What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
I concur. The Tank Commander and his neo-Unionist fellow travellers are shooting themselves in the feet.
This particular Unionist has no issue with Indyref2 and I agree with @kinabalu
However, the first problem the SNPs has is calling indyref2 before the majority of Scots are ready for it , and secondly it would be very brave without a majority in favour of independence
Additionally I really cannot understand Nicola agreeing a deal with the Greens as it was not necessary
How many times do we have to do this? 1. Scottish voters are ready for the referendum having voted for parties to deliver it 2. A comfortable majority of MSPs pledged to deliver it were elected in a record turnout
We cannot have a "votes cast count, seats elected don't count" argument without also accepting that the Labour / LibDem / Green / SNP group won the UK election.
As many times as you need to understand
The composition of seats in Westminster does not determine Switzerland’s foreign policy because it is not within their sphere of competence no matter how interesting it might be
The composition of seats in Holyrood does not determine whether there will be a referendum because it is not within their sphere of competence
It is purely a political argument that the UK government has been willing to ignore. A clear majority of votes cast would be more compelling to demonstrate that there is a demand from the voters of Scotland
I am not making an argument as to whether such a thing is a devolved matter or not (and it isn't) so most of your post is irrelevant.
The latter point is fascinating though. If members elected is not the correct measure and votes cast is, then Jeremy Corbyn would be prime minister as the Labour / LD / SNP / Green block received more votes than the Tory / Brexit / UKIP / DUP one
Except he wouldn't as the LDs made clear they would not make Corbyn PM, they might make Starmer PM now though
Except he would because in this alt world we're going on votes not seats. The LDs couldn't block anything in parliament because seats in parliament are irrelevant. That's the whole point of the argument. We simply add up the votes for 'Get Brexit Done!' vs those for 'Storrrp Brexit!' and the latter edges it. Corbyn is PM because he leads Labour, the biggest party in the winning block. QED.
Cases steady overall, cases down in England again.
Scottish numbers in hospital rising pretty fast -> doubled in last 12 days. Don't really understand why it's so different there... feels like must be schools spreading cases and then going up to parents/grandparents?
Yep. And thats with high school kids wearing masks. Just think what fun you will have when yours go back without them.
But don't worry. Gavin Williamson will be on the case.
This madness thinking remains that cases zoom up despite people wearing masks and people just think it would be worse if people didn't wear masks.
In England now in many settings including pubs,clubs football grounds no one is wearing a mask and people are in very close proximity to each other, yet cases here have been falling slightly over the past 8 days..
The big surge in cases started in June, fell back from the peak but is still holding at a very high level. It did not start last week.
I am happy for you in England to make your choices on this matter. I am happy that we have made different choices in Scotland.
Are you making the choice of avoiding pubs, gala dinners, weddings, bar mitzvahs, skittle nights, darts competitions, snooker halls, fun, friends, family or indeed anywhere where you might transmit or receive covid?
I can only assume you are.
I was in the pub a week ago. Had the joiner in my office earlier with no mask (but the door open)
Perhaps you might want to try again.
No that's fine and I'm happy for you, but proves my point that you are irrational (almost to the point of being hysterical).
Have you looked in a mirror with regards to the irrational comment? I am being *careful*. That means I absolutely am not going into busy indoor places without wearing a mask. That means thinking before doing. There are the two absolute extremes - go nowhere and see noone, and take no precautions - and then what a lot of people are doing which is what I am doing.
I've been into English supermarkets. Last week. Mask wearing was pretty high. As it was in the motorway services. Are the people wearing masks also being "hysterical"?
Cases steady overall, cases down in England again.
Scottish numbers in hospital rising pretty fast -> doubled in last 12 days. Don't really understand why it's so different there... feels like must be schools spreading cases and then going up to parents/grandparents?
Yep. And thats with high school kids wearing masks. Just think what fun you will have when yours go back without them.
But don't worry. Gavin Williamson will be on the case.
This madness thinking remains that cases zoom up despite people wearing masks and people just think it would be worse if people didn't wear masks.
In England now in many settings including pubs,clubs football grounds no one is wearing a mask and people are in very close proximity to each other, yet cases here have been falling slightly over the past 8 days..
The big surge in cases started in June, fell back from the peak but is still holding at a very high level. It did not start last week.
I am happy for you in England to make your choices on this matter. I am happy that we have made different choices in Scotland.
Are you making the choice of avoiding pubs, gala dinners, weddings, bar mitzvahs, skittle nights, darts competitions, snooker halls, fun, friends, family or indeed anywhere where you might transmit or receive covid?
I can only assume you are.
I was in the pub a week ago. Had the joiner in my office earlier with no mask (but the door open)
Perhaps you might want to try again.
The man who came to fix the washing machine is the more usual narrative arc in the online videos I watch.
Cases steady overall, cases down in England again.
Scottish numbers in hospital rising pretty fast -> doubled in last 12 days. Don't really understand why it's so different there... feels like must be schools spreading cases and then going up to parents/grandparents?
Yep. And thats with high school kids wearing masks. Just think what fun you will have when yours go back without them.
But don't worry. Gavin Williamson will be on the case.
This madness thinking remains that cases zoom up despite people wearing masks and people just think it would be worse if people didn't wear masks.
In England now in many settings including pubs,clubs football grounds no one is wearing a mask and people are in very close proximity to each other, yet cases here have been falling slightly over the past 8 days..
The big surge in cases started in June, fell back from the peak but is still holding at a very high level. It did not start last week.
I am happy for you in England to make your choices on this matter. I am happy that we have made different choices in Scotland.
Are you making the choice of avoiding pubs, gala dinners, weddings, bar mitzvahs, skittle nights, darts competitions, snooker halls, fun, friends, family or indeed anywhere where you might transmit or receive covid?
I can only assume you are.
I was in the pub a week ago. Had the joiner in my office earlier with no mask (but the door open)
Perhaps you might want to try again.
No that's fine and I'm happy for you, but proves my point that you are irrational (almost to the point of being hysterical).
No, it isn't irrational.
If you reduce interpersonal contacts by 50% then you reduce infection risk by 50%, other things equal. More if you are selective in what those contacts are.
We had a family gathering of 15 of all ages over the weekend, but all had negative LFTs and all adults double jabbed. So quite a bit safer than 15 random in a pub etc.
But the numbers could be even lower. Only 13% of those asked to respond to the survey did so. Researchers believe those who are suffering ongoing symptoms would be more likely to complete the survey than those who are not. If all those with long Covid were to do so among those who did so, that would suggest their actual number was just 4,000 or fewer than 2%.
Fifteen weeks after infection, between 1.7% and 14% of them still had some symptoms. But there's no evidence to show that large numbers had to get help for symptoms that were so bad they had to stay in bed, or couldn't go to school.
"Nearly every malodorous myth about the Great War can be traced back to the literary septic tank that is Lloyd George’s War Memoirs."
An article in the Express that is interesting and amusing?!!??
End Times....
It describes Grey's school, Winchester, as "the thinking boy's Eton"!
I've got Lewis-Stempel's book, Six Weeks – the short and gallant life of the British officer in the First World War. It is mainly about the subalterns, iirc, the Lieutenant Georges in Blackadder terms.
Wykehamists tend to be less posh than Etonians but more intellectual
Didn't Rishi Sunak go there?
He did, he is less posh by background than Boris and Cameron but more intellectual.
Geoffrey Howe and Hugh Gaitskell were also prominent postwar Wykehamist politicians and both intellectuals too.
Winchester is also technically older than Eton, founded in 1382, Eton was only founded in 1440
I was right that Winchester is the older of the two and also generally the more intellectual of the two, 9th on A level and pre U grades to Eton's 13th in the league table of top 100 independent schools
Not a lot in it, these days. Eton often outperforms Winchester on that metric and on Oxbridge places per capita. 40 years ago Eton was markedly unselective, hence the joke "Slough comp.", with only the truly thick being relegated to Stowe. It's different now, Eton lives or dies by league table results.
Somewhere iirc David Cameron was wondering if Eton's (and probably most public schools') transition to an intellectual hothouse is not a mixed blessing.
JCVI on third dose: In the event of a booster programme, it is expected that severely immunosuppressed people will also be offered a booster dose, at a suitable interval after their third dose.
But the numbers could be even lower. Only 13% of those asked to respond to the survey did so. Researchers believe those who are suffering ongoing symptoms would be more likely to complete the survey than those who are not. If all those with long Covid were to do so among those who did so, that would suggest their actual number was just 4,000 or fewer than 2%.
Fifteen weeks after infection, between 1.7% and 14% of them still had some symptoms. But there's no evidence to show that large numbers had to get help for symptoms that were so bad they had to stay in bed, or couldn't go to school.
Yes, that is where the 2% figure comes from. It assumes the non-responders were symptom free.
"Nearly every malodorous myth about the Great War can be traced back to the literary septic tank that is Lloyd George’s War Memoirs."
An article in the Express that is interesting and amusing?!!??
End Times....
It describes Grey's school, Winchester, as "the thinking boy's Eton"!
I've got Lewis-Stempel's book, Six Weeks – the short and gallant life of the British officer in the First World War. It is mainly about the subalterns, iirc, the Lieutenant Georges in Blackadder terms.
Wykehamists tend to be less posh than Etonians but more intellectual
Didn't Rishi Sunak go there?
He did, he is less posh by background than Boris and Cameron but more intellectual.
Geoffrey Howe and Hugh Gaitskell were also prominent postwar Wykehamist politicians and both intellectuals too.
Winchester is also technically older than Eton, founded in 1382, Eton was only founded in 1440
I was right that Winchester is the older of the two and also generally the more intellectual of the two, 9th on A level and pre U grades to Eton's 13th in the league table of top 100 independent schools
Not a lot in it, these days. Eton often outperforms Winchester on that metric and on Oxbridge places per capita. 40 years ago Eton was markedly unselective, hence the joke "Slough comp.", with only the truly thick being relegated to Stowe. It's different now, Eton lives or dies by league table results.
Somewhere iirc David Cameron was wondering if Eton's (and probably most public schools') transition to an intellectual hothouse is not a mixed blessing.
It does make you wonder where all the thick poshos emerge from. Lancing?
Cases steady overall, cases down in England again.
Scottish numbers in hospital rising pretty fast -> doubled in last 12 days. Don't really understand why it's so different there... feels like must be schools spreading cases and then going up to parents/grandparents?
Yep. And thats with high school kids wearing masks. Just think what fun you will have when yours go back without them.
But don't worry. Gavin Williamson will be on the case.
This madness thinking remains that cases zoom up despite people wearing masks and people just think it would be worse if people didn't wear masks.
In England now in many settings including pubs,clubs football grounds no one is wearing a mask and people are in very close proximity to each other, yet cases here have been falling slightly over the past 8 days..
Not worn one for several weeks now (last time was cos I nipped on the Tube in London); cricket matches, trains (including several cross country journeys as well as trips to Town), trade shows, weddings etc. Such a relief.
Relief is a perfect word for it.
I have absolutely no problem with someone either wearing a mask or eschewing a mask, it's their choice.
What I cannot grasp however, is the idea among some that wearing a mask in public is normal or should be normalised.
It is not normal. Human beings relate to each other by seeing each others' faces. There are metric tonnes of research on this. It is a fundamental part of the way we interact and bond with each other.
Masks are a temporary physical medical intervention, like neck brace or a cast. They are not a normal – or even desirable – part of daily life.
You say that you have no problem with someone either wearing a mask or eschewing a mask, and I agree, but how do you feel about corporations and other entities insisting on mask-wearing even though employees/customers are not legally obliged to?
I think if it's a venue – eg bar – then they should be free to do, as it's no different to any other dress code (i.e. no trainers, no denim)*
If it's a workplace, then I guess I'd hope there was a strong medical reason for it specific to that workplace. Is it a common stipulation?
(*I suspect most wouldn't as it would reduce great significantly the amount of people who wanted to go – who wants to wear a mask in a bar/pub/restaurant??)
Don't most workplaces have a dress code? I would venture to say a higher percentage have one for employees than bars for customers.
The end of farcical compulsory suit wearing for no good reason would be a bit of petty authoritarianism I'd love to see the back of. Suit sales down 50%. Good. If masks are unnatural, what about the tie? You literally, compulsorily sport a potential noose to do a day's work. On pain of disciplinary action. Why?
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
An entirely factual and valid point to win votes?
Yes I can too.
No, Philip. A mendacious soundbite repeated ad tedium because it's effective, is what I meant there.
But both statements are only effective because the public knows they are true.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.
Thankfully UK Plc finances are looking perfect at the moment... aren't they?
On More or Less this morning there was an item which pointed out that the cost of servicing our Government Debt is at an historic low. Rather less than 3% of GDP.
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
I concur. The Tank Commander and his neo-Unionist fellow travellers are shooting themselves in the feet.
This particular Unionist has no issue with Indyref2 and I agree with @kinabalu
However, the first problem the SNPs has is calling indyref2 before the majority of Scots are ready for it , and secondly it would be very brave without a majority in favour of independence
Additionally I really cannot understand Nicola agreeing a deal with the Greens as it was not necessary
How many times do we have to do this? 1. Scottish voters are ready for the referendum having voted for parties to deliver it 2. A comfortable majority of MSPs pledged to deliver it were elected in a record turnout
We cannot have a "votes cast count, seats elected don't count" argument without also accepting that the Labour / LibDem / Green / SNP group won the UK election.
As many times as you need to understand
The composition of seats in Westminster does not determine Switzerland’s foreign policy because it is not within their sphere of competence no matter how interesting it might be
The composition of seats in Holyrood does not determine whether there will be a referendum because it is not within their sphere of competence
It is purely a political argument that the UK government has been willing to ignore. A clear majority of votes cast would be more compelling to demonstrate that there is a demand from the voters of Scotland
I am not making an argument as to whether such a thing is a devolved matter or not (and it isn't) so most of your post is irrelevant.
The latter point is fascinating though. If members elected is not the correct measure and votes cast is, then Jeremy Corbyn would be prime minister as the Labour / LD / SNP / Green block received more votes than the Tory / Brexit / UKIP / DUP one
Except he wouldn't as the LDs made clear they would not make Corbyn PM, they might make Starmer PM now though
Except he would because in this alt world we're going on votes not seats. The LDs couldn't block anything in parliament because seats in parliament are irrelevant. That's the whole point of the argument. We simply add up the votes for 'Get Brexit Done!' vs those for 'Storrrp Brexit!' and the latter edges it. Corbyn is PM because he leads Labour, the biggest party in the winning block. QED.
The LDs would have voted to stop Brexit but not to make Corbyn PM.
So Boris would still be PM but we would also still be in the EU
It's an Israeli study, and they don't offer a second dose for people who've had an existing Covid infection, and as a result don't have data.
However, as Covid plus one dose was something like 99% effective against symptomatic Delta, I doubt it makes much difference.
Probably a better way to get to vaccinated-plus-acquired-immunity.
After all, if catching the virus is fine in the first place, why worry about whether or not one is infected? If not, getting a trained immune system first is better. Massively reducing one’s chances of having a bad outcome.
So the best route would be two jabs, then infection. Assuming one can get a breakthrough infection; if not, it’s a result, anyway.
Yes: what you really want is a very mild (preferably entirely asymptomatic) infection following a couple of doses of the vaccine.
Which is what is happening to a lot of Brits right now.
How does one know a patient has had an asymptomatic infection, anyway? An antibody test won't help as it would be confoiunded by the effect of the vaccinations, surely.
Well in my case, I took a test to travel & it came back positive!
Was that before travel or before return to UK? LFT or PCR?
PCR before travel. Would never have gotten tested otherwise as had no symptoms.
But the numbers could be even lower. Only 13% of those asked to respond to the survey did so. Researchers believe those who are suffering ongoing symptoms would be more likely to complete the survey than those who are not. If all those with long Covid were to do so among those who did so, that would suggest their actual number was just 4,000 or fewer than 2%.
Fifteen weeks after infection, between 1.7% and 14% of them still had some symptoms. But there's no evidence to show that large numbers had to get help for symptoms that were so bad they had to stay in bed, or couldn't go to school.
Yes, that is where the 2% figure comes from. It assumes the non-responders were symptom free.
Fifteen weeks after infection, between 1.7% and 14% of them still had some symptoms. But there's no evidence to show that large numbers had to get help for symptoms that were so bad they had to stay in bed, or couldn't go to school.
How does that compare to an infection plus two vaccines?
It's an Israeli study and they don't give a second dose to people who had an infection plus one dose. However, as one dose plus infection was 99%, I doubt it'll make a big difference.
Cases steady overall, cases down in England again.
Scottish numbers in hospital rising pretty fast -> doubled in last 12 days. Don't really understand why it's so different there... feels like must be schools spreading cases and then going up to parents/grandparents?
Yep. And thats with high school kids wearing masks. Just think what fun you will have when yours go back without them.
But don't worry. Gavin Williamson will be on the case.
This madness thinking remains that cases zoom up despite people wearing masks and people just think it would be worse if people didn't wear masks.
In England now in many settings including pubs,clubs football grounds no one is wearing a mask and people are in very close proximity to each other, yet cases here have been falling slightly over the past 8 days..
Not worn one for several weeks now (last time was cos I nipped on the Tube in London); cricket matches, trains (including several cross country journeys as well as trips to Town), trade shows, weddings etc. Such a relief.
Relief is a perfect word for it.
I have absolutely no problem with someone either wearing a mask or eschewing a mask, it's their choice.
What I cannot grasp however, is the idea among some that wearing a mask in public is normal or should be normalised.
It is not normal. Human beings relate to each other by seeing each others' faces. There are metric tonnes of research on this. It is a fundamental part of the way we interact and bond with each other.
Masks are a temporary physical medical intervention, like neck brace or a cast. They are not a normal – or even desirable – part of daily life.
You say that you have no problem with someone either wearing a mask or eschewing a mask, and I agree, but how do you feel about corporations and other entities insisting on mask-wearing even though employees/customers are not legally obliged to?
I think if it's a venue – eg bar – then they should be free to do, as it's no different to any other dress code (i.e. no trainers, no denim)*
If it's a workplace, then I guess I'd hope there was a strong medical reason for it specific to that workplace. Is it a common stipulation?
(*I suspect most wouldn't as it would reduce great significantly the amount of people who wanted to go – who wants to wear a mask in a bar/pub/restaurant??)
The cry of the jobsworth business owner is, My insurers insist on it, but it's probably true here. There is not much law yet on whether employers can be found negligent if a masked customer/employee gets covid and claims it was from unmasked customers/employees the employer could have made to wear masks but didn't.
"Nearly every malodorous myth about the Great War can be traced back to the literary septic tank that is Lloyd George’s War Memoirs."
An article in the Express that is interesting and amusing?!!??
End Times....
It describes Grey's school, Winchester, as "the thinking boy's Eton"!
I've got Lewis-Stempel's book, Six Weeks – the short and gallant life of the British officer in the First World War. It is mainly about the subalterns, iirc, the Lieutenant Georges in Blackadder terms.
Wykehamists tend to be less posh than Etonians but more intellectual
Didn't Rishi Sunak go there?
He did, he is less posh by background than Boris and Cameron but more intellectual.
Geoffrey Howe and Hugh Gaitskell were also prominent postwar Wykehamist politicians and both intellectuals too.
Winchester is also technically older than Eton, founded in 1382, Eton was only founded in 1440
I was right that Winchester is the older of the two and also generally the more intellectual of the two, 9th on A level and pre U grades to Eton's 13th in the league table of top 100 independent schools
Not a lot in it, these days. Eton often outperforms Winchester on that metric and on Oxbridge places per capita. 40 years ago Eton was markedly unselective, hence the joke "Slough comp.", with only the truly thick being relegated to Stowe. It's different now, Eton lives or dies by league table results.
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
I concur. The Tank Commander and his neo-Unionist fellow travellers are shooting themselves in the feet.
This particular Unionist has no issue with Indyref2 and I agree with @kinabalu
However, the first problem the SNPs has is calling indyref2 before the majority of Scots are ready for it , and secondly it would be very brave without a majority in favour of independence
Additionally I really cannot understand Nicola agreeing a deal with the Greens as it was not necessary
How many times do we have to do this? 1. Scottish voters are ready for the referendum having voted for parties to deliver it 2. A comfortable majority of MSPs pledged to deliver it were elected in a record turnout
We cannot have a "votes cast count, seats elected don't count" argument without also accepting that the Labour / LibDem / Green / SNP group won the UK election.
As many times as you need to understand
The composition of seats in Westminster does not determine Switzerland’s foreign policy because it is not within their sphere of competence no matter how interesting it might be
The composition of seats in Holyrood does not determine whether there will be a referendum because it is not within their sphere of competence
It is purely a political argument that the UK government has been willing to ignore. A clear majority of votes cast would be more compelling to demonstrate that there is a demand from the voters of Scotland
I am not making an argument as to whether such a thing is a devolved matter or not (and it isn't) so most of your post is irrelevant.
The latter point is fascinating though. If members elected is not the correct measure and votes cast is, then Jeremy Corbyn would be prime minister as the Labour / LD / SNP / Green block received more votes than the Tory / Brexit / UKIP / DUP one
Cases steady overall, cases down in England again.
Scottish numbers in hospital rising pretty fast -> doubled in last 12 days. Don't really understand why it's so different there... feels like must be schools spreading cases and then going up to parents/grandparents?
Yep. And thats with high school kids wearing masks. Just think what fun you will have when yours go back without them.
But don't worry. Gavin Williamson will be on the case.
This madness thinking remains that cases zoom up despite people wearing masks and people just think it would be worse if people didn't wear masks.
In England now in many settings including pubs,clubs football grounds no one is wearing a mask and people are in very close proximity to each other, yet cases here have been falling slightly over the past 8 days..
Not worn one for several weeks now (last time was cos I nipped on the Tube in London); cricket matches, trains (including several cross country journeys as well as trips to Town), trade shows, weddings etc. Such a relief.
Relief is a perfect word for it.
I have absolutely no problem with someone either wearing a mask or eschewing a mask, it's their choice.
What I cannot grasp however, is the idea among some that wearing a mask in public is normal or should be normalised.
It is not normal. Human beings relate to each other by seeing each others' faces. There are metric tonnes of research on this. It is a fundamental part of the way we interact and bond with each other.
Masks are a temporary physical medical intervention, like neck brace or a cast. They are not a normal – or even desirable – part of daily life.
You say that you have no problem with someone either wearing a mask or eschewing a mask, and I agree, but how do you feel about corporations and other entities insisting on mask-wearing even though employees/customers are not legally obliged to?
I think if it's a venue – eg bar – then they should be free to do, as it's no different to any other dress code (i.e. no trainers, no denim)*
If it's a workplace, then I guess I'd hope there was a strong medical reason for it specific to that workplace. Is it a common stipulation?
(*I suspect most wouldn't as it would reduce great significantly the amount of people who wanted to go – who wants to wear a mask in a bar/pub/restaurant??)
The cry of the jobsworth business owner is, My insurers insist on it, but it's probably true here. There is not much law yet on whether employers can be found negligent if a masked customer/employee gets covid and claims it was from unmasked customers/employees the employer could have made to wear masks but didn't.
More realistically the business wants staff to wear masks to avoid losing them to illness. With 200k new cases every week thats a lot of workforce off sick on a rolling basis, plus the unvaccinated people they come into contact with who lose a few days off whilst having to test.
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
An entirely factual and valid point to win votes?
Yes I can too.
No, Philip. A mendacious soundbite repeated ad tedium because it's effective, is what I meant there.
But both statements are only effective because the public knows they are true.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.
Thankfully UK Plc finances are looking perfect at the moment... aren't they?
On More or Less this morning there was an item which pointed out that the cost of servicing our Government Debt is at an historic low. Rather less than 3% of GDP.
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
I concur. The Tank Commander and his neo-Unionist fellow travellers are shooting themselves in the feet.
This particular Unionist has no issue with Indyref2 and I agree with @kinabalu
However, the first problem the SNPs has is calling indyref2 before the majority of Scots are ready for it , and secondly it would be very brave without a majority in favour of independence
Additionally I really cannot understand Nicola agreeing a deal with the Greens as it was not necessary
How many times do we have to do this? 1. Scottish voters are ready for the referendum having voted for parties to deliver it 2. A comfortable majority of MSPs pledged to deliver it were elected in a record turnout
We cannot have a "votes cast count, seats elected don't count" argument without also accepting that the Labour / LibDem / Green / SNP group won the UK election.
As many times as you need to understand
The composition of seats in Westminster does not determine Switzerland’s foreign policy because it is not within their sphere of competence no matter how interesting it might be
The composition of seats in Holyrood does not determine whether there will be a referendum because it is not within their sphere of competence
It is purely a political argument that the UK government has been willing to ignore. A clear majority of votes cast would be more compelling to demonstrate that there is a demand from the voters of Scotland
I am not making an argument as to whether such a thing is a devolved matter or not (and it isn't) so most of your post is irrelevant.
The latter point is fascinating though. If members elected is not the correct measure and votes cast is, then Jeremy Corbyn would be prime minister as the Labour / LD / SNP / Green block received more votes than the Tory / Brexit / UKIP / DUP one
Righty-ho. The Lib Dems would support Jezza.
Is this on your Focus leaflet, as well ?
They wouldn't be a coalition of course. None of them would. But as this is fantasy island where I'm being told votes cast count more than elected members, we don't need to bother with that detail.
More people voted for remain parties than leave parties in 2019. So if the "logic" being deployed for Scotland was also applied to the UK, we wouldn't have this government.
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
An entirely factual and valid point to win votes?
Yes I can too.
No, Philip. A mendacious soundbite repeated ad tedium because it's effective, is what I meant there.
But both statements are only effective because the public knows they are true.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.
Thankfully UK Plc finances are looking perfect at the moment... aren't they?
On More or Less this morning there was an item which pointed out that the cost of servicing our Government Debt is at an historic low. Rather less than 3% of GDP.
Not a fan, but Nandy very measured on R4 PM. The lady from the Telegraph is skewering Raab. She is pointing out a power struggle between Wallace and Raab.
BBC edit I know, but Raab appears to have been dreadful this afternoon.
He was. A folder full of facts to cover absolute minutiae, but when asked basic questions about actual issues his answer was always that he didn't have the answer with him.
Then his absolute refusal to answer when he went on holiday. "I have already given a statement" "Yes, which didn't set out the dates"
Sam Coates of Sky has a different perspective
It will be a sad day when a Minister of the Crown can't have a few well earned days of peace on a beach, without having to answer a lot of impertinent questions from a lot of unwashed oicks.
Sam Coates was talking about the evidence on tensions among the allies and the failure of intelligence and the consequences going forward
Not whether he missed a phone call by going on leave
The Telegraph lady (hostile press, I know) was withering in her criticism. Tugenhadt, who was excellent on PM, echoed Nandy. He is very concerned about how we get those out who should already be out. Pleased with Raab's promise, not so happy with his lack of a purposeful plan.
Nandy critical of Blair and Bush, and Obama/Biden and Trump's overtures to the Taliban, as well as a lack of planning from our Government.
Tugenhadt pointed out that the French and German effort was underway as far back as April, when the withdrawal was confirmed by Biden, with exploratory talks with Afghan neighbours in the event of things going awry. Tugenhadt suggested US and UK, with bigger numbers granted, made little forward plans because they assumed intell was going to be on the button...which of course it wasn't.
Don't worry everyone. The Global Financial Crisis was Labour trashing the finances National debt of 65% was crippling and we almost went bankrupt National debt of 100% and rising is affordable
Perhaps some consistency may help PB Tories going foreard
Former Manchester Labour councillor Carl Ollerhead, who said that males have a right to access women's and girls' toilets has been charged with indecently assaulting a girl under the age of 16
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
An entirely factual and valid point to win votes?
Yes I can too.
No, Philip. A mendacious soundbite repeated ad tedium because it's effective, is what I meant there.
But both statements are only effective because the public knows they are true.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.
Thankfully UK Plc finances are looking perfect at the moment... aren't they?
On More or Less this morning there was an item which pointed out that the cost of servicing our Government Debt is at an historic low. Rather less than 3% of GDP.
I thought fair point, you've tumbled my game, and then I realised your management of current debt is by way of forecast based on current low interest rates. With inflationary pressure aren't interest rates likely to fluctuate?
Not a fan, but Nandy very measured on R4 PM. The lady from the Telegraph is skewering Raab. She is pointing out a power struggle between Wallace and Raab.
BBC edit I know, but Raab appears to have been dreadful this afternoon.
He was. A folder full of facts to cover absolute minutiae, but when asked basic questions about actual issues his answer was always that he didn't have the answer with him.
Then his absolute refusal to answer when he went on holiday. "I have already given a statement" "Yes, which didn't set out the dates"
Sam Coates of Sky has a different perspective
It will be a sad day when a Minister of the Crown can't have a few well earned days of peace on a beach, without having to answer a lot of impertinent questions from a lot of unwashed oicks.
Sam Coates was talking about the evidence on tensions among the allies and the failure of intelligence and the consequences going forward
Not whether he missed a phone call by going on leave
The Telegraph lady (hostile press, I know) was withering in her criticism. Tugenhadt, who was excellent on PM, echoed Nandy. He is very concerned about how we get those out who should already be out. Pleased with Raab's promise, not so happy with his lack of a purposeful plan.
Nandy critical of Blair and Bush, and Obama/Biden and Trump's overtures to the Taliban, as well as a lack of planning from our Government.
Tugenhadt pointed out that the French and German effort was underway as far back as April, when the withdrawal was confirmed by Biden, with exploratory talks with Afghan neighbours in the event of things going awry. Tugenhadt suggested US and UK, with bigger numbers granted, made little forward plans because they assumed intell was going to be on the button...which of course it wasn't.
French plans to run away were advanced? Say it in't so.....
"Not entirely certain a leader that can't stop her people beating each other to death / drinking to death / drugging to death is going to have much luck introducing vaccine passports for nightclubs."
I understand the EU will only present its response to @DavidGHFrost “command paper” on Protocol at end of Sept, making a further extension to some grace periods almost inevitable
Talk of “cliff-edges” in EU are always overdone. These negotiations have some way to run
@Malmesbury. No plans to bring back your LA cases scaled to population charts? I understand that for low incidence among scant populations they were a bit meaningless. But I found them the easiest way to assess hotspots. And potential trouble spots.
I'll be honest the news that natural immunity is superior to vaccination makes me less angry with @contrarian and the other antivaxxers. I mean they're mugging themselves off but I don't think herd immunity is overly affected by his and his ilks actions
Not a fan, but Nandy very measured on R4 PM. The lady from the Telegraph is skewering Raab. She is pointing out a power struggle between Wallace and Raab.
BBC edit I know, but Raab appears to have been dreadful this afternoon.
He was. A folder full of facts to cover absolute minutiae, but when asked basic questions about actual issues his answer was always that he didn't have the answer with him.
Then his absolute refusal to answer when he went on holiday. "I have already given a statement" "Yes, which didn't set out the dates"
Sam Coates of Sky has a different perspective
It will be a sad day when a Minister of the Crown can't have a few well earned days of peace on a beach, without having to answer a lot of impertinent questions from a lot of unwashed oicks.
Sam Coates was talking about the evidence on tensions among the allies and the failure of intelligence and the consequences going forward
Not whether he missed a phone call by going on leave
The Telegraph lady (hostile press, I know) was withering in her criticism. Tugenhadt, who was excellent on PM, echoed Nandy. He is very concerned about how we get those out who should already be out. Pleased with Raab's promise, not so happy with his lack of a purposeful plan.
Nandy critical of Blair and Bush, and Obama/Biden and Trump's overtures to the Taliban, as well as a lack of planning from our Government.
Tugenhadt pointed out that the French and German effort was underway as far back as April, when the withdrawal was confirmed by Biden, with exploratory talks with Afghan neighbours in the event of things going awry. Tugenhadt suggested US and UK, with bigger numbers granted, made little forward plans because they assumed intell was going to be on the button...which of course it wasn't.
French plans to run away were advanced? Say it in't so.....
As a good European, I am offended by the tone of your slur.
Tugenhadt was impressed that the EU's forward planning had made provision (and he did credit the EU) with any failure in intel as the operation drew to a close.
Fair enough the EU vaccine roll out wasn't a patch on ours, so I suspect that still gives us a march on the EU's successful Afghan retreat.
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
An entirely factual and valid point to win votes?
Yes I can too.
No, Philip. A mendacious soundbite repeated ad tedium because it's effective, is what I meant there.
But both statements are only effective because the public knows they are true.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.
Thankfully UK Plc finances are looking perfect at the moment... aren't they?
On More or Less this morning there was an item which pointed out that the cost of servicing our Government Debt is at an historic low. Rather less than 3% of GDP.
I thought fair point, you've tumbled my game, and then I realised your management of current debt is by way of forecast based on current low interest rates. With inflationary pressure aren't interest rates likely to fluctuate?
I *think* most of it is at fixed interest rates, but I don't have the reference to hand. Others here may have the reference - which is buried somewhere on the BofE website.
I think the points of vulnerability finance wise are if the current Govt lose their new Red Wall potential heartland by getting the coming tax increases / spending constraints out of balance.
To my eye, spending many many billions on placating the Home Counties, then killing the Eastern branch of HS2 for the sake of 2-3 bn a year or so which has been tipped into holes in places like Buckinghamshire, is a huge "f*ck you" to the East Midlands, Yorkshire, and the NE, and is a bullet shot into their green agenda. May not go down well.
The EM alone have 48 Tory MPs now. The three together have 77 Tories.
@Malmesbury. No plans to bring back your LA cases scaled to population charts? I understand that for low incidence among scant populations they were a bit meaningless. But I found them the easiest way to assess hotspots. And potential trouble spots.
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
An entirely factual and valid point to win votes?
Yes I can too.
No, Philip. A mendacious soundbite repeated ad tedium because it's effective, is what I meant there.
But both statements are only effective because the public knows they are true.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.
Well it was your fault, you voted for them! (HYUFD told me).
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
An entirely factual and valid point to win votes?
Yes I can too.
No, Philip. A mendacious soundbite repeated ad tedium because it's effective, is what I meant there.
But both statements are only effective because the public knows they are true.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.
Thankfully UK Plc finances are looking perfect at the moment... aren't they?
On More or Less this morning there was an item which pointed out that the cost of servicing our Government Debt is at an historic low. Rather less than 3% of GDP.
I thought fair point, you've tumbled my game, and then I realised your management of current debt is by way of forecast based on current low interest rates. With inflationary pressure aren't interest rates likely to fluctuate?
Quite obviously the government doesn't want interest rates to rise. Let's see if the BoE is really independent...
Not a fan, but Nandy very measured on R4 PM. The lady from the Telegraph is skewering Raab. She is pointing out a power struggle between Wallace and Raab.
BBC edit I know, but Raab appears to have been dreadful this afternoon.
He was. A folder full of facts to cover absolute minutiae, but when asked basic questions about actual issues his answer was always that he didn't have the answer with him.
Then his absolute refusal to answer when he went on holiday. "I have already given a statement" "Yes, which didn't set out the dates"
Sam Coates of Sky has a different perspective
It will be a sad day when a Minister of the Crown can't have a few well earned days of peace on a beach, without having to answer a lot of impertinent questions from a lot of unwashed oicks.
Sam Coates was talking about the evidence on tensions among the allies and the failure of intelligence and the consequences going forward
Not whether he missed a phone call by going on leave
The Telegraph lady (hostile press, I know) was withering in her criticism. Tugenhadt, who was excellent on PM, echoed Nandy. He is very concerned about how we get those out who should already be out. Pleased with Raab's promise, not so happy with his lack of a purposeful plan.
Nandy critical of Blair and Bush, and Obama/Biden and Trump's overtures to the Taliban, as well as a lack of planning from our Government.
Tugenhadt pointed out that the French and German effort was underway as far back as April, when the withdrawal was confirmed by Biden, with exploratory talks with Afghan neighbours in the event of things going awry. Tugenhadt suggested US and UK, with bigger numbers granted, made little forward plans because they assumed intell was going to be on the button...which of course it wasn't.
French plans to run away were advanced? Say it in't so.....
"In't" ?
I haven't heard that since I was growing up, just South of Birmingham!
Anyway I claim orderly withdrawal (something Johnson was never too keen on) you say "run away".
@Malmesbury. No plans to bring back your LA cases scaled to population charts? I understand that for low incidence among scant populations they were a bit meaningless. But I found them the easiest way to assess hotspots. And potential trouble spots.
Here you go...
Many thanks. Can really see how it is Scotland, NI and Cornwall now. Previous perennial favourites the NE and NW really slipping down the charts. Seems like it is abroad in more rural than urban England. Suggesting many unvaxxed in cities may already have had it? London particularly striking.
Texas SB8 will impair women's access to health care and, outrageously, deputizes private citizens to sue those they believe helped another person get a banned abortion.
It's a blatant violation of the right established under Roe V. Wade. We will protect and defend that right.
It doesn't really matter whether someone proclaims the pandemic is over because they've stopped wearing a face covering in all honesty.
On public transport, there's an interesting inconsistency - on TFL services, it is a condition of carriage to wear a face covering on trains, tubes and in stations. In theory, TfL staff could be on the train and throw off anyone not wearing a face covering.
That of course doesn't happen and gradually the numbers not wearing face coverings are increasing. The question of the legality versus the enforcement springs to mind - what's the point of having a law or a condition of carriage if no one is prepared to enforce it?
On non-TfL rail services, it's a mixed bag - some are now saying you only need a face covering in crowded areas while others continue to insist on a face covering at all times. I always found it odd that when I was in a carriage by myself I was required to wear a face covering - I literally did not get that.
Whether the return to school will lead to a new growth of cases remains to be seen - I'm concerned the plan for a third or booster vaccination seems to be limited. I believe (and I sit to be corrected) the immunity achieved from having the virus itself is superior to that from a vaccination but neither Mrs Stodge nor I are overkeen to dance the dance with coronavirus. I suspect we're not alone and the Government will come under pressure to broaden the booster vaccination programme.
"Not entirely certain a leader that can't stop her people beating each other to death / drinking to death / drugging to death is going to have much luck introducing vaccine passports for nightclubs."
Any videos of ‘her people beating each other to death’? I believe that kind of thing is a speciality of yours..
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
An entirely factual and valid point to win votes?
Yes I can too.
No, Philip. A mendacious soundbite repeated ad tedium because it's effective, is what I meant there.
But both statements are only effective because the public knows they are true.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.
Thankfully UK Plc finances are looking perfect at the moment... aren't they?
On More or Less this morning there was an item which pointed out that the cost of servicing our Government Debt is at an historic low. Rather less than 3% of GDP.
I thought fair point, you've tumbled my game, and then I realised your management of current debt is by way of forecast based on current low interest rates. With inflationary pressure aren't interest rates likely to fluctuate?
Quite obviously the government doesn't want interest rates to rise. Let's see if the BoE is really independent...
If debt is mainly a fixed rates, it would not as huge an issue as it looks. Last time I looked at it seriously was years ago when I think 60%+ of BofE debt was fixed.
I'd say they want interest rates up modestly by 1-1.5% over a couple of years.
A striking stat is the low percentage of those who believe they have longcovid who have actually tested positive for covid previously _ I believe it's under a third. Which suggests a fair few may actually have other conditions
I'll be honest the news that natural immunity is superior to vaccination makes me less angry with @contrarian and the other antivaxxers. I mean they're mugging themselves off but I don't think herd immunity is overly affected by his and his ilks actions
Worth noting that @Dura_Ace is also an antivaxxer yet gets a fraction of the opprobrium reserved from Contrarian
Not a fan, but Nandy very measured on R4 PM. The lady from the Telegraph is skewering Raab. She is pointing out a power struggle between Wallace and Raab.
BBC edit I know, but Raab appears to have been dreadful this afternoon.
He was. A folder full of facts to cover absolute minutiae, but when asked basic questions about actual issues his answer was always that he didn't have the answer with him.
Then his absolute refusal to answer when he went on holiday. "I have already given a statement" "Yes, which didn't set out the dates"
Sam Coates of Sky has a different perspective
It will be a sad day when a Minister of the Crown can't have a few well earned days of peace on a beach, without having to answer a lot of impertinent questions from a lot of unwashed oicks.
Sam Coates was talking about the evidence on tensions among the allies and the failure of intelligence and the consequences going forward
Not whether he missed a phone call by going on leave
The Telegraph lady (hostile press, I know) was withering in her criticism. Tugenhadt, who was excellent on PM, echoed Nandy. He is very concerned about how we get those out who should already be out. Pleased with Raab's promise, not so happy with his lack of a purposeful plan.
Nandy critical of Blair and Bush, and Obama/Biden and Trump's overtures to the Taliban, as well as a lack of planning from our Government.
Tugenhadt pointed out that the French and German effort was underway as far back as April, when the withdrawal was confirmed by Biden, with exploratory talks with Afghan neighbours in the event of things going awry. Tugenhadt suggested US and UK, with bigger numbers granted, made little forward plans because they assumed intell was going to be on the button...which of course it wasn't.
French plans to run away were advanced? Say it in't so.....
As a good European, I am offended by the tone of your slur.
Tugenhadt was impressed that the EU's forward planning had made provision (and he did credit the EU) with any failure in intel as the operation drew to a close.
Fair enough the EU vaccine roll out wasn't a patch on ours, so I suspect that still gives us a march on the EU's successful Afghan retreat.
Somebody had to say it, in the absence of TSE.....
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
An entirely factual and valid point to win votes?
Yes I can too.
No, Philip. A mendacious soundbite repeated ad tedium because it's effective, is what I meant there.
But both statements are only effective because the public knows they are true.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.
Thankfully UK Plc finances are looking perfect at the moment... aren't they?
On More or Less this morning there was an item which pointed out that the cost of servicing our Government Debt is at an historic low. Rather less than 3% of GDP.
I thought fair point, you've tumbled my game, and then I realised your management of current debt is by way of forecast based on current low interest rates. With inflationary pressure aren't interest rates likely to fluctuate?
Quite obviously the government doesn't want interest rates to rise. Let's see if the BoE is really independent...
If the Government can "influence" the BoE to hold interest rates despite inflationary pressure, won't that fly in the face of logical economics. It may mean they hold off a financial crash until after 2024 and win a handsome majority, but won't the whole house of cards crumble soon after.
I am intrigued as to how wage and price inflation works without interest rate rises, and that we can increase spending with only modest tax increases, if any meaningful ones at all.
Or is the increase in taxation from wage inflation and an increase in VAT from RPI inflation going to do Sunak's work for him? It looks implausible to me
Don't worry everyone. The Global Financial Crisis was Labour trashing the finances National debt of 65% was crippling and we almost went bankrupt National debt of 100% and rising is affordable
Perhaps some consistency may help PB Tories going foreard
National debt wasn't the issue in 2010. The deficit was the issue in 2010.
Hypothetically it would be much better to a national debt of 110% with a structural 1% surplus than a national debt of 70% with a structural 10% deficit.
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
An entirely factual and valid point to win votes?
Yes I can too.
No, Philip. A mendacious soundbite repeated ad tedium because it's effective, is what I meant there.
But both statements are only effective because the public knows they are true.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.
Thankfully UK Plc finances are looking perfect at the moment... aren't they?
On More or Less this morning there was an item which pointed out that the cost of servicing our Government Debt is at an historic low. Rather less than 3% of GDP.
I thought fair point, you've tumbled my game, and then I realised your management of current debt is by way of forecast based on current low interest rates. With inflationary pressure aren't interest rates likely to fluctuate?
Quite obviously the government doesn't want interest rates to rise. Let's see if the BoE is really independent...
If the Government can "influence" the BoE to hold interest rates despite inflationary pressure, won't that fly in the face of logical economics. It may mean they hold off a financial crash until after 2024 and win a handsome majority, but won't the whole house of cards crumble soon after.
I am intrigued as to how wage and price inflation works without interest rate rises, and that we can increase spending with only modest tax increases, if any meaningful ones at all.
Or is the increase in taxation from wage inflation and an increase in VAT from RPI inflation going to do Sunak's work for him? It looks implausible to me
People forget that there's different reasons for wages to increase.
If wages are going up because prices are going up then that's an inflationary spiral with nothing underpinning it.
If wages are going up because we're at full employment and high demand for productive labour then that's economic growth and its real pay rises.
Its quite perverse that some people now have an attitude of pay rises are bad. Pay rises, so long as they're due to productivity, is how we become better off.
Don't worry everyone. The Global Financial Crisis was Labour trashing the finances National debt of 65% was crippling and we almost went bankrupt National debt of 100% and rising is affordable
Perhaps some consistency may help PB Tories going foreard
National debt wasn't the issue in 2010. The deficit was the issue in 2010.
Hypothetically it would be much better to a national debt of 110% with a structural 1% surplus than a national debt of 70% with a structural 10% deficit.
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
An entirely factual and valid point to win votes?
Yes I can too.
No, Philip. A mendacious soundbite repeated ad tedium because it's effective, is what I meant there.
But both statements are only effective because the public knows they are true.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.
Thankfully UK Plc finances are looking perfect at the moment... aren't they?
On More or Less this morning there was an item which pointed out that the cost of servicing our Government Debt is at an historic low. Rather less than 3% of GDP.
I thought fair point, you've tumbled my game, and then I realised your management of current debt is by way of forecast based on current low interest rates. With inflationary pressure aren't interest rates likely to fluctuate?
Quite obviously the government doesn't want interest rates to rise. Let's see if the BoE is really independent...
If the Government can "influence" the BoE to hold interest rates despite inflationary pressure, won't that fly in the face of logical economics. It may mean they hold off a financial crash until after 2024 and win a handsome majority, but won't the whole house of cards crumble soon after.
I am intrigued as to how wage and price inflation works without interest rate rises, and that we can increase spending with only modest tax increases, if any meaningful ones at all.
Or is the increase in taxation from wage inflation and an increase in VAT from RPI inflation going to do Sunak's work for him? It looks implausible to me
People forget that there's different reasons for wages to increase.
If wages are going up because prices are going up then that's an inflationary spiral with nothing underpinning it.
If wages are going up because we're at full employment and high demand for productive labour then that's economic growth and its real pay rises.
Its quite perverse that some people now have an attitude of pay rises are bad. Pay rises, so long as they're due to productivity, is how we become better off.
Wages increase due to supply and demand issues in specific areas ( at the moment transport) Prices thus go up. This inflationary pressure leads to NHS workers, teachers, and private sector workers too, for example getting squeezed and demanding pay increases. The spiral continues ..
If you are not careful you have the 1978/79 Labour Government.
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
An entirely factual and valid point to win votes?
Yes I can too.
No, Philip. A mendacious soundbite repeated ad tedium because it's effective, is what I meant there.
But both statements are only effective because the public knows they are true.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.
Thankfully UK Plc finances are looking perfect at the moment... aren't they?
On More or Less this morning there was an item which pointed out that the cost of servicing our Government Debt is at an historic low. Rather less than 3% of GDP.
I thought fair point, you've tumbled my game, and then I realised your management of current debt is by way of forecast based on current low interest rates. With inflationary pressure aren't interest rates likely to fluctuate?
Quite obviously the government doesn't want interest rates to rise. Let's see if the BoE is really independent...
If the Government can "influence" the BoE to hold interest rates despite inflationary pressure, won't that fly in the face of logical economics. It may mean they hold off a financial crash until after 2024 and win a handsome majority, but won't the whole house of cards crumble soon after.
I am intrigued as to how wage and price inflation works without interest rate rises, and that we can increase spending with only modest tax increases, if any meaningful ones at all.
Or is the increase in taxation from wage inflation and an increase in VAT from RPI inflation going to do Sunak's work for him? It looks implausible to me
The Tories now argue that pay-rises for the workers are a good thing, rather than making the country uncompetitive, and now argue that printing money is fine and dandy. We are well and truly through the looking glass, Alice...
I'll be honest the news that natural immunity is superior to vaccination makes me less angry with @contrarian and the other antivaxxers. I mean they're mugging themselves off but I don't think herd immunity is overly affected by his and his ilks actions
Shouldn't that read "natural immunity, if you live to tell the tale, is superior to vaccination" ?
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
An entirely factual and valid point to win votes?
Yes I can too.
No, Philip. A mendacious soundbite repeated ad tedium because it's effective, is what I meant there.
But both statements are only effective because the public knows they are true.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.
Thankfully UK Plc finances are looking perfect at the moment... aren't they?
On More or Less this morning there was an item which pointed out that the cost of servicing our Government Debt is at an historic low. Rather less than 3% of GDP.
I thought fair point, you've tumbled my game, and then I realised your management of current debt is by way of forecast based on current low interest rates. With inflationary pressure aren't interest rates likely to fluctuate?
Quite obviously the government doesn't want interest rates to rise. Let's see if the BoE is really independent...
If the Government can "influence" the BoE to hold interest rates despite inflationary pressure, won't that fly in the face of logical economics. It may mean they hold off a financial crash until after 2024 and win a handsome majority, but won't the whole house of cards crumble soon after.
I am intrigued as to how wage and price inflation works without interest rate rises, and that we can increase spending with only modest tax increases, if any meaningful ones at all.
Or is the increase in taxation from wage inflation and an increase in VAT from RPI inflation going to do Sunak's work for him? It looks implausible to me
People forget that there's different reasons for wages to increase.
If wages are going up because prices are going up then that's an inflationary spiral with nothing underpinning it.
If wages are going up because we're at full employment and high demand for productive labour then that's economic growth and its real pay rises.
Its quite perverse that some people now have an attitude of pay rises are bad. Pay rises, so long as they're due to productivity, is how we become better off.
Wages increase due to supply and demand issues in specific areas ( at the moment transport) Prices thus go up. This inflationary pressure leads to NHS workers, teachers, and private sector workers too, for example getting squeezed and demanding pay increases. The spiral continues ..
If you are not careful you have the 1978/79 Labour Government.
At least Wilson and Sunny Jim intervened to keep wages low. The Boris Brexit Brigade are now urging intervention to put wages up!
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
An entirely factual and valid point to win votes?
Yes I can too.
No, Philip. A mendacious soundbite repeated ad tedium because it's effective, is what I meant there.
But both statements are only effective because the public knows they are true.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.
Thankfully UK Plc finances are looking perfect at the moment... aren't they?
On More or Less this morning there was an item which pointed out that the cost of servicing our Government Debt is at an historic low. Rather less than 3% of GDP.
I thought fair point, you've tumbled my game, and then I realised your management of current debt is by way of forecast based on current low interest rates. With inflationary pressure aren't interest rates likely to fluctuate?
Quite obviously the government doesn't want interest rates to rise. Let's see if the BoE is really independent...
If the Government can "influence" the BoE to hold interest rates despite inflationary pressure, won't that fly in the face of logical economics. It may mean they hold off a financial crash until after 2024 and win a handsome majority, but won't the whole house of cards crumble soon after.
I am intrigued as to how wage and price inflation works without interest rate rises, and that we can increase spending with only modest tax increases, if any meaningful ones at all.
Or is the increase in taxation from wage inflation and an increase in VAT from RPI inflation going to do Sunak's work for him? It looks implausible to me
People forget that there's different reasons for wages to increase.
If wages are going up because prices are going up then that's an inflationary spiral with nothing underpinning it.
If wages are going up because we're at full employment and high demand for productive labour then that's economic growth and its real pay rises.
Its quite perverse that some people now have an attitude of pay rises are bad. Pay rises, so long as they're due to productivity, is how we become better off.
Wages increase due to supply and demand issues in specific areas ( at the moment transport) Prices thus go up. This inflationary pressure leads to NHS workers, teachers, and private sector workers too, for example getting squeezed and demanding pay increases. The spiral continues ..
If you are not careful you have the 1978/79 Labour Government.
Not remotely. Wages have gone up in real terms for centuries, if they hadn't we'd still be on medieval "wages".
The problem in the seventies wasn't that wages were going up due to supply and demand, but that wages were going up despite the lack of demand. They were going up due to politics not economics.
Don't worry everyone. The Global Financial Crisis was Labour trashing the finances National debt of 65% was crippling and we almost went bankrupt National debt of 100% and rising is affordable
Perhaps some consistency may help PB Tories going foreard
National debt wasn't the issue in 2010. The deficit was the issue in 2010.
Hypothetically it would be much better to a national debt of 110% with a structural 1% surplus than a national debt of 70% with a structural 10% deficit.
I can see through your smoke and mirrors.
No smokes and mirrors. The issue in 2010 was always (by those who know what they're talking about) the deficit.
Only an idiot who didn't understand economics ever said debt in 2010.
I'll be honest the news that natural immunity is superior to vaccination makes me less angry with @contrarian and the other antivaxxers. I mean they're mugging themselves off but I don't think herd immunity is overly affected by his and his ilks actions
Worth noting that @Dura_Ace is also an antivaxxer yet gets a fraction of the opprobrium reserved from Contrarian
I don't think he's ever said that people in general should not get the vaccine, just that he won't because of animal rights concerns.
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
An entirely factual and valid point to win votes?
Yes I can too.
No, Philip. A mendacious soundbite repeated ad tedium because it's effective, is what I meant there.
But both statements are only effective because the public knows they are true.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.
Thankfully UK Plc finances are looking perfect at the moment... aren't they?
On More or Less this morning there was an item which pointed out that the cost of servicing our Government Debt is at an historic low. Rather less than 3% of GDP.
I thought fair point, you've tumbled my game, and then I realised your management of current debt is by way of forecast based on current low interest rates. With inflationary pressure aren't interest rates likely to fluctuate?
Quite obviously the government doesn't want interest rates to rise. Let's see if the BoE is really independent...
If the Government can "influence" the BoE to hold interest rates despite inflationary pressure, won't that fly in the face of logical economics. It may mean they hold off a financial crash until after 2024 and win a handsome majority, but won't the whole house of cards crumble soon after.
I am intrigued as to how wage and price inflation works without interest rate rises, and that we can increase spending with only modest tax increases, if any meaningful ones at all.
Or is the increase in taxation from wage inflation and an increase in VAT from RPI inflation going to do Sunak's work for him? It looks implausible to me
People forget that there's different reasons for wages to increase.
If wages are going up because prices are going up then that's an inflationary spiral with nothing underpinning it.
If wages are going up because we're at full employment and high demand for productive labour then that's economic growth and its real pay rises.
Its quite perverse that some people now have an attitude of pay rises are bad. Pay rises, so long as they're due to productivity, is how we become better off.
Wages increase due to supply and demand issues in specific areas ( at the moment transport) Prices thus go up. This inflationary pressure leads to NHS workers, teachers, and private sector workers too, for example getting squeezed and demanding pay increases. The spiral continues ..
If you are not careful you have the 1978/79 Labour Government.
At least Wilson and Sunny Jim intervened to keep wages low. The Boris Brexit Brigade are now urging intervention to put wages up!
Why is keeping wages low a good thing? If supply and demand justifies pay rises, which wasn't the case in the seventies during stagflation.
A striking stat is the low percentage of those who believe they have longcovid who have actually tested positive for covid previously _ I believe it's under a third. Which suggests a fair few may actually have other conditions
So many long covid reports sound like functional neurological disorders that I believe for many (clearly not all) psychological help may be the answer. The sufferers are not making it up, but I genuinely wonder how many actually had covid, or have any physical damage. The strong climate of fear about covid and long covid cannot be helping.
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
I concur. The Tank Commander and his neo-Unionist fellow travellers are shooting themselves in the feet.
This particular Unionist has no issue with Indyref2 and I agree with @kinabalu
However, the first problem the SNPs has is calling indyref2 before the majority of Scots are ready for it , and secondly it would be very brave without a majority in favour of independence
Additionally I really cannot understand Nicola agreeing a deal with the Greens as it was not necessary
How many times do we have to do this? 1. Scottish voters are ready for the referendum having voted for parties to deliver it 2. A comfortable majority of MSPs pledged to deliver it were elected in a record turnout
We cannot have a "votes cast count, seats elected don't count" argument without also accepting that the Labour / LibDem / Green / SNP group won the UK election.
As many times as you need to understand
The composition of seats in Westminster does not determine Switzerland’s foreign policy because it is not within their sphere of competence no matter how interesting it might be
The composition of seats in Holyrood does not determine whether there will be a referendum because it is not within their sphere of competence
It is purely a political argument that the UK government has been willing to ignore. A clear majority of votes cast would be more compelling to demonstrate that there is a demand from the voters of Scotland
I am not making an argument as to whether such a thing is a devolved matter or not (and it isn't) so most of your post is irrelevant.
The latter point is fascinating though. If members elected is not the correct measure and votes cast is, then Jeremy Corbyn would be prime minister as the Labour / LD / SNP / Green block received more votes than the Tory / Brexit / UKIP / DUP one
No, it’s a totally different thing.
The election of representatives is, for Westminster, on an FPTP basis
Indyref2 is about a clear desire to change the rules of the game. That needs polpukar support. There was a referendum recently so the 50 point something than SNP+Greens achieved in the Holyrood elections isn’t - in my view - sufficient but it’s a political tussle: there’s no right or wrong
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
An entirely factual and valid point to win votes?
Yes I can too.
No, Philip. A mendacious soundbite repeated ad tedium because it's effective, is what I meant there.
But both statements are only effective because the public knows they are true.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.
Thankfully UK Plc finances are looking perfect at the moment... aren't they?
On More or Less this morning there was an item which pointed out that the cost of servicing our Government Debt is at an historic low. Rather less than 3% of GDP.
I thought fair point, you've tumbled my game, and then I realised your management of current debt is by way of forecast based on current low interest rates. With inflationary pressure aren't interest rates likely to fluctuate?
Quite obviously the government doesn't want interest rates to rise. Let's see if the BoE is really independent...
If the Government can "influence" the BoE to hold interest rates despite inflationary pressure, won't that fly in the face of logical economics. It may mean they hold off a financial crash until after 2024 and win a handsome majority, but won't the whole house of cards crumble soon after.
I am intrigued as to how wage and price inflation works without interest rate rises, and that we can increase spending with only modest tax increases, if any meaningful ones at all.
Or is the increase in taxation from wage inflation and an increase in VAT from RPI inflation going to do Sunak's work for him? It looks implausible to me
The Tories now argue that pay-rises for the workers are a good thing, rather than making the country uncompetitive, and now argue that printing money is fine and dandy. We are well and truly through the looking glass, Alice...
Actually Foxy, I always thought Mrs Thatcher's grocery budget economic model and Osborne's paying off the national credit card analogy was b******* so maybe Johnson and Sunak have it right?
"Nearly every malodorous myth about the Great War can be traced back to the literary septic tank that is Lloyd George’s War Memoirs."
An article in the Express that is interesting and amusing?!!??
End Times....
It describes Grey's school, Winchester, as "the thinking boy's Eton"!
I've got Lewis-Stempel's book, Six Weeks – the short and gallant life of the British officer in the First World War. It is mainly about the subalterns, iirc, the Lieutenant Georges in Blackadder terms.
Wykehamists tend to be less posh than Etonians but more intellectual
Didn't Rishi Sunak go there?
He did, he is less posh by background than Boris and Cameron but more intellectual.
Geoffrey Howe and Hugh Gaitskell were also prominent postwar Wykehamist politicians and both intellectuals too.
Winchester is also technically older than Eton, founded in 1382, Eton was only founded in 1440
I was right that Winchester is the older of the two and also generally the more intellectual of the two, 9th on A level and pre U grades to Eton's 13th in the league table of top 100 independent schools
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
An entirely factual and valid point to win votes?
Yes I can too.
No, Philip. A mendacious soundbite repeated ad tedium because it's effective, is what I meant there.
But both statements are only effective because the public knows they are true.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.
Thankfully UK Plc finances are looking perfect at the moment... aren't they?
On More or Less this morning there was an item which pointed out that the cost of servicing our Government Debt is at an historic low. Rather less than 3% of GDP.
I thought fair point, you've tumbled my game, and then I realised your management of current debt is by way of forecast based on current low interest rates. With inflationary pressure aren't interest rates likely to fluctuate?
Quite obviously the government doesn't want interest rates to rise. Let's see if the BoE is really independent...
If the Government can "influence" the BoE to hold interest rates despite inflationary pressure, won't that fly in the face of logical economics. It may mean they hold off a financial crash until after 2024 and win a handsome majority, but won't the whole house of cards crumble soon after.
I am intrigued as to how wage and price inflation works without interest rate rises, and that we can increase spending with only modest tax increases, if any meaningful ones at all.
Or is the increase in taxation from wage inflation and an increase in VAT from RPI inflation going to do Sunak's work for him? It looks implausible to me
The Tories now argue that pay-rises for the workers are a good thing, rather than making the country uncompetitive, and now argue that printing money is fine and dandy. We are well and truly through the looking glass, Alice...
Actually Foxy, I always thought Mrs Thatcher's grocery budget economic model and Osborne's paying off the national credit card analogy was b******* so maybe Johnson and Sunak have it right?
Yes, but they should at least acknowledge that they have torched all pre 2016 Tory economic policy, surely?
There seems to be clear logic in @Philip_Thompson 's position: if you are still fearful of covid, despite your vaccination status, you are at liberty to spend all your time in public wearing a FFP3 mask while avoiding anywhere that agitates your fear.
If you are not fearful, and want to try to live your life as normally as possible, then you are equally at liberty to abandon your mask.
I fit into the latter group, but realise that some people differ.
So what? Live and let live.
Lol - what people may or may not be fearful of is not the issue. Public health is the issue. There are plenty of wazzocks out there denying Covid and some of them win a Darwin Award by dying from it.
We're in the middle of another big spike of pox that isn't going away. You will of course insist that your government-mandated wayward behaviour has nothing to do with it.
Big spike? Deaths were down this week compared to the week before and were miniscule. If that's what you're considering a big spike then I'm quite happy to live with it.
As I said, you may be dismissive, the rest of the world is not. The pandemic (not endemic) is still ripping through the globe, with new variants being created and we know how much they are when we get them.
We may not be dying by the thousand every day thank God. But we are still a massively infected island, infection rates remain very very high compared to most other countries and its no wonder that we remain on restricted country lists in so many places.
I couldn't care less.
The entire planet needs to learn to live with the virus. Of course countries that haven't as successfully handled Covid19 as Britain so are less vaccinated than us will be terrified of Delta letting rip there - if I was in New Zealand or Australia right now it'd be a real concern.
I'm delighted that we vaccinated ourselves first ahead of the world. The rest of the world needs to catch up with us in learning to live with the virus, that's not a bad thing, its just a sign of our huge success that we got there before them.
Got it. So our vax rates now lagging behind chunks of Europe is cause for delight, and we are right and the rest of the world is wrong.
The problem of course is that whilst England can think like that it doesn't mean the rest of the world has to agree and do what we say. We're going to end up getting mandatory quarantine going anywhere off this island at this rate.
Which would still be better than mandatory isolation, travel bans and never ending lockdowns which NZ and Australia have now due to their low vaccination rates compared to ours
Absolutely agreed – the Damocles Sword Lockdown / Prison Island model is beyond oppressive. The New Zealanders are still in the obdeient-sanguine phase, but the Australians are starting to twitch.
The deal here: No Restrictions – Moderate Risk is probably the best we can hope for at the moment.
You get so excited when peculiar and scary right wing parties and candidates the world over benefit from centrist inertia.
Oh, the irony that Ardern is tossed assunder for her Covid response yet Johnson's star ascends higher.
"But Boris is the world's vaccine hero, he invented the vaccines" cry the fanbois.
He didn't invent them.
He did out of all major nations have by far the world's best policy of procuring them. An outstanding job even you must admit surely?
Yes the UK's vaccine rollout was excellent, and as the event took place on Johnson's watch he is entitled to claim the credit.
I can see "they jabber we jab" becoming the next "clearing up Labour's mess".
An entirely factual and valid point to win votes?
Yes I can too.
No, Philip. A mendacious soundbite repeated ad tedium because it's effective, is what I meant there.
But both statements are only effective because the public knows they are true.
If you don't want lines like "clearing up Labour's mess" to be effective then how about not getting in a mess than another government needs to clear up? Just a simple idea.
When there was a once-in-a-century global pandemic Labour didn't need to clear up the mess years later after the next election because the Tories thanks to a best-in-the-world vaccine procurement were able to solve it already first.
But when Labour were in office they trashed the finances and left them so atrocious it took years for the Tories to fix Labour's mess. Labour weren't able to fix the mess themselves.
Thankfully UK Plc finances are looking perfect at the moment... aren't they?
On More or Less this morning there was an item which pointed out that the cost of servicing our Government Debt is at an historic low. Rather less than 3% of GDP.
I thought fair point, you've tumbled my game, and then I realised your management of current debt is by way of forecast based on current low interest rates. With inflationary pressure aren't interest rates likely to fluctuate?
Quite obviously the government doesn't want interest rates to rise. Let's see if the BoE is really independent...
If the Government can "influence" the BoE to hold interest rates despite inflationary pressure, won't that fly in the face of logical economics. It may mean they hold off a financial crash until after 2024 and win a handsome majority, but won't the whole house of cards crumble soon after.
I am intrigued as to how wage and price inflation works without interest rate rises, and that we can increase spending with only modest tax increases, if any meaningful ones at all.
Or is the increase in taxation from wage inflation and an increase in VAT from RPI inflation going to do Sunak's work for him? It looks implausible to me
People forget that there's different reasons for wages to increase.
If wages are going up because prices are going up then that's an inflationary spiral with nothing underpinning it.
If wages are going up because we're at full employment and high demand for productive labour then that's economic growth and its real pay rises.
Its quite perverse that some people now have an attitude of pay rises are bad. Pay rises, so long as they're due to productivity, is how we become better off.
Wages increase due to supply and demand issues in specific areas ( at the moment transport) Prices thus go up. This inflationary pressure leads to NHS workers, teachers, and private sector workers too, for example getting squeezed and demanding pay increases. The spiral continues ..
If you are not careful you have the 1978/79 Labour Government.
Not remotely. Wages have gone up in real terms for centuries, if they hadn't we'd still be on medieval "wages".
The problem in the seventies wasn't that wages were going up due to supply and demand, but that wages were going up despite the lack of demand. They were going up due to politics not economics.
As expected, a blizzard of polls from Canada in the past couple of days.
Ignoring the daily rolling numbers, we've had four polls in the past three days and three have the Conservatives in front.
The leads are not as large as the Mainstreet daily rolling poll - Leger had a four point Conservative lead (34-30) and Angus Reid a three point lead (33-30). IPSOS had a one point lead (32-31) and Research had a one point Liberal lead (33-32).
All the polls have higher NDP support levels than the daily rolling polls - Leger had the NDP at 24% and Ipsos had 23% supporting the NDP (the daily rolling polls show 18-20%).
Looking at the key Ontario numbers, Leger has the Conservatives on 35, Liberals on 34 and NDP on 25. Angus Reid has the Liberals ahead 36-34 in Ontario with the NDP on 22. Ipsos has the Liberals on 35, Conservatives on 33 and the NDP on 27. Finally, Research has the Conservatives ahead 36-35 in Ontario.
The NDP are running well in British Columbia at this stage - second in some polls.
I'll be honest the news that natural immunity is superior to vaccination makes me less angry with @contrarian and the other antivaxxers. I mean they're mugging themselves off but I don't think herd immunity is overly affected by his and his ilks actions
Worth noting that @Dura_Ace is also an antivaxxer yet gets a fraction of the opprobrium reserved from Contrarian
I don't think he's ever said that people in general should not get the vaccine, just that he won't because of animal rights concerns.
What's the difference? Unless he thinks those concerns are meaningless wouldn't he want others to act in the same way?
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
I concur. The Tank Commander and his neo-Unionist fellow travellers are shooting themselves in the feet.
This particular Unionist has no issue with Indyref2 and I agree with @kinabalu
However, the first problem the SNPs has is calling indyref2 before the majority of Scots are ready for it , and secondly it would be very brave without a majority in favour of independence
Additionally I really cannot understand Nicola agreeing a deal with the Greens as it was not necessary
How many times do we have to do this? 1. Scottish voters are ready for the referendum having voted for parties to deliver it 2. A comfortable majority of MSPs pledged to deliver it were elected in a record turnout
We cannot have a "votes cast count, seats elected don't count" argument without also accepting that the Labour / LibDem / Green / SNP group won the UK election.
As many times as you need to understand
The composition of seats in Westminster does not determine Switzerland’s foreign policy because it is not within their sphere of competence no matter how interesting it might be
The composition of seats in Holyrood does not determine whether there will be a referendum because it is not within their sphere of competence
It is purely a political argument that the UK government has been willing to ignore. A clear majority of votes cast would be more compelling to demonstrate that there is a demand from the voters of Scotland
I am not making an argument as to whether such a thing is a devolved matter or not (and it isn't) so most of your post is irrelevant.
The latter point is fascinating though. If members elected is not the correct measure and votes cast is, then Jeremy Corbyn would be prime minister as the Labour / LD / SNP / Green block received more votes than the Tory / Brexit / UKIP / DUP one
No, it’s a totally different thing.
The election of representatives is, for Westminster, on an FPTP basis
Indyref2 is about a clear desire to change the rules of the game. That needs polpukar support. There was a referendum recently so the 50 point something than SNP+Greens achieved in the Holyrood elections isn’t - in my view - sufficient but it’s a political tussle: there’s no right or wrong
The idea that governments ought to have “popular support” clearly being too radical.
"Nearly every malodorous myth about the Great War can be traced back to the literary septic tank that is Lloyd George’s War Memoirs."
An article in the Express that is interesting and amusing?!!??
End Times....
It describes Grey's school, Winchester, as "the thinking boy's Eton"!
I've got Lewis-Stempel's book, Six Weeks – the short and gallant life of the British officer in the First World War. It is mainly about the subalterns, iirc, the Lieutenant Georges in Blackadder terms.
Wykehamists tend to be less posh than Etonians but more intellectual
Didn't Rishi Sunak go there?
He did, he is less posh by background than Boris and Cameron but more intellectual.
Geoffrey Howe and Hugh Gaitskell were also prominent postwar Wykehamist politicians and both intellectuals too.
Winchester is also technically older than Eton, founded in 1382, Eton was only founded in 1440
I was right that Winchester is the older of the two and also generally the more intellectual of the two, 9th on A level and pre U grades to Eton's 13th in the league table of top 100 independent schools
Not a lot in it, these days. Eton often outperforms Winchester on that metric and on Oxbridge places per capita. 40 years ago Eton was markedly unselective, hence the joke "Slough comp.", with only the truly thick being relegated to Stowe. It's different now, Eton lives or dies by league table results.
Eton went through an academic phase but the community objected and the school listened. The OEA may only have a “skinny” constitution but they have a lot of weight - the Provost listens to them closely
I'll be honest the news that natural immunity is superior to vaccination makes me less angry with @contrarian and the other antivaxxers. I mean they're mugging themselves off but I don't think herd immunity is overly affected by his and his ilks actions
Worth noting that @Dura_Ace is also an antivaxxer yet gets a fraction of the opprobrium reserved for Contrarian
I don't think he's ever said that people in general should not get the vaccine, just that he won't because of animal rights concerns.
In all fairness, I don’t recall Contrarian dissuading others from the vaccine either!
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
I concur. The Tank Commander and his neo-Unionist fellow travellers are shooting themselves in the feet.
This particular Unionist has no issue with Indyref2 and I agree with @kinabalu
However, the first problem the SNPs has is calling indyref2 before the majority of Scots are ready for it , and secondly it would be very brave without a majority in favour of independence
Additionally I really cannot understand Nicola agreeing a deal with the Greens as it was not necessary
How many times do we have to do this? 1. Scottish voters are ready for the referendum having voted for parties to deliver it 2. A comfortable majority of MSPs pledged to deliver it were elected in a record turnout
We cannot have a "votes cast count, seats elected don't count" argument without also accepting that the Labour / LibDem / Green / SNP group won the UK election.
As many times as you need to understand
The composition of seats in Westminster does not determine Switzerland’s foreign policy because it is not within their sphere of competence no matter how interesting it might be
The composition of seats in Holyrood does not determine whether there will be a referendum because it is not within their sphere of competence
It is purely a political argument that the UK government has been willing to ignore. A clear majority of votes cast would be more compelling to demonstrate that there is a demand from the voters of Scotland
I am not making an argument as to whether such a thing is a devolved matter or not (and it isn't) so most of your post is irrelevant.
The latter point is fascinating though. If members elected is not the correct measure and votes cast is, then Jeremy Corbyn would be prime minister as the Labour / LD / SNP / Green block received more votes than the Tory / Brexit / UKIP / DUP one
Except he wouldn't as the LDs made clear they would not make Corbyn PM, they might make Starmer PM now though
Except he would because in this alt world we're going on votes not seats. The LDs couldn't block anything in parliament because seats in parliament are irrelevant. That's the whole point of the argument. We simply add up the votes for 'Get Brexit Done!' vs those for 'Storrrp Brexit!' and the latter edges it. Corbyn is PM because he leads Labour, the biggest party in the winning block. QED.
Another one who doesn’t understand that representatives do one thing and plebiscites another.
I'll be honest the news that natural immunity is superior to vaccination makes me less angry with @contrarian and the other antivaxxers. I mean they're mugging themselves off but I don't think herd immunity is overly affected by his and his ilks actions
Worth noting that @Dura_Ace is also an antivaxxer yet gets a fraction of the opprobrium reserved from Contrarian
I don't think he's ever said that people in general should not get the vaccine, just that he won't because of animal rights concerns.
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
I concur. The Tank Commander and his neo-Unionist fellow travellers are shooting themselves in the feet.
This particular Unionist has no issue with Indyref2 and I agree with @kinabalu
However, the first problem the SNPs has is calling indyref2 before the majority of Scots are ready for it , and secondly it would be very brave without a majority in favour of independence
Additionally I really cannot understand Nicola agreeing a deal with the Greens as it was not necessary
How many times do we have to do this? 1. Scottish voters are ready for the referendum having voted for parties to deliver it 2. A comfortable majority of MSPs pledged to deliver it were elected in a record turnout
We cannot have a "votes cast count, seats elected don't count" argument without also accepting that the Labour / LibDem / Green / SNP group won the UK election.
As many times as you need to understand
The composition of seats in Westminster does not determine Switzerland’s foreign policy because it is not within their sphere of competence no matter how interesting it might be
The composition of seats in Holyrood does not determine whether there will be a referendum because it is not within their sphere of competence
It is purely a political argument that the UK government has been willing to ignore. A clear majority of votes cast would be more compelling to demonstrate that there is a demand from the voters of Scotland
I am not making an argument as to whether such a thing is a devolved matter or not (and it isn't) so most of your post is irrelevant.
The latter point is fascinating though. If members elected is not the correct measure and votes cast is, then Jeremy Corbyn would be prime minister as the Labour / LD / SNP / Green block received more votes than the Tory / Brexit / UKIP / DUP one
Righty-ho. The Lib Dems would support Jezza.
Is this on your Focus leaflet, as well ?
They wouldn't be a coalition of course. None of them would. But as this is fantasy island where I'm being told votes cast count more than elected members, we don't need to bother with that detail.
More people voted for remain parties than leave parties in 2019. So if the "logic" being deployed for Scotland was also applied to the UK, we wouldn't have this government.
In essence its cakeism from PB Tories.
Not at all.
If there was overwhelming demand from the population that we should have another EU referendum then we should have one. Even if not one MP supported it.
That’s different to the role of an elected representative
Don't worry everyone. The Global Financial Crisis was Labour trashing the finances National debt of 65% was crippling and we almost went bankrupt National debt of 100% and rising is affordable
Perhaps some consistency may help PB Tories going foreard
National debt wasn't the issue in 2010. The deficit was the issue in 2010.
Hypothetically it would be much better to a national debt of 110% with a structural 1% surplus than a national debt of 70% with a structural 10% deficit.
I can see through your smoke and mirrors.
No smokes and mirrors. The issue in 2010 was always (by those who know what they're talking about) the deficit.
Only an idiot who didn't understand economics ever said debt in 2010.
Surely the analogy used by Osborne about "paying off the nation's credit card" was exclusively refencing the debt.
What makes them think that he has done anything in the last 4 months?
I said six month ago (ish) that Liz Truss was doing more for Britain and for foreign affairs in her role than the actual Foreign Secretary.
Nothing has changed that opinion.
Her department described as "Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V" by Whitehall mandarins for the copy and paste continuation deals being touted as new.
Ignoring the last four words of your post for a minute, isn't that literally her job for the time being? And wasn't part of the argument against Brexit that we wouldn't be able to secure equally attractive terms on our own merits, without the EU's greater buying/negotiating power? In which case she is doing a smashing job in rolling them forwards.
Sure! We needed to roll over the trade deals we left when we exited the EU. Nobody is saying that she shouldn't be doing this.
What I think they are referring to is her claim that these are new deals. Whilst they are a new bilateral agreement they are not new trading arrangements. And yet the claim is made repeatedly that they are.
You mentioned yesterday that you hoped to be selected for the lib dems and I did ask if you would campaign for the union
I would be interested in your reply
I don't understand the question. I am a member of a federalist party. I campaigned for them against the SNP government this year. We want to sustain the union by replacing the failed current union with a new written federal UK constitution that both encompasses national parliaments and as much local devolution (to Mayors for example) as people want.
Will I campaign to preserve the status quo? No. Do I want scottish independence? No. But we WILL end up independent unless the union is made fit for the future. Westminster choosing to expel NI from the free trade zone and telling Scotland their votes count for nothing imperils the whole shebang.
Seems a complex way of saying you agree with lib dem policy in support of the Union and you will campaign against independence
Its a simple way to point out that "the union" as you define it - the current constitutional settlement - is not something we support. So no, I will not be campaigning to preserve this union, but for the creation of a new one.
So will you refuse indyref2
No! It is the expressed will of the Scottish people! A record turnout in a Holyrood election and a record number of pro-independence MSPs elected in a clear majority.
To deny indyref2 is to deny democracy - and accelerate Scotland voting to leave.
Scottish LD policy is to oppose indyref2, if you are now a LD candidate you are obliged to support LD policy
Don't be silly. My party is wrong on this subject. And we have a healthy debate on policy issues every year at conference.
Its hardly like every candidate and elected representative at every level of every party wholeheartedly agrees with every policy that party has.
If you stand on a party ticket you should support that party's manifesto otherwise you are confusing voters
Do you agree with every aspect of the Conservative manifesto ?
He can hardly join the SNP being a unionist and all that.
I thought Rochdale favoured Sindy now?
I favour holding the referendum that is the clearly expressed will of the Scottish people. I do not favour Scotland gaining independence. It will happen though unless we face into the wreck of this union and try to fix it.
Ah ok. Yes the vote needs to happen. If it doesn't we'll see a (Westminster) 'PARLIAMENT vs the PEOPLE' atmosphere develop and we know how that ends. This is why - oddly - I think a vote now rather than later is better for Unionists than for Nats. They'd be favourites and another No to Sindy would take it off the table.
I concur. The Tank Commander and his neo-Unionist fellow travellers are shooting themselves in the feet.
This particular Unionist has no issue with Indyref2 and I agree with @kinabalu
However, the first problem the SNPs has is calling indyref2 before the majority of Scots are ready for it , and secondly it would be very brave without a majority in favour of independence
Additionally I really cannot understand Nicola agreeing a deal with the Greens as it was not necessary
How many times do we have to do this? 1. Scottish voters are ready for the referendum having voted for parties to deliver it 2. A comfortable majority of MSPs pledged to deliver it were elected in a record turnout
We cannot have a "votes cast count, seats elected don't count" argument without also accepting that the Labour / LibDem / Green / SNP group won the UK election.
As many times as you need to understand
The composition of seats in Westminster does not determine Switzerland’s foreign policy because it is not within their sphere of competence no matter how interesting it might be
The composition of seats in Holyrood does not determine whether there will be a referendum because it is not within their sphere of competence
It is purely a political argument that the UK government has been willing to ignore. A clear majority of votes cast would be more compelling to demonstrate that there is a demand from the voters of Scotland
I am not making an argument as to whether such a thing is a devolved matter or not (and it isn't) so most of your post is irrelevant.
The latter point is fascinating though. If members elected is not the correct measure and votes cast is, then Jeremy Corbyn would be prime minister as the Labour / LD / SNP / Green block received more votes than the Tory / Brexit / UKIP / DUP one
No, it’s a totally different thing.
The election of representatives is, for Westminster, on an FPTP basis
Indyref2 is about a clear desire to change the rules of the game. That needs polpukar support. There was a referendum recently so the 50 point something than SNP+Greens achieved in the Holyrood elections isn’t - in my view - sufficient but it’s a political tussle: there’s no right or wrong
I hear you. Don't change the rules of the game. So in Scotland the game is Holyrood and the rules are the electoral system. In May two parties ran on a manifesto pledge to hold a new referendum. A record turnout of voters elected a record number of MSPs to that pledge with a clear majority.
This is popular support. As mandated by the electoral system. Yet you want to now negate this result and propose a different bar set by opinion polls. This is somehow more democratic than actual elections.
You want to keep the union? So why are you working so hard to cement the case for independence?
I'll be honest the news that natural immunity is superior to vaccination makes me less angry with @contrarian and the other antivaxxers. I mean they're mugging themselves off but I don't think herd immunity is overly affected by his and his ilks actions
Worth noting that @Dura_Ace is also an antivaxxer yet gets a fraction of the opprobrium reserved from Contrarian
I don't think he's ever said that people in general should not get the vaccine, just that he won't because of animal rights concerns.
What's the difference? Unless he thinks those concerns are meaningless wouldn't he want others to act in the same way?
He doesn't bang on about it which is kudos points for a start.
I'll be honest the news that natural immunity is superior to vaccination makes me less angry with @contrarian and the other antivaxxers. I mean they're mugging themselves off but I don't think herd immunity is overly affected by his and his ilks actions
Worth noting that @Dura_Ace is also an antivaxxer yet gets a fraction of the opprobrium reserved from Contrarian
I don't think he's ever said that people in general should not get the vaccine, just that he won't because of animal rights concerns.
Animal rights concerns?
Because it was tested on animals. Which does beg the question does Dura_Ace accept any medication...
I'll be honest the news that natural immunity is superior to vaccination makes me less angry with @contrarian and the other antivaxxers. I mean they're mugging themselves off but I don't think herd immunity is overly affected by his and his ilks actions
Worth noting that @Dura_Ace is also an antivaxxer yet gets a fraction of the opprobrium reserved from Contrarian
Partly because he has a coherent philosophical position and partly because he isn’t an arse
English Tory "unionists" don't get it. This is the big opportunity to settle the issue. A clear mandate in Holyrood for a new vote. But no clear support for a yes vote.
Say "we accept the democratic will. Referendum next year, but we are going to write into law that the result of this one is FINAL and no further referenda will be entertained by Westminster until 2040 or later. Get it done now.
The longer this goes on, with you lot denying democracy, the greater the chances of a yes vote.
I'll be honest the news that natural immunity is superior to vaccination makes me less angry with @contrarian and the other antivaxxers. I mean they're mugging themselves off but I don't think herd immunity is overly affected by his and his ilks actions
Worth noting that @Dura_Ace is also an antivaxxer yet gets a fraction of the opprobrium reserved from Contrarian
I don't think he's ever said that people in general should not get the vaccine, just that he won't because of animal rights concerns.
What's the difference? Unless he thinks those concerns are meaningless wouldn't he want others to act in the same way?
He doesn't bang on about it which is kudos points for a start.
That certainly impacts the irritation level felt and so the response to it, but the outcome is the same regardless of the reason.
I'll be honest the news that natural immunity is superior to vaccination makes me less angry with @contrarian and the other antivaxxers. I mean they're mugging themselves off but I don't think herd immunity is overly affected by his and his ilks actions
Worth noting that @Dura_Ace is also an antivaxxer yet gets a fraction of the opprobrium reserved from Contrarian
Partly because he has a coherent philosophical position and partly because he isn’t an arse
I think @Dura_Ace is going to be disappointed he doesn’t qualify as an arse.
Comments
I've been into English supermarkets. Last week. Mask wearing was pretty high. As it was in the motorway services. Are the people wearing masks also being "hysterical"?
If you reduce interpersonal contacts by 50% then you reduce infection risk by 50%, other things equal. More if you are selective in what those contacts are.
We had a family gathering of 15 of all ages over the weekend, but all had negative LFTs and all adults double jabbed. So quite a bit safer than 15 random in a pub etc.
But the numbers could be even lower.
Only 13% of those asked to respond to the survey did so.
Researchers believe those who are suffering ongoing symptoms would be more likely to complete the survey than those who are not.
If all those with long Covid were to do so among those who did so, that would suggest their actual number was just 4,000 or fewer than 2%.
Fifteen weeks after infection, between 1.7% and 14% of them still had some symptoms. But there's no evidence to show that large numbers had to get help for symptoms that were so bad they had to stay in bed, or couldn't go to school.
In the event of a booster programme, it is expected that severely immunosuppressed people will also be offered a booster dose, at a suitable interval after their third dose.
A third primary dose is an extra ‘top-up’ dose for those who may not have generated a full immune response to the first 2 doses. In contrast, a booster dose is a later dose to extend the duration of protection from the primary course of vaccinations.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/jcvi-issues-advice-on-third-dose-vaccination-for-severely-immunosuppressed
I would venture to say a higher percentage have one for employees than bars for customers.
The end of farcical compulsory suit wearing for no good reason would be a bit of petty authoritarianism I'd love to see the back of. Suit sales down 50%. Good.
If masks are unnatural, what about the tie? You literally, compulsorily sport a potential noose to do a day's work. On pain of disciplinary action. Why?
So yes - they are very sustainable.
Here is More of Less, starting at about 17:50.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000z6cd
And, as we found out during and after the GFC, the BofE debt management operation is very, very good.
From an HoC Research paper, dated May 2021:
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN05745/SN05745.pdf
(Updated with cropped version)
So Boris would still be PM but we would also still be in the EU
you can look it up for most nations on the our would in data website:
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FtZkVRkusQ&ab_channel=RatherRum
Is this on your Focus leaflet, as well as Sindy
* I think that was the quote this morning.
Because the reality is that the Quantitive Easing pounds will never be repaid.
More people voted for remain parties than leave parties in 2019. So if the "logic" being deployed for Scotland was also applied to the UK, we wouldn't have this government.
In essence its cakeism from PB Tories.
Nandy critical of Blair and Bush, and Obama/Biden and Trump's overtures to the Taliban, as well as a lack of planning from our Government.
Tugenhadt pointed out that the French and German effort was underway as far back as April, when the withdrawal was confirmed by Biden, with exploratory talks with Afghan neighbours in the event of things going awry. Tugenhadt suggested US and UK, with bigger numbers granted, made little forward plans because they assumed intell was going to be on the button...which of course it wasn't.
The Global Financial Crisis was Labour trashing the finances
National debt of 65% was crippling and we almost went bankrupt
National debt of 100% and rising is affordable
Perhaps some consistency may help PB Tories going foreard
https://twitter.com/CourtNewsUK/status/1433016097679286274?s=20
https://twitter.com/Holbornlolz/status/1433086952279056387
"Not entirely certain a leader that can't stop her people beating each other to death / drinking to death / drugging to death is going to have much luck introducing vaccine passports for nightclubs."
I understand the EU will only present its response to @DavidGHFrost “command paper” on Protocol at end of Sept, making a further extension to some grace periods almost inevitable
Talk of “cliff-edges” in EU are always overdone. These negotiations have some way to run
But I found them the easiest way to assess hotspots. And potential trouble spots.
I mean they're mugging themselves off but I don't think herd immunity is overly affected by his and his ilks actions
Tugenhadt was impressed that the EU's forward planning had made provision (and he did credit the EU) with any failure in intel as the operation drew to a close.
Fair enough the EU vaccine roll out wasn't a patch on ours, so I suspect that still gives us a march on the EU's successful Afghan retreat.
My daughter and son in law (both fully vaccinated) are due to travel to Edinburgh from here in North Wales on Friday for a wedding over the weekend
Due to the levels of covid in Lothian is this wise, as they have to take their daughter to her hall of residence in Leeds the following weekend
Your advice would be appreciated, without prejudice
Thank you
I think the points of vulnerability finance wise are if the current Govt lose their new Red Wall potential heartland by getting the coming tax increases / spending constraints out of balance.
To my eye, spending many many billions on placating the Home Counties, then killing the Eastern branch of HS2 for the sake of 2-3 bn a year or so which has been tipped into holes in places like Buckinghamshire, is a huge "f*ck you" to the East Midlands, Yorkshire, and the NE, and is a bullet shot into their green agenda. May not go down well.
The EM alone have 48 Tory MPs now. The three together have 77 Tories.
One of their unforced errors could get them.
I haven't heard that since I was growing up, just South of Birmingham!
Anyway I claim orderly withdrawal (something Johnson was never too keen on) you say "run away".
London particularly striking.
It's a blatant violation of the right established under Roe V. Wade. We will protect and defend that right.
https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1433131448542941186?s=20
It doesn't really matter whether someone proclaims the pandemic is over because they've stopped wearing a face covering in all honesty.
On public transport, there's an interesting inconsistency - on TFL services, it is a condition of carriage to wear a face covering on trains, tubes and in stations. In theory, TfL staff could be on the train and throw off anyone not wearing a face covering.
That of course doesn't happen and gradually the numbers not wearing face coverings are increasing. The question of the legality versus the enforcement springs to mind - what's the point of having a law or a condition of carriage if no one is prepared to enforce it?
On non-TfL rail services, it's a mixed bag - some are now saying you only need a face covering in crowded areas while others continue to insist on a face covering at all times. I always found it odd that when I was in a carriage by myself I was required to wear a face covering - I literally did not get that.
Whether the return to school will lead to a new growth of cases remains to be seen - I'm concerned the plan for a third or booster vaccination seems to be limited. I believe (and I sit to be corrected) the immunity achieved from having the virus itself is superior to that from a vaccination but neither Mrs Stodge nor I are overkeen to dance the dance with coronavirus. I suspect we're not alone and the Government will come under pressure to broaden the booster vaccination programme.
I'd say they want interest rates up modestly by 1-1.5% over a couple of years.
I am intrigued as to how wage and price inflation works without interest rate rises, and that we can increase spending with only modest tax increases, if any meaningful ones at all.
Or is the increase in taxation from wage inflation and an increase in VAT from RPI inflation going to do Sunak's work for him? It looks implausible to me
Hypothetically it would be much better to a national debt of 110% with a structural 1% surplus than a national debt of 70% with a structural 10% deficit.
If wages are going up because prices are going up then that's an inflationary spiral with nothing underpinning it.
If wages are going up because we're at full employment and high demand for productive labour then that's economic growth and its real pay rises.
Its quite perverse that some people now have an attitude of pay rises are bad. Pay rises, so long as they're due to productivity, is how we become better off.
If you are not careful you have the 1978/79 Labour Government.
The problem in the seventies wasn't that wages were going up due to supply and demand, but that wages were going up despite the lack of demand. They were going up due to politics not economics.
Only an idiot who didn't understand economics ever said debt in 2010.
The election of representatives is, for Westminster, on an FPTP basis
Indyref2 is about a clear desire to change the rules of the game. That needs polpukar support. There was a referendum recently so the 50 point something than SNP+Greens achieved in the Holyrood elections isn’t - in my view - sufficient but it’s a political tussle: there’s no right or wrong
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-latest-news-live-new-variant-named-mu-declared-of-interest-by-who-as-australian-state-records-first-virus-deaths-this-year-12395612
Ignoring the daily rolling numbers, we've had four polls in the past three days and three have the Conservatives in front.
The leads are not as large as the Mainstreet daily rolling poll - Leger had a four point Conservative lead (34-30) and Angus Reid a three point lead (33-30). IPSOS had a one point lead (32-31) and Research had a one point Liberal lead (33-32).
All the polls have higher NDP support levels than the daily rolling polls - Leger had the NDP at 24% and Ipsos had 23% supporting the NDP (the daily rolling polls show 18-20%).
Looking at the key Ontario numbers, Leger has the Conservatives on 35, Liberals on 34 and NDP on 25. Angus Reid has the Liberals ahead 36-34 in Ontario with the NDP on 22. Ipsos has the Liberals on 35, Conservatives on 33 and the NDP on 27. Finally, Research has the Conservatives ahead 36-35 in Ontario.
The NDP are running well in British Columbia at this stage - second in some polls.
One of the lady commentators referring v to an England player said...,She will be looking for a big one tonight ",🤣🤣🤣🤣
If there was overwhelming demand from the population that we should have another EU referendum then we should have one. Even if not one MP supported it.
That’s different to the role of an elected representative
Was he wrong, or are you rewriting the narrative?
This is popular support. As mandated by the electoral system. Yet you want to now negate this result and propose a different bar set by opinion polls. This is somehow more democratic than actual elections.
You want to keep the union? So why are you working so hard to cement the case for independence?
Say "we accept the democratic will. Referendum next year, but we are going to write into law that the result of this one is FINAL and no further referenda will be entertained by Westminster until 2040 or later. Get it done now.
The longer this goes on, with you lot denying democracy, the greater the chances of a yes vote.