With 98% of the votes counted the Dems looks set to gain both Georgia US Senate seats – politicalbet
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Which shows different approaches - my GP has been sending to texts/letters naming a specific 15 minute "slot" on a specific day for your jab. Proceeding down the list in order of age, I believe. Whole of January booked.Stereodog said:Just an anecdote about the vaccine roll out. My Grandmother was told before Christmas that she was eligible for the vaccine and should phone her local hospital to arrange an appointment. Despite phoning multiple times a day she has never been able to get through on the phone. All she gets is a recorded message saying that phone lines are busy.
I wouldn't want to extrapolate anything from this but I suspect that there will be a lot of bottlenecks in the roll out that has nothing to do with the amount of vaccine doses in existence. In my Gran's case it seems to be the administrative capacity of the local hospital. It seems counterproductive to me that everyone in her area of Cambridgeshire has to go through one obviously overstretched hospital to arrange an appointment for the vaccine.1 -
If Perdue does lose I wonder if it will be the highest anyone has ever received in a first round before going on to lose. He got 49.7%0
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Nothing from Raab so far on the Hong Kong arrests......0
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The Senate is much, much more important.HYUFD said:
In the Senate maybe, not in the House though where every seat will be up in 2022 and the Democrats will be defending a majority of just 10 over the GOPPeter_the_Punter said:
Hyufd, don't the Republicans have a difficult slate in 2022 - more seats to defend than attack?HYUFD said:
That depends entirely on the Biden Harris approval ratings in 2022, if they are low the GOP will almost certainly take back the House and maybe even the Senate too in the 2022 midterms.Pulpstar said:
I'm not sure the traditional midterm logic will entirely hold. Democrats are favoured in lower turnout elections now I think.another_richard said:So does the GOP fall into civil war or does it reorganise and retake the House in 2022 ?
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That 2019 one was a monster, but the typhoons will get you in August as well. I'm pretty sure the average August is worse than the average October.TheScreamingEagles said:
Not an option, that's monsoon/typhoon weather that time of the year in Japan.MaxPB said:
Delay the Olympics to October, Tokyo is still warm until the end of October. It would also give international fans a chance to attend because globally lots of people will have been vaccinated by then. We should be reaching the end of ours and be looking to studies for 13-17 year olds to be jabbed too.TheScreamingEagles said:
I think plenty of athletes need vaccinating by February so they can form groups so they can do their training schedules to peak at the Olympics.MaxPB said:
It really depends on when they're asking for athletes to be vaccinated. If it's now then, you're right it wouldn't be very popular. If it's in May or June then no one's going to care because the programme will already be through all of the top 9 priority groups. Where it gets dicey is if the UK supplies the IOC for international use and for various dignitaries because their home countries haven't planned ahead properly. Though really we're talking about maybe 250000 doses and we can probably ask the US and Japan to chip in as well given their portfolios are as strong as ours.TheScreamingEagles said:Can't see this being too popular but we should do it so we can go further up the medal table.
Olympics official says prioritise athletes for coronavirus jab so Tokyo Games can go ahead
Sky News understands conversations underway between government and British Olympic Association about securing athletes a Covid-19 vaccination; IOC member Dick Pound is confident the Olympics can still go ahead as long as athletes can be vaccinated beforehand
https://www.skysports.com/olympics/news/15234/12180389/olympics-official-says-prioritise-athletes-for-coronavirus-jab-so-tokyo-games-can-go-ahead
Vaccinating in May or June won't work, nor will sport bubbles as there's not enough facilities (or money) for them to form exclusive sporting bubbles.
It caused havoc at the 2019 Rugby World Cup.0 -
The irony is that the Irish now enjoy the best work and residency rights in Europe. If only my Irish ancestors had held onto their passports instead of assimilating so enthusiastically several generations back...Wulfrun_Phil said:
It did strike me that if the firm were in fact to exist and if it were to follow through reciprocally for vacancies in its UK arm, it would be the equivalent of putting up a "No Irish" sign on its notice board.DougSeal said:
This sounds like bollocks. If true, this policy would render the company in question in breach of the Equality Act in the UK and of the EU Equal Treatment Framework Directive in the EU. Right to work is not the same as citizenship - it's as unlawful in the UK as in the EU to discriminate on the grounds of citizenship. Admittedly you can say must have right to work in a jurisdiction, but you shouldn't discriminate on the grounds of citizenship - for example my wife is an American citizen with ILR and has as much right to apply for work here as I do. Any job ad that said you have to be a citizen of a country is an actionable breach of the Equality Act and its EU equivalents.Scott_xP said:
Arch-Remainer as I am this post is either bollocks or it is breaking the law.1 -
Loeffler on the radio there, imploring ‘all’ Americans to keep fighting for the American Dream. Hadn’t realised getting insider info during a pandemic and then buying up shares in a body bag firm was an aspect of the American Dream. Every day a school day,2
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Two more Manchester City players and one staff member positive for Covid
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jan/06/two-more-manchester-city-players-and-one-staff-member-positive-for-covid
The EPL must be reaching herd immunity by now....0 -
Also, a lot of other sports such as F1 have gone out of their way to avoid having a race that clashes with the Olympics.edmundintokyo said:
Yup, October is lovely, and July/August is horrible. IIUC the reason they insist on doing them in August is to do with other sporting events competing for TV viewers.SirNorfolkPassmore said:
In terms of weather, October would actually be pretty much perfect in Japan. Whether there are logistical reasons not to do it, I don't know.MaxPB said:
Delay the Olympics to October, Tokyo is still warm until the end of October. It would also give international fans a chance to attend because globally lots of people will have been vaccinated by then. We should be reaching the end of ours and be looking to studies for 13-17 year olds to be jabbed too.TheScreamingEagles said:
I think plenty of athletes need vaccinating by February so they can form groups so they can do their training schedules to peak at the Olympics.MaxPB said:
It really depends on when they're asking for athletes to be vaccinated. If it's now then, you're right it wouldn't be very popular. If it's in May or June then no one's going to care because the programme will already be through all of the top 9 priority groups. Where it gets dicey is if the UK supplies the IOC for international use and for various dignitaries because their home countries haven't planned ahead properly. Though really we're talking about maybe 250000 doses and we can probably ask the US and Japan to chip in as well given their portfolios are as strong as ours.TheScreamingEagles said:Can't see this being too popular but we should do it so we can go further up the medal table.
Olympics official says prioritise athletes for coronavirus jab so Tokyo Games can go ahead
Sky News understands conversations underway between government and British Olympic Association about securing athletes a Covid-19 vaccination; IOC member Dick Pound is confident the Olympics can still go ahead as long as athletes can be vaccinated beforehand
https://www.skysports.com/olympics/news/15234/12180389/olympics-official-says-prioritise-athletes-for-coronavirus-jab-so-tokyo-games-can-go-ahead
Vaccinating in May or June won't work, nor will sport bubbles as there's not enough facilities (or money) for them to form exclusive sporting bubbles.0 -
I sort of feel for him. Theres nothing anyone can do, China has won and the world isn't about to stop dealing with them, so his job will be to impotently protest. At best.CarlottaVance said:Nothing from Raab so far on the Hong Kong arrests......
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Get rich or die trying. Or get rich off the back of others dying. That has pretty much been the American dream for centuries.Theuniondivvie said:Loeffler on the radio there, imploring ‘all’ Americans to keep fighting for the American Dream. Hadn’t realised getting insider info during a pandemic and then buying up shares in a body bag firm was an aspect of the American Dream. Every day a school day,
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Oh, Trump can easily sway this result in Georgia to say that he was right and that the Republicans need to ignore the RINOs and listen to him. His arguments will be why the Republicans lost:SirNorfolkPassmore said:
Nobody denies Trump is a talented snake oil salesman. But to what effect? If he actually wants to preserve and extend his legacy, he's best ensuring Republicans control the Senate. Now they don't. He still has a load of people who will lick up anything he pukes out, but his political leverage is over people who aren't actually in power at the national level.contrarian said:
and up to 80% of Repubs believe him!BluestBlue said:
Who single-handedly created that 'vote-suppressing attitude' amongst Republicans, and thus deliberately threw away Republican control of the Senate just to spite McConnell for not helping him steal the Presidency?contrarian said:A Georgia exit poll by CNN showed that 3 in 4 GOP voters believe the presidential was rigged against Trump. And that's a poll, presumably, of voters who showed up for the run-offs. The percentage among those repubs who didn't is probably higher.
Given the vote suppressing implications of that attitude, a civil war in the party, and add in up to 20 million brand new citizens and the chances of the repubs winning anything in, ever, that's in any way meaningful are remote. In 2022 or 3022.
One of the amusing things is how the media are now latching on to so called moderate slightly pink dem senators, presumably not to frighten the investment horses...??
Senator no-mark, of no-marksburg, now a crucial power broker, blah blah blah. Thompson et al and the other Boris rampers on here swallowing it whole of course.
Was it Trump? Yep, it was Trump all right.
What a genius! Has anybody been able to sway republican hearts and minds like this in the past!
- McConnell opposed the $2K handout - he should have listened to me;
- Kemp and the SoS has allowed the Democrats to steal the election by agreeing to Stacey Abrams' demands (more on that below);
- The SoS released the tapes, allowing the media to run with the story about Trump pressuring Georgia;
- Georgia has allowed voting fraud to run rampant;
- If it wasn't for me campaigning, the margin of error would have been worse;
He will also use the results breakdown to push his arguments on fraud and that Republican legislatures should be doing more to limit mail-in ballots. NYT has the early vote essentially tied, the Republicans winning the election day ballots by 26/27% but the Democrats winning mail-in ballots by 34/35%..
Funnily enough, on this, he might get an ally in McConnell. If McConnell plans to stay around being leader and wants to win back the Senate in 2022, he might be more supportive to calls to limit mail-in ballots by state legislatures (which I'd expect to happen).0 -
Are we really 'not doing Sundays' ?MaxPB said:On the 14m target, personally I think it's unambitious. When you consider that AZ have declared doses of 19m for domestic use already produced and more on the way we should be thinking about how we can use all of that supply as quickly as possible, what are the pain points and how can we resolve them as quickly as possible. Production isn't a pain point, supply is, so what has broken down in between those two? Right now we know it's regulatory testing and approval of doses, the MHRA isn't set up to test and approve this many doses of two different types of vaccines. It needs to scale that process up so that it can test and approve many, many more batches of vaccine simultaneously. The Times say that this is already underway and they will be in a much better position by next week when we expect millions of doses per week to be reaching the end of the chain.
The next pain point is who does the jabs and when? There's a lot of talk about not doing Sundays, it seems like a completely mental idea not to run this 7 days a week, and hopefully that will get addressed, what we've also seen this morning is a government u-turn on not using pharmacies and pharmacists to dole it out.
A lot of this process is going to be learn by doing, setting a target of 14m is exactly what we need to do to ensure we address these pain points early on as the NHS is forced to scale up the process as quickly as possible. If we plod along at 1m per week and a 7m target it would mean we hit it easily but ultimately we never find out what needs fixing for when we need to double, and then double again the rate of vaccination.
We should have set a 20m ambition and 14m target. We have 19m doses produced of the AZ vaccine and around 1.5m per week from Pfizer of continuous supplely. If we don't use all of what is available, it would constitute a failure IMO.
I though it was established yesterday that was a myth.
As for the 19m doses, they aren't available until they're available to use.
As far as I can understand it, supply and not administration of the shots is the limiting factor.0 -
My Dad very efficiently got his 2nd jab this week. Exactly as planned. So there seems to be massive variationMalmesbury said:
Which shows different approaches - my GP has been sending to texts/letters naming a specific 15 minute "slot" on a specific day for your jab. Proceeding down the list in order of age, I believe. Whole of January booked.Stereodog said:Just an anecdote about the vaccine roll out. My Grandmother was told before Christmas that she was eligible for the vaccine and should phone her local hospital to arrange an appointment. Despite phoning multiple times a day she has never been able to get through on the phone. All she gets is a recorded message saying that phone lines are busy.
I wouldn't want to extrapolate anything from this but I suspect that there will be a lot of bottlenecks in the roll out that has nothing to do with the amount of vaccine doses in existence. In my Gran's case it seems to be the administrative capacity of the local hospital. It seems counterproductive to me that everyone in her area of Cambridgeshire has to go through one obviously overstretched hospital to arrange an appointment for the vaccine.1 -
In extremis Pelosi has more power than McConnell.Philip_Thompson said:
The Senate is much, much more important.HYUFD said:
In the Senate maybe, not in the House though where every seat will be up in 2022 and the Democrats will be defending a majority of just 10 over the GOPPeter_the_Punter said:
Hyufd, don't the Republicans have a difficult slate in 2022 - more seats to defend than attack?HYUFD said:
That depends entirely on the Biden Harris approval ratings in 2022, if they are low the GOP will almost certainly take back the House and maybe even the Senate too in the 2022 midterms.Pulpstar said:
I'm not sure the traditional midterm logic will entirely hold. Democrats are favoured in lower turnout elections now I think.another_richard said:So does the GOP fall into civil war or does it reorganise and retake the House in 2022 ?
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They'll be holding out for that 1990-style loosening and dumbing down of broadcasting regulation. Without Fox-style freedom, to genuinely propagandise, I don't think they'll be able to build a big enough audience for their ambitions and business model.rottenborough said:0 -
Very revealing of some people's attitude....a person of a certain skin colour must have a certain opinion on particular issues because of their skin colour, they either just can't say it, they are lying or worst they are an Uncle Tom.
It could well have you going back to read the statement he released after the police killing of George Floyd and how far out of the way it went to empathize with law enforcement who “train so diligently to understand how, when and where to use force.” Those words, typical Woods, seemed so cautious and even cowardly then – especially when compared to the more assertive tone struck by Michael Jordan, the greatest political fence sitter of all time until last summer. But after watching the doc you appreciate the statement for what it is – the words of a man who is just trying to survive another day in America. Sounds mighty black to me.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jan/06/tiger-woods-hbo-documentary-golf
Maybe like Billy Vunipola he isn't exactly on board with all of the BLM movement demands and prefers to be diplomatic / doesn't believe some of the demonstrable false claims in terms of how likely an unarmed black man will get gunned down by the police.1 -
Damian Green was just on Sky saying they are vaccinating this weekend in Kent. I think it might be dependent on Trusts and regions.Nigelb said:
Are we really 'not doing Sundays' ?MaxPB said:On the 14m target, personally I think it's unambitious. When you consider that AZ have declared doses of 19m for domestic use already produced and more on the way we should be thinking about how we can use all of that supply as quickly as possible, what are the pain points and how can we resolve them as quickly as possible. Production isn't a pain point, supply is, so what has broken down in between those two? Right now we know it's regulatory testing and approval of doses, the MHRA isn't set up to test and approve this many doses of two different types of vaccines. It needs to scale that process up so that it can test and approve many, many more batches of vaccine simultaneously. The Times say that this is already underway and they will be in a much better position by next week when we expect millions of doses per week to be reaching the end of the chain.
The next pain point is who does the jabs and when? There's a lot of talk about not doing Sundays, it seems like a completely mental idea not to run this 7 days a week, and hopefully that will get addressed, what we've also seen this morning is a government u-turn on not using pharmacies and pharmacists to dole it out.
A lot of this process is going to be learn by doing, setting a target of 14m is exactly what we need to do to ensure we address these pain points early on as the NHS is forced to scale up the process as quickly as possible. If we plod along at 1m per week and a 7m target it would mean we hit it easily but ultimately we never find out what needs fixing for when we need to double, and then double again the rate of vaccination.
We should have set a 20m ambition and 14m target. We have 19m doses produced of the AZ vaccine and around 1.5m per week from Pfizer of continuous supplely. If we don't use all of what is available, it would constitute a failure IMO.
I though it was established yesterday that was a myth.
As for the 19m doses, they aren't available until they're available to use.
As far as I can understand it, supply and not administration of the shots is the limiting factor.1 -
I totally share your opinion on the damage done but I do not think Trump & Clan will be the ongoing political force that many fear (or hope if they're on the dark side). Soon he will out of the White House. He'll be an impeached and disgraced one term ex-president with big legal and money troubles who managed the remarkable negative feat of failing to win a 2nd term after just 4 years of his party in power and while he's at it losing both houses of Congress to the hated other.OllyT said:
In some cases you may be correct but I believe the GOP will be dancing to Trump's tune for the next 4 years.edmundintokyo said:
IDK, parties nearly always pick a moderate against an incumbent, not least because if the governing side isn't contested then politics enthusiasts vote in the opposition race, especially where there are open primaries. It's not clear that Trump will be willing and able to run, and if he's not then it's not clear that anybody similar can pull off what he did.OllyT said:
The GOP have got themselves into a dire position. Many of them know that the Trump core are batshit crazy / QAnon types but there are too many of them to ignore so they keep quiet because they are scared of them.another_richard said:So does the GOP fall into civil war or does it reorganise and retake the House in 2022 ?
I don't see an easy path for any moderately sane Republican to win a GOP Primary. That's why we still have 10 GOP Senators about to humiliate themselves by still pretending Trump won the election.
Trump is a malign, vindictive and bullying individual who will take great pleasure in trying to destroy any Republican who has displeased him. The right really have taken the US into a very dark place and now the genii is out of the bottle it's not going to be easy to put it back.
From 20 Jan his world will shrink beyond recognition. The difference between being the American president and not being the American president is almost as stark as that between being dead or alive. He'll lose all the trappings of that great office - the most important of which was to have his bullshit piped into people's heads 24/7. Supporters will drift away, not to be replaced by new ones. It will be one way traffic. Drip drip drip until what's left is something not to be taken seriously. He might even realize this himself before too long and concentrate just on cashflow and staying out of jail. Perhaps a deal? Not sure on that one. We'll see.
But Donald Trump the fearsome politician is over. No doubt there will be other grisly characters (the lizard Ted Cruz?) who will battle to own the MAGA space in the GOP, and one will prevail and be a live contender for the 24 nomination, but that person will not be called Trump and they won't be able to recreate what he did in 15/16 because that stunning achievement owed so much to his personal brand and persona. So they won't win the nomination. The Republican Party might look beyond the pale now but my money is on them detoxifying. Looking forward to the opening of the WH24 betting.1 -
In fairness we have done something - offering a path to citizenship for Hong Kong BNO passport holders:kle4 said:
I sort of feel for him. Theres nothing anyone can do, China has won and the world isn't about to stop dealing with them, so his job will be to impotently protest. At best.CarlottaVance said:Nothing from Raab so far on the Hong Kong arrests......
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-04/u-k-grants-hongkongers-five-passports-a-minute-as-exodus-looms
The absolutely right decision.
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I see many wiser PBers are now waking up to the fact that supply-line failures are at least partly the fault of the government itself.
The recent attempts by some to absolve it of any blame were reaching a whole new level in sycophancy.0 -
True. Even if they dont want to propagandize i dont see additional market for neutral news.WhisperingOracle said:
They'll be holding out for that 1990-style loosening and dumbing down of broadcasting regulation. Without Fox-style freedom, to genuinely propagandise, I don't think they'll be able to build a big enough audience for the ambition and business model.rottenborough said:0 -
Travelling in London you are almost certainly safer on the Tube or in a bus, right now. They are all 95% emptyedmundintokyo said:
Did you see this study where boffins did a bunch of simulations on airflow in cars?Gaussian said:
Also means that safety measures in pubs, theaters, taxis and so on are little more than safety theatre. They help a bit, but they do not make them safe.IanB2 said:
Fits with the pattern of increased transmission as the summer slipped away and weather forced social life back indoors, around the world. Also an under-commented explanation for why Oz and NZ are looking so good right now. And for air travel - which is basically sitting indoors and breathing - having been key to the initial spread.Leon said:Another good, clear article - this time about the transmission of coronavirus. All that hand-washing and surfaces stuff is minor. You catch it by sitting indoors with other people, breathing. That’s it
https://twitter.com/sarahmanavis/status/1346750982844276736?s=21
(If you got to take a taxi, make it a black cab with its separate driver compartment. And maybe insist on a good airing before getting in.)
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20201207/Study-shows-how-airflow-inside-a-car-may-affect-risk-of-COVID-19-transmission.aspx
The suggestion is, if you can't open all the windows because you'd get cold sit at the opposite end of the taxi from the driver (as you'd expect) and open the window on the side away from you, and have them open the one on the side away from them, so there's diagonal airflow between you and the driver. This seems to work better than the obvious thing of opening the window next to each human.0 -
They should roll them all in together, have a new kind of triathlon where you have to cycle down to Nagoya, drive 53 laps at Suzuka, then swim back. Possibly throw in a game of Rugby somewhere as well.Sandpit said:
Also, a lot of other sports such as F1 have gone out of their way to avoid having a race that clashes with the Olympics.edmundintokyo said:
Yup, October is lovely, and July/August is horrible. IIUC the reason they insist on doing them in August is to do with other sporting events competing for TV viewers.SirNorfolkPassmore said:
In terms of weather, October would actually be pretty much perfect in Japan. Whether there are logistical reasons not to do it, I don't know.MaxPB said:
Delay the Olympics to October, Tokyo is still warm until the end of October. It would also give international fans a chance to attend because globally lots of people will have been vaccinated by then. We should be reaching the end of ours and be looking to studies for 13-17 year olds to be jabbed too.TheScreamingEagles said:
I think plenty of athletes need vaccinating by February so they can form groups so they can do their training schedules to peak at the Olympics.MaxPB said:
It really depends on when they're asking for athletes to be vaccinated. If it's now then, you're right it wouldn't be very popular. If it's in May or June then no one's going to care because the programme will already be through all of the top 9 priority groups. Where it gets dicey is if the UK supplies the IOC for international use and for various dignitaries because their home countries haven't planned ahead properly. Though really we're talking about maybe 250000 doses and we can probably ask the US and Japan to chip in as well given their portfolios are as strong as ours.TheScreamingEagles said:Can't see this being too popular but we should do it so we can go further up the medal table.
Olympics official says prioritise athletes for coronavirus jab so Tokyo Games can go ahead
Sky News understands conversations underway between government and British Olympic Association about securing athletes a Covid-19 vaccination; IOC member Dick Pound is confident the Olympics can still go ahead as long as athletes can be vaccinated beforehand
https://www.skysports.com/olympics/news/15234/12180389/olympics-official-says-prioritise-athletes-for-coronavirus-jab-so-tokyo-games-can-go-ahead
Vaccinating in May or June won't work, nor will sport bubbles as there's not enough facilities (or money) for them to form exclusive sporting bubbles.1 -
The President needs control of both the House and Senate to get his full legislative agenda through and the House controls the budgetPhilip_Thompson said:
The Senate is much, much more important.HYUFD said:
In the Senate maybe, not in the House though where every seat will be up in 2022 and the Democrats will be defending a majority of just 10 over the GOPPeter_the_Punter said:
Hyufd, don't the Republicans have a difficult slate in 2022 - more seats to defend than attack?HYUFD said:
That depends entirely on the Biden Harris approval ratings in 2022, if they are low the GOP will almost certainly take back the House and maybe even the Senate too in the 2022 midterms.Pulpstar said:
I'm not sure the traditional midterm logic will entirely hold. Democrats are favoured in lower turnout elections now I think.another_richard said:So does the GOP fall into civil war or does it reorganise and retake the House in 2022 ?
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Switch the Olympics to the autumn and hold Euro 2021 entirely in the UK, with only those vaccinated allowed to attend matches. You would still get full houses and it would be a great way to reward key workers (who will have been vaccinated).
Very doable, just needs a bit of imagination.0 -
My worry is somewhere out there is a British Trump just waiting for that to happen.WhisperingOracle said:
They'll be holding out for that 1990-style loosening and dumbing down of broadcasting regulation. Without Fox-style freedom, to genuinely propagandise, I don't think they'll be able to build a big enough audience for their ambitions and business model.rottenborough said:0 -
Jools back from Antigua then, unless she took a rolled up backdrop with her.rottenborough said:
This was asked on TalkRadio. I am none the wiser, but maybe I am being thick. Just bluster and waffle.TheScreamingEagles said:another_richard said:
The 50k forecast was a ridiculous extrapolate to infinity and it was wrong.TheScreamingEagles said:
He's persistently misleading the country, normality by Christmas etc.another_richard said:
The same people who said it was impossible to do 100k tests per day ?TheScreamingEagles said:Who could have predicted this?
https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1346741415934619648
What would you prefer - aim for 14m vaccinations and get 10m or aim for 7m and get 7m ?
IIRC you were quite enraged by bad forecasts, particularly the Whitty/Vallance projections of 50,000 cases in October without further action.
Turns out they were right.
And as you've not answered my question I'll ask it again:
What would you prefer - aim for 14m vaccinations and get 10m or aim for 7m and get 7m ?
The issue currently is to get as many people vaccinated as soon as possible.
And its more important that happens than politicians being able to say they reached their targets.
If it is really important to vaccinate as many people as possible why is the government not allowing pharmacists and former docs to join the vaccination rollout, and why are they taking breaks on Sunday?
https://twitter.com/talkRADIO/status/13467494100641464330 -
We are doing Sundays, its nonsense that people are even discussing that we are notNigelb said:
Are we really 'not doing Sundays' ?MaxPB said:On the 14m target, personally I think it's unambitious. When you consider that AZ have declared doses of 19m for domestic use already produced and more on the way we should be thinking about how we can use all of that supply as quickly as possible, what are the pain points and how can we resolve them as quickly as possible. Production isn't a pain point, supply is, so what has broken down in between those two? Right now we know it's regulatory testing and approval of doses, the MHRA isn't set up to test and approve this many doses of two different types of vaccines. It needs to scale that process up so that it can test and approve many, many more batches of vaccine simultaneously. The Times say that this is already underway and they will be in a much better position by next week when we expect millions of doses per week to be reaching the end of the chain.
The next pain point is who does the jabs and when? There's a lot of talk about not doing Sundays, it seems like a completely mental idea not to run this 7 days a week, and hopefully that will get addressed, what we've also seen this morning is a government u-turn on not using pharmacies and pharmacists to dole it out.
A lot of this process is going to be learn by doing, setting a target of 14m is exactly what we need to do to ensure we address these pain points early on as the NHS is forced to scale up the process as quickly as possible. If we plod along at 1m per week and a 7m target it would mean we hit it easily but ultimately we never find out what needs fixing for when we need to double, and then double again the rate of vaccination.
We should have set a 20m ambition and 14m target. We have 19m doses produced of the AZ vaccine and around 1.5m per week from Pfizer of continuous supplely. If we don't use all of what is available, it would constitute a failure IMO.
I though it was established yesterday that was a myth.
As for the 19m doses, they aren't available until they're available to use.
As far as I can understand it, supply and not administration of the shots is the limiting factor.1 -
Sure, Trump can no doubt spin it - as I say, fantastic snake oil salesman. But the point is the MUCH better outcome for him would be for Republicans to retain control of the Senate.MrEd said:
Oh, Trump can easily sway this result in Georgia to say that he was right and that the Republicans need to ignore the RINOs and listen to him. His arguments will be why the Republicans lost:SirNorfolkPassmore said:
Nobody denies Trump is a talented snake oil salesman. But to what effect? If he actually wants to preserve and extend his legacy, he's best ensuring Republicans control the Senate. Now they don't. He still has a load of people who will lick up anything he pukes out, but his political leverage is over people who aren't actually in power at the national level.contrarian said:
and up to 80% of Repubs believe him!BluestBlue said:
Who single-handedly created that 'vote-suppressing attitude' amongst Republicans, and thus deliberately threw away Republican control of the Senate just to spite McConnell for not helping him steal the Presidency?contrarian said:A Georgia exit poll by CNN showed that 3 in 4 GOP voters believe the presidential was rigged against Trump. And that's a poll, presumably, of voters who showed up for the run-offs. The percentage among those repubs who didn't is probably higher.
Given the vote suppressing implications of that attitude, a civil war in the party, and add in up to 20 million brand new citizens and the chances of the repubs winning anything in, ever, that's in any way meaningful are remote. In 2022 or 3022.
One of the amusing things is how the media are now latching on to so called moderate slightly pink dem senators, presumably not to frighten the investment horses...??
Senator no-mark, of no-marksburg, now a crucial power broker, blah blah blah. Thompson et al and the other Boris rampers on here swallowing it whole of course.
Was it Trump? Yep, it was Trump all right.
What a genius! Has anybody been able to sway republican hearts and minds like this in the past!
- McConnell opposed the $2K handout - he should have listened to me;
- Kemp and the SoS has allowed the Democrats to steal the election by agreeing to Stacey Abrams' demands (more on that below);
- The SoS released the tapes, allowing the media to run with the story about Trump pressuring Georgia;
- Georgia has allowed voting fraud to run rampant;
- If it wasn't for me campaigning, the margin of error would have been worse;
He will also use the results breakdown to push his arguments on fraud and that Republican legislatures should be doing more to limit mail-in ballots. NYT has the early vote essentially tied, the Republicans winning the election day ballots by 26/27% but the Democrats winning mail-in ballots by 34/35%..
Funnily enough, on this, he might get an ally in McConnell. If McConnell plans to stay around being leader and wants to win back the Senate in 2022, he might be more supportive to calls to limit mail-in ballots by state legislatures (which I'd expect to happen).
Trump has great leverage within the GOP. But that's no good in terms of keeping the flame of Trumpism alive if they aren't in power anywhere. Losing the Senate means Republicans are purely reactive to someone else's agenda or two years at least. Perhaps that will change in 2022 - but not necessarily, and Trump is an old man who will be older still, he has a lot of legal issues, and the world does move on so he won't be quite as powerful as he is now.
He's maintained his leverage... but over what exactly?1 -
I think even if Trump and Trump Jnr do not run in 2024 one of Pence or Cruz will be the GOP nominee, the GOP base are not going to pick an establishment and moderate 'RINO' as their nominee anytime soonkinabalu said:
I totally share your opinion on the damage done but I do not think Trump & Clan will be the ongoing political force that many fear (or hope if they're on the dark side). Soon he will out of the White House. He'll be an impeached and disgraced one term ex-president with big legal and money troubles who managed the remarkable negative feat of failing to win a 2nd term after just 4 years of his party in power and while he's at it losing both houses of Congress to the hated other.OllyT said:
In some cases you may be correct but I believe the GOP will be dancing to Trump's tune for the next 4 years.edmundintokyo said:
IDK, parties nearly always pick a moderate against an incumbent, not least because if the governing side isn't contested then politics enthusiasts vote in the opposition race, especially where there are open primaries. It's not clear that Trump will be willing and able to run, and if he's not then it's not clear that anybody similar can pull off what he did.OllyT said:
The GOP have got themselves into a dire position. Many of them know that the Trump core are batshit crazy / QAnon types but there are too many of them to ignore so they keep quiet because they are scared of them.another_richard said:So does the GOP fall into civil war or does it reorganise and retake the House in 2022 ?
I don't see an easy path for any moderately sane Republican to win a GOP Primary. That's why we still have 10 GOP Senators about to humiliate themselves by still pretending Trump won the election.
Trump is a malign, vindictive and bullying individual who will take great pleasure in trying to destroy any Republican who has displeased him. The right really have taken the US into a very dark place and now the genii is out of the bottle it's not going to be easy to put it back.
From 20 Jan his world will shrink beyond recognition. The difference between being the American president and not being the American president is almost as stark as that between being dead or alive. He'll lose all the trappings of that great office - the most important of which was to have his bullshit piped into people's heads 24/7. Supporters will drift away, not to be replaced by new ones. It will be one way traffic. Drip drip drip until what's left is something not to be taken seriously. He might even realize this himself before too long and concentrate just on cashflow and staying out of jail. Perhaps a deal? Not sure on that one. We'll see.
But Donald Trump the fearsome politician is over. No doubt there will be other grisly characters (the lizard Ted Cruz?) who will battle to own the MAGA space in the GOP, and one will prevail and be a live contender for the 24 nomination, but that person will not be called Trump and they won't be able to recreate what he did in 15/16 because that stunning achievement owed so much to his personal brand and persona. So they won't win the nomination. The Republican Party might look beyond the pale now but my money is on them detoxifying. Looking forward to the opening of the WH24 betting.1 -
1
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More important than the target number is making sure you are measuring the right thing.
Without thinking it through in great detail - the number vaccinated looks like the right metric. I suppose if the govt messed up the prioritization in its haste to vaccinate everyone, then that might be an adverse consequence.
By contrast - the testing target of 100k/day was not the right metric. We prioritized doing lots of tests (or worse posting them to people!) vs. getting quick results, getting people to act on results, getting people to isolate etc.2 -
I thought that was Borisrottenborough said:
My worry is somewhere out there is a British Trump just waiting for that to happen.WhisperingOracle said:
They'll be holding out for that 1990-style loosening and dumbing down of broadcasting regulation. Without Fox-style freedom, to genuinely propagandise, I don't think they'll be able to build a big enough audience for their ambitions and business model.rottenborough said:1 -
The UCI have moved La Grande Boucle to late June/early July. The Olympics now only clashes with the Tour de Pologne which is a largely pointless crashfest for second stringers.Sandpit said:
Also, a lot of other sports such as F1 have gone out of their way to avoid having a race that clashes with the Olympics.
Mathieu van der Poel is a good bet for the road race gold, I reckon. It's his sort of course and he'll have a mega strong Dutch team working for him.0 -
Quite the rewriting of history as I bet it will be very easy to find critical comments made by those you imply are sycophants.Anabobazina said:I see many wiser PBers are now waking up to the fact that supply-line failures are at least partly the fault of the government itself.
The recent attempts by some to absolve it of any blame were reaching a whole new level in sycophancy.2 -
GB News are missing a trick if they don't also go the YouTube / internet streaming route.
As TalkRadio have found there are lots of views to be had there, in fact there are random "personalities" that cover current affairs that often get larger audience figures than the likes of Sky News. There are bugger all views in being Channel 4958 on Sky, unless you are a "speciality" channel for the mature audience, and even then hasn't all that stuff now gone to the internet?0 -
@RochdalePioneers
It is unlawful to disciminate against people purely on the grounds of nationality. You are right that you can discriminate on the grounds of right to work (i.e. work permits) but you can't discriminate on the grounds of national origin if someone has a work permit - that would be indirect race discrimination. So if a Pakistani, British and Irish Citizen apply for a job in Ireland, each having a right to work there, but the first two are rejected on the grounds of citizenship then they both have a case under the Irish Equal Status Acts 2000-2018.
Article 13 of the Directive reads as follows -
(13) To this end, any direct or indirect discrimination based on racial or ethnic origin as regards the areas covered by this Directive should be prohibited throughout the Community. This prohibition of discrimination should also apply to nationals of third countries, but does not cover differences of treatment based on nationality and is without prejudice to provisions governing the entry and residence of third-country nationals and their access to employment and to occupation.
The sentence "based on nationality" is a bit of a red herring as if someone is lawfully able to work in a country then they are covered by the "third country" bit and it has been repeatedly proved impossible to discriminate on the grounds of nationality without discriminating indirectly on the grounds of ethnicity. For example "no Afghan citizens" is, objectively, based purely on nationality but is clearly indirectly discriminatory against people of Afghan ethnicity ("indirect discrimination shall be taken to occur where an apparently neutral provision, criterion or practice would put persons of a racial or ethnic origin at a particular disadvantage compared with other persons, unless that provision, criterion or practice is objectively justified by a legitimate aim and the means of achieving that aim are appropriate and necessary"). In Bilka-Kaufhaus GmbH v Weber von Hartz, the European Court of Justice held that the measures taken by the employer:
- Must correspond to a real need on the part of the employer.
- Must be appropriate with a view to achieving the objectives pursued.
- Must be necessary to that end.
So a blanket ban based on nationality, without reference to right to work, is unlawful indirect discrimination0 -
Yes it is. It feels like so little versus what is happening, but there really isn't much that can be done, especially when a great many places won't even want to the very little that can.CarlottaVance said:
In fairness we have done something - offering a path to citizenship for Hong Kong BNO passport holders:kle4 said:
I sort of feel for him. Theres nothing anyone can do, China has won and the world isn't about to stop dealing with them, so his job will be to impotently protest. At best.CarlottaVance said:Nothing from Raab so far on the Hong Kong arrests......
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-04/u-k-grants-hongkongers-five-passports-a-minute-as-exodus-looms
The absolutely right decision.0 -
There is absolutely no chance that UEFA will let us have the Euros to ourselves.Anabobazina said:Switch the Olympics to the autumn and hold Euro 2021 entirely in the UK, with only those vaccinated allowed to attend matches. You would still get full houses and it would be a great way to reward key workers (who will have been vaccinated).
Very doable, just needs a bit of imagination.0 -
No he doesn't. The house is much more used to facilitating cross partisan politics. Most Presidents end up working with an opposition controlled House without problems. The budget is always about horsetrading.HYUFD said:
The President needs control of both the House and Senate to get his full legislative agenda through and the House controls the budgetPhilip_Thompson said:
The Senate is much, much more important.HYUFD said:
In the Senate maybe, not in the House though where every seat will be up in 2022 and the Democrats will be defending a majority of just 10 over the GOPPeter_the_Punter said:
Hyufd, don't the Republicans have a difficult slate in 2022 - more seats to defend than attack?HYUFD said:
That depends entirely on the Biden Harris approval ratings in 2022, if they are low the GOP will almost certainly take back the House and maybe even the Senate too in the 2022 midterms.Pulpstar said:
I'm not sure the traditional midterm logic will entirely hold. Democrats are favoured in lower turnout elections now I think.another_richard said:So does the GOP fall into civil war or does it reorganise and retake the House in 2022 ?
But the Senate uniquely can stallwall judicial appointments etc. It is far more critical.0 -
On the plus side, get the wind in the right direction and we might get the first 8 second 100m sprintTheScreamingEagles said:
Not an option, that's monsoon/typhoon weather that time of the year in Japan.MaxPB said:
Delay the Olympics to October, Tokyo is still warm until the end of October. It would also give international fans a chance to attend because globally lots of people will have been vaccinated by then. We should be reaching the end of ours and be looking to studies for 13-17 year olds to be jabbed too.TheScreamingEagles said:
I think plenty of athletes need vaccinating by February so they can form groups so they can do their training schedules to peak at the Olympics.MaxPB said:
It really depends on when they're asking for athletes to be vaccinated. If it's now then, you're right it wouldn't be very popular. If it's in May or June then no one's going to care because the programme will already be through all of the top 9 priority groups. Where it gets dicey is if the UK supplies the IOC for international use and for various dignitaries because their home countries haven't planned ahead properly. Though really we're talking about maybe 250000 doses and we can probably ask the US and Japan to chip in as well given their portfolios are as strong as ours.TheScreamingEagles said:Can't see this being too popular but we should do it so we can go further up the medal table.
Olympics official says prioritise athletes for coronavirus jab so Tokyo Games can go ahead
Sky News understands conversations underway between government and British Olympic Association about securing athletes a Covid-19 vaccination; IOC member Dick Pound is confident the Olympics can still go ahead as long as athletes can be vaccinated beforehand
https://www.skysports.com/olympics/news/15234/12180389/olympics-official-says-prioritise-athletes-for-coronavirus-jab-so-tokyo-games-can-go-ahead
Vaccinating in May or June won't work, nor will sport bubbles as there's not enough facilities (or money) for them to form exclusive sporting bubbles.
It caused havoc at the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
0 -
I have just heard from a friend of mine who is in his eighties and had the first jab before Xmas, that he has received a text reminder to go to the surgery tomorrow for his second jab, 21 days after his first.0
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A former Goldman Sachs banker will this week be installed by Boris Johnson as the next BBC chairman amid a deepening debate about the fate of the television licence fee and unprecedented competition from commercial rivals.
Sky News has learnt that the government is preparing to announce the appointment of Richard Sharp as Sir David Clementi's successor as soon as Thursday.
Mr Sharp, who during his long career at Goldman was once Rishi Sunak's boss, has spent much of the past year as an unpaid adviser to the chancellor on the economic response to the coronavirus pandemic...
Mr Sharp was an adviser to the PM during the latter's time as mayor of London, and has historically been a donor to the Conservative Party, although one ally of the new BBC chair said he had given just £2,500 to it in the last decade.
https://news.sky.com/story/ministers-to-unveil-former-goldman-banker-sharp-as-new-bbc-chair-12180454
The Guardian are going to have fits....and again it looks like jobs for your mates.0 -
Well, it's easy to write off the Republicans after this result and say, at face value, the Democrats have the trifecta of the Presidency and Congress. But the Republicans still control the majority of state legislatures, which gives them the upper hand in redistricting in 2021, and the Democrats' grip on all three levers is weak - a limited majority in the House, a split Senate and a Presidency where there will be continued questioning on the vote.SirNorfolkPassmore said:
Sure, Trump can no doubt spin it - as I say, fantasticc snake oil salesman. But the point is the MUCH better outcome for him would be for Republicans to retain control of the Senare.MrEd said:
Oh, Trump can easily sway this result in Georgia to say that he was right and that the Republicans need to ignore the RINOs and listen to him. His arguments will be why the Republicans lost:SirNorfolkPassmore said:
Nobody denies Trump is a talented snake oil salesman. But to what effect? If he actually wants to preserve and extend his legacy, he's best ensuring Republicans control the Senate. Now they don't. He still has a load of people who will lick up anything he pukes out, but his political leverage is over people who aren't actually in power at the national level.contrarian said:
and up to 80% of Repubs believe him!BluestBlue said:
Who single-handedly created that 'vote-suppressing attitude' amongst Republicans, and thus deliberately threw away Republican control of the Senate just to spite McConnell for not helping him steal the Presidency?contrarian said:A Georgia exit poll by CNN showed that 3 in 4 GOP voters believe the presidential was rigged against Trump. And that's a poll, presumably, of voters who showed up for the run-offs. The percentage among those repubs who didn't is probably higher.
Given the vote suppressing implications of that attitude, a civil war in the party, and add in up to 20 million brand new citizens and the chances of the repubs winning anything in, ever, that's in any way meaningful are remote. In 2022 or 3022.
One of the amusing things is how the media are now latching on to so called moderate slightly pink dem senators, presumably not to frighten the investment horses...??
Senator no-mark, of no-marksburg, now a crucial power broker, blah blah blah. Thompson et al and the other Boris rampers on here swallowing it whole of course.
Was it Trump? Yep, it was Trump all right.
What a genius! Has anybody been able to sway republican hearts and minds like this in the past!
- McConnell opposed the $2K handout - he should have listened to me;
- Kemp and the SoS has allowed the Democrats to steal the election by agreeing to Stacey Abrams' demands (more on that below);
- The SoS released the tapes, allowing the media to run with the story about Trump pressuring Georgia;
- Georgia has allowed voting fraud to run rampant;
- If it wasn't for me campaigning, the margin of error would have been worse;
He will also use the results breakdown to push his arguments on fraud and that Republican legislatures should be doing more to limit mail-in ballots. NYT has the early vote essentially tied, the Republicans winning the election day ballots by 26/27% but the Democrats winning mail-in ballots by 34/35%..
Funnily enough, on this, he might get an ally in McConnell. If McConnell plans to stay around being leader and wants to win back the Senate in 2022, he might be more supportive to calls to limit mail-in ballots by state legislatures (which I'd expect to happen).
Trump has great leverage within the GOP. But that's no good in terms of keeping the flame of Trumpism alive if they aren't in power anywhere. Losing the Senate means Republicans are purely reactive to someone else's agenda or two years at least. Perhaps that will change in 2022 - but not necessarily, and Trump is an old man who will be older still, he has a lot of legal issues, and the world does move on so he won't be quite as powerful as he is now.
He's maintained his leverage... but over what exactly?
As for Trump, while it will be spun as a blow for him, within Republican circles, it's more likely to be seen as fuelling calls for McConnell to quit. There are plenty of Senators like Hawley, Cruz and Cotton who are positioning themselves for 2024 (or 2028, if Trump goes for the nomination again and they decide to be his wing-man, given Pence is unlikely to get that role). It's an easy line to take that McConnell cocked up by not backing the £2K proposal and the three quarters of Republican voters who think the election was stolen not need much persuading in believing the narrative that he has been complicit in allowing the election to be stolen.1 -
.
Fair point!OnlyLivingBoy said:
Get rich or die trying. Or get rich off the back of others dying. That has pretty much been the American dream for centuries.Theuniondivvie said:Loeffler on the radio there, imploring ‘all’ Americans to keep fighting for the American Dream. Hadn’t realised getting insider info during a pandemic and then buying up shares in a body bag firm was an aspect of the American Dream. Every day a school day,
1 -
I have also heard that the response to various outfits (such as GPs) declining to participate in the Pfzier vaccine distribution (too demanding, too compiled), was to simply send the supplies (limited) elsewhere. On the basis of "If you can use use it, you can have it".Leon said:
My Dad very efficiently got his 2nd jab this week. Exactly as planned. So there seems to be massive variationMalmesbury said:
Which shows different approaches - my GP has been sending to texts/letters naming a specific 15 minute "slot" on a specific day for your jab. Proceeding down the list in order of age, I believe. Whole of January booked.Stereodog said:Just an anecdote about the vaccine roll out. My Grandmother was told before Christmas that she was eligible for the vaccine and should phone her local hospital to arrange an appointment. Despite phoning multiple times a day she has never been able to get through on the phone. All she gets is a recorded message saying that phone lines are busy.
I wouldn't want to extrapolate anything from this but I suspect that there will be a lot of bottlenecks in the roll out that has nothing to do with the amount of vaccine doses in existence. In my Gran's case it seems to be the administrative capacity of the local hospital. It seems counterproductive to me that everyone in her area of Cambridgeshire has to go through one obviously overstretched hospital to arrange an appointment for the vaccine.
Apparently this was a bit of shock to some in the system.1 -
My 88 and 87 in laws have their jab scheduled for tomorrow, time and place also notified by their GPs by letter, having heeded the advice not to contact anyone.Leon said:
My Dad very efficiently got his 2nd jab this week. Exactly as planned. So there seems to be massive variationMalmesbury said:
Which shows different approaches - my GP has been sending to texts/letters naming a specific 15 minute "slot" on a specific day for your jab. Proceeding down the list in order of age, I believe. Whole of January booked.Stereodog said:Just an anecdote about the vaccine roll out. My Grandmother was told before Christmas that she was eligible for the vaccine and should phone her local hospital to arrange an appointment. Despite phoning multiple times a day she has never been able to get through on the phone. All she gets is a recorded message saying that phone lines are busy.
I wouldn't want to extrapolate anything from this but I suspect that there will be a lot of bottlenecks in the roll out that has nothing to do with the amount of vaccine doses in existence. In my Gran's case it seems to be the administrative capacity of the local hospital. It seems counterproductive to me that everyone in her area of Cambridgeshire has to go through one obviously overstretched hospital to arrange an appointment for the vaccine.0 -
When my (black) wife worked in Hollywood when the OJ trial was going on, she mentioned to her co-workers that she thought OJ was guilty. One of them said "I always knew X wasn't Black"FrancisUrquhart said:Very revealing of some people's attitude....a person of a certain skin colour must have a certain opinion on particular issues because of their skin colour, they either just can't say it, they are lying or worst they are an Uncle Tom.
It could well have you going back to read the statement he released after the police killing of George Floyd and how far out of the way it went to empathize with law enforcement who “train so diligently to understand how, when and where to use force.” Those words, typical Woods, seemed so cautious and even cowardly then – especially when compared to the more assertive tone struck by Michael Jordan, the greatest political fence sitter of all time until last summer. But after watching the doc you appreciate the statement for what it is – the words of a man who is just trying to survive another day in America. Sounds mighty black to me.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jan/06/tiger-woods-hbo-documentary-golf
Maybe like Billy Vunipola he isn't exactly on board with all of the BLM movement demands and prefers to be diplomatic / doesn't believe some of the demonstrable false claims in terms of how likely an unarmed black man will get gunned down by the police.0 -
New Jack City was not intended to be a HowTo instructional film.... but....OnlyLivingBoy said:
Get rich or die trying. Or get rich off the back of others dying. That has pretty much been the American dream for centuries.Theuniondivvie said:Loeffler on the radio there, imploring ‘all’ Americans to keep fighting for the American Dream. Hadn’t realised getting insider info during a pandemic and then buying up shares in a body bag firm was an aspect of the American Dream. Every day a school day,
{Sackler family has entered the chat}1 -
I think you are over-analysing. The job vacancy notices which the original tweet referred to were probably modified from something like "EU, EEA or UK citizens, or other nationals with a right to work in the EU" to delete the UK reference. Given that tweets are very limited in length, it would hardly be unreasonable for the author to have skipped the last bit.DougSeal said:@RochdalePioneers
It is unlawful to disciminate against people purely on the grounds of nationality. You are right that you can discriminate on the grounds of right to work (i.e. work permits) but you can't discriminate on the grounds of national origin if someone has a work permit - that would be indirect race discrimination. So if a Pakistani, British and Irish Citizen apply for a job in Ireland, each having a right to work there, but the first two are rejected on the grounds of citizenship then they both have a case under the Irish Equal Status Acts 2000-2018.
Article 13 of the Directive reads as follows -
(13) To this end, any direct or indirect discrimination based on racial or ethnic origin as regards the areas covered by this Directive should be prohibited throughout the Community. This prohibition of discrimination should also apply to nationals of third countries, but does not cover differences of treatment based on nationality and is without prejudice to provisions governing the entry and residence of third-country nationals and their access to employment and to occupation.
The sentence "based on nationality" is a bit of a red herring as if someone is lawfully able to work in a country then they are covered by the "third country" bit and it has been repeatedly proved impossible to discriminate on the grounds of nationality without discriminating indirectly on the grounds of ethnicity. For example "no Afghan citizens" is, objectively, based purely on nationality but is clearly indirectly discriminatory against people of Afghan ethnicity ("indirect discrimination shall be taken to occur where an apparently neutral provision, criterion or practice would put persons of a racial or ethnic origin at a particular disadvantage compared with other persons, unless that provision, criterion or practice is objectively justified by a legitimate aim and the means of achieving that aim are appropriate and necessary"). In Bilka-Kaufhaus GmbH v Weber von Hartz, the European Court of Justice held that the measures taken by the employer:
- Must correspond to a real need on the part of the employer.
- Must be appropriate with a view to achieving the objectives pursued.
- Must be necessary to that end.
So a blanket ban based on nationality, without reference to right to work, is unlawful indirect discrimination
It also wouldn't be a misrepresentation. A UK citizen typically doesn't now have a pre-existing right to work in the EU. IANAE, but I very much doubt that there is an obligation on EU employers to accept applications from third-country nationals for whom they'd have to apply for a work permit, and clearly it's a hassle which they wouldn't want to bother with unless they had no choice.0 -
Still no sign of any vaccination for my elderly parents.0
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I've received about 3 messages from my surgery not to contact them but just to wait for it. Simple precaution or a lot of people phoning in I wonder?Barnesian said:I have just heard from a friend of mine who is in his eighties and had the first jab before Xmas, that he has received a text reminder to go to the surgery tomorrow for his second jab, 21 days after his first.
0 -
Trump is a cult.* His support will wane now but it won't readily transfer anywhere and certainly not to traditional Republicans. The GoP has a massive problem, very much of its own creation. It will do well to avoid a long period in the wilderness.HYUFD said:
I think even if Trump and Trump Jnr do not run in 2024 one of Pence or Cruz will be the GOP nominee, the GOP base are not going to pick an establishment and moderate 'RINO' as their nominee anytime soonkinabalu said:
I totally share your opinion on the damage done but I do not think Trump & Clan will be the ongoing political force that many fear (or hope if they're on the dark side). Soon he will out of the White House. He'll be an impeached and disgraced one term ex-president with big legal and money troubles who managed the remarkable negative feat of failing to win a 2nd term after just 4 years of his party in power and while he's at it losing both houses of Congress to the hated other.OllyT said:
In some cases you may be correct but I believe the GOP will be dancing to Trump's tune for the next 4 years.edmundintokyo said:
IDK, parties nearly always pick a moderate against an incumbent, not least because if the governing side isn't contested then politics enthusiasts vote in the opposition race, especially where there are open primaries. It's not clear that Trump will be willing and able to run, and if he's not then it's not clear that anybody similar can pull off what he did.OllyT said:
The GOP have got themselves into a dire position. Many of them know that the Trump core are batshit crazy / QAnon types but there are too many of them to ignore so they keep quiet because they are scared of them.another_richard said:So does the GOP fall into civil war or does it reorganise and retake the House in 2022 ?
I don't see an easy path for any moderately sane Republican to win a GOP Primary. That's why we still have 10 GOP Senators about to humiliate themselves by still pretending Trump won the election.
Trump is a malign, vindictive and bullying individual who will take great pleasure in trying to destroy any Republican who has displeased him. The right really have taken the US into a very dark place and now the genii is out of the bottle it's not going to be easy to put it back.
From 20 Jan his world will shrink beyond recognition. The difference between being the American president and not being the American president is almost as stark as that between being dead or alive. He'll lose all the trappings of that great office - the most important of which was to have his bullshit piped into people's heads 24/7. Supporters will drift away, not to be replaced by new ones. It will be one way traffic. Drip drip drip until what's left is something not to be taken seriously. He might even realize this himself before too long and concentrate just on cashflow and staying out of jail. Perhaps a deal? Not sure on that one. We'll see.
But Donald Trump the fearsome politician is over. No doubt there will be other grisly characters (the lizard Ted Cruz?) who will battle to own the MAGA space in the GOP, and one will prevail and be a live contender for the 24 nomination, but that person will not be called Trump and they won't be able to recreate what he did in 15/16 because that stunning achievement owed so much to his personal brand and persona. So they won't win the nomination. The Republican Party might look beyond the pale now but my money is on them detoxifying. Looking forward to the opening of the WH24 betting.
* For the avoidance of doubt this is not a typo.2 -
I find YouTube quite often promotes professionally produced videos by people you’ve never heard of on various alt-right topics.FrancisUrquhart said:GB News are missing a trick if they don't also go the YouTube / internet streaming route.
As TalkRadio have found there are lots of views to be had there, in fact there are random "personalities" that cover current affairs that often get larger audience figures than the likes of Sky News. There are bugger all views in being Channel 4958 on Sky, unless you are a "speciality" channel for the mature audience, and even then hasn't all that stuff now gone to the internet?0 -
Bloody vampire squid. I blame @rcs1000.FrancisUrquhart said:A former Goldman Sachs banker will this week be installed by Boris Johnson as the next BBC chairman amid a deepening debate about the fate of the television licence fee and unprecedented competition from commercial rivals.
Sky News has learnt that the government is preparing to announce the appointment of Richard Sharp as Sir David Clementi's successor as soon as Thursday.
Mr Sharp, who during his long career at Goldman was once Rishi Sunak's boss, has spent much of the past year as an unpaid adviser to the chancellor on the economic response to the coronavirus pandemic...
Mr Sharp was an adviser to the PM during the latter's time as mayor of London, and has historically been a donor to the Conservative Party, although one ally of the new BBC chair said he had given just £2,500 to it in the last decade.
https://news.sky.com/story/ministers-to-unveil-former-goldman-banker-sharp-as-new-bbc-chair-12180454
The Guardian are going to have fits....and again it looks like jobs for your mates.0 -
Very good from Johnson. One of his better performances.0
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Christ you remain an arsehole.MarqueeMark said:
Christ, you're a miserable scrote.TOPPING said:
Obviously your red pen is in constant action with all those ambitious targets never met.YBarddCwsc said:
Boris will be compared against comparable countries.TOPPING said:
Whatever happened to under promise and over deliver although again, for planning purposes too modest ambition can be destructive.
Realistic is your watchword. I doubt that Boris has spent one minute actually understanding the challenges of the things he is announcing. Do you?
I am perfectly comfortable with setting ambitious targets for the people who work with me.
But then, they are mostly brilliant ... probably doesn't apply to General Topping sipping his vintage wines in the Officer's Club.
Still, it makes for a great boardroom atmosphere until reality bites.0 -
There would have been no Obamacare for example if the GOP had held the House from 2009 to 2011Philip_Thompson said:
No he doesn't. The house is much more used to facilitating cross partisan politics. Most Presidents end up working with an opposition controlled House without problems. The budget is always about horsetrading.HYUFD said:
The President needs control of both the House and Senate to get his full legislative agenda through and the House controls the budgetPhilip_Thompson said:
The Senate is much, much more important.HYUFD said:
In the Senate maybe, not in the House though where every seat will be up in 2022 and the Democrats will be defending a majority of just 10 over the GOPPeter_the_Punter said:
Hyufd, don't the Republicans have a difficult slate in 2022 - more seats to defend than attack?HYUFD said:
That depends entirely on the Biden Harris approval ratings in 2022, if they are low the GOP will almost certainly take back the House and maybe even the Senate too in the 2022 midterms.Pulpstar said:
I'm not sure the traditional midterm logic will entirely hold. Democrats are favoured in lower turnout elections now I think.another_richard said:So does the GOP fall into civil war or does it reorganise and retake the House in 2022 ?
But the Senate uniquely can stallwall judicial appointments etc. It is far more critical.0 -
Number actually immunised would be better. Number vaccinated pushes towards the single dose regime no matter what its effectiveness turns out to be, and towards using the more easily administered vaccine even when the more effective one is available.rkrkrk said:More important than the target number is making sure you are measuring the right thing.
Without thinking it through in great detail - the number vaccinated looks like the right metric. I suppose if the govt messed up the prioritization in its haste to vaccinate everyone, then that might be an adverse consequence.
By contrast - the testing target of 100k/day was not the right metric. We prioritized doing lots of tests (or worse posting them to people!) vs. getting quick results, getting people to act on results, getting people to isolate etc.
Trouble is, that's not an easily obtainable number, and of course targets do need to be measurable.0 -
You're complaining about the loss of Francovich damages now? Hopefully this means we are getting near the bottom of the pile. Other than Factortame did the UK government ever pay such damages in the 30 years since the CJEU invented that principle?Scott_xP said:1 -
You should watch some more left wing people then....I do and I get recommended both. It is true though that YouTube algorithm is particular poor for if you watch one video by somebody, you don't like or subscribe etc, it still thinks well you must be really into this type of content, and gives you some more of the same for a bit.williamglenn said:
I find YouTube quite often promotes professionally produced videos by people you’ve never heard of on various alt-right topics.FrancisUrquhart said:GB News are missing a trick if they don't also go the YouTube / internet streaming route.
As TalkRadio have found there are lots of views to be had there, in fact there are random "personalities" that cover current affairs that often get larger audience figures than the likes of Sky News. There are bugger all views in being Channel 4958 on Sky, unless you are a "speciality" channel for the mature audience, and even then hasn't all that stuff now gone to the internet?0 -
Well sure - and ditto OLB's slightly more targeted attempt "A Republican" - but this guy, Grahman, phewee, he's something else.kle4 said:
A politician.kinabalu said:
Yes. Except Graham is still a Senator.Philip_Thompson said:
Is there a word for that thing that exists in the realm beyond shame and beyond hypocrisy?1 -
It should be noted that the last time a party lost the White House after only 1 term, when Carter lost in 1980, it took the Democrats 12 years until Bill Clinton in 1992 before they won the White House again.Peter_the_Punter said:
Trump is a cult.* His support will wane now but it won't readily transfer anywhere and certainly not to traditional Republicans. The GoP has a massive problem, very much of its own creation. It will do well to avoid a long period in the wilderness.HYUFD said:
I think even if Trump and Trump Jnr do not run in 2024 one of Pence or Cruz will be the GOP nominee, the GOP base are not going to pick an establishment and moderate 'RINO' as their nominee anytime soonkinabalu said:
I totally share your opinion on the damage done but I do not think Trump & Clan will be the ongoing political force that many fear (or hope if they're on the dark side). Soon he will out of the White House. He'll be an impeached and disgraced one term ex-president with big legal and money troubles who managed the remarkable negative feat of failing to win a 2nd term after just 4 years of his party in power and while he's at it losing both houses of Congress to the hated other.OllyT said:
In some cases you may be correct but I believe the GOP will be dancing to Trump's tune for the next 4 years.edmundintokyo said:
IDK, parties nearly always pick a moderate against an incumbent, not least because if the governing side isn't contested then politics enthusiasts vote in the opposition race, especially where there are open primaries. It's not clear that Trump will be willing and able to run, and if he's not then it's not clear that anybody similar can pull off what he did.OllyT said:
The GOP have got themselves into a dire position. Many of them know that the Trump core are batshit crazy / QAnon types but there are too many of them to ignore so they keep quiet because they are scared of them.another_richard said:So does the GOP fall into civil war or does it reorganise and retake the House in 2022 ?
I don't see an easy path for any moderately sane Republican to win a GOP Primary. That's why we still have 10 GOP Senators about to humiliate themselves by still pretending Trump won the election.
Trump is a malign, vindictive and bullying individual who will take great pleasure in trying to destroy any Republican who has displeased him. The right really have taken the US into a very dark place and now the genii is out of the bottle it's not going to be easy to put it back.
From 20 Jan his world will shrink beyond recognition. The difference between being the American president and not being the American president is almost as stark as that between being dead or alive. He'll lose all the trappings of that great office - the most important of which was to have his bullshit piped into people's heads 24/7. Supporters will drift away, not to be replaced by new ones. It will be one way traffic. Drip drip drip until what's left is something not to be taken seriously. He might even realize this himself before too long and concentrate just on cashflow and staying out of jail. Perhaps a deal? Not sure on that one. We'll see.
But Donald Trump the fearsome politician is over. No doubt there will be other grisly characters (the lizard Ted Cruz?) who will battle to own the MAGA space in the GOP, and one will prevail and be a live contender for the 24 nomination, but that person will not be called Trump and they won't be able to recreate what he did in 15/16 because that stunning achievement owed so much to his personal brand and persona. So they won't win the nomination. The Republican Party might look beyond the pale now but my money is on them detoxifying. Looking forward to the opening of the WH24 betting.
* For the avoidance of doubt this is not a typo.
Which is not encouraging for the GOP, at least at the Presidential level1 -
While we are all haranguing HMG and Boris, spare a thought for the Dutch government, who seem to be doing considerably worse
https://twitter.com/duncanrobinson/status/1346767012924678144?s=211 -
Just so.Casino_Royale said:
Agreed. What was different about him is that he had little time for the pomposity of Heseltine and Heath either, and was clearly patriotic - believing Britain's interests could best be asserted via the EU.Richard_Tyndall said:
Yep I agree with this. I think he was utterly wrong on Europe and I think that would have killed any chance he had of being PM even had he kept his seat. But he has been right on many other things not least his calls for us to welcome Hong Kong residents we abandoned after the handover in 1999. This is a great wrong I hope we are now righting.Casino_Royale said:
He's one of my heroes. Man of immense courage.TheScreamingEagles said:I've always liked Lord Patten, I wonder if he might have become Tory leader in 1997 (or earlier) if he hadn't have lost his seat.
https://twitter.com/patrickwintour/status/1346758784602005504
Needless to say we don't see eye-to-eye on Europe. I suspect that would have let him down, as it did for Ken Clarke.
I didn't agree with him on that, but I respect anyone (of whatever view) who has moral and political courage.
He had it. In spades.
https://twitter.com/acatherwoodnews/status/1337668744634650624?s=210 -
Our thoughts with you.MrEd said:
Well, it's easy to write off the Republicans after this result and say, at face value, the Democrats have the trifecta of the Presidency and Congress. But the Republicans still control the majority of state legislatures, which gives them the upper hand in redistricting in 2021, and the Democrats' grip on all three levers is weak - a limited majority in the House, a split Senate and a Presidency where there will be continued questioning on the vote.SirNorfolkPassmore said:
Sure, Trump can no doubt spin it - as I say, fantasticc snake oil salesman. But the point is the MUCH better outcome for him would be for Republicans to retain control of the Senare.MrEd said:
Oh, Trump can easily sway this result in Georgia to say that he was right and that the Republicans need to ignore the RINOs and listen to him. His arguments will be why the Republicans lost:SirNorfolkPassmore said:
Nobody denies Trump is a talented snake oil salesman. But to what effect? If he actually wants to preserve and extend his legacy, he's best ensuring Republicans control the Senate. Now they don't. He still has a load of people who will lick up anything he pukes out, but his political leverage is over people who aren't actually in power at the national level.contrarian said:
and up to 80% of Repubs believe him!BluestBlue said:
Who single-handedly created that 'vote-suppressing attitude' amongst Republicans, and thus deliberately threw away Republican control of the Senate just to spite McConnell for not helping him steal the Presidency?contrarian said:A Georgia exit poll by CNN showed that 3 in 4 GOP voters believe the presidential was rigged against Trump. And that's a poll, presumably, of voters who showed up for the run-offs. The percentage among those repubs who didn't is probably higher.
Given the vote suppressing implications of that attitude, a civil war in the party, and add in up to 20 million brand new citizens and the chances of the repubs winning anything in, ever, that's in any way meaningful are remote. In 2022 or 3022.
One of the amusing things is how the media are now latching on to so called moderate slightly pink dem senators, presumably not to frighten the investment horses...??
Senator no-mark, of no-marksburg, now a crucial power broker, blah blah blah. Thompson et al and the other Boris rampers on here swallowing it whole of course.
Was it Trump? Yep, it was Trump all right.
What a genius! Has anybody been able to sway republican hearts and minds like this in the past!
- McConnell opposed the $2K handout - he should have listened to me;
- Kemp and the SoS has allowed the Democrats to steal the election by agreeing to Stacey Abrams' demands (more on that below);
- The SoS released the tapes, allowing the media to run with the story about Trump pressuring Georgia;
- Georgia has allowed voting fraud to run rampant;
- If it wasn't for me campaigning, the margin of error would have been worse;
He will also use the results breakdown to push his arguments on fraud and that Republican legislatures should be doing more to limit mail-in ballots. NYT has the early vote essentially tied, the Republicans winning the election day ballots by 26/27% but the Democrats winning mail-in ballots by 34/35%..
Funnily enough, on this, he might get an ally in McConnell. If McConnell plans to stay around being leader and wants to win back the Senate in 2022, he might be more supportive to calls to limit mail-in ballots by state legislatures (which I'd expect to happen).
Trump has great leverage within the GOP. But that's no good in terms of keeping the flame of Trumpism alive if they aren't in power anywhere. Losing the Senate means Republicans are purely reactive to someone else's agenda or two years at least. Perhaps that will change in 2022 - but not necessarily, and Trump is an old man who will be older still, he has a lot of legal issues, and the world does move on so he won't be quite as powerful as he is now.
He's maintained his leverage... but over what exactly?
As for Trump, while it will be spun as a blow for him, within Republican circles, it's more likely to be seen as fuelling calls for McConnell to quit. There are plenty of Senators like Hawley, Cruz and Cotton who are positioning themselves for 2024 (or 2028, if Trump goes for the nomination again and they decide to be his wing-man, given Pence is unlikely to get that role). It's an easy line to take that McConnell cocked up by not backing the £2K proposal and the three quarters of Republican voters who think the election was stolen not need much persuading in believing the narrative that he has been complicit in allowing the election to be stolen.0 -
My surgery has the same message. Don't phone us. We'll contact you. So I didn't phone them until I got a text message 8 days ago saying phone us. I did and got an appointment for my first jab the next day (7 days ago) and an appointment for my second jab on 20th Jan.kle4 said:
I've received about 3 messages from my surgery not to contact them but just to wait for it. Simple precaution or a lot of people phoning in I wonder?Barnesian said:I have just heard from a friend of mine who is in his eighties and had the first jab before Xmas, that he has received a text reminder to go to the surgery tomorrow for his second jab, 21 days after his first.
0 -
The inability to even start vaccinating until next week is absolutely unforgivable.Leon said:While we are all haranguing HMG and Boris, spare a thought for the Dutch government, who seem to be doing considerably worse
https://twitter.com/duncanrobinson/status/1346767012924678144?s=212 -
The tenure of the last ex-Goldman BBC Chairman didn't end so well.MaxPB said:
Bloody vampire squid. I blame @rcs1000.FrancisUrquhart said:A former Goldman Sachs banker will this week be installed by Boris Johnson as the next BBC chairman amid a deepening debate about the fate of the television licence fee and unprecedented competition from commercial rivals.
Sky News has learnt that the government is preparing to announce the appointment of Richard Sharp as Sir David Clementi's successor as soon as Thursday.
Mr Sharp, who during his long career at Goldman was once Rishi Sunak's boss, has spent much of the past year as an unpaid adviser to the chancellor on the economic response to the coronavirus pandemic...
Mr Sharp was an adviser to the PM during the latter's time as mayor of London, and has historically been a donor to the Conservative Party, although one ally of the new BBC chair said he had given just £2,500 to it in the last decade.
https://news.sky.com/story/ministers-to-unveil-former-goldman-banker-sharp-as-new-bbc-chair-12180454
The Guardian are going to have fits....and again it looks like jobs for your mates.0 -
You don't need to worry, unless Britain becomes a Republic.rottenborough said:
My worry is somewhere out there is a British Trump just waiting for that to happen.WhisperingOracle said:
They'll be holding out for that 1990-style loosening and dumbing down of broadcasting regulation. Without Fox-style freedom, to genuinely propagandise, I don't think they'll be able to build a big enough audience for their ambitions and business model.rottenborough said:0 -
When does Pence burying Trump's tenure as presidency start btw ?0
-
We could decide to reduce the amount we deal with them. A China Repression Tariff Escalator. A general tariff of x% on Chinese goods, increase it by x% a year while they violate standards on the rule of law and human rights.kle4 said:
I sort of feel for him. Theres nothing anyone can do, China has won and the world isn't about to stop dealing with them, so his job will be to impotently protest. At best.CarlottaVance said:Nothing from Raab so far on the Hong Kong arrests......
It would give time for people to find alternatives as the tariffs ramped up over the years.0 -
Would 100% postal voting favour anybody in particular in Scotland?LostPassword said:
Just make them all-postal.MaxPB said:
Surely worth delaying them to July. No need to have a mass superspreading event just as we're tipping the balance in our favour. Two more months means 20m more people jabbed and 14m more people immunised.FrancisUrquhart said:There seems to be some confusion this morning if the elections are going ahead or not in May.
Counting will have to take a bit longer, but we delayed a whole heap of elections from last spring. There's no need to delay again.0 -
Since the proposed Olympics are not until july/August, it should not require that much prioritisation.TheScreamingEagles said:Can't see this being too popular but we should do it so we can go further up the medal table.
Olympics official says prioritise athletes for coronavirus jab so Tokyo Games can go ahead
Sky News understands conversations underway between government and British Olympic Association about securing athletes a Covid-19 vaccination; IOC member Dick Pound is confident the Olympics can still go ahead as long as athletes can be vaccinated beforehand
https://www.skysports.com/olympics/news/15234/12180389/olympics-official-says-prioritise-athletes-for-coronavirus-jab-so-tokyo-games-can-go-ahead0 -
According to my GP (well, the nurse there, while sort out to do some other stuff at the same time as the jab, for an elderly relative), the phones have been ringing non-stop. Generally ineligible people seeking to get the jab early.kle4 said:
I've received about 3 messages from my surgery not to contact them but just to wait for it. Simple precaution or a lot of people phoning in I wonder?Barnesian said:I have just heard from a friend of mine who is in his eighties and had the first jab before Xmas, that he has received a text reminder to go to the surgery tomorrow for his second jab, 21 days after his first.
0 -
Have just had the DVLA letter reminding me of my vehicle tax bill due at the end of the month. That'll teach me to buy nice things
0 -
I mean, the whole purpose of Brexit, and the most material consequence of it, is to strip the automatic right to work and residency for UK citizens in the EU and vice versa. For any Brexiteer to raise objections to this happening would be pretty odd.Richard_Nabavi said:
I think you are over-analysing. The job vacancy notices which the original tweet referred to were probably modified from something like "EU, EEA or UK citizens, or other nationals with a right to work in the EU" to delete the UK reference. Given that tweets are very limited in length, it would hardly be unreasonable for the author to have skipped the last bit.DougSeal said:@RochdalePioneers
It is unlawful to disciminate against people purely on the grounds of nationality. You are right that you can discriminate on the grounds of right to work (i.e. work permits) but you can't discriminate on the grounds of national origin if someone has a work permit - that would be indirect race discrimination. So if a Pakistani, British and Irish Citizen apply for a job in Ireland, each having a right to work there, but the first two are rejected on the grounds of citizenship then they both have a case under the Irish Equal Status Acts 2000-2018.
Article 13 of the Directive reads as follows -
(13) To this end, any direct or indirect discrimination based on racial or ethnic origin as regards the areas covered by this Directive should be prohibited throughout the Community. This prohibition of discrimination should also apply to nationals of third countries, but does not cover differences of treatment based on nationality and is without prejudice to provisions governing the entry and residence of third-country nationals and their access to employment and to occupation.
The sentence "based on nationality" is a bit of a red herring as if someone is lawfully able to work in a country then they are covered by the "third country" bit and it has been repeatedly proved impossible to discriminate on the grounds of nationality without discriminating indirectly on the grounds of ethnicity. For example "no Afghan citizens" is, objectively, based purely on nationality but is clearly indirectly discriminatory against people of Afghan ethnicity ("indirect discrimination shall be taken to occur where an apparently neutral provision, criterion or practice would put persons of a racial or ethnic origin at a particular disadvantage compared with other persons, unless that provision, criterion or practice is objectively justified by a legitimate aim and the means of achieving that aim are appropriate and necessary"). In Bilka-Kaufhaus GmbH v Weber von Hartz, the European Court of Justice held that the measures taken by the employer:
- Must correspond to a real need on the part of the employer.
- Must be appropriate with a view to achieving the objectives pursued.
- Must be necessary to that end.
So a blanket ban based on nationality, without reference to right to work, is unlawful indirect discrimination
It also wouldn't be a misrepresentation. A UK citizen typically doesn't now have a pre-existing right to work in the EU. IANAE, but I very much doubt that there is an obligation on EU employers to accept applications from third-country nationals for whom they'd have to apply for a work permit, and clearly it's a hassle which they wouldn't want to bother with unless they had no choice.0 -
Some of the quotes from Dutch politicians are identical to those from French pols. And quite mind-bogglingFrancisUrquhart said:
The inability to even start vaccinating until next week is absolutely unforgivable.Leon said:While we are all haranguing HMG and Boris, spare a thought for the Dutch government, who seem to be doing considerably worse
https://twitter.com/duncanrobinson/status/1346767012924678144?s=21
‘It doesn’t matter if you start vaccinating earlier on some symbolic date’
‘Vaccinating everyone is a marathon, not a sprint’
No mate, it is a sprint. It is now, literally, a race against the virus. Injection v infection.2 -
Yes, after all the sound and fury, we've done about as well most large, diverse, western European countries. France, Italy and the United States have done about as well, Belgium and Spain a bit worse, Germany and Canada rather better.Leon said:While we are all haranguing HMG and Boris, spare a thought for the Dutch government, who seem to be doing considerably worse
https://twitter.com/duncanrobinson/status/1346767012924678144?s=21
Incidentally, whoever wrote the article, which includes the statement that the Dutch are noted as a world leader in complex projects clearly hasn't studied the North/South line in the Amsterdam Metro, which is a parody of a badly-managed project.2 -
That was a dramatic partisan reform not a budget. President's can still get their agenda and a budget through via horsetrading which is what Biden is good at, even if there's no dramatic partisan reforms.HYUFD said:
There would have been no Obamacare for example if the GOP had held the House from 2009 to 2011Philip_Thompson said:
No he doesn't. The house is much more used to facilitating cross partisan politics. Most Presidents end up working with an opposition controlled House without problems. The budget is always about horsetrading.HYUFD said:
The President needs control of both the House and Senate to get his full legislative agenda through and the House controls the budgetPhilip_Thompson said:
The Senate is much, much more important.HYUFD said:
In the Senate maybe, not in the House though where every seat will be up in 2022 and the Democrats will be defending a majority of just 10 over the GOPPeter_the_Punter said:
Hyufd, don't the Republicans have a difficult slate in 2022 - more seats to defend than attack?HYUFD said:
That depends entirely on the Biden Harris approval ratings in 2022, if they are low the GOP will almost certainly take back the House and maybe even the Senate too in the 2022 midterms.Pulpstar said:
I'm not sure the traditional midterm logic will entirely hold. Democrats are favoured in lower turnout elections now I think.another_richard said:So does the GOP fall into civil war or does it reorganise and retake the House in 2022 ?
But the Senate uniquely can stallwall judicial appointments etc. It is far more critical.
The Democrats have two years potentially to get partisan stuff done, so long as it can get past Manchin so nothing AOC related. A new Voting Rights Act should be top of the agenda along with Statehood.1 -
Apparently, according to an HK friend, the next expected move from the Chinese government will be to make dual nationality illegal. Except for the rich and powerful, of course.LostPassword said:
We could decide to reduce the amount we deal with them. A China Repression Tariff Escalator. A general tariff of x% on Chinese goods, increase it by x% a year while they violate standards on the rule of law and human rights.kle4 said:
I sort of feel for him. Theres nothing anyone can do, China has won and the world isn't about to stop dealing with them, so his job will be to impotently protest. At best.CarlottaVance said:Nothing from Raab so far on the Hong Kong arrests......
It would give time for people to find alternatives as the tariffs ramped up over the years.0 -
Looks like Grayling put his tie on in a hurry....0
-
There's an incredibly casual, almost careless - in fact, almost proud - quality to the govrnment's cronyism. And again, it does have to be said that the current western government that most reminds of, is Trump's ; in a politer and subtler English version.FrancisUrquhart said:A former Goldman Sachs banker will this week be installed by Boris Johnson as the next BBC chairman amid a deepening debate about the fate of the television licence fee and unprecedented competition from commercial rivals.
Sky News has learnt that the government is preparing to announce the appointment of Richard Sharp as Sir David Clementi's successor as soon as Thursday.
Mr Sharp, who during his long career at Goldman was once Rishi Sunak's boss, has spent much of the past year as an unpaid adviser to the chancellor on the economic response to the coronavirus pandemic...
Mr Sharp was an adviser to the PM during the latter's time as mayor of London, and has historically been a donor to the Conservative Party, although one ally of the new BBC chair said he had given just £2,500 to it in the last decade.
https://news.sky.com/story/ministers-to-unveil-former-goldman-banker-sharp-as-new-bbc-chair-12180454
The Guardian are going to have fits....and again it looks like jobs for your mates.0 -
I predict that the more Brexity end of the market is going to continue obsessing about what’s going on in the EU for a very, very long time.FrancisUrquhart said:
The inability to even start vaccinating until next week is absolutely unforgivable.Leon said:While we are all haranguing HMG and Boris, spare a thought for the Dutch government, who seem to be doing considerably worse
https://twitter.com/duncanrobinson/status/1346767012924678144?s=210 -
Yes yes I do understand employment law. The key phrase is "each having a right to work there". UK citizens no longer have an automatic right to work in EU countries. Someone applying for a logistics job in the UK from Germany would not be allowed in on our new points system. It cannot be illegal discrimination to refuse that person a job they cannot legally do. I have had to ask non-UK candidates that they have the right to work in the UK before Brexit - if they didn't then that would have been that.DougSeal said:@RochdalePioneers
It is unlawful to disciminate against people purely on the grounds of nationality. You are right that you can discriminate on the grounds of right to work (i.e. work permits) but you can't discriminate on the grounds of national origin if someone has a work permit - that would be indirect race discrimination. So if a Pakistani, British and Irish Citizen apply for a job in Ireland, each having a right to work there, but the first two are rejected on the grounds of citizenship then they both have a case under the Irish Equal Status Acts 2000-2018.
Article 13 of the Directive reads as follows -
(13) To this end, any direct or indirect discrimination based on racial or ethnic origin as regards the areas covered by this Directive should be prohibited throughout the Community. This prohibition of discrimination should also apply to nationals of third countries, but does not cover differences of treatment based on nationality and is without prejudice to provisions governing the entry and residence of third-country nationals and their access to employment and to occupation.
The sentence "based on nationality" is a bit of a red herring as if someone is lawfully able to work in a country then they are covered by the "third country" bit and it has been repeatedly proved impossible to discriminate on the grounds of nationality without discriminating indirectly on the grounds of ethnicity. For example "no Afghan citizens" is, objectively, based purely on nationality but is clearly indirectly discriminatory against people of Afghan ethnicity ("indirect discrimination shall be taken to occur where an apparently neutral provision, criterion or practice would put persons of a racial or ethnic origin at a particular disadvantage compared with other persons, unless that provision, criterion or practice is objectively justified by a legitimate aim and the means of achieving that aim are appropriate and necessary"). In Bilka-Kaufhaus GmbH v Weber von Hartz, the European Court of Justice held that the measures taken by the employer:
- Must correspond to a real need on the part of the employer.
- Must be appropriate with a view to achieving the objectives pursued.
- Must be necessary to that end.
So a blanket ban based on nationality, without reference to right to work, is unlawful indirect discrimination1 -
Awful stuff.MrEd said:
When my (black) wife worked in Hollywood when the OJ trial was going on, she mentioned to her co-workers that she thought OJ was guilty. One of them said "I always knew X wasn't Black"FrancisUrquhart said:Very revealing of some people's attitude....a person of a certain skin colour must have a certain opinion on particular issues because of their skin colour, they either just can't say it, they are lying or worst they are an Uncle Tom.
It could well have you going back to read the statement he released after the police killing of George Floyd and how far out of the way it went to empathize with law enforcement who “train so diligently to understand how, when and where to use force.” Those words, typical Woods, seemed so cautious and even cowardly then – especially when compared to the more assertive tone struck by Michael Jordan, the greatest political fence sitter of all time until last summer. But after watching the doc you appreciate the statement for what it is – the words of a man who is just trying to survive another day in America. Sounds mighty black to me.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jan/06/tiger-woods-hbo-documentary-golf
Maybe like Billy Vunipola he isn't exactly on board with all of the BLM movement demands and prefers to be diplomatic / doesn't believe some of the demonstrable false claims in terms of how likely an unarmed black man will get gunned down by the police.0 -
Thank you, you really are a kind soulAnabobazina said:
Our thoughts with you.MrEd said:
Well, it's easy to write off the Republicans after this result and say, at face value, the Democrats have the trifecta of the Presidency and Congress. But the Republicans still control the majority of state legislatures, which gives them the upper hand in redistricting in 2021, and the Democrats' grip on all three levers is weak - a limited majority in the House, a split Senate and a Presidency where there will be continued questioning on the vote.SirNorfolkPassmore said:
Sure, Trump can no doubt spin it - as I say, fantasticc snake oil salesman. But the point is the MUCH better outcome for him would be for Republicans to retain control of the Senare.MrEd said:
Oh, Trump can easily sway this result in Georgia to say that he was right and that the Republicans need to ignore the RINOs and listen to him. His arguments will be why the Republicans lost:SirNorfolkPassmore said:
Nobody denies Trump is a talented snake oil salesman. But to what effect? If he actually wants to preserve and extend his legacy, he's best ensuring Republicans control the Senate. Now they don't. He still has a load of people who will lick up anything he pukes out, but his political leverage is over people who aren't actually in power at the national level.contrarian said:
and up to 80% of Repubs believe him!BluestBlue said:
Who single-handedly created that 'vote-suppressing attitude' amongst Republicans, and thus deliberately threw away Republican control of the Senate just to spite McConnell for not helping him steal the Presidency?contrarian said:A Georgia exit poll by CNN showed that 3 in 4 GOP voters believe the presidential was rigged against Trump. And that's a poll, presumably, of voters who showed up for the run-offs. The percentage among those repubs who didn't is probably higher.
Given the vote suppressing implications of that attitude, a civil war in the party, and add in up to 20 million brand new citizens and the chances of the repubs winning anything in, ever, that's in any way meaningful are remote. In 2022 or 3022.
One of the amusing things is how the media are now latching on to so called moderate slightly pink dem senators, presumably not to frighten the investment horses...??
Senator no-mark, of no-marksburg, now a crucial power broker, blah blah blah. Thompson et al and the other Boris rampers on here swallowing it whole of course.
Was it Trump? Yep, it was Trump all right.
What a genius! Has anybody been able to sway republican hearts and minds like this in the past!
- McConnell opposed the $2K handout - he should have listened to me;
- Kemp and the SoS has allowed the Democrats to steal the election by agreeing to Stacey Abrams' demands (more on that below);
- The SoS released the tapes, allowing the media to run with the story about Trump pressuring Georgia;
- Georgia has allowed voting fraud to run rampant;
- If it wasn't for me campaigning, the margin of error would have been worse;
He will also use the results breakdown to push his arguments on fraud and that Republican legislatures should be doing more to limit mail-in ballots. NYT has the early vote essentially tied, the Republicans winning the election day ballots by 26/27% but the Democrats winning mail-in ballots by 34/35%..
Funnily enough, on this, he might get an ally in McConnell. If McConnell plans to stay around being leader and wants to win back the Senate in 2022, he might be more supportive to calls to limit mail-in ballots by state legislatures (which I'd expect to happen).
Trump has great leverage within the GOP. But that's no good in terms of keeping the flame of Trumpism alive if they aren't in power anywhere. Losing the Senate means Republicans are purely reactive to someone else's agenda or two years at least. Perhaps that will change in 2022 - but not necessarily, and Trump is an old man who will be older still, he has a lot of legal issues, and the world does move on so he won't be quite as powerful as he is now.
He's maintained his leverage... but over what exactly?
As for Trump, while it will be spun as a blow for him, within Republican circles, it's more likely to be seen as fuelling calls for McConnell to quit. There are plenty of Senators like Hawley, Cruz and Cotton who are positioning themselves for 2024 (or 2028, if Trump goes for the nomination again and they decide to be his wing-man, given Pence is unlikely to get that role). It's an easy line to take that McConnell cocked up by not backing the £2K proposal and the three quarters of Republican voters who think the election was stolen not need much persuading in believing the narrative that he has been complicit in allowing the election to be stolen.
2 -
Gifted. But did seem to look down on those who did not appreciate those gifts as much as he did.Nigelb said:
And quite a good sense of humour.Casino_Royale said:
Agreed. What was different about him is that he had little time for the pomposity of Heseltine and Heath either, and was clearly patriotic - believing Britain's interests could best be asserted via the EU.Richard_Tyndall said:
Yep I agree with this. I think he was utterly wrong on Europe and I think that would have killed any chance he had of being PM even had he kept his seat. But he has been right on many other things not least his calls for us to welcome Hong Kong residents we abandoned after the handover in 1999. This is a great wrong I hope we are now righting.Casino_Royale said:
He's one of my heroes. Man of immense courage.TheScreamingEagles said:I've always liked Lord Patten, I wonder if he might have become Tory leader in 1997 (or earlier) if he hadn't have lost his seat.
https://twitter.com/patrickwintour/status/1346758784602005504
Needless to say we don't see eye-to-eye on Europe. I suspect that would have let him down, as it did for Ken Clarke.
I didn't agree with him on that, but I respect anyone (of whatever view) who has moral and political courage.
He had it. In spades.
His time at the BBC wasn't great, though.0 -
I think the issue in the countries that are in this position, is that they saw the vaccination as just another vaccination, at the fundamental organisational level. Normal process, important, but no rush.FrancisUrquhart said:
The inability to even start vaccinating until next week is absolutely unforgivable.Leon said:While we are all haranguing HMG and Boris, spare a thought for the Dutch government, who seem to be doing considerably worse
https://twitter.com/duncanrobinson/status/1346767012924678144?s=210 -
It's as if there were three fully-laden jumbo jets hitting the deck every single day and government ministers were saying "Maybe we ought to look into this. Are you busy next week?"Leon said:
Some of the quotes from Dutch politicians are identical to those from French pols. And quite mind-bogglingFrancisUrquhart said:
The inability to even start vaccinating until next week is absolutely unforgivable.Leon said:While we are all haranguing HMG and Boris, spare a thought for the Dutch government, who seem to be doing considerably worse
https://twitter.com/duncanrobinson/status/1346767012924678144?s=21
‘It doesn’t matter if you start vaccinating earlier on some symbolic date’
‘Vaccinating everyone is a marathon, not a sprint’
No mate, it is a sprint. It is now, literally, a race against the virus. Injection v infection.1 -
Couple of questions about the vaccination.
Will those vaccinated have some sort of certificate to say that the =vaccination has taken place? I can't imagine rocking up to a, for example, Thai airport and them happily accepting my word that I've been 'done'.
and
Has the Govt. done another U turn. It was reported the morning that pharmacies wouldn't be involved, but I'm sure I've seen somewhere, from later today, that they will?0 -
Well, for the last four and a half years, we've had folks ramming down our throats just how wonderful the EU is - and how we are seven shades of shite in comparison. Excuse us if on the first major test of that assumption, some of us have a head-at-an-angle "Really?"....Theuniondivvie said:
I predict that the more Brexity end of the market is going to continue obsessing about what’s going on in the EU for a very, very long time.FrancisUrquhart said:
The inability to even start vaccinating until next week is absolutely unforgivable.Leon said:While we are all haranguing HMG and Boris, spare a thought for the Dutch government, who seem to be doing considerably worse
https://twitter.com/duncanrobinson/status/1346767012924678144?s=213 -
Or maybe somebody tried to strangle him by it....CarlottaVance said:Looks like Grayling put his tie on in a hurry....
0 -
They've given up on the subtlety now. It's blatant cronyism. They may as well tear up the Nolan Principles for Public Life and put them in the bin.WhisperingOracle said:
There's an incredibly casual, almost careless - in fact, almost proud - quality to the govrnment's cronyism. And again, it does have to be said that the current western government that most reminds of, is Trump's ; in a politer and subtler English version.FrancisUrquhart said:A former Goldman Sachs banker will this week be installed by Boris Johnson as the next BBC chairman amid a deepening debate about the fate of the television licence fee and unprecedented competition from commercial rivals.
Sky News has learnt that the government is preparing to announce the appointment of Richard Sharp as Sir David Clementi's successor as soon as Thursday.
Mr Sharp, who during his long career at Goldman was once Rishi Sunak's boss, has spent much of the past year as an unpaid adviser to the chancellor on the economic response to the coronavirus pandemic...
Mr Sharp was an adviser to the PM during the latter's time as mayor of London, and has historically been a donor to the Conservative Party, although one ally of the new BBC chair said he had given just £2,500 to it in the last decade.
https://news.sky.com/story/ministers-to-unveil-former-goldman-banker-sharp-as-new-bbc-chair-12180454
The Guardian are going to have fits....and again it looks like jobs for your mates.2 -
Does anyone actually want McConnell's job though?MrEd said:
Well, it's easy to write off the Republicans after this result and say, at face value, the Democrats have the trifecta of the Presidency and Congress. But the Republicans still control the majority of state legislatures, which gives them the upper hand in redistricting in 2021, and the Democrats' grip on all three levers is weak - a limited majority in the House, a split Senate and a Presidency where there will be continued questioning on the vote.SirNorfolkPassmore said:
Sure, Trump can no doubt spin it - as I say, fantasticc snake oil salesman. But the point is the MUCH better outcome for him would be for Republicans to retain control of the Senare.MrEd said:
Oh, Trump can easily sway this result in Georgia to say that he was right and that the Republicans need to ignore the RINOs and listen to him. His arguments will be why the Republicans lost:SirNorfolkPassmore said:
Nobody denies Trump is a talented snake oil salesman. But to what effect? If he actually wants to preserve and extend his legacy, he's best ensuring Republicans control the Senate. Now they don't. He still has a load of people who will lick up anything he pukes out, but his political leverage is over people who aren't actually in power at the national level.contrarian said:
and up to 80% of Repubs believe him!BluestBlue said:
Who single-handedly created that 'vote-suppressing attitude' amongst Republicans, and thus deliberately threw away Republican control of the Senate just to spite McConnell for not helping him steal the Presidency?contrarian said:A Georgia exit poll by CNN showed that 3 in 4 GOP voters believe the presidential was rigged against Trump. And that's a poll, presumably, of voters who showed up for the run-offs. The percentage among those repubs who didn't is probably higher.
Given the vote suppressing implications of that attitude, a civil war in the party, and add in up to 20 million brand new citizens and the chances of the repubs winning anything in, ever, that's in any way meaningful are remote. In 2022 or 3022.
One of the amusing things is how the media are now latching on to so called moderate slightly pink dem senators, presumably not to frighten the investment horses...??
Senator no-mark, of no-marksburg, now a crucial power broker, blah blah blah. Thompson et al and the other Boris rampers on here swallowing it whole of course.
Was it Trump? Yep, it was Trump all right.
What a genius! Has anybody been able to sway republican hearts and minds like this in the past!
- McConnell opposed the $2K handout - he should have listened to me;
- Kemp and the SoS has allowed the Democrats to steal the election by agreeing to Stacey Abrams' demands (more on that below);
- The SoS released the tapes, allowing the media to run with the story about Trump pressuring Georgia;
- Georgia has allowed voting fraud to run rampant;
- If it wasn't for me campaigning, the margin of error would have been worse;
He will also use the results breakdown to push his arguments on fraud and that Republican legislatures should be doing more to limit mail-in ballots. NYT has the early vote essentially tied, the Republicans winning the election day ballots by 26/27% but the Democrats winning mail-in ballots by 34/35%..
Funnily enough, on this, he might get an ally in McConnell. If McConnell plans to stay around being leader and wants to win back the Senate in 2022, he might be more supportive to calls to limit mail-in ballots by state legislatures (which I'd expect to happen).
Trump has great leverage within the GOP. But that's no good in terms of keeping the flame of Trumpism alive if they aren't in power anywhere. Losing the Senate means Republicans are purely reactive to someone else's agenda or two years at least. Perhaps that will change in 2022 - but not necessarily, and Trump is an old man who will be older still, he has a lot of legal issues, and the world does move on so he won't be quite as powerful as he is now.
He's maintained his leverage... but over what exactly?
As for Trump, while it will be spun as a blow for him, within Republican circles, it's more likely to be seen as fuelling calls for McConnell to quit. There are plenty of Senators like Hawley, Cruz and Cotton who are positioning themselves for 2024 (or 2028, if Trump goes for the nomination again and they decide to be his wing-man, given Pence is unlikely to get that role). It's an easy line to take that McConnell cocked up by not backing the £2K proposal and the three quarters of Republican voters who think the election was stolen not need much persuading in believing the narrative that he has been complicit in allowing the election to be stolen.
Group leader is a poisoned chalice if you've Presidential ambitions. It's powerful, but it's all about deal-making and disappointing people - you have to be flexible and thick skinned. If an ideologue fancies it, then bloody good luck to them brow-beating Collins, Murkowski, Romney etc. Biden has a lot to offer to a GOP Senator who wants infrastructure work in their state, or their name on legislation - what has the Senate Minority Leader got?
So again, what is the plan for Trump? Install a loyalist as Group leader to be ritually humiliated by swing Republicans? What's the point?
Even many Trump loyalist Republicans have to be thinking now "what if he dies? What if his legal problems worsen?" Spin only gets Trump so far with this - if he's serious on maintaining influence, he needs to think about what he's influencing and to what end.0 -
Slightly different scenario - Reagan had a solid election win, Carter's term in office wasn't great and the Democrats generally were still hamstrung somewhat by the legacy of the late 60s / early 70s where they were seen as very left-wing.HYUFD said:
It should be noted that the last time a party lost the White House after only 1 term, when Carter lost in 1980, it took the Democrats 12 years until Bill Clinton in 1992 before they won the White House again.Peter_the_Punter said:
Trump is a cult.* His support will wane now but it won't readily transfer anywhere and certainly not to traditional Republicans. The GoP has a massive problem, very much of its own creation. It will do well to avoid a long period in the wilderness.HYUFD said:
I think even if Trump and Trump Jnr do not run in 2024 one of Pence or Cruz will be the GOP nominee, the GOP base are not going to pick an establishment and moderate 'RINO' as their nominee anytime soonkinabalu said:
I totally share your opinion on the damage done but I do not think Trump & Clan will be the ongoing political force that many fear (or hope if they're on the dark side). Soon he will out of the White House. He'll be an impeached and disgraced one term ex-president with big legal and money troubles who managed the remarkable negative feat of failing to win a 2nd term after just 4 years of his party in power and while he's at it losing both houses of Congress to the hated other.OllyT said:
In some cases you may be correct but I believe the GOP will be dancing to Trump's tune for the next 4 years.edmundintokyo said:
IDK, parties nearly always pick a moderate against an incumbent, not least because if the governing side isn't contested then politics enthusiasts vote in the opposition race, especially where there are open primaries. It's not clear that Trump will be willing and able to run, and if he's not then it's not clear that anybody similar can pull off what he did.OllyT said:
The GOP have got themselves into a dire position. Many of them know that the Trump core are batshit crazy / QAnon types but there are too many of them to ignore so they keep quiet because they are scared of them.another_richard said:So does the GOP fall into civil war or does it reorganise and retake the House in 2022 ?
I don't see an easy path for any moderately sane Republican to win a GOP Primary. That's why we still have 10 GOP Senators about to humiliate themselves by still pretending Trump won the election.
Trump is a malign, vindictive and bullying individual who will take great pleasure in trying to destroy any Republican who has displeased him. The right really have taken the US into a very dark place and now the genii is out of the bottle it's not going to be easy to put it back.
From 20 Jan his world will shrink beyond recognition. The difference between being the American president and not being the American president is almost as stark as that between being dead or alive. He'll lose all the trappings of that great office - the most important of which was to have his bullshit piped into people's heads 24/7. Supporters will drift away, not to be replaced by new ones. It will be one way traffic. Drip drip drip until what's left is something not to be taken seriously. He might even realize this himself before too long and concentrate just on cashflow and staying out of jail. Perhaps a deal? Not sure on that one. We'll see.
But Donald Trump the fearsome politician is over. No doubt there will be other grisly characters (the lizard Ted Cruz?) who will battle to own the MAGA space in the GOP, and one will prevail and be a live contender for the 24 nomination, but that person will not be called Trump and they won't be able to recreate what he did in 15/16 because that stunning achievement owed so much to his personal brand and persona. So they won't win the nomination. The Republican Party might look beyond the pale now but my money is on them detoxifying. Looking forward to the opening of the WH24 betting.
* For the avoidance of doubt this is not a typo.
Which is not encouraging for the GOP, at least at the Presidential level
In some ways, the Republicans have things to be positive about. The Hispanic vote (which is the fastest growing demographic) has shown signs of a big shift, and to a lesser degree young Black males. College graduates are set to flatline and the crisis will probably exacerbate that, so that should help. And the Democrats have big splits which, in some ways, this result may deepen - JB can no longer hide behind the excuse he doesn't control the Senate.0 -
That would please many politicians I know.Cyclefree said:
They've given up on the subtlety now. It's blatant cronyism. They may as well tear up the Nolan Principles for Public Life and put them in the bin.WhisperingOracle said:
There's an incredibly casual, almost careless - in fact, almost proud - quality to the govrnment's cronyism. And again, it does have to be said that the current western government that most reminds of, is Trump's ; in a politer and subtler English version.FrancisUrquhart said:A former Goldman Sachs banker will this week be installed by Boris Johnson as the next BBC chairman amid a deepening debate about the fate of the television licence fee and unprecedented competition from commercial rivals.
Sky News has learnt that the government is preparing to announce the appointment of Richard Sharp as Sir David Clementi's successor as soon as Thursday.
Mr Sharp, who during his long career at Goldman was once Rishi Sunak's boss, has spent much of the past year as an unpaid adviser to the chancellor on the economic response to the coronavirus pandemic...
Mr Sharp was an adviser to the PM during the latter's time as mayor of London, and has historically been a donor to the Conservative Party, although one ally of the new BBC chair said he had given just £2,500 to it in the last decade.
https://news.sky.com/story/ministers-to-unveil-former-goldman-banker-sharp-as-new-bbc-chair-12180454
The Guardian are going to have fits....and again it looks like jobs for your mates.0 -
Very, very patchy round here. One or two people I know have had appointments at a hospital 30 miles away and one at one 10 miles away. Anything reasonably local ..... at least two weeks.Leon said:
My Dad very efficiently got his 2nd jab this week. Exactly as planned. So there seems to be massive variationMalmesbury said:
Which shows different approaches - my GP has been sending to texts/letters naming a specific 15 minute "slot" on a specific day for your jab. Proceeding down the list in order of age, I believe. Whole of January booked.Stereodog said:Just an anecdote about the vaccine roll out. My Grandmother was told before Christmas that she was eligible for the vaccine and should phone her local hospital to arrange an appointment. Despite phoning multiple times a day she has never been able to get through on the phone. All she gets is a recorded message saying that phone lines are busy.
I wouldn't want to extrapolate anything from this but I suspect that there will be a lot of bottlenecks in the roll out that has nothing to do with the amount of vaccine doses in existence. In my Gran's case it seems to be the administrative capacity of the local hospital. It seems counterproductive to me that everyone in her area of Cambridgeshire has to go through one obviously overstretched hospital to arrange an appointment for the vaccine.0
