Senedd shake-up: what happens if Welsh Labour lose their majority? – politicalbetting.com

eristdoof said:

Fairliered said:

Black_Rook said:

Andy_JS said:

another_richard said:

MaxPB said:

Very strong vaccine figures.

Regional

East 62,169
London 42,015 ???
Midlands 84,163
NE & Yorks 62,618
North-West 60,255
South East 63,109
South West 49,197

Not surprised that the Midlands has the highest numbers. I've heard from multiple sources that things are pretty well organised there.

Though the combined East and West Midlands is presumably also the most populous of these counting areas?

Glad to see improved numbers from the East of England. Hopefully this indicates that we've finished our tyre change and are speeding back out of the pit lane.

Lord alone knows what's going on with London.

Is there a smaller proportion of oldies in London?

Probably. Many couples living in Greater London retire, sell the house and move somewhere cheaper with a more relaxed pace of life.

OllyT said:

There have always been far left & right groups that are prone to violence. The difference surely is that the Democratic Party and Biden don't support the far-leftists whereas the GOP and Trump clearly do.

NickPalmer said:

Casino_Royale said:

I'm reading the Battle of Singapore at present, which is a campaign that's always fascinated me, particularly as we outnumbered the Japanese so significantly.

At the end of the day Malaya was bottom of the list for men and materials, as we were fighting for survival in Europe, so it got green troops and no tanks, modern fighter or bomber aircraft, or aircraft carriers, few ships, and had to make do with men, armoured cars, field artillery and anti-tank rifles. And a handful of obsolescent aircraft.

It could never have held out forever given that but the reason it fell in 2 months (rather than 5-6 months, with at least the prospect of a stalemate) is due to immense racial prejudice against the Japanese, myth-making about "Fortress Singapore", which was just wishful thinking, and poor officers.

The psychology of Percival as a commander is interesting. He's not quite as atrocious as I always thought he was. He was good on paper and had a fair military brain. But, he didn't have the assertiveness or strength of character to push back against the Governor (and some of his unit commanders) who pushed him around nor the inner confidence to revisit his assumptions when they were disproved by reality, and thus fell prey to confirmation bias.

The chief example is that he (correctly, in my view) determined that the Japanese could only be defeated by mobile infiltration and flanking tactics in the field. However, he concluded from that that building fixed defences would therefore be bad for morale, as the troops would just cower behind them, and it would involve admitting just how vulnerable Singapore really was. In reality, this is why they couldn't rest or hold the Japanese (as they had nowhere to do it) and why British Empire troops became exhausted and increasingly ineffective.

He'd have made a good staff officer, but very senior command is far more about character. It's like the difference between a good psephological statistician and a successful gambler.

Thanks - interesting. The ability to recognise that one's a good staff officer rather than a good leader is really rare - nearly everyone wants to get to the top, and then not infrequently regrets it. I've come to see in civilian management that I'm a good, reliable chief of staff but not really a creative leader, but it took a long while before I decided that that's actually OK, and it's better to do a less senior job well than to struggle at the top. Perhaps something to be imparted gently in career advice. just to keep in mind as one discovers one's limits.

In the Army, of course, it's a gross failure at the top if they don't recognise it for you and lose a war because of routine promotion. Does it give Percival's background and how he came to get that role?

Sean_F said:

Casino_Royale said:

@Jonathan @Sean_F loving the history chat on here this morning.

Fascinating. Thanks for sharing.

Many thanks. An awful lot of what we "know" about WWI comes down to Alan Clark's book, The Donkeys. Reading Castastrophe, by Max Hastings, dispelled a lot of the wrong ideas I had about WWI.

Few scholars would take The Donkeys seriously, but OTOH, I do think his Barbarossa has really stood the test of time. It lacked the benefit of much in the way of Russian primary sources, (it was written in the 1960's) and has some odd gaps (little about the Siege of Leningrad, and only two chapters covering the year after Kursk) but I think his judgements about the 1941-43 period are very sound.

He is unsparing in his criticisms of the German High Command, and implicates them (and not just the SS) in atrocities, and offers justified praise for the fighting qualities of the Red Army, all of which would have gone against the grain of popular history in the 1960's.

Malmesbury said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Malmesbury said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Malmesbury said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Benpointer said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

The government said they wanted 500k / day by the end of this week. They are going to be just short, but fantastic effort by all concerned. But no surrender....got to keep pushing. We really shouldn't be doing this nonsense though...

Somerset’s only Covid-19 vaccination centre to close this Saturday for horse racing

https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/somersets-only-covid-19-vaccination-4918215

Some nags racing really isn't important at the moment.

Terribly misleading headline. Taunton Racecourse might be Somerset’s only mass Covid-19 vaccination centre, but it's certainly not the only vaccination centre in the county.

Yes, that's local news for you. But still, its stupid having a mass vaccination centre close for an afternoon of gee-gees.

10-1 that the Racecourse was booked as a vaccination centre for use on the days when it isn't being used for racing.
i.e. this was the plan all along.

The report says that is the case, but still. It seems a bit stupid.

It would be stupid, if there was a queue of people wait for their shot, because there were piles of vaccine, but no space to give it to them.

All the reports I have come across suggest that we have a surplus of vaccination capacity, but a restricted supply (relatively) of vaccine.

I am sure that is the case, but I bet we see lower numbers associated with the weekend again. With this programme there shouldn't be any weekend effect built-in, it should be max numbers every day based on supply, but it seems like there is a certain element of reduction in jabbing on Saturday and Sundays.

In the long run, working a system 7 days a week, let alone 24/7, has a number of effects.

There is a reason that many operations gravitate to the working week cycle - it gives humans and systems time for rest, repair and re-stock.

If you can deliver all the vaccine available in 5 days a week, with a lower key operation on Saturday and Sunday - why not?

TimT said:

kle4 said:

TimT said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

BBC rejects race complaint about use of ‘nitty-gritty’

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bbc-rejects-race-complaint-about-use-of-nitty-gritty-zmq96nzvq

But MOTD aren't allowed to use it.

TBH, I had no idea that anyone associated that term with racism. Can you be racist for using a term that you had no idea was racist?

Well in ignorance people can say something very offensive, and treating people doing something offensive in ignorance with those doing it with malice would be wrong.

But it doesn't seem like many people would ever think that term was offensive in the first place.

A brief internet search seems to indicate that there is a retrospective effort now to prove it is, with very little prima facie evidence of its roots in slavery. Suggesting nits were prevalent in slave ships and grits are what poor people in the South eat, hence nitty-gritty came from the slave trade is thin gruel indeed. That nigritique from the French transformed itself into nitty-gritty is a little more convincing, but why is there no printed record of the term contemporaneous to the slave trade itself? Why does it only first appear in the 1930s, and then not in reference to slavery?

I am calling bullshit on this one

williamglenn said:

Sean_F said:

rottenborough said:

https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1352973910531330048

Do the voters of the respective parties have much in common. I should think Green voters are well to the left of Lib Dem voters.

The Greens in Germany have become progressively more centrist as their support base has grown.

MarqueeMark said:

Gallowgate said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Almost half of people in high ethnic minority areas snub coronavirus jab

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/almost-half-of-people-in-high-ethnic-minority-areas-snub-coronavirus-jab-dgmx9mg9t

This is very worrying

There really needs to be a push to have community leaders changing minds on this. Otherwise, race relations are going to be set back hugely, should high levels of Covid in ethnic communities be the reason that areas are staying in high tiers even though the rest of the community has been vaxxed. There's going to be a very vocal element saying "fuck 'em, they had their chance, why should my local stay closed?"

Casino_Royale said:

Sean_F said:

Casino_Royale said:

@Jonathan @Sean_F loving the history chat on here this morning.

Fascinating. Thanks for sharing.

Many thanks. An awful lot of what we "know" about WWI comes down to Alan Clark's book, The Donkeys. Reading Castastrophe, by Max Hastings, dispelled a lot of the wrong ideas I had about WWI.

Few scholars would take The Donkeys seriously, but OTOH, I do think his Barbarossa has really stood the test of time. It lacked the benefit of much in the way of Russian primary sources, (it was written in the 1960's) and has some odd gaps (little about the Siege of Leningrad, and only two chapters covering the year after Kursk) but I think his judgements about the 1941-43 period are very sound.

He is unsparing in his criticisms of the German High Command, and implicates them (and not just the SS) in atrocities, and offers justified praise for the fighting qualities of the Red Army, all of which would have gone against the grain of popular history in the 1960's.

What shocks me, Sean, is how many people seem to take Blackadder (a comedy show) seriously.

Malmesbury said:

OllyT said:

GIN1138 said:

Mysticrose said:

Mouth is fed.

Meanwhile I don't know if this has already been commented on:

https://twitter.com/martin_mckee/status/1352923893946871808?s=20

You would think Labour would/should be doing a lot better than "neck and neck" given the circumstances?

My impression was that we were expecting clear Tory leads after the Brexit deal and vaccine roll out.

My guess, from talking to people, is that the vaccination thing hasn't really filtered through to the politically uninvolved yet.

Yes, granny is getting her jab. But the scale of what is going on, is curiously below the radar. Yes, it is on the BBC etc, but it doesn't seem to have sunk in.

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

TimT said:

kle4 said:

TimT said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

BBC rejects race complaint about use of ‘nitty-gritty’

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bbc-rejects-race-complaint-about-use-of-nitty-gritty-zmq96nzvq

But MOTD aren't allowed to use it.

TBH, I had no idea that anyone associated that term with racism. Can you be racist for using a term that you had no idea was racist?

Well in ignorance people can say something very offensive, and treating people doing something offensive in ignorance with those doing it with malice would be wrong.

But it doesn't seem like many people would ever think that term was offensive in the first place.

A brief internet search seems to indicate that there is a retrospective effort now to prove it is, with very little prima facie evidence of its roots in slavery. Suggesting nits were prevalent in slave ships and grits are what poor people in the South eat, hence nitty-gritty came from the slave trade is thin gruel indeed. That nigritique from the French transformed itself into nitty-gritty is a little more convincing, but why is there no printed record of the term contemporaneous to the slave trade itself? Why does it only first appear in the 1930s, and then not in reference to slavery?

I am calling bullshit on this one

The notion that the term "nitty-gritty" is offensive to Black people (in the USA anyway) let alone inherently racist, is indeed total bullshit.

"Spook" is interesting in that was once pretty common as slang for "Black person" very similar to "spade". However, if someone was clearly using "spook" to mean a spy (or using "spade" meaning a kind of shovel) then it is NOT offensive or racist.

"Orientials" used to be an acceptable way of referring to "Asians" but that ended decades ago, now it is regarded as in the same league as "colored person" or (dare I say it) "piccaninny").

"Nigardly" is a special case, as it is not inherently racist HOWEVER the phonetics of the first two syllables make it MOST impolitic to use, in either oral or written communication. Unless you are willing to put up with a LOT of adverse comment (to put it mildly).

FrancisUrquhart said:

Malmesbury said:

OllyT said:

GIN1138 said:

Mysticrose said:

Mouth is fed.

Meanwhile I don't know if this has already been commented on:

https://twitter.com/martin_mckee/status/1352923893946871808?s=20

You would think Labour would/should be doing a lot better than "neck and neck" given the circumstances?

My impression was that we were expecting clear Tory leads after the Brexit deal and vaccine roll out.

My guess, from talking to people, is that the vaccination thing hasn't really filtered through to the politically uninvolved yet.

Yes, granny is getting her jab. But the scale of what is going on, is curiously below the radar. Yes, it is on the BBC etc, but it doesn't seem to have sunk in.

Well the media aren't giving the government any credit either....today it is still all about how the government have got the programme wrong, they are hiding delivery data, they are distributing it unfairly to different regions....

Unlike during the first wave where we got a chart every night saying look this is how shit the UK is doing vs every other European country on testing, cases, deaths...strangely these graphs on vaccinations, rarely appear.

Instead we are just told Israel doing amazing....far better than the UK.

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

TimT said:

kle4 said:

TimT said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

BBC rejects race complaint about use of ‘nitty-gritty’

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bbc-rejects-race-complaint-about-use-of-nitty-gritty-zmq96nzvq

But MOTD aren't allowed to use it.

TBH, I had no idea that anyone associated that term with racism. Can you be racist for using a term that you had no idea was racist?

Well in ignorance people can say something very offensive, and treating people doing something offensive in ignorance with those doing it with malice would be wrong.

But it doesn't seem like many people would ever think that term was offensive in the first place.

A brief internet search seems to indicate that there is a retrospective effort now to prove it is, with very little prima facie evidence of its roots in slavery. Suggesting nits were prevalent in slave ships and grits are what poor people in the South eat, hence nitty-gritty came from the slave trade is thin gruel indeed. That nigritique from the French transformed itself into nitty-gritty is a little more convincing, but why is there no printed record of the term contemporaneous to the slave trade itself? Why does it only first appear in the 1930s, and then not in reference to slavery?

I am calling bullshit on this one

The notion that the term "nitty-gritty" is offensive to Black people (in the USA anyway) let alone inherently racist, is indeed total bullshit.

"Spook" is interesting in that was once pretty common as slang for "Black person" very similar to "spade". However, if someone was clearly using "spook" to mean a spy (or using "spade" meaning a kind of shovel) then it is NOT offensive or racist.

"Orientials" used to be an acceptable way of referring to "Asians" but that ended decades ago, now it is regarded as in the same league as "colored person" or (dare I say it) "piccaninny").

"Nigardly" is a special case, as it is not inherently racist HOWEVER the phonetics of the first two syllables make it MOST impolitic to use, in either oral or written communication. Unless you are willing to put up with a LOT of adverse comment (to put it mildly).

YBarddCwsc said:

TimT said:

YBarddCwsc said:

TimT said:

YBarddCwsc said:

Tres said:

12 months ago I was attending a talk by Sir David Spiegelhalter and in the Q&A afterwards he merrily pointed out how estimates of deaths from previous outbreaks like BSE/swine flu/bird flu etc. were order of magnitude greater than what had occured and therefore not to worry our heads about this outbreak of flu in China.

Ha ... I have a high opinion of David Spiegelhalter, and of course his history is correct (tbf, he is a professional statistician not an epidemiologist).

COVID is an exceptionally well-designed virus ... it has wrought more havoc than anyone could have ever imagined.

Except COVID is not designed at all, it is evolved.

It has been designed by evolution

I used the word mischievously ... because if you were going to design a killer vaccine, you might well have come up with something quite like COVID

Sorry, can't let you wriggle free on this one. Evolution and design have no overlap. In the laboratory, we can use directed evolution to select top performers against design parameters, rather than having to design them. But it is still not design.

Intent is implicit in design. There is absolutely no intent in evolution.

Perhaps I can phrase my underlying question thus.

Suppose an evil biotechnologist wanted to improve on COVID & make it more destructive?

What would the e.b. do to make it worse?

I am not one for conspiracy theories, but it is not obvious to me that this virus was not engineered.

Sure, it could have come naturally from bats & that is perhaps a much more likely explanation. But, an escape from a lab does not look to me it can be immediately ruled out. It is certainly a curious coincidence that Wuhan houses an Institute of Virology.

After all, we do know viruses can & do escape from labs (Birmingham smallpox).

Malmesbury said:

Casino_Royale said:

Sean_F said:

Casino_Royale said:

@Jonathan @Sean_F loving the history chat on here this morning.

Fascinating. Thanks for sharing.

Many thanks. An awful lot of what we "know" about WWI comes down to Alan Clark's book, The Donkeys. Reading Castastrophe, by Max Hastings, dispelled a lot of the wrong ideas I had about WWI.

Few scholars would take The Donkeys seriously, but OTOH, I do think his Barbarossa has really stood the test of time. It lacked the benefit of much in the way of Russian primary sources, (it was written in the 1960's) and has some odd gaps (little about the Siege of Leningrad, and only two chapters covering the year after Kursk) but I think his judgements about the 1941-43 period are very sound.

He is unsparing in his criticisms of the German High Command, and implicates them (and not just the SS) in atrocities, and offers justified praise for the fighting qualities of the Red Army, all of which would have gone against the grain of popular history in the 1960's.

What shocks me, Sean, is how many people seem to take Blackadder (a comedy show) seriously.

Catastrophe by Max Hastings is excellent. And very readable.

We didn't have much of a choice once Belgium was invaded.

The Germans would have won. Once that had happened they'd have dominated the Channel and the North sea, and our supply lines, and our word as an ally and upholder of the international order would never have been taken seriously again - risking our long-term isolation and a supplicant rather than a world power.

We had to fight.

Yes. Imagine a Imperial Germany that had won 1870 and 1914. They believed in War. War is Good.. War is God.

Seriously, read some the 1900s stuff from there... crazy to us. Imagine that affirmed by a quick victory in WWI.

They were planning on the next war while fighting in 1914 - they wanted to be in a good position when the next one kicked off.

So, imagine, without the destruction of 1914-18 - how many years before the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute gets it's uranium machine up and running?

Probably just in time for the next party.....

Luckyguy1983 said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

Black_Rook said:

Sandpit said:

CarlottaVance said:

I'd missed this - is it appropriate for an "expert" to block other experts?

What the hell happened to scientists challenging and arguing with each other? It’s the whole basis of science - or at least it was, before science started to become political.

Professor Sridhar is, insofar as I'm aware, an exceptional case. Overt political bias does not seem to be a feature of the epidemiological community - whether amongst those in favour of the zero Covid strategy or otherwise.

She looks OK

She is very attractive. Sadly she's also become involved politically with the current Scottish Government to a ludicrous extent.

CarlottaVance said:

Deaths up, new cases and patients trending down:

BluestBlue said:

The British media obviously see it as their sacred duty to magnify our failures and scorn our successes. Because Brexit, or Empire, or Tories, or something...

stodge said:

Casino_Royale said:

The Greens policies have been successfully and comprehensively absorbed into both main parties platforms, and are being pursued as far and as fast as is economically and socially practicable - with constant challenging to do better. That just leaves a lunatic XR fringe; there's no space for them.

There's definitely a space for a traditional liberal party (something I think we've lost) but the Lib Dems seem to be more interested in being a very posh, pompous and obsessive Rejoin party instead.

I think the LDs are in a transitional process from what they were to what they will be. Parties do this periodically - the LD party I joined and worked for died in the fire of the Coalition. After 2015, the party had no time to re-establish a new liberal identity before the EU Referendum came along and affected it as it did all parties.

I see some encouraging signs it is moving away from the obsession with the EU and Davey is using the experience he gained in the Coalition to position the Party as an environmentally-sensitive free-market alternative and that's not bad ground to be on though of course the eternal populist Johnson will also seek to be on that ground as well.

I'd like the LDs to be the fiscally conservative option in opposition to the two big spending parties - the Liberal Unionists and the Social Democrats. The cost of fighting Covid may have to be some of the Government's vanity projects though the decision to spend money on improving rail links is welcome.

Otherwise it's back to the pavement politics for the LDs and the County Council elections in particular provide some opportunities for the LDs and other parties to crop some of the Conservative seats won at the height of Theresa May's popularity (those words still don't sit well together).

BluestBlue said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Malmesbury said:

OllyT said:

GIN1138 said:

Mysticrose said:

Mouth is fed.

Meanwhile I don't know if this has already been commented on:

https://twitter.com/martin_mckee/status/1352923893946871808?s=20

You would think Labour would/should be doing a lot better than "neck and neck" given the circumstances?

My impression was that we were expecting clear Tory leads after the Brexit deal and vaccine roll out.

My guess, from talking to people, is that the vaccination thing hasn't really filtered through to the politically uninvolved yet.

Yes, granny is getting her jab. But the scale of what is going on, is curiously below the radar. Yes, it is on the BBC etc, but it doesn't seem to have sunk in.

Well the media aren't giving the government any credit either....today it is still all about how the government have got the programme wrong, they are hiding delivery data, they are distributing it unfairly to different regions....

Unlike during the first wave where we got a chart every night saying look this is how shit the UK is doing vs every other European country on testing, cases, deaths...strangely these graphs on vaccinations, rarely appear.

Instead we are just told Israel doing amazing....far better than the UK.

The British media obviously see it as their sacred duty to magnify our failures and scorn our successes. Because Brexit, or Empire, or Tories, or something...

Casino_Royale said:

Malmesbury said:

Casino_Royale said:

Sean_F said:

Casino_Royale said:

@Jonathan @Sean_F loving the history chat on here this morning.

Fascinating. Thanks for sharing.

Many thanks. An awful lot of what we "know" about WWI comes down to Alan Clark's book, The Donkeys. Reading Castastrophe, by Max Hastings, dispelled a lot of the wrong ideas I had about WWI.

Few scholars would take The Donkeys seriously, but OTOH, I do think his Barbarossa has really stood the test of time. It lacked the benefit of much in the way of Russian primary sources, (it was written in the 1960's) and has some odd gaps (little about the Siege of Leningrad, and only two chapters covering the year after Kursk) but I think his judgements about the 1941-43 period are very sound.

He is unsparing in his criticisms of the German High Command, and implicates them (and not just the SS) in atrocities, and offers justified praise for the fighting qualities of the Red Army, all of which would have gone against the grain of popular history in the 1960's.

What shocks me, Sean, is how many people seem to take Blackadder (a comedy show) seriously.

Catastrophe by Max Hastings is excellent. And very readable.

We didn't have much of a choice once Belgium was invaded.

The Germans would have won. Once that had happened they'd have dominated the Channel and the North sea, and our supply lines, and our word as an ally and upholder of the international order would never have been taken seriously again - risking our long-term isolation and a supplicant rather than a world power.

We had to fight.

Yes. Imagine a Imperial Germany that had won 1870 and 1914. They believed in War. War is Good.. War is God.

Seriously, read some the 1900s stuff from there... crazy to us. Imagine that affirmed by a quick victory in WWI.

They were planning on the next war while fighting in 1914 - they wanted to be in a good position when the next one kicked off.

So, imagine, without the destruction of 1914-18 - how many years before the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute gets it's uranium machine up and running?

Probably just in time for the next party.....

WWI was terrible, so we like to think we could have avoided it instead.

We couldn't have.

Casino_Royale said:

NickPalmer said:

Casino_Royale said:

I'm reading the Battle of Singapore at present, which is a campaign that's always fascinated me, particularly as we outnumbered the Japanese so significantly.

At the end of the day Malaya was bottom of the list for men and materials, as we were fighting for survival in Europe, so it got green troops and no tanks, modern fighter or bomber aircraft, or aircraft carriers, few ships, and had to make do with men, armoured cars, field artillery and anti-tank rifles. And a handful of obsolescent aircraft.

It could never have held out forever given that but the reason it fell in 2 months (rather than 5-6 months, with at least the prospect of a stalemate) is due to immense racial prejudice against the Japanese, myth-making about "Fortress Singapore", which was just wishful thinking, and poor officers.

.

He'd have made a good staff officer, but very senior command is far more about character. It's like the difference between a good psephological statistician and a successful gambler.

Thanks - interesting. The ability to recognise that one's a good staff officer rather than a good leader is really rare - nearly everyone wants to get to the top, and then not infrequently regrets it. I've come to see in civilian management that I'm a good, reliable chief of staff but not really a creative leader, but it took a long while before I decided that that's actually OK, and it's better to do a less senior job well than to struggle at the top. Perhaps something to be imparted gently in career advice. just to keep in mind as one discovers one's limits.

In the Army, of course, it's a gross failure at the top if they don't recognise it for you and lose a war because of routine promotion. Does it give Percival's background and how he came to get that role?

Interestingly, Percival had a civilian career first and joined the army quite late in life. He was then considered something of a high flyer, and was promoted largely on merit as opposed to the old school tie like a lot of his compatriots. He was certainly brave, and won the military cross in WW1. However, most of his work was in staff or intelligence roles, where he excelled, rather than senior command of troops in combat.

I know what you mean. One still fears being deemed as a failure unless you reach the top of your business or profession, but it's not for everyone.

Why would it be?

kinabalu said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Apparently the nitty gritty thing, it was one sodding person complaining....and got escalated all the way up the chain, because this person wouldn't accept that there wasn't an issue here.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9178325/BBC-rejects-complaint-against-Laura-Kuenssberg-saying-nitty-gritty.html

Yep. Non story like so many of these things. It's become my default setting when I see them. I know if I dived into the detail it would turn out to be much ado about nothing so I save myself the time and just assume that.

Malmesbury said:

Casino_Royale said:

Malmesbury said:

Casino_Royale said:

Sean_F said:

Casino_Royale said:

@Jonathan @Sean_F loving the history chat on here this morning.

Fascinating. Thanks for sharing.

Many thanks. An awful lot of what we "know" about WWI comes down to Alan Clark's book, The Donkeys. Reading Castastrophe, by Max Hastings, dispelled a lot of the wrong ideas I had about WWI.

Few scholars would take The Donkeys seriously, but OTOH, I do think his Barbarossa has really stood the test of time. It lacked the benefit of much in the way of Russian primary sources, (it was written in the 1960's) and has some odd gaps (little about the Siege of Leningrad, and only two chapters covering the year after Kursk) but I think his judgements about the 1941-43 period are very sound.

He is unsparing in his criticisms of the German High Command, and implicates them (and not just the SS) in atrocities, and offers justified praise for the fighting qualities of the Red Army, all of which would have gone against the grain of popular history in the 1960's.

What shocks me, Sean, is how many people seem to take Blackadder (a comedy show) seriously.

Catastrophe by Max Hastings is excellent. And very readable.

We didn't have much of a choice once Belgium was invaded.

The Germans would have won. Once that had happened they'd have dominated the Channel and the North sea, and our supply lines, and our word as an ally and upholder of the international order would never have been taken seriously again - risking our long-term isolation and a supplicant rather than a world power.

We had to fight.

Yes. Imagine a Imperial Germany that had won 1870 and 1914. They believed in War. War is Good.. War is God.

Seriously, read some the 1900s stuff from there... crazy to us. Imagine that affirmed by a quick victory in WWI.

They were planning on the next war while fighting in 1914 - they wanted to be in a good position when the next one kicked off.

So, imagine, without the destruction of 1914-18 - how many years before the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute gets it's uranium machine up and running?

Probably just in time for the next party.....

WWI was terrible, so we like to think we could have avoided it instead.

We couldn't have.

It is worth thinking about this - if Germany hadn't invaded Belgium, the cabinet would have split, and probably we wouldn't have entered the war.

The Germans were told that if they invaded Belgium, we would honour the guarantee, but in diplomatic language. Which the war hawks in Berlin merrily ignored.

A What-if - supposing that Gray, simply told the German Ambassador "If you invade Belgium, we will go to war."?

Andy_JS said:

"The UK has so far secured access to 367 million doses from 7 vaccine developers across 4 different formats (viral vectored vaccines, recombinant protein-based adjuvanted vaccines, whole inactivated viral vaccines and mRNA vaccines)"

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-covid-19-vaccines-delivery-plan/uk-covid-19-vaccines-delivery-plan

Does "secured access" mean we already have access to that number of vaccines, or does it mean we will do in the future when they've been manufactured?

stodge said:

Casino_Royale said:

I think the liberals need to say much more about the philosophy of liberalism, why it matters and what it stands for.

Sure, it might not get them into Government anytime soon. But when you're on 3-4% polls none of that matters.

What does matter is changing the terms of the debate. Long game.

Oddly enough, that was the Liberal position in the Butskellite years of the 1950s when the Party espoused the classical liberal free market positions but was on the margins.

I don't worry about 5-6% in polls to be honest - I was there in 1988-89 when things were much worse. I could certainly 12-15% next time but you're right in saying the message needs to be clearer and more distinctive.

Scott_xP said:

twitter.com/FraserNelson/status/1353025282375102465

SandyRentool said:

It looks like we have turned the corner on people in hospital. However, those on mechanical ventilation still going up slightly.

The lockdown is working, but unlike November we need to stick with it until cases have been brought all the way down.

Andy_JS said:

"The UK has so far secured access to 367 million doses from 7 vaccine developers across 4 different formats (viral vectored vaccines, recombinant protein-based adjuvanted vaccines, whole inactivated viral vaccines and mRNA vaccines)"

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-covid-19-vaccines-delivery-plan/uk-covid-19-vaccines-delivery-plan

Does "secured access" mean we already have access to that number of vaccines, or does it mean we will do in the future when they've been manufactured?

Sean_F said:

Casino_Royale said:

Sean_F said:

Casino_Royale said:

@Jonathan @Sean_F loving the history chat on here this morning.

Fascinating. Thanks for sharing.

Many thanks. An awful lot of what we "know" about WWI comes down to Alan Clark's book, The Donkeys. Reading Castastrophe, by Max Hastings, dispelled a lot of the wrong ideas I had about WWI.

Few scholars would take The Donkeys seriously, but OTOH, I do think his Barbarossa has really stood the test of time. It lacked the benefit of much in the way of Russian primary sources, (it was written in the 1960's) and has some odd gaps (little about the Siege of Leningrad, and only two chapters covering the year after Kursk) but I think his judgements about the 1941-43 period are very sound.

He is unsparing in his criticisms of the German High Command, and implicates them (and not just the SS) in atrocities, and offers justified praise for the fighting qualities of the Red Army, all of which would have gone against the grain of popular history in the 1960's.

What shocks me, Sean, is how many people seem to take Blackadder (a comedy show) seriously.

Catastrophe by Max Hastings is excellent. And very readable.

We didn't have much of a choice once Belgium was invaded.

The Germans would have won. Once that had happened they'd have dominated the Channel and the North sea, and our supply lines, and our word as an ally and upholder of the international order would never have been taken seriously again - risking our long-term isolation and a supplicant rather than a world power.

We had to fight.

I love Blackadder, but no one should take it seriously as history.

Far from feasting in chateaux behind the lines, in WWI, 78 British and Empire generals were killed, and 146 injured or taken prisoner.

stodge said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Some balance perhaps...UK doing bloody brilliant on vaccination roll out, nearly 500k / day, which far better than basically every other country in the world. However...they still done shit with x, y, z....its not hard.

Not only it is not giving credit to the UK government, it isn't giving any credit to all the 1000s of people involved in this roll-out.

Balance is, as ever, in the eye of the beholder and as I don't watch any news bulletins I can't really comment.

I do think those involved are getting the credit - cheap jibes about Taunton Racecourse notwithstanding.

I'm not supportive of the vaccination programme for the same reasons the BMA has doubts. We are not following the recommendations of the vaccine manufacturers regarding the timing of a second dose and IF we are currently not providing sufficient immunity through the single dose, trumpeting the numbers vaccinated will be meaningless.

I'm yet to be convinced providing the second dose 12 weeks rather than 3 weeks after the first dose is based on sound scientific methodology and, as I say, I'm not the only one who has doubts.

I hope I'm wrong - we'll see. There are positive signs on both new positive tests and hospitalisations but whether these are directly attributable to the vaccination programme or to the lockdown restrictions I don't know.

Sean_F said:

Casino_Royale said:

Sean_F said:

Casino_Royale said:

@Jonathan @Sean_F loving the history chat on here this morning.

Fascinating. Thanks for sharing.

Many thanks. An awful lot of what we "know" about WWI comes down to Alan Clark's book, The Donkeys. Reading Castastrophe, by Max Hastings, dispelled a lot of the wrong ideas I had about WWI.

Few scholars would take The Donkeys seriously, but OTOH, I do think his Barbarossa has really stood the test of time. It lacked the benefit of much in the way of Russian primary sources, (it was written in the 1960's) and has some odd gaps (little about the Siege of Leningrad, and only two chapters covering the year after Kursk) but I think his judgements about the 1941-43 period are very sound.

He is unsparing in his criticisms of the German High Command, and implicates them (and not just the SS) in atrocities, and offers justified praise for the fighting qualities of the Red Army, all of which would have gone against the grain of popular history in the 1960's.

What shocks me, Sean, is how many people seem to take Blackadder (a comedy show) seriously.

Catastrophe by Max Hastings is excellent. And very readable.

We didn't have much of a choice once Belgium was invaded.

The Germans would have won. Once that had happened they'd have dominated the Channel and the North sea, and our supply lines, and our word as an ally and upholder of the international order would never have been taken seriously again - risking our long-term isolation and a supplicant rather than a world power.

We had to fight.

I love Blackadder, but no one should take it seriously as history.

Far from feasting in chateaux behind the lines, in WWI, 78 British and Empire generals were killed, and 146 injured or taken prisoner.

Gardenwalker said:

LD and Greens don’t work together - or shouldn’t - because the latter are essentially anti-liberal in their core beliefs.

But the LDs should be trying harder to capture the Green constituency, and environmentalism should be a key plank of their platform.

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

TimT said:

OldKingCole said:

Malmesbury said:

kle4 said:

MarqueeMark said:

TimT said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

BBC rejects race complaint about use of ‘nitty-gritty’

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bbc-rejects-race-complaint-about-use-of-nitty-gritty-zmq96nzvq

But MOTD aren't allowed to use it.

TBH, I had no idea that anyone associated that term with racism. Can you be racist for using a term that you had no idea was racist?

Don't use the word "spook" on American chat-rooms unless wearing flame-retardent clothing.

Really? I thought it meant spy over there too, as in a CIA spook. Though IIRC the show Spooks was renamed to MI-5 for the american market.

Another one to be careful of is "thug" - through usage it has become associated, in the US, with er.... pejorative, and inaccurate labelling of young black gentlemen.

Wasn't that originally a somewhat 'eccentric' quasi religious group in India?
Although I suppose that's just as bad!

Mr Cole, I am sad to say that your history is lagging latest scholarly interpretation. The Thugs were invented by the colonialist Brits as a means of suppression. They did not exist.

Nonsense! The original Thugs were public-spirited progressive indigenous elements dedicated (albeit by rather drastic methods) to solving two problems at once: over-population AND traffic congestion.

For you to try to appropriate credit to the British, is itself evidence of your colonialist, jingo mentality!

kle4 said:

Gardenwalker said:

LD and Greens don’t work together - or shouldn’t - because the latter are essentially anti-liberal in their core beliefs.

But the LDs should be trying harder to capture the Green constituency, and environmentalism should be a key plank of their platform.

It is. LDs I know talk about that more than any other issue these days.

MarqueeMark said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

MarqueeMark said:

Andy_JS said:

MarqueeMark said:

Gallowgate said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Almost half of people in high ethnic minority areas snub coronavirus jab

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/almost-half-of-people-in-high-ethnic-minority-areas-snub-coronavirus-jab-dgmx9mg9t

This is very worrying

There really needs to be a push to have community leaders changing minds on this. Otherwise, race relations are going to be set back hugely, should high levels of Covid in ethnic communities be the reason that areas are staying in high tiers even though the rest of the community has been vaxxed. There's going to be a very vocal element saying "fuck 'em, they had their chance, why should my local stay closed?"

Isn't this "community leaders" thing a bit patronising? As if EMs can't think for themselves. You never hear about white people having to be encouraged to do things via their community leaders, much as the Archbishop of Canterbury might like it to be so.

There's a fine line to tread between paronising and insulting, but when a much larger proportion in ethnic communities are refusing the vaccine, then you have to ask why? And who can turn that around?

Because it looks dangerously like they aren't thinking. Just giving in to some wholly undeserved primal fear of science.

You are slipping dangerously between two different lines.

What are their objections to vaccination and how can those be addressed? That is asking why and who can turn it around. That is not the same as blaming unthinking prejudice that will magically evaporate when they see Diane Abbott with a needle in her arm.

There does not appear to be a rational explanation for the refusal of many to have the vaccine. The numbers in the UK as a whole have now gone to 80% saying they will have the vaccine, but barely 50% in certain communitites, especially the south Asian community. It's a very real thing.

There needs to be an urgent understanding of why - and who can turn this around. I'm thinking Boris on the telly saying "get the jab" is going to make fuck all difference to them. But something has to. Or else you are going to be seeing stubbornly high infection levels in those communities into the summer, holding back the wider communities going from Tier 4 to Tier 3 or even 2. And when people start blaming one section of the community for their own Covid restrictions, that is a recipe for disaster.

So what is being done to prevent that, is what I am asking.

BluestBlue said:

Stark_Dawning said:

Floater said:

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

TimT said:

kle4 said:

TimT said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

BBC rejects race complaint about use of ‘nitty-gritty’

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bbc-rejects-race-complaint-about-use-of-nitty-gritty-zmq96nzvq

But MOTD aren't allowed to use it.

TBH, I had no idea that anyone associated that term with racism. Can you be racist for using a term that you had no idea was racist?

Well in ignorance people can say something very offensive, and treating people doing something offensive in ignorance with those doing it with malice would be wrong.

But it doesn't seem like many people would ever think that term was offensive in the first place.

A brief internet search seems to indicate that there is a retrospective effort now to prove it is, with very little prima facie evidence of its roots in slavery. Suggesting nits were prevalent in slave ships and grits are what poor people in the South eat, hence nitty-gritty came from the slave trade is thin gruel indeed. That nigritique from the French transformed itself into nitty-gritty is a little more convincing, but why is there no printed record of the term contemporaneous to the slave trade itself? Why does it only first appear in the 1930s, and then not in reference to slavery?

I am calling bullshit on this one

The notion that the term "nitty-gritty" is offensive to Black people (in the USA anyway) let alone inherently racist, is indeed total bullshit.

"Spook" is interesting in that was once pretty common as slang for "Black person" very similar to "spade". However, if someone was clearly using "spook" to mean a spy (or using "spade" meaning a kind of shovel) then it is NOT offensive or racist.

"Orientials" used to be an acceptable way of referring to "Asians" but that ended decades ago, now it is regarded as in the same league as "colored person" or (dare I say it) "piccaninny").

"Nigardly" is a special case, as it is not inherently racist HOWEVER the phonetics of the first two syllables make it MOST impolitic to use, in either oral or written communication. Unless you are willing to put up with a LOT of adverse comment (to put it mildly).

Back in the 80's my father worked for BT

He took over a new team and when saying a few words to them he included the phrase "I will call a spade a spade"

Man of afro Caribbean heritage complained - management and union got involved

My father being the type of man he was stood by his guns and told the guy in question he knew what my father meant and no, he would not apologise.

It all went away - nowadays probably would have been sacked......

Apparently 'call a spade a spade' came about from a mistranslation of ancient Greek texts. It should be 'call a canoe a canoe'.

Indeed, it seems Erasmus' poor ability to understand Plutarch * underlies this particular controversy (though it's probably more 'tub' or 'trough' than 'canoe' in this context).

No wonder we left his eponymous programme - what on Earth would the kids have learned?


* I'm being a bit harsh. The Plutarch text has σκάφη ('thing dug out', e.g. tub, tray, boat, etc.); Erasmus confused it with σπάθη ('broad blade' > Eng. spade); the verb σκάπτω means 'I dig', so it's not difficult to jump from that to imagining that σκάφη meant 'thing digging' rather than 'thing dug'; the noun even has a rare oxytone variant σκαφή which means 'the act of digging'. So we can probably forgive Erasmus, just this once.