"Up to half those offered vaccine in Birmingham covid hotspots refusing to have it Health chief stresses: 'This vaccine is safe and is only being offered to people at real risk of dying'
Up to 50 per cent of vulnerable people in some of the worst-affected parts of Birmingham are declining the covid vaccines. Asian and black community leaders across Birmingham are being urged to help health chiefs share vaccine safety messages amid fears those most at risk of dying are holding back from getting protected."
A letter, signed by Liam Byrne (Lab, Hodge Hill), Andrew Mitchell (Cons, Sutton Coldfield) and Birmingham City Council leader Coun Ian Ward, asked for a full daily update on vaccination take-up - including a percentage breakdown by each vulnerable group, and "advance and transparent warning of any issues on the ground so we can take them up".
Mr Byrne said today: "We urgently need the veil of silence to be lifted on this, because the health of some of the most vulnerable in the city is being threatened by the government deciding to gag our health chiefs. Their refusal to shine a light on the vaccination programme is now potentially putting lives at risk.
"Our BAME inquiry (into the disproportionate level of deaths among Black and Asian residents) in the summer revealed that Covid has not hit everyone equally. It has hit our ethnic communities hardest, and now the Government appears to want to keep secret whether the vaccination programme is getting through to those who most need it."
Is the government really trying to keep things secret about the vaccination programme? As one of the few successes it's had, it seems like they have been releasing lots of information about it. Anyone know the detail that is supposedly being withheld?
From the article - details about those who are refusing it / failing to turn up for their appointment.
It seems likely that the new Brazilian variant can escape both vaccine- and infection-induced immunity, and also that within a few months it will reach the UK.
We are vaccinating millions of people per week now, so we will have the people in place to revaccinate the UK population very quickly. We will need to manufacture the new vaccines very quickly, in a few weeks. The plant and machinery required needs to be put in place now, as quickly as the Russians built T34 tanks in 1943.
The regulatory approval needs to be super fast too. If new phase III trials are needed for the new vaccines they will be too late, as the virus could mutate again. Have the lessons yet been learnt from 2020? The only way to beat this virus with vaccines is through speed. If this fails, there will be multiple waves of variants over several years before the virus finally burns itself out.
The article has lots of could, perhaps and maybes.
From the start, many scientists have said getting your COVID jab will become like the annual flu jab as the virus will be endemic and ever mutating.
When people say "all white people are racist" it just switches people off. What is really meant is that everybody has preconceptions, and these are often driven by appearance.
That's not what contemporary Americans mean by it.
There are no exceptions to racism and White people. You’re born into that gang. [...] White people and non-White POC living as White who cannot acknowledge these truths are saying they don’t want to relinquish the power and privileges assigned to their places in the social/racial order set by White Supremacy.
I've been told before on here its not allowed to even ask a genuine question about what, for instance, 'non-white POC living as White' means, because it means you are mocking it, unfortunately.
Now this is proper big news. The likely new leader of the free world. Who in 1950 would have thought Germany would hold that position in 2020? The times they are a changing, no question about it. On which topic I like the Header and especially the title - Europe's Last American. It's fading fast, the sense of kinship between us and the USA. I can vouch for this personally. I used to feel it, even quite recently, but now I don't. I remain fascinated by America but I look upon it as a strange and exotic land. Much of this is because of Trump but not all of it.
Germany's leader is not the leader of the free world. Biden will be from Wednesday.
Germany is not big enough, the EU might be but does not have the will
Well I look to Berlin not Washington these days for a steer on how I as a citizen of the free world should go about my business.
And while I have you, let's just knock our bet on the head. £25 to a Good Cause. I give you 3 options. Mermaids. Jeremy Corbyn's new Peace & Fellowship project. Or the National Trust.
No receipt required. I trust you 100%.
I will make a payment to the NT
Toby Young said we all had to ragequit the NT. Based patriots complied.
Yes I have sweet talked Hy into funding a Wokeist front organization. 💃 ☺
"Up to half those offered vaccine in Birmingham covid hotspots refusing to have it Health chief stresses: 'This vaccine is safe and is only being offered to people at real risk of dying'
Up to 50 per cent of vulnerable people in some of the worst-affected parts of Birmingham are declining the covid vaccines. Asian and black community leaders across Birmingham are being urged to help health chiefs share vaccine safety messages amid fears those most at risk of dying are holding back from getting protected."
A letter, signed by Liam Byrne (Lab, Hodge Hill), Andrew Mitchell (Cons, Sutton Coldfield) and Birmingham City Council leader Coun Ian Ward, asked for a full daily update on vaccination take-up - including a percentage breakdown by each vulnerable group, and "advance and transparent warning of any issues on the ground so we can take them up".
Mr Byrne said today: "We urgently need the veil of silence to be lifted on this, because the health of some of the most vulnerable in the city is being threatened by the government deciding to gag our health chiefs. Their refusal to shine a light on the vaccination programme is now potentially putting lives at risk.
"Our BAME inquiry (into the disproportionate level of deaths among Black and Asian residents) in the summer revealed that Covid has not hit everyone equally. It has hit our ethnic communities hardest, and now the Government appears to want to keep secret whether the vaccination programme is getting through to those who most need it."
Is the government really trying to keep things secret about the vaccination programme? As one of the few successes it's had, it seems like they have been releasing lots of information about it. Anyone know the detail that is supposedly being withheld?
From the article - details about those who are refusing it / failing to turn up for their appointment.
Is that really the same thing as gagging health chiefs or having a veil of silence?
"Up to half those offered vaccine in Birmingham covid hotspots refusing to have it Health chief stresses: 'This vaccine is safe and is only being offered to people at real risk of dying'
Up to 50 per cent of vulnerable people in some of the worst-affected parts of Birmingham are declining the covid vaccines. Asian and black community leaders across Birmingham are being urged to help health chiefs share vaccine safety messages amid fears those most at risk of dying are holding back from getting protected."
A letter, signed by Liam Byrne (Lab, Hodge Hill), Andrew Mitchell (Cons, Sutton Coldfield) and Birmingham City Council leader Coun Ian Ward, asked for a full daily update on vaccination take-up - including a percentage breakdown by each vulnerable group, and "advance and transparent warning of any issues on the ground so we can take them up".
Mr Byrne said today: "We urgently need the veil of silence to be lifted on this, because the health of some of the most vulnerable in the city is being threatened by the government deciding to gag our health chiefs. Their refusal to shine a light on the vaccination programme is now potentially putting lives at risk.
"Our BAME inquiry (into the disproportionate level of deaths among Black and Asian residents) in the summer revealed that Covid has not hit everyone equally. It has hit our ethnic communities hardest, and now the Government appears to want to keep secret whether the vaccination programme is getting through to those who most need it."
Is the government really trying to keep things secret about the vaccination programme? As one of the few successes it's had, it seems like they have been releasing lots of information about it. Anyone know the detail that is supposedly being withheld?
Perhaps they think vaccination should be slowed down until full demographic details can be obtained and analysed.
Of course anyone declining vaccination now will be able to get one later on if they change their mind.
Keir Starmer has suggested he would back further Covid curbs, saying “the tougher the restrictions now the quicker we get the virus back under control”.
The presidency of Donald Trump has left such a wretched stench in Europe that it's hard to see how, even in four years, Joe Biden could possibly get America's most important alliance back on track.
Regardless, the Trump era has left Europeans with little choice but to wait and see how much of a priority Biden places on reclaiming America's place on the world stage. And they will use the four years of relative quiet under Biden to build safeguards against the all too real possibility of another Euroskeptic firestarter winning the White House in 2024.
The mistake that people make that “America leading the world” does not mean “America doing whatever European politicians want”.
Trump was more effective on foreign policy than many give him credit for. Was it three countries he bullied/bribed/cajoled into signing peace treaties with Israel?
Of course, the MSPs have a vested interest in that they - or some of them - are aspiring to the Imperial cursus honorum in the Imperial capital - via Commons to a peerage. It's not as if moving to the SNP will do any good in that respect, given SNP policies. And SKS in his desperate need to pander to the English voter all fired up with Tory propaganda about Scotch thieves in your pocket is not helping with his denial of a referendum. As Wendy Alexander - arguably the last really competent leader SLAB had before she was stabbed in the back - shows, one can want to have a referendum even if you don't believe in independence.
And how about getting into bed with Mr Johnson and Mr Gove in the independence issue? It'll be SKS and Brexit again, only worse (because it also brings up Brexit which is increasingly toxic in Scotland).
I suspect that puts them somewhat out of kilter with the membership as a whole, what is left of it after the SNP and Scottish Greens have taken large bites out of it. (And much more so with the voters too, But this is a leadership election.)
Are the unions still involved like last time? If so, then perhaps scratch Mr Sarwar? If I had to bet, I'd go for Ms Lennon if I had to, but my gut feeling is some youngster is more likely to win, as soneone else suggested on PB the other day.
Weirdly, a SLabber who has made it to the Premier League of the Lords wants to do the return trip. I just can't see the logic as she hasn't a scooby of winning, unless she wants to raise her profile for an indy Scotland? Of course I've not understood SLab logic for quite some time.
'A penchant for peers: Scottish Labour picks third member of Lords as Holyrood candidate'
Now this is proper big news. The likely new leader of the free world. Who in 1950 would have thought Germany would hold that position in 2020? The times they are a changing, no question about it. On which topic I like the Header and especially the title - Europe's Last American. It's fading fast, the sense of kinship between us and the USA. I can vouch for this personally. I used to feel it, even quite recently, but now I don't. I remain fascinated by America but I look upon it as a strange and exotic land. Much of this is because of Trump but not all of it.
Germany's leader is not the leader of the free world. Biden will be from Wednesday.
Germany is not big enough, the EU might be but does not have the will
Well I look to Berlin not Washington these days for a steer on how I as a citizen of the free world should go about my business.
And while I have you, let's just knock our bet on the head. £25 to a Good Cause. I give you 3 options. Mermaids. Jeremy Corbyn's new Peace & Fellowship project. Or the National Trust.
No receipt required. I trust you 100%.
I will make a payment to the NT
You had a chance to blow the collective PB mind there - upend all the lazy expectations and reinvent yourself with a financial and emotional investment in the cutting edge metrosexual Left - but it has been spurned.
David Herdson makes the interesting point that migration is changing the US cultural memory and therefore its strategic orientation. Isn't the same process likely to occur in Europe?
No, and I'm far from clear that it's even happening in the US. The large section of America that descends from German and Italian immigrants did not lead to any real risk that the US would involve itself on the wrong side in WW2. The attempted importation of fascism into America in the late 1920s and early 1930s by those with links to Italy didn't fail because of a lack of Italians, but because America took a look at the ideology and didn't like it. As much as people feel a sentimentality towards an ancestor country, it doesn't necessarily translate into strategy.
And, of course, often those who move from one country to another are cut from a different cloth to those they leave behind. And the immigrant experience further shapes you in new ways that diverge from the native experience.
100%. Of the many and varied misunderstandings of HYUFD with regard to the US is his absolute commitment to the idea of monolithic ethnic voting blocs - to the extent he invented one for “English Americans”. Eisenhower’s family was from Karlsbrunn in the Saarland. Reading HYUFD you would think he should have been relieved of command for having dubious loyalty.
Eisenhower was the President who humiliated Eden over Suez, English American Presidents like Bush and Clinton have been more supportive of and closer to the UK
Eisenhower was a notably cooperative US senior commander in WW2 - even when he had the likes of Churchill and Montgomery to cope with (and Patton and Clark too, of course). And his Prsesident, Roosevelt, was also very cooperative. Just compare Admiral King.
On your logic President Kennedy and President to be Biden were not/will not cooperate with what is left of the UK just cos they are of Irish extraction..
And any future African-Ameridcan president would only cooperate with sub-Saharan Africa.
Really??
Biden as an Irish American made quite clear his loyalty to Ireland was stronger than his loyalty to the UK over the Irish border.
Roosevelt as a Dutch American pressed the UK hard to end its Empire once the War was won.
Eisenhower and Roosevelt were anti Nazi, that does not mean either were particularly pro British.
The most pro British Presidents since WW2 were probably George W Bush and Bill Clinton, both English Americans.
That does not mean other Presidents were particularly anti British, just they were the most Anglophile Presidents
Was George W Bush more "English" than George HW Bush?
George HW was closer to Kohl when he came in, certainly than Thatcher who he saw as Reagan's key friend.
He got on better with Major though. His son's closest ally of course was UK PM Tony Blair
Not what I asked. You're seeing things through the prism of supposed national origin. Since W is the son of HW, how come HW was less a friend to the UK than Clinton? Are you saying W isn't really HW's son? Or is there more to it than your potted theory?
There was little difference between HW and Clinton's approach to the UK.
The difference was more a matter of personalities, HW did not get on as well as Thatcher as Reagan had but HW got on better with Major than Clinton did. However Clinton got on very well with Blair and Blair got on very well with W too
It seems likely that the new Brazilian variant can escape both vaccine- and infection-induced immunity, and also that within a few months it will reach the UK.
We are vaccinating millions of people per week now, so we will have the people in place to revaccinate the UK population very quickly. We will need to manufacture the new vaccines very quickly, in a few weeks. The plant and machinery required needs to be put in place now, as quickly as the Russians built T34 tanks in 1943.
The regulatory approval needs to be super fast too. If new phase III trials are needed for the new vaccines they will be too late, as the virus could mutate again. Have the lessons yet been learnt from 2020? The only way to beat this virus with vaccines is through speed. If this fails, there will be multiple waves of variants over several years before the virus finally burns itself out.
The article has lots of could, perhaps and maybes.
From the start, many scientists have said getting your COVID jab will become like the annual flu jab as the virus will be endemic and ever mutating.
The whole thing rests on the very tenuous claim that Manaus has had huge numbers of people infected.
When people say "all white people are racist" it just switches people off. What is really meant is that everybody has preconceptions, and these are often driven by appearance.
That's not what contemporary Americans mean by it.
There are no exceptions to racism and White people. You’re born into that gang. [...] White people and non-White POC living as White who cannot acknowledge these truths are saying they don’t want to relinquish the power and privileges assigned to their places in the social/racial order set by White Supremacy.
I've been told before on here its not allowed to even ask a genuine question about what, for instance, 'non-white POC living as White' means, because it means you are mocking it, unfortunately.
The exceptionally polarised discourse on race in America has been part of the lifeblood of trumpism. Some of the extreme expressions of it go unchallenged on parts of the left, and so then feed the already pre-existing, self-pitying narratives of victimhood on parts of the nativist and populist right which become even more aggressive.
Now this is proper big news. The likely new leader of the free world. Who in 1950 would have thought Germany would hold that position in 2020? The times they are a changing, no question about it. On which topic I like the Header and especially the title - Europe's Last American. It's fading fast, the sense of kinship between us and the USA. I can vouch for this personally. I used to feel it, even quite recently, but now I don't. I remain fascinated by America but I look upon it as a strange and exotic land. Much of this is because of Trump but not all of it.
I went to school in the US for 2 years and spent the best 4 years of my career on exchange with the USN so I yield to nobody in my admiration and respect for the American people and the ideals of their nation.
However, you'd have to be wilfully blind not see that it's heading for rapid and violently messy decline. The notion that everything's just going to go back to normal once they wheel Joey Sidegrin's bath chair into the Oval Office is nonsense.
Europe and the UK in particular need to think about their strategic posture in a post America world because that's where we are heading at pace.
It's heading for messy decline because of the obdurate refusal of conservatives and liberals to compromise on anything. It would be quite simple to solve the problem, but no-one seems to be interested.
The next logical step is to accept that the "West" as we know it, has already been killed by Trump. The US and EU cannot be reliable allies as US politics is both too uncertain and likely to be less Atlanticist anyway even if America first nationalism does not reappear under another Trumpist.
What's left is 3 main power blocs, US, China, EU, with the likes of Russia, India, UK, Japan a level below.
The EU is not a power bloc
They have the potential but, for reasons of history, no desire to project it. If it was French dominated they might be able to become one (although I have my doubts) but not while Germany is the dominant voice
WOW , unbounded talent on that list for sure. I could put up a donkey and it would be 1/100 immediately.
I expect Gordon Brown would dent the SNP hopes of an outright win
Tainted by his promises of federalism in and immediately after 2014. Instant attack line.
Also why bother? He's always seen himself as a 'British' politician. Being the branch manager of a non-independent SLAB won't appeal to him. And he does deserve to enjoy his retirement.
One of Scottish Labour's primary problems is that they have almost disappeared from view. It's not only Leonard's fault, he has followed a few reasonably anonymous predecessors, but he took anonymity to a new level as evidenced by the continued mockery of what his name actually is.
I don't think for a million years Brown is going to be the new SLab leader, but he's the only name on the list who would definitely deliver any cut-through, any reason to sit up and take notice of the party. And given his predisposition to endless Broonterventions from the sidelines he might as well at least try and intervene constructively. But it's neeeeever gonna happen.
One day either Scotland will vote for independence, or the SNP will finally implode and/or fade from power, at which point Scottish Labour will probably find a new lease of life largely by default, but I can't see much of a proactive route back into the game for them.
WOW , unbounded talent on that list for sure. I could put up a donkey and it would be 1/100 immediately.
I expect Gordon Brown would dent the SNP hopes of an outright win
Tainted by his promises of federalism in and immediately after 2014. Instant attack line.
Also why bother? He's always seen himself as a 'British' politician. Being the branch manager of a non-independent SLAB won't appeal to him. And he does deserve to enjoy his retirement.
One of Scottish Labour's primary problems is that they have almost disappeared from view. It's not only Leonard's fault, he has followed a few reasonably anonymous predecessors, but he took anonymity to a new level as evidenced by the continued mockery of what his name actually is.
I don't think for a million years Brown is going to be the new SLab leader, but he's the only name on the list who would definitely deliver any cut-through, any reason to sit up and take notice of the party. And given his predisposition to endless Broonterventions from the sidelines he might as well at least try and intervene constructively. But it's neeeeever gonna happen.
One day either Scotland will vote for independence, or the SNP will finally implode and/or fade from power, at which point Scottish Labour will probably find a new lease of life largely by default, but I can't see much of a proactive route back into the game for them.
If they stay on their current Union Jack route they will never be back. They need to become a real Scottish labour Party and have some policies for Scotland. Currently as an insipid branch office for British Labour they are justly reviled by the majority of people. You only need to listen to that clown Starmer to understand he knows nothing of Scotland and the idiots up here pushing his Tory lite tack are doomed.
Can't disagree with that malcolm. But zero likelihood of it happening.
Their attempts to out-Union the Scottish Conservatives do more damage to them each time and yet each time they try even harder than before. Truly, the definition of insanity.
Of course, the MSPs have a vested interest in that they - or some of them - are aspiring to the Imperial cursus honorum in the Imperial capital - via Commons to a peerage. It's not as if moving to the SNP will do any good in that respect, given SNP policies. And SKS in his desperate need to pander to the English voter all fired up with Tory propaganda about Scotch thieves in your pocket is not helping with his denial of a referendum. As Wendy Alexander - arguably the last really competent leader SLAB had before she was stabbed in the back - shows, one can want to have a referendum even if you don't believe in independence.
And how about getting into bed with Mr Johnson and Mr Gove in the independence issue? It'll be SKS and Brexit again, only worse (because it also brings up Brexit which is increasingly toxic in Scotland).
I suspect that puts them somewhat out of kilter with the membership as a whole, what is left of it after the SNP and Scottish Greens have taken large bites out of it. (And much more so with the voters too, But this is a leadership election.)
Are the unions still involved like last time? If so, then perhaps scratch Mr Sarwar? If I had to bet, I'd go for Ms Lennon if I had to, but my gut feeling is some youngster is more likely to win, as soneone else suggested on PB the other day.
Most English Labour seats voted for Brexit in 2016, most Scottish Labour seats voted to stay in the UK in 2014.
Glasgow voted Yes but Labour are not going to retake that from the SNP, seats elsewhere in the central belt and Edinburgh are better bets for SLab with Tory tactical votes
"Up to half those offered vaccine in Birmingham covid hotspots refusing to have it Health chief stresses: 'This vaccine is safe and is only being offered to people at real risk of dying'
Up to 50 per cent of vulnerable people in some of the worst-affected parts of Birmingham are declining the covid vaccines. Asian and black community leaders across Birmingham are being urged to help health chiefs share vaccine safety messages amid fears those most at risk of dying are holding back from getting protected."
A letter, signed by Liam Byrne (Lab, Hodge Hill), Andrew Mitchell (Cons, Sutton Coldfield) and Birmingham City Council leader Coun Ian Ward, asked for a full daily update on vaccination take-up - including a percentage breakdown by each vulnerable group, and "advance and transparent warning of any issues on the ground so we can take them up".
Mr Byrne said today: "We urgently need the veil of silence to be lifted on this, because the health of some of the most vulnerable in the city is being threatened by the government deciding to gag our health chiefs. Their refusal to shine a light on the vaccination programme is now potentially putting lives at risk.
"Our BAME inquiry (into the disproportionate level of deaths among Black and Asian residents) in the summer revealed that Covid has not hit everyone equally. It has hit our ethnic communities hardest, and now the Government appears to want to keep secret whether the vaccination programme is getting through to those who most need it."
Is the government really trying to keep things secret about the vaccination programme? As one of the few successes it's had, it seems like they have been releasing lots of information about it. Anyone know the detail that is supposedly being withheld?
Perhaps they think vaccination should be slowed down until full demographic details can be obtained and analysed.
Of course anyone declining vaccination now will be able to get one later on if they change their mind.
Good afternoon everyone. Drove over to the next (small) town for my vaccination this morning. Pfizer vaccine; no sight or sound of anyone refusing, although, TBF, we weren't told it was until afterwards. Of course, anyone 'refusing' this morning simply didn't turn up; all rebooked appointments, albeit 15 minutes late. Apparently, due to the mini-blizzard locally this morning they started a bit late. Queueing/entry system all well organised and volunteer workers very friendly. Didn't see any BAME among the queue but since we were nearly all over 80 and there's no BAME community in the area, that's hardly surprising.
Now this is proper big news. The likely new leader of the free world. Who in 1950 would have thought Germany would hold that position in 2020? The times they are a changing, no question about it. On which topic I like the Header and especially the title - Europe's Last American. It's fading fast, the sense of kinship between us and the USA. I can vouch for this personally. I used to feel it, even quite recently, but now I don't. I remain fascinated by America but I look upon it as a strange and exotic land. Much of this is because of Trump but not all of it.
I went to school in the US for 2 years and spent the best 4 years of my career on exchange with the USN so I yield to nobody in my admiration and respect for the American people and the ideals of their nation.
However, you'd have to be wilfully blind not see that it's heading for rapid and violently messy decline. The notion that everything's just going to go back to normal once they wheel Joey Sidegrin's bath chair into the Oval Office is nonsense.
Europe and the UK in particular need to think about their strategic posture in a post America world because that's where we are heading at pace.
I met up with a former colleague around the time of the millennium and we got to talking long-term trends. I said that by the end of the twenty-first century, it was my expectation that the USA would have been significantly overtaken as an economic power by both China and India.
He got very, very aggressive at the notion that USA would not still be number one. He'd have taken it better if I'd said I'd slept with his wife.
You may well be correct but gdp per capita wise the US is still likely to be higher than the other 2 and of course with the freedoms China still does not have. So he would still be better off living in the USA.
I also expect the USA and India to move closer together to contain China, as neither will be strong enough to do so on their own.
It seems likely that the new Brazilian variant can escape both vaccine- and infection-induced immunity, and also that within a few months it will reach the UK.
We are vaccinating millions of people per week now, so we will have the people in place to revaccinate the UK population very quickly. We will need to manufacture the new vaccines very quickly, in a few weeks. The plant and machinery required needs to be put in place now, as quickly as the Russians built T34 tanks in 1943.
The regulatory approval needs to be super fast too. If new phase III trials are needed for the new vaccines they will be too late, as the virus could mutate again. Have the lessons yet been learnt from 2020? The only way to beat this virus with vaccines is through speed. If this fails, there will be multiple waves of variants over several years before the virus finally burns itself out.
The reason vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) can be reworked very quickly, and shouldn't need trials. The AZN would need to as it would need a new carrier virus, as immunity to the viral vector may prevent immunity to the covid spike protein.
It is hard to know if reinvention with the new variant such as the Manaus one are more common than reinfection from the original. Time will tell.
Now this is proper big news. The likely new leader of the free world. Who in 1950 would have thought Germany would hold that position in 2020? The times they are a changing, no question about it. On which topic I like the Header and especially the title - Europe's Last American. It's fading fast, the sense of kinship between us and the USA. I can vouch for this personally. I used to feel it, even quite recently, but now I don't. I remain fascinated by America but I look upon it as a strange and exotic land. Much of this is because of Trump but not all of it.
I went to school in the US for 2 years and spent the best 4 years of my career on exchange with the USN so I yield to nobody in my admiration and respect for the American people and the ideals of their nation.
However, you'd have to be wilfully blind not see that it's heading for rapid and violently messy decline. The notion that everything's just going to go back to normal once they wheel Joey Sidegrin's bath chair into the Oval Office is nonsense.
Europe and the UK in particular need to think about their strategic posture in a post America world because that's where we are heading at pace.
I met up with a former colleague around the time of the millennium and we got to talking long-term trends. I said that by the end of the twenty-first century, it was my expectation that the USA would have been significantly overtaken as an economic power by both China and India.
He got very, very aggressive at the notion that USA would not still be number one. He'd have taken it better if I'd said I'd slept with his wife.
I'm sure that's the third posting in a very few days about illicit affairs from the Marquee.
If Biden does not complete a full term, hard to see Kamala Harris having much love for Europe.
There is a curious obsession with US Presidents having a “love” for somewhere. The whole manufactured Churchill Bust thing being a deranged symptom. Reality is far more nuanced. Biden, an Irish Catholic, was one of the few senators that supported us in the Falklands and they say imitation (of Kinnock) is the sincerest form of flattery. People generally, including US Presidents, do not have monothematic views of people and places. Given her ancestry one may as well assume that Harris is a cricket fan but I’ve seen no evidence of that.
Californians don’t give a moment’s thought to Europe. They are a Pacific state.
But we were told by the Independent that the govt had already failed to meet the target.
A so few people on here want to talk about it - apparently it's all about how the Germans and French are splitting theiur sides about how awful the UK is. They sure aren't laughing here in Spain -lockdown 3 in effect adn over 70s' might be vaccinated by the end of April. Hilarious.
Best quote so far from the insurrection on the Hill. This is from the DC police officer who was pulled from the line by the mob, beaten with both the US flag and the Thin Blue Line flag (the flag to show support for law enforcement!!), tasered so many times he had a heart attack, and threatened with being killed with his own gun. Upon being asked about what he thought of those in the mob who protected him until his police partner was able to reach him and pull him back to the police line:
"[For saving my life,] thank you; but fuck you for being there." Michael Fanone
Now this is proper big news. The likely new leader of the free world. Who in 1950 would have thought Germany would hold that position in 2020? The times they are a changing, no question about it. On which topic I like the Header and especially the title - Europe's Last American. It's fading fast, the sense of kinship between us and the USA. I can vouch for this personally. I used to feel it, even quite recently, but now I don't. I remain fascinated by America but I look upon it as a strange and exotic land. Much of this is because of Trump but not all of it.
Germany's leader is not the leader of the free world. Biden will be from Wednesday.
Germany is not big enough, the EU might be but does not have the will
Well I look to Berlin not Washington these days for a steer on how I as a citizen of the free world should go about my business.
You can seriously say that after the vehicle emissions scandal ???
Well I was being serious so that would be a Yes. I don't demand perfection in my leaders of the free world.
Nor it seems are you bothered about them tolerating criminality, polluting the environment and ruining people's health.
The sort of example the 'leaders of the free world' should be setting.
Where did I say I wasn't bothered? It's on the debit side of a ledger in net credit right now compared to other big boy nations.
And we can all set up scorecards which result in the outcome we would like
And we can all employ facetious "knowing" closers as we exit a discussion we sense is going nowhere.
WOW , unbounded talent on that list for sure. I could put up a donkey and it would be 1/100 immediately.
I expect Gordon Brown would dent the SNP hopes of an outright win
Tainted by his promises of federalism in and immediately after 2014. Instant attack line.
Also why bother? He's always seen himself as a 'British' politician. Being the branch manager of a non-independent SLAB won't appeal to him. And he does deserve to enjoy his retirement.
One of Scottish Labour's primary problems is that they have almost disappeared from view. It's not only Leonard's fault, he has followed a few reasonably anonymous predecessors, but he took anonymity to a new level as evidenced by the continued mockery of what his name actually is.
I don't think for a million years Brown is going to be the new SLab leader, but he's the only name on the list who would definitely deliver any cut-through, any reason to sit up and take notice of the party. And given his predisposition to endless Broonterventions from the sidelines he might as well at least try and intervene constructively. But it's neeeeever gonna happen.
One day either Scotland will vote for independence, or the SNP will finally implode and/or fade from power, at which point Scottish Labour will probably find a new lease of life largely by default, but I can't see much of a proactive route back into the game for them.
WOW , unbounded talent on that list for sure. I could put up a donkey and it would be 1/100 immediately.
I expect Gordon Brown would dent the SNP hopes of an outright win
Tainted by his promises of federalism in and immediately after 2014. Instant attack line.
Also why bother? He's always seen himself as a 'British' politician. Being the branch manager of a non-independent SLAB won't appeal to him. And he does deserve to enjoy his retirement.
One of Scottish Labour's primary problems is that they have almost disappeared from view. It's not only Leonard's fault, he has followed a few reasonably anonymous predecessors, but he took anonymity to a new level as evidenced by the continued mockery of what his name actually is.
I don't think for a million years Brown is going to be the new SLab leader, but he's the only name on the list who would definitely deliver any cut-through, any reason to sit up and take notice of the party. And given his predisposition to endless Broonterventions from the sidelines he might as well at least try and intervene constructively. But it's neeeeever gonna happen.
One day either Scotland will vote for independence, or the SNP will finally implode and/or fade from power, at which point Scottish Labour will probably find a new lease of life largely by default, but I can't see much of a proactive route back into the game for them.
If they stay on their current Union Jack route they will never be back. They need to become a real Scottish labour Party and have some policies for Scotland. Currently as an insipid branch office for British Labour they are justly reviled by the majority of people. You only need to listen to that clown Starmer to understand he knows nothing of Scotland and the idiots up here pushing his Tory lite tack are doomed.
Can't disagree with that malcolm. But zero likelihood of it happening.
Their attempts to out-Union the Scottish Conservatives do more damage to them each time and yet each time they try even harder than before. Truly, the definition of insanity.
Of course, the MSPs have a vested interest in that they - or some of them - are aspiring to the Imperial cursus honorum in the Imperial capital - via Commons to a peerage. It's not as if moving to the SNP will do any good in that respect, given SNP policies. And SKS in his desperate need to pander to the English voter all fired up with Tory propaganda about Scotch thieves in your pocket is not helping with his denial of a referendum. As Wendy Alexander - arguably the last really competent leader SLAB had before she was stabbed in the back - shows, one can want to have a referendum even if you don't believe in independence.
And how about getting into bed with Mr Johnson and Mr Gove in the independence issue? It'll be SKS and Brexit again, only worse (because it also brings up Brexit which is increasingly toxic in Scotland).
I suspect that puts them somewhat out of kilter with the membership as a whole, what is left of it after the SNP and Scottish Greens have taken large bites out of it. (And much more so with the voters too, But this is a leadership election.)
Are the unions still involved like last time? If so, then perhaps scratch Mr Sarwar? If I had to bet, I'd go for Ms Lennon if I had to, but my gut feeling is some youngster is more likely to win, as soneone else suggested on PB the other day.
Most English Labour seats voted for Brexit in 2016, most Scottish Labour seats voted to stay in the UK in 2014.
Glasgow voted Yes but Labour are not going to retake that from the SNP, seats elsewhere in the central belt and Edinburgh are better bets for SLab with Tory tactical votes
I'm not, as I made clear, talking about voters in general but the SLAB internal elecxtion.
It seems likely that the new Brazilian variant can escape both vaccine- and infection-induced immunity, and also that within a few months it will reach the UK.
We are vaccinating millions of people per week now, so we will have the people in place to revaccinate the UK population very quickly. We will need to manufacture the new vaccines very quickly, in a few weeks. The plant and machinery required needs to be put in place now, as quickly as the Russians built T34 tanks in 1943.
The regulatory approval needs to be super fast too. If new phase III trials are needed for the new vaccines they will be too late, as the virus could mutate again. Have the lessons yet been learnt from 2020? The only way to beat this virus with vaccines is through speed. If this fails, there will be multiple waves of variants over several years before the virus finally burns itself out.
The reason vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) can be reworked very quickly, and shouldn't need trials. The AZN would need to as it would need a new carrier virus, as immunity to the viral vector may prevent immunity to the covid spike protein.
It is hard to know if reinvention with the new variant such as the Manaus one are more common than reinfection from the original. Time will tell.
We should definitely try and help Imperial ramp up their mRNA effort. This isn't going to be the last round of vaccines, is it?
I wondered whether it would be possible to deliberately mutate this thing in a test tube (as has been done to some degree) against current antibodies and then make a vaccine for the mutant version in advance of it appearing.
It seems the same mutations keep popping up so it might well be a good prediction of where this is going.
I don't think the US/EU alliance is personal. The military commitments are a little bit historical, but generally the US doesn't mind having a military presence all over the place, if you want to be able to bomb anywhere then you want bases everywhere.
China is a threat, the EU is an ally, and as China gets stronger and the US relatively weaker it gets less practical to counter China without allies. Any president regardless of party who's serious about countering China will want a strong alliance with the EU. Trump didn't, because he wasn't serious about countering China, or anything else for that matter.
It’s not entirely clear how committed Europe might be to such an alliance, though. (I would agree about its desirability.)
We need to grow up and face some clear realities, one of which is the US is not a reliable ally over the next couple of decades.
Another of which is that the EU is not so much "soft" on China as "enabling". We'll be much closer to the US/Five Four Eyes on China than we will be to the EU. To what extent depends on how much (if at all) the EU Parliament unpicks Merkel's "old lady in a hurry" China deal.
What I think the EU see that the UK does not, and therefore the reason why the EU wont take a tougher line on China, is that whilst we can probably mangle together a short term alliance under Biden it leaves the EU completely shafted if a Republican led US then does a deal with China behind the EUs back. This threat prevents the EU taking a full side.
In the UK we don't see this as a realistic possibility as we have a romanticised and nostalgic view of the US. The US Trump Republican party is not just America first, it is wholly transactional and has zero problem throwing allies under the bus if they think it helps them get a better deal.
German has a massive economic investment in China that they can’t afford to lose
Sinopharm, a state-owned giant in China’s coronavirus vaccine development, announced its chairman left the board Tuesday.
The company cited personal reasons for Li Zhiming’s resignation, according to a filing for the Hong Kong-listed company. Li Hui, a director and audit committee member of Sinopharm subsidiary China National Medicines Corp. also resigned Tuesday due to personal reasons, a separate filing disclosed.
Friedrich Merz is a real piece of work. Having lost the leadership, he is asking Laschet to make him Finance Minister in the current government led by Angela Merkel.
Oddly enough, this morning's CDU leadership election might have been the most significant election of 2021.
Laschet is "continuity Merkel" in many respects but the key player looks to be Jens Spahn who I think will have a senior role in any future Laschet Govenrment and is the heir apparent.
Laschet worked well enough with the FDP in his own State but he's much more likely to be able to work with the Greens than Merz but the problem then becomes resistance from the CSU wing to any future Black-Green coalition.
I also think the election of Laschet closes the door on any CDU/CSU-AfD coalition.
The next logical step is to accept that the "West" as we know it, has already been killed by Trump. The US and EU cannot be reliable allies as US politics is both too uncertain and likely to be less Atlanticist anyway even if America first nationalism does not reappear under another Trumpist.
What's left is 3 main power blocs, US, China, EU, with the likes of Russia, India, UK, Japan a level below.
The EU is not a power bloc
They have the potential but, for reasons of history, no desire to project it. If it was French dominated they might be able to become one (although I have my doubts) but not while Germany is the dominant voice
The EU is an economic power bloc, led by Germany already. Germany the EU's strongest economy.
However yes it is unlikely to be a political and military power bloc unless France drives that agenda as the strongest EU military power.
Of course, the MSPs have a vested interest in that they - or some of them - are aspiring to the Imperial cursus honorum in the Imperial capital - via Commons to a peerage. It's not as if moving to the SNP will do any good in that respect, given SNP policies. And SKS in his desperate need to pander to the English voter all fired up with Tory propaganda about Scotch thieves in your pocket is not helping with his denial of a referendum. As Wendy Alexander - arguably the last really competent leader SLAB had before she was stabbed in the back - shows, one can want to have a referendum even if you don't believe in independence.
And how about getting into bed with Mr Johnson and Mr Gove in the independence issue? It'll be SKS and Brexit again, only worse (because it also brings up Brexit which is increasingly toxic in Scotland).
I suspect that puts them somewhat out of kilter with the membership as a whole, what is left of it after the SNP and Scottish Greens have taken large bites out of it. (And much more so with the voters too, But this is a leadership election.)
Are the unions still involved like last time? If so, then perhaps scratch Mr Sarwar? If I had to bet, I'd go for Ms Lennon if I had to, but my gut feeling is some youngster is more likely to win, as soneone else suggested on PB the other day.
Weirdly, a SLabber who has made it to the Premier League of the Lords wants to do the return trip. I just can't see the logic as she hasn't a scooby of winning, unless she wants to raise her profile for an indy Scotland? Of course I've not understood SLab logic for quite some time.
'A penchant for peers: Scottish Labour picks third member of Lords as Holyrood candidate'
I was thinking that SLAB were running out of MSPs to elect for leader - never mind MPs. But that's only indirectly related. Even so ... does she think she'll be thrown out of the HoL on indy?
Back of an envelope, but by Valentine's Day, we could have given at least the first jab to everyone over 60 PLUS at least 2.5m vulnerable/front line workers under 60. All NHS workers, all teachers, all care home workers.
By the end of February, add everyone over 50.
By the start of spring, we'll have a giant chunk of the population likely to trouble the NHS with a considerable degree of protection.
Which is a reason to be very, very optimistic. (Well, apart from us having only vaccinated 8 people from the BAME community....and assuming always that some new bastard variant doesn't screw us over.)
The presidency of Donald Trump has left such a wretched stench in Europe that it's hard to see how, even in four years, Joe Biden could possibly get America's most important alliance back on track.
Regardless, the Trump era has left Europeans with little choice but to wait and see how much of a priority Biden places on reclaiming America's place on the world stage. And they will use the four years of relative quiet under Biden to build safeguards against the all too real possibility of another Euroskeptic firestarter winning the White House in 2024.
The mistake that people make that “America leading the world” does not mean “America doing whatever European politicians want”.
Trump was more effective on foreign policy than many give him credit for. Was it three countries he bullied/bribed/cajoled into signing peace treaties with Israel?
Indeed. Trump's skill was to identify and brazenly name problems, including those that others dare not speak. China and NATO financing are both issues he rightly put the spotlight on. Can't say he resolved either to any satisfactory level, but at least the world is shaken out of its China complacency.
OTOH, you could say Trump domestic disasters and destruction of the Western alliance provided the opening for - or at very least accelerated - China's actions in HK.
Trump was a truly disastrous President, but that does not mean that he was wrong in every instance in his naming the issues.
Now this is proper big news. The likely new leader of the free world. Who in 1950 would have thought Germany would hold that position in 2020? The times they are a changing, no question about it. On which topic I like the Header and especially the title - Europe's Last American. It's fading fast, the sense of kinship between us and the USA. I can vouch for this personally. I used to feel it, even quite recently, but now I don't. I remain fascinated by America but I look upon it as a strange and exotic land. Much of this is because of Trump but not all of it.
I went to school in the US for 2 years and spent the best 4 years of my career on exchange with the USN so I yield to nobody in my admiration and respect for the American people and the ideals of their nation.
However, you'd have to be wilfully blind not see that it's heading for rapid and violently messy decline. The notion that everything's just going to go back to normal once they wheel Joey Sidegrin's bath chair into the Oval Office is nonsense.
Europe and the UK in particular need to think about their strategic posture in a post America world because that's where we are heading at pace.
It's heading for messy decline because of the obdurate refusal of conservatives and liberals to compromise on anything. It would be quite simple to solve the problem, but no-one seems to be interested.
What you mean is that none of the loud voices seems interested. That is not at all the same thing as no-one is interested.
When people say "all white people are racist" it just switches people off. What is really meant is that everybody has preconceptions, and these are often driven by appearance.
That's not what contemporary Americans mean by it.
There are no exceptions to racism and White people. You’re born into that gang. [...] White people and non-White POC living as White who cannot acknowledge these truths are saying they don’t want to relinquish the power and privileges assigned to their places in the social/racial order set by White Supremacy.
I've been told before on here its not allowed to even ask a genuine question about what, for instance, 'non-white POC living as White' means, because it means you are mocking it, unfortunately.
No we cleared that up. I accused you of preparing to mock not of actual mocking. Massive difference there.
Vaccination update: my dad arrived at the centre 10 minutes early this morning and despite it being pretty busy was seen immediately. Very efficient. Probably a thousand people will be vaccinated there today he estimates.
My Mum went for hers yesterday, courtesy of Boots who she works for on the till... it was for Pharmacists only
Keir Starmer has suggested he would back further Covid curbs, saying “the tougher the restrictions now the quicker we get the virus back under control”.
This RAF Hercules went past us, as it appears to land and then immediately take off again at Edinburgh Airport.
Any idea what it is up to?
Similar has been spotted with the military at lots of other airports, apparently they are practicing aborting landings and fly arounds whilst they have runways to practice on that are not otherwise being used.
Saw a fair bit of it last summer at Manc airport - I live close enough to see the planes passing over head regularly.
Now this is proper big news. The likely new leader of the free world. Who in 1950 would have thought Germany would hold that position in 2020? The times they are a changing, no question about it. On which topic I like the Header and especially the title - Europe's Last American. It's fading fast, the sense of kinship between us and the USA. I can vouch for this personally. I used to feel it, even quite recently, but now I don't. I remain fascinated by America but I look upon it as a strange and exotic land. Much of this is because of Trump but not all of it.
I went to school in the US for 2 years and spent the best 4 years of my career on exchange with the USN so I yield to nobody in my admiration and respect for the American people and the ideals of their nation.
However, you'd have to be wilfully blind not see that it's heading for rapid and violently messy decline. The notion that everything's just going to go back to normal once they wheel Joey Sidegrin's bath chair into the Oval Office is nonsense.
Europe and the UK in particular need to think about their strategic posture in a post America world because that's where we are heading at pace.
It's heading for messy decline because of the obdurate refusal of conservatives and liberals to compromise on anything. It would be quite simple to solve the problem, but no-one seems to be interested.
What you mean is that none of the loud voices seems interested. That is not at all the same thing as no-one is interested.
Keir Starmer has suggested he would back further Covid curbs, saying “the tougher the restrictions now the quicker we get the virus back under control”.
Sinopharm, a state-owned giant in China’s coronavirus vaccine development, announced its chairman left the board Tuesday.
The company cited personal reasons for Li Zhiming’s resignation, according to a filing for the Hong Kong-listed company. Li Hui, a director and audit committee member of Sinopharm subsidiary China National Medicines Corp. also resigned Tuesday due to personal reasons, a separate filing disclosed.
Friedrich Merz is a real piece of work. Having lost the leadership, he is asking Laschet to make him Finance Minister in the current government led by Angela Merkel.
Oddly enough, this morning's CDU leadership election might have been the most significant election of 2021.
Laschet is "continuity Merkel" in many respects but the key player looks to be Jens Spahn who I think will have a senior role in any future Laschet Govenrment and is the heir apparent.
Laschet worked well enough with the FDP in his own State but he's much more likely to be able to work with the Greens than Merz but the problem then becomes resistance from the CSU wing to any future Black-Green coalition.
I also think the election of Laschet closes the door on any CDU/CSU-AfD coalition.
It is not yet certain Laschet will be CDU/CSU chancellor candidate however.
If Markus Soder, Bavarian Minister President and CSU leader, runs for it he could get it. The CDU delegates only gave Laschet a narrow win in the second round over Merz.
The CSU have not had one of their own as chancellor candidate since Stoiber in 2002 and may feel it is their turn again.
Sinopharm, a state-owned giant in China’s coronavirus vaccine development, announced its chairman left the board Tuesday.
The company cited personal reasons for Li Zhiming’s resignation, according to a filing for the Hong Kong-listed company. Li Hui, a director and audit committee member of Sinopharm subsidiary China National Medicines Corp. also resigned Tuesday due to personal reasons, a separate filing disclosed.
Back of an envelope, but by Valentine's Day, we could have given at least the first jab to everyone over 60 PLUS at least 2.5m vulnerable/front line workers under 60. All NHS workers, all teachers, all care home workers.
By the end of February, add everyone over 50.
By the start of spring, we'll have a giant chunk of the population likely to trouble the NHS with a considerable degree of protection.
Which is a reason to be very, very optimistic. (Well, apart from us having only vaccinated 8 people from the BAME community....and assuming always that some new bastard variant doesn't screw us over.)
Perhaps then we can turn to the huge volume of non-Covid related medical issues and apply the same rigour and resources to them.
When people say "all white people are racist" it just switches people off. What is really meant is that everybody has preconceptions, and these are often driven by appearance.
That's not what contemporary Americans mean by it.
There are no exceptions to racism and White people. You’re born into that gang. [...] White people and non-White POC living as White who cannot acknowledge these truths are saying they don’t want to relinquish the power and privileges assigned to their places in the social/racial order set by White Supremacy.
I've been told before on here its not allowed to even ask a genuine question about what, for instance, 'non-white POC living as White' means, because it means you are mocking it, unfortunately.
No we cleared that up. I accused you of preparing to mock not of actual mocking. Massive difference there.
"Up to half those offered vaccine in Birmingham covid hotspots refusing to have it Health chief stresses: 'This vaccine is safe and is only being offered to people at real risk of dying'
Up to 50 per cent of vulnerable people in some of the worst-affected parts of Birmingham are declining the covid vaccines. Asian and black community leaders across Birmingham are being urged to help health chiefs share vaccine safety messages amid fears those most at risk of dying are holding back from getting protected."
A letter, signed by Liam Byrne (Lab, Hodge Hill), Andrew Mitchell (Cons, Sutton Coldfield) and Birmingham City Council leader Coun Ian Ward, asked for a full daily update on vaccination take-up - including a percentage breakdown by each vulnerable group, and "advance and transparent warning of any issues on the ground so we can take them up".
Mr Byrne said today: "We urgently need the veil of silence to be lifted on this, because the health of some of the most vulnerable in the city is being threatened by the government deciding to gag our health chiefs. Their refusal to shine a light on the vaccination programme is now potentially putting lives at risk.
"Our BAME inquiry (into the disproportionate level of deaths among Black and Asian residents) in the summer revealed that Covid has not hit everyone equally. It has hit our ethnic communities hardest, and now the Government appears to want to keep secret whether the vaccination programme is getting through to those who most need it."
Is the government really trying to keep things secret about the vaccination programme? As one of the few successes it's had, it seems like they have been releasing lots of information about it. Anyone know the detail that is supposedly being withheld?
Perhaps they think vaccination should be slowed down until full demographic details can be obtained and analysed.
Of course anyone declining vaccination now will be able to get one later on if they change their mind.
"Of course anyone declining vaccination now will be able to get one later on if they change their mind."
That may be true in theory. But how does it work in practice?
Say I get a letter next week and I ignore it as I am a total anti-vaxxer and then come end of February I have a dramatic change of heart.
"Up to half those offered vaccine in Birmingham covid hotspots refusing to have it Health chief stresses: 'This vaccine is safe and is only being offered to people at real risk of dying'
Up to 50 per cent of vulnerable people in some of the worst-affected parts of Birmingham are declining the covid vaccines. Asian and black community leaders across Birmingham are being urged to help health chiefs share vaccine safety messages amid fears those most at risk of dying are holding back from getting protected."
A letter, signed by Liam Byrne (Lab, Hodge Hill), Andrew Mitchell (Cons, Sutton Coldfield) and Birmingham City Council leader Coun Ian Ward, asked for a full daily update on vaccination take-up - including a percentage breakdown by each vulnerable group, and "advance and transparent warning of any issues on the ground so we can take them up".
Mr Byrne said today: "We urgently need the veil of silence to be lifted on this, because the health of some of the most vulnerable in the city is being threatened by the government deciding to gag our health chiefs. Their refusal to shine a light on the vaccination programme is now potentially putting lives at risk.
"Our BAME inquiry (into the disproportionate level of deaths among Black and Asian residents) in the summer revealed that Covid has not hit everyone equally. It has hit our ethnic communities hardest, and now the Government appears to want to keep secret whether the vaccination programme is getting through to those who most need it."
Is the government really trying to keep things secret about the vaccination programme? As one of the few successes it's had, it seems like they have been releasing lots of information about it. Anyone know the detail that is supposedly being withheld?
Perhaps they think vaccination should be slowed down until full demographic details can be obtained and analysed.
Of course anyone declining vaccination now will be able to get one later on if they change their mind.
"Of course anyone declining vaccination now will be able to get one later on if they change their mind."
That may be true in theory. But how does it work in practice?
Say I get a letter next week and I ignore it as I am a total anti-vaxxer and then come end of February I have a dramatic change of heart.
What do I do then to get an appointment?
There is an online booking system now that if you have ever been sent a letter you can put in your details etc and basically you get sent to one of the mega vaccinations centres.
POC living as White is a charge I've heard levelled at OJ Simpson. Ironic since he got off a murder charge partly due to being black. Other reason being celebrity.
Sinopharm, a state-owned giant in China’s coronavirus vaccine development, announced its chairman left the board Tuesday.
The company cited personal reasons for Li Zhiming’s resignation, according to a filing for the Hong Kong-listed company. Li Hui, a director and audit committee member of Sinopharm subsidiary China National Medicines Corp. also resigned Tuesday due to personal reasons, a separate filing disclosed.
Now this is proper big news. The likely new leader of the free world. Who in 1950 would have thought Germany would hold that position in 2020? The times they are a changing, no question about it. On which topic I like the Header and especially the title - Europe's Last American. It's fading fast, the sense of kinship between us and the USA. I can vouch for this personally. I used to feel it, even quite recently, but now I don't. I remain fascinated by America but I look upon it as a strange and exotic land. Much of this is because of Trump but not all of it.
I went to school in the US for 2 years and spent the best 4 years of my career on exchange with the USN so I yield to nobody in my admiration and respect for the American people and the ideals of their nation.
However, you'd have to be wilfully blind not see that it's heading for rapid and violently messy decline. The notion that everything's just going to go back to normal once they wheel Joey Sidegrin's bath chair into the Oval Office is nonsense.
Europe and the UK in particular need to think about their strategic posture in a post America world because that's where we are heading at pace.
I met up with a former colleague around the time of the millennium and we got to talking long-term trends. I said that by the end of the twenty-first century, it was my expectation that the USA would have been significantly overtaken as an economic power by both China and India.
He got very, very aggressive at the notion that USA would not still be number one. He'd have taken it better if I'd said I'd slept with his wife.
I'm sure that's the third posting in a very few days about illicit affairs from the Marquee.
Is there something you need to tell us?
Only the kidney stone one you need to worry about.....and even then, less than the lady involved!
Sinopharm, a state-owned giant in China’s coronavirus vaccine development, announced its chairman left the board Tuesday.
The company cited personal reasons for Li Zhiming’s resignation, according to a filing for the Hong Kong-listed company. Li Hui, a director and audit committee member of Sinopharm subsidiary China National Medicines Corp. also resigned Tuesday due to personal reasons, a separate filing disclosed.
Its quite something that having produced what they claim is a very effective vaccine they have been shown the door. How's that for thanks.
Perhaps it's not as effective as they claimed ...
Bit worrying if that is the case...
One million Chinese-made vaccines arrive in Serbia Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has shared a photograph of himself on Instagram at Belgrade airport next to a plane arriving with Chinese-made vaccines.
"I would like to thank President Xi Jinping and Chinese leadership for sending us one million doses of the vaccine," Mr Vucic told reporters.
The vaccine, made by Sinopharm, has already been approved for general use in China but no detailed data from trials have been publicly released beyond claims of between 79-86% efficacy from Chinese and UAE officials.
Vaccination update: my dad arrived at the centre 10 minutes early this morning and despite it being pretty busy was seen immediately. Very efficient. Probably a thousand people will be vaccinated there today he estimates.
My Mum went for hers yesterday, courtesy of Boots who she works for on the till... it was for Pharmacists only
Of course, the MSPs have a vested interest in that they - or some of them - are aspiring to the Imperial cursus honorum in the Imperial capital - via Commons to a peerage. It's not as if moving to the SNP will do any good in that respect, given SNP policies. And SKS in his desperate need to pander to the English voter all fired up with Tory propaganda about Scotch thieves in your pocket is not helping with his denial of a referendum. As Wendy Alexander - arguably the last really competent leader SLAB had before she was stabbed in the back - shows, one can want to have a referendum even if you don't believe in independence.
And how about getting into bed with Mr Johnson and Mr Gove in the independence issue? It'll be SKS and Brexit again, only worse (because it also brings up Brexit which is increasingly toxic in Scotland).
I suspect that puts them somewhat out of kilter with the membership as a whole, what is left of it after the SNP and Scottish Greens have taken large bites out of it. (And much more so with the voters too, But this is a leadership election.)
Are the unions still involved like last time? If so, then perhaps scratch Mr Sarwar? If I had to bet, I'd go for Ms Lennon if I had to, but my gut feeling is some youngster is more likely to win, as soneone else suggested on PB the other day.
Weirdly, a SLabber who has made it to the Premier League of the Lords wants to do the return trip. I just can't see the logic as she hasn't a scooby of winning, unless she wants to raise her profile for an indy Scotland? Of course I've not understood SLab logic for quite some time.
'A penchant for peers: Scottish Labour picks third member of Lords as Holyrood candidate‘
I was thinking that SLAB were running out of MSPs to elect for leader - never mind MPs. But that's only indirectly related. Even so ... does she think she'll be thrown out of the HoL on indy?
In the event of Indy I’d imagine that there’d be a certain ‘as useful as tits on a bull’ feel for Scottish peers, but that shouldn’t be a novelty for SLabbers. I guess the idea of a reborn & rejuvenated Scottish Labour Party post Indy may have its attractions.
Now this is proper big news. The likely new leader of the free world. Who in 1950 would have thought Germany would hold that position in 2020? The times they are a changing, no question about it. On which topic I like the Header and especially the title - Europe's Last American. It's fading fast, the sense of kinship between us and the USA. I can vouch for this personally. I used to feel it, even quite recently, but now I don't. I remain fascinated by America but I look upon it as a strange and exotic land. Much of this is because of Trump but not all of it.
I went to school in the US for 2 years and spent the best 4 years of my career on exchange with the USN so I yield to nobody in my admiration and respect for the American people and the ideals of their nation.
However, you'd have to be wilfully blind not see that it's heading for rapid and violently messy decline. The notion that everything's just going to go back to normal once they wheel Joey Sidegrin's bath chair into the Oval Office is nonsense.
Europe and the UK in particular need to think about their strategic posture in a post America world because that's where we are heading at pace.
It's heading for messy decline because of the obdurate refusal of conservatives and liberals to compromise on anything. It would be quite simple to solve the problem, but no-one seems to be interested.
What you mean is that none of the loud voices seems interested. That is not at all the same thing as no-one is interested.
Not enough, perhaps.
You may be right. But things are still very raw here, people are still processing (and still learning about) what happened on 6 January. People are still in various of the first 4 stages of grief - shock, denial, anger and depression. We need to give it time to see what will actually come out of this. It is way too early to come to any conclusions either way.
Now this is proper big news. The likely new leader of the free world. Who in 1950 would have thought Germany would hold that position in 2020? The times they are a changing, no question about it. On which topic I like the Header and especially the title - Europe's Last American. It's fading fast, the sense of kinship between us and the USA. I can vouch for this personally. I used to feel it, even quite recently, but now I don't. I remain fascinated by America but I look upon it as a strange and exotic land. Much of this is because of Trump but not all of it.
Germany's leader is not the leader of the free world. Biden will be from Wednesday.
Germany is not big enough, the EU might be but does not have the will
Well I look to Berlin not Washington these days for a steer on how I as a citizen of the free world should go about my business.
You can seriously say that after the vehicle emissions scandal ???
Well I was being serious so that would be a Yes. I don't demand perfection in my leaders of the free world.
Nor it seems are you bothered about them tolerating criminality, polluting the environment and ruining people's health.
The sort of example the 'leaders of the free world' should be setting.
Where did I say I wasn't bothered? It's on the debit side of a ledger in net credit right now compared to other big boy nations.
And we can all set up scorecards which result in the outcome we would like
And we can all employ facetious "knowing" closers as we exit a discussion we sense is going nowhere.
See?
But I'm right though.
There are very few people who don't allow their wishes to influence their decisions - the ends are deemed to justify the means and the misdeeds of friends are viewed more leniently than those of enemies.
Of course, the MSPs have a vested interest in that they - or some of them - are aspiring to the Imperial cursus honorum in the Imperial capital - via Commons to a peerage. It's not as if moving to the SNP will do any good in that respect, given SNP policies. And SKS in his desperate need to pander to the English voter all fired up with Tory propaganda about Scotch thieves in your pocket is not helping with his denial of a referendum. As Wendy Alexander - arguably the last really competent leader SLAB had before she was stabbed in the back - shows, one can want to have a referendum even if you don't believe in independence.
And how about getting into bed with Mr Johnson and Mr Gove in the independence issue? It'll be SKS and Brexit again, only worse (because it also brings up Brexit which is increasingly toxic in Scotland).
I suspect that puts them somewhat out of kilter with the membership as a whole, what is left of it after the SNP and Scottish Greens have taken large bites out of it. (And much more so with the voters too, But this is a leadership election.)
Are the unions still involved like last time? If so, then perhaps scratch Mr Sarwar? If I had to bet, I'd go for Ms Lennon if I had to, but my gut feeling is some youngster is more likely to win, as soneone else suggested on PB the other day.
Weirdly, a SLabber who has made it to the Premier League of the Lords wants to do the return trip. I just can't see the logic as she hasn't a scooby of winning, unless she wants to raise her profile for an indy Scotland? Of course I've not understood SLab logic for quite some time.
'A penchant for peers: Scottish Labour picks third member of Lords as Holyrood candidate‘
I was thinking that SLAB were running out of MSPs to elect for leader - never mind MPs. But that's only indirectly related. Even so ... does she think she'll be thrown out of the HoL on indy?
In the event of Indy I’d imagine that there’d be a certain ‘as useful as tits on a bull’ feel for Scottish peers, but that shouldn’t be a novelty for SLabbers. I guess the idea of a reborn & rejuvenated Scottish Labour Party post Indy may have its attractions.
If a future Labour government allowed indyref2 and Yes won then all Scottish peers should of course leave the Lords just as all Scottish MPs would leave the Commons.
If Scots decided to become independent then they can have no further say in the politics of the rUK
Now this is proper big news. The likely new leader of the free world. Who in 1950 would have thought Germany would hold that position in 2020? The times they are a changing, no question about it. On which topic I like the Header and especially the title - Europe's Last American. It's fading fast, the sense of kinship between us and the USA. I can vouch for this personally. I used to feel it, even quite recently, but now I don't. I remain fascinated by America but I look upon it as a strange and exotic land. Much of this is because of Trump but not all of it.
I went to school in the US for 2 years and spent the best 4 years of my career on exchange with the USN so I yield to nobody in my admiration and respect for the American people and the ideals of their nation.
However, you'd have to be wilfully blind not see that it's heading for rapid and violently messy decline. The notion that everything's just going to go back to normal once they wheel Joey Sidegrin's bath chair into the Oval Office is nonsense.
Europe and the UK in particular need to think about their strategic posture in a post America world because that's where we are heading at pace.
It's heading for messy decline because of the obdurate refusal of conservatives and liberals to compromise on anything. It would be quite simple to solve the problem, but no-one seems to be interested.
What you mean is that none of the loud voices seems interested. That is not at all the same thing as no-one is interested.
Or further that the loud voices have a vested interest in not compromising.
Now this is proper big news. The likely new leader of the free world. Who in 1950 would have thought Germany would hold that position in 2020? The times they are a changing, no question about it. On which topic I like the Header and especially the title - Europe's Last American. It's fading fast, the sense of kinship between us and the USA. I can vouch for this personally. I used to feel it, even quite recently, but now I don't. I remain fascinated by America but I look upon it as a strange and exotic land. Much of this is because of Trump but not all of it.
Germany's leader is not the leader of the free world. Biden will be from Wednesday.
Germany is not big enough, the EU might be but does not have the will
Well I look to Berlin not Washington these days for a steer on how I as a citizen of the free world should go about my business.
You can seriously say that after the vehicle emissions scandal ???
Well I was being serious so that would be a Yes. I don't demand perfection in my leaders of the free world.
Nor it seems are you bothered about them tolerating criminality, polluting the environment and ruining people's health.
The sort of example the 'leaders of the free world' should be setting.
Where did I say I wasn't bothered? It's on the debit side of a ledger in net credit right now compared to other big boy nations.
And we can all set up scorecards which result in the outcome we would like
And we can all employ facetious "knowing" closers as we exit a discussion we sense is going nowhere.
See?
But I'm right though.
There are very few people who don't allow their wishes to influence their decisions - the ends are deemed to justify the means and the misdeeds of friends are viewed more leniently than those of enemies.
Indeed, within 24 hours of making a mistake, our brain starts to re-formulate our memories to provide justification for our decisions and actions (as a means of removing cognitive dissonance). That is why in accident investigations, the first 24 hours are critical for getting at the truth - to get personal accounts before those accounts are subconsciously changed to make each of the players, if not the hero, into a person who did no wrong.
David Herdson makes the interesting point that migration is changing the US cultural memory and therefore its strategic orientation. Isn't the same process likely to occur in Europe?
No, and I'm far from clear that it's even happening in the US. The large section of America that descends from German and Italian immigrants did not lead to any real risk that the US would involve itself on the wrong side in WW2. The attempted importation of fascism into America in the late 1920s and early 1930s by those with links to Italy didn't fail because of a lack of Italians, but because America took a look at the ideology and didn't like it. As much as people feel a sentimentality towards an ancestor country, it doesn't necessarily translate into strategy.
And, of course, often those who move from one country to another are cut from a different cloth to those they leave behind. And the immigrant experience further shapes you in new ways that diverge from the native experience.
100%. Of the many and varied misunderstandings of HYUFD with regard to the US is his absolute commitment to the idea of monolithic ethnic voting blocs - to the extent he invented one for “English Americans”. Eisenhower’s family was from Karlsbrunn in the Saarland. Reading HYUFD you would think he should have been relieved of command for having dubious loyalty.
Eisenhower was the President who humiliated Eden over Suez, English American Presidents like Bush and Clinton have been more supportive of and closer to the UK
Eisenhower was a notably cooperative US senior commander in WW2 - even when he had the likes of Churchill and Montgomery to cope with (and Patton and Clark too, of course). And his Prsesident, Roosevelt, was also very cooperative. Just compare Admiral King.
On your logic President Kennedy and President to be Biden were not/will not cooperate with what is left of the UK just cos they are of Irish extraction..
And any future African-Ameridcan president would only cooperate with sub-Saharan Africa.
Really??
Biden as an Irish American made quite clear his loyalty to Ireland was stronger than his loyalty to the UK over the Irish border.
Roosevelt as a Dutch American pressed the UK hard to end its Empire once the War was won.
Eisenhower and Roosevelt were anti Nazi, that does not mean either were particularly pro British.
The most pro British Presidents since WW2 were probably George W Bush and Bill Clinton, both English Americans.
That does not mean other Presidents were particularly anti British, just they were the most Anglophile Presidents
Was George W Bush more "English" than George HW Bush?
George HW was closer to Kohl when he came in, certainly than Thatcher who he saw as Reagan's key friend.
He got on better with Major though. His son's closest ally of course was UK PM Tony Blair
Not what I asked. You're seeing things through the prism of supposed national origin. Since W is the son of HW, how come HW was less a friend to the UK than Clinton? Are you saying W isn't really HW's son? Or is there more to it than your potted theory?
There was little difference between HW and Clinton's approach to the UK.
The difference was more a matter of personalities, HW did not get on as well as Thatcher as Reagan had but HW got on better with Major than Clinton did. However Clinton got on very well with Blair and Blair got on very well with W too
So Clinton was simultaneously more pro-Britain that HW, and there was little difference in approach. More empty nonsense from you.
When people say "all white people are racist" it just switches people off. What is really meant is that everybody has preconceptions, and these are often driven by appearance.
That's not what contemporary Americans mean by it.
There are no exceptions to racism and White people. You’re born into that gang. [...] White people and non-White POC living as White who cannot acknowledge these truths are saying they don’t want to relinquish the power and privileges assigned to their places in the social/racial order set by White Supremacy.
I've been told before on here its not allowed to even ask a genuine question about what, for instance, 'non-white POC living as White' means, because it means you are mocking it, unfortunately.
No we cleared that up. I accused you of preparing to mock not of actual mocking. Massive difference there.
I believe the less polite term is 'Oreo'
Or Choc Ice. Rio Ferdinand threw that one at "Cashley" Cole. I'm not black so staying out of it but I think I get the gist.
Of course, the MSPs have a vested interest in that they - or some of them - are aspiring to the Imperial cursus honorum in the Imperial capital - via Commons to a peerage. It's not as if moving to the SNP will do any good in that respect, given SNP policies. And SKS in his desperate need to pander to the English voter all fired up with Tory propaganda about Scotch thieves in your pocket is not helping with his denial of a referendum. As Wendy Alexander - arguably the last really competent leader SLAB had before she was stabbed in the back - shows, one can want to have a referendum even if you don't believe in independence.
And how about getting into bed with Mr Johnson and Mr Gove in the independence issue? It'll be SKS and Brexit again, only worse (because it also brings up Brexit which is increasingly toxic in Scotland).
I suspect that puts them somewhat out of kilter with the membership as a whole, what is left of it after the SNP and Scottish Greens have taken large bites out of it. (And much more so with the voters too, But this is a leadership election.)
Are the unions still involved like last time? If so, then perhaps scratch Mr Sarwar? If I had to bet, I'd go for Ms Lennon if I had to, but my gut feeling is some youngster is more likely to win, as soneone else suggested on PB the other day.
Weirdly, a SLabber who has made it to the Premier League of the Lords wants to do the return trip. I just can't see the logic as she hasn't a scooby of winning, unless she wants to raise her profile for an indy Scotland? Of course I've not understood SLab logic for quite some time.
'A penchant for peers: Scottish Labour picks third member of Lords as Holyrood candidate‘
I was thinking that SLAB were running out of MSPs to elect for leader - never mind MPs. But that's only indirectly related. Even so ... does she think she'll be thrown out of the HoL on indy?
In the event of Indy I’d imagine that there’d be a certain ‘as useful as tits on a bull’ feel for Scottish peers, but that shouldn’t be a novelty for SLabbers. I guess the idea of a reborn & rejuvenated Scottish Labour Party post Indy may have its attractions.
If a future Labour government allowed indyref2 and Yes won then all Scottish peers should of course leave the Lords just as all Scottish MPs would leave the Commons.
If Scots decided to become independent then they can have no further say in the politics of the rUK
"Up to half those offered vaccine in Birmingham covid hotspots refusing to have it Health chief stresses: 'This vaccine is safe and is only being offered to people at real risk of dying'
Up to 50 per cent of vulnerable people in some of the worst-affected parts of Birmingham are declining the covid vaccines. Asian and black community leaders across Birmingham are being urged to help health chiefs share vaccine safety messages amid fears those most at risk of dying are holding back from getting protected."
A letter, signed by Liam Byrne (Lab, Hodge Hill), Andrew Mitchell (Cons, Sutton Coldfield) and Birmingham City Council leader Coun Ian Ward, asked for a full daily update on vaccination take-up - including a percentage breakdown by each vulnerable group, and "advance and transparent warning of any issues on the ground so we can take them up".
Mr Byrne said today: "We urgently need the veil of silence to be lifted on this, because the health of some of the most vulnerable in the city is being threatened by the government deciding to gag our health chiefs. Their refusal to shine a light on the vaccination programme is now potentially putting lives at risk.
"Our BAME inquiry (into the disproportionate level of deaths among Black and Asian residents) in the summer revealed that Covid has not hit everyone equally. It has hit our ethnic communities hardest, and now the Government appears to want to keep secret whether the vaccination programme is getting through to those who most need it."
Is the government really trying to keep things secret about the vaccination programme? As one of the few successes it's had, it seems like they have been releasing lots of information about it. Anyone know the detail that is supposedly being withheld?
Perhaps they think vaccination should be slowed down until full demographic details can be obtained and analysed.
Of course anyone declining vaccination now will be able to get one later on if they change their mind.
"Of course anyone declining vaccination now will be able to get one later on if they change their mind."
That may be true in theory. But how does it work in practice?
Say I get a letter next week and I ignore it as I am a total anti-vaxxer and then come end of February I have a dramatic change of heart.
What do I do then to get an appointment?
It seems you contact your GP to book a new appointment.
Though I imagine the government will send out letters to those who have not been vaccinated as they have done for flu vaccinations.
Of course, the MSPs have a vested interest in that they - or some of them - are aspiring to the Imperial cursus honorum in the Imperial capital - via Commons to a peerage. It's not as if moving to the SNP will do any good in that respect, given SNP policies. And SKS in his desperate need to pander to the English voter all fired up with Tory propaganda about Scotch thieves in your pocket is not helping with his denial of a referendum. As Wendy Alexander - arguably the last really competent leader SLAB had before she was stabbed in the back - shows, one can want to have a referendum even if you don't believe in independence.
And how about getting into bed with Mr Johnson and Mr Gove in the independence issue? It'll be SKS and Brexit again, only worse (because it also brings up Brexit which is increasingly toxic in Scotland).
I suspect that puts them somewhat out of kilter with the membership as a whole, what is left of it after the SNP and Scottish Greens have taken large bites out of it. (And much more so with the voters too, But this is a leadership election.)
Are the unions still involved like last time? If so, then perhaps scratch Mr Sarwar? If I had to bet, I'd go for Ms Lennon if I had to, but my gut feeling is some youngster is more likely to win, as soneone else suggested on PB the other day.
Weirdly, a SLabber who has made it to the Premier League of the Lords wants to do the return trip. I just can't see the logic as she hasn't a scooby of winning, unless she wants to raise her profile for an indy Scotland? Of course I've not understood SLab logic for quite some time.
'A penchant for peers: Scottish Labour picks third member of Lords as Holyrood candidate‘
I was thinking that SLAB were running out of MSPs to elect for leader - never mind MPs. But that's only indirectly related. Even so ... does she think she'll be thrown out of the HoL on indy?
In the event of Indy I’d imagine that there’d be a certain ‘as useful as tits on a bull’ feel for Scottish peers, but that shouldn’t be a novelty for SLabbers. I guess the idea of a reborn & rejuvenated Scottish Labour Party post Indy may have its attractions.
If a future Labour government allowed indyref2 and Yes won then all Scottish peers should of course leave the Lords just as all Scottish MPs would leave the Commons.
If Scots decided to become independent then they can have no further say in the politics of the rUK
Unlike now.
Where there are Scottish MPs elected to the House of Commons, Scottish peers and where there was a Scottish PM just 11 years ago (and a PM with Scottish ancestry just 5 years ago), yes.
Of course, the MSPs have a vested interest in that they - or some of them - are aspiring to the Imperial cursus honorum in the Imperial capital - via Commons to a peerage. It's not as if moving to the SNP will do any good in that respect, given SNP policies. And SKS in his desperate need to pander to the English voter all fired up with Tory propaganda about Scotch thieves in your pocket is not helping with his denial of a referendum. As Wendy Alexander - arguably the last really competent leader SLAB had before she was stabbed in the back - shows, one can want to have a referendum even if you don't believe in independence.
And how about getting into bed with Mr Johnson and Mr Gove in the independence issue? It'll be SKS and Brexit again, only worse (because it also brings up Brexit which is increasingly toxic in Scotland).
I suspect that puts them somewhat out of kilter with the membership as a whole, what is left of it after the SNP and Scottish Greens have taken large bites out of it. (And much more so with the voters too, But this is a leadership election.)
Are the unions still involved like last time? If so, then perhaps scratch Mr Sarwar? If I had to bet, I'd go for Ms Lennon if I had to, but my gut feeling is some youngster is more likely to win, as soneone else suggested on PB the other day.
Weirdly, a SLabber who has made it to the Premier League of the Lords wants to do the return trip. I just can't see the logic as she hasn't a scooby of winning, unless she wants to raise her profile for an indy Scotland? Of course I've not understood SLab logic for quite some time.
'A penchant for peers: Scottish Labour picks third member of Lords as Holyrood candidate‘
I was thinking that SLAB were running out of MSPs to elect for leader - never mind MPs. But that's only indirectly related. Even so ... does she think she'll be thrown out of the HoL on indy?
In the event of Indy I’d imagine that there’d be a certain ‘as useful as tits on a bull’ feel for Scottish peers, but that shouldn’t be a novelty for SLabbers. I guess the idea of a reborn & rejuvenated Scottish Labour Party post Indy may have its attractions.
If a future Labour government allowed indyref2 and Yes won then all Scottish peers should of course leave the Lords just as all Scottish MPs would leave the Commons.
If Scots decided to become independent then they can have no further say in the politics of the rUK
How do you define a "Scottish peer"?
And does the same logic apply to "Scots MPs"? Such as, for instance, one Gove M.
David Herdson makes the interesting point that migration is changing the US cultural memory and therefore its strategic orientation. Isn't the same process likely to occur in Europe?
No, and I'm far from clear that it's even happening in the US. The large section of America that descends from German and Italian immigrants did not lead to any real risk that the US would involve itself on the wrong side in WW2. The attempted importation of fascism into America in the late 1920s and early 1930s by those with links to Italy didn't fail because of a lack of Italians, but because America took a look at the ideology and didn't like it. As much as people feel a sentimentality towards an ancestor country, it doesn't necessarily translate into strategy.
And, of course, often those who move from one country to another are cut from a different cloth to those they leave behind. And the immigrant experience further shapes you in new ways that diverge from the native experience.
100%. Of the many and varied misunderstandings of HYUFD with regard to the US is his absolute commitment to the idea of monolithic ethnic voting blocs - to the extent he invented one for “English Americans”. Eisenhower’s family was from Karlsbrunn in the Saarland. Reading HYUFD you would think he should have been relieved of command for having dubious loyalty.
Eisenhower was the President who humiliated Eden over Suez, English American Presidents like Bush and Clinton have been more supportive of and closer to the UK
Eisenhower was a notably cooperative US senior commander in WW2 - even when he had the likes of Churchill and Montgomery to cope with (and Patton and Clark too, of course). And his Prsesident, Roosevelt, was also very cooperative. Just compare Admiral King.
On your logic President Kennedy and President to be Biden were not/will not cooperate with what is left of the UK just cos they are of Irish extraction..
And any future African-Ameridcan president would only cooperate with sub-Saharan Africa.
Really??
Biden as an Irish American made quite clear his loyalty to Ireland was stronger than his loyalty to the UK over the Irish border.
Roosevelt as a Dutch American pressed the UK hard to end its Empire once the War was won.
Eisenhower and Roosevelt were anti Nazi, that does not mean either were particularly pro British.
The most pro British Presidents since WW2 were probably George W Bush and Bill Clinton, both English Americans.
That does not mean other Presidents were particularly anti British, just they were the most Anglophile Presidents
Was George W Bush more "English" than George HW Bush?
George HW was closer to Kohl when he came in, certainly than Thatcher who he saw as Reagan's key friend.
He got on better with Major though. His son's closest ally of course was UK PM Tony Blair
Not what I asked. You're seeing things through the prism of supposed national origin. Since W is the son of HW, how come HW was less a friend to the UK than Clinton? Are you saying W isn't really HW's son? Or is there more to it than your potted theory?
There was little difference between HW and Clinton's approach to the UK.
The difference was more a matter of personalities, HW did not get on as well as Thatcher as Reagan had but HW got on better with Major than Clinton did. However Clinton got on very well with Blair and Blair got on very well with W too
So Clinton was simultaneously more pro-Britain that HW, and there was little difference in approach. More empty nonsense from you.
My original statement was 'English American Presidents like Bush and Clinton have been more supportive of and closer to the UK'.
Of course, the MSPs have a vested interest in that they - or some of them - are aspiring to the Imperial cursus honorum in the Imperial capital - via Commons to a peerage. It's not as if moving to the SNP will do any good in that respect, given SNP policies. And SKS in his desperate need to pander to the English voter all fired up with Tory propaganda about Scotch thieves in your pocket is not helping with his denial of a referendum. As Wendy Alexander - arguably the last really competent leader SLAB had before she was stabbed in the back - shows, one can want to have a referendum even if you don't believe in independence.
And how about getting into bed with Mr Johnson and Mr Gove in the independence issue? It'll be SKS and Brexit again, only worse (because it also brings up Brexit which is increasingly toxic in Scotland).
I suspect that puts them somewhat out of kilter with the membership as a whole, what is left of it after the SNP and Scottish Greens have taken large bites out of it. (And much more so with the voters too, But this is a leadership election.)
Are the unions still involved like last time? If so, then perhaps scratch Mr Sarwar? If I had to bet, I'd go for Ms Lennon if I had to, but my gut feeling is some youngster is more likely to win, as soneone else suggested on PB the other day.
Weirdly, a SLabber who has made it to the Premier League of the Lords wants to do the return trip. I just can't see the logic as she hasn't a scooby of winning, unless she wants to raise her profile for an indy Scotland? Of course I've not understood SLab logic for quite some time.
'A penchant for peers: Scottish Labour picks third member of Lords as Holyrood candidate‘
I was thinking that SLAB were running out of MSPs to elect for leader - never mind MPs. But that's only indirectly related. Even so ... does she think she'll be thrown out of the HoL on indy?
In the event of Indy I’d imagine that there’d be a certain ‘as useful as tits on a bull’ feel for Scottish peers, but that shouldn’t be a novelty for SLabbers. I guess the idea of a reborn & rejuvenated Scottish Labour Party post Indy may have its attractions.
If a future Labour government allowed indyref2 and Yes won then all Scottish peers should of course leave the Lords just as all Scottish MPs would leave the Commons.
If Scots decided to become independent then they can have no further say in the politics of the rUK
When you say "Scots", do you mean "people who sit for constituencies in Scotland, wherever they may come from" or do you mean "Scots who currently sit for seats in England"?
The latter would lead to the removal from Parliament of Gove and Fox, and no doubt many others, so would obviously be a Very Good Thing.
Now this is proper big news. The likely new leader of the free world. Who in 1950 would have thought Germany would hold that position in 2020? The times they are a changing, no question about it. On which topic I like the Header and especially the title - Europe's Last American. It's fading fast, the sense of kinship between us and the USA. I can vouch for this personally. I used to feel it, even quite recently, but now I don't. I remain fascinated by America but I look upon it as a strange and exotic land. Much of this is because of Trump but not all of it.
I went to school in the US for 2 years and spent the best 4 years of my career on exchange with the USN so I yield to nobody in my admiration and respect for the American people and the ideals of their nation.
However, you'd have to be wilfully blind not see that it's heading for rapid and violently messy decline. The notion that everything's just going to go back to normal once they wheel Joey Sidegrin's bath chair into the Oval Office is nonsense.
Europe and the UK in particular need to think about their strategic posture in a post America world because that's where we are heading at pace.
I do think the "healing" notion is farfetched when one side is flirting with the fash and won't accept a clear election result.
But I'm a bit more optimistic than you are. They need a new and inclusive American Dream not based on white supremacy or imperialism or rapacious dog eat dog capitalism. Joe won't be driving this - no way - but he might just unlock the garage.
Got to stop with the steal shit before we can start with the heal bit.
How do you stop believing in something you believe? The disapproval of others can make you stop speaking about it, but it can't stop you believing it. Nor does the fact that Trump supporters have shamed themselves at the Capitol make any difference to the belief.
That's why there should have been more than a token effort to investigate the claims, between the election and the electoral college. Even the removal of some votes (of those who were found to have voted twice for example) would have done much to validate the election result. To anyone who says that such an unwarranted action would call every election into question and lead to huge amounts of unnecessary scrutiny - good. Where's the harm?
Now this is proper big news. The likely new leader of the free world. Who in 1950 would have thought Germany would hold that position in 2020? The times they are a changing, no question about it. On which topic I like the Header and especially the title - Europe's Last American. It's fading fast, the sense of kinship between us and the USA. I can vouch for this personally. I used to feel it, even quite recently, but now I don't. I remain fascinated by America but I look upon it as a strange and exotic land. Much of this is because of Trump but not all of it.
Germany's leader is not the leader of the free world. Biden will be from Wednesday.
Germany is not big enough, the EU might be but does not have the will
Well I look to Berlin not Washington these days for a steer on how I as a citizen of the free world should go about my business.
You can seriously say that after the vehicle emissions scandal ???
Well I was being serious so that would be a Yes. I don't demand perfection in my leaders of the free world.
Nor it seems are you bothered about them tolerating criminality, polluting the environment and ruining people's health.
The sort of example the 'leaders of the free world' should be setting.
Where did I say I wasn't bothered? It's on the debit side of a ledger in net credit right now compared to other big boy nations.
And we can all set up scorecards which result in the outcome we would like
And we can all employ facetious "knowing" closers as we exit a discussion we sense is going nowhere.
See?
But I'm right though.
There are very few people who don't allow their wishes to influence their decisions - the ends are deemed to justify the means and the misdeeds of friends are viewed more leniently than those of enemies.
Sure. I'm freer of this than some but of course in general you are right. So for every post on here let's just assume that's written in brackets at the end. (Starting with this one.)
Of course, the MSPs have a vested interest in that they - or some of them - are aspiring to the Imperial cursus honorum in the Imperial capital - via Commons to a peerage. It's not as if moving to the SNP will do any good in that respect, given SNP policies. And SKS in his desperate need to pander to the English voter all fired up with Tory propaganda about Scotch thieves in your pocket is not helping with his denial of a referendum. As Wendy Alexander - arguably the last really competent leader SLAB had before she was stabbed in the back - shows, one can want to have a referendum even if you don't believe in independence.
And how about getting into bed with Mr Johnson and Mr Gove in the independence issue? It'll be SKS and Brexit again, only worse (because it also brings up Brexit which is increasingly toxic in Scotland).
I suspect that puts them somewhat out of kilter with the membership as a whole, what is left of it after the SNP and Scottish Greens have taken large bites out of it. (And much more so with the voters too, But this is a leadership election.)
Are the unions still involved like last time? If so, then perhaps scratch Mr Sarwar? If I had to bet, I'd go for Ms Lennon if I had to, but my gut feeling is some youngster is more likely to win, as soneone else suggested on PB the other day.
Weirdly, a SLabber who has made it to the Premier League of the Lords wants to do the return trip. I just can't see the logic as she hasn't a scooby of winning, unless she wants to raise her profile for an indy Scotland? Of course I've not understood SLab logic for quite some time.
'A penchant for peers: Scottish Labour picks third member of Lords as Holyrood candidate‘
I was thinking that SLAB were running out of MSPs to elect for leader - never mind MPs. But that's only indirectly related. Even so ... does she think she'll be thrown out of the HoL on indy?
In the event of Indy I’d imagine that there’d be a certain ‘as useful as tits on a bull’ feel for Scottish peers, but that shouldn’t be a novelty for SLabbers. I guess the idea of a reborn & rejuvenated Scottish Labour Party post Indy may have its attractions.
If a future Labour government allowed indyref2 and Yes won then all Scottish peers should of course leave the Lords just as all Scottish MPs would leave the Commons.
If Scots decided to become independent then they can have no further say in the politics of the rUK
How do you define a "Scottish peer"?
And does the same logic apply to "Scots MPs"? Such as, for instance, one Gove M.
Any life peer whose main residence is in Scotland or any of the remaining hereditary peers whose ancestral home is in Scotland.
Gove M now lives in England and represents a Surrey seat. If his main residence was in Scotland and he represented a Scottish seat it would have applied to him too.
Of course, the MSPs have a vested interest in that they - or some of them - are aspiring to the Imperial cursus honorum in the Imperial capital - via Commons to a peerage. It's not as if moving to the SNP will do any good in that respect, given SNP policies. And SKS in his desperate need to pander to the English voter all fired up with Tory propaganda about Scotch thieves in your pocket is not helping with his denial of a referendum. As Wendy Alexander - arguably the last really competent leader SLAB had before she was stabbed in the back - shows, one can want to have a referendum even if you don't believe in independence.
And how about getting into bed with Mr Johnson and Mr Gove in the independence issue? It'll be SKS and Brexit again, only worse (because it also brings up Brexit which is increasingly toxic in Scotland).
I suspect that puts them somewhat out of kilter with the membership as a whole, what is left of it after the SNP and Scottish Greens have taken large bites out of it. (And much more so with the voters too, But this is a leadership election.)
Are the unions still involved like last time? If so, then perhaps scratch Mr Sarwar? If I had to bet, I'd go for Ms Lennon if I had to, but my gut feeling is some youngster is more likely to win, as soneone else suggested on PB the other day.
Weirdly, a SLabber who has made it to the Premier League of the Lords wants to do the return trip. I just can't see the logic as she hasn't a scooby of winning, unless she wants to raise her profile for an indy Scotland? Of course I've not understood SLab logic for quite some time.
'A penchant for peers: Scottish Labour picks third member of Lords as Holyrood candidate‘
I was thinking that SLAB were running out of MSPs to elect for leader - never mind MPs. But that's only indirectly related. Even so ... does she think she'll be thrown out of the HoL on indy?
In the event of Indy I’d imagine that there’d be a certain ‘as useful as tits on a bull’ feel for Scottish peers, but that shouldn’t be a novelty for SLabbers. I guess the idea of a reborn & rejuvenated Scottish Labour Party post Indy may have its attractions.
If a future Labour government allowed indyref2 and Yes won then all Scottish peers should of course leave the Lords just as all Scottish MPs would leave the Commons.
If Scots decided to become independent then they can have no further say in the politics of the rUK
Unlike now.
Where there are Scottish MPs elected to the House of Commons, Scottish peers and where there was a Scottish PM just 11 years ago (and a PM with Scottish ancestry just 5 years ago), yes.
Back of an envelope, but by Valentine's Day, we could have given at least the first jab to everyone over 60 PLUS at least 2.5m vulnerable/front line workers under 60. All NHS workers, all teachers, all care home workers.
By the end of February, add everyone over 50.
By the start of spring, we'll have a giant chunk of the population likely to trouble the NHS with a considerable degree of protection.
Which is a reason to be very, very optimistic. (Well, apart from us having only vaccinated 8 people from the BAME community....and assuming always that some new bastard variant doesn't screw us over.)
Perhaps then we can turn to the huge volume of non-Covid related medical issues and apply the same rigour and resources to them.
Well, we do have a shedload of second jabs to do too! But yeah, there is a monumnetal backlog of non-Covid issues to address - at the point where the NHS staff are just going to want to go collapse somewhere sunny for a fortnight...
David Herdson makes the interesting point that migration is changing the US cultural memory and therefore its strategic orientation. Isn't the same process likely to occur in Europe?
No, and I'm far from clear that it's even happening in the US. The large section of America that descends from German and Italian immigrants did not lead to any real risk that the US would involve itself on the wrong side in WW2. The attempted importation of fascism into America in the late 1920s and early 1930s by those with links to Italy didn't fail because of a lack of Italians, but because America took a look at the ideology and didn't like it. As much as people feel a sentimentality towards an ancestor country, it doesn't necessarily translate into strategy.
And, of course, often those who move from one country to another are cut from a different cloth to those they leave behind. And the immigrant experience further shapes you in new ways that diverge from the native experience.
100%. Of the many and varied misunderstandings of HYUFD with regard to the US is his absolute commitment to the idea of monolithic ethnic voting blocs - to the extent he invented one for “English Americans”. Eisenhower’s family was from Karlsbrunn in the Saarland. Reading HYUFD you would think he should have been relieved of command for having dubious loyalty.
It’s one of my favourite stories about proper behaviour.
George Marshall wanted the role of C-in-C. FDR knew that, and set up a meeting where he told Marshall he’d appoint whoever he nominated. Marshall refused to answer because he wanted it but thought that it was a decision that should be made by the President and it wasn’t appropriate for the Chairman of the Chiefs to influence the civilian command structure in that way.
Of course, the MSPs have a vested interest in that they - or some of them - are aspiring to the Imperial cursus honorum in the Imperial capital - via Commons to a peerage. It's not as if moving to the SNP will do any good in that respect, given SNP policies. And SKS in his desperate need to pander to the English voter all fired up with Tory propaganda about Scotch thieves in your pocket is not helping with his denial of a referendum. As Wendy Alexander - arguably the last really competent leader SLAB had before she was stabbed in the back - shows, one can want to have a referendum even if you don't believe in independence.
And how about getting into bed with Mr Johnson and Mr Gove in the independence issue? It'll be SKS and Brexit again, only worse (because it also brings up Brexit which is increasingly toxic in Scotland).
I suspect that puts them somewhat out of kilter with the membership as a whole, what is left of it after the SNP and Scottish Greens have taken large bites out of it. (And much more so with the voters too, But this is a leadership election.)
Are the unions still involved like last time? If so, then perhaps scratch Mr Sarwar? If I had to bet, I'd go for Ms Lennon if I had to, but my gut feeling is some youngster is more likely to win, as soneone else suggested on PB the other day.
Weirdly, a SLabber who has made it to the Premier League of the Lords wants to do the return trip. I just can't see the logic as she hasn't a scooby of winning, unless she wants to raise her profile for an indy Scotland? Of course I've not understood SLab logic for quite some time.
'A penchant for peers: Scottish Labour picks third member of Lords as Holyrood candidate‘
I was thinking that SLAB were running out of MSPs to elect for leader - never mind MPs. But that's only indirectly related. Even so ... does she think she'll be thrown out of the HoL on indy?
In the event of Indy I’d imagine that there’d be a certain ‘as useful as tits on a bull’ feel for Scottish peers, but that shouldn’t be a novelty for SLabbers. I guess the idea of a reborn & rejuvenated Scottish Labour Party post Indy may have its attractions.
If a future Labour government allowed indyref2 and Yes won then all Scottish peers should of course leave the Lords just as all Scottish MPs would leave the Commons.
If Scots decided to become independent then they can have no further say in the politics of the rUK
When you say "Scots", do you mean "people who sit for constituencies in Scotland, wherever they may come from" or do you mean "Scots who currently sit for seats in England"?
The latter would lead to the removal from Parliament of Gove and Fox, and no doubt many others, so would obviously be a Very Good Thing.
The former only.
My own MP, the excellent Dame Eleanor Laing, is Scottish by birth and upbringing but represents Epping Forest in the Commons and has done since 1997 and lives in the constituency. So obviously she would stay in the Commons.
Back of an envelope, but by Valentine's Day, we could have given at least the first jab to everyone over 60 PLUS at least 2.5m vulnerable/front line workers under 60. All NHS workers, all teachers, all care home workers.
By the end of February, add everyone over 50.
By the start of spring, we'll have a giant chunk of the population likely to trouble the NHS with a considerable degree of protection.
Which is a reason to be very, very optimistic. (Well, apart from us having only vaccinated 8 people from the BAME community....and assuming always that some new bastard variant doesn't screw us over.)
Perhaps then we can turn to the huge volume of non-Covid related medical issues and apply the same rigour and resources to them.
I heard something rather interesting - a minister asked if the new covid tests lab facilities, rapid test tech and other inovations could be used to reduce the traditionally slow times to get results for tests in the NHS, when this is over.
This kicked off a spate of furious emails about damaging staff morale, not-invented-here and generally hands-off-our-empires.
David Herdson makes the interesting point that migration is changing the US cultural memory and therefore its strategic orientation. Isn't the same process likely to occur in Europe?
No, and I'm far from clear that it's even happening in the US. The large section of America that descends from German and Italian immigrants did not lead to any real risk that the US would involve itself on the wrong side in WW2. The attempted importation of fascism into America in the late 1920s and early 1930s by those with links to Italy didn't fail because of a lack of Italians, but because America took a look at the ideology and didn't like it. As much as people feel a sentimentality towards an ancestor country, it doesn't necessarily translate into strategy.
And, of course, often those who move from one country to another are cut from a different cloth to those they leave behind. And the immigrant experience further shapes you in new ways that diverge from the native experience.
100%. Of the many and varied misunderstandings of HYUFD with regard to the US is his absolute commitment to the idea of monolithic ethnic voting blocs - to the extent he invented one for “English Americans”. Eisenhower’s family was from Karlsbrunn in the Saarland. Reading HYUFD you would think he should have been relieved of command for having dubious loyalty.
Eisenhower was the President who humiliated Eden over Suez, English American Presidents like Bush and Clinton have been more supportive of and closer to the UK
Eisenhower was a notably cooperative US senior commander in WW2 - even when he had the likes of Churchill and Montgomery to cope with (and Patton and Clark too, of course). And his Prsesident, Roosevelt, was also very cooperative. Just compare Admiral King.
On your logic President Kennedy and President to be Biden were not/will not cooperate with what is left of the UK just cos they are of Irish extraction..
And any future African-Ameridcan president would only cooperate with sub-Saharan Africa.
Really??
Biden as an Irish American made quite clear his loyalty to Ireland was stronger than his loyalty to the UK over the Irish border.
Roosevelt as a Dutch American pressed the UK hard to end its Empire once the War was won.
Eisenhower and Roosevelt were anti Nazi, that does not mean either were particularly pro British.
The most pro British Presidents since WW2 were probably George W Bush and Bill Clinton, both English Americans.
That does not mean other Presidents were particularly anti British, just they were the most Anglophile Presidents
Was George W Bush more "English" than George HW Bush?
George HW was closer to Kohl when he came in, certainly than Thatcher who he saw as Reagan's key friend.
He got on better with Major though. His son's closest ally of course was UK PM Tony Blair
Not what I asked. You're seeing things through the prism of supposed national origin. Since W is the son of HW, how come HW was less a friend to the UK than Clinton? Are you saying W isn't really HW's son? Or is there more to it than your potted theory?
There was little difference between HW and Clinton's approach to the UK.
The difference was more a matter of personalities, HW did not get on as well as Thatcher as Reagan had but HW got on better with Major than Clinton did. However Clinton got on very well with Blair and Blair got on very well with W too
So Clinton was simultaneously more pro-Britain that HW, and there was little difference in approach. More empty nonsense from you.
My original statement was 'English American Presidents like Bush and Clinton have been more supportive of and closer to the UK'.
Stop acting like your surname
"The most pro British Presidents since WW2 were probably George W Bush and Bill Clinton, both English Americans."
Your words, not mine. I don't so much mind the fact you make strange, flimsy statements, but the way you cleave to them so vigorously when someone finds a massive hole in them. You throw irrelevant facts in to throw off the scent, you wriggle around, you work ever so hard when the simplest thing to do is admit what everyone else can plainly see: that you blurted something out that turned out to be crap. Why are you so afraid of saying you were wrong?
Why not a Lab-Lib pact at the Scottish elections? One candidate per seat, joint list.
Culturally Labour is incapable. I think there may even be something in the party constitution preventing such a formal alliance? Labour supporters, do I have that right?
POC living as White is a charge I've heard levelled at OJ Simpson. Ironic since he got off a murder charge partly due to being black. Other reason being celebrity.
It seems to be a way of saying "Your opinion is not one I like, therefore I strip you of your privileges, on a charge of treason"
See the Thirty of Athens etc for the great depth of this tradition in politics.
WOW , unbounded talent on that list for sure. I could put up a donkey and it would be 1/100 immediately.
I expect Gordon Brown would dent the SNP hopes of an outright win
Tainted by his promises of federalism in and immediately after 2014. Instant attack line.
Also why bother? He's always seen himself as a 'British' politician. Being the branch manager of a non-independent SLAB won't appeal to him. And he does deserve to enjoy his retirement.
One of Scottish Labour's primary problems is that they have almost disappeared from view. It's not only Leonard's fault, he has followed a few reasonably anonymous predecessors, but he took anonymity to a new level as evidenced by the continued mockery of what his name actually is.
I don't think for a million years Brown is going to be the new SLab leader, but he's the only name on the list who would definitely deliver any cut-through, any reason to sit up and take notice of the party. And given his predisposition to endless Broonterventions from the sidelines he might as well at least try and intervene constructively. But it's neeeeever gonna happen.
One day either Scotland will vote for independence, or the SNP will finally implode and/or fade from power, at which point Scottish Labour will probably find a new lease of life largely by default, but I can't see much of a proactive route back into the game for them.
WOW , unbounded talent on that list for sure. I could put up a donkey and it would be 1/100 immediately.
I expect Gordon Brown would dent the SNP hopes of an outright win
Tainted by his promises of federalism in and immediately after 2014. Instant attack line.
Also why bother? He's always seen himself as a 'British' politician. Being the branch manager of a non-independent SLAB won't appeal to him. And he does deserve to enjoy his retirement.
One of Scottish Labour's primary problems is that they have almost disappeared from view. It's not only Leonard's fault, he has followed a few reasonably anonymous predecessors, but he took anonymity to a new level as evidenced by the continued mockery of what his name actually is.
I don't think for a million years Brown is going to be the new SLab leader, but he's the only name on the list who would definitely deliver any cut-through, any reason to sit up and take notice of the party. And given his predisposition to endless Broonterventions from the sidelines he might as well at least try and intervene constructively. But it's neeeeever gonna happen.
One day either Scotland will vote for independence, or the SNP will finally implode and/or fade from power, at which point Scottish Labour will probably find a new lease of life largely by default, but I can't see much of a proactive route back into the game for them.
If they stay on their current Union Jack route they will never be back. They need to become a real Scottish labour Party and have some policies for Scotland. Currently as an insipid branch office for British Labour they are justly reviled by the majority of people. You only need to listen to that clown Starmer to understand he knows nothing of Scotland and the idiots up here pushing his Tory lite tack are doomed.
Can't disagree with that malcolm. But zero likelihood of it happening.
Their attempts to out-Union the Scottish Conservatives do more damage to them each time and yet each time they try even harder than before. Truly, the definition of insanity.
Of course, the MSPs have a vested interest in that they - or some of them - are aspiring to the Imperial cursus honorum in the Imperial capital - via Commons to a peerage. It's not as if moving to the SNP will do any good in that respect, given SNP policies. And SKS in his desperate need to pander to the English voter all fired up with Tory propaganda about Scotch thieves in your pocket is not helping with his denial of a referendum. As Wendy Alexander - arguably the last really competent leader SLAB had before she was stabbed in the back - shows, one can want to have a referendum even if you don't believe in independence.
And how about getting into bed with Mr Johnson and Mr Gove in the independence issue? It'll be SKS and Brexit again, only worse (because it also brings up Brexit which is increasingly toxic in Scotland).
I suspect that puts them somewhat out of kilter with the membership as a whole, what is left of it after the SNP and Scottish Greens have taken large bites out of it. (And much more so with the voters too, But this is a leadership election.)
Are the unions still involved like last time? If so, then perhaps scratch Mr Sarwar? If I had to bet, I'd go for Ms Lennon if I had to, but my gut feeling is some youngster is more likely to win, as soneone else suggested on PB the other day.
I have heard a couple of positives about Jackie Baillie here and there. That doesn't seem to tally with her being 8 to 1. If it was on Betfair I would put £5 on her. Knowing virtually nothing about SLABs process, I would probably swiftly lose it though, so perhaps just as well it isn't.
Very impressed by the ramp-up in the vaccination programme so far. If we keep this up we'll be amongst the first in the world to be able to return to normal, albeit we shouldn't loosen restrictions too early in the meantime.
A question for those following the vaccination ramp-up more closely, is 500,000 per day, including weekends, an upper limit of what is realistic? Or will we be able to keep increasing it over January/February? It will be interesting as to what proportion of the population we can vaccinate over the next 10-12 weeks before the second doses start to slow the pace of first jabs.
It seems likely that the new Brazilian variant can escape both vaccine- and infection-induced immunity, and also that within a few months it will reach the UK.
We are vaccinating millions of people per week now, so we will have the people in place to revaccinate the UK population very quickly. We will need to manufacture the new vaccines very quickly, in a few weeks. The plant and machinery required needs to be put in place now, as quickly as the Russians built T34 tanks in 1943.
The regulatory approval needs to be super fast too. If new phase III trials are needed for the new vaccines they will be too late, as the virus could mutate again. Have the lessons yet been learnt from 2020? The only way to beat this virus with vaccines is through speed. If this fails, there will be multiple waves of variants over several years before the virus finally burns itself out.
The article has lots of could, perhaps and maybes.
From the start, many scientists have said getting your COVID jab will become like the annual flu jab as the virus will be endemic and ever mutating.
The whole thing rests on the very tenuous claim that Manaus has had huge numbers of people infected.
I would suggest that in the future it will be more a case of "What should we cover in this years program of whole population vacinnes?"
Why not a Lab-Lib pact at the Scottish elections? One candidate per seat, joint list.
Culturally Labour is incapable. I think there may even be something in the party constitution preventing such a formal alliance? Labour supporters, do I have that right?
Then they should change the constitution. The Tories undoubtedly represent a section of Scottish opinion, but there is no way they can be standard-bearers of a pro-Union front.
Lab and Libs need to stop wasting time opposing each other, despite no doubt historic enmities.
Now this is proper big news. The likely new leader of the free world. Who in 1950 would have thought Germany would hold that position in 2020? The times they are a changing, no question about it. On which topic I like the Header and especially the title - Europe's Last American. It's fading fast, the sense of kinship between us and the USA. I can vouch for this personally. I used to feel it, even quite recently, but now I don't. I remain fascinated by America but I look upon it as a strange and exotic land. Much of this is because of Trump but not all of it.
I went to school in the US for 2 years and spent the best 4 years of my career on exchange with the USN so I yield to nobody in my admiration and respect for the American people and the ideals of their nation.
However, you'd have to be wilfully blind not see that it's heading for rapid and violently messy decline. The notion that everything's just going to go back to normal once they wheel Joey Sidegrin's bath chair into the Oval Office is nonsense.
Europe and the UK in particular need to think about their strategic posture in a post America world because that's where we are heading at pace.
It's heading for messy decline because of the obdurate refusal of conservatives and liberals to compromise on anything. It would be quite simple to solve the problem, but no-one seems to be interested.
That's where identity politics in a diverse society gets you unfortunately. Lots of binary issues, manufactured outrage and, in America's case, guns lying around.
"Up to half those offered vaccine in Birmingham covid hotspots refusing to have it Health chief stresses: 'This vaccine is safe and is only being offered to people at real risk of dying'
Up to 50 per cent of vulnerable people in some of the worst-affected parts of Birmingham are declining the covid vaccines. Asian and black community leaders across Birmingham are being urged to help health chiefs share vaccine safety messages amid fears those most at risk of dying are holding back from getting protected."
A letter, signed by Liam Byrne (Lab, Hodge Hill), Andrew Mitchell (Cons, Sutton Coldfield) and Birmingham City Council leader Coun Ian Ward, asked for a full daily update on vaccination take-up - including a percentage breakdown by each vulnerable group, and "advance and transparent warning of any issues on the ground so we can take them up".
Mr Byrne said today: "We urgently need the veil of silence to be lifted on this, because the health of some of the most vulnerable in the city is being threatened by the government deciding to gag our health chiefs. Their refusal to shine a light on the vaccination programme is now potentially putting lives at risk.
"Our BAME inquiry (into the disproportionate level of deaths among Black and Asian residents) in the summer revealed that Covid has not hit everyone equally. It has hit our ethnic communities hardest, and now the Government appears to want to keep secret whether the vaccination programme is getting through to those who most need it."
Is the government really trying to keep things secret about the vaccination programme? As one of the few successes it's had, it seems like they have been releasing lots of information about it. Anyone know the detail that is supposedly being withheld?
Perhaps they think vaccination should be slowed down until full demographic details can be obtained and analysed.
Of course anyone declining vaccination now will be able to get one later on if they change their mind.
It's fairly simple - cultural sensitivity meets cultural problems.
Speaking about negative aspects of non-British cultures is highly problematic. No one wants to put out a report over their signature that details exactly who is refusing the vaccine.
In this case the issue of anti-vax and anti-modern-medicine beliefs are well documented in some cultures. Ask anyone who works in international aid.
Comments
From the start, many scientists have said getting your COVID jab will become like the annual flu jab as the virus will be endemic and ever mutating.
That's the way to tell the vulnerable you luv 'em!
Of course anyone declining vaccination now will be able to get one later on if they change their mind.
Trump was more effective on foreign policy than many give him credit for. Was it three countries he bullied/bribed/cajoled into signing peace treaties with Israel?
'A penchant for peers: Scottish Labour picks third member of Lords as Holyrood candidate'
https://tinyurl.com/y5pne7h9
Nevertheless - thank you and quits.
The difference was more a matter of personalities, HW did not get on as well as Thatcher as Reagan had but HW got on better with Major than Clinton did. However Clinton got on very well with Blair and Blair got on very well with W too
They have the potential but, for reasons of history, no desire to project it. If it was French dominated they might be able to become one (although I have my doubts) but not while Germany is the dominant voice
Glasgow voted Yes but Labour are not going to retake that from the SNP, seats elsewhere in the central belt and Edinburgh are better bets for SLab with Tory tactical votes
Queueing/entry system all well organised and volunteer workers very friendly. Didn't see any BAME among the queue but since we were nearly all over 80 and there's no BAME community in the area, that's hardly surprising.
I also expect the USA and India to move closer together to contain China, as neither will be strong enough to do so on their own.
It is hard to know if reinvention with the new variant such as the Manaus one are more common than reinfection from the original. Time will tell.
Is there something you need to tell us?
"[For saving my life,] thank you; but fuck you for being there." Michael Fanone
See?
I wondered whether it would be possible to deliberately mutate this thing in a test tube (as has been done to some degree) against current antibodies and then make a vaccine for the mutant version in advance of it appearing.
It seems the same mutations keep popping up so it might well be a good prediction of where this is going.
The company cited personal reasons for Li Zhiming’s resignation, according to a filing for the Hong Kong-listed company. Li Hui, a director and audit committee member of Sinopharm subsidiary China National Medicines Corp. also resigned Tuesday due to personal reasons, a separate filing disclosed.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/15/china-vaccine-maker-sinopharm-says-chairman-and-a-director-resigned.html
Laschet is "continuity Merkel" in many respects but the key player looks to be Jens Spahn who I think will have a senior role in any future Laschet Govenrment and is the heir apparent.
Laschet worked well enough with the FDP in his own State but he's much more likely to be able to work with the Greens than Merz but the problem then becomes resistance from the CSU wing to any future Black-Green coalition.
I also think the election of Laschet closes the door on any CDU/CSU-AfD coalition.
However yes it is unlikely to be a political and military power bloc unless France drives that agenda as the strongest EU military power.
By the end of February, add everyone over 50.
By the start of spring, we'll have a giant chunk of the population likely to trouble the NHS with a considerable degree of protection.
Which is a reason to be very, very optimistic. (Well, apart from us having only vaccinated 8 people from the BAME community....and assuming always that some new bastard variant doesn't screw us over.)
OTOH, you could say Trump domestic disasters and destruction of the Western alliance provided the opening for - or at very least accelerated - China's actions in HK.
Trump was a truly disastrous President, but that does not mean that he was wrong in every instance in his naming the issues.
Any idea what it is up to?
https://twitter.com/LabourList/status/1350397651951505409?s=20
Saw a fair bit of it last summer at Manc airport - I live close enough to see the planes passing over head regularly.
If Markus Soder, Bavarian Minister President and CSU leader, runs for it he could get it. The CDU delegates only gave Laschet a narrow win in the second round over Merz.
The CSU have not had one of their own as chancellor candidate since Stoiber in 2002 and may feel it is their turn again.
That may be true in theory. But how does it work in practice?
Say I get a letter next week and I ignore it as I am a total anti-vaxxer and then come end of February I have a dramatic change of heart.
What do I do then to get an appointment?
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-vaccination/book-coronavirus-vaccination/
One million Chinese-made vaccines arrive in Serbia
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has shared a photograph of himself on Instagram at Belgrade airport next to a plane arriving with Chinese-made vaccines.
"I would like to thank President Xi Jinping and Chinese leadership for sending us one million doses of the vaccine," Mr Vucic told reporters.
The vaccine, made by Sinopharm, has already been approved for general use in China but no detailed data from trials have been publicly released beyond claims of between 79-86% efficacy from Chinese and UAE officials.
3,817 second (-21%)
My mum rules!
https://twitter.com/CrimeLdn/status/1350454256839614465?s=20
There are very few people who don't allow their wishes to influence their decisions - the ends are deemed to justify the means and the misdeeds of friends are viewed more leniently than those of enemies.
If Scots decided to become independent then they can have no further say in the politics of the rUK
More empty nonsense from you.
Though I imagine the government will send out letters to those who have not been vaccinated as they have done for flu vaccinations.
And does the same logic apply to "Scots MPs"? Such as, for instance, one Gove M.
Stop acting like your surname
The latter would lead to the removal from Parliament of Gove and Fox, and no doubt many others, so would obviously be a Very Good Thing.
That's why there should have been more than a token effort to investigate the claims, between the election and the electoral college. Even the removal of some votes (of those who were found to have voted twice for example) would have done much to validate the election result. To anyone who says that such an unwarranted action would call every election into question and lead to huge amounts of unnecessary scrutiny - good. Where's the harm?
Gove M now lives in England and represents a Surrey seat. If his main residence was in Scotland and he represented a Scottish seat it would have applied to him too.
What is with you Britnat guys and Blut und Boden?
George Marshall wanted the role of C-in-C. FDR knew that, and set up a meeting where he told Marshall he’d appoint whoever he nominated. Marshall refused to answer because he wanted it but thought that it was a decision that should be made by the President and it wasn’t appropriate for the Chairman of the Chiefs to influence the civilian command structure in that way.
My own MP, the excellent Dame Eleanor Laing, is Scottish by birth and upbringing but represents Epping Forest in the Commons and has done since 1997 and lives in the constituency. So obviously she would stay in the Commons.
This kicked off a spate of furious emails about damaging staff morale, not-invented-here and generally hands-off-our-empires.
Your words, not mine.
I don't so much mind the fact you make strange, flimsy statements, but the way you cleave to them so vigorously when someone finds a massive hole in them. You throw irrelevant facts in to throw off the scent, you wriggle around, you work ever so hard when the simplest thing to do is admit what everyone else can plainly see: that you blurted something out that turned out to be crap. Why are you so afraid of saying you were wrong?
https://twitter.com/daniellambert29/status/1350367078662987777?s=21
See the Thirty of Athens etc for the great depth of this tradition in politics.
A question for those following the vaccination ramp-up more closely, is 500,000 per day, including weekends, an upper limit of what is realistic? Or will we be able to keep increasing it over January/February? It will be interesting as to what proportion of the population we can vaccinate over the next 10-12 weeks before the second doses start to slow the pace of first jabs.
The Tories undoubtedly represent a section of Scottish opinion, but there is no way they can be standard-bearers of a pro-Union front.
Lab and Libs need to stop wasting time opposing each other, despite no doubt historic enmities.
Speaking about negative aspects of non-British cultures is highly problematic. No one wants to put out a report over their signature that details exactly who is refusing the vaccine.
In this case the issue of anti-vax and anti-modern-medicine beliefs are well documented in some cultures. Ask anyone who works in international aid.