I'm so sorry to have to break this to you all, but I am just placing this week's order with Riverford, and I have discovered that they are out of Good Brie.
What no Somerset Brie? Are you having to order the French muck instead?
This is what has sold out:
Caws Cenarth brie
Velvet-soft organic brie with a rich mushroomy flavour that intensifies with age – if you can wait that long. This brie is handmade in small batches by the Adams family in the lush valleys of South Wales.
I will never not be amused by the cool calm rational bettor absolutely losing it when factual statements are made about their hero.
Indeed.
Well, I actually don't care that much for Trump. I think he was the better choice in 2016 and 2020 but, if you think I'd be arsed going out to cheer him, forget it.
However, I do like highlighting the hypocrisy and double standards when it comes to how one election was treated vs the others. I see that the line of defence now is that it is the January riots which is the defining factor when it comes to behaviour. Which is funny, given pre-January riots the comments were all the same.
And no need to worry about the bets @Alistair, your analysis was one of the reasons why I made money on 2020, so thanks a lot for that
Yes, no one would ever consider your posts, particularly on this thread, as cheerleading for Trump.
I saw him as the better bet. Simple as that. He has plenty of faults but the idea that he is uniquely evil, I find utterly hilarious. And I am glad he won in 2016. I think, if Hilary had won, there was a decent chance we might have ended up in a war with Russia over the Crimea / Ukraine.
But, at the end of the day, thinking Trump is evil incarnate is essentially a proxy for legitimised snobbery. His supporters are all thick, racist, ignorant etc etc and people who despise Trump are naturally people of a superior intellect.
Not so. I think Trump is thick, racist, ignorant etc etc. Don't know about his supporters; there's a lot of them.
If Hilary had gotten us into a war with Russia, Trump's "racism" would have been the least of our problems.
That's a fabulous non-sequitur.
Still, at least you're acknowledging Trump's racism.
Hard to say. His son-in-law is Jewish and certainly the feedback I've had is that he's not that bothered than skin colour.
He certainly has less dubious form than good old Joe Biden who hung out with Southern Racists senators and who sponsored the 1994 Crime Bill. That was one of his appeals to having Biden as VP i.e. to reassure people he wouldn't be radical on race.
He seems particularly bothered by his own skin being anything other than orange.
I'm so sorry to have to break this to you all, but I am just placing this week's order with Riverford, and I have discovered that they are out of Good Brie.
What no Somerset Brie? Are you having to order the French muck instead?
This is what has sold out:
Caws Cenarth brie
Velvet-soft organic brie with a rich mushroomy flavour that intensifies with age – if you can wait that long. This brie is handmade in small batches by the Adams family in the lush valleys of South Wales.
I will never not be amused by the cool calm rational bettor absolutely losing it when factual statements are made about their hero.
Indeed.
Well, I actually don't care that much for Trump. I think he was the better choice in 2016 and 2020 but, if you think I'd be arsed going out to cheer him, forget it.
However, I do like highlighting the hypocrisy and double standards when it comes to how one election was treated vs the others. I see that the line of defence now is that it is the January riots which is the defining factor when it comes to behaviour. Which is funny, given pre-January riots the comments were all the same.
And no need to worry about the bets @Alistair, your analysis was one of the reasons why I made money on 2020, so thanks a lot for that
Yes, no one would ever consider your posts, particularly on this thread, as cheerleading for Trump.
I saw him as the better bet. Simple as that. He has plenty of faults but the idea that he is uniquely evil, I find utterly hilarious. And I am glad he won in 2016. I think, if Hilary had won, there was a decent chance we might have ended up in a war with Russia over the Crimea / Ukraine.
But, at the end of the day, thinking Trump is evil incarnate is essentially a proxy for legitimised snobbery. His supporters are all thick, racist, ignorant etc etc and people who despise Trump are naturally people of a superior intellect.
Not so. I think Trump is thick, racist, ignorant etc etc. Don't know about his supporters; there's a lot of them.
If Hilary had gotten us into a war with Russia, Trump's "racism" would have been the least of our problems.
That's a fabulous non-sequitur.
Still, at least you're acknowledging Trump's racism.
Hard to say. His son-in-law is Jewish and certainly the feedback I've had is that he's not that bothered than skin colour.
He certainly has less dubious form than good old Joe Biden who hung out with Southern Racists senators and who sponsored the 1994 Crime Bill. That was one of his appeals to having Biden as VP i.e. to reassure people he wouldn't be radical on race.
He seems particularly bothered by his own skin being anything other than orange.
The head of NI manufacturing has said he doesn’t understand why the UK is making the role of the ECJ a red line . If ECJ oversight is removed then this will impact NI access to the single market .
So it looks like this is an effort by no 10 to stop NI from increasing trade with the EU. NI could end up with the best of both worlds as the EUs proposals are likely to reduce many of the checks and so the lunatics in no 10 have decided that NI can’t be seen to be doing well from their arrangements and are now going to embark on making impossible demands .
I have some sympathy for objections to the EUCJ having a role in a sovereign state outside of its jurisdiction, even if its role is a technical one of interpreting the law relating to the Single Market that Northern Ireland is part of.
But we are where we are and have to make the best of the mess we have put ourselves into.
The logical thing to do is to have an arbitration process. One Party ruling on the other Parties jurisdiction isn't acceptable.
The difference between NI and the UK mainland is that NI is part of the Single Market, while UK mainland isn't. It makes practical sense for EU institutions to enforce compliance with its market rules, even if the constitutional position is iffy.
I am thinking maybe the EFTA Court, or equivalent, might be a solution. ie a court within the jurisdiction with judges that are are nationals of that jurisdiction, which is tasked with interpreting EU law for that jurisdiction following EU case law. The UK might have to join EFTA.
I'm so sorry to have to break this to you all, but I am just placing this week's order with Riverford, and I have discovered that they are out of Good Brie.
What no Somerset Brie? Are you having to order the French muck instead?
This is what has sold out:
Caws Cenarth brie
Velvet-soft organic brie with a rich mushroomy flavour that intensifies with age – if you can wait that long. This brie is handmade in small batches by the Adams family in the lush valleys of South Wales.
I eat Cheddar and Wensleydale.
If people want brie with mushroomy flavour then can't they buy camembert instead ?
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
When i think of Trump , I think of Robert Maxwell..
The head of NI manufacturing has said he doesn’t understand why the UK is making the role of the ECJ a red line . If ECJ oversight is removed then this will impact NI access to the single market .
So it looks like this is an effort by no 10 to stop NI from increasing trade with the EU. NI could end up with the best of both worlds as the EUs proposals are likely to reduce many of the checks and so the lunatics in no 10 have decided that NI can’t be seen to be doing well from their arrangements and are now going to embark on making impossible demands .
You have a one track devotion to the EU and now calling those who may have a different view 'lunatics'
As I understand it HMG is not willing to have ECJ judgment over NI
We are a third country to the EU and therefore a mechanism has to be found that is reasonable to both sides
The mechanism is perfectly fair and has little impact on businesses but ECJ oversight has to be there otherwise this impacts NI access to the single market . Originally all the moaning from the unionist side was on practical issues regarding trade , this is going to be addressed by the EU who are making large compromises but now no 10 is moving the goal posts . Frost is making impossible demands re the ECJ . No 10 was either too stupid to understand what they signed upto or disgracefully signed a deal which they never had any intention of honouring.
So they were happy to have ECJ oversight when Bozo went round saying the deal was marvelous but now apparently it’s not . Could you please explain why ?
I do not want to be unkind but by 2024 Trump will be my age and my old bones rattle and roll and just about keep me up
Maybe tempus fugit will also arrive for him by then
I'll tell you how. Tribalists turning a blind eye to misbehaviour on their own side, and sanctimonious gits knowing their side is gone rotten and still voting for them.
People who know there's something wrong, wring their hands about it, and then endorse it at the ballot box.
Works both ways. Democrats are as guilty as Republicans. The cries that it is only one side doing it is what is causing this level of distrust.
No it isn't. It's mainly the fact that Trump is so off the scale poisonous. And what is this stuff about how we aren't allowed to say 2016 was rigged, when it plainly was?
Ah ok, so:
"2016 was rigged, illegitimate President elected" = ok to say, not a problem
"2020 was stolen, stop the steal" = existential threat to Democracy and undermining the Republic
Jesus, that in a nutshell highlights the issue.
Saying the Trump presidency was "illegitimate" was proof that they shouldn't have elected Clinton. Trump's Big Lie was proof that they should have.
Tie-breaker: count the attempted coups instigated by each. I'll let others work the abacus on that one.
Are we counting the impeachment hearings as attempted coups? Not all coups involve tanks and guns.
No, we are not. That is entirely within the existing constitutional framework. Sending a mob to hang the VP is not.
The false equivalence on this subject is just bloody astounding.
That's why the potentially legal options to ignore the vote are so concerning, as that doesn't require a coup.
Would you like to explain why it is false equivalence. It gets bandied around as a fact but, in both 2016 and 2020, as I showed, and there is plenty of evidence for you to see, both sides claimed the winner's election was illegitimate and open to question.
You will then claim it is about the January riots and that is the difference which is an argument I would have a lot more sympathy for if it wasn't for the fact I was debating on here post-election about how Trump's tactics were to go down the state legislatures route and everyone agreed this would be a coup. So people on here already accepted you could have a coup without force. You just seemed to have forgotten about it now a more useful argument comes along.
Ed, the Dems accepted the result, Trump & Co tried to overturn it by vexatious litigation, intimidation and violence. Your take on this is just absurd. Please please stop it.
Come on Kinablu. I accepted that Biden won in 2020 and criticised Trump but you have posters on this site today saying that Trump's win in 2016 was illegitimate and therefore it was fine for Hilary to condemn his election as illegitimate. There are double standards here. Hilary said in 2019 he was an illegitimate President. Stop trying to make out the Democrats played fair post-2016, they didn't.
Failure to condemn equally 2 things that aren't even close to being equivalent is not double standards.
I asked Kle this question before but why are they not equivalent? What are the specific factors that make it thus?
Because vexatious liigation + intimidation of officials + incited violent insurrection is of a vastly different order to complaing about Russian interference.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
The head of NI manufacturing has said he doesn’t understand why the UK is making the role of the ECJ a red line . If ECJ oversight is removed then this will impact NI access to the single market .
So it looks like this is an effort by no 10 to stop NI from increasing trade with the EU. NI could end up with the best of both worlds as the EUs proposals are likely to reduce many of the checks and so the lunatics in no 10 have decided that NI can’t be seen to be doing well from their arrangements and are now going to embark on making impossible demands .
I have some sympathy for objections to the EUCJ having a role in a sovereign state outside of its jurisdiction, even if its role is a technical one of interpreting the law relating to the Single Market that Northern Ireland is part of.
But we are where we are and have to make the best of the mess we have put ourselves into.
The logical thing to do is to have an arbitration process. One Party ruling on the other Parties jurisdiction isn't acceptable.
Just thinking outside the box for a second, perhaps the deal as signed off and pronounced highly satisfactory by both parties could be implemented?
The head of NI manufacturing has said he doesn’t understand why the UK is making the role of the ECJ a red line . If ECJ oversight is removed then this will impact NI access to the single market .
So it looks like this is an effort by no 10 to stop NI from increasing trade with the EU. NI could end up with the best of both worlds as the EUs proposals are likely to reduce many of the checks and so the lunatics in no 10 have decided that NI can’t be seen to be doing well from their arrangements and are now going to embark on making impossible demands .
You have a one track devotion to the EU and now calling those who may have a different view 'lunatics'
As I understand it HMG is not willing to have ECJ judgment over NI
We are a third country to the EU and therefore a mechanism has to be found that is reasonable to both sides
The mechanism is perfectly fair and has little impact on businesses but ECJ oversight has to be there otherwise this impacts NI access to the single market . Originally all the moaning from the unionist side was on practical issues regarding trade , this is going to be addressed by the EU who are making large compromises but now no 10 is moving the goal posts . Frost is making impossible demands re the ECJ . No 10 was either too stupid to understand what they signed upto or disgracefully signed a deal which they never had any intention of honouring.
So they were happy to have ECJ oversight when Bozo went round saying the deal was marvelous but now apparently it’s not . Could you please explain why ?
So Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland can have access to the Single Market without ECJ oversight, but Northern Ireland can't?
You've really drank the kool-aid haven't you? 🤦♂️
The head of NI manufacturing has said he doesn’t understand why the UK is making the role of the ECJ a red line . If ECJ oversight is removed then this will impact NI access to the single market .
So it looks like this is an effort by no 10 to stop NI from increasing trade with the EU. NI could end up with the best of both worlds as the EUs proposals are likely to reduce many of the checks and so the lunatics in no 10 have decided that NI can’t be seen to be doing well from their arrangements and are now going to embark on making impossible demands .
I have some sympathy for objections to the EUCJ having a role in a sovereign state outside of its jurisdiction, even if its role is a technical one of interpreting the law relating to the Single Market that Northern Ireland is part of.
But we are where we are and have to make the best of the mess we have put ourselves into.
The logical thing to do is to have an arbitration process. One Party ruling on the other Parties jurisdiction isn't acceptable.
Just thinking outside the box for a second, perhaps the deal as signed off and pronounced highly satisfactory by both parties could be implemented?
Agreed. Starting and ending with Article 16 of that deal.
Article 16 gets invoked, deal implemented in full, job done let's move on OK?
The head of NI manufacturing has said he doesn’t understand why the UK is making the role of the ECJ a red line . If ECJ oversight is removed then this will impact NI access to the single market .
So it looks like this is an effort by no 10 to stop NI from increasing trade with the EU. NI could end up with the best of both worlds as the EUs proposals are likely to reduce many of the checks and so the lunatics in no 10 have decided that NI can’t be seen to be doing well from their arrangements and are now going to embark on making impossible demands .
I have some sympathy for objections to the EUCJ having a role in a sovereign state outside of its jurisdiction, even if its role is a technical one of interpreting the law relating to the Single Market that Northern Ireland is part of.
But we are where we are and have to make the best of the mess we have put ourselves into.
The logical thing to do is to have an arbitration process. One Party ruling on the other Parties jurisdiction isn't acceptable.
Just thinking outside the box for a second, perhaps the deal as signed off and pronounced highly satisfactory by both parties could be implemented?
Honouring agreements that have been signed off by both parties? Such mad talk will get you nowhere in this brave new world.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
Barring health problems, he absolutely will be the nominee. He's already confirmed he will run for the nomination. The only reason he hasn't said "I will run" is because of campain finance laws.
Because vexatious liigation + intimidation of officials + incited violent insurrection is of a vastly different order to complaing about Russian interference.
It's worth bearing in mind that the US intelligence community jointly agreed that the Russian government did interfere in the 2016 election. This is not something disputed by any serious party. What is less clear is the extent to which the interference was coordinated with the Trump campaign. The Special Counsel had a very narrow remit to investigate the interference, but clearly felt that there had been obstruction of justice by the Trump campaign and Whitehouse to thwart the investigation, and it expected Congress to act to remedy that obstruction. Congress didn't, the GOP was unwilling to hold Trump to account, and so he's still around and still a potential candidate for 2024. GOP cowardice is the only thing that has kept Trump in the running, the GOP could have torpedoed Trump if they wanted to.
The head of NI manufacturing has said he doesn’t understand why the UK is making the role of the ECJ a red line . If ECJ oversight is removed then this will impact NI access to the single market .
So it looks like this is an effort by no 10 to stop NI from increasing trade with the EU. NI could end up with the best of both worlds as the EUs proposals are likely to reduce many of the checks and so the lunatics in no 10 have decided that NI can’t be seen to be doing well from their arrangements and are now going to embark on making impossible demands .
I have some sympathy for objections to the EUCJ having a role in a sovereign state outside of its jurisdiction, even if its role is a technical one of interpreting the law relating to the Single Market that Northern Ireland is part of.
But we are where we are and have to make the best of the mess we have put ourselves into.
The logical thing to do is to have an arbitration process. One Party ruling on the other Parties jurisdiction isn't acceptable.
Just thinking outside the box for a second, perhaps the deal as signed off and pronounced highly satisfactory by both parties could be implemented?
Honouring agreements that have been signed off by both parties? Such mad talk will get you nowhere in this brave new world.
The deal is being honoured.
Did you think Article 16 wasn't a part of the deal? 🤔
What part of that are you lot struggling to understand? Why should Articles 1 through 15 be implemented but not number 16?
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
As I understand it HMG is not willing to have ECJ judgment over NI
Would have been nice if they had mentioned that when they agreed to it a couple of years ago.
They did. They said all along they didn't want to agree to that.
It was agreed temporarily as part of the Protocol with an exit mechanism if the Protocol caused issues. The Protocol caused issues, so now its time to find a new solution instead.
They didn't want to agree with it but they did anyway even though they held all the cards?
The head of NI manufacturing has said he doesn’t understand why the UK is making the role of the ECJ a red line . If ECJ oversight is removed then this will impact NI access to the single market .
So it looks like this is an effort by no 10 to stop NI from increasing trade with the EU. NI could end up with the best of both worlds as the EUs proposals are likely to reduce many of the checks and so the lunatics in no 10 have decided that NI can’t be seen to be doing well from their arrangements and are now going to embark on making impossible demands .
You have a one track devotion to the EU and now calling those who may have a different view 'lunatics'
As I understand it HMG is not willing to have ECJ judgment over NI
We are a third country to the EU and therefore a mechanism has to be found that is reasonable to both sides
The mechanism is perfectly fair and has little impact on businesses but ECJ oversight has to be there otherwise this impacts NI access to the single market . Originally all the moaning from the unionist side was on practical issues regarding trade , this is going to be addressed by the EU who are making large compromises but now no 10 is moving the goal posts . Frost is making impossible demands re the ECJ . No 10 was either too stupid to understand what they signed upto or disgracefully signed a deal which they never had any intention of honouring.
So they were happy to have ECJ oversight when Bozo went round saying the deal was marvelous but now apparently it’s not . Could you please explain why ?
So Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland can have access to the Single Market without ECJ oversight, but Northern Ireland can't?
You've really drank the kool-aid haven't you? 🤦♂️
Those countries are in the EEA and fall under the EFTA court but you seem to have avoided the fact that the WA and TCA are deals done with the EU . NI cannot go under EFTA and no 10 still wouldn’t accept that even if it was possible as they seem to have a hatred of anything with Europe in the name ! You still haven’t answered my question as to why ECJ was fine last year but not now .
The head of NI manufacturing has said he doesn’t understand why the UK is making the role of the ECJ a red line . If ECJ oversight is removed then this will impact NI access to the single market .
So it looks like this is an effort by no 10 to stop NI from increasing trade with the EU. NI could end up with the best of both worlds as the EUs proposals are likely to reduce many of the checks and so the lunatics in no 10 have decided that NI can’t be seen to be doing well from their arrangements and are now going to embark on making impossible demands .
I have some sympathy for objections to the EUCJ having a role in a sovereign state outside of its jurisdiction, even if its role is a technical one of interpreting the law relating to the Single Market that Northern Ireland is part of.
But we are where we are and have to make the best of the mess we have put ourselves into.
The logical thing to do is to have an arbitration process. One Party ruling on the other Parties jurisdiction isn't acceptable.
Just thinking outside the box for a second, perhaps the deal as signed off and pronounced highly satisfactory by both parties could be implemented?
Agreed. Starting and ending with Article 16 of that deal.
Article 16 gets invoked, deal implemented in full, job done let's move on OK?
We all agreed when it briefly looked as if the EU were going to abuse A16 that this was not the way to go. It's strictly for emergencies that were not and could not have been foreseen at the time the Protocol was drawn up. So, no, sorry.
The head of NI manufacturing has said he doesn’t understand why the UK is making the role of the ECJ a red line . If ECJ oversight is removed then this will impact NI access to the single market .
So it looks like this is an effort by no 10 to stop NI from increasing trade with the EU. NI could end up with the best of both worlds as the EUs proposals are likely to reduce many of the checks and so the lunatics in no 10 have decided that NI can’t be seen to be doing well from their arrangements and are now going to embark on making impossible demands .
You have a one track devotion to the EU and now calling those who may have a different view 'lunatics'
As I understand it HMG is not willing to have ECJ judgment over NI
We are a third country to the EU and therefore a mechanism has to be found that is reasonable to both sides
The mechanism is perfectly fair and has little impact on businesses but ECJ oversight has to be there otherwise this impacts NI access to the single market . Originally all the moaning from the unionist side was on practical issues regarding trade , this is going to be addressed by the EU who are making large compromises but now no 10 is moving the goal posts . Frost is making impossible demands re the ECJ . No 10 was either too stupid to understand what they signed upto or disgracefully signed a deal which they never had any intention of honouring.
So they were happy to have ECJ oversight when Bozo went round saying the deal was marvelous but now apparently it’s not . Could you please explain why ?
So Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland can have access to the Single Market without ECJ oversight, but Northern Ireland can't?
You've really drank the kool-aid haven't you? 🤦♂️
Those countries are in the EEA and fall under the EFTA court but you seem to have avoided the fact that the WA and TCA are deals done with the EU . NI cannot go under EFTA and no 10 still wouldn’t accept that even if it was possible as they seem to have a hatred of anything with Europe in the name ! You still haven’t answered my question as to why ECJ was fine last year but not now .
That’s easy: Boris clearly didn’t get around to bothering to read the agreement until recently.
The head of NI manufacturing has said he doesn’t understand why the UK is making the role of the ECJ a red line . If ECJ oversight is removed then this will impact NI access to the single market .
So it looks like this is an effort by no 10 to stop NI from increasing trade with the EU. NI could end up with the best of both worlds as the EUs proposals are likely to reduce many of the checks and so the lunatics in no 10 have decided that NI can’t be seen to be doing well from their arrangements and are now going to embark on making impossible demands .
You have a one track devotion to the EU and now calling those who may have a different view 'lunatics'
As I understand it HMG is not willing to have ECJ judgment over NI
We are a third country to the EU and therefore a mechanism has to be found that is reasonable to both sides
The mechanism is perfectly fair and has little impact on businesses but ECJ oversight has to be there otherwise this impacts NI access to the single market . Originally all the moaning from the unionist side was on practical issues regarding trade , this is going to be addressed by the EU who are making large compromises but now no 10 is moving the goal posts . Frost is making impossible demands re the ECJ . No 10 was either too stupid to understand what they signed upto or disgracefully signed a deal which they never had any intention of honouring.
So they were happy to have ECJ oversight when Bozo went round saying the deal was marvelous but now apparently it’s not . Could you please explain why ?
So Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland can have access to the Single Market without ECJ oversight, but Northern Ireland can't?
You've really drank the kool-aid haven't you? 🤦♂️
Those countries are in the EEA and fall under the EFTA court but you seem to have avoided the fact that the WA and TCA are deals done with the EU . NI cannot go under EFTA and no 10 still wouldn’t accept that even if it was possible as they seem to have a hatred of anything with Europe in the name ! You still haven’t answered my question as to why ECJ was fine last year but not now .
That’s easy: Boris clearly didn’t get around to bothering to read the agreement until recently.
Thats ok. Neither did Lord Frost. We're back to abject morons deciding that anything with "European" in the title is the EU. OK so it might not be but having weaponised the word to their voter base their red wallers and ex UKIP/BXP voters think that it is.
So here we are. "We don't want the ECJ". Which means we refuse to join the EFTA which doesn't have the ECJ because they think people they have made ignorant think it does. There are clearly some "Europe means its the EU" posters on here. You'd hope they would know better.
I always thought Kwasi was one of the more sensible ones of this shower of ****s. I wonder if you're a member of such a government that it's just inevitable that you go native on the perpetual lying thing?
Sam Coates Sky @SamCoatesSky · 9h Shortly after Kwasi Kwarteng says he’s engaging with Treasury over ways they can help industry, a Treasury source said:
“This is not the first time the BEIS secretary has made things up in interviews. To be crystal clear the treasury are not involved in any talks”
The head of NI manufacturing has said he doesn’t understand why the UK is making the role of the ECJ a red line . If ECJ oversight is removed then this will impact NI access to the single market .
So it looks like this is an effort by no 10 to stop NI from increasing trade with the EU. NI could end up with the best of both worlds as the EUs proposals are likely to reduce many of the checks and so the lunatics in no 10 have decided that NI can’t be seen to be doing well from their arrangements and are now going to embark on making impossible demands .
You have a one track devotion to the EU and now calling those who may have a different view 'lunatics'
As I understand it HMG is not willing to have ECJ judgment over NI
We are a third country to the EU and therefore a mechanism has to be found that is reasonable to both sides
Lunatics is very apt in my opinion. Desperate to self harm, you would almost think they want rid of NI.
As I understand it HMG is not willing to have ECJ judgment over NI
Would have been nice if they had mentioned that when they agreed to it a couple of years ago.
They did. They said all along they didn't want to agree to that.
It was agreed temporarily as part of the Protocol with an exit mechanism if the Protocol caused issues. The Protocol caused issues, so now its time to find a new solution instead.
You halfwit, you cannot be a little bit pregnant , they signed the agreement.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
Actually I won't @rpjs because you are right, the American system is very harsh to third parties and I don't see why the factions in the Democrats would want to split. The Squad and the progressives are gaining ground all the time, most of the moderate faction are happy to go along with their agenda and, in any event, are quite old. It is likely the Democrats will become like the Labour party here as time goes on, with Socialism becoming a core part of the messaging and the old guard shuffling off. If Schumer gets deposed by AOC in 2022 for the NY Senate race, it may accelerate the old guard fading away but the direction of travel is clear.
As for the Republicans, it's a bit like the Conservatives post-2019. The disaffected have mainly gone and those who are left are in for the ride. Plus for many of the non-Trump candidates, there is much to be said for waiting until 2028 and hoping to be Trump's VP pick. They are generally young, can afford to wait and it gives them several more years of solidifying their support.
The head of NI manufacturing has said he doesn’t understand why the UK is making the role of the ECJ a red line . If ECJ oversight is removed then this will impact NI access to the single market .
So it looks like this is an effort by no 10 to stop NI from increasing trade with the EU. NI could end up with the best of both worlds as the EUs proposals are likely to reduce many of the checks and so the lunatics in no 10 have decided that NI can’t be seen to be doing well from their arrangements and are now going to embark on making impossible demands .
I have some sympathy for objections to the EUCJ having a role in a sovereign state outside of its jurisdiction, even if its role is a technical one of interpreting the law relating to the Single Market that Northern Ireland is part of.
But we are where we are and have to make the best of the mess we have put ourselves into.
The logical thing to do is to have an arbitration process. One Party ruling on the other Parties jurisdiction isn't acceptable.
Just thinking outside the box for a second, perhaps the deal as signed off and pronounced highly satisfactory by both parties could be implemented?
Agreed. Starting and ending with Article 16 of that deal.
Article 16 gets invoked, deal implemented in full, job done let's move on OK?
You obviously have not understood anything , yet again.
I always thought Kwasi was one of the more sensible ones of this shower of ****s. I wonder if you're a member of such a government that it's just inevitable that you go native on the perpetual lying thing?
Sam Coates Sky @SamCoatesSky · 9h Shortly after Kwasi Kwarteng says he’s engaging with Treasury over ways they can help industry, a Treasury source said:
“This is not the first time the BEIS secretary has made things up in interviews. To be crystal clear the treasury are not involved in any talks”
Sounds like crossed wires to me, rather than a genuine problem. Someone at Treasure is talking to someone at BIS i would wager.
Because vexatious liigation + intimidation of officials + incited violent insurrection is of a vastly different order to complaing about Russian interference.
It's worth bearing in mind that the US intelligence community jointly agreed that the Russian government did interfere in the 2016 election. This is not something disputed by any serious party. What is less clear is the extent to which the interference was coordinated with the Trump campaign. The Special Counsel had a very narrow remit to investigate the interference, but clearly felt that there had been obstruction of justice by the Trump campaign and Whitehouse to thwart the investigation, and it expected Congress to act to remedy that obstruction. Congress didn't, the GOP was unwilling to hold Trump to account, and so he's still around and still a potential candidate for 2024. GOP cowardice is the only thing that has kept Trump in the running, the GOP could have torpedoed Trump if they wanted to.
Yep that's right. They have protected and enabled him. History will not be kind.
I always thought Kwasi was one of the more sensible ones of this shower of ****s. I wonder if you're a member of such a government that it's just inevitable that you go native on the perpetual lying thing?
Sam Coates Sky @SamCoatesSky · 9h Shortly after Kwasi Kwarteng says he’s engaging with Treasury over ways they can help industry, a Treasury source said:
“This is not the first time the BEIS secretary has made things up in interviews. To be crystal clear the treasury are not involved in any talks”
Actually quite unusual for a row between Ministries to break into the open as drastically as that - Treasury calls BEIS Secretary of State a liar? I wonder who Johnson agrees with.
I always thought Kwasi was one of the more sensible ones of this shower of ****s. I wonder if you're a member of such a government that it's just inevitable that you go native on the perpetual lying thing?
Sam Coates Sky @SamCoatesSky · 9h Shortly after Kwasi Kwarteng says he’s engaging with Treasury over ways they can help industry, a Treasury source said:
“This is not the first time the BEIS secretary has made things up in interviews. To be crystal clear the treasury are not involved in any talks”
Actually quite unusual for a row between Ministries to break into the open as drastically as that - Treasury calls BEIS Secretary of State a liar? I wonder who Johnson agrees with.
He is on his 4th or 5th holiday of the year so hard to tell.
I always thought Kwasi was one of the more sensible ones of this shower of ****s. I wonder if you're a member of such a government that it's just inevitable that you go native on the perpetual lying thing?
Sam Coates Sky @SamCoatesSky · 9h Shortly after Kwasi Kwarteng says he’s engaging with Treasury over ways they can help industry, a Treasury source said:
“This is not the first time the BEIS secretary has made things up in interviews. To be crystal clear the treasury are not involved in any talks”
Sounds like crossed wires to me, rather than a genuine problem. Someone at Treasure is talking to someone at BIS i would wager.
“This is not the first time the BEIS secretary has made things up in interviews. To be crystal clear the treasury are not involved in any talks” seems a bit more than crossed wires.
I always thought Kwasi was one of the more sensible ones of this shower of ****s. I wonder if you're a member of such a government that it's just inevitable that you go native on the perpetual lying thing?
Sam Coates Sky @SamCoatesSky · 9h Shortly after Kwasi Kwarteng says he’s engaging with Treasury over ways they can help industry, a Treasury source said:
“This is not the first time the BEIS secretary has made things up in interviews. To be crystal clear the treasury are not involved in any talks”
Actually quite unusual for a row between Ministries to break into the open as drastically as that - Treasury calls BEIS Secretary of State a liar? I wonder who Johnson agrees with.
Both. Neither. Its not as if there is an actual policy to defend or to promote. They just make it up as they go along and change their mind when the wind changes direction.
The head of NI manufacturing has said he doesn’t understand why the UK is making the role of the ECJ a red line . If ECJ oversight is removed then this will impact NI access to the single market .
So it looks like this is an effort by no 10 to stop NI from increasing trade with the EU. NI could end up with the best of both worlds as the EUs proposals are likely to reduce many of the checks and so the lunatics in no 10 have decided that NI can’t be seen to be doing well from their arrangements and are now going to embark on making impossible demands .
I have some sympathy for objections to the EUCJ having a role in a sovereign state outside of its jurisdiction, even if its role is a technical one of interpreting the law relating to the Single Market that Northern Ireland is part of.
But we are where we are and have to make the best of the mess we have put ourselves into.
The logical thing to do is to have an arbitration process. One Party ruling on the other Parties jurisdiction isn't acceptable.
Just thinking outside the box for a second, perhaps the deal as signed off and pronounced highly satisfactory by both parties could be implemented?
Honouring agreements that have been signed off by both parties? Such mad talk will get you nowhere in this brave new world.
And so recently too! I know "the past is another country" but that doesn't usually mean last week.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
The head of NI manufacturing has said he doesn’t understand why the UK is making the role of the ECJ a red line . If ECJ oversight is removed then this will impact NI access to the single market .
So it looks like this is an effort by no 10 to stop NI from increasing trade with the EU. NI could end up with the best of both worlds as the EUs proposals are likely to reduce many of the checks and so the lunatics in no 10 have decided that NI can’t be seen to be doing well from their arrangements and are now going to embark on making impossible demands .
I have some sympathy for objections to the EUCJ having a role in a sovereign state outside of its jurisdiction, even if its role is a technical one of interpreting the law relating to the Single Market that Northern Ireland is part of.
But we are where we are and have to make the best of the mess we have put ourselves into.
The logical thing to do is to have an arbitration process. One Party ruling on the other Parties jurisdiction isn't acceptable.
Just thinking outside the box for a second, perhaps the deal as signed off and pronounced highly satisfactory by both parties could be implemented?
Honouring agreements that have been signed off by both parties? Such mad talk will get you nowhere in this brave new world.
The deal is being honoured.
Did you think Article 16 wasn't a part of the deal? 🤔
What part of that are you lot struggling to understand? Why should Articles 1 through 15 be implemented but not number 16?
If you're going to resort to trolling, Philip, you'll be ignored and that won't be on me or anybody else, it'll be 100% on you.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
I don't think your old mate Anna Soubry has ever been accused of lacking either conviction or passionate intensity.
As I understand it HMG is not willing to have ECJ judgment over NI
Would have been nice if they had mentioned that when they agreed to it a couple of years ago.
They did. They said all along they didn't want to agree to that.
It was agreed temporarily as part of the Protocol with an exit mechanism if the Protocol caused issues. The Protocol caused issues, so now its time to find a new solution instead.
They didn't want to agree with it but they did anyway even though they held all the cards?
Yes because it was negotiated with the 2017-19 Parliament dicking around.
Plus of course the priority was to get GB sorted and a fudge for NI to get the deal over the line. But still they managed to not only get an exit from the Protocol via Stormont, but Article 16 too.
"Priti Patel 'believes the Met is rotten from top to bottom' and 'is absolutely the worst' of Britain's police forces 'after she clashed with commissioner Cressida Dick over Sarah Everard case'"
She was so very, very, angry, she only went and sanctioned an extension to Cressida's contract.
That was before Couzens trial
I doubt she would today
That's a poor excuse. Most of the facts about Couzens would have been well known to the authorities before Cressida Dick's contract was extended.
A poor excuse and not actually true. Couzens pled guilty to murder two months before the Commissioner's contract was extended. It was the sentencing that came after.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
Actually I won't @rpjs because you are right, the American system is very harsh to third parties and I don't see why the factions in the Democrats would want to split. The Squad and the progressives are gaining ground all the time, most of the moderate faction are happy to go along with their agenda and, in any event, are quite old. It is likely the Democrats will become like the Labour party here as time goes on, with Socialism becoming a core part of the messaging and the old guard shuffling off. If Schumer gets deposed by AOC in 2022 for the NY Senate race, it may accelerate the old guard fading away but the direction of travel is clear.
As for the Republicans, it's a bit like the Conservatives post-2019. The disaffected have mainly gone and those who are left are in for the ride. Plus for many of the non-Trump candidates, there is much to be said for waiting until 2028 and hoping to be Trump's VP pick. They are generally young, can afford to wait and it gives them several more years of solidifying their support.
Fair enough! Although I don’t think most of the progressives would really pass muster as socialists under any reasonable definition of the term.
I think Schumer is pretty safe. He’s the incumbent and works hard to maintain a prominent profile: every Sunday he mounts a new initiative which is always covered by the local media, and I think AOC is too left-wing to win the primary across the whole state, although she would probably win the general, so long as the Republicans don’t run a crazy.
So, the GOP are just like the 2nd vote "People's vote" Remoaners, then
Like Keir Starmer?
Trying to overturn an election just because they didn't like the result. There is not a whit of difference between these idiot GOP guys, and, say, Mr Alistair Meeks. On any Lib Dem. Or any of those fuckers that marched on Westminster
The head of NI manufacturing has said he doesn’t understand why the UK is making the role of the ECJ a red line . If ECJ oversight is removed then this will impact NI access to the single market .
So it looks like this is an effort by no 10 to stop NI from increasing trade with the EU. NI could end up with the best of both worlds as the EUs proposals are likely to reduce many of the checks and so the lunatics in no 10 have decided that NI can’t be seen to be doing well from their arrangements and are now going to embark on making impossible demands .
I have some sympathy for objections to the EUCJ having a role in a sovereign state outside of its jurisdiction, even if its role is a technical one of interpreting the law relating to the Single Market that Northern Ireland is part of.
But we are where we are and have to make the best of the mess we have put ourselves into.
The logical thing to do is to have an arbitration process. One Party ruling on the other Parties jurisdiction isn't acceptable.
Just thinking outside the box for a second, perhaps the deal as signed off and pronounced highly satisfactory by both parties could be implemented?
Honouring agreements that have been signed off by both parties? Such mad talk will get you nowhere in this brave new world.
The deal is being honoured.
Did you think Article 16 wasn't a part of the deal? 🤔
What part of that are you lot struggling to understand? Why should Articles 1 through 15 be implemented but not number 16?
If you're going to resort to trolling, Philip, you'll be ignored and that won't be on me or anybody else, it'll be 100% on you.
What trolling?
If you invoke, perfectly legitimately, an exit mechanism within an agreement then that is implementing the deal via doing so.
If you renege the Protocol via means not within the Protocol, ie by overriding it in Parliament, then that's breaking international law. But this isn't.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
I don't think your old mate Anna Soubry has ever been accused of lacking either conviction or passionate intensity.
As to the Lincoln Project apart from being anti-Trump what did it actually support.
The problem the Republican Party had is that it had become a cheerleader for tax and regulation cuts on the rich and big business with a heavy side line of Middle Eastern warmongering.
Which allowed a big opening which Trump was able to exploit for his own purposes.
"The UK is facing an uncertain winter with the spread of coronavirus and the flu, the head of the Health Security Agency Jenny Harries has said. People are at "more significant risk of death and of serious illness if they are co-infected" with both viruses, she told the BBC."
"Flu kills about 11,000 people on average every winter in England and during the last bad flu winter of 2017-18 the toll was more than double that - with more than 300 deaths a day during the peak. Research shows those infected with both viruses are more than twice as likely to die as someone with Covid alone"
The focus, surprise surprise, is on rich v poor, comparing Westminster with Blackpool. But this got my spidey senses tingling, so I went got the data from the ONS myself and plotted the two sets of data for males...
And guess what? The big story is the one buried in the piece. London boroughs - including poorer ones - have experienced pretty big increases in life expectancy. Wealth is probably part of the equation, but the London figures put a question mark on this whole thing. To what extent is this simply caused by population churn? Are the oldies that have stayed in London disproportionately healthier than the ones that sold up and left? Possibly. Alternatively, there is something going on and it may be that London (rather than rich places) is better served by the NHS.
The head of NI manufacturing has said he doesn’t understand why the UK is making the role of the ECJ a red line . If ECJ oversight is removed then this will impact NI access to the single market .
So it looks like this is an effort by no 10 to stop NI from increasing trade with the EU. NI could end up with the best of both worlds as the EUs proposals are likely to reduce many of the checks and so the lunatics in no 10 have decided that NI can’t be seen to be doing well from their arrangements and are now going to embark on making impossible demands .
I have some sympathy for objections to the EUCJ having a role in a sovereign state outside of its jurisdiction, even if its role is a technical one of interpreting the law relating to the Single Market that Northern Ireland is part of.
But we are where we are and have to make the best of the mess we have put ourselves into.
The logical thing to do is to have an arbitration process. One Party ruling on the other Parties jurisdiction isn't acceptable.
Just thinking outside the box for a second, perhaps the deal as signed off and pronounced highly satisfactory by both parties could be implemented?
Honouring agreements that have been signed off by both parties? Such mad talk will get you nowhere in this brave new world.
The deal is being honoured.
Did you think Article 16 wasn't a part of the deal? 🤔
What part of that are you lot struggling to understand? Why should Articles 1 through 15 be implemented but not number 16?
If you're going to resort to trolling, Philip, you'll be ignored and that won't be on me or anybody else, it'll be 100% on you.
Stop winding him up. It's "up to", or even "because of", not "on". As you well know.
"The UK is facing an uncertain winter with the spread of coronavirus and the flu, the head of the Health Security Agency Jenny Harries has said. People are at "more significant risk of death and of serious illness if they are co-infected" with both viruses, she told the BBC."
"Flu kills about 11,000 people on average every winter in England and during the last bad flu winter of 2017-18 the toll was more than double that - with more than 300 deaths a day during the peak. Research shows those infected with both viruses are more than twice as likely to die as someone with Covid alone"
We’ll see. I have no issue with caution, and public health officials are right to be concerned, but we also need a bit of balance. By a long stretch, most people in the U.K. won’t die of Covid or flu this winter. Life in most places is back to normal. I attended a packed toy and train fair today. Minimal mask wearing, but no problem to either do it or not. I’m sure the nhs is having it tough in places. It’s going to carry on being tough. But the human condition is such that we adapt. So 100+ deaths a day becomes accepted, as has 35,000 cases. We also don’t cope with continual doom. We make jokes. We laugh. Ask any policeman who’s attended fatalities. Ask soldiers who have fought. We make jokes and laugh, because we have too. Focus on the negative too much and you end up on pb all them...
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
National interest was to avoid a no deal . Grieve and the others were thrown out by Bozo because they were trying to stop a no deal.
So, the GOP are just like the 2nd vote "People's vote" Remoaners, then
Like Keir Starmer?
Trying to overturn an election just because they didn't like the result. There is not a whit of difference between these idiot GOP guys, and, say, Mr Alistair Meeks. On any Lib Dem. Or any of those fuckers that marched on Westminster
You missed out "SNP-types" but it's a well made point
So, the GOP are just like the 2nd vote "People's vote" Remoaners, then
Like Keir Starmer?
Trying to overturn an election just because they didn't like the result. There is not a whit of difference between these idiot GOP guys, and, say, Mr Alistair Meeks. On any Lib Dem. Or any of those fuckers that marched on Westminster
Totally agree. Some people just can't accept election results. In 2016 it was the Dems with Hillary getting beaten by Trump and remainers not accepting the referendum result. In 2020 it was Trump supporters trying to overturn the legitimate result of the US election. The Trump people are worse because they stormed the Capitol building and tried to intimidate elected representatives. I went to a couple of remainer marches with some friends just to see what they were like, it was a fairly friendly bunch and I can't imagine any of them would try and breach the house of commons.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
National interest was to avoid a no deal . Grieve and the others were thrown out by Bozo because they were trying to stop a no deal.
Lol, you really are deluded if you believe half the bullshit you write. They were trying to stop Brexit from ever happening, some were trying to use legalistic mechanisms to do it without having a second vote. They were acting to overturn a democratic mandate, they are no better than those republicans trying to stop Biden being sworn in as POTUS.
I always thought Kwasi was one of the more sensible ones of this shower of ****s. I wonder if you're a member of such a government that it's just inevitable that you go native on the perpetual lying thing?
Sam Coates Sky @SamCoatesSky · 9h Shortly after Kwasi Kwarteng says he’s engaging with Treasury over ways they can help industry, a Treasury source said:
“This is not the first time the BEIS secretary has made things up in interviews. To be crystal clear the treasury are not involved in any talks”
Well its just political.infighting.. it happensbin all Govts you know. Brown and the truth were unknown to one another. Ditto Blair Cameron May Johnson. They all lie.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
Actually I won't @rpjs because you are right, the American system is very harsh to third parties and I don't see why the factions in the Democrats would want to split. The Squad and the progressives are gaining ground all the time, most of the moderate faction are happy to go along with their agenda and, in any event, are quite old. It is likely the Democrats will become like the Labour party here as time goes on, with Socialism becoming a core part of the messaging and the old guard shuffling off. If Schumer gets deposed by AOC in 2022 for the NY Senate race, it may accelerate the old guard fading away but the direction of travel is clear.
As for the Republicans, it's a bit like the Conservatives post-2019. The disaffected have mainly gone and those who are left are in for the ride. Plus for many of the non-Trump candidates, there is much to be said for waiting until 2028 and hoping to be Trump's VP pick. They are generally young, can afford to wait and it gives them several more years of solidifying their support.
Fair enough! Although I don’t think most of the progressives would really pass muster as socialists under any reasonable definition of the term.
I think Schumer is pretty safe. He’s the incumbent and works hard to maintain a prominent profile: every Sunday he mounts a new initiative which is always covered by the local media, and I think AOC is too left-wing to win the primary across the whole state, although she would probably win the general, so long as the Republicans don’t run a crazy.
Yes, it's a bit hard to do a neat cut across because the American system is different but, definitely on cultural issues, they would be considered on the left of the Labour party here. When it comes to taxation, I suspect they would be happy with corporates paying a bit more as long as they supported the agenda.
Re Schumer, AOC did break with the rest of the Squad when she abstained, rather than vote against, the funding of Iron Dome to Israel, which suggests she is thinking about how things are perceived in the state primaries.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
National interest was to avoid a no deal . Grieve and the others were thrown out by Bozo because they were trying to stop a no deal.
Grieve and co were moderates in the sense that their policies - stay in EU - were (and are) centrist policies well within the range of social democratic norms. As is Brexit. The whole thing was (unusually) a genuine non confected row about principle between moderates. Millions of people on both sides can't see this, and pretend that the other lot are extreme (Mr Meeks was an egregious example).
What was not moderate, and unusual among moderates, was the tactics used to subvert a referendum. That had every hallmark of zealotry. I am pretty sure that they all now realise that 100% of the effort should have gone into agreeing a moderate Brexit line, like 'Norway for now' or 'stay in customs union and align with single market rules from outside' etc. Moderates failure to agree, while looking as if they were Trumpian about democracy, was and is remarkable.
"The UK is facing an uncertain winter with the spread of coronavirus and the flu, the head of the Health Security Agency Jenny Harries has said. People are at "more significant risk of death and of serious illness if they are co-infected" with both viruses, she told the BBC."
"Flu kills about 11,000 people on average every winter in England and during the last bad flu winter of 2017-18 the toll was more than double that - with more than 300 deaths a day during the peak. Research shows those infected with both viruses are more than twice as likely to die as someone with Covid alone"
Wasn't it the case that no one in the whole country got flu last year?
So, the GOP are just like the 2nd vote "People's vote" Remoaners, then
Like Keir Starmer?
Trying to overturn an election just because they didn't like the result. There is not a whit of difference between these idiot GOP guys, and, say, Mr Alistair Meeks. On any Lib Dem. Or any of those fuckers that marched on Westminster
Totally agree. Some people just can't accept election results. In 2016 it was the Dems with Hillary getting beaten by Trump and remainers not accepting the referendum result. In 2020 it was Trump supporters trying to overturn the legitimate result of the US election. The Trump people are worse because they stormed the Capitol building and tried to intimidate elected representatives. I went to a couple of remainer marches with some friends just to see what they were like, it was a fairly friendly bunch and I can't imagine any of them would try and breach the house of commons.
No, it was the pro-hunting crowd that breached the House of Commons.
So, the GOP are just like the 2nd vote "People's vote" Remoaners, then
Like Keir Starmer?
Trying to overturn an election just because they didn't like the result. There is not a whit of difference between these idiot GOP guys, and, say, Mr Alistair Meeks. On any Lib Dem. Or any of those fuckers that marched on Westminster
Totally agree. Some people just can't accept election results. In 2016 it was the Dems with Hillary getting beaten by Trump and remainers not accepting the referendum result. In 2020 it was Trump supporters trying to overturn the legitimate result of the US election. The Trump people are worse because they stormed the Capitol building and tried to intimidate elected representatives. I went to a couple of remainer marches with some friends just to see what they were like, it was a fairly friendly bunch and I can't imagine any of them would try and breach the house of commons.
So you 'totally agree' with @Leon who says the 'the GOP are just like the 2nd vote People's vote Remoaners'...
...and yet you say that 'the Trump people are worse because they stormed the Capitol building and tried to intimidate elected representatives'.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
National interest was to avoid a no deal . Grieve and the others were thrown out by Bozo because they were trying to stop a no deal.
Lol, you really are deluded if you believe half the bullshit you write. They were trying to stop Brexit from ever happening, some were trying to use legalistic mechanisms to do it without having a second vote. They were acting to overturn a democratic mandate, they are no better than those republicans trying to stop Biden being sworn in as POTUS.
The fact you compared the January 6th attack on Congress with events in the U.K. parliament disqualifies you from making further comments as you’re clearly delusional !
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
Actually I won't @rpjs because you are right, the American system is very harsh to third parties and I don't see why the factions in the Democrats would want to split. The Squad and the progressives are gaining ground all the time, most of the moderate faction are happy to go along with their agenda and, in any event, are quite old. It is likely the Democrats will become like the Labour party here as time goes on, with Socialism becoming a core part of the messaging and the old guard shuffling off. If Schumer gets deposed by AOC in 2022 for the NY Senate race, it may accelerate the old guard fading away but the direction of travel is clear.
As for the Republicans, it's a bit like the Conservatives post-2019. The disaffected have mainly gone and those who are left are in for the ride. Plus for many of the non-Trump candidates, there is much to be said for waiting until 2028 and hoping to be Trump's VP pick. They are generally young, can afford to wait and it gives them several more years of solidifying their support.
Fair enough! Although I don’t think most of the progressives would really pass muster as socialists under any reasonable definition of the term.
I think Schumer is pretty safe. He’s the incumbent and works hard to maintain a prominent profile: every Sunday he mounts a new initiative which is always covered by the local media, and I think AOC is too left-wing to win the primary across the whole state, although she would probably win the general, so long as the Republicans don’t run a crazy.
Yes, it's a bit hard to do a neat cut across because the American system is different but, definitely on cultural issues, they would be considered on the left of the Labour party here. When it comes to taxation, I suspect they would be happy with corporates paying a bit more as long as they supported the agenda.
Re Schumer, AOC did break with the rest of the Squad when she abstained, rather than vote against, the funding of Iron Dome to Israel, which suggests she is thinking about how things are perceived in the state primaries.
Yeah, that alone is likely to preclude AOC from winning any state-wide vote. The New York Jewish vote, which skews Democratic, may not necessarily agree with everything that Israel does but they do not countenance anything that might affect Israel’s security.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
The focus, surprise surprise, is on rich v poor, comparing Westminster with Blackpool. But this got my spidey senses tingling, so I went got the data from the ONS myself and plotted the two sets of data for males...
And guess what? The big story is the one buried in the piece. London boroughs - including poorer ones - have experienced pretty big increases in life expectancy. Wealth is probably part of the equation, but the London figures put a question mark on this whole thing. To what extent is this simply caused by population churn? Are the oldies that have stayed in London disproportionately healthier than the ones that sold up and left? Possibly. Alternatively, there is something going on and it may be that London (rather than rich places) is better served by the NHS.
From that graph, it looks to me like the average remainer lives longer than the average leaver.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
National interest was to avoid a no deal . Grieve and the others were thrown out by Bozo because they were trying to stop a no deal.
Grieve and co were moderates in the sense that their policies - stay in EU - were (and are) centrist policies well within the range of social democratic norms. As is Brexit. The whole thing was (unusually) a genuine non confected row about principle between moderates. Millions of people on both sides can't see this, and pretend that the other lot are extreme (Mr Meeks was an egregious example).
What was not moderate, and unusual among moderates, was the tactics used to subvert a referendum. That had every hallmark of zealotry. I am pretty sure that they all now realise that 100% of the effort should have gone into agreeing a moderate Brexit line, like 'Norway for now' or 'stay in customs union and align with single market rules from outside' etc. Moderates failure to agree, while looking as if they were Trumpian about democracy, was and is remarkable.
While I don't really agree with the final point about democracy, I do think this is overall correct. I think people get a bit worked up about the word extreme, when it can mean different things in different contexts. Some of those expelled were not extreme in any sense, they did just oppose one particular policy even as they had in fact made some compromises with their own preferred options, whilst others really were politically extreme (even if their policies were not) in resisting any attempt at compromise, and instead fighting tooth and nail to win all.
They were entitled to do so, but it was an extreme position for that political debate, and then it blew up in theri faces. Others were caught in the crossfire of that when it got to the no deal debate, which is why most of those later came back. My objection is how Grieve is taken as illustrative of them all, when in fact he was among the most extreme, with his intellect brandished by others as if that prevented his position being an extreme one.
I don't know why that seems to sit so poorly with people. It's quite possible for someone to be extremist in context.
"The UK is facing an uncertain winter with the spread of coronavirus and the flu, the head of the Health Security Agency Jenny Harries has said. People are at "more significant risk of death and of serious illness if they are co-infected" with both viruses, she told the BBC."
"Flu kills about 11,000 people on average every winter in England and during the last bad flu winter of 2017-18 the toll was more than double that - with more than 300 deaths a day during the peak. Research shows those infected with both viruses are more than twice as likely to die as someone with Covid alone"
Wasn't it the case that no one in the whole country got flu last year?
Pretty much. Social distancing, working from home and masks seem to work for respiratory infections...
The Dave Chappelle special is absolutely brilliant.
Never heard of him - read two scathing reviews of his routine in The Guardian and The Independent, then looked him up on wiki and found out he was a Muslim convert. Suppose the G and i thought it was immaterial to his material
The final paragraph of that first link is quite powerful IMO:
"In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide, that’s the part that hurt. Every transgender person I know has lost someone by suicide, and rarely has the reason ever been what other trans people have said to them on Twitter. Hell. You said it yourself, Dave: “Twitter isn’t real.” The marginalization, mockery, dehumanization, and violence many of us face everyday of most of our lives is what fuels our despair. For you to use Daphne’s tragedy as your closing tag is the only thing you’ve done that’s made me angry enough to write a letter."
Yes...the depression angle is a bit chicken and egg to me - to be convinced you are really a woman who happened to have been born in a mans body, or vice versa, sounds like mental illness if I am being perfectly honest, and depression is a mental illness from which suicide too often follows. But if you say you think transgender people, or people who want to transition, are mentally ill and should be treated with the same kind of sympathy as those suffering from schizophrenia or autism, rather than mocked in the way Dave Chappelle apparently does,( I haven't seen or heard any of his material) that would be considered offensive.
It's probably offensive even if it's not a 'mental illness' (IMV it most certainly is not a mental illness for many; and calling it such is part of the problem).
As humans, we like to fit people into neat little categories. Male/female. Good/bad. Straight/gay. Child/adult. In reality, the categories cover a multitude of variances, and it can be hard to fit some people into those categories. I'm currently a stay-at-home dad. Some relatives of mine have found this quite hard to understand because it doesn't fit into the neat categories in their minds.
Can you honestly, hand on heart, not say that some of your activities or lifestyle might not be said by some people to be a 'mental illness' ? I've certainly had someone describe my walking as such in the past, and that's before I took up my current running madness ...
Well I was a stay at home Dad from Oct 2020-June 2021...
But "In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide" makes me think there is a level of severe mental illness among transgenders/wannabe transitioners, that veers further off the spectrum than the kind of universal eccentricities that make the world go round. In short, I reckon there is a predisposition to mental illness amongst the kind of people who want to have a sex change, or more bluntly, I think you have to be quite badly mentally ill to want to do it. That's not a reason to be horrible to anyone, I don't think mentally ill people should be made fun of, they should be sympathised with.
Suicide rates amongst gay people are higher than they are amongst others (1). Would you say that being gay is therefore indicative of a 'mental illness'? Until the 1970s, homosexuality was taken by the US as being a 'mental illness'. Nowadays it is seen as just being part of life's rich tapestry. That's progress.
One of my trans friends committed suicide. I don't think his suicide had anything to do with his transition; IMV it was a result of trauma earlier in his life. (*) Did transitioning make his life harder? Perhaps. Was it a mental illness? No. Was his suicide brought on, in part, by society's reaction to his transition? It's very difficult to know, but as an outside observer, I'd argue yes. It certainly didn't help.
I knew another trans friend from when he was 13 in school. He always wanted to be a girl (despite not looking like one at all - he was taller than me and very manly). Was he mentally ill? No - aside from choosing to be friends with me.
These are two trans people I knew very well. One is dead; the other is happily transitioned. I don't particularly see either as being 'mentally ill'.
Suicide has many potential causes: depression and drug/alcohol use prominent amongst them. Having known trans people, depression caused by people's reaction to them is all too believable.
(*) There is a complicating factor here. How much did his wish to transition have to do with that earlier trauma? In our few conversations about it, he denied it: but I will never know.
I think there is good evidence that commencing hormonal transition improves symptoms of psychological distress, at least for some time.*
I think that other psychiatric disorders, and personality types including ASD are particularly common in people being assessed for gender dysphoria. How much of this is primary, and how much is secondary to the gender dysphoria is a tricky one requiring time, expertise and sensitivity to untangle.
*in the longer term a lifetime of synthetic hormones is not free of psychological consequences.
I spoke to somebody last night whose son is transitioning. He said the worst part was that their child was now of the view that they had never had any happy moments pre-transition and all they had were unhappy memories. It was apparently very hard on their brother who had in his own mind happy memories of times shared together.
That's truly sad. I have just spent a lovely day with my older daughter (15)
We went to Waltham Abbey just for the "laughs". Never been to Chingford before, my God it is as gorgeous as I expected. Hmm
But Waltham Abbey? Exquisite. A small golden flint and limestone box of history, with 7th century elements and the grave of Harold II of England, who lost it all at Hastings.
MARVELLOUS
The laughter of your kids = happiness. In the purest form
The focus, surprise surprise, is on rich v poor, comparing Westminster with Blackpool. But this got my spidey senses tingling, so I went got the data from the ONS myself and plotted the two sets of data for males...
And guess what? The big story is the one buried in the piece. London boroughs - including poorer ones - have experienced pretty big increases in life expectancy. Wealth is probably part of the equation, but the London figures put a question mark on this whole thing. To what extent is this simply caused by population churn? Are the oldies that have stayed in London disproportionately healthier than the ones that sold up and left? Possibly. Alternatively, there is something going on and it may be that London (rather than rich places) is better served by the NHS.
From that graph, it looks to me like the average remainer lives longer than the average leaver.
"The UK is facing an uncertain winter with the spread of coronavirus and the flu, the head of the Health Security Agency Jenny Harries has said. People are at "more significant risk of death and of serious illness if they are co-infected" with both viruses, she told the BBC."
"Flu kills about 11,000 people on average every winter in England and during the last bad flu winter of 2017-18 the toll was more than double that - with more than 300 deaths a day during the peak. Research shows those infected with both viruses are more than twice as likely to die as someone with Covid alone"
Wasn't it the case that no one in the whole country got flu last year?
It was something very close to it, which is why a lot of medics are so concerned about flu this time, of course. Reduction in natural immunity plus greater difficulty in guessing what strains will need to be protected against by vaccination.
OTOH a lot of the very frail people who would've got very ill and probably died in this year's flu season are already dead from Covid, so the flu massacre might not be as great as feared. We shall see.
The focus, surprise surprise, is on rich v poor, comparing Westminster with Blackpool. But this got my spidey senses tingling, so I went got the data from the ONS myself and plotted the two sets of data for males...
And guess what? The big story is the one buried in the piece. London boroughs - including poorer ones - have experienced pretty big increases in life expectancy. Wealth is probably part of the equation, but the London figures put a question mark on this whole thing. To what extent is this simply caused by population churn? Are the oldies that have stayed in London disproportionately healthier than the ones that sold up and left? Possibly. Alternatively, there is something going on and it may be that London (rather than rich places) is better served by the NHS.
From that graph, it looks to me like the average remainer lives longer than the average leaver.
Yes, because the average remainer was higher up the income scale than the average leaver. That's hardly rocket science.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
"The UK is facing an uncertain winter with the spread of coronavirus and the flu, the head of the Health Security Agency Jenny Harries has said. People are at "more significant risk of death and of serious illness if they are co-infected" with both viruses, she told the BBC."
"Flu kills about 11,000 people on average every winter in England and during the last bad flu winter of 2017-18 the toll was more than double that - with more than 300 deaths a day during the peak. Research shows those infected with both viruses are more than twice as likely to die as someone with Covid alone"
Wasn't it the case that no one in the whole country got flu last year?
It was something very close to it, which is why a lot of medics are so concerned about flu this time, of course. Reduction in natural immunity plus greater difficulty in guessing what strains will need to be protected against by vaccination.
OTOH a lot of the very frail people who would've got very ill and probably died in this year's flu season are already dead from Covid, so the flu massacre might not be as great as feared. We shall see.
It could go either way. I think this will be the worst winter for COVID and it won't really be all that bad anyway. I look forwards to the day that we stop reporting daily statistics for it.
The focus, surprise surprise, is on rich v poor, comparing Westminster with Blackpool. But this got my spidey senses tingling, so I went got the data from the ONS myself and plotted the two sets of data for males...
And guess what? The big story is the one buried in the piece. London boroughs - including poorer ones - have experienced pretty big increases in life expectancy. Wealth is probably part of the equation, but the London figures put a question mark on this whole thing. To what extent is this simply caused by population churn? Are the oldies that have stayed in London disproportionately healthier than the ones that sold up and left? Possibly. Alternatively, there is something going on and it may be that London (rather than rich places) is better served by the NHS.
From that graph, it looks to me like the average remainer lives longer than the average leaver.
Yes, because the average remainer was higher up the income scale than the average leaver. That's hardly rocket science.
Yes, I was jesting, as I thought was clear from my emoji.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
You really are talking nonsense and are trying to re-write history . Many of those on the list did not support a second ref or any sorts of actions that would overturn the result but wanted to ensure that the country left with a deal . They sacrificed their careers because of that.
The Dave Chappelle special is absolutely brilliant.
Never heard of him - read two scathing reviews of his routine in The Guardian and The Independent, then looked him up on wiki and found out he was a Muslim convert. Suppose the G and i thought it was immaterial to his material
The final paragraph of that first link is quite powerful IMO:
"In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide, that’s the part that hurt. Every transgender person I know has lost someone by suicide, and rarely has the reason ever been what other trans people have said to them on Twitter. Hell. You said it yourself, Dave: “Twitter isn’t real.” The marginalization, mockery, dehumanization, and violence many of us face everyday of most of our lives is what fuels our despair. For you to use Daphne’s tragedy as your closing tag is the only thing you’ve done that’s made me angry enough to write a letter."
Yes...the depression angle is a bit chicken and egg to me - to be convinced you are really a woman who happened to have been born in a mans body, or vice versa, sounds like mental illness if I am being perfectly honest, and depression is a mental illness from which suicide too often follows. But if you say you think transgender people, or people who want to transition, are mentally ill and should be treated with the same kind of sympathy as those suffering from schizophrenia or autism, rather than mocked in the way Dave Chappelle apparently does,( I haven't seen or heard any of his material) that would be considered offensive.
It's probably offensive even if it's not a 'mental illness' (IMV it most certainly is not a mental illness for many; and calling it such is part of the problem).
As humans, we like to fit people into neat little categories. Male/female. Good/bad. Straight/gay. Child/adult. In reality, the categories cover a multitude of variances, and it can be hard to fit some people into those categories. I'm currently a stay-at-home dad. Some relatives of mine have found this quite hard to understand because it doesn't fit into the neat categories in their minds.
Can you honestly, hand on heart, not say that some of your activities or lifestyle might not be said by some people to be a 'mental illness' ? I've certainly had someone describe my walking as such in the past, and that's before I took up my current running madness ...
Well I was a stay at home Dad from Oct 2020-June 2021...
But "In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide" makes me think there is a level of severe mental illness among transgenders/wannabe transitioners, that veers further off the spectrum than the kind of universal eccentricities that make the world go round. In short, I reckon there is a predisposition to mental illness amongst the kind of people who want to have a sex change, or more bluntly, I think you have to be quite badly mentally ill to want to do it. That's not a reason to be horrible to anyone, I don't think mentally ill people should be made fun of, they should be sympathised with.
Suicide rates amongst gay people are higher than they are amongst others (1). Would you say that being gay is therefore indicative of a 'mental illness'? Until the 1970s, homosexuality was taken by the US as being a 'mental illness'. Nowadays it is seen as just being part of life's rich tapestry. That's progress.
One of my trans friends committed suicide. I don't think his suicide had anything to do with his transition; IMV it was a result of trauma earlier in his life. (*) Did transitioning make his life harder? Perhaps. Was it a mental illness? No. Was his suicide brought on, in part, by society's reaction to his transition? It's very difficult to know, but as an outside observer, I'd argue yes. It certainly didn't help.
I knew another trans friend from when he was 13 in school. He always wanted to be a girl (despite not looking like one at all - he was taller than me and very manly). Was he mentally ill? No - aside from choosing to be friends with me.
These are two trans people I knew very well. One is dead; the other is happily transitioned. I don't particularly see either as being 'mentally ill'.
Suicide has many potential causes: depression and drug/alcohol use prominent amongst them. Having known trans people, depression caused by people's reaction to them is all too believable.
(*) There is a complicating factor here. How much did his wish to transition have to do with that earlier trauma? In our few conversations about it, he denied it: but I will never know.
I think there is good evidence that commencing hormonal transition improves symptoms of psychological distress, at least for some time.*
I think that other psychiatric disorders, and personality types including ASD are particularly common in people being assessed for gender dysphoria. How much of this is primary, and how much is secondary to the gender dysphoria is a tricky one requiring time, expertise and sensitivity to untangle.
*in the longer term a lifetime of synthetic hormones is not free of psychological consequences.
I spoke to somebody last night whose son is transitioning. He said the worst part was that their child was now of the view that they had never had any happy moments pre-transition and all they had were unhappy memories. It was apparently very hard on their brother who had in his own mind happy memories of times shared together.
That's truly sad. I have just spent a lovely day with my older daughter (15)
We went to Waltham Abbey just for the "laughs". Never been to Chingford before, my God it is as gorgeous as I expected. Hmm
But Waltham Abbey? Exquisite. A small golden flint and limestone box of history, with 7th century elements and the grave of Harold II of England, who lost it all at Hastings.
MARVELLOUS
The laughter of your kids = happiness. In the purest form
I feel for your friend's family
Glad you had a good day.
Waltham Abbey is the poorest part of Epping Forest district but yes the area around the Abbey itself is well worth a visit. There is though a pie ship David Beckham has frequented apparently, not that I have ever been
The focus, surprise surprise, is on rich v poor, comparing Westminster with Blackpool. But this got my spidey senses tingling, so I went got the data from the ONS myself and plotted the two sets of data for males...
And guess what? The big story is the one buried in the piece. London boroughs - including poorer ones - have experienced pretty big increases in life expectancy. Wealth is probably part of the equation, but the London figures put a question mark on this whole thing. To what extent is this simply caused by population churn? Are the oldies that have stayed in London disproportionately healthier than the ones that sold up and left? Possibly. Alternatively, there is something going on and it may be that London (rather than rich places) is better served by the NHS.
Yes that is interesting. Well done on taking the time to do that.
Hard to read from the graph but has life expectancy actually gone down in Ceredigion?
I believe it is often the case that an "attack monkey" will have the advantage in that his quarry cannot understand how his brain twists the truth and breaks convention.
It seems to me that the core of fascism is KNOWING what is right and breaking any rule to make it happen.
Can SeaShantyIrish or somebody else tell me whether the Democrats are waking up?
The Dave Chappelle special is absolutely brilliant.
Never heard of him - read two scathing reviews of his routine in The Guardian and The Independent, then looked him up on wiki and found out he was a Muslim convert. Suppose the G and i thought it was immaterial to his material
The final paragraph of that first link is quite powerful IMO:
"In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide, that’s the part that hurt. Every transgender person I know has lost someone by suicide, and rarely has the reason ever been what other trans people have said to them on Twitter. Hell. You said it yourself, Dave: “Twitter isn’t real.” The marginalization, mockery, dehumanization, and violence many of us face everyday of most of our lives is what fuels our despair. For you to use Daphne’s tragedy as your closing tag is the only thing you’ve done that’s made me angry enough to write a letter."
Yes...the depression angle is a bit chicken and egg to me - to be convinced you are really a woman who happened to have been born in a mans body, or vice versa, sounds like mental illness if I am being perfectly honest, and depression is a mental illness from which suicide too often follows. But if you say you think transgender people, or people who want to transition, are mentally ill and should be treated with the same kind of sympathy as those suffering from schizophrenia or autism, rather than mocked in the way Dave Chappelle apparently does,( I haven't seen or heard any of his material) that would be considered offensive.
It's probably offensive even if it's not a 'mental illness' (IMV it most certainly is not a mental illness for many; and calling it such is part of the problem).
As humans, we like to fit people into neat little categories. Male/female. Good/bad. Straight/gay. Child/adult. In reality, the categories cover a multitude of variances, and it can be hard to fit some people into those categories. I'm currently a stay-at-home dad. Some relatives of mine have found this quite hard to understand because it doesn't fit into the neat categories in their minds.
Can you honestly, hand on heart, not say that some of your activities or lifestyle might not be said by some people to be a 'mental illness' ? I've certainly had someone describe my walking as such in the past, and that's before I took up my current running madness ...
Well I was a stay at home Dad from Oct 2020-June 2021...
But "In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide" makes me think there is a level of severe mental illness among transgenders/wannabe transitioners, that veers further off the spectrum than the kind of universal eccentricities that make the world go round. In short, I reckon there is a predisposition to mental illness amongst the kind of people who want to have a sex change, or more bluntly, I think you have to be quite badly mentally ill to want to do it. That's not a reason to be horrible to anyone, I don't think mentally ill people should be made fun of, they should be sympathised with.
Suicide rates amongst gay people are higher than they are amongst others (1). Would you say that being gay is therefore indicative of a 'mental illness'? Until the 1970s, homosexuality was taken by the US as being a 'mental illness'. Nowadays it is seen as just being part of life's rich tapestry. That's progress.
One of my trans friends committed suicide. I don't think his suicide had anything to do with his transition; IMV it was a result of trauma earlier in his life. (*) Did transitioning make his life harder? Perhaps. Was it a mental illness? No. Was his suicide brought on, in part, by society's reaction to his transition? It's very difficult to know, but as an outside observer, I'd argue yes. It certainly didn't help.
I knew another trans friend from when he was 13 in school. He always wanted to be a girl (despite not looking like one at all - he was taller than me and very manly). Was he mentally ill? No - aside from choosing to be friends with me.
These are two trans people I knew very well. One is dead; the other is happily transitioned. I don't particularly see either as being 'mentally ill'.
Suicide has many potential causes: depression and drug/alcohol use prominent amongst them. Having known trans people, depression caused by people's reaction to them is all too believable.
(*) There is a complicating factor here. How much did his wish to transition have to do with that earlier trauma? In our few conversations about it, he denied it: but I will never know.
I think there is good evidence that commencing hormonal transition improves symptoms of psychological distress, at least for some time.*
I think that other psychiatric disorders, and personality types including ASD are particularly common in people being assessed for gender dysphoria. How much of this is primary, and how much is secondary to the gender dysphoria is a tricky one requiring time, expertise and sensitivity to untangle.
*in the longer term a lifetime of synthetic hormones is not free of psychological consequences.
I spoke to somebody last night whose son is transitioning. He said the worst part was that their child was now of the view that they had never had any happy moments pre-transition and all they had were unhappy memories. It was apparently very hard on their brother who had in his own mind happy memories of times shared together.
That's truly sad. I have just spent a lovely day with my older daughter (15)
We went to Waltham Abbey just for the "laughs". Never been to Chingford before, my God it is as gorgeous as I expected. Hmm
But Waltham Abbey? Exquisite. A small golden flint and limestone box of history, with 7th century elements and the grave of Harold II of England, who lost it all at Hastings.
MARVELLOUS
The laughter of your kids = happiness. In the purest form
I feel for your friend's family
Glad you had a good day.
Waltham Abbey is the poorest part of Epping Forest district but yes the area around the Abbey itself is well worth a visit. There is though a pie ship David Beckham has frequented apparently, not that I have ever been
I love the idea of a pie ship. That really floats my boat!
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The focus, surprise surprise, is on rich v poor, comparing Westminster with Blackpool. But this got my spidey senses tingling, so I went got the data from the ONS myself and plotted the two sets of data for males...
And guess what? The big story is the one buried in the piece. London boroughs - including poorer ones - have experienced pretty big increases in life expectancy. Wealth is probably part of the equation, but the London figures put a question mark on this whole thing. To what extent is this simply caused by population churn? Are the oldies that have stayed in London disproportionately healthier than the ones that sold up and left? Possibly. Alternatively, there is something going on and it may be that London (rather than rich places) is better served by the NHS.
From that graph, it looks to me like the average remainer lives longer than the average leaver.
Once BJ & Co have worked their magic, remainers' & brexiteers' life expectancies will be a lot closer.
The Dave Chappelle special is absolutely brilliant.
Never heard of him - read two scathing reviews of his routine in The Guardian and The Independent, then looked him up on wiki and found out he was a Muslim convert. Suppose the G and i thought it was immaterial to his material
The final paragraph of that first link is quite powerful IMO:
"In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide, that’s the part that hurt. Every transgender person I know has lost someone by suicide, and rarely has the reason ever been what other trans people have said to them on Twitter. Hell. You said it yourself, Dave: “Twitter isn’t real.” The marginalization, mockery, dehumanization, and violence many of us face everyday of most of our lives is what fuels our despair. For you to use Daphne’s tragedy as your closing tag is the only thing you’ve done that’s made me angry enough to write a letter."
Yes...the depression angle is a bit chicken and egg to me - to be convinced you are really a woman who happened to have been born in a mans body, or vice versa, sounds like mental illness if I am being perfectly honest, and depression is a mental illness from which suicide too often follows. But if you say you think transgender people, or people who want to transition, are mentally ill and should be treated with the same kind of sympathy as those suffering from schizophrenia or autism, rather than mocked in the way Dave Chappelle apparently does,( I haven't seen or heard any of his material) that would be considered offensive.
It's probably offensive even if it's not a 'mental illness' (IMV it most certainly is not a mental illness for many; and calling it such is part of the problem).
As humans, we like to fit people into neat little categories. Male/female. Good/bad. Straight/gay. Child/adult. In reality, the categories cover a multitude of variances, and it can be hard to fit some people into those categories. I'm currently a stay-at-home dad. Some relatives of mine have found this quite hard to understand because it doesn't fit into the neat categories in their minds.
Can you honestly, hand on heart, not say that some of your activities or lifestyle might not be said by some people to be a 'mental illness' ? I've certainly had someone describe my walking as such in the past, and that's before I took up my current running madness ...
Well I was a stay at home Dad from Oct 2020-June 2021...
But "In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide" makes me think there is a level of severe mental illness among transgenders/wannabe transitioners, that veers further off the spectrum than the kind of universal eccentricities that make the world go round. In short, I reckon there is a predisposition to mental illness amongst the kind of people who want to have a sex change, or more bluntly, I think you have to be quite badly mentally ill to want to do it. That's not a reason to be horrible to anyone, I don't think mentally ill people should be made fun of, they should be sympathised with.
Suicide rates amongst gay people are higher than they are amongst others (1). Would you say that being gay is therefore indicative of a 'mental illness'? Until the 1970s, homosexuality was taken by the US as being a 'mental illness'. Nowadays it is seen as just being part of life's rich tapestry. That's progress.
One of my trans friends committed suicide. I don't think his suicide had anything to do with his transition; IMV it was a result of trauma earlier in his life. (*) Did transitioning make his life harder? Perhaps. Was it a mental illness? No. Was his suicide brought on, in part, by society's reaction to his transition? It's very difficult to know, but as an outside observer, I'd argue yes. It certainly didn't help.
I knew another trans friend from when he was 13 in school. He always wanted to be a girl (despite not looking like one at all - he was taller than me and very manly). Was he mentally ill? No - aside from choosing to be friends with me.
These are two trans people I knew very well. One is dead; the other is happily transitioned. I don't particularly see either as being 'mentally ill'.
Suicide has many potential causes: depression and drug/alcohol use prominent amongst them. Having known trans people, depression caused by people's reaction to them is all too believable.
(*) There is a complicating factor here. How much did his wish to transition have to do with that earlier trauma? In our few conversations about it, he denied it: but I will never know.
I think there is good evidence that commencing hormonal transition improves symptoms of psychological distress, at least for some time.*
I think that other psychiatric disorders, and personality types including ASD are particularly common in people being assessed for gender dysphoria. How much of this is primary, and how much is secondary to the gender dysphoria is a tricky one requiring time, expertise and sensitivity to untangle.
*in the longer term a lifetime of synthetic hormones is not free of psychological consequences.
I spoke to somebody last night whose son is transitioning. He said the worst part was that their child was now of the view that they had never had any happy moments pre-transition and all they had were unhappy memories. It was apparently very hard on their brother who had in his own mind happy memories of times shared together.
That's truly sad. I have just spent a lovely day with my older daughter (15)
We went to Waltham Abbey just for the "laughs". Never been to Chingford before, my God it is as gorgeous as I expected. Hmm
But Waltham Abbey? Exquisite. A small golden flint and limestone box of history, with 7th century elements and the grave of Harold II of England, who lost it all at Hastings.
MARVELLOUS
The laughter of your kids = happiness. In the purest form
I feel for your friend's family
Glad you had a good day.
Waltham Abbey is the poorest part of Epping Forest district but yes the area around the Abbey itself is well worth a visit. There is though a pie ship David Beckham has frequented apparently, not that I have ever been
I love the idea of a pie ship. That really floats my boat!
"The UK is facing an uncertain winter with the spread of coronavirus and the flu, the head of the Health Security Agency Jenny Harries has said. People are at "more significant risk of death and of serious illness if they are co-infected" with both viruses, she told the BBC."
"Flu kills about 11,000 people on average every winter in England and during the last bad flu winter of 2017-18 the toll was more than double that - with more than 300 deaths a day during the peak. Research shows those infected with both viruses are more than twice as likely to die as someone with Covid alone"
Wasn't it the case that no one in the whole country got flu last year?
It was something very close to it, which is why a lot of medics are so concerned about flu this time, of course. Reduction in natural immunity plus greater difficulty in guessing what strains will need to be protected against by vaccination.
OTOH a lot of the very frail people who would've got very ill and probably died in this year's flu season are already dead from Covid, so the flu massacre might not be as great as feared. We shall see.
It could go either way. I think this will be the worst winter for COVID and it won't really be all that bad anyway. I look forwards to the day that we stop reporting daily statistics for it.
On the one hand, about the only good thing about a nasty flu season is that the death stats will put Covid in the shade, which will help people get used to the idea of it being just one more hazard we have to learn to live with. And yes, if we're lucky, the daily publication of stats for it that still gets regurgitated on the evening news will be quietly dumped.
On the other, it's bound to be the cause of one last concerted effort by the ISAGE types to try to cajole the Government into stapling masks to our faces for the rest of our lives.
I remain reasonably confident that the Government won't start collapsing back into restrictions - it has too much of what's left of its political capital on the line over this - but we're not entirely out of the woods until next Spring.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
The inability of "2nd vote" Remoaners to see themselves in the anti-democrat mirror of GOP election-cancellers is quite something
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
You really are talking nonsense and are trying to re-write history . Many of those on the list did not support a second ref or any sorts of actions that would overturn the result but wanted to ensure that the country left with a deal . They sacrificed their careers because of that.
They wanted to lock the UK into neverending purgatory of not being able to leave. Ultimately their actions were self defeating and their treachery led to a diamond hard Brexit which has seen the UK exit all spheres of EU influence. It's a story worthy of a movie, looking into their bungling incompetence and political miscalculation of underestimating the will to leave.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Leaving with a deal was Brexit as promised by all the Leave campaigners . Vote Leave wouldn’t have won if the campaign was to leave with no trade deal .
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Leaving with a deal was Brexit as promised by all the Leave campaigners . Vote Leave wouldn’t have won if the campaign was to leave with no trade deal .
Ok, what of it, we left with a deal? I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make.
Trumpets have gone deep in the Republican party. Unlike the MoaMentum types, who never thought to actually *work* at their takeover, the Trumpets have taken every office at every level, they could. Dislodging them now may well be impossible.
Which has implication for the Republican convention - very hard to see how they can manoeuvre against Trump now.
Semi-On-Topic -
The whole BREXIT = Trump thing is a comfort blanket for Remainers. "One day, everyone will wake up and suddenly we will be back in M. Barniers arms.... the sun will shine, the birds will sing again"
The questions that lost the referendum need to have answers before you can Rejoin. And saying that there were no questions or that all the questions are illegitimate is not the answer.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Wrong. I didn't support them. They're Tories. I never support Tories.
I didn't say that, maybe you need glasses. I said you supported their aims, you've said many times that you'd support the referendum result being overturned.
Wrong again, and out of order, and I have glasses. I've never supported the referendum result being overturned. Find me one post where I've said that (let alone 'many times'). I was opposed to the second referendum campaign, always have been. I didn't want Brexit, still don't, but always accepted the result. Are you confusing me with somebody else?
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
The focus, surprise surprise, is on rich v poor, comparing Westminster with Blackpool. But this got my spidey senses tingling, so I went got the data from the ONS myself and plotted the two sets of data for males...
And guess what? The big story is the one buried in the piece. London boroughs - including poorer ones - have experienced pretty big increases in life expectancy. Wealth is probably part of the equation, but the London figures put a question mark on this whole thing. To what extent is this simply caused by population churn? Are the oldies that have stayed in London disproportionately healthier than the ones that sold up and left? Possibly. Alternatively, there is something going on and it may be that London (rather than rich places) is better served by the NHS.
Yes that is interesting. Well done on taking the time to do that.
Hard to read from the graph but has life expectancy actually gone down in Ceredigion?
No, everywhere has gone up, but Ceredigion had the smallest increase:
Area name, Increase Ceredigion: 0.47 Lincoln: 0.91 Oadby and Wigston: 1.17 Burnley: 1.31 Scarborough: 1.34 Brentwood: 1.41 Bridgend: 1.45 Nuneaton and Bedworth: 1.51 Castle Point: 1.54
The Dave Chappelle special is absolutely brilliant.
Never heard of him - read two scathing reviews of his routine in The Guardian and The Independent, then looked him up on wiki and found out he was a Muslim convert. Suppose the G and i thought it was immaterial to his material
The final paragraph of that first link is quite powerful IMO:
"In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide, that’s the part that hurt. Every transgender person I know has lost someone by suicide, and rarely has the reason ever been what other trans people have said to them on Twitter. Hell. You said it yourself, Dave: “Twitter isn’t real.” The marginalization, mockery, dehumanization, and violence many of us face everyday of most of our lives is what fuels our despair. For you to use Daphne’s tragedy as your closing tag is the only thing you’ve done that’s made me angry enough to write a letter."
Yes...the depression angle is a bit chicken and egg to me - to be convinced you are really a woman who happened to have been born in a mans body, or vice versa, sounds like mental illness if I am being perfectly honest, and depression is a mental illness from which suicide too often follows. But if you say you think transgender people, or people who want to transition, are mentally ill and should be treated with the same kind of sympathy as those suffering from schizophrenia or autism, rather than mocked in the way Dave Chappelle apparently does,( I haven't seen or heard any of his material) that would be considered offensive.
It's probably offensive even if it's not a 'mental illness' (IMV it most certainly is not a mental illness for many; and calling it such is part of the problem).
As humans, we like to fit people into neat little categories. Male/female. Good/bad. Straight/gay. Child/adult. In reality, the categories cover a multitude of variances, and it can be hard to fit some people into those categories. I'm currently a stay-at-home dad. Some relatives of mine have found this quite hard to understand because it doesn't fit into the neat categories in their minds.
Can you honestly, hand on heart, not say that some of your activities or lifestyle might not be said by some people to be a 'mental illness' ? I've certainly had someone describe my walking as such in the past, and that's before I took up my current running madness ...
Well I was a stay at home Dad from Oct 2020-June 2021...
But "In a community with an abnormally high rate of depression and suicide" makes me think there is a level of severe mental illness among transgenders/wannabe transitioners, that veers further off the spectrum than the kind of universal eccentricities that make the world go round. In short, I reckon there is a predisposition to mental illness amongst the kind of people who want to have a sex change, or more bluntly, I think you have to be quite badly mentally ill to want to do it. That's not a reason to be horrible to anyone, I don't think mentally ill people should be made fun of, they should be sympathised with.
Suicide rates amongst gay people are higher than they are amongst others (1). Would you say that being gay is therefore indicative of a 'mental illness'? Until the 1970s, homosexuality was taken by the US as being a 'mental illness'. Nowadays it is seen as just being part of life's rich tapestry. That's progress.
One of my trans friends committed suicide. I don't think his suicide had anything to do with his transition; IMV it was a result of trauma earlier in his life. (*) Did transitioning make his life harder? Perhaps. Was it a mental illness? No. Was his suicide brought on, in part, by society's reaction to his transition? It's very difficult to know, but as an outside observer, I'd argue yes. It certainly didn't help.
I knew another trans friend from when he was 13 in school. He always wanted to be a girl (despite not looking like one at all - he was taller than me and very manly). Was he mentally ill? No - aside from choosing to be friends with me.
These are two trans people I knew very well. One is dead; the other is happily transitioned. I don't particularly see either as being 'mentally ill'.
Suicide has many potential causes: depression and drug/alcohol use prominent amongst them. Having known trans people, depression caused by people's reaction to them is all too believable.
(*) There is a complicating factor here. How much did his wish to transition have to do with that earlier trauma? In our few conversations about it, he denied it: but I will never know.
I think there is good evidence that commencing hormonal transition improves symptoms of psychological distress, at least for some time.*
I think that other psychiatric disorders, and personality types including ASD are particularly common in people being assessed for gender dysphoria. How much of this is primary, and how much is secondary to the gender dysphoria is a tricky one requiring time, expertise and sensitivity to untangle.
*in the longer term a lifetime of synthetic hormones is not free of psychological consequences.
I spoke to somebody last night whose son is transitioning. He said the worst part was that their child was now of the view that they had never had any happy moments pre-transition and all they had were unhappy memories. It was apparently very hard on their brother who had in his own mind happy memories of times shared together.
That's truly sad. I have just spent a lovely day with my older daughter (15)
We went to Waltham Abbey just for the "laughs". Never been to Chingford before, my God it is as gorgeous as I expected. Hmm
But Waltham Abbey? Exquisite. A small golden flint and limestone box of history, with 7th century elements and the grave of Harold II of England, who lost it all at Hastings.
MARVELLOUS
The laughter of your kids = happiness. In the purest form
I feel for your friend's family
Glad you had a good day.
Waltham Abbey is the poorest part of Epping Forest district but yes the area around the Abbey itself is well worth a visit. There is though a pie ship David Beckham has frequented apparently, not that I have ever been
I love the idea of a pie ship. That really floats my boat!
Is it puff or shortcrust pastry? Or mash? We should be told.
I hope Trump fucks off and dies tbh. He's a threat to democracy and a loathsome person who has tried to overthrow the legitimate winners of the US election.
An article in today's Sunday Times is convinced he'll be the GOP nominee for 2024.
One thing that might stop Trump dead in his tracks is a credible split in the Republican party. I don’t think it’s very likely, and the American political system is even more brutal to third parties than the British, but I wouldn’t rule it out, and the eclipse of a major party and its replacement by a new one has happened before in American politics, albeit not for a century and a half.
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
The remarkable way that the purged moderate Tories have just faded away is echoed by the quite limited number of Republicans who publicly signed up to the Lincoln Project. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
In what way was the Dominic Grieve crew moderate? They were extreme EUphiles to the point of being a fifth column within the governing party to block the national interest in favour of a foreign party.
Too right, all those 21 Tories who Boris expelled from the parliamentary party for voting against a no-deal Brexit. Grieve, Clarke, Hammond, Soames, Gauke, Letwin, Gyimah, Stewart, Burt, Spelman and so on.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
And yet, after kicking them all out we've got a very comprehensive trade deal with the EU. So what were they all voting against? They were trying to overturn a democratic mandate, nothing more, nothing less. They are no better than GOP politicians trying to deny Biden the presidency.
No, they were voting against "no deal". But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
No, they were voting against implementation of Brexit. All of them were blocking a democratic mandate. They all did what the Trump republicans tried to do. We correctly labelled them as traitors and seditionists in January when they tried to overthrow the duly elected government. These extremists are no different.
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
Leaving with a deal was Brexit as promised by all the Leave campaigners . Vote Leave wouldn’t have won if the campaign was to leave with no trade deal .
There were no ironclad "promises" - by either side. Remain could not promise there would never be an EU army or EU debt pooling or EU whatever, because the EU evolves, and, also many of them disagreed on these details. Leave could not promise retained Single Market membership or a precise trade agreement or whatever, because situations evolve and, also, many of them disagreed on these details
(I was a Leaver that wanted EFTA/EEA for ten years as we worked out our future)
Neither side could guarantee anything, you were basically punting on a concept. In or Out. Tha's it. But the one things both sides did agree on was this: the vote would absolutely be respected. If we vote Leave we Leave. As David Cameron, prime minister, said himself, famously
Here you go. Warch
"It will be the final decision. The biggest of our lifetimes. In or out. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected, if we vote to Leave, then we will Leave"
Comments
Caws Cenarth brie
Velvet-soft organic brie with a rich mushroomy flavour that intensifies with age – if you can wait that long. This brie is handmade in small batches by the Adams family in the lush valleys of South Wales.
I eat Cheddar and Wensleydale.
So they were happy to have ECJ oversight when Bozo went round saying the deal was marvelous but now apparently it’s not . Could you please explain why ?
https://www.reuters.com/world/india/new-delhi-chief-minister-warns-power-crisis-coal-stocks-decline-2021-10-09/
You've really drank the kool-aid haven't you? 🤦♂️
Article 16 gets invoked, deal implemented in full, job done let's move on OK?
Did you think Article 16 wasn't a part of the deal? 🤔
What part of that are you lot struggling to understand? Why should Articles 1 through 15 be implemented but not number 16?
I don’t think it would even be a never Trump thing necessarily, more a revulsion of traditional Republicans against the party’s descent into QAnon and conspiracy theory madness.
(And cue MrEd to tell us that the Democrats are for more likely to split before the Republicans.)
So here we are. "We don't want the ECJ". Which means we refuse to join the EFTA which doesn't have the ECJ because they think people they have made ignorant think it does. There are clearly some "Europe means its the EU" posters on here. You'd hope they would know better.
Sam Coates Sky
@SamCoatesSky
·
9h
Shortly after Kwasi Kwarteng says he’s engaging with Treasury over ways they can help industry, a Treasury source said:
“This is not the first time the BEIS secretary has made things up in interviews. To be crystal clear the treasury are not involved in any talks”
https://twitter.com/garygilligan/status/1446951562639724546
As for the Republicans, it's a bit like the Conservatives post-2019. The disaffected have mainly gone and those who are left are in for the ride. Plus for many of the non-Trump candidates, there is much to be said for waiting until 2028 and hoping to be Trump's VP pick. They are generally young, can afford to wait and it gives them several more years of solidifying their support.
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
are full of passionate intensity."
Plus of course the priority was to get GB sorted and a fudge for NI to get the deal over the line. But still they managed to not only get an exit from the Protocol via Stormont, but Article 16 too.
of the progressives would really pass muster as socialists under any reasonable definition of the term.
I think Schumer is pretty safe. He’s the incumbent and works hard to maintain a prominent profile: every Sunday he mounts a new initiative which is always covered by the local media, and I think AOC is too left-wing to win the primary across the whole state, although she would probably win the general, so long as the Republicans don’t run a crazy.
Like Keir Starmer?
Trying to overturn an election just because they didn't like the result. There is not a whit of difference between these idiot GOP guys, and, say, Mr Alistair Meeks. On any Lib Dem. Or any of those fuckers that marched on Westminster
If you invoke, perfectly legitimately, an exit mechanism within an agreement then that is implementing the deal via doing so.
If you renege the Protocol via means not within the Protocol, ie by overriding it in Parliament, then that's breaking international law. But this isn't.
The problem the Republican Party had is that it had become a cheerleader for tax and regulation cuts on the rich and big business with a heavy side line of Middle Eastern warmongering.
Which allowed a big opening which Trump was able to exploit for his own purposes.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58862920
"The UK is facing an uncertain winter with the spread of coronavirus and the flu, the head of the Health Security Agency Jenny Harries has said. People are at "more significant risk of death and of serious illness if they are co-infected" with both viruses, she told the BBC."
"Flu kills about 11,000 people on average every winter in England and during the last bad flu winter of 2017-18 the toll was more than double that - with more than 300 deaths a day during the peak. Research shows those infected with both viruses are more than twice as likely to die as someone with Covid alone"
The focus, surprise surprise, is on rich v poor, comparing Westminster with Blackpool. But this got my spidey senses tingling, so I went got the data from the ONS myself and plotted the two sets of data for males...
And guess what? The big story is the one buried in the piece. London boroughs - including poorer ones - have experienced pretty big increases in life expectancy. Wealth is probably part of the equation, but the London figures put a question mark on this whole thing. To what extent is this simply caused by population churn? Are the oldies that have stayed in London disproportionately healthier than the ones that sold up and left? Possibly. Alternatively, there is something going on and it may be that London (rather than rich places) is better served by the NHS.
As you well know.
Extremists, the lot of them. Beyond the pale. Bloody one-nation Tories - boot them out, I say.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49563357
Re Schumer, AOC did break with the rest of the Squad when she abstained, rather than vote against, the funding of Iron Dome to Israel, which suggests she is thinking about how things are perceived in the state primaries.
What was not moderate, and unusual among moderates, was the tactics used to subvert a referendum. That had every hallmark of zealotry. I am pretty sure that they all now realise that 100% of the effort should have gone into agreeing a moderate Brexit line, like 'Norway for now' or 'stay in customs union and align with single market rules from outside' etc. Moderates failure to agree, while looking as if they were Trumpian about democracy, was and is remarkable.
...and yet you say that 'the Trump people are worse because they stormed the Capitol building and tried to intimidate elected representatives'.
I can see you've really thought that through.
They were entitled to do so, but it was an extreme position for that political debate, and then it blew up in theri faces. Others were caught in the crossfire of that when it got to the no deal debate, which is why most of those later came back. My objection is how Grieve is taken as illustrative of them all, when in fact he was among the most extreme, with his intellect brandished by others as if that prevented his position being an extreme one.
I don't know why that seems to sit so poorly with people. It's quite possible for someone to be extremist in context.
We went to Waltham Abbey just for the "laughs". Never been to Chingford before, my God it is as gorgeous as I expected. Hmm
But Waltham Abbey? Exquisite. A small golden flint and limestone box of history, with 7th century elements and the grave of Harold II of England, who lost it all at Hastings.
MARVELLOUS
The laughter of your kids = happiness. In the purest form
I feel for your friend's family
OTOH a lot of the very frail people who would've got very ill and probably died in this year's flu season are already dead from Covid, so the flu massacre might not be as great as feared. We shall see.
But my main point is that the people I listed can't in any real definition be described as 'extremists'. Solid Tories, every one of them.
Waltham Abbey is the poorest part of Epping Forest district but yes the area around the Abbey itself is well worth a visit. There is though a pie ship David Beckham has frequented apparently, not that I have ever been
Hard to read from the graph but has life expectancy actually gone down in Ceredigion?
I believe it is often the case that an "attack monkey" will have the advantage in that his quarry cannot understand how his brain twists the truth and breaks convention.
It seems to me that the core of fascism is KNOWING what is right and breaking any rule to make it happen.
Can SeaShantyIrish or somebody else tell me whether the Democrats are waking up?
From your perspective the difference is that you supported their aims in blocking Brexit so you see them as moderate or something other than traitors. Very much like those Trump supporters who see those GOP politicians that tried to block Biden as heroes.
On the other, it's bound to be the cause of one last concerted effort by the ISAGE types to try to cajole the Government into stapling masks to our faces for the rest of our lives.
I remain reasonably confident that the Government won't start collapsing back into restrictions - it has too much of what's left of its political capital on the line over this - but we're not entirely out of the woods until next Spring.
They are Caliban in the Tempest. They cannot accept the hideous gargoyle that stares back at them
Trumpets have gone deep in the Republican party. Unlike the MoaMentum types, who never thought to actually *work* at their takeover, the Trumpets have taken every office at every level, they could. Dislodging them now may well be impossible.
Which has implication for the Republican convention - very hard to see how they can manoeuvre against Trump now.
Semi-On-Topic -
The whole BREXIT = Trump thing is a comfort blanket for Remainers. "One day, everyone will wake up and suddenly we will be back in M. Barniers arms.... the sun will shine, the birds will sing again"
The questions that lost the referendum need to have answers before you can Rejoin. And saying that there were no questions or that all the questions are illegitimate is not the answer.
These personal attacks from some posters are getting really tiresome.
Area name, Increase
Ceredigion: 0.47
Lincoln: 0.91
Oadby and Wigston: 1.17
Burnley: 1.31
Scarborough: 1.34
Brentwood: 1.41
Bridgend: 1.45
Nuneaton and Bedworth: 1.51
Castle Point: 1.54
(I was a Leaver that wanted EFTA/EEA for ten years as we worked out our future)
Neither side could guarantee anything, you were basically punting on a concept. In or Out. Tha's it. But the one things both sides did agree on was this: the vote would absolutely be respected. If we vote Leave we Leave. As David Cameron, prime minister, said himself, famously
Here you go. Warch
"It will be the final decision. The biggest of our lifetimes. In or out. When the British people speak, their voice will be respected, if we vote to Leave, then we will Leave"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUsKWsPcRXE
Yet the Remainers suddenly wanted to cancel the 17.4m Leave votes, because they didn't like the result, they hated losing.
They are no better than GOP Trumpites who want to cancel democracy in the USA