France to be vaccinated has I believe gone up overall since Macron's comments).
Then you have to add the knock-on effect of all this negative publicity on take-up around the world, especially in countries relying on COVAX. In the end we'll never know for certain, as we won't know what the take-up rates would have been without this unfortunate episode.
The most remarkable thing is that AZN and Pfizer have very similar safety profiles, and yet 99% of the negative coverage is on AZN.
Also remarkable that AZN is still not approved in the US.
This is in some ways an even worse fuck up than Macron’s comments. Azn is supposed to be the work horse of the world so the reticence to hold back approval in America is causing incalculable damage, given how much smaller countries pay attention to the US regulator. Compounded of course by the pig headedness of not at least giving it an exception status for foreigners visiting the US who have had it. And finally all the doses they had sitting there for months in fridges.
Had Trump overseen this, we’d never heard the end of it. I’m increasingly sure Biden’s term will go down as the worst they’ve ever had. Perhaps until Trump #2 next time!
The American regulator is responsible for American healthcare, not sending a message to some unspecified small country. The US has sufficient supply of the best vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna), so what's the emergency that would justify emergency-use approval of a shittier one?
First, there is now more than sufficient data for the FDA to have fully approved all the major vaccines. Secondly, referring to AZN as “a shittier one” is precisely the sort of stupidity folks like Macron have engaged in.
Macron is quoted as saying it was pretty much ineffective for old people, which isn't at all what I'm saying and doesn't seem to check out. But from the point of view of a country that already has Moderna and Pfizer, it seems, on available evidence, substantially less effective. Are you disagreeing with that, or are you just complaining that I said "shittier" rather than "less effective"?
Given the supplies of vaccine are limited even for first world countries, playing games with what are very effective vaccines indeed costs lives (and/or economies). South Korea is just the latest to find its vaccination efforts severely constrained: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2021/08/693_313239.htmll
Sorry, who's playing games? Are you disagreeing that on available evidence Moderna/Pfizer seem to be more effective than AZ or not???
There's a marginal difference. A choice between no vaccine and vaccine is massively more consequential.
The UK study got 88% vs 60% against Delta; That's more than a marginal difference, it's pretty big.
It's of course true that the choice between no vaccine and vaccine is much more consequential. But where I came in was saying the US already has ample supply of Moderna and Pfizer, so they're not making the choice between no vaccine and vaccine, they're making a choice between a better vaccine and a worse vaccine.
96% vs 92% for hospitilisation sounds pretty similar:
If those figures were reliable (it may be at the limits of what you can reasonably measure, I'm not sure) it would be a pretty huge difference - it's twice as many people getting hospitalized! I appreciate everybody's plucky patriotic spirit but all things being equal, the Americans are obviously going to want to give Grandma the American one that makes her half as likely to end up in hospital...
Pretty similar as in within the margin of error. I don't think the number is known to less than a percent, for example.
Also, if they are to be trusted? Why are these not believable, but the other figures are?
I mean the "if they're reliable" in the same sense that you do, ie if they're correct then it's a pretty big difference, but I wonder if the study can reliably pick up a difference at the very top of the scale like that.
I really don't believe that Biden will serve his whole term. He has moved on from incoherent to blithering idiot. No doubt he still has lucid moments but he is, in my view, not currently fit for the office he holds. So by 2024 I think we will have President Harris. If she's smart she will bring in Buttigieg as her VP and thus remove the risk of a challenge. He is so much more articulate than anyone I have seen on the American political scene since Bill Clinton was in his pomp.
If it is President Harris then there is a strong chance it will be hello again President Trump in 2024, as has been posted her approval ratings are abysmal compared to Biden.
She would be Hillary 2 and Trump would love to run against her
Why do you think Pete Buttigieg has got infrastructure - that was to ensure there was multiple plausible candidates for president were Biden not to run as everyone knew Harris wasn't that suitable.
There is no guarantee Buttigieg would get the nomination, certainly not against the incumbent VP/President he would likely fail to do so.
Plus he would also be challenged from the left by the likes of AOC as a corporate sell out
AOC won't stand - she is very much in it for the long, long game - the fact you think she might shows how little you know about Democrat politics...
Of course she will stand if the President does not run for re election. In fact on the latest Democratic primary poll she does better than Buttigieg, though Harris is still well in front if Biden does not run again
While some of the Democrats are waking up a bit, the well educated white liberals who run the party still haven’t clocked that people of colour are not one big happy family. Pushing Harris and thinking she automatically wins the Hispanic vote because she is non-white is stupidity beyond belief.
Even if she brings all the Hispanic vote (and we know she won't) other ethnic minorities aren't going to automatically vote for someone who just happens to come from another ethnic minority.
I really don't believe that Biden will serve his whole term. He has moved on from incoherent to blithering idiot. No doubt he still has lucid moments but he is, in my view, not currently fit for the office he holds. So by 2024 I think we will have President Harris. If she's smart she will bring in Buttigieg as her VP and thus remove the risk of a challenge. He is so much more articulate than anyone I have seen on the American political scene since Bill Clinton was in his pomp.
If it is President Harris then there is a strong chance it will be hello again President Trump in 2024, as has been posted her approval ratings are abysmal compared to Biden.
She would be Hillary 2 and Trump would love to run against her
Why do you think Pete Buttigieg has got infrastructure - that was to ensure there was multiple plausible candidates for president were Biden not to run as everyone knew Harris wasn't that suitable.
There is no guarantee Buttigieg would get the nomination, certainly not against the incumbent VP/President he would likely fail to do so.
Plus he would also be challenged from the left by the likes of AOC as a corporate sell out
AOC won't stand - she is very much in it for the long, long game - the fact you think she might shows how little you know about Democrat politics...
Of course she will stand if the President does not run for re election. In fact on the latest Democratic primary poll she does better than Buttigieg, though Harris is still well in front if Biden does not run again
Golly, I hadn't read the whole Neil Oliver GBTV rant, it's a zinger. Looking forward to him playing his part in Bettertogether II.
Wow that is pure mental. Of course, it's worth pointing out that "the few" were fighting for a country that had put in place multiple limitations on personal freedom (conscription, rationing, censorship, internment to name a few of them) so even if you strip away the obligatory WW2 masturbatory froth the argument is just historically illiterate bilge from beginning to end. Where do they find these people?
Mr. B2, it is interesting how sometimes shows can get away with iffy stuff and sometimes they can't.
The 100 had a dodgy approach to radiation poisoning, I think, but I liked it enough to bypass that.
But Outcasts (I think it was called) was an atrociously badly written sci-fi show by the BBC. The writing was... the best example had one episode whereby (on an alien world mankind had settled) sound waves were making people sick. The reasoning was that the sound (which is just air molecules vibrating, remember) was creating viruses. Creating viruses. Reverberating molecules were bringing life into being. Better yet, when the sound stopped, the viruses all vanished.
Afghan government military spokesman on R4 just now saying the Taliban can’t take Lashkar Gah because too many of them are being killed. Shades of Vietnam body counts and the damn VC can’t win because we’re killing them all.
Rory Stewart's book on his travels through Afghanistan are a must-read IMO. One takeaway is that it is exceptionally difficult for us westerners to understand the worldview of the remote villagers and tribes. This is made worse by the fact that the NGOs are all in Kabul and the other large cities, whose inhabitants are often largely unaware of life in the provinces. Therefore Kabul becomes an echo-chamber of the way people want Afghanistan to be, rather than the way it is.
Another (British) interviewee on Today said the Taliban had to get with the programme because young, educated, urban Afghanis who live in a social media connected world were never going to accept their mediaeval world view. Sounded somewhat optimistic imho.
There also appear to be all sorts of Islamic extremist groups pouring into Afghanistan, they’ve had a dearth of recent opportunities to fight the good fight so are raring to go. Doesn’t bode well.
Only positive sign is the Taliban v ISIS, Alien v Predator, conflict also going on
On the topic of incompetence and excess deaths, how many excess deaths do we think the whole AZN smearing debacle will actually cause? Looking at you Macron and Mr 8%.
Not so many, judging by the (rather impressive) French vaccination performance.
Which is not to diminish the criminal stupidity of Macron's comments.
That doesn't tell you much. They suspended vaccination for an entire week if memory serves. The number now is almost irrelevant.
I'm sure the number could be estimated quite well, based on the increased risk to those whose vaccination was delayed for a period, plus the number who were put off having a jab altogether (although the willingness in France to be vaccinated has I believe gone up overall since Macron's comments).
Then you have to add the knock-on effect of all this negative publicity on take-up around the world, especially in countries relying on COVAX. In the end we'll never know for certain, as we won't know what the take-up rates would have been without this unfortunate episode.
The most remarkable thing is that AZN and Pfizer have very similar safety profiles, and yet 99% of the negative coverage is on AZN.
Also remarkable that AZN is still not approved in the US.
This is in some ways an even worse fuck up than Macron’s comments. Azn is supposed to be the work horse of the world so the reticence to hold back approval in America is causing incalculable damage, given how much smaller countries pay attention to the US regulator. Compounded of course by the pig headedness of not at least giving it an exception status for foreigners visiting the US who have had it. And finally all the doses they had sitting there for months in fridges.
Had Trump overseen this, we’d never heard the end of it. I’m increasingly sure Biden’s term will go down as the worst they’ve ever had. Perhaps until Trump #2 next time!
The American regulator is responsible for American healthcare, not sending a message to some unspecified small country. The US has sufficient supply of the best vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna), so what's the emergency that would justify emergency-use approval of a shittier one?
First, there is now more than sufficient data for the FDA to have fully approved all the major vaccines. Secondly, referring to AZN as “a shittier one” is precisely the sort of stupidity folks like Macron have engaged in.
Macron is quoted as saying it was pretty much ineffective for old people, which isn't at all what I'm saying and doesn't seem to check out. But from the point of view of a country that already has Moderna and Pfizer, it seems, on available evidence, substantially less effective. Are you disagreeing with that, or are you just complaining that I said "shittier" rather than "less effective"?
Given the supplies of vaccine are limited even for first world countries, playing games with what are very effective vaccines indeed costs lives (and/or economies). South Korea is just the latest to find its vaccination efforts severely constrained: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2021/08/693_313239.htmll
Sorry, who's playing games? Are you disagreeing that on available evidence Moderna/Pfizer seem to be more effective than AZ or not???
There's a marginal difference. A choice between no vaccine and vaccine is massively more consequential.
The UK study got 88% vs 60% against Delta; That's more than a marginal difference, it's pretty big.
It's of course true that the choice between no vaccine and vaccine is much more consequential. But where I came in was saying the US already has ample supply of Moderna and Pfizer, so they're not making the choice between no vaccine and vaccine, they're making a choice between a better vaccine and a worse vaccine.
96% vs 92% for hospitilisation sounds pretty similar:
If those figures were reliable (it may be at the limits of what you can reasonably measure, I'm not sure) it would be a pretty huge difference - it's twice as many people getting hospitalized! I appreciate everybody's plucky patriotic spirit but all things being equal, the Americans are obviously going to want to give Grandma the American one that makes her half as likely to end up in hospital...
Pretty similar as in within the margin of error. I don't think the number is known to less than a percent, for example.
Also, if they are to be trusted? Why are these not believable, but the other figures are?
I mean the "if they're reliable" in the same sense that you do, ie if they're correct then it's a pretty big difference, but I wonder if the study can reliably pick up a difference at the very top of the scale like that.
Sorry, I did quote you wrong there. From these figures it suggests the protection level is much more similar than implied by the study you quoted. Of course, they won't be able to measure it to a precision of <1%, so I think it is safe to say those two figures are statistically the same.
Mr. Dickson, indeed. Worse still is the way Germany, France etc are still so foolish on this (and we came damned close to having Huawei embedded in our 5G network and that's still something that could happen).
The US largely seems to have woken up, and, to a lesser extent, the same's happened here. But Germany... between buying Russian gas, then attending Holocaust Memorial Events before signing up to deals with China, isn't exactly the moral leader some suggest.
Lots of states are doing it, not least in Africa.
Sweden, especially western Sweden - centred on Gothenburg - has very broad and deep commercial connections with China. Symbolised by the huge Volvo Cars deal, but that is merely the tip of an iceberg.
It causes serious problems for the politicians in Stockholm, who bravely try to confront China on a wide range of issues.
The Gothenburgers try to defend themselves by saying that they only deal with private companies, not the state itself. A partially successful strategy to date.
For the uninitiated, Gothenburg has always, from day one (1621), been about making cash, so the current popularity of Chinese deals is unsurprising. It is only the latest in a long list of dubious, but highly lucrative, activities over the past four centuries.
Stockholm by contrast is for the nobility and monarch, whereas Uppsala and Lund are for academia and the church. Malmö is just one of the crappier suburbs of Copenhagen. The rest of the country is forests and hillbillies.
There, you’ve had Sweden in a wildly unfair nutshell. Don’t say PB isn’t good value.
Interesting perspective Stuart. Having worked quite often in Sweden, and having some Swedish friends I am surprised they fall for the "private company" tosh. There are no private companies in China, and no private individuals. None of them can operate without the approval of the Chinese Communist Party, and I suspect all of the "self made men" (they will mainly be men) in China will have really been made by the CCP putting it's favourite sons in charge of the latest stolen IP.
My gut feeling is to agree with you. I must admit I’m a bit torn about the situation, as are most Swedes deep down. The problem is that so many people, throughout society, hugely benefit from the Chinese connection. The vast construction that is the Swedish welfare state is entirely dependent on cash flowing into private and public coffers.
This “private company” spiel is of course total nonsense when it comes to the bigger deals like Volvo, but there is actually an element of truth when you get down to SME entrepreneurial and innovation cooperation. China is vast and complex. There are plenty of extremely clever engineers and businesspeople who disdain the Communist Party and genuinely seek bonds with the west. Sweden is, for many reasons, a wonderful opportunity for them, and vice versa.
I’ve heard it argued that Swedes and Chinese share several important cultural characteristics. Sounded like total bollocks and I can’t remember the details, but people swallow these myths and it would not surprise me if a lot of Swedes genuinely believe that. After all, the English and French both perpetuate the myth that they are mortal enemies, whereas any reasoned outsider can see that they are peas in a pod.
Mr. Divvie, while fictional, it was telling that Homeland's last season focused on Afghanistan.
Aye, I watched and enjoyed it. While there was often a high tosh content, Homeland pretty much fell on the side of good tv I think.
Except the plot was even more ludicrous than most US series. If you suspended disbelief, it was a good watch, flagging a little in some of the later seasons.
One certainly wasn't there for the nuance for sure! The character of Saul in particular got more irritating as time went on.
The shortage of foreign seasonal workers has forced some businesses in places like Old Orchard Beach, Maine, to limit their hours or close for an extra day a week.Tristan Spinski for The New York Times
Not sure the US government has recently made it much harder for businesses to recruit temporary staff and to guarantee the food supply chain. The UK government has. It could be that there are significant gaps on the shelves of US supermarkets just as there are in British ones right now. Any news on that? It certainly doesn't seem to be happening in the rest of Europe.
*** WARNING WARNING WARNING ***
Another derangement alert.
You need to get out of the echo chamber and visit a supermarket.
Golly, I hadn't read the whole Neil Oliver GBTV rant, it's a zinger. Looking forward to him playing his part in Bettertogether II.
Wow that is pure mental. Of course, it's worth pointing out that "the few" were fighting for a country that had put in place multiple limitations on personal freedom (conscription, rationing, censorship, internment to name a few of them) so even if you strip away the obligatory WW2 masturbatory froth the argument is just historically illiterate bilge from beginning to end. Where do they find these people?
The concept of unconditional freedom is interesting.
'I'm a giant man baby and no whim of mine shall be thwarted!'
What an extraordinary coincidence that the best person to be on the anti-sleaze watchdog just happened to be an old chum of Johnsons from his Bullingdon Club days.
However, I remember some Corbyn fans on here defending McDonnell employing Corbyn's son in a taxpayer-funded role. By an astonishing coincidence, the son of his best bud was the best candidate for the job.
(Hint, he wasn't.)
If we want to stop people hiring friends, family and chums to roles, especially to taxpayer-funded roles, then it needs to apply equally to all.
I don't think I have ever defended cronyism in the Labour Party either.
The nepotism and Chumocracy does show how illusory "taking back control" was.
Jobs for the sons and daughters of friends is as old as jobs themselves. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't; sometimes it's not the best way of hiring someone but sometimes it can work. Rather depends on how how up the chain the job is.
That's the Indy. And there seems to be not a shred of actual evidence of malpractice.
Has anyone provided any evidence that Johnson had a corrupt role in the process, or how the process worked such that Johnson could manipulate it? Or that the member appointed is unfit to be on the Committee or is corrupt?
Or is this just Hoof-in-Mouth Rayner howling at the moon because it is Tuesday and she still does not have anything to say?
"You were in a student club with him 35 years ago" is some way beyond farfetched.
The only possible chink I can see is if the PM is supplied with say 50 names, from which he then gets to choose who he wants, and that would still require a lot more evidence that we have.
It's quite a dangerous argument to make because it shrinks the pool of acceptable candidates - 'No, you went to the same school when you were six!" - and undermines the expectation of personal integrity.
Read it. 173 applicants, appointment made by the government after scrutiny by advisory panel. So exactly the scenario yield accept would stink, but about 3 and a half times worse. And a 20 person dining club at University is not equivalent to same school when you were six.
Read what?
The article does not fully describe the appointment process, nor does it link to a description of it, nor does it link to Rayner's written question which has nothing more. Not does it provide any evidence that the man is unfit for the role, or evidence of past questionable behaviour of lack of integrity.
The article does acknowledge that there is an independent shortlisting process. No mention of how long the shortlist is, either in the Indy or in Rayner's question.
The Indy mentions "scathing report from the Council of Europe" - also no link to evidence.
When I look it up 1 - The UK is one of few countries to have permitted publication of the evaluation report (may be affected by timings). 2 - The report is not 'scathing'. 3 - The report recognises that the UK is 10th in the 'least corrupt' ratings worldwide by Transparency International.
So at the moment it looks like the daily unevidenced smear from the Indy, and the daily mudslinging from Angela Rayner. But that is what they both do at present.
This is the same basis that all those untrue conspiracy theories on NHS Privatisation that were thrown at Jeremy Hunt - a prejudicial unevidenced assumption that proximity of whatever sort guarantees the existence of a corrupt relationship. It doesn't - ask Eoin Clarke about the blizzard of apologies he ended up issuing to avoid libel actions.
More interestingly, the article puts a question mark over APPGs - though on the very strange basis that 2nd job for MPs are in some way problematic per se.
One down, two to go. In truth, I don't think the girls ever stood a chance against the Germans and Laura Kenny's best chance was always in the omnium.
Yeah they looked incredible. Feel as though the track cyclists are going to have a lot of second places because other countries are targeting single events but Team GB are trying to win everything. Hopefully we can sneak a gold in the men's team sprint.
I really don't believe that Biden will serve his whole term. He has moved on from incoherent to blithering idiot. No doubt he still has lucid moments but he is, in my view, not currently fit for the office he holds. So by 2024 I think we will have President Harris. If she's smart she will bring in Buttigieg as her VP and thus remove the risk of a challenge. He is so much more articulate than anyone I have seen on the American political scene since Bill Clinton was in his pomp.
If it is President Harris then there is a strong chance it will be hello again President Trump in 2024, as has been posted her approval ratings are abysmal compared to Biden.
She would be Hillary 2 and Trump would love to run against her
Why do you think Pete Buttigieg has got infrastructure - that was to ensure there was multiple plausible candidates for president were Biden not to run as everyone knew Harris wasn't that suitable.
There is no guarantee Buttigieg would get the nomination, certainly not against the incumbent VP/President he would likely fail to do so.
Plus he would also be challenged from the left by the likes of AOC as a corporate sell out
AOC won't stand - she is very much in it for the long, long game - the fact you think she might shows how little you know about Democrat politics...
Of course she will stand if the President does not run for re election. In fact on the latest Democratic primary poll she does better than Buttigieg, though Harris is still well in front if Biden does not run again
While some of the Democrats are waking up a bit, the well educated white liberals who run the party still haven’t clocked that people of colour are not one big happy family. Pushing Harris and thinking she automatically wins the Hispanic vote because she is non-white is stupidity beyond belief.
Even if she brings all the Hispanic vote (and we know she won't) other ethnic minorities aren't going to automatically vote for someone who just happens to come from another ethnic minority.
The Democrats are belatedly realising that hence why they tried to turn the Atlanta massage parlour shooting into the theme of the GOP fuelling anti-Asian hate crime but it didn't really work out.
What an extraordinary coincidence that the best person to be on the anti-sleaze watchdog just happened to be an old chum of Johnsons from his Bullingdon Club days.
However, I remember some Corbyn fans on here defending McDonnell employing Corbyn's son in a taxpayer-funded role. By an astonishing coincidence, the son of his best bud was the best candidate for the job.
(Hint, he wasn't.)
If we want to stop people hiring friends, family and chums to roles, especially to taxpayer-funded roles, then it needs to apply equally to all.
I don't think I have ever defended cronyism in the Labour Party either.
The nepotism and Chumocracy does show how illusory "taking back control" was.
Jobs for the sons and daughters of friends is as old as jobs themselves. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't; sometimes it's not the best way of hiring someone but sometimes it can work. Rather depends on how how up the chain the job is.
That's the Indy. And there seems to be not a shred of actual evidence of malpractice.
Has anyone provided any evidence that Johnson had a corrupt role in the process, or how the process worked such that Johnson could manipulate it? Or that the member appointed is unfit to be on the Committee or is corrupt?
Or is this just Hoof-in-Mouth Rayner howling at the moon because it is Tuesday and she still does not have anything to say?
"You were in a student club with him 35 years ago" is some way beyond farfetched.
The only possible chink I can see is if the PM is supplied with say 50 names, from which he then gets to choose who he wants, and that would still require a lot more evidence that we have.
It's quite a dangerous argument to make because it shrinks the pool of acceptable candidates - 'No, you went to the same school when you were six!" - and undermines the expectation of personal integrity.
At this level it looks bad, though. However, I agree that we've not seen evidence that, for example, Johnson looked at the shortlist and said 'He's the one. Know him. Good chap' or similar. Nor have we seen any suggestion, AFAIK, that a selection committee produced three names in order of preference, and the Good Chap was third.
I really don't believe that Biden will serve his whole term. He has moved on from incoherent to blithering idiot. No doubt he still has lucid moments but he is, in my view, not currently fit for the office he holds. So by 2024 I think we will have President Harris. If she's smart she will bring in Buttigieg as her VP and thus remove the risk of a challenge. He is so much more articulate than anyone I have seen on the American political scene since Bill Clinton was in his pomp.
I’m glad someone on here recognises Biden is simply unfit for the job rather than the usual “ooh, isn’t he so refreshing” view you get on this site just because he isn’t Donald Trump. He’s clearly not 100% there on any unbiased interpretation and by 2024, unless they come up with a wonder treatment, it is going to be impossible to hide.
The Democrats realise Harris is a disaster, the problem is what to do with her. There is no doubt she wants the Presidency and, as a black woman, it is going to be very hard for anyone else to run against her, given the current identity politics view running the Democrats. Buttigieg being gay is not enough to overcome the fact he is a white male.
Getting rid of Trump was important, a point that I think you are reluctant to accept. His behaviour in respect of the invasion of the Capitol and his subsequent attempts to undermine the democratic process demonstrate per adventure that Americans were absolutely right to vote for Biden in overwhelming numbers. Even if he is increasingly senile he is not malevolent, dangerous and delusionary paranoid like Trump.
Hell of a poor choice though. Surely America can do better than this.
We can discuss re Trump until the cows come home. I don’t think he was perfect by any stretch of the imagination to put it mildly. However, the fact is a lot of the opposition to Trump was off his personality, not his achievements as President. No major wars, getting it right on China, tax reform and a booming economy pre-Covid were good achievements. And, as we are seeing with the debacle on the US border on immigration, he was far better than Biden on that too.
As for Biden not being malevolent, no he is not but he is complicit in going along with a political culture that is undermining American democracy. Many on here like to point at the Republicans only when it comes to the electoral system but the Democrats are as dirty as Hell on that one too. Go to California and see the effects of Ballot Harvesting. Or let’s discuss how the Hunter Biden details were suppressed pre-election to help Joe.
I’d agree it was a poor choice between the two but, unfortunately, that was the choice. I still think Biden was the poorer pick and nothing in his performance so far has changed that view.
Absolute cack. Your boy and his enablers tried to overturn democracy completely.
Top in-depth analysis there Nigel. Your use of multiple facts to demonstrate your argument is truly mind-blowing.
So you don't think Trump tried to overturn democracy? Don't need to use multiple facts. One does it. Don't need to to dismantle the rest of the rubbish.
On the topic of incompetence and excess deaths, how many excess deaths do we think the whole AZN smearing debacle will actually cause? Looking at you Macron and Mr 8%.
Not so many, judging by the (rather impressive) French vaccination performance.
Which is not to diminish the criminal stupidity of Macron's comments.
That doesn't tell you much. They suspended vaccination for an entire week if memory serves. The number now is almost irrelevant.
I'm sure the number could be estimated quite well, based on the increased risk to those whose vaccination was delayed for a period, plus the number who were put off having a jab altogether (although the willingness in France to be vaccinated has I believe gone up overall since Macron's comments).
Then you have to add the knock-on effect of all this negative publicity on take-up around the world, especially in countries relying on COVAX. In the end we'll never know for certain, as we won't know what the take-up rates would have been without this unfortunate episode.
The most remarkable thing is that AZN and Pfizer have very similar safety profiles, and yet 99% of the negative coverage is on AZN.
Also remarkable that AZN is still not approved in the US.
This is in some ways an even worse fuck up than Macron’s comments. Azn is supposed to be the work horse of the world so the reticence to hold back approval in America is causing incalculable damage, given how much smaller countries pay attention to the US regulator. Compounded of course by the pig headedness of not at least giving it an exception status for foreigners visiting the US who have had it. And finally all the doses they had sitting there for months in fridges.
Had Trump overseen this, we’d never heard the end of it. I’m increasingly sure Biden’s term will go down as the worst they’ve ever had. Perhaps until Trump #2 next time!
The American regulator is responsible for American healthcare, not sending a message to some unspecified small country. The US has sufficient supply of the best vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna), so what's the emergency that would justify emergency-use approval of a shittier one?
First, there is now more than sufficient data for the FDA to have fully approved all the major vaccines. Secondly, referring to AZN as “a shittier one” is precisely the sort of stupidity folks like Macron have engaged in.
Macron is quoted as saying it was pretty much ineffective for old people, which isn't at all what I'm saying and doesn't seem to check out. But from the point of view of a country that already has Moderna and Pfizer, it seems, on available evidence, substantially less effective. Are you disagreeing with that, or are you just complaining that I said "shittier" rather than "less effective"?
Given the supplies of vaccine are limited even for first world countries, playing games with what are very effective vaccines indeed costs lives (and/or economies). South Korea is just the latest to find its vaccination efforts severely constrained: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2021/08/693_313239.htmll
Sorry, who's playing games? Are you disagreeing that on available evidence Moderna/Pfizer seem to be more effective than AZ or not???
There's a marginal difference. A choice between no vaccine and vaccine is massively more consequential.
The UK study got 88% vs 60% against Delta; That's more than a marginal difference, it's pretty big.
It's of course true that the choice between no vaccine and vaccine is much more consequential. But where I came in was saying the US already has ample supply of Moderna and Pfizer, so they're not making the choice between no vaccine and vaccine, they're making a choice between a better vaccine and a worse vaccine.
96% vs 92% for hospitilisation sounds pretty similar:
If those figures were reliable (it may be at the limits of what you can reasonably measure, I'm not sure) it would be a pretty huge difference - it's twice as many people getting hospitalized! I appreciate everybody's plucky patriotic spirit but all things being equal, the Americans are obviously going to want to give Grandma the American one that makes her half as likely to end up in hospital...
Pretty similar as in within the margin of error. I don't think the number is known to less than a percent, for example.
Also, if they are reliable? Why are these not believable, but the other figures are?
Edit, you said reliable not "to be trusted", sorry.
I think its likely that Pfizer is slightly better but it also seems likely that AZ has longer lasting effect.
Though that might be affected by the dosing period pattern.
And there is the possibility of a modified AZ becoming available.
Giving boosters in the other vaccine might well be the best overall - which would make the comparison pretty much irrelevant.
The shortage of foreign seasonal workers has forced some businesses in places like Old Orchard Beach, Maine, to limit their hours or close for an extra day a week.Tristan Spinski for The New York Times
Not sure the US government has recently made it much harder for businesses to recruit temporary staff and to guarantee the food supply chain. The UK government has. It could be that there are significant gaps on the shelves of US supermarkets just as there are in British ones right now. Any news on that? It certainly doesn't seem to be happening in the rest of Europe.
*** WARNING WARNING WARNING ***
Another derangement alert.
You need to get out of the echo chamber and visit a supermarket.
Actually you need to visit multiple supermarkets as the issues seem to be almost random - and depends on where a delivery has been missed.
Morrisons round here has problems but Sainsburys is full. Elsewhere (Buckinghamshire) Sainsburys and Tescos have problems and Morrisons doesn't.
Golly, I hadn't read the whole Neil Oliver GBTV rant, it's a zinger. Looking forward to him playing his part in Bettertogether II.
Wow that is pure mental. Of course, it's worth pointing out that "the few" were fighting for a country that had put in place multiple limitations on personal freedom (conscription, rationing, censorship, internment to name a few of them) so even if you strip away the obligatory WW2 masturbatory froth the argument is just historically illiterate bilge from beginning to end. Where do they find these people?
The concept of unconditional freedom is interesting.
'I'm a giant man baby and no whim of mine shall be thwarted!'
Oliver is one of the bigger fuds BetterTogether2 would be well advised to steer well clear of. It has long been clear that he is an extremist, but he is displaying strong signs of a diagnosis now. How much longer will the BBC put up with him tarnishing their reputation?
Golly, I hadn't read the whole Neil Oliver GBTV rant, it's a zinger. Looking forward to him playing his part in Bettertogether II.
Wow that is pure mental. Of course, it's worth pointing out that "the few" were fighting for a country that had put in place multiple limitations on personal freedom (conscription, rationing, censorship, internment to name a few of them) so even if you strip away the obligatory WW2 masturbatory froth the argument is just historically illiterate bilge from beginning to end. Where do they find these people?
Yes, the delusions of grandeur there, the narcissism, the total loss of perspective, is verging on mental illness. Quite a shock to see that. To me he's just the bloke who presented a TV series on ancient history a few years ago that was perfectly watchable.
The shortage of foreign seasonal workers has forced some businesses in places like Old Orchard Beach, Maine, to limit their hours or close for an extra day a week.Tristan Spinski for The New York Times
Not sure the US government has recently made it much harder for businesses to recruit temporary staff and to guarantee the food supply chain. The UK government has. It could be that there are significant gaps on the shelves of US supermarkets just as there are in British ones right now. Any news on that? It certainly doesn't seem to be happening in the rest of Europe.
*** WARNING WARNING WARNING ***
Another derangement alert.
You need to get out of the echo chamber and visit a supermarket.
Actually you need to visit multiple supermarkets as the issues seem to be almost random - and depends on where a delivery has been missed.
Morrisons round here has problems but Sainsburys is full. Elsewhere (Buckinghamshire) Sainsburys and Tescos have problems and Morrisons doesn't.
Agree. I hadn't noticed anything to date and then as I posted last night Sainsbury's in Cobham on Friday had rows of empty shelves, mainly pasta and tinned goods missing.
Mr. Divvie, while fictional, it was telling that Homeland's last season focused on Afghanistan.
Aye, I watched and enjoyed it. While there was often a high tosh content, Homeland pretty much fell on the side of good tv I think.
Except the plot was even more ludicrous than most US series. If you suspended disbelief, it was a good watch, flagging a little in some of the later seasons.
One certainly wasn't there for the nuance for sure! The character of Saul in particular got more irritating as time went on.
The opening credits were a little masterpiece in themselves imo. Put you in exactly the right mood - jittery paranoia.
Golly, I hadn't read the whole Neil Oliver GBTV rant, it's a zinger. Looking forward to him playing his part in Bettertogether II.
Wow that is pure mental. Of course, it's worth pointing out that "the few" were fighting for a country that had put in place multiple limitations on personal freedom (conscription, rationing, censorship, internment to name a few of them) so even if you strip away the obligatory WW2 masturbatory froth the argument is just historically illiterate bilge from beginning to end. Where do they find these people?
The concept of unconditional freedom is interesting.
'I'm a giant man baby and no whim of mine shall be thwarted!'
Oliver is one of the bigger fuds BetterTogether2 would be well advised to steer well clear of. It has long been clear that he is an extremist, but he is displaying strong signs of a diagnosis now. How much longer will the BBC put up with him tarnishing their reputation?
If Sir Keir Starmer or Burnham become PM and finally allow an indyref2 in 5 or 10 years time whether they wish Oliver to join a BetterTogether2 would be up to them.
AZ is definitely shitter than Pfizer based on the data we have.
Decent effort from Oxford/AZ, but they’ve clearly delivered an inferior product.
We need to boost all the Double-AZ’ers with at least one Pfizer jab ASAP.
OTOH Our (normal) dosing interval is superior, I say this as a 3 week Pfizer recipient. There's some tentative evidence Moderna is actually the best of the lot. The big factor outside of (all) vaccines is still age. The decision to boost up in age order downward is correct with a third dose showing nice results.
What an extraordinary coincidence that the best person to be on the anti-sleaze watchdog just happened to be an old chum of Johnsons from his Bullingdon Club days.
However, I remember some Corbyn fans on here defending McDonnell employing Corbyn's son in a taxpayer-funded role. By an astonishing coincidence, the son of his best bud was the best candidate for the job.
(Hint, he wasn't.)
If we want to stop people hiring friends, family and chums to roles, especially to taxpayer-funded roles, then it needs to apply equally to all.
I don't think I have ever defended cronyism in the Labour Party either.
The nepotism and Chumocracy does show how illusory "taking back control" was.
Jobs for the sons and daughters of friends is as old as jobs themselves. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't; sometimes it's not the best way of hiring someone but sometimes it can work. Rather depends on how how up the chain the job is.
That's the Indy. And there seems to be not a shred of actual evidence of malpractice.
Has anyone provided any evidence that Johnson had a corrupt role in the process, or how the process worked such that Johnson could manipulate it? Or that the member appointed is unfit to be on the Committee or is corrupt?
Or is this just Hoof-in-Mouth Rayner howling at the moon because it is Tuesday and she still does not have anything to say?
"You were in a student club with him 35 years ago" is some way beyond farfetched.
The only possible chink I can see is if the PM is supplied with say 50 names, from which he then gets to choose who he wants, and that would still require a lot more evidence that we have.
It's quite a dangerous argument to make because it shrinks the pool of acceptable candidates - 'No, you went to the same school when you were six!" - and undermines the expectation of personal integrity.
At this level it looks bad, though. However, I agree that we've not seen evidence that, for example, Johnson looked at the shortlist and said 'He's the one. Know him. Good chap' or similar. Nor have we seen any suggestion, AFAIK, that a selection committee produced three names in order of preference, and the Good Chap was third.
I think what we may get here at some time is similar to what happened to selection of Bishops, where the process was that the PM got 2 names and a theoretical convention that they could choose either - which has only been used once in 100-200 appointments.
That has now been replaced with the second name being a "reserve" if eg the first one dies.
Quite concerning, though, is the dire quality of opposition a reliance on painting this stuff in poster paints indicates.
On the topic of incompetence and excess deaths, how many excess deaths do we think the whole AZN smearing debacle will actually cause? Looking at you Macron and Mr 8%.
Not so many, judging by the (rather impressive) French vaccination performance.
Which is not to diminish the criminal stupidity of Macron's comments.
That doesn't tell you much. They suspended vaccination for an entire week if memory serves. The number now is almost irrelevant.
I'm sure the number could be estimated quite well, based on the increased risk to those whose vaccination was delayed for a period, plus the number who were put off having a jab altogether (although the willingness in France to be vaccinated has I believe gone up overall since Macron's comments).
Then you have to add the knock-on effect of all this negative publicity on take-up around the world, especially in countries relying on COVAX. In the end we'll never know for certain, as we won't know what the take-up rates would have been without this unfortunate episode.
The most remarkable thing is that AZN and Pfizer have very similar safety profiles, and yet 99% of the negative coverage is on AZN.
Also remarkable that AZN is still not approved in the US.
This is in some ways an even worse fuck up than Macron’s comments. Azn is supposed to be the work horse of the world so the reticence to hold back approval in America is causing incalculable damage, given how much smaller countries pay attention to the US regulator. Compounded of course by the pig headedness of not at least giving it an exception status for foreigners visiting the US who have had it. And finally all the doses they had sitting there for months in fridges.
Had Trump overseen this, we’d never heard the end of it. I’m increasingly sure Biden’s term will go down as the worst they’ve ever had. Perhaps until Trump #2 next time!
The American regulator is responsible for American healthcare, not sending a message to some unspecified small country. The US has sufficient supply of the best vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna), so what's the emergency that would justify emergency-use approval of a shittier one?
First, there is now more than sufficient data for the FDA to have fully approved all the major vaccines. Secondly, referring to AZN as “a shittier one” is precisely the sort of stupidity folks like Macron have engaged in.
Macron is quoted as saying it was pretty much ineffective for old people, which isn't at all what I'm saying and doesn't seem to check out. But from the point of view of a country that already has Moderna and Pfizer, it seems, on available evidence, substantially less effective. Are you disagreeing with that, or are you just complaining that I said "shittier" rather than "less effective"?
Given the supplies of vaccine are limited even for first world countries, playing games with what are very effective vaccines indeed costs lives (and/or economies). South Korea is just the latest to find its vaccination efforts severely constrained: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2021/08/693_313239.htmll
Sorry, who's playing games? Are you disagreeing that on available evidence Moderna/Pfizer seem to be more effective than AZ or not???
There's a marginal difference. A choice between no vaccine and vaccine is massively more consequential.
The UK study got 88% vs 60% against Delta; That's more than a marginal difference, it's pretty big.
It's of course true that the choice between no vaccine and vaccine is much more consequential. But where I came in was saying the US already has ample supply of Moderna and Pfizer, so they're not making the choice between no vaccine and vaccine, they're making a choice between a better vaccine and a worse vaccine.
96% vs 92% for hospitilisation sounds pretty similar:
If those figures were reliable (it may be at the limits of what you can reasonably measure, I'm not sure) it would be a pretty huge difference - it's twice as many people getting hospitalized! I appreciate everybody's plucky patriotic spirit but all things being equal, the Americans are obviously going to want to give Grandma the American one that makes her half as likely to end up in hospital...
The 92% and 96% figures come with confidence intervals of (75-97) and (86-99), which are much larger than I'd expect given the size of the populations being studied, but, there you are.
If forced to make a choice individually I think I'd have a slight preference for Pfizer - first dose protection kicks in faster and protection against infection by Delta is better than AZ.
As a government making the choice there's an additional benefit in vaccine diversity, and in speed of providing doses in having a wide range of vaccines. I think that would have made using AZ a plus for the US.
The differences really don't justify the heaps of ordure that have been piled onto Oxford/AstraZeneca. I think this is justifiably one of the major scandals of the pandemic.
Mr. Divvie, while fictional, it was telling that Homeland's last season focused on Afghanistan.
Aye, I watched and enjoyed it. While there was often a high tosh content, Homeland pretty much fell on the side of good tv I think.
Except the plot was even more ludicrous than most US series. If you suspended disbelief, it was a good watch, flagging a little in some of the later seasons.
One certainly wasn't there for the nuance for sure! The character of Saul in particular got more irritating as time went on.
The opening credits were a little masterpiece in themselves imo. Put you in exactly the right mood - jittery paranoia.
You're right. Opening credits is one of my things, quite good productions can have meh ones while meh progs can have crackers - Southland springs to mind in the latter category.
My favourites (great tv, great opening sequence) are those from Babylon Berlin, perfect sense of the period and impending doom. Won industry awards I believe.
Mr. Divvie, while fictional, it was telling that Homeland's last season focused on Afghanistan.
Aye, I watched and enjoyed it. While there was often a high tosh content, Homeland pretty much fell on the side of good tv I think.
Except the plot was even more ludicrous than most US series. If you suspended disbelief, it was a good watch, flagging a little in some of the later seasons.
One certainly wasn't there for the nuance for sure! The character of Saul in particular got more irritating as time went on.
The opening credits were a little masterpiece in themselves imo. Put you in exactly the right mood - jittery paranoia.
You're right. Opening credits is one of my things, quite good productions can have meh ones while meh progs can have crackers - Southland springs to mind in the latter category.
My favourites (great tv, great opening sequence) are those from Babylon Berlin, perfect sense of the period and impending doom. Won industry awards I believe.
What an extraordinary coincidence that the best person to be on the anti-sleaze watchdog just happened to be an old chum of Johnsons from his Bullingdon Club days.
However, I remember some Corbyn fans on here defending McDonnell employing Corbyn's son in a taxpayer-funded role. By an astonishing coincidence, the son of his best bud was the best candidate for the job.
(Hint, he wasn't.)
If we want to stop people hiring friends, family and chums to roles, especially to taxpayer-funded roles, then it needs to apply equally to all.
I don't think I have ever defended cronyism in the Labour Party either.
The nepotism and Chumocracy does show how illusory "taking back control" was.
Jobs for the sons and daughters of friends is as old as jobs themselves. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't; sometimes it's not the best way of hiring someone but sometimes it can work. Rather depends on how how up the chain the job is.
That's the Indy. And there seems to be not a shred of actual evidence of malpractice.
Has anyone provided any evidence that Johnson had a corrupt role in the process, or how the process worked such that Johnson could manipulate it? Or that the member appointed is unfit to be on the Committee or is corrupt?
Or is this just Hoof-in-Mouth Rayner howling at the moon because it is Tuesday and she still does not have anything to say?
"You were in a student club with him 35 years ago" is some way beyond farfetched.
The only possible chink I can see is if the PM is supplied with say 50 names, from which he then gets to choose who he wants, and that would still require a lot more evidence that we have.
It's quite a dangerous argument to make because it shrinks the pool of acceptable candidates - 'No, you went to the same school when you were six!" - and undermines the expectation of personal integrity.
At this level it looks bad, though. However, I agree that we've not seen evidence that, for example, Johnson looked at the shortlist and said 'He's the one. Know him. Good chap' or similar. Nor have we seen any suggestion, AFAIK, that a selection committee produced three names in order of preference, and the Good Chap was third.
I think what we may get here at some time is similar to what happened to selection of Bishops, where the process was that the PM got 2 names and a theoretical convention that they could choose either - which has only been used once in 100-200 appointments.
That has now been replaced with the second name being a "reserve" if eg the first one dies.
Quite concerning, though, is the dire quality of opposition a reliance on painting this stuff in poster paints indicates.
Despite your archaeology you haven’t really found a good reason why Boris should be picking an old school friend to head the Boris-monitoring committee, have you?
Comments
"Expectation of personal integrity" with Johnson? Now we know you're just trolling us.
In an answer slipped out after MPs went back to their constituencies for recess, [Cabinet Office minister Chloe] Smith acknowledged that Mr Johnson was given the ultimate say on which of the candidates to appoint following a shortlisting process led by Lord Evans, the chair of the committee.
So yes, Boris did have a role. The role.
However if Al Qaeda return we would have no alternative but to reinvade, or inevitably face Afghanistan being used again as a base for further terrorist attacks on the West and more 9/11s
An old friend of hers was in Izmir last year when the earthquake hit. A building next to the one she was in collapsed. Horrible stories.
Although we complain about our climate and environment, we (touch wood) don't suffer much from these sorts of natural disasters.
Plus he would also be challenged from the left by the likes of AOC as a corporate sell out
South Korea is just the latest to find its vaccination efforts severely constrained:
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/tech/2021/08/693_313239.htmll
There also appear to be all sorts of Islamic extremist groups pouring into Afghanistan, they’ve had a dearth of recent opportunities to fight the good fight so are raring to go; doesn’t bode well. That’s how wee Osama Bin Laden got his start in life as I recall.
Mr Johnson was given the ultimate say on which of the candidates to appoint following a shortlisting process led by Lord Evans, the chair of the committee.
On 21 October 2014, it was announced that he was to become a Crossbench life peer, having been nominated personally by the Prime Minister.[22] He was created Baron Evans of Weardale, of Toys Hill in the County of Kent, on 3 December 2014.[23] In January 2015 he was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Kent.[24] and on 1 November 2018 he was appointed Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life for a 5-year term.[25] In December 2018, following controversy about his paid business portfolio in light of his appointment to the Committee, it was announced that he would step down from his position as a Non-Executive Director with HSBC Holdings in early 2019.[26]
Nothing to worry about there, then. Sorry I suggested otherwise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_cj_akGCjE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban–ISIL_conflict_in_Afghanistan
The Democrats need to wake up and take away the obvious fertile campaigning ground from Trump. Come out hard on a de-Sinofication of the Western economy and work with allies to unpick the insidious creep into our political, business and academic cultures. Reposition their security apparatus in recognition that they are currently losing the Second Cold War. And of course, there needs to be a full and public reckoning for the Americans implicated in the Wuhan lab scandal.
If they don’t do this, I don’t think it will much matter who Trump runs against, he will win. Which given his temperament, moves the second hand a bit closer to midnight on the doomsday clock.
Equally the Republican Party will rue the day they gave up the chance to bar him from future office.
What a big mess.
Also says "too soon to say" whether booster shots necessary. Pfizer has some data on decline of efficacy with 3 week gap - results will be different for longer Pfizer gaps and different vaccines. Also depends on what measure is considered - eg decline of antibody vs hospital admission.
I think this is defensible for an MP's staff (and I will also defend employing spouses, as I did part-time for a while - who else is going to help cope with a constituent ringing up urgently late on Saturday evening, as frequently happened?). If they aren't very good then the public know exactly whom to blame. But for Government-appointed positions I think the balance tips - you need to have a transparent process, especially where significant public contracts are involved.
https://twitter.com/marceldirsus/status/1422461012549251105?s=20
Everyone saw that barring Trump from future office was a career limiting move as come the next election they wouldn't be the Republican candidate for their district / seat.
I'm not sure who will win, but the death cultists do have something of an inbuilt advantage.
A choice between no vaccine and vaccine is massively more consequential.
The reason the UK is in a far better position than many other countries is that we ignored
such minor differences.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.22.21255913v2
While there was often a high tosh content, Homeland pretty much fell on the side of good tv I think.
The shortage of foreign seasonal workers has forced some businesses in places like Old Orchard Beach, Maine, to limit their hours or close for an extra day a week.Tristan Spinski for The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/02/business/economy/seasonal-foreign-guest-workers.html
Interesting how it handled moving from the original three protagonists*.
I've watched very, very little new TV for ages (F1 and the odd bit of news excepted), I think just Homeland and Game of Thrones, which I caught on DVD (and certainly didn't end as well as Homeland).
Edited extra bit: *to clarify, three protagonist setup, obviously two stuck around.
Harris 31%
Michelle Obama 19% (who certainly won't run)
Ocasio-Cortez 5%
Abrams 5%
Buttigieg 4%
Booker 3%
Yang 3%
Klobuchar 3%
Cuomo 2%
https://mclaughlinonline.com/pols/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/National-Monthly-Omnibus-6-21-21-Release.pdf
It's of course true that the choice between no vaccine and vaccine is much more consequential. But where I came in was saying the US already has ample supply of Moderna and Pfizer, so they're not making the choice between no vaccine and vaccine, they're making a choice between a better vaccine and a worse vaccine.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vaccines-highly-effective-against-hospitalisation-from-delta-variant
AOC is simply too young and there are other options for 24.
In a sick way I have 'loved' the stories coming out from people who chose not to have the vaccine, begging for it as they are about to be ventilated, to be told it is too late. Sadly some of them have later died. It reminds me a bit of war stories of soldiers keeping firing until the last minute, before trying to surrender only to be told "too late chum".
(For total clarity, because the internet does not do nuance, I am not loving people dying...)
Also, if they are reliable? Why are these not believable, but the other figures are?
Edit, you said reliable not "to be trusted", sorry.
The article does not fully describe the appointment process, nor does it link to a description of it, nor does it link to Rayner's written question which has nothing more. Not does it provide any evidence that the man is unfit for the role, or evidence of past questionable behaviour of lack of integrity.
The article does acknowledge that there is an independent shortlisting process. No mention of how long the shortlist is, either in the Indy or in Rayner's question.
The Indy mentions "scathing report from the Council of Europe" - also no link to evidence.
When I look it up 1 - The UK is one of few countries to have permitted publication of the evaluation report (may be affected by timings). 2 - The report is not 'scathing'. 3 - The report recognises that the UK is 10th in the 'least corrupt' ratings worldwide by Transparency International.
So at the moment it looks like the daily unevidenced smear from the Indy, and the daily mudslinging from Angela Rayner. But that is what they both do at present.
This is the same basis that all those untrue conspiracy theories on NHS Privatisation that were thrown at Jeremy Hunt - a prejudicial unevidenced assumption that proximity of whatever sort guarantees the existence of a corrupt relationship. It doesn't - ask Eoin Clarke about the blizzard of apologies he ended up issuing to avoid libel actions.
More interestingly, the article puts a question mark over APPGs - though on the very strange basis that 2nd job for MPs are in some way problematic per se.
Links:
Angela Rayner written question:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-sleaze-committee-standards-public-life-b1895212.html
Council of Europe reports:
https://www.coe.int/en/web/greco/evaluations/round-5-new
Seems not this time...
Mr. B2, it is interesting how sometimes shows can get away with iffy stuff and sometimes they can't.
The 100 had a dodgy approach to radiation poisoning, I think, but I liked it enough to bypass that.
But Outcasts (I think it was called) was an atrociously badly written sci-fi show by the BBC. The writing was... the best example had one episode whereby (on an alien world mankind had settled) sound waves were making people sick. The reasoning was that the sound (which is just air molecules vibrating, remember) was creating viruses. Creating viruses. Reverberating molecules were bringing life into being. Better yet, when the sound stopped, the viruses all vanished.
....
Truly, a Rian Johnson of a plot.
Yes: 48.1% (-6.1)
No: 51.9% (+6.1)
via
@BritainElects
poll tracker, 24 Jun
Chgs. w/ 13 Jan
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1422473591250169881?s=20
This “private company” spiel is of course total nonsense when it comes to the bigger deals like Volvo, but there is actually an element of truth when you get down to SME entrepreneurial and innovation cooperation. China is vast and complex. There are plenty of extremely clever engineers and businesspeople who disdain the Communist Party and genuinely seek bonds with the west. Sweden is, for many reasons, a wonderful opportunity for them, and vice versa.
I’ve heard it argued that Swedes and Chinese share several important cultural characteristics. Sounded like total bollocks and I can’t remember the details, but people swallow these myths and it would not surprise me if a lot of Swedes genuinely believe that. After all, the English and French both perpetuate the myth that they are mortal enemies, whereas any reasoned outsider can see that they are peas in a pod.
Another derangement alert.
You need to get out of the echo chamber and visit a supermarket.
'I'm a giant man baby and no whim of mine shall be thwarted!'
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2021-07-19.35678.h&s=committee+in+public+life
Though that might be affected by the dosing period pattern.
And there is the possibility of a modified AZ becoming available.
Giving boosters in the other vaccine might well be the best overall - which would make the comparison pretty much irrelevant.
Morrisons round here has problems but Sainsburys is full. Elsewhere (Buckinghamshire) Sainsburys and Tescos have problems and Morrisons doesn't.
AZ is definitely shitter than Pfizer based on the data we have.
Decent effort from Oxford/AZ, but they’ve clearly delivered an inferior product.
We need to boost all the Double-AZ’ers with at least one Pfizer jab ASAP.
Personally I think he is an excellent historian
The big factor outside of (all) vaccines is still age. The decision to boost up in age order downward is correct with a third dose showing nice results.
https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/olympic-games/en/results/cycling-track/results-men-s-team-pursuit-rnd1-000400-.htm
That has now been replaced with the second name being a "reserve" if eg the first one dies.
Quite concerning, though, is the dire quality of opposition a reliance on painting this stuff in poster paints indicates.
The 92% and 96% figures come with confidence intervals of (75-97) and (86-99), which are much larger than I'd expect given the size of the populations being studied, but, there you are.
If forced to make a choice individually I think I'd have a slight preference for Pfizer - first dose protection kicks in faster and protection against infection by Delta is better than AZ.
As a government making the choice there's an additional benefit in vaccine diversity, and in speed of providing doses in having a wide range of vaccines. I think that would have made using AZ a plus for the US.
The differences really don't justify the heaps of ordure that have been piled onto Oxford/AstraZeneca. I think this is justifiably one of the major scandals of the pandemic.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/excessdeathsinyourneighbourhoodduringthecoronaviruscovid19pandemic/2021-08-03
My favourites (great tv, great opening sequence) are those from Babylon Berlin, perfect sense of the period and impending doom. Won industry awards I believe.
https://youtu.be/Ls_BERCtMyU
Mad Men has great opening credits, and a theme tune which deliberately but effectively strays from the show’s period setting.
I often think that you can tell if a movie is good or not even from its opening credits.